War: Rewritten

The world had narrowed to a single, searing line of light.

Erza dug her heels into the shattered earth, both shields of her Adamantine Armor braced against the roaring torrent of magic pouring from Phantom Lord's transformed guildhall. The monstrous fortress had reconfigured itself into a brutal cannon, its runed mouth belching forth a concentrated beam of energy that scoured the air as it came, ready to obliterate everything in its path.

She could feel the ground tearing beneath her boots, the force threatening to drag her backwards, her muscles straining against the unbearable weight of it. Her teeth clenched so tightly it felt as though her jaw might snap. The heat, the pressure—it was beyond pain now, a suffocating wall of force that turned her bones to iron and her blood to fire.

Somewhere behind her, she could dimly hear voices through the thunderclap of the blast.

"Erza! Stop, you'll die!"

"Hang on! You've got this, Titania!"

"Dammit, we need to help her!"

The cries of Natsu, Gray, and the various other members blurred together, a chorus of desperation and defiance. But it was distant, as though she stood in the eye of some merciless storm, their words swallowed by the relentless howl of power battering against her shields.

Her Adamantine plates began to splinter, spiderweb cracks racing through the shimmering gold of the enchanted metal. One shield gave a violent shudder, and Erza's arms screamed in protest as she forced it to hold. The air reeked of scorched stone and blood-iron. Her knees buckled, and for the first time… she felt it.

I'm not going to hold.

The thought clawed at her like a traitor's dagger.

And then—

A voice. Unbothered as an arctic gale. Calm as a priest speaking last rites.

"Plague God's Aegis."

Erza's eyes snapped sideways, blood and sweat stinging as they went wide. There he was. Aelius. Not as a savior, not as a friend returned. But as a figure wreathed in creeping, unnatural magic, his hand raised, threads of decayed emerald light weaving between his fingers like living things. His expression was unchanged—distant, severe, untouched by the chaos that raged around them.

And… something else.

Erza's gaze dipped for a fraction of a heartbeat and caught the glint of glass—a bottle, dark and nondescript, clasped in his other hand. The absurdity of it made her stomach lurch. That was where he'd gone? When their world was cracking open and lives hung in the balance, he vanished, not to rally, not to strike down Phantom's abomination, but to fetch a drink?

Her mind reeled at the callousness of it, at the staggering indifference dressed up in black-green light and ancient words of power. She felt the bitter taste of anger rise in her throat—but the next pulse of power from the cannon slammed into her, and the moment was gone.

The beam intensified, magic shrieking, her armor groaning, her shields shrieking under the strain. Erza's teeth bared in a snarl, sweat and blood trickling down her brow.

Aelius didn't even flinch.

"Blight Ward."

The invocation came like a knell. A second ripple of protection surged outward, tendrils of virulent warding latching onto the remnants of her armor, reinforcing the fracture lines, turning the fatal weaknesses into hardened scars of pestilent strength. The beam faltered, flickering as its force met unexpected resistance.

Erza's breath came ragged. She didn't have the strength to speak, to ask why.

But he wasn't finished.

As the cannon's energy built toward its apex, a final, awful crescendo meant to wipe them from existence, Aelius raised his other hand, the bottle dropping with a dull thud, bouncing slightly before shattering, spilling its remaining contents onto the dirt.

"Contagion Bastion."

The words were final and decisive. In the instant that followed, the earth itself heaved and cracked in a ring around Fairy Tail's battered vanguard. From the scorched, broken ground erupted a lattice of twisted, ethereal blackened spires—metal and bone fused into shapes that shouldn't exist, swaying and gnashing like the ribcage of some long-dead colossus. A dome of corrupted, living blight sealed around Erza's position, walls slick with dark-green decay, drinking in the surging torrent of the Jupiter Cannon's magic.

The beam met the barrier with a shriek that split the air. Light and corrosive miasma churned in a furious clash, but the Contagion Bastion didn't merely hold—it fed. The dome absorbed the magic, drinking it down like some ravenous, arcane parasite. The air warped. Runes along the inside of the Bastion flared to life, leeching the cannon's power, turning it against its source.

The very magic of the Jupiter Cannon began to falter, the blast's intensity fraying, its form destabilizing. And then, in a moment that made even the Phantom Lord mages recoil in horror, the devouring energy of the Bastion spat back a concentrated pulse of its own—a lance of necrotic green light that punched up the beam's channel, reaching the cannon's mouth.

A horrific screech tore through the air as the Bastion's retaliatory strike hit home.

The cannon's maw shuddered violently, black-green corrosion racing along its surface like fire through dry grass. Metal twisted and screamed, ancient enchantments faltering, containment seals snapping with audible cracks. Plates of armored steel split and peeled away under the corrupting assault. Part of the cannon's vast aperture collapsed in on itself, warped and half-melted, rendering the weapon inert, useless.

For an instant, all sound ceased.

Then the beam cut off, and the air came rushing back like a vacuum sealing shut.

Smoke bled from the ruined cannon, drifting in thick, hissing clouds from vents and shattered runes. The colossal guildhall itself seemed to stagger in its step, one of its mechanical legs sinking a half-meter into the soft earth by the lakeside.

Erza's legs finally gave way beneath her, strength abandoning her body like a tide receding. She fell to one knee, armor cracked and scorched, the remnants of her once-pristine Adamantine Shields hanging in jagged ruin from her arms. Her vision swam, the taste of blood thick in her mouth.

But she was alive.

And the cannon—the nightmare weapon they'd all feared—was dead.

From below, Aelius stood motionless on the cliff, the circles fading from his hand, eyes narrowed as he watched the hissing ruin of Phantom's weapon.

So were the others.

The contaminated shield-wall shimmered one last time, then withered away like dying vines, leaving the charred, torn battlefield exposed once more.

Aelius lowered his hands.

Not a word of comfort. No smirk. No nod of camaraderie.

Before anyone could react, before the taste of scorched air had even faded from their tongues, a voice rose—cold, cutting, and vast. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, carried by a web of magic that stretched over the battlefield like an invisible net.

"Impressive."

The word rolled over them, thick with disdain and amusement in equal measure. It wasn't the voice of a man surprised by their survival—it was the voice of one entertained by the delay.

High above, the Phantom Lord guild hall stirred. Its monstrous shape loomed against the sickly sky, the remnants of its transformed cannon mouth still venting ghostly vapors. From one of its upper balconies, wreathed in a corona of dark magic and arrogance made manifest, stood Jose Porla.

Fairy Tail's enemy.

Phantom Lord's shadow king.

And his voice, amplified through layers of enchantment, cracked like a whip across the bloodstained ground.

"I'll admit," Jose sneered, leaning against the railing as though surveying some mildly interesting insect pinned beneath glass, "you've exceeded my expectations, Fairy Tail. Not many can endure the Jupiter Cannon's embrace and still stand; even fewer dare to bite back after.

His gaze, sharp as a dagger, swept over the exhausted defenders. Erza, still barely upright, her armor rent and scorched. Natsu, snarling like a cornered wolf. Gray, fists clenched, his breath misting the air. The rest gathered behind them, weary but unbroken.

Then Jose's lips twisted into a mocking grin.

"But enough theatrics," he said, his voice dropping, and yet it seemed to grow heavier, denser, pressing down on them like leaden fog. "Let's not pretend you've won anything today."

A pulse of magic flared from the guildhall, illuminating the balcony with an eerie violet light. Behind Jose, shadowy figures moved—shades, hundreds swirling, waiting for his command.

Jose raised a hand lazily, and the glow intensified.

"I'm feeling generous," he purred, venom sweet in his tone. "Hand over Lucy Heartfilia—willingly—and I'll let the rest of you leave with your lives. Crawl back to your crumbling guild, nurse your wounds, bury your dead. Refuse… and I'll burn this entire lake to glass with you still clinging to the shore."

His words echoed through the ravaged clearing, through smoke and ruin, reaching each one of them with terrible clarity.

Natsu's flames surged instantly, his fists blazing as he bared his teeth. "You son of a—"

Gray was already moving to restrain him, grabbing his arm. "Natsu, wait—!"

Erza's battered shields clattered to the ground as she attempted to rise, her face drawn and pale but her eyes hard as tempered steel.

And Lucy—standing half-hidden behind the others, bruised and shaken but unbroken—felt a cold spike of fear lance through her chest.

They're still after me. They're going through all this just for me.

Jose's grin widened as though he could taste her fear.

"Well?" he asked, spreading his arms mockingly. "What'll it be, Fairy Tail?"

The battlefield held its breath. Every sound seemed distant, muffled beneath the oppressive weight of Jose's ultimatum. The wind stirred ash and cinders across the torn earth. The Phantom Lord guild hall's monstrous silhouette loomed like some ancient beast in the gathering gloom, its many iron legs motionless for now, waiting for its master's command.

And amidst it all, noticed by most, Aelius stood at the edge of the ruined clearing, his figure half-shrouded in drifting smoke. The thick, metallic tang of magic and scorched earth hung in the air, but it seemed not to touch him. The once-boy, now a figure cast in iron resolve and darker things, lingered where few dared to tread: beside the battered form of Erza.

Her armor was cracked, scorched along the edges. Blood matted strands of her red hair against pale skin. Her breathing was ragged, but steady. She had held the line, as she always did, against impossible odds. Aelius had seen it all… and for a time, said nothing.

Then—his voice cut through the charged silence like a scalpel through soft flesh.

"Who," Aelius asked, not looking up, his tone void of urgency but carrying an old, bone-deep weight, "is Lucy Heartfilia?"

It wasn't asked in ignorance. It wasn't even truly a question of identity. Aelius demanded to know why this name, above all others, had been worth such ruin.

Gray's head snapped toward him. Natsu froze mid-snarling retort, his fire dimming as his gaze cut toward the source of that voice.

Even Jose faltered for a fraction of a heartbeat, narrowing his eyes as though sensing something—someone he had not accounted for.

Erza, despite the agony roaring through her battered frame, forced herself up. The world blurred in and out of focus, but she heard him. And for the first time in years, a chill colder than ice settled over her heart.

"She's one of us," Erza croaked, barely more than a whisper, blood on her lips. But it was enough. "Fairy Tail."

Aelius tilted his head slightly, considering the words, like a man watching the last embers of a fire.

"And for this one life," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else, "you'd bring ruin upon yourselves."

A statement, not a question.

Jose's voice rose again from the guild hall, laced with venomous amusement. "Oh? Another stray dog? Speak your name if you intend to meddle."

But Aelius did not look up at him. His gaze stayed on Erza. On the guild that had once been his. And though no one could see it behind the ancient, scarred mask he wore, the corner of his mouth twitched, not in mirth, but something darker.

"Oh?" Aelius murmured, the corner of his mouth curling in something that wasn't quite a smile. His voice carried, not through volume, but with a sharpness that cut clean through the storm-drenched air. "You can hear us all the way down here? I suppose it doesn't matter either way."

He let the words hang for a beat, then added, quieter still—a note of finality threaded through the disdain.

"Names," he said, as if tasting the word and finding it meaningless, "are for the living."

The hush of the battlefield stretched thin as a blade's edge. Magic still hung heavy in the air, crackling with the fading echoes of the cannon's blast and the defences Aelius had thrown up without ceremony. The lake lapped at the torn shoreline in the distance, waves stirred by the titanic guildhall's earlier advance.

Jose's voice faded into irrelevance.

Without sparing the enemy guildmaster's looming figure a glance, Aelius spoke again, his voice low, steady—the sort of tone one used when inspecting a tool or a relic long buried.

"Is this Heartfilia girl here now?"

The question cut through the tension like a jagged edge. Not shouted. Not a threat. Just a simple inquiry, delivered with no pretense of tact or interest in the war raging around them.

Natsu's fire cracked sharply at his side, teeth bared. "The hell's that supposed to mean?" His voice was rough, half-snarl, a beat away from losing what little patience he had left.

Gray's expression was tighter, the sort of grim skepticism that came from seeing too many things you thought impossible and realizing some people came back wrong. "You're not actually thinking about handing her over… are you?"

Neither of them asked it with real belief. Neither wanted to think the man who once bled beside them would so much as entertain it. But the fact that they had to ask twisted something deep in their guts.

Erza managed a glance toward them, pain etched into every line of her face. She didn't speak, she didn't have to. The look alone was warning enough.

Aelius stood still, watching the two of them bristle, unflinching. The mask hid any flicker of what passed behind his eyes. He wasn't posturing. He wasn't playing for control. It was as though the whole exchange existed several degrees removed from whatever mattered to him now.

"I asked a question," Aelius said. Not louder, but harder. "Is she here, or not?"

No threat. No mercy. No allegiance claimed.

Only the question.

A brittle silence cracked through the ranks of Fairy Tail as Lucy stepped forward, her hands trembling at her sides, but her chin lifted high. The bruises on her arms, the smudges of dirt on her skin—none of it made her look any smaller. "It's better if I go," Lucy said, her voice carrying in the thick, charged air. It wasn't loud, not defiant, but it cut through the gathered noise of clashing magic and rattled nerves all the same. "If it stops this… if it means no one else gets hurt… then fine."

She took another step forward, and a chorus of protests rose like a wave behind her.

"Lucy, no!" Gray barked, his hand snapping out as if he could physically drag the words back into her mouth.

"Don't be stupid!" Natsu's voice cracked, fire roaring to life at his fists again, eyes wide and furious. "Nobody's giving you up, you got that?! Nobody!"

Erza stirred from where she'd knelt, armor cracked, face bloodied, her lips parting to speak—but the effort stole the words before they left her.

And through it all, Aelius stood unmoved. He hadn't shifted, as if measuring the distance between the girl and the waiting fortress beyond.

"So this is the one," he murmured to no one, almost absent, like a man reading a name off a forgotten grave marker.

Just a statement.

And Lucy turned to him, wide brown eyes hardening, some mixture of fear and stubbornness and the barest ember of fury sparking to life.

"I don't know who you are," she said, the tremor in her voice almost gone now. "But don't talk about me like I'm not standing right here."

The words hung there, sharp in their simplicity.

Somewhere above them, Jose's laughter crackled through the air once more, savoring the spectacle.

And still, Aelius didn't answer.

His head tilted ever so slightly, his gaze finally breaking from to settle on the girl—not with sympathy, nor contempt, but with the hollow scrutiny of someone assessing a cracked blade to see if it was worth reforging or better left discarded.

"Why don't you let her go?" he asked at last, his voice calm and unhurried, cutting through the chaos like a scalpel. "It's what she wants. Spare yourselves the effort. A single life traded for a hundred others… seems efficient."

His words landed like a slap against the already raw nerves of Fairy Tail's gathered ranks.

"What the hell kind of question is that?" Gray snapped, teeth gritted, the mist around him rising like a storm about to break.

"Are you seriously saying we should abandon her?!" Natsu's voice roared, the flames licking higher, his body trembling more from rage than exertion now. "What kind of guild do you think this is?!"

For a moment, even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

And then it came—a softer voice, quieter but sharper in its cut. Mira, bruised and clutching a bandaged gash on her arm, stepped forward from the knot of Fairy Tail mages.

"Would you abandon your own friends in this scenario?" she asked, fixing Aelius with a stare that wavered only slightly.

A pause.

The mask didn't move, but something shifted in the way Aelius stood—a narrowing of the air around him, a stillness that wasn't peace but a gathering storm held barely in check.

"No," Aelius said evenly, the word falling like a stone into the lake's mirrored surface. "But those I keep beside me aren't weak enough to require it."

A cruel thing to say. Not shouted. Not even deliberately venomous. Just… a matter of fact. The kind of line spoken by someone for whom bonds were forged only in fire and violence, not trust.

The remark rippled through the air like a slap. Natsu's eyes flared brighter. Gray's fists clenched. Even Lucy faltered a step, her face tightening as if struck.

And it struck Erza in a way no magic ever could.

Because it wasn't the coldness of his voice, nor the implications in the words themselves—it was the quiet, indifferent truth of it. In those syllables lay the unspoken admission: he no longer counted them among those he kept beside him. There was no 'we' in his world anymore. No Fairy Tail banner hanging overhead. No comrade-in-arms, no guild bond deeper than blood.

They weren't friends.

They weren't even guildmates.

To him, they were little more than fading names and distant faces—relics of a life buried four years deep in ash and dirt. He had drawn a line somewhere in that silence, and whatever it was that once bound them to him, it hadn't survived the passage of time.

Erza felt it like a blade under the ribs. She knew cruelty. She knew how to weather it. But there was a unique kind of grief in realizing that someone you'd once fought beside, bled for, would rather walk alone into darkness than ever stand by your side again.

The meaning behind his words was clear now, as plain as the bottle still dangling in his other hand, as plain as the unnatural light in his eyes.

He didn't consider himself one of them anymore.

And maybe… he hadn't for a long, long time.

Erza moved, dragging herself upright with a shuddering breath, blood streaking her armor, eyes hard as tempered steel.

"You'll find," she rasped, voice raw and steady, "that weakness… isn't the absence of strength. It's forgetting why you fight."

For a moment, the words hung in the air like the toll of a funeral bell—sharp, cold, undeniable.

And then Aelius spoke.

A humorless, brittle thing threaded his voice now. Not mocking. Not heated. Just a shade darker than before, like ice forming along the edges of a calm lake.

"If weakness," he murmured, "is forgetting what one fights for… then tell me, Erza Scarlet—what excuse do you make for yourself? For them?" He gestured lazily, a sweep of his hand toward the battered, bloodied ranks of Fairy Tail behind her.

His gaze cut through them, assessing, unimpressed.

"They seem to remember well enough," he continued, voice tightening by a fraction. "They shout it from the cliff sides, throw themselves against forces meant to crush them to dust… and yet they fall. Over and over. Clinging to ideals like drowning men to driftwood."

Aelius stepped closer, the weight of him making the ground feel somehow heavier, air thicker.

"And then there's me," he said softly, though his words struck like a hammer's fall. "The one you imply doesn't know what he fights for. No cause. No guild. No flag to bleed under. And yet… here I stand. While your precious Fairy Tail shatters and breaks."

It wasn't rage in his tone. Not even gloating. Just a crystalline certainty—the cruelty of a man who'd ceased measuring lives by heart and started weighing them by utility.

"What does that make you?" Aelius finished, his voice a quiet razor's edge. "What does it make them?"

Behind Erza, the others bristled. Gray was already halfway to stepping forward, ice wreathing his knuckles. Natsu's fire flared higher, his face a snarl of wordless fury. Mira's eyes stung, but she didn't look away.

Even Lucy's lip trembled, though she kept her footing.

But it was Erza who answered—the ache of her injuries, the tremor in her limbs, none of it lessening the iron in her stare.

"It makes us human," she said.

And from the heights of Phantom Lord's monstrous guildhall, Jose's amplified voice echoed again, cruel and eager.

"Enough stalling, Fairy Tail. Make your choice—the girl… or annihilation."

The moment teetered, sharp and brittle as a blade's edge.

And Aelius… said nothing.

It was Mirajane's voice that cut through the brittle, unbearable stillness. Soft, almost pleading — but with a tremor in it, not fear, but something deeper. Grief, maybe. Or something close.

"Aelius," she said, stepping forward despite the way the earth itself seemed to recoil at his presence now. "You're still one of us. You're Fairy Tail. Please… help us."

For a moment—one heartbeat-long, awful, beautiful moment—the mask of cold detachment cracked.

Not a lot. Not the way it once might've.

But enough.

A low sound escaped him. Not a sigh, not a snarl. Something darker. A rough, humorless chuckle that started in his chest and curled up into a voice sharp with something that might've been called mirth, if it wasn't so bitter, that left the air tasting like rust.

"Of all people," Aelius murmured, his head tilting as he looked at her—not past her, not through her. At her. "You. Asking me."

He laughed then. Quietly at first, then fuller, though it was a joyless, ugly thing. The kind of laugh that made skin crawl and hearts sink. It was the sound of someone who'd finally found the joke in the nightmare and found it too bitter not to laugh at.

"Oh, that's rich," he said, voice carrying over the battlefield like a crack of thunder before a storm. "You. You. Asking me for help. To fight for the flag you wear like a second skin and expect me to pretend it still means something."

He took a step closer, and even the shadows seemed to pull away.

"You don't get to ask me that," Aelius went on, the sharpness of real emotion in his words now warmth, not the clean kind. This was scorched earth. Acid. The kind of emotion that burned everything it touched. "Not after everything. Not after you."

Mirajane's face paled, and though no one else fully understood, the weight of those words left the air heavy.

Aelius didn't elaborate. He didn't need to.

His gaze swept over the others—at Erza, barely standing; at Natsu, brimming with fire; at Lucy, with tears threatening; at the tattered remnants of a guild he'd once bled for.

Aelius spoke once more, voice low, carrying easily over the wind and the distant groan of Phantom Lord's towering guildhall.

"This Jose…" he asked, the name unfamiliar on his tongue, as though trying out the title of a man he should've known but didn't. "Is he anyone of actual consequence?"

A beat of silence.

Gray scoffed under his breath, disbelief plain in his voice. "You serious? How can you not know—?"

Aelius' gaze snapped to him, not truly hostile, but sharp enough to cut, still carrying the animosity from Mira's question. "Because, in case you've all conveniently forgotten—I've been gone for four years."

That silenced them. A sudden, heavy quiet hung in the air, the only sound the distant crash of water against earth.

"And while you've been clinging to your scraps of home and your petty rivalries," Aelius went on, a flicker of something cruel at the edge of his voice, "I've had more pressing concerns than the politics of second-rate guildmasters."

Natsu growled low, flame crackling along his fists. "He's not just some guildmaster. Jose's one of the Ten Wizard Saints."

Aelius made a faint sound—something between a scoff and a hum of idle interest, a glimmer of sharpness passing through those pale, indifferent eyes. "Is that so?" he murmured, as if the title were a curiosity, an artifact from a world he no longer had a stake in.

Then his gaze slid sideways to where Mirajane stood, white hair clinging to her face, eyes pleading and furious all at once. Something about the sight of her—about the fact that she'd asked him for help, dared to—set something twisting in his expression. Not rage, not warmth, but a cold, humorless smirk, as though the entire situation had crossed the threshold from irritation to entertainment.

"Strauss' little request has managed to… annoy me," Aelius said, voice like a slow, venomous drag of a blade over stone. "But perhaps I'm feeling generous."

He raised a leg, and with a thought, a platform of slick, black-green magic coalesced beneath his feet. Then another. Then another—each one appearing in the air under him, and with casual steps, he began to ascend. Rising, slowly, deliberately, up toward the monstrous Phantom Lord guildhall as it moved ever closer, each footfall placed on conjured air like a man walking a bridge only he could see.

He didn't look back. Didn't spare them a glance.

"I'll consider lending a hand," he said, the words carrying down to them like a dry, mocking echo. "For old times' sake, if you will. If you lot manage to prove your worth."

The words hung in the air like a verdict.

It was then the Phantom Lord guild hall began to move—not just the ponderous, thunderous steps of its colossal legs, but something deeper, more sinister. Its hulking frame twisted, ancient iron and jagged stone groaning and tearing as segments of its armored bulk collapsed away, plunging into the dark waters of Lake Scilliora below with explosive splashes. The towering fortress, already monstrous in scale, seemed to grow larger, its silhouette warping, reshaping itself into something far crueler.

The spires and battlements along its upper decks folded inward, merging into the semblance of a head crowned by twisted, rusted horns. Massive shoulders formed from reinforced towers and slabs of ancient masonry. Iron limbs thick as siege towers shifted into place with a terrible finality, the entire structure reconfiguring into a colossal humanoid form, a living engine of war and ruin.

The earth trembled. The sky itself seemed to recoil.

And then—it raised one vast, stone-covered hand. At the tip of its one, extended finger, a gargantuan magic circle bloomed to life, its edges wreathed in black flame. The very air screamed around it, an oppressive, suffocating pressure crushing down on the lakeshore like the weight of a mountain. The circle pulsed with malevolent light, casting a sickly pall over the battlefield as its terrible incantation began to hum.

A spell of ruin, ancient and forbidden. And it was aimed at them.

Mirajane's breath caught. Her eyes went wide with horror.

"No," she whispered. "That's… that's Abyss Break."

The words hit like a hammer. Even Natsu's flames faltered for a heartbeat.

Aelius paused mid-step in the air, casting a lazy glance at the boiling weave of magic forming in the guildhall's core.

"Oh?" he mused, lips curving. "Now this… could be interesting."

As Aelius began his steady, unnatural ascent once more—black-green sigils igniting beneath his feet with every step, forming platforms of sickly, shimmering magic in midair—Lucy turned sharply toward Natsu and Gray. The towering figure's presence hung over them like a storm cloud about to break, and neither of the boys looked away from him.

Gray's eyes were narrowed, his brow furrowed in something between wariness and calculation. Natsu, for once, wasn't grinning, his jaw tight, fists flexing at his sides, flames licking along his knuckles like restless predators. Both of them wore the same expression—the one Fairy Tail mages only wore when the old scars started to ache.

"What's his deal?!" Lucy asked, her voice sharp, cracking around the edges as she stared at the impossible sight of Aelius walking on air, rising higher toward the gathering storm above the monstrous, shifting form of Phantom's guildhall.

Neither answered for a moment.

Gray let out a sharp breath through his nose, not taking his eyes off Aelius. "No idea."

Lucy blinked. "Wait—what?"

"He was one of us," Natsu muttered, not taking his eyes off Aelius. "Back when we were kids. Before you showed up. He disappeared four years ago on a century quest after him and Mira had an argument."

Lucy's stomach twisted. "And no one mentioned him because…?"

"Because we thought he was dead," Gray said flatly. 

"Oookkkay," Lucy drawled, deciding now wasn't the time to open that bag. "What was that spell he used to destroy the cannon? I thought I was gonna be sick and it wasn't even aimed at me."

Gray exhaled sharply, a puff of frost escaping his lips. "Plague God Slayer magic."

The words dropped like a stone in the middle of a still pond. The air seemed heavier for it.

Lucy's face went pale. "Wait—God Slayer magic? You mean… he either…"

"Yeah," Gray cut her off grimly, his eyes never leaving the figure rising through the mist and gloom above them. "Either a god raised him, like Igneel did Natsu… or he killed one."

A beat of silence followed, heavy and suffocating. The kind of quiet you only get right before a building comes down or the ground splits open beneath your feet. The reality of what she'd just been told settled like ice in Lucy's gut.

Erza raised her head, her eyes following the cloaked man, slowly but steadily making his way to the colossus. 

Aelius moved like inevitability—not quickly, not in some dramatic flourish of speed or sound—but with the unhurried, relentless stride of something that knew it could take its time, because nothing that stood in its way was going to last long. The black-green platforms of his magic formed under his feet as he ascended through the haze, each one dissolving behind him like rotten leaves scattered in a storm.

Aelius, the boy they'd once known, was now a man touched by coldness, a God Slayer walking under their banner once more, if only by proximity. Whatever he intended, it wasn't for their sake. Not out of loyalty. Not for sentiment.