Chapter Text
Part 1
Natsu grinned as he watched the Council's men work at arresting the cult members he and the others had already taken out. The Council was as useless as ever, only swooping in long after the action to sweep up the mess, but having to do the cleanup work of getting all the bad guys to jail was always a pain in the neck. It was much nicer when someone else was around to do it for him. He didn't understand why Erza seemed to enjoy it more. She was off binding defeated dark mages and handing them off to the Knights instead of sitting back and relaxing after their win like the rest of them.
"I'm glad that's over!" Lucy said with feeling. "And now that we've got the team back together, we can work on rebuilding the guild."
"That sounds nice," Gray said. He looked like himself again, and Natsu was glad of it. "I'm…sorry about all the shit I had to say. I couldn't risk blowing my cover yet."
Lucy only smiled at him. "You already apologized. It's okay. We did almost ruin your mission. Anyway, you came through for us when it mattered. I'm glad you saved me before that goat could get anywhere near my feet or that creepy tea guy chopped me in half."
Gray snorted. "Man, that did look uncomfortable. I'm glad he never tried pulling that foot-licking thing on me. It seemed pretty awful."
Lucy opened her mouth, but Happy cut her off.
"On you?" he asked, puzzled.
"Huh?" Lucy frowned at him, brows knitting together in confusion as the gears turned in her head. Then her eyes widened and she turned on Gray. "What did you mean by that?"
Natsu had no idea what they were confused about. Gray's statement had seemed straightforward enough to him. Who would want their feet destroyed by a goat? He wasn't sure what Happy and Lucy were reading into it, nor did he care. He figured they had more important things to take care of now, such as gathering everyone together to reform the guild.
Gray seemed just as perplexed as Natsu. "Exactly what I said?" he said, his voice lilting upwards like a question. "I wouldn't want my feet eaten off by a goat."
"But what did you mean, on you?" Happy insisted. "Why would he have pulled anything on you? He thought you were on his side, didn't he?"
Natsu did not understand where Happy had even drawn such an off-the-wall conclusion from and was about to say so, but that was the moment Gray's face froze over. Gray's expression shuttered tight, eyes gleaming warily and muscles stiffening. There would be no reason for that if everything was a silly misunderstanding.
"Of course he did," he said coldly. "I was one of them."
"You weren't–" Lucy started.
"They thought I was."
Natsu stared at him, an uneasy feeling twisting in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't quite put a name to. He didn't know what was wrong with Gray, but something wasn't right. He hadn't seen it before, but the violent and instantaneous reaction wasn't normal.
"So… They didn't torture you?" Happy asked carefully.
Gray's nostrils flared. "Of course not. Why would they do that? They thought I was one of them."
But there was a tightness to his jaw that hadn't been there before, and his gaze flicked to the side for a microsecond before latching back on to the group steadily. He had never been any good at lying.
"What the hell?" Natsu demanded. He might have been slow to the starting line, but he was on the same page as the others now. "Why would they torture you? What else did they do besides the goat?"
"There was no goat," Gray said irritably. "I just said–"
"You're a terrible liar. If you won't tell us, I'll just ask Erza. I'm sure she'll tell us exactly what you've been up to."
A panicked, caged look flashed across Gray's face. "You can't tell Erza," he said sharply. "Whatever you think you know or assume must have happened, you leave her out of it."
Natsu frowned, thrown off balance by the unexpected reaction. "Why not?"
"Doesn't Erza know what happened?" Lucy asked. "I thought this was her idea."
Gray threw a glance over his shoulder, at where Erza was still happily sweeping up the remnants of Avatar. "Erza doesn't know anything except what I've told her. It's none of her business. And it's none of yours either. Nothing happened in Avatar. Leave it alone."
"That sounds like a lie too," Natsu volunteered.
"Why don't you want her to know what happened?" Happy asked.
"Listen, Erza doesn't need to know anything," Gray said, his voice low and urgent. "She already feels terrible about sending me in there. It was just supposed to be a quick thing, but everything blew up way bigger than we thought and… I was in there for months, and she feels awful about it. She's been worried the whole time, always asking if I was okay. And I was. That's all she needs to know. Don't you bring her your wild speculation. I already told you, nothing happened. Leave it alone."
"But–" Lucy tried.
But Gray had already turned on his heel and was striding away without a backwards glance. It looked an awful lot like running away.
"Um," said Happy. "What in the world was all that? Do you think he really…?"
Natsu shrugged. "Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. But something's got him on edge. He's definitely hiding something."
"I don't understand," Lucy said forlornly. "What do you think actually happened?"
Natsu had not the faintest idea except that it might have something to do with torture, and he did not think Gray was going to volunteer that information. But whatever it was, something had happened. Something was wrong with Gray, and Natsu was going to figure out what it was.
"Has he been acting strangely to you?" Erza asked, and Natsu nearly jumped out of his skin as she materialized beside him as if by magic.
"Geez," he said. "Where did you even come from? Who's being strange?"
"Gray."
Natsu followed her gaze across the room, to where Gray was quietly working away at some project by himself. He sat with his back to the corner, sorting through stacks of papers and frequently glancing up to let his gaze flick around the room before focusing again. When Cana slammed her tankard on the table next to him and said something, he looked up and smiled and said something back.
"Looks normal to me," Natsu said.
But since he had never been a great judge of these things, he shot a look at Happy. Happy shrugged, but a grim look passed over his face. Although no one had dared reopen the inquisition, they had not forgotten that something was not right with Gray.
"I'm telling you, there's something off with him," Erza insisted. "He's just been… Oh, I don't know. Too quiet. Withdrawn."
Natsu frowned. "He's been joking around with us, hasn't he? He's just as annoying as he was before, anyway."
He did, in fact, think there was something wrong with Gray, but he wasn't sure what clues Erza had been picking up on. Aside from that one lapse directly after stopping Avatar, Gray had seemed perfectly normal. If anything, maybe too normal. If he was really as traumatized as Lucy seemed to think, then surely he would show some sign of it.
"If he's hanging out with us, then yes, he seems like himself," Erza said slowly. "But when he's not… It always feels like he's off hiding in a corner somewhere. When anyone addresses him, he seems just fine. But when he's on his own, he seems so distant, like he's just sitting on the sidelines trying to stay out of our way. How often has he actually initiated anything with us lately? He'll humor us if we talk to him, but he doesn't approach us."
Natsu couldn't say that he had noticed the pattern himself, but now that Erza had said something… Maybe Gray did seem quieter than usual, even when he was with the team. When the spotlight wasn't on him, he was content to fade into the background. Natsu couldn't think of the last time he had volunteered something out of the blue.
He wasn't sure if they were just exaggerating nothing or if he had been a bad friend not to notice.
"Maybe he's distracted with looking for Jii-chan," Happy suggested, but he didn't look convinced.
Natsu perked up. "That's true! We've been busy searching for leads. Maybe he's just focused on that."
Erza shook her head, mouth slanted in a grim line. "No… I think it has to do with Avatar."
Natsu exchanged a look with Happy. He wished Lucy was here instead of sorting out something with her apartment. This was something he would rather foist on her to deal with.
"What do you think happened with Avatar?" Happy asked carefully.
Erza scowled. "I have no idea! He would never tell me anything unless he thought it was relevant to the purification ritual. But…" She sighed. "He always said he was fine, that nothing was happening, but I never quite believed him. It was a dark guild. I can't imagine it was pleasant, but I don't know enough to even guess all of what they were doing. And he was in there for so long…"
She suddenly looked very tired and very sad, and Natsu thought he understood why Gray didn't want to drag her into this. But that was also quite stupid, as leaving her to wonder would only make her worry more. When Happy shot him a look, Natsu shook his head slightly. There was no point bringing their speculation to Erza yet when they didn't even know exactly what they had uncovered. And if Gray were to find out about it, he would certainly shut down entirely and make sure they didn't discover anything else.
"We'll keep an eye on him," Natsu said. "I'm sure he'll be back to normal soon enough."
Happy waited until Erza had wandered off to ask, "Don't you think we should tell her?"
"Probably, but not yet. Not until we have a better idea of what actually happened."
"Are we ever going to get a better idea of what happened? This is Gray we're talking about. If he doesn't want to talk about it…"
"He's stubborn, that's for sure. But I'll find a way to pry it out of him sooner or later. He won't just talk about it, but maybe if I find a way to rattle him… Hm."
Happy eyed him in alarm. "Rattle him? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"I don't see why not. It's about the only way we'll get him to crack."
"Just… It's hard to tell exactly what's going on in his head if he won't tell us, but if he is upset about something… We don't know how much trauma there is, and trying to 'make him crack' might be kind of dangerous if we mess it up."
"He's not that fragile. He'll be fine."
"Maybe we should ask Lucy to talk to him…"
"Nah, Lucy is too nice. Gray will give her the runaround. He needs tough love."
Happy groaned. "This sounds like a terrible idea."
Natsu waved off his concern. He knew how to handle Gray, or at least he'd like to think he did. But in deference to Happy's worries, he waited a couple of days and observed Gray before confronting him. He looked for any sign that his friend was as traumatized as Happy and the girls seemed to think. He didn't see much.
Perhaps Gray was behaving just a little oddly, but he'd always been weird. Natsu had no doubt that Avatar had been unpleasant, but he wasn't entirely sold on the whole trauma narrative everyone was advocating. Even if Gray had had a rough time for a few months, that didn't mean he was still fussing about it now. He had done a job, just like any of their other jobs, and now it was over. It seemed cut and dried to Natsu. Of course he still wanted to know what had happened, but he didn't think he had to tiptoe around it or walk on eggshells. Whatever had happened, Gray was fine now.
Natsu only picked up a few slight alterations in Gray's behavior, subtle enough that he wouldn't have—and, indeed, hadn't—noticed until someone else pointed them out and he started actually looking. Gray was a little more reserved, perhaps. He seemed distant if no one was talking to him and didn't tend to initiate conversations. But he was perfectly normal and cheerful enough when anyone addressed him, so Natsu wasn't sure that was actually an issue. The only other thing that might be different was that Gray seemed very attentive to his surroundings. He was always watching what was going on around him, tracking every movement. It was impossible to sneak up on him now—Natsu had tried. And he seemed to prefer keeping his back to a wall and sometimes got twitchy if he joined the team at their table in the middle of the guild hall. But if he wanted to pay attention to what was going on around him instead of zoning out or moping around, Natsu didn't see what the big deal was.
In short, Natsu felt justified in getting his answers however he could, without worrying about cracking Gray like an egg. He just hadn't figured out how to go about it yet. He would, though, sooner or later.
A couple of days later, he ran into Gray outside the guild hall, each returning from small sleuthing missions Erza had assigned. They still needed to figure out where Jii-chan had disappeared to and why he had disbanded the guild in the first place. Everyone else had already been gathered up from the various places they'd wandered to during the guild's disbandment, but Fairy Tail wouldn't be complete again until they'd found their master.
"Hey, ice block!" Natsu called, breaking into a jog to catch up to his friend before he disappeared into the guild.
Gray turned and then stepped to the side so that his back was to the outer wall of the building instead of the door. "What's up, flame brain?"
Natsu pulled to a stop in front of him. "You doing alright? Happy and the girls think you're being weird."
Gray's eyebrows shot up his forehead. "Weird?"
"I told them that you're always weird, but whatever. They think there's something bothering you."
"No, of course not." Gray's gaze slid past Natsu and followed someone walking down the street behind him before flicking back to his face. "I'm fine."
Natsu hesitated, knowing that pushing Gray further was a surefire way to make him shut down, but he decided to go for it anyway. "Well, Erza's worried about you. She thinks something happened in Avatar."
He did not expect this to convince Gray to volunteer any useful information. If anything, he expected it would make him irritable. No, he wasn't interested in what Gray was going to say. He was interested in how Gray would react.
He was not disappointed. Gray's eyes narrowed dangerously, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides before relaxing.
"Erza worries too much," he said. He smiled and kept his voice light, but there was a hard edge underneath and his eyes glittered like broken glass. "I did warn you. Like I said, nothing particularly interesting happened in Avatar."
Natsu was puzzled. The defensiveness was expected, but it stayed chained behind Gray's shadowed eyes and plastic smile. He had expected Gray to be more vocal about his irritation, and that, more than anything, convinced Natsu that he had something worth hiding.
"Nothing?" he echoed.
Gray eyed him coldly, warily, sizing him up. "Nothing."
"Oh…?" Natsu wasn't sure what to make of that. Gray did not often see the need to hide his irritation. "So, no torture or–?"
"Nothing that's any of your business," Gray said more sharply, the smile disappearing. "Honestly, where do you guys even come up with this stuff?"
He turned on his heel and pushed his way into the guild before Natsu could decide how to respond to that. Natsu scowled and reached for him, intending to drag him right back out—he was not done with him yet—but Gray seemed to sense him coming with some sixth sense and whipped back around faster than thought. He grabbed Natsu's wrist in a viselike grip and pulled it to an abrupt stop before it got anywhere near him, and his gaze was icy as he met Natsu's eyes. Natsu stared back, too startled by the lightning-fast reaction to remember what he had been going to say.
"Nothing," Gray repeated, mouth set in a grim line this time. "And even if it did, it wouldn't be any of your business."
And then he released Natsu and strode off, leaving the dragon slayer rubbing his wrist and blinking after him in consternation. The whole thing had happened so fast that he might have imagined it.
The other small changes in Gray's behavior hadn't really attracted Natsu's attention, but this had. Something had definitely happened in Avatar.
Perhaps it truly was none of his business, but Gray was… Well, Gray was Natsu's friend, no matter how much they bickered. Natsu wanted him to be okay, and he figured it was a friend's business to get into their friends' business if something was wrong. Or something like that.
Apparently he was not the only one with this idea, as he caught Gray storming out of the guild only a few days later, Erza trailing forlornly behind him.
"I keep telling you, you're imagining things," Gray said impatiently. "Nothing happened." He caught sight of Natsu and made a guttural sound of exasperation. "Not you too," he muttered, sliding neatly past the dragon slayer and out the door. "I'm going to follow this lead. I'll be back later."
Natsu blinked after him and then looked at Erza. "Man, how long were you bugging him? He's been pretty stubborn about pretending we aren't driving him crazy."
She sighed. "I just wish…"
Lucy and Happy approached cautiously from where they'd been hovering on the sidelines.
"I don't think we're going to convince him to talk about it," Lucy said. "Not yet, anyway."
"I know, just…"
"I asked him about it as well, and he got pretty fed up with me," Natsu said. "He's just frustrated with us poking at it."
"Did you?" Erza asked. "Thanks for trying, at least."
"It was pretty weird, though. I expected him to jump down my throat right away and shut down, but he tried pretending he wasn't annoyed."
"He knows that if he gets defensive, we'll be more sure something is wrong," Lucy said. She gave Natsu and Happy a meaningful look, and it took Natsu a moment to realize she was referring to Gray's reaction right after they'd defeated Avatar, when they'd asked him about the torture. "He's trying to downplay it. I brought it up once, but he just laughed it off and acted like we were talking about the weather or something. I didn't actually push him to the point of dropping that, though."
"So… What should we do?" asked Happy.
Natsu narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at the closed door. "Nothing, for now," he decided. "He's not budging, and we're only making him more defensive."
"But–"
"Just wait. We need a new strategy. Let me think about it, and don't worry so much. We'll find a way to make him talk."
In truth, Natsu had no idea how to make Gray crack, but he figured he'd know an opportunity when he saw it. In the meantime, their investigations had turned up rumors that Jii-chan had gone to the Alvarez Empire, of all places, and everyone was scrambling to figure out why and where and if he was still there at all or ever had been.
Erza gathered the team together. "We have a lead," she said. "Sort of. There's a dark guild called Chimera that set up shop outside Magnolia while Fairy Tail was disbanded, and they might have some kind of ties to the Alvarez Empire. There are rumors that Zeref has been in Alvarez for a while, and supposedly these guys have links to some of his underlings, although I wasn't able to uncover any useful detail. We might be able to pry some information out of them and see if they've heard anything about the Master."
"Sounds like a long shot," Happy said doubtfully.
Erza scowled. "It is, but it's the best lead we've turned up in days. It's worth checking out."
"Yeah!" Natsu said. "Let's go beat them up! I haven't been able to fight anyone in ages. Our investigation has been way too nonviolent."
Lucy rolled her eyes at him but addressed Erza. "Is this, like, a proper evil dark guild or just a guild not officially sanctioned by the Council?"
"Who cares?" Natsu asked. "We can beat them up all the same!"
"We care because technically the Council doesn't approve of inter-guild conflicts without reason."
"We fight dark guilds all the time."
"Lucy is right," Erza said. "We normally fight dark guilds when they attack us first or we're trying to stop them from doing something terrible. That gives us immediate cause to intervene. Attacking them out of the blue leaves us on shaky ground, especially since the guild has just reformed and we're still missing our master. If we could prove they had done something to warrant our interference… But right now all I have is a handful of rumors that they might have been involved in a few thefts and murders in the area. I wasn't able to find any proof yet."
"Who cares what the Council thinks?" Natsu asked, not seeing the big deal. The girls frowned at him, and he rolled his eyes and turned to Gray. "Hey, ice block. Do you know anything about these guys with your super-secret dark guild intel?"
"Nope," Gray said. "We were never very interested in other dark guilds. Our plans were more…self-contained."
Natsu couldn't say what it was about that statement that itched at him. It wasn't the way Gray had said it—he was perfectly matter-of-fact about it—nor anything in his demeanor, which seemed genuinely relaxed and disinterested. Maybe it was just the way he lumped himself in with Avatar so casually, like he was one of them.
"So what do we do, then?" Happy asked. "I'm not sure they'll just tell us what we want to know if we ask nicely."
Lucy frowned. "Maybe if we could find something they want to trade for information? Although I don't like the idea of cooperating with a dark guild."
"Better to threaten them," Gray advised. "As long as you make it a good threat and they think you'll follow through. Might provoke them into a confrontation, though."
And then it hit Natsu in a beautiful, blinding flash of clarity. He saw his opportunity, and he seized it.
"Why don't we send someone undercover?" he asked, pleased with his brilliance.
"What?" Gray looked at him in horror, as if Natsu had slapped him across the face and then kicked a puppy. "No way. There's no reason for that."
"It's perfect! If we go in undercover, we can milk them for information without fighting them and making the Council mad. And if we can find proof of all the crap they've been doing, we can beat them up after."
"No," Gray said sharply. "Going undercover would only be a last resort. Only if there's a really pressing reason. We have other options we can try first."
"I really don't think–" Erza started.
Natsu elbowed her in the side to shut her up and continued on blithely. "But this is way better than anything else we've come up with. Anyway, it would only be for a couple of days. What could really happen in a day or two?"
Gray was already shaking his head. "You don't understand," he said. His hands were trembling in fists at his sides, and his voice wavered ever so slightly. "The first few days are the worst. That's when they want you to prove that they can trust you."
Erza opened her mouth again and Lucy looked like she was half a second away from intervening herself, and Natsu rushed on before the opportunity was lost.
"That's okay!" he said cheerfully. "If you don't want to go in, I'll do it. It can't be that bad."
All the blood drained from Gray's face until he had gone sheet-white. Natsu felt just the slightest twinge of doubt that maybe he had pushed too far after all.
"No," Gray said again, sounding strangled. "Absolutely not. You couldn't do it."
Natsu straightened up, uncertainty eclipsed by indignation. "Of course I could!" he said hotly. "You did it, and I can do anything you can. I bet I could even do it better."
Gray was shaking his head again, jerkily, like a puppet on a string. "You don't understand," he said. His skin was taking on a grayish cast, and Natsu hoped he wasn't about to pass out or something. "You couldn't let them do things to you without fighting back. You couldn't do the things they wanted you to without standing on your morals. You couldn't pretend to be someone you're not every second of the day."
Something knotted in Natsu's chest. He felt like they were just barely touching on some dark, hidden secrets, skating along the surface without quite breaking through.
"I–"
"I'll do it," Gray interrupted. His shoulders slumped and his eyes went glassy, and suddenly he looked unbearably tired. "If you're serious about the undercover thing, then I'll do it. But…" He somehow deflated even further, looking smaller than Natsu had ever seen him. "Please don't send me in again unless there's really no other choice."
It was the 'please' that hit Natsu like a punch to the gut. Gray did not beg. Everything had seemed just fine, but now Natsu had pushed and pushed and broken Gray down to the frightened, desperate wreck Erza had been sure he was hiding all along. It did not feel good. Necessary, maybe, but not good.
"Oh, Gray," Erza breathed. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she took his face in her hands. He did not meet her eyes, only stared past her blankly. "Of course we won't. I'll never send you back into a dark guild again, not ever. I shouldn't have done it last time. It was a mistake."
Gray's eyes snapped back to her face, suddenly frenzied and desperate again. "Mistake?" he repeated, his voice pitching upwards. His hands began to tremble again. "No, it can't be a mistake. It had to mean something. Otherwise why…?"
Erza's composure crumbled all at once, and she pulled him into a tight hug. "Of course it meant something," she said fiercely. "You did important work. We saved so many people, and we couldn't see another way to do it. But I wish there had been another way, and I would never ask you to go back."
Natsu watched as Gray and Erza rocked back and forth, clinging to each other like they were the only thing standing between each other and the world. He looked at Lucy, who was crying, and Happy, who was wringing his paws together and twitching like he wanted to offer comfort but didn't know how. He felt terrible.
"Of course not," he said, subdued. Gray watched him over Erza's shoulder, but his eyes stayed blank and dead and seemed to stare right through him. "We won't ask you to go back. We'll find another way."
Gray nodded once. Erza released him and stepped back, searching his face.
She cleared her throat. "Let's pay them a visit tomorrow. Maybe something will turn up. Otherwise, we'll try talking first and see what happens."
"Okay," Gray said quietly. His eyes dropped to the ground, and he turned away. "I'll just…"
"There's nothing else to do today. Everyone is free of investigative duty for now. Just meet at the guild first thing in the morning so we can make a game plan and get going."
Gray nodded again and shuffled off. No one said anything until he had disappeared from view.
"I told you it was a bad idea," Happy muttered.
Natsu sighed. "I wanted to rattle him, but I wasn't expecting that big of a reaction."
"Well, we'd better get started," Erza said, not quite looking at any of them.
"On what?"
"It will be infinitely less complicated if we can find evidence tying this dark guild to some crime big enough to warrant our intervention."
"I thought we were free for the day?" Lucy asked.
"Let him rest and collect himself. We should do everything we can to make this as smooth and painless as possible."
Natsu would rather not waste more time on boring investigations, but he didn't have the heart to fuss about it now.
He had succeeded in getting Gray to crack, but they hadn't actually learned much of anything specific. Just that Avatar had done bad things to Gray and made him do things he didn't want to do. It could be anything. Natsu wasn't sure if they should push that point to get the details, but he certainly wouldn't be doing it now. And he wasn't sure he would like whatever he found out.
For once, he wished he had kept his big mouth shut.
"I've got it!" Erza said triumphantly when she gathered the team together the next morning. "I've found some promising evidence linking Chimera to a large theft of magical artifacts last month that resulted in half a dozen casualties. I think it's big enough and recent enough and reliable enough to give us the justification we need."
Natsu wondered when she had found this, since they had been looking for leads until dinnertime last night and come up with nothing. He wondered if she had just made it up, but dismissed the notion. She seemed much too pleased with herself, and she was a bit uptight about these things anyway. She must have been working all night long.
"That's great!" Lucy said. "I mean, not that they killed people, but… It will make our job a lot easier, anyway. Do you have any other intel on the guild? Like what we're up against?"
She cast a sidelong look at Gray, who ate his breakfast quietly without quite meeting anyone's eyes. He had been a bit withdrawn since arriving this morning, but had managed to deflect their concerns and even crack a joke or two.
"It shouldn't be a challenge," Erza said. "My sources say there are about two dozen members, and none of them are known for being particularly powerful. All in all, it seems like a fairly weak guild."
"Opportunists," Gray said. He swirled the water in his glass and frowned down at it thoughtfully. "Small guilds like these move in when the big players are taken out and leave voids behind. There's no big dark guild here to push them out, and Fairy Tail wasn't around to keep them in check. They would have been stomped out before ever gaining a foothold if there was another powerful player around."
He hesitated and added, "Like how Avatar would never have joined the big leagues if Tartaros hadn't collapsed and left a power vacuum that they snuck into. Their internal structure was a big hassle since they kept all their branches so isolated, but there weren't any extremely powerful individuals like there have been in the other dark guilds we've faced. When the Balam Alliance collapsed, it left room for a lot of smaller players to move in. And without Fairy Tail to keep everyone in line here, I'd expect a lot of petty crime to have popped up over the last year. It's not really on the level of what we're used to dealing with."
Natsu was surprised Gray had volunteered anything at all, much less his thoughts about Avatar. But he seemed steadier than yesterday, if still preoccupied. That had to be good. At least he didn't sound like he was about to flip out again.
Erza and Lucy exchanged a look, debating how to respond. Natsu did not see it going well if they tried to draw Gray into a larger conversation about Avatar or what had happened yesterday. It felt more like Gray was throwing them a bone, reassuring them that he was doing okay after his meltdown. It did not mean he wanted to talk about it.
"Huh," Natsu said. "You're usually kind of stupid, but that actually sounds pretty reasonable."
Happy and the girls glared at him. Gray blinked at him once, twice, and then snorted.
"That's rich coming from you, ash for brains," he said, one corner of his mouth curling upwards.
Natsu scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Maybe if you weren't so stupid, you'd be able to tell."
"Why, you–!"
"Boys!" Erza interrupted, but her eyes shone with relief. "Let's just get going. The sooner we wrap things up, the sooner we can find the Master. Hopefully."
"Yay!" Natsu cheered. "Let's go beat up some bad guys!"
They shuffled out of the guild and into the streets. Chimera was situated in a town outside of Magnolia, and they took a carriage across the countryside. This was only a step above a train as far as Natsu was concerned, but he was outvoted when he suggested they walk instead.
Still, the day was beautiful and sunny, the carriage ride was short, Gray seemed to be in better spirits, and they were going to beat up some bad guys. All in all, it seemed like a great start to their adventure, and Natsu was cheerfully optimistic once he stumbled out of the carriage and found his footing on solid ground again.
Chimera had set up its base in a large house at the very edge of town. Dark shades were drawn over the windows, preventing them from seeing inside, but Erza was insistent this was the right place. She had already relayed what she had gleaned of the members and their magic and what their master looked like. Natsu had missed most of it while lost in a daze of motion sickness, but he didn't ask for a recap. He didn't care and would rather get on with fighting people.
"Right," Erza said in a low voice. "Let's catch them by surprise and restrain them. I'm thinking their leader is our best bet and might have more information than the rest of them, so we'll see if we can get anything out of him before turning him over to the authorities. Let's make this quick and painless."
And it was. Chimera never knew what hit them. Half of the dark mages were down for the count before they even realized they were under attack. Natsu wished it was a bit more of a challenge, but at least he got to spar again, even if it was with weaklings.
"That's him!" Erza cried, making a beeline for a tall, bulky man who took one look at their guild marks and fled from the room. "Oh no, you don't!"
He didn't make it far before she dragged him back with a sword to his throat. Gray circled around the room icing dazed mages solid or slapping icy restraints on them, while Natsu, Lucy, and Happy did a quick sweep of the house and brought all the scattered dark mages to the same front room.
"Man, that was so lame," Natsu complained, lugging in the last of the brutes he'd found on the other side of the house. "These guys were no fun at all."
Erza ignored him, too busy explaining to the leader why they had attacked his guild and demanding information. She didn't seem to be getting anywhere.
A flash of movement caught Natsu's eye on the other side of the room, a shadow slinking in through the front door left hanging open. It darted along the wall towards Gray, who was leaning over a groaning dark mage to freeze his hands together.
Natsu opened his mouth to call a warning, but some slight sound or whisper of movement must have caught Gray's attention. Gray whipped around, stumbling to his feet and dodging out of the way.
"You!" his assailant hissed. Natsu caught a glimpse of brown hair and pale skin before the man threw himself at Gray again. "You traitor! And you dare come here too?"
"Gray!" Lucy cried.
Gray cursed and met the attack with a shield of ice. "I don't even know who you are."
"Oh, but I know you," the dark mage snarled. "I was in Avatar, one of the other branches. And you're the rat who betrayed us. Now you're also–?"
He broke off with a wheeze as Gray slammed him to the ground. He hissed and spit and struggled, but Gray whacked him over the head for good measure and iced half his body to the floor.
"That's right," Gray said coldly. "But I'm not here for you, so get out of my way."
"You think you're so much better than us," the dark mage sneered. "Do your friends know what you did to become one of us? The people you hurt? Killed, even? You–"
"You didn't do your research." Gray's lips curled into a contemptuous sneer, but his eyes burned black. "You don't know anything."
He dismissed the man and walked away, starting across the room with quick, clipped strides to where the others were gathered.
"You'll never get away with it!" the dark mage called after him. "We will hunt you down. Every dark guild in Fiore will be out for your head!"
Natsu went still. He had never considered such a thing. Beside him, Lucy sucked in a breath.
Gray only scoffed. "I already know that. You don't scare me. Now be quiet."
"What does that mean?" Erza demanded. "Will it really–?"
Gray waved her off, mouth slanted in a grim line. "He's exaggerating. Dark guilds don't look out for other dark guilds. Even when they make alliances, they have no real loyalty to each other. No one cares that Avatar was destroyed. I'm marked as a traitor and I'll be a target if dark guilds run across me, but no one is going to come hunting me down just for that." His gaze flicked around the room, dismissing each frozen dark mage after a moment. "But I'm keeping an eye out anyway."
Natsu wondered suddenly if Gray's new vigilance led back to this. If he was more worried about some leftover remnant of Avatar or another dark guild coming after him than he let on. Or perhaps he was just skittish from the time he had already spent in Avatar, always on guard among people he didn't trust. Natsu didn't know, but he no longer thought it was nothing.
"But–" Erza said.
"The Council is probably keeping tabs on me now too," Gray added, almost as an afterthought. "No one trusts a double agent."
Erza closed her eyes.
"You didn't really…?" Lucy trailed off, darting looks between Gray and the Avatar mage.
"I never killed anyone," Gray said coolly, his eyes hardening further. "He's just taking guesses."
"Of course not!" she said, twisting her hands together. "I know you'd never…"
A ruckus started up outside, the sound of loud voices and pounding footsteps drifting down the street. Everyone looked to the door.
"It must be the city watch," Erza said. "They've picked up on the disturbance here. Probably thanks to how loud someone can be…"
She cast an aggrieved look at Natsu, and he smiled back cheekily even though his insides were twisted into knots.
"Should we beat them up too?" he asked.
"Of course not," she said with a sour look. "They'll just be here to take these guys off our hands. It will save us the hassle of getting all these dark mages to jail, at least, but it would be easier if we could get the information we need before they're taken into custody…"
"Why don't you guys start bringing some of these dark mages out?" Gray asked. "I'll question the leader while you buy us some time."
Natsu's eyebrows jumped up his forehead. "You will?"
Gray did not usually have the patience to question people. He, like Natsu, was better at fighting things out with fists and magic. Erza was usually their first choice for things of this nature. She was scary enough and just patient enough to get what she wanted, even if sometimes she got frustrated and knocked her target unconscious.
"Yes," Gray said. He curled his fingers around the leader's upper arm, fingers digging in tightly. "I know how to get information out of people."
Erza hesitated, but then released the man into Gray's care. "Well, if you're sure."
Gray nodded once and then marched out of the room, dragging the wriggling dark mage behind him. Everyone stared after him, uncertain and worried.
"He's a wolf in sheep's clothing, that one," the former Avatar mage said. "You'd best watch your backs. Do you want to know what it takes to belong to a dark guild? All the things your friend did?"
They looked back at him, wavering. For a moment, Natsu wondered if he could tell them about the things Gray might never open up about, but he decided it would be a bad idea even before Erza shook her head.
"No," she said. "You don't know anything about him, and we have no use for your speculation. Natsu, Lucy, Happy, start clearing the dark mages out of here and bringing them outside. I'll talk to the watch."
Natsu shot one last nasty look at the Avatar mage and got to work on the far side of the room with Lucy and Happy. They started with the mages nearest the door, dragging them outside to where a growing crowd of town guards took them into custody, and worked their way through the room. Erza explained the situation to the guards and then joined the rest of the team in hauling out the criminals.
They had almost finished when the screaming started from somewhere inside the house. Natsu nearly jumped out of his skin at the sharp, unexpected wail.
"Gray?" Lucy asked, alarmed. "Is he–?"
Natsu shook his head. "That's not Gray."
"What's that?" asked one of the guards.
"Wait here," Erza commanded. "If there's another dark mage loose in there, we'll take care of it."
But Natsu could tell from her grim expression and the glint of worry in her eyes that she did not think they would be walking into another fight. It wasn't Gray screaming, but it had something to do with him. He was in the house still, and he'd have whatever it was under control. Natsu just didn't know what it was. The master of the guild? Another dark mage materializing from the shadows?
Another scream tore through the air. Erza ran back into the house, the others hot on her heels. They raced through the front room and down a hall, following the sound of the screaming as it tapered off into loud, incoherent babbling. At the end of the hall was a door, and that door was encased in a thick layer of ice.
"Gray!" Lucy called, pounding her fists against the icy barrier. "Gray, what's going on in there?"
Gray did not answer. Inside, someone whimpered and choked out a string of panicked words Natsu couldn't quite make out even with his advanced hearing.
"Gray!" Erza said. "Open this door right now!"
Gray did not open the door. Inside, he said something in a low voice and the dark mage babbled even faster in response.
"Move," Natsu said grimly, summoning a tongue of flame in his palm. He did not know what was going on in there and did not want to know what Gray was doing, but he would break down this door if he had to.
Happy and the girls scrambled out of the way. The door shuddered under the impact of Natsu's fist, but although the ice glistened wetly and sported a few hairline cracks, the fire did little damage. Natsu scowled and hit it again. The cracks spiraled outward like a giant spider web. He lifted his fist again, but before he could slam it into the door, the ice exploded into a fine crystal mist, shimmering in the air and then vanishing.
Natsu reared back in surprise, his fire dying. The door swung open and Gray marched out, prodding Chimera's leader ahead of him. His expression was set in stone, eyes cold and hard. The dark mage was still blubbering, but he had no visible injuries and Natsu didn't smell any blood.
"What happened?" Erza demanded, her gaze jumping between Gray and the dark mage and back again.
"I got the information we needed," Gray said, shoving the dark mage back down the hall.
The rest of the team exchanged looks, still thrown off guard by the whole situation. Natsu shot a glance into the room behind them, but there was no sign of what Gray had been doing in there.
"Why was he screaming?" Lucy asked as they trailed after him. "What–?"
Gray made a curt silencing gesture with one hand and marched the dark mage back into the front room. "I got the information we needed," he repeated. He stopped short and pulled the man back around to face him. "Because you wouldn't have lied, would you?" he asked, eyes flashing. The dark mage cowered back and twisted futilely in his iron grip. "I would hate to find out you lied and have to hunt you down to start chopping off fingers."
Lucy sucked in a breath, and Natsu thought his eyes might bug out of his head.
"No, no!" the dark mage squeaked. His breaths came hard and quick, eyes bright and shiny with panic. Tears streaked his face. "I wouldn't–! Well, he is–he is still there. I wasn't–wasn't lying, of course. Might've just sort of implied… Please, I like my fingers! He's there. I've told you everything."
Gray raked a cool, considering gaze across his face and then smiled a sharp-toothed smile that was anything but pleasant. "Today's your lucky day," he said. "I believe you. But of course, if I find out you lied to me, I'll know where to find you."
"I haven't–! Please, I've told you the truth. I don't–"
"Honestly." Gray's lip curled into a sneer, and his eyes glittered with contempt as he twisted the man around again. "What kind of pathetic dark guild is this? No one from Avatar would be caught dead sniveling like that."
Natsu's mouth had fallen open somewhere in the middle of the exchange and stayed there. Happy made a choking sound. They had seen Gray's disguise when they had threatened to blow his cover in Avatar, but even though he'd been cold and said cruel things to them, he hadn't actually done anything particularly cruel.
Across the room, the former Avatar mage began to laugh. He was one of the last few dark mages waiting to be ferried out to jail, and now Natsu wished they had taken him first.
"Oh, but you're such a good person!" he chortled. "Looks like you learned something from us after all."
Gray cut a look his way and flicked a hand disdainfully. The dark mage made a strangled sound of surprise and then a series of garbled, incoherent sounds as his tongue froze to the roof of his mouth.
"I never said I was a good person," Gray said flatly. "You talk too much."
"Gray–" Erza started.
He made another 'wait' gesture without looking back at them. Marching the leader across the room, he grabbed the Avatar mage's arm in his free hand and wrestled him up off the floor. He dragged them both out the front door, leaving the team gaping after him.
"What the hell was that?" Natsu asked.
The others looked just as stunned.
"You don't think…?" Lucy trailed off and swallowed hard. "What did he do?"
Natsu had no idea. The world had slid sideways, out of alignment. For the first time, it felt like he had never known Gray at all, or at least didn't anymore. Gray had seemed more or less normal since Avatar, but this was… This was different. This was not the Gray that Natsu knew.
"I don't…" Erza broke off and drew in a shuddering breath. "Wait. Let me get the last few out of here and then… We'll talk to him."
Natsu didn't have the presence of mind to do or say much of anything as Erza gathered up the last couple of dark mages and shepherded them outside.
She reappeared a few minutes later, Gray trailing behind her with his hands shoved into his pockets and his eyes guarded.
"I've sent the watch away," she said. "They're carting everyone off to jail. We…" She turned to Gray, the anguished look returning to her face. "Gray, what happened?"
Gray looked her up and down and then regarded the rest of them. "You think I tortured him," he said after a moment.
Natsu threw his hands into the air, a thread of anger winding beneath his shock. "He was screaming! Why was he screaming like that? How exactly do you 'get information' out of someone?"
Gray's expression shuttered completely. "I barely touched him. I didn't have to. You didn't see any injuries, did you? If I hurt him, it wasn't any more than any of you hurt anyone else here today."
"Then what–?"
"He only had to believe it. The trick is that they have to believe you'd torture them. If you do a good job threatening them, if you're believable enough, then you never have to follow through. How did you think I survived Avatar? By asking them to leave me alone nicely? If I could pretend to be a believable enough dark mage to get what I needed without following through on the threats, then I didn't have to actually become a dark mage and resort to torture."
"You…wouldn't have actually cut off his fingers, right?" Happy ventured into the resulting silence.
Gray hesitated only a moment. "No, of course not. But he thought I would."
"So–?" Natsu started.
"Isn't this what you wanted?" Gray asked, voice brittle. "For me to go undercover? I spent months pretending to be someone I wasn't, someone who was cruel and terrible and dark. I can pretend again for a few minutes if I need to."
All the air drained from Natsu in a whoosh. Instead of feeling reassured, he just felt slimy and guilty and a little afraid. He had not meant to push Gray into something he had been running away from. And although it had looked really bad and the situation had been enough to justify concern, perhaps they shouldn't have jumped to conclusions and doubted Gray so hastily. Still, that glimpse of Gray's alternate persona left Natsu feeling unsettled.
"I'm sorry," Erza said. "We shouldn't have…"
Gray shrugged and turned away. "No one really trusts a double agent," he said bitterly.
Natsu winced. That comment stung and made guilt twist in his belly again.
"We didn't mean–" Lucy took a deep breath, her eyes swimming with tears. "Of course we trust you. It just…took us by surprise. We know you might have had to do things to survive in Avatar. We just…aren't sure what they are. We shouldn't have assumed."
Gray snorted. "Never trust a survivor until you find out what they did to survive."
"Oh, Gray," Erza sighed. She looked bereft, like the wind had swept by and picked her bones clean.
"We should go," he said stiffly, and strode from the room before anyone could protest. They hurried after him. "Jii-chan is in the Alvarez Empire, mixed up somehow with Zeref's underlings. I have a list of likely places to look and people there who might know more. This guy didn't know much of anything concrete beyond that, only that he heard through the grapevine that Fairy Tail's master was there."
The guards and dark mages were gone, the streets empty besides a couple of pedestrians shooting them sidelong looks as they hurried past. Gray climbed into the carriage and sat by the window, and the team filed in behind him. No one dared sit too close. Natsu couldn't tell if Gray was just angry or hurt or both, but he was definitely stewing. Now was not the time to poke at him.
"Gray–" Erza tried.
"Don't," he said sharply. "Just…don't."
Natsu felt terrible, and Happy and the girls wore stricken expressions. Gray swung his legs up onto the seat and pulled them up to his chest, pressed his back to the window, and let his head fall sideways, cheek pressed to the glass as he stared ahead with blank, dead eyes.
It was a silent and awkward ride home.