Erza sat upright in her bed, panting momentarily as she brought her hand to her face, burying her face for a moment before pushing her scarlet hair out of her face, some of it having been stuck to her from sweat. Short, heavy breaths escaped her lips as she sat there, holding her hair out of her face.
She slowly got herself up, having to slowly make her way into her bathroom to hopefully get a calming bath. She started running her bath water, making sure it was nice and warm considering how cold it's gotten outside. She removed her pajamas, shivering slightly just from how cold the air felt on her bare skin.
Erza avoided looking in the mirror at this point, slowly getting into her bathtub, sinking into the warm water so that only her head wasn't submerged.
She closed her eyes, trying to relax, but she only got awful images in her head of Irene, seeing, again, images of herself being controlled and used to hurt her guildmates.
She then got an image of Irene, standing before them in her dragon form, a red dragon, the same scarlet color of her and Irene's hair. And shortly after seeing that form was pure destruction, chaos, and loss, as Irene roared.
Erza awoke screaming, not realizing she had dozed off in her warm water.
Realizing she was safe, she sighed softly, quickly bathing off before getting up and out of the tub, leaning onto her countertop, her head hung as she sighed softly.
She looked up as she pushed her scarlet hair from her face, looking at herself in her mirror. However her eyes widened at what she saw.
She was quick to requip, her typical armor on with her blue skirt and boot, grabbing the prosthetic leg and doing the best she could with it to hurry to the guild, although it was late into the night. She stumbled as she tried to hurry to the guild hall, falling to her knees as she was pushing herself too far trying to hurry.
Natsu, Lucy, Happy, and Gray were returning from a quest, Happy being the first to see her, Gray as well since Lucy and Natsu had stopped walking to argue.
"Guys, it can wait!" Gray said, rushing to Erza's side.
Lucy and Natsu stopped, rushing over as well.
"Hey, Erza, what's going on?" Natsu asked, seeing she was panting, and shaking. He grabbed her by her arm to try and start helping him up, however she was quick to grab onto his harshly to try and stop her shaking, and to make him wait a moment.
He stared at her, and soon Erza looked up to him, panting as she stared at Natsu, whose eyes widened.
Looking at the other wizard, the effects of what Irene did were becoming much more evident. And they weren't sure how permanent it was.
Just below her eyes, it seemed as if scales were forming, her left eye, her pupil, taking a more narrow shape.
Natsu wasn't even sure how to react, the two just staring each other down and having no clue what to do. Eventually, Natsu silently helped her up. "We need to talk to the 1st Master," he said, the five going into the guild hall, Natsu helping Erza since she was still having trouble walking with the prosthetic.
Makarov and Mavis were already speaking with each other, clearly trying to keep their voices down for the few members who were lingering, although most of them that were lingering were just drinking and wouldn't be paying attention to the two masters anyways.
The two turned when they saw the five coming in, both seeming concerned, although Mavis was sure she knew what was going on.
Makarov understood when they got close enough with Erza for him to see her face.
"Either I was right before, or I was only partially wrong," Mavis mumbled.
Erza wouldn't look Makarov in the eye until he had gotten closer and made her do so, sighing sadly. "Mavis-"
"I know, Makarov... I'm not sure what to make of this if I'm honest. This isn't what I thought would happen," she mumbled.
"What do you mean?" Erza asked harshly, looking to Mavis, who turned to Erza, who clearly seemed upset with her. "So you knew something was off- you knew something would happen and didn't say anything?!"
Erza wasn't one to argue against the masters of their guild, however this was certainly a unique situation. It was extremely overwhelming, especially considering the dragon slayers of their guild already knew something wasn't right to begin with, before she fully realized it, and now their own master had known something would happen and didn't discuss it with her? It infuriated her.
However, it seemed that the angrier she got over it, the more prominent the scales seemed to become that had formed, some appearing on her arms as well.
"Erza, please, calm down, I should've spoken with you about it sooner, I'll admit, but right now I need you to stay calm," Mavis said.
"With all due respect, Master, why the hell should I? She put something in me solely because she couldn't use me for what she wanted to in the past, and now I don't even know what's happening to me, and when you think you know, you don't even tell me what's going on!" Erza snapped, Gray, Natsu, and Lucy shocked Erza would raise her voice to either one of their masters.
"I understand why you're upset, but if you don't calm down it's going to continue, please just calm down, and I can explain what I think is happening, but please calm down so I can do so," Mavis said, managing to convinced the young woman to sit down, her head hung as she sat down.
Lucy placed a hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her, looking to both of their masters.
"What did she do to her?" she asked softly, as she did her best to comfort Erza, who just wanted this all to be over.
"I think what she was trying to do is change her body to that of a dragon, much like Zeref did the opposite for Irene. She wouldn't be able to do it, so I don't think you have to worry about that," Mavis explained, starting to pace as she thought about this.
"I don't wanna be the one to question you, but that looks like scales to me," Gray said, gesturing to the scales on Erza's arm and face, getting his hand swatted away lightly by Lucy.
"Yes, Gray, I am aware... However what Irene wanted was a permanent transformation and I don't think that will happen. Seems more like something temporary, that Erza could go in and out of, however with everything going on, understandably it's overwhelming, leading to her being unable to control, such as when she was upset with me just now," Mavis explained.
"Why would she do that? What does she hope to even do?" Lucy asked, not sure what to really think of all that.
"Seems like she just wants to cause as much chaos as possible," Gray suspected.
"No, that can't be right. This lady's gotta be up to somethin' else," Natsu said, Happy nodding in agreement.
"You might both be right," Makarov told them. "It seems like she wants to cause a bunch of confusion, as well as make it difficult and confusing for Erza as a personal jab. However she could also be after Fairy Tail as a whole because of her and Mavis's disagreements in the past," Makarov said.
"That would make sense... Not only could she be getting back at Erza by doing all of this, but she'd be removing her from the fight, or at least making it harder for her to fight if she does attack us," Lucy suggested.
"It's also possible that she wants to try and use Erza against us as well," Mavis added. "She was once 'Queen of the Dragons,' it's possible she thinks she'd be able to control Erza if she did what she wanted."
They were all silent, Erza's head hung. "She wouldn't have to do anything to even do that... She controlled me before, I don't understand why she'd go to these lengths just to do that," Erza said, looking to Mavis again, who sighed softly.
"Do you remember anything about what her plans were? Did she let anything slip?" Makarov asked, hoping Erza may remember something, or she'd be willing to tell them.
Aside from Lucy, she hadn't really told anyone much...
"No... She never told me what they were doing," Erza said, something seeming to click then. "I do remember that the day I escaped, I only was able to because she had gotten upset, I don't entirely know why, but she messed up what they were doing to me, and I when I woke up, everything was overwhelming," she stated.
"Overwhelming?" Gray asked.
"Although I couldn't see anything, it was like all of my other senses were heightened to a ridiculous point... I could hear, and smell so much and even my sense of touch was insane, I've gotten used to it by now, but in that moment I thought I was going insane," she said.
"That must've been what she was able to permanently alter, your senses, but without you being able to do anything, she wouldn't have known she had gotten you to that point if you were restrained and unable to figure it out," Mavis said softly.
"I remember her coming up to me, she seemed confused when I asked her what she did to me, and then I attacked her, after that were those things chasing me, I'm assuming her baby dragons," Erza told them, looking to Mavis and Makarov.
Makarov frowned, trying to think. "Gildarts brought one of them when he thought it had killed you, and you don't remember about the others, correct?" he said.
Erza nodded. "At first it was a bunch of them, enough to make the ground shake just about, and then, in what felt like a split second, it was just the one... It couldn't have been me that attacked them, I couldn't even fully requip, much less fight a bunch of baby dragons on my own," she explained.
"Maybe Gildarts saw the rest of them," Lucy said, Mavis nodding.
"It's worth asking him... Maybe if he tells us what he saw you may remember what happened in that short amount of time you seem to have blanked out on," she added.
Natsu and Happy got Gildarts, who came into the guild hall tiredly.
"The hell's going on?" he asked, seeing the group crowded there, soon see Erza, and the scales that had formed on her body. "What the hell- What happened?"
"Calm down, she'll be fine. We actually wanted to ask what you remember from when you found that one baby dragon," Makarov said.
Gildarts crossed his arms. "I'm not sure what I'll be able to clear-"
"Were there any other baby dragons around when you found that first one?" Mavis asked, cutting to the chase.
"Yeah, I was searching that area for Erza, it was dark so I couldn't go following any blood trail, but it was pretty hard to miss the dead baby dragons practically laying all over each other... Between the lightning flashes from the storm I could see big claw marks across them. Whatever killed them was definitely bigger than they were, not much bigger, but big enough that it either easily fought them off, or they didn't bother fighting," he said.
"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Makarov asked.
"Because I've been trying to look into it myself, I've searched everywhere, I can't find anything that would be that big that had the claws to cause that kind of damage. Figured I either saw wrong or that there would be no finding it," he said.
"Could it have been another dragon?" Natsu asked, his arms crossed over his chest.
"There's no way, From the sounds of what Gildarts and Erza have said, Irene's dragons are all roughly the same size, and from what you, Wendy, and Gajeel have said, your dragons are much bigger, I doubt there's any other dragons around, especially if Gildarts went looking. He would've found another dragon," Gray stated.
"What if it could hide itself? Maybe it's just able to blend in well, not to mention Gildarts said it was dark when he found all of them to begin with, and if he didn't find it that night it probably got away," Lucy said.
Erza was thinking, her head hung low, her scarlet hair covering her face.
"Or it disappeared..."