Chapter Text
The guild was freezing, a normal occurrence these days. It meant that their favourite ice mage was probably on the property. Lucy sighed and turned to Mira. “Can we just get a heater installed?” she asked, head falling forward onto the bar top.
It had been about a month since they had rescued Gray from his imprisonment. So far, they had made next to no progress when it came to Gray’s powers, which meant when he was around the guild was next to freezing. Lucy had noticed that the amount of time which Gray spent at the guild had lessened though, as if he didn’t want to burden people with the cold.
In all honesty, Lucy did not mind the cold too much. She was just glad to have her fellow team mate back home. Mira opened her mouth, as if to reply, when the doors smashed open and Natsu flew in, hitting right into a wall support; wood went flying everywhere. Lucy gaped as Natsu stood up laughing and wiped at his mouth. “Ice princess packs a punch this morning, doesn’t he?” he taunted back through the broken doors.
Lucy looked over to the doors to see Gray standing there, panting heavily, mist exuding from his body. Lucy gulped when she saw the glare he was sending straight in Natsu’s direction. “Some things never change.” Lucy groaned, earning a sympathetic smile from Mira.
Gray released what seemed like a primal growl and launched himself across the guild straight at Natsu, punching him straight in the stomach, sending him into the air. Mid-air, Natsu turned over puffed up his chest releasing a column of fire. Gray jumped through, unfazed by the heat, aiming a kick towards Natsu’s stomach. Natsu grabbed Gray’s leg as contact was made, spinning them over and throwing Gray towards the ground.
They both landed on their feet, Natsu smiling in delight at the violence of a fight, Gray grimacing slightly but also smiling. Lucy waved her arms in the air, trying to gain their attention. “Guys, stop, you’ll destroy the guild!” she yelled at them, the again was implied.
The two dragon slayers ignored her and jumped at each other, a mischievous glint in their eyes, causing Lucy to sigh and she rolled her eyes. “I give up,” she said, and slouched back over to the bar, where Mira had put a drink out ready for her.
Gray and Natsu met again in the middle of guild, their punches hitting each other; Natsu’s punch launching Gray out of the guild doors, Gray’s sending Natsu with similar force into a wall. Gray landed on his back hard, cracking the stone beneath him; he turned over to his front and got up onto his knees. He stared at Natsu across the guild, who had similarly broken the wall he’d hit, and was already on his feet.
With a snarl Gray got on his feet and prepared himself in a stance, ready to send ice at Natsu. Propelling forward, he ran towards the fire mage only to be stopped in his tracks by a giant wall. Natsu, similarly, felt a ceiling slam down on his head.
Lucy dropped her drink as Makarov, sitting next to her on the bar, brought down his hands on the fighting brats, clenching them in a fist, and then he slammed their heads against each other in the middle of the hall. Makarov let out a huff before dropping them both unceremoniously on the floor. Both mages were seeing stars as they hit the ground and looked up to Lucy for support. She held up her hands in surrender. “You brought that on yourself,” she defended herself at the insulted looks from the boys.
Gray stood up first, rubbing at his head. “Why are you so hard-headed, stupid candle?”
Natsu jumped up and raised a fist at Gray. “It’s not my fault that happened, you attacked me first.”
Gray leaned forward, fist also raised. “I specifically remember you coming to my house, and dragging me from my bed,” he said, struggling around the growl rising in his throat.
Natsu threw his hands in the air exasperated. “Because you were moping!” Natsu then pouted and crossed his arms. “It’s no fun when you’re not here.”
Lucy could see that Gray was getting ready to bark back and jumped to her feet to stand in between the boys. “Maybe we should all calm down,” she suggested with a smile, dragging them over to a table that had Wendy, Happy and Charle sitting at.
Gray let out a disgruntled noise but allowed himself to be dragged. He sat down and stared down at the table, running his finger over the grain of the wood. Lucy sighed but did not say anything. Instead turned on Natsu who was still protesting. She gave him a bop on the head with a quick ‘Lucy-chop’, something she had picked up from Erza when Natsu and Gray had started doing a more effective job at destroying things.
“Be quiet, Natsu. You did just destroy part of the guild.” She had her hands on her hips, looking down at Natsu who was spluttering. It would take Laki all of two seconds to restore the guild to normal, but that was beside the point. “Didn’t Erza say if you wanted to fight that you should take it to the East Forest?”
Natsu pouted and looked away, sitting down next to Wendy. “Yeah, Erza did, but Porlyusica caught us and told us never to come back. Didn’t she, Gray?” Gray hummed non-committedly, not looking up from where he was tracing the wood grain.
“What stupid thing did you do for her to kick you out of her forest then?” Charle asked, raising her eyebrows.
Wendy let out a thoughtful hum, eyes moving between Gray and Natsu. “For Ms. Porlyusica to do that, it must have been something bad. She was very concerned with Gray’s recovery and didn’t want you venturing too far away when practicing.”
“He almost burned down a three-hundred-year-old oak tree.” Gray said, his voice a humoured whisper, but his eyes did not raise from the table.
“Aye, sir! Porlyusica went so red-faced, I thought she was going to murder Natsu.” Happy added.
Natsu huffed, a puff of smoke leaving his mouth. “As if that old hag could touch me, I would have torn her to shreds.”
“You wouldn’t even be able to get away,” Gray said, with an air that implied he had tried before, and it had not gone well.
Lucy watched the table thoughtfully as the conversation devolved on whether Porlyusica had some kind of sixth sense or a special power similar to many of the female mages in the guild. Wendy chimed in that she didn’t understand what they meant. It continued for what felt like hours, but most likely had only been minutes. Lucy remained spaced out until a shiver went down her spine and she let out a deep breath she didn’t realise she had held.
Lucy noticed that the pattern on the table now had a thin layer of ice over it, barely noticeable like on a windowpane in early winter. Gray looked up at the exhale, his eyes met hers and she could see the worry behind them. He reached forward, but seemed to think better, pulling his hands back and keeping them under the table.
“Oh,” she muttered, before realising that she was in fact still shivering. “I forgot to bring a coat today, that was silly of me.” She tried to dissolve the situation quickly, waving off his worry. “Don’t worry, Gray. Natsu can just come be a bonfire!” She reached over and pulled Natsu closer to her. “He needs to be useful sometimes, you know?”
Natsu protested out of obligation, but there was no real effort behind it as Lucy pulled him down the bench to sit next to her. The heat thawed her stiff fingers in no time, and she wiggled them around in front of everyone as if to prove she was fine.
“Ice-block needs to go on a job to get rid of some excess magic.” Natsu said, absently rubbing his hands over Lucy’s hands.
“Ash-brain needs to shut up and stop telling me what to do.” Gray went back to tracing his pattern, this time using his nail to cut through the ice as he went. The mood was cold. Nobody dared speak for a while, Natsu just glared at Gray as if daring him to continue and pick a fight. After what felt like an eternity, Gray muttered, “I’m not doing any stupid job. I’m a liability to the team.”
Natsu stood up and wished, for what wasn’t the first time, that Gray had a shirt on so he could drag him up by the scruff. “Don’t say that shit. It’s been a month. Lucy needs to pay her rent!” Lucy placed a hand on his elbow, which calmed some of his rage. He let out a breath, and Lucy could tell that he was trying to calm himself down. “Tch. You know Erza is just going to force us when she gets back?”
“Well she can force you as much as she wants, I’m not going.” Gray said.
Lucy bit her lip, she missed the team jobs, she missed Natsu and Gray. She wanted to go on team jobs, but she also knew that Gray could not be rushed with this as much as Natsu was determined to rush him. She also needed to pay the rent even if they couldn’t do team jobs, so she raised her hands to appease them. “It’s okay, I can just go on a solo-”
Lucy didn’t get to finish her sentence when a voice thundered behind the table, making them all jump. “Where are you not going, Gray?” Erza asked. She held a massive sabretooth pelt in her arms, the only evidence that she had been on a job at all. She narrowed her eyes in on Gray. “Have you been practicing with your magic enough?”
“No,” Natsu said at the same time as Gray said, “Yes.”
Natsu stuck his tongue out as Gray glared in Natsu’s direction. Lucy rolled her eyes at their actions.
“Gray and Natsu both destroyed the guild earlier while fighting.” Charle happily informed Erza, and Happy backed her up with his usual catchphrase.
“I was just suggesting we go on a team job, you know, all of us.” Natsu said, glad to finally have Erza back to suggest it. He pointed in Wendy’s direction. “Wendy and Charle are coming too, of course.”
Erza’s eyes darted between each of the members at the table, lingering the longest on Gray. “I’d like to do a job too,” she informed them. Her eyes did not break contact with Gray’s, and Lucy could sense the tension coming off them. “However, first, I think we’ll just have to see how much control Gray truly has.” Erza said it and began moving out of the guild, dropping the pelt with Mira at the bar as she left.
The rest of the team sat, watching Erza go. “What does she mean?” Lucy asked, looking at Gray.
Natsu’s face looked stormy as he glared after Erza’s form. “It means she’s going to fight Gray.” He had a pout on his face.
Gray looked thoughtful, pulling himself up from the table. “Guess, I better go and get this over with so you can go on a shitty job.” Ice crystals hung in the air as he followed her out of the guild.
“This is no fair!” Natsu yelled running after them.
Wendy looked happy, watching Happy fly out with Natsu. She smiled at Lucy, her hair bouncing on a breeze that wasn’t there. “Isn’t this exciting, Lucy? Natsu always fights everyone, it’ll be nice to see Erza and Gray fight for once.”
Lucy smiled and pet her head. “Spoken like a true Fairy Tail mage.”
--
Erza had not suggested this for the fun of it, no matter how much Natsu had screamed and shouted about it. After giving Natsu an armoured fist to the head and leaving him in the care of Lucy, she had turned to assess Gray.
She could sense his magic, in a way any mage could if trained. She could hear a trapped dragon, roaring beneath the surface of his soul. She could almost feel the way it quivered in anticipation at the chance for a fight.
Erza needed to figure out whether Gray was able to control his magic. She trusted her friend implicitly, knew that his ice-make would never fail him. This new dragon slayer magic however was a more volatile matter. They had spent the first two weeks trying to control the cold that would constantly exude from the mage. He could now control it if he was focusing, less like the tundras and mountains of Isvan and more like a malfunctioning freezer.
The requip mage knew this would not satisfy the ice-mage though. He was used to perfect control. Leaking magic like it had no stopper was not the balance he had been taught from such a tender age. So she had told him to train, to practice and hone the magic. To take to the East Forest with Natsu and practice until the magic was dry, and then try and try again.
Obviously in the two weeks she had been gone on her job, this had not happened. His instincts were still running wild, and any mage worth their salt could tell that something was wrong. Gray was still in fight or flight mode from the kidnapping, and she thought that he would have been out of it by now.
She sighed, digging the toe of her armour into the mud. They stood in the clearing normally reserved for mage practice battles. Enough space to go wild if needed. She requipped into her flame empress armour, the warmth would be welcome in an ice battle.
“I’m going to battle you, Gray.” She told him. He looked resigned as if he had expected as much and shrugged his shoulders.
She jumped forward, not waiting for the rest of the team to move to the sides of the newly sanctioned arena. She caught Gray with her arm around his neck and drug him to the middle of the clearing where he disengaged and coughed to clear his breathing. She jumped back and prepared for another lunge.
A wall of ice went up in front of her as she flew forward, she spun and sliced her lance through the ice expecting to see Gray on the other side as it melted away, but he was not there. She held her breath, until she sensed him. Above her. She dodged backwards as a fist of ice slammed into the earth directly in front of her, sending shards of ice and stone flying everywhere.
She grinned, and her lance moved with a mind of its own, gliding upwards through the air and narrowly missing Gray’s face as he kicked backwards from where he was standing. He landed on a floor of ice, his feet changing the warmth to cold with each step he took. She sliced her lance through the ground, digging up a spray of leaves and earth as a smoke screen as she moved to get behind him.
He stood unmoving, as her lance went through him. It smashed into a million pieces. A clone. A blizzard smashed into her back and she was propelled forward onto the ground, letting out a grunt as she fell. Thankful for her armour keeping her warm, she stood back up. She was frustrated and could feel that he was not using his dragon slaying magic as she had wanted.
She turned to see Gray standing a few metres away, in a battle stance, but one she knew was not slaying magic. “I don’t want to see your ice-make, Gray,” she called over to him.
Gray shook his head, before replying, “and I don’t want to use anything else. You demanded this battle, and I am giving it to you.”
Frustration pulsed through Erza as she launched forward, summoning an extra lance as she flew, which followed behind her in a dance. She cut through ice and clones and tools and screamed in frustration as he avoided using any of his volatile magic. She could sense the tight control he was trying to have, a string too taut to be anything but dangerous. The magic seethed under the surface, and she could hear it screaming to get out.
Yet Gray wouldn’t let it.
Another lance materialised at Gray’s back and he looked at her wearily when she surrounded him with summoned weapons. Her eyes traced him up and down, and she could see his hands were shaking even in the moulding stance. His eyes wavered and his teeth were bared in a snarl. It was pitiable how much he was fighting it.
“Give in to your instincts.” She said to him. “You’re trying too hard to control it, and you know that it does not work like that for dragon slayers.”
He kicked up a huge chunk of mud and leaves, growling in frustration as they crystallised over with ice. “I can’t do that; I can’t just switch it on and off like that Erza!” He huffed, breathing deeply. “It’s not safe, I’m not a real dragon slayer.” He tilted his head to the side, as he thought about what to say next. His head dropped down and he shrugged, looking dejected. “You should just do team jobs without me. I really can’t do this whole control thing.”
Erza’s eyes darkened. She had put up with Gray’s excuses for long enough. She requipped into her normal armour, dispelling all her lances. She summoned a sword to her hand and pointed it at Gray. Enough of eggshells, she would crush them all underfoot. Gray was a proud ice mage, and she would not stand for him to not look people in the eye, to not stand proud. “Use dragon slaying magic,” Erza ordered, her eyes zeroed in on Gray and her voice lilting harshly.
The sentence seemed to boom through the clearing, and Gray’s chest heaved. The temperature drop was sudden. Lucy stood on the edge of the clearing and jumped when a growl echoed out into the trees. Natsu’s eyes moved to look in the direction of Erza, as if smelling the hostile intent in the air. A fluttering of leaves let her know that all wildlife had just evacuated, sensing a predator.
Erza herself, knew a mistake had been made the second she said it. She cursed herself for using a direct order. The string had snapped.
Gray’s eyes had widened, unseeing of the world around him. Erza could see the trembling of Gray’s body from how close she was. The spike in breathing, and the frosted air that came out of his mouth with each sharp intake of breath he took. His chest seemed to struggle to keep the air in, and Erza watched as Gray begged silently.
“I can’t.” Gray’s voice was a whisper and if Erza hadn’t been listening for it, she would not have heard it. His hands moved to tug at his hair, eyes meeting Erza’s pleadingly but not seeing her. “Don’t make me do it.” His voice got louder as he screamed and begged for it to stop, that he couldn’t do it and oh god, please not again.
Gray devolved to muttering incoherent sentences, none of them making any sense to her. He took a step away from Erza, shaking his head. Pupils blown wide in panic. His hands turned to claws and he started scratching, scratching everywhere. Erza tried to grab at his hands, but as soon as her fingers touched him, she pulled back hissing at the cold.
Natsu noticed from across the clearing that as soon as Erza had touched him, Gray’s eyes had focused on her. He tried to warn her, started to move his feet as quickly as he could. The waves of magic that were being pushed out, almost causing him to stagger from their pressure.
Scales rippled into existence around Gray’s eyes, a faint glow coming from him. His hair lightly tussled from a wind that was not there. The colour slowly changing from root to end until his hair had turned entirely white.
She had never actually watched a slayer enter their enhanced form, usually too overtaken with her own battles elsewhere. Watching the change was entrancing, seeing the differences overtake her friend’s form as he became entirely something else. It was impossible for Erza to look away. She stood watching and could not move. She stood fixed in her spot, even as Gray flew through the air with a roar that could rival a dragon.
—
White, upon white, upon white. White was all that he could see. It was all that he could feel. That and the bitter cold. He was drifting in a sea of cold. He wished for shocks, he wished for obedience, he wished for safety. He would get none.
He swam through his sea of cold, the lack of sensation not chilling him as he would hope. Staring up, he could see ripples in the sea. The ice ceiling above it was shaking. He wondered what was causing the shaking. An earthquake could cause a tsunami and break down the ceiling of ice above him.
Maybe he could swim to the surface. Break through and finally feel warm again. Would the darkness of the above save him?
The ice broke, and a figure swam down. He watched as they sunk to his depths, red hair floating around them. Erza, he recognised this woman. Maybe she could bring darkness to this white ocean for him. She distorted, red hair turning purple, turning red. He shook his head; this would not do. He tried to reach out to her, but his hands went through.
He looked down at his hands and noticed that they had turned into claws. Were they real? He looked back up, and saw Erza again, but she was holding a device in her hand. That looked familiar, where had he seen that bef- shocks coursed through his body and he felt his muscles stiffen. Oh, right. Why did Erza have that special button?
He felt himself sink deeper into the cold, let it seep into his being. Was he real? Sinking was better than seeing ghosts. He saw someone where he had once been floating. They had white hair, and blue scales across their body. He watched as the person roared. It was muffled by the sea; it was as if they hadn’t made a sound at all.
He still shivered. As if the predatory sound pierced his soul. What was a soul? The purple-haired woman was there, fighting the white-haired beast. The waves shook around him, but he could not feel their pressure. All he felt was cold. He closed his eyes, content to let them fight. It was not his battle to win, this was not his sea of cold after all, it belonged to another.
The ice ceiling fell, all of it crumbling above him. He watched as another joined the fight between the purple-haired woman and the white-haired beast. They had pink hair, but their flames managed to stay alight in the sea of cold. Maybe it was his sea? It would make sense for flames to work if he also controlled the sea.
The pink-haired man roared at the white-haired beast. The beast propelled backwards, and the pink-haired man moved as if to chase after it. The pink-haired man however did not move, his eyes focusing on something else. He watched the pink-haired man swim deeper until he was face to face with him. Natsu, that was the name of the pink-haired man.
Without warning, pain flooded his senses as Natsu grabbed him and started dragging him to the surface. He screamed and tried to drag himself back down to the cold numbness. The pain was not something he needed, but Natsu’s grip was strong and did not falter pulling him up.
He could hear a word echoing through the water, it sounded familiar. He did not want to know, because knowledge was pain, and pain was suffering and the sea of cold was all he needed. Natsu swam up, slamming his fist into the reformed ice. This sea of cold could not remain without a ceiling for long, it existed to trap him, but was not of his own making. Spiderweb cracks appeared on the ice, until Natsu’s strong arm threw him through the hole and it iced back over with him on the surface.
Gray gasped breaking through the waves and up to surface. The cacophony of ice and fire magic bursting around him, piecing his ears. It was too much, too sudden. He was slammed back into his body when he was not ready, phantom pains rippling over his skin. He opened his eyes and found himself looking into fiery eyes. “Natsu?”
Then the darkness was there.