Firefall || Fairy Tail

50 : h e r . t r u t h

Kia's mind immediately slipped back to times that she knew would forever haunt her. The poking and prodding hadn't stopped since she was immersed in the stale fluid. It burned her lungs as she tried to breath, her little body flailing against the cords that strapped her down. A frustrated growl sounded from the Black Wizard as he paced around the room, looking between her and his various research materials. Then he suddenly stopped, his eyes locked onto her. Kia's thrashing paused as she stared back into those eyes that said one thing: why won't you die so I can start again?

She swallowed, "That girl became his guinea pig as he tried to perfect this new magic. Along the way, he discovered that he could skip the corpse and just use the books to manifest life into his creations."

Zeref never explained a thing, pulling the young girl of barely four forward. Even though her speech was choppy at best, she wanted to ask where they were going. He had never taken her out of the lab before, but she wouldn't let herself look around. She didn't say anything either. The man was in a good mood for once and she wasn't going to chance ruining it.

They finally stopped at an outer door, a man with a long ponytail and smirk that made Kia uncomfortable stood in the doorway. With hardly a word, she was unceremoniously passed off to Mard Geer. The Black Wizard gave the to-be Underworld King the briefest of instructions before turning away.

And the little girl suddenly wished to be back in that tank of fluid again.

"With no further use for the young girl, Zeref passed her along to his other creations, telling them to test their curses and learn their limits on her. And that's how things went until something else caught Zeref's attention."

Erza broke the tension in the air with the obvious question, "What was that?"

"Acnologia."

The guild hall was immediately filled with exclamations and murmurs at the mentioned Dragon of the Apocalypse, especially since they had all seen his might when he had arrived during their fight with Tartaros. They had watched his fight with Igneel.

"So Zeref decided to donate me to the Dragon Slayer plan that some of the dragons had started with a Celestial Wizard named Anna."

Natsu's eyes widened, "Igneel knew Zeref?"

Kia gave a nod, "Zeref contributed to the plan to eliminate Acnologia by leaving me with the dragons and allowing us to use the Eclipse Gate."

This wasn't the first time that many of them had heard about the Dragon Slayers having come to the current era through the Eclipse Gate, but it still sounded foreign to their ears. Kia could tell that many of them weren't completely on board with the idea, which was why she had left out some of the details surrounding the Gate's actual creation.

"That was when I was taken from the demons. Zeref was finishing his test runs to revive some of his lost family and decided he could afford to let me out of his sights, leaving me with Igneel. Anna was to teach you five about culture and language, your dragon parents would teach you their magic and I trained you in hand-to-hand combat."

"I've started to remember some of that." Wendy muttered.

Gajeel rested a hand on her head, "Me too."

Natsu called out, "But what did Dad have to do with Zeref?"

"Honestly, nothing beyond that. Dad knew that Zeref was just as dangerous to the world in the long run as Acnologia was. He also wasn't a fan of what I had been through either. So he, Anna, and I expanded the plan to include taking him out as well." Kia took in a breath, "Things were set in motion for the twelve of us to travel through the Eclipse Gate, but Acnologia ruined part of that. Fearing that he would come for the five of you, Anna and I finalized the last thing needed before we all entered the Gate: I stole my book."