The king's death was not quick, and it sure as hell wasn't painless. After the slayers finally brought down the dragon knight, Mystogan appeared and asked Aelius not to kill the king. He said he had a plan, one that would end with a new king on the throne in a way the people would accept. A plan that needed a villain, someone monstrous enough that the populace would cling to the alternative without question. Aelius didn't hesitate. Being the villain was easy; he'd been wearing that skin his whole life.
So later that same day, Mystogan, who apparently wasn't just some quiet, cloaked mage but instead the prince of Edolas, held an audience for what remained of the population. A crowd of civilians had been packed together, people who hadn't been crushed in the chaos, trampled in the evacuations, or melted down into paste by Aelius's rain of blood. They were scared, exhausted, and desperate for something to believe in.
That's when Aelius made his entrance; he didn't bother with subtlety. He walked straight through the guards, grabbed the king by the collar, and lifted him like he weighed nothing. Then he used his magic. Maggots formed from rot and pestilence crawled out of Aelius's palm and forced their way into the king's eyes, burrowing through soft jelly, eating as they went. The man's skin began to sag, lose structure, until gravity took over, and it slid off in wet, heavy clumps. He couldn't even scream properly. Aelius's hand around his throat, pumping paralytic into him, locking his body down, trapping every sound in his chest.
People screamed. People vomited. Some fainted outright. A few of his own guildmates, mainly Lucy, turned away, horrified, hands over their mouths. Aelius didn't look at them. He didn't need to. This wasn't for them. This was for the story and for his revenge.
The rest was simple. Mystogan stepped in. They "fought." Aelius made it convincing enough. He took the hits, sold the struggle, then went down and vanished from sight while Mystogan stood tall, framed as the hero who defeated the monster that murdered their tyrant king. The crowd latched onto it instantly, and fear flipped into worship in a heartbeat.
Plan successful, he supposed. From the shadows, unseen and unacknowledged, Aelius watched a new ruler be born on the back of his anger. And not for the first time, he wondered how much of the 'act' was real, and how much was fake.
Mystogan had told them they would be returned before noon. Aelius hadn't even realized the night had slipped away into dawn until the light shifted, pale and thin against the stone. Somewhere along the way, during his talk with the ge—Merlin, during his talk with Merlin, time had stopped mattering. He sat there with the remnants of blood and mud still crusted on his boots, the world quiet in that fragile way it only ever got right before things broke again, and pulled an odd grey lacrima from his requip. It felt heavier than it should have in his hand, dull and unassuming, like it didn't want to be noticed.
He'd already told Merlin about his guild by then. Not in some neat, heroic summary, but in pieces, the way the memories came to him. He spoke about Makarov first, because that was unavoidable. About the way the old man's presence alone could steady a room, how his anger was terrifying but his kindness was worse, because it made you want to be better. He admitted, quietly, that he wished he'd been found by Makarov instead. That maybe things would've turned out differently if the first person to put a hand on his shoulder hadn't been a god preaching rot.
He talked about Levy next. About her stubbornness, how she never asked before deciding his house was now a communal space, books everywhere, notes on every surface, and how he never actually told her to stop. He mentioned how she asked too many questions, how she always pushed, and how irritating that was. He didn't mention how the silence felt wrong when she wasn't around.
Vanessa came up after that. The chaos, the noise, the way she laughed like nothing could touch her. He said he was the only one who ever saw the moments where that dropped, where she was quiet and tired and real, and how that made him uncomfortable in a way he never quite named. Merlin didn't interrupt. He just listened.
He went over others in the guild, Erza, his annoyance with her, and how she tried to be the older sister to everyone. Natsu and Gray, not changing the slightest in four years, Lisanna, and how she was everyone's younger sister.
He told him about Alaric and a few others from the Labyrinth. He didn't go deep into what the Labyrinth actually was, didn't explain how it worked, or what it took from you. Just said it was a place where people either broke or became something else, and that some of them were still alive because of him, or despite him, he wasn't sure which.
The lacrima itself, the general had given it to him after he finished speaking, pressing it into his hand with a quiet request to give it to Makarov when he returned. Aelius didn't ask what it did. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know. It felt important in that way; things always did right before they became someone else's problem. Still, he nodded and agreed. If it was meant for Makarov, then he would consider it above his pay grade anyway.
Merlin spoke after that, his voice steady, but slow, like he was choosing each word carefully. He told Aelius how he saw him. Not as a monster, but as a child who'd been forced to become centuries older than he actually was. Aelius didn't interrupt him, mostly because he didn't have the energy to argue. When Merlin suggested therapy, he actually said the word out loud. Aelius visibly recoiled. The image alone made his skin crawl. Sitting in a room, across from some stranger, talking about everything that was wrong in his head. About plague and gods and blood and the things he couldn't forget. He knew better than most just how long that list was.
When Merlin pointed out it didn't have to be a stranger, especially after everything he'd said about his guild, Aelius shot that down fast. He said therapy had a higher chance of working if it happened before he told anyone in the guild about it. Most of them he hated. A few he tolerated. He'd already been clear about that. Letting them dig around in his head would just make things worse, not better.
He told Merlin about Mira after that. About her words. About how there was a very real chance she'd singlehandedly pushed him into becoming what he was now. The general didn't argue. He didn't even respond right away. But Aelius saw it anyway, in the man's eyes. Disagreement. Not sharp or dismissive, just there. Like Merlin believed Aelius was wrong about that, even if he wasn't ready to say why.
Noon was approaching, the sun climbing close to its peak, bright enough that it washed the city in a harsh, almost clean light. Aelius stood apart from it all, watching Natsu and the others speak with this world's Fairy Tail. They were laughing. Acting like this place hadn't tried to grind them into fuel hours earlier. It sat wrong with him, but he didn't comment on it. He never did.
His eyes drifted to Lucy and narrowed just a fraction. He hadn't forgotten the way she flinched. The way the others shifted, subtle but clear, like they expected him to turn on her at any second. He understood it. That didn't mean he liked it. Understanding didn't make it sting any less.
After a moment, he turned away and began heading toward the castle without a word, boots crunching softly against stone and dirt. Merlin had already said his goodbyes. Promised he'd speak to his Aelius and the new king, see if there was a way to open paths between worlds. So they could visit. So Aelius could come back if he wanted, or if he needed to.
He didn't say out loud that the idea appealed to him. He didn't admit that the thought of returning, even briefly, once the X Ball wore off and his magic settled back into that empty state, sounded… comforting. Familiar. Somewhere, he could feel normal again, even if only by comparison.
He kept walking; behind him, the voices of his guild blurred into noise. Ahead, the castle loomed, silent and indifferent. For once, he didn't know whether he was leaving something behind or just postponing it.
He eventually found his way to a rampart overlooking the field of bodies he created. Hundreds of soldiers and dozens of legion beasts.
"...how," Aelius thought, the word hollow even in his own head. "How could someone look at this and still think I deserve a chance? Deserve help."
They had seen what he'd done, felt it; the carnage wasn't abstract. It had been quick, efficient, and done without hesitation. He could dress it up however he wanted, self-defense. Them or him, necessary, all of it was true, and none of it changed the result. People didn't leave that kind of ruin behind without something being wrong with them.
And yet the thought kept circling back, unwanted and persistent.
Maybe that was the part that bothered him most. Not the guilt, or the memories, but the fact that he couldn't let it go. He was Fairytail, the guild that didn't care about logic, or plans, or whether something made sense on paper. They ran on heart and emotion, on grabbing broken things and deciding they were worth keeping anyway. It was reckless, even more stupid. Infuriating that it was his guild. Infuriating, he kept telling himself that over and over.
Aelius exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face beneath the mask. Even this, even everything he'd done, he doubted it would stop them. They would still try. Try to help. Try to fix him. Try to pull him back toward something softer, something human. He didn't know whether that made him angry or tired. Probably both.
He shook his head, a faint trace of fondness slipping through before he could stop it. He didn't understand it, didn't want to unpack it, but it was there. Levy, especially. She would keep bothering him. Keep talking. Keep pushing books and ideas and concern in his direction, like persistence alone could wear him down. And knowing her, she'd be right. Even if it took years. Even if he fought her every step of the way.
Aelius stayed on the rampart a few minutes longer before the glow started. The same crawling light that clung to everything right before it vanished. So that was it, time to go.
He noticed the Exceeds glowing too, small shapes flickering at the edges of his vision. That tracked. Mystogan had said Anima would pull anything inherently magical. That included them. The realization landed a second late, followed immediately by a headache he could already feel coming on.
A whole new race dropping into his world without warning. And that was before dealing with the rest of it. Explaining why an entire town vanished, why the strongest guild in Fiore disappeared with it? Why the sky tore itself open and then politely pretended it never happened.
He groaned, dragging a hand down his face as the light crept higher up his arms. The council was going to be unbearable about this, paperwork, Accusations, thinly veiled panic by cowards who think they own the world. The glow intensified, swallowing the stone beneath his boots.
The light grew until he couldn't see anything at all, until the world was just pressure and weightlessness, his body lifting whether he wanted it to or not. He felt himself pulled upward, toward nothing, toward everything, and then a flash.
Air slammed back into his lungs, and leaves crunched under his boots. Magnolia, or close enough, the forests on the outskirts, if he had to guess, a large clearing stretched out in front of him, familiar faces scattered through it, Natsu, Ezra, Gray, Lucy, Wendy, Vanessa, too.
She was still keeping her distance. After their… something. Argument didn't quite fit, discussion didn't either. Whatever it was, it left a tension he hadn't bothered trying to fix yet. He'd heard what happened while he was dealing with knightwalkers' forces anyway. Vanessa mildly traumatizing Lucy, impressing Erza. Soldiers had been sent in to flank them and capture the Exceeds.
That went about as well as expected. Vanessa couldn't walk on air like he could, but apparently, in Lucy's words, she was "a blender with legs." She, Erza, and Mystogan tore through the flanking force without issue. He felt a flicker of pride at that.
Then there was the Exceeds; they were there too, just like he thought, hundreds of them, maybe more. A sea of talking cats fills the clearing, hovering, shouting, panicking, arguing. A thousand problems he was going to be blamed for in about five minutes.
So Aelius turned and walked away. He would be forced to deal with this eventually, he knew that. Which meant he was going to put it off for as long as possible, preferably, after the emotional disaster that was the last two and a half days stopped rattling around in his head.
No one stopped him. Either they did not care enough to try, or they were too busy, or they were smart enough to leave him alone, maybe they were scared, maybe all of the above, he did not bother checking which.
His earlier assumption proved correct. They were just beyond Magnolia's edge, unfortunately, on his side of the forest. Which meant anyone heading back toward town from this direction would find his place instead. He doubted his invisibility would hold up then, too many eyes, too many questions, too many people who would not take the hint.
It was noon here, too. He found that mildly comforting, at least time had stayed consistent, one less thing to feel wrong. He stepped onto his deck, and everything was exactly how it had been before the anima swallowed it, less cleanup for him in the end, a small mercy.
His wards were back, too, which surprised him. He had assumed the anima would have interfered somehow, twist them, strip some of the symbols away, leave gaps he would have a headache trying to hunt down, yet another mercy.
Aelius leaned against the railing, looking out over the lake. The surface was calm. Too calm. He reached out with his magic and shifted the wards, letting them become visible. Magic burning faintly in the air, Walls of force settling into place.
A not-so-subtle message of do not enter. He knew only two people in Magnolia could get through if they really wanted to. One by brute force alone. The other was because she had taught him half of these ward bases herself. Given enough time, she could likely unravel them.
He also knew neither would. They respected his privacy enough to leave him alone unless something was truly wrong, which meant, for now, he was alone, exactly how he wanted it.
He stayed there a few minutes longer, staring at the lake until his head finally went quiet. No thoughts circling. No memories clawing for attention. Just still water and trees and the faint hum of wards in the background.
He flared his magic once as he turned away from the railing, and the shirt he was wearing simply stopped existing. Bloody, torn, stiff with dried filth, it decayed mid-step and turned to dust that the breeze carried off the deck. Underneath, he was still filthy, grime ground into his skin, old blood in places where his magic had stopped eating it once the fighting ended. He could have burned it off with another pulse. It would have taken seconds. He did not; he wanted a shower, an actual one, hot water, steam, something normal.
The water lacrima hummed to life as soon as he stepped in, water releasing in a steady flow. He stood under it longer than necessary, head tipped forward, water running down his face and shoulders, washing away layers he had not realized he was still wearing. Blood went first. Then dirt. Then the smell of iron finally faded.
Halfway through, something clicked. Here, in Earthland, lacrima made everything easier. Water, heat, light. Condensed magic doing the work in the background, pulling from the ambient field, storing it, releasing it on command. You did not think about pipes or pressure or where it came from. You just turned it on.
Edolas didn't have that, which meant everything there had to be done the hard way. Technology. Mechanisms, systems that worked because someone made them work, not because the world itself helped. If he ever went back, he wanted to see how they handled things like this. If they even could. If they had running water, lights, and transportation.
Ah. Right.... The lacrima.
He had to give the gray one to Makarov. He could do it later, technically, but if he put it off, he knew he would forget, or worse, decide he did not have the energy to deal with it and let it sit in his requip for a while. He wanted this done. He wanted everything done, then he wanted to sleep for an unreasonable amount of time and pretend the world did not exist.
And for once, he'd actually get dressed like a normal person. Unlike Erza, he didn't keep half a dozen full wardrobes stashed away in his requip. He never saw the point. She was good at it, known for it, and he'd be the first to admit his own requirements were smaller and even then, most of his clothes had been lost, destroyed, or dissolved since his return to Fairy Tail anyway, and he still hadn't bothered to replace them. Another thing added to his to-do list. At this point, he was down to one cloak. All the more reason to get this over with now, before something else found a way to take even that.
He stepped out of the shower and stopped in front of the mirror, steam fogging the glass. He wiped it clear with his hand and looked.
The scar from Nehzhar was visible and ugly against his skin. He was visible. Fully bare in every sense of the word. His eyes looked different, less tired, less hollow. His body was not rotting anymore. No blackened veins, no patches of decay creeping along his skin. Physically, at least, he looked alive again. He was actually happy about that.
Now all he had to do was fix his mind. The thought had barely finished forming when the mirror shifted.
It was him. And it was not.
The reflection stood wrong. Deathly pale, skin missing in places, rotting and regrowing at the same time, like his body could not decide what state it wanted to exist in. His eyes were brighter than they had ever been, glowing outright. And behind him were wings, massive butterfly wings. Perfect in structure and horrifying in context, the edges wilted and decaying even as they shimmered with sickly color. It was beautiful in a way that made his stomach twist.
Then it was gone. The mirror showed only him again, steam curling back in, the room quiet except for the soft drip of water. At the same time, the buzzing returned in his ear, sharp and familiar, like something tapping against the inside of his skull, reminding him it was still there.
Aelius stared at the mirror long after it cleared, the steam thinning until it was just glass again, just him. The buzzing lingered, low and insistent, like something scratching at the inside of his skull. He lifted a hand, half expecting to see rot crawling back over his fingers, wings unfurling from his shoulders, but there was nothing. He pressed his palm to the glass anyway, grounding himself, feeling the cold bite through the heat still clinging to him.
"Yeah," he muttered to no one. "That's new."
He dried off and dressed without thinking too hard about it. Simple clothes, a dark shirt, pants that were not enchanted, boots that had seen better days, as normal as he could manage. The cloak went on last, a purple one, the same one he told Makarov he didn't want to wear when they met in the forest, dark enough that in certain light it would be called black, settling around his shoulders with a familiar weight that helped a little more than he wanted to admit.
It had been 30 or so minutes by the time he stepped away from his house and into the trees, his wards sliding aside just long enough to let him pass. He headed toward Magnolia at an unhurried pace, cutting through the forest rather than taking the road, hoping for fewer people, and even fewer looks.
Makarov was going to ask questions. He always did. Aelius already knew which ones he would dodge and which ones he would not bother answering at all. He would give him the lacrima. He would say it was important. He would probably say sorry about things he should not feel sorry for. Then he would go home, then he would sleep.
The walk to town was anything but peaceful. He dragged it out on purpose, took the long way, doubled back once or twice under the excuse of checking wards that did not actually need checking. He told himself it was practical, that after something like the anima, it would be stupid not to make sure nothing had been warped or quietly broken. That was part of it. The rest was simple avoidance. Every extra minute out here was a minute he did not have to deal with the migration of cats or whatever kind of chaos Fairy Tail was currently choking on.
And gods, there were cats.
The sky was busy in a way it had no right to be. It almost reminded him of the Fantasia Parade, colorful shapes drifting and darting overhead, except instead of lights and music, it was Exceeds. Some flew in loose groups, some alone, some carrying bags. They weaved between clouds, argued midair, pointed down at landmarks, and generally treated the sky like it was a street they had every right to clog. Aelius watched one narrowly miss another, spin out, then correct itself like nothing happened.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and kept walking. Every step closer to town made the noise worse. Distant shouting, laughter, mild panic, orders being yelled and immediately ignored. He could already picture it. Magnolia flooded with flying cats, civilians losing their minds, the council scrambling to pretend this was somehow under control, yet somehow never actually doing anything, and Fairy Tail sitting squarely in the middle of it like it always did. He almost respected the consistency.
By the time the rooftops came into view, he could see Exceeds landing everywhere. Others just hovered, staring down at the streets like they were deciding whether they liked this world or not. A few noticed him and went quiet, eyes tracking him as he passed. He ignored it, let them stare; he did not have the energy to manage other people's fear today.
The guild hall loomed ahead, unmistakable even through the mess. Part of him considered turning around again, vanishing back into the trees, and pretending he never made it this far. It was tempting, very, very tempting.
But Makarov was part bloodhound. If Aelius was anywhere within a mile of the guild, the old man would feel it. Showing up now would at least put some of that worry to rest, cut it off before it turned into something worse. So he kept going, weaving through the crowd with practiced ease. People packed the streets, confused but alive. From what he could tell, none of them remembered anything, just gaps where hours should have been. That tracked, at least he thought so. Being turned into a massive lacrima would put you in stasis. Lucky them.
He passed close enough to hear fragments of conversation. Questions about the sky. About the cats. About why the days were off. No one noticed him, or if they did, they looked once and then away, a tall masked man tended to do that to people. He blended into the background by standing out too much. Even with him being a Fairytail mage, likely being spread around after the forest incident.
The noise grew louder as he reached the guild hall steps. Exceeds clustered around the roof and windows, arguing loudly, some peering inside, others shooed off by already exhausted mages. The doors themselves were wide open, voices spilling out in a constant roar. Relief. Frustration. Too many people talking at once. Fairy Tail had survived another impossible mess and was already in the middle of processing it the only way it knew how, food and chaos.
The doors were already open, so he stepped in without preamble, his eyes snapping immediately to Makarov. It was not like the man was hard to find. He was sitting on the bar like he always was, feet dangling, watching the chaos unfold while talking to Mira, like always. Some things just refused to change, no matter how many times the world nearly ended.
His gaze hardened at the sight of Mira, but his stride never faltered. Hate was too simple a word, but it was close enough. Even if he stripped the emotion out of it, there was no respect left to give. She had messed up. Badly. Got her sister kil—
His steps didn't slow, but his focus cracked for half a second. Lisana was alive? Standing there, Breathing. Smiling faintly like nothing in the world was wrong.
His eyes narrowed again, sharper this time, trying to reconcile memory with what was in front of him. Dead meant dead. Though he assumed with him it didn't. He didn't stop walking, he didn't ask, he didn't react beyond that flicker of tension through his shoulders. Whatever this was, resurrection, alternate worlds, miracles, he did not have the energy for it, not now.
Makarov noticed him then. Of course he did. The old man's face split into that familiar smile, warm and relieved, but the eyes gave him away. Worry. Guilt. Sadness, barely held together. Aelius clocked it and dismissed it just as fast. He wasn't paid enough for this. He wasn't paid at all, actually. And he definitely wasn't in the mood to unpack being a walking disappointment to everyone within arm's reach.
By the time he reached them, Mira and Lisana were both looking at him, their expressions unreadable in different ways. He stopped just short of the bar and reached into his requip without ceremony. The gray lacrima slid into his hand, smooth and cool, more orb than crystal, polished in a way that suggested care. It fit perfectly in his palm.
"A man from Edolas told me to give this to you," Aelius said simply, correcting himself mid-thought without breaking stride. "He was… my alter's biological grandfather. Not my grandfather's alter."
Makarov took the lacrima, his brow lifting as his fingers closed around it. He didn't interrupt. The old man turned it slightly in his hand, the gray surface catching the light of the guild hall in a dull, muted way, like it refused to shine any brighter than it already was. There was weight to it, not physically, something else, something that made Makarov's expression shift into something more serious than Aelius usually saw.
"Merlin Corvin," Aelius added after a moment, mostly because silence felt worse. "General. Advisor. Whatever title fits over there. He asked me to give it to you personally."
"This isn't a storage lacrima," Makarov murmured, more to himself than anyone else. His magic brushed it, subtle but present, and whatever he felt made his grip tighten. "No. This is a message vessel."
Aelius exhaled slowly through his nose. "He didn't tell me what it did. He assumed you'd figure it out."
Makarov glanced up at him then, really looked at him, taking in the posture, the exhaustion he wasn't bothering to hide. The old man's voice softened, but his eyes stayed sharp. "Did he say anything else?"
Aelius hesitated, just barely. "He called me a kid, son, boy," he said flatly. "Told me I'd been forced to be centuries older than I am." A pause. "You and he would get along, you both speak and act the same. It annoyed me."
That earned a small huff of amusement from Makarov, brief and quiet, gone almost as soon as it appeared. He tucked the lacrima away. "We'll talk later," he said. Not a request. A promise. "About all of this."
Aelius nodded once. That was as much agreement as he was offering. Without waiting for dismissal, he turned and started toward the doors again, already feeling the weight of the guild press in around him. Whatever that lacrima held, whatever message waited inside it, it was no longer his problem. At least for the next few hours. Right now, he was going to bed.