Disclaimer: All Fairy Tail Characters Belong to Hiro Mashima, Tiamat is loosely based on Tiamat from Forgotten Realms which Belongs to Wizards of the Coast, LLC. The traits of the chromatic dragons have been altered to match the dragon slayers in the Fairy Tail Universe. Drakan belongs to Surreal Software.
Chapter 26: The Bitch is Back
Zeref stood in the control room looking at all the displays with interest. He was pleased that the little girl had been able to deactivate Face, it had never been a part of any of his plans. He quickly left the room before he was noticed and headed outside towards the magic signature he had felt earlier. He walked away from the castle following his senses until he felt that they were right in front of him. At first glance, he could not see anyone but when he purposefully looked for things that might be hidden he was able to see her, hiding under what looked to be an Invisibility spell.
"Who are you?"
Tiamat turned to see a man staring right at her. She had been too distracted with the events unfolding in the distance to notice anyone approaching. The fact that he could see her intrigued her. She had cast an Invisibility spell on herself before she had teleported onto the Cube. He was attractive for a human. Longish dark hair framing a sensitive face. His piercing dark eyes were staring daggers at her.
"Tell me, how is it you can see me?", Tiamat asked of the man.
"I asked you a question.", Zeref replied flatly.
"I am Tiamat.", she said simply, "Who are you?" She sensed immense magical power coming from this man and she was admittedly curious.
He looked at her with mild interest. "The Dragon Queen? Why are you here?"
"I have answered your question, I expect you to answer mine. Who are you?"
"I am Zeref. Now, tell me. Why are you here?"
"I have no quarrel with you, Zeref. I am only here to collect my mate and child. I will leave once they are in my possession."
"See that you do. You are not welcome here.", he turned around and walked away from her. She was right, he had no quarrel with her and there was still one other matter that required his attention before he left Tartaros for good. He stopped in his tracks for a few minutes and turned towards her once more.
"Do you feel that? I recommend you finish up your business quickly, the one who is approaching might prove a challenge even for you, Dragon Queen."
Tiamat tried to look unconcerned but Zeref noticed that it didn't stop her from heading towards the Fairy Tail mages more quickly than was necessary. He scoffed at her and hurried towards the castle.
xxx
"We've found Mira and Lisanna. They are both fine.", said a voice inside of the Fairy Tail mages heads which they all recognized as Warren Rocko, "Does anyone know what's going on with Face?"
"Wendy flew off with Carla to try to deactivate it.", Lucy replied, "We all still have magic so I can only imagine she must have succeeded."
"Anyone who isn't already busy fighting something should get their asses outside. There are a lot of those demons hanging about and the damn soldiers just keep coming.", Makarov's strained voice came through Warren's telepathy, "Porlyusica's group is getting overwhelmed."
Gray started making his way outside when Natsu grabbed his arm to stop him. Gray turned to him, a question written on his face.
"There's something I have to tell you, that Ice Devil Slayer--", Natsu began.
Gray looked at him impatiently, "Come on, Flame Breath. We don't have time for this right now. You heard Gramps, they need us!"
"But--"
"You can tell me later. I owe that bastard a little chat for that crap he pulled on you. No one freezes you but me." Gray flashed him a grin and ran ahead, his mind already full of the fighting to come.
"He smells just like you.", Natsu said to the empty air Gray left behind.
"What does that mean?", Lucy asked him curiously.
"I don't know but Lucy, he looks just like him too."
Happy chimed in, "Natsu's right. I saw him too. He's like an older version of Gray."
The three friends puzzled about this information as they ran after the ice mage.
Gray made his way outside looking for any signs of fighting. He saw Gajeel and Juvia in the distance and hurried to catch up to them.
Gajeel stopped and started sniffing the air around him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he tried to pinpoint where the scent was coming from. He tensed and put his arm out alerting Juvia to stop where she was.
"Fuck.", Gajeel said as he quickly turned his body to iron. This was not good. They were having enough trouble with the demons from Tartaros, why did the bitch have to turn up now? He couldn't see her, but he could smell her. She was nearby. He needed to keep the Salamander away from here, but how could he do that without letting her know where he was. Hell, he didn't even know where the Salamander was. He backed up slowly trying to get closer to Juvia. He would send her in search of the Salamander.
Too late he started detecting other scents coming closer to them.
"Water Nebula"
Gajeel looked on in confusion as Juvia suddenly appeared in front of him. He saw her water attack push some sort of black mist away from them. They could make out a skeletal figure at the top of her water jets.
"What the hell was that?", Gajeel asked the water mage.
She shrugged and said, "Juvia doesn't know, it was coming straight for you. Is something wrong? It's not like you to be distracted."
Gajeel said as quietly as he could, "Tiamat is here, I can't see her but she is definitely near."
Juvia looked shocked, she still had nightmares full of Connor's screams from the last time she had seen her.
"How can you be sure?", she replied just as quietly.
"Dragon Slayer senses don't lie. I need you to go find the Salamander and keep him away from here.", he whispered.
The skeletal demon attacked them once again, transforming his body into devil particles and lunging at them. Juvia cast another water nebula to deflect his attack.
"Freeze"
This time Juvia found her water turned into ice before her very eyes. The ice advanced towards her trying to surround her. She found she couldn't move in time. She looked to Gajeel for help but he was already fighting another demon, one that looked like a shark. To her surprise the ice in front of her shattered and behind it she saw a tall man with raven hair and alabaster skin, that looked impossibly familiar, looking at his broken ice in shock.
"Leave her alone.", a familiar voice said from behind her, "I've been looking for you. You froze someone important to me."
"Gray-sama?", a flush rising to her cheeks when she realized who had come to her rescue.
The skeletal demon looked at Gray with interest. He'd never seen anyone counter Silver's ice before.
Gray ignored her keeping his attention glued on the man he assumed was the Devil Slayer. The man was staring back at him, a strange look on his face. Memories of his childhood started flooding Gray before he could put a stop to them.
He gaped at the man and said, "There's no way...How would that even be possible?"
"He smells a lot like you.", Gajeel muttered at Gray, "Who is this guy?"
Gray shook his head slowly, not sure of anything at the moment.
All three of the Fairy Tail mages stood there transfixed by the strange likeness between Gray and the other ice mage. None of them noticing the incoming wall of fire that was headed towards them until it disappeared, eaten by Natsu.
"I thought you came out here to fight, not stand around gaping like a bunch of idiots. What's wrong with you guys?", Natsu said as he wiped his mouth with his hand. He looked at the demon that had been stupid enough to attack his friends with fire while he was around, "Thanks for the grub man, I'm all fired up now!"
"Salamander, get out of here now!", Gajeel told him urgently.
"What are you talking about? There's five bad guys here and five of us. Those are great odds! Let's go.", Natsu had a big grin on his face, already looking forward to a hard battle. He looked at the five demons trying to decide which one to fight first. There was the one that looked like a skeleton, the one that looked like a shark, the hot one, Silver and the exploding bastard.
"Hey, wait a minute. Didn't I get rid of you already, exploding bastard?"
"The name's Jackal, not exploding bastard, jackass. I regenerated. All of us Demon Gates have that ability", Jackal smirked at him, "We're not easy to get rid off."
"Whatever, I already kicked your ass. You don't get a do over."
He looked at the remaining choices. Silver was looking at him with an amused expression on his face. He was tempted to fight him. The guy did freeze him earlier and now that he thought about it, it was this asshole's fault that he lost his scarf and his necklace. He did bring Lisanna a blanket though, and he looked like Gray which would normally make him want to fight him more but there was something about him that he kind of liked. He didn't seem like the others. The skeleton guy gave him the creeps and the shark guy seemed to be looking at Gajeel with interest. That pretty much left the hot one.
"Fire Dragon Iron Fist"
"Fwirl"
Before Natsu could make contact with the demon he found himself flying in the air amidst mini tornados. He landed on his back the wind knocked out of him.
"You don't understand!", Gajeel growled at the idiot, trying not to raise his voice while still projecting the urgency of the situation, "Tiamat is--"
"Here. I'm right here, my love.", Tiamat appeared next to Natsu immediately grabbing his hand. He looked at her with a panicked expression. He knew this day was coming but he had not expected it to be so soon. He yanked his hand out of her grasp and tried to make his way back towards his friends.
Tiamat looked at Natsu briefly. She pointed her finger at him and said "Hold"*
To his frustration, Natsu was not able to move any further. He didn't like this, it was too close to how he had felt when he had been wearing the magic sealing cuffs and shackles. He couldn't allow his mind to go back there, not now when he needed to fight the most. He thought about all of the things that he had to fight for and he felt his will strengthen. He tried to use it to fight off the spell and soon began to feel it loosen just a little. He kept working at it.
Tiamat looked at Tempester (the hot one) with menace. "I will give you one chance, to leave here with your life. This goes for all of you. I am only interested in Natsu, Gray and Gajeel."
All of the demons looked at each other and laughed at the idea of scurrying away like scared little mice. Tempester stepped forward and addressed her haughtily.
"Listen Lady, I don't know who you think you are but we are demons from the Books of Zeref. There is nothing you can do to us, that we can't do worse to you. Each one of us could single handedly take down an army. Now step away from the hot head, I'm not done with him."
She pointed her finger at Tempester, strong magic gathering at the tip.
"Finger of Death"*
She felt her Terrifying Presence* activate with her attack and watched for the effect on the others.
Tempester's smirk faltered as he gave one small cough before blood started pouring out of his mouth and every other orifice. The other demons looked on in shock, fear beginning to set in as they expected him to disappear and be regenerated once again but nothing of the sort happened.
"What kind of mate would I be if I can't even protect what is mine.", Tiamat's eyes never left Gray's face, her implication obvious.
Gray leveled his gaze at Tiamat. All this time he had never realized what they were up against. He remembered Lyon's words to him on the night he had gone to Lamia Scale:
"I don't know how to explain it but she felt evil and when she saw me she just laughed. I was frozen in her presence"
Lyon was exactly right, she did feel evil and he did feel frozen, but he had to fight this fear that was threatening to engulf him whole. Visions of Deliora destroying his village were trying to overwhelm his senses, but he realized now that Deliora was no longer his biggest fear. No, that fear had been replaced by a much simpler one. Losing Natsu. There was nothing he feared more than that. If he didn't do something soon that was exactly what was going to happen.
He focused on his hatred. He hated this woman for everything she had done to Natsu. Even though he kept improving daily, he still wasn't back to his normal self and the sight of his brave mate cowering before Tiamat enraged Gray even further. She was right, it was his job to protect his mate when he wasn't capable of protecting himself. He tried to think of a way out of this mess.
Gajeel could feel fear begin to gnaw at him but he refused to give in to it. He had always been one to face his fear and kick it in the ass. He growled, "Are you deaf or something? How many times do I gotta tell you? Salamander is not your mate."
"The way you act, one might think that you want him for yourself.", Tiamat spat at him.
"Nah, lady. I've got my own. Salamander and Fullbuster, I might want to kill them half the time but they are part of my family and I will protect them with everything I've got."
Gray quietly cast "Ice Make: Thieving Hand" to grab Natsu away from Tiamat while she was distracted with Gajeel. Natsu looked at Gray gratefully feeling the last of the spell's effects waning. Gray grabbed Natsu's hand and squeezed it tightly before letting go.
Juvia sank to her knees at the sight of the fallen demon. She began hearing Connor's screams in her head, saw his body being burned alive. She burst into tears.
Gray looked at Juvia with pity. He quickly tore some of Tempestar's jacket. It had some of his blood on it. Gray was certain he had been the one to attack Laxus and the others.
"Lucy and Juvia go take this to Porlyusica. We've got this."
"Are you crazy? We can help.", Lucy said as her trembling hand reached for her keys.
"Lucy, it may *sting* but you're no god slayer. Even so, you can still help the others.", he made an obvious gesture towards Juvia.
"Happy, go with them. Make sure they get there safely.", Natsu asked his Exceed.
"Are you sure, Natsu?", Happy asked him.
Natsu only nodded. He wasn't sure what was going to happen next but he wanted his friends to be safe and Tiamat had said she wasn't interested in them. He was sure she would let them go.
Gray had just gotten into his molding stance when he felt himself being caught in a running tackle as a too familiar voice said, "I believe you came here to fight me. That woman is just going to have to wait her turn."
Strong arms held him in place as he was taken away. Gray struggled against the Ice Devil Slayer but he couldn't get free.
"What the hell are you doing? I need to get back there, he needs me.", Gray's voice was laced with desperation as he heard Natsu's screams and Gajeel's grunts of pain coming from behind them.
"I guess you'd better make sure you beat me then."
xxx
A/N:
Tiamat Spells and abilities:
Hold Person (Lvl 3) - The subject becomes paralyzed and freezes in place.It is aware and breathes normally but cannot take any actions.
Finger of Death (Lvl 7) - allows caster to slay one living creature within range.
Terrifying Presence - This special quality makes a creature's very presence unsettling to foes. It takes effect automatically when the creature performs some sort of dramatic action (such as charging, attacking, or snarling). Opponents within range who witness the action may become frightened or shaken. It's what Lyon experienced when he found Natsu in the burning building.