Aelius rolled his shoulders and stretched as best he could. As much as he was glad, and he was very glad, his magic was gone; he wasn't used to being this slow or this weak. Still, he wasn't exactly worried. Giant beast aside, if he didn't have magic, then neither would they.
He took a bit of pride in the smirk that tugged at his face as he stepped out of the guildhall. Among the chaos and panic, a few of the others who had been watching the Fairy Hunter and her mount noticed him, and more than a few flinched at the sight. The odd calmness, the faint grin, didn't belong here.
Why was he smirking? Because he couldn't help wondering what kind of twisted reality this was, where Erza wasn't part of Fairy Tail but instead its executioner. The irony of it was almost poetic.
He cracked his neck, rolling his shoulders once more, eyes lifting to the approaching shadow that blotted out the sun. The wind picked up, carrying the heavy scent of smoke and steel.
Now he wondered if this Erza was anything like his own, honorable, bound by pride, and at least somewhat predictable. Because if she wasn't, if this one lacked that same code, then what he was walking into wouldn't be a duel at all. It'd be a crushing. Literally, considering the beast had to be at least a few tons.
He exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing as the shadow loomed larger overhead. He wasn't much for gambling; he preferred outcomes he could control, certainties he could shape with his own hands. But this once, he decided to let it slide.
If luck wanted to deal him a losing hand, he'd make sure the table burned before it did.
But it seemed his gamble had paid off. The beast landed with a force that made the ground shudder, dust rippling out from its claws. Before the echo of impact had even faded, a figure vaulted from its head and hit the ground running. And it was definitely Erza, just… not his Erza.
She wore what could barely be called armor, if it could be called that at all. More like strips of metal and cloth arranged to showcase every inch of skin that wasn't actively being used for murder. It would have been distracting if he were a lesser man, and then the glint of her spear erased that thought completely.
The weapon lashed out with terrifying speed. Aelius met it head-on, his sword coming up just in time. Steel scraped against steel as he turned her strike aside, guiding the shaft of the spear across the flat of his blade, twisting with it to pull her closer. The moment she was in range, he drove his fist toward her sternum,
only for her to twist away, boots skidding across the cracked stone.
She was fast. Faster than he remembered Erza being with her swords. This one didn't waste time with words, or pride, or even the slightest hint of hesitation. No speeches, no declarations, just intent, pure and simple.
Aelius grinned despite himself, the old familiar rush crawling up his spine.
"Alright then," he muttered, resetting his stance, "no introductions."
Erza slammed her spear downward, the strike so heavy it split the air with a sharp crack. Aelius moved to meet it, raising his blade to catch the blow, but at the last second, she shifted, pulling the weapon back with a snap and driving it forward again in a lightning-fast thrust.
He reacted on instinct, rolling to the side as the spearhead tore through where his chest had been a moment earlier. The wind of it grazed him, close enough to sting. He stepped inside her guard before she could reset, his sword flashing upward in a shallow cut meant more to disrupt than wound.
Metal rang, her weapon twisting to parry. For a split second, their eyes met, hers sharp and cold, his steady but alive with something between focus and excitement.
She pressed in again, relentless. Each motion was clean, efficient, ruthless. No wasted breath, no words, just combat distilled to its purest form.
Aelius ducked another sweep, feeling the rush of air as the spear carved a line through the dirt behind him. His grin returned, feral and thin. "Yeah," he said through a breath, circling her, "definitely not my Erza."
"You aren't like the other criminals in that pathetic guild, are you?" Erza sneered, boots grinding into the dirt as she slid back, spear retracting in a clean, practiced motion. She moved with the confidence of someone who'd ended dozens like him and expected to end one more before lunch.
"Depends on who you ask," Aelius said, stepping forward without hesitation, boots matching her retreat stride for stride. "But the one behind me specifically? Not particularly."
His tone was steady, almost casual, but the way he advanced turned her attempt at distance into nothing. Every inch she tried to reclaim, he stole right back. He wasn't rushing her, wasn't charging recklessly. He was simply… present. Unshakable. Forcing her into the range she clearly didn't want him in.
Her grip tightened around the spear. The sharp irritation in her eyes flickered into something else, something wary.
"Bold," she spat, spearhead lowering again. "Stupid, but bold."
Aelius tilted his head as if considering the idea, expression unreadable behind the settling calm spreading through him. The kind he only felt once a fight started to make sense.
"Trust me," he said, feet planting, stance narrowing, "if I were stupid, you'd be winning already."
Her jaw clenched. The spear snapped forward again.
Erza lunged, the spear cutting a straight line for his throat. Aelius slipped under it, feeling the whistle of the strike trace the top of his shoulder. He drove his elbow toward her ribs, but she twisted with inhuman precision, the shaft of her weapon slamming into his forearm and knocking the blow wide.
They broke apart for half a heartbeat.
Then they collided again.
Steel rang. Dirt kicked up under their feet. Neither gained ground.
Erza swept the spear in a brutal arc, using the full reach to force him back. Aelius stepped inside it instead, turning his body sideways as the blade skimmed past his ribs by what felt like a hair. He swung upward, aiming to open her shoulder, but she pivoted, armor plates glinting as she smacked his sword aside with the butt of her weapon.
He felt the shock up his arm. She barely budged.
He shifted weight; she mirrored. They moved like two predators testing each other, no hesitation, no fear, only calculation.
Erza stabbed low, a quick thrust for his knee. Aelius jumped back, the spear tip slicing a thin line along his thigh. Not deep enough to matter. Not deep enough to count. He answered with a downward cut meant to cleave through her collarbone. She caught the blade on the reinforced lip of her gauntlet, sparks scattering between them.
"Annoying," she hissed.
"Fun," he shot back.
She spun, using the momentum to whip the spear around for a decapitating strike. Aelius ducked, then kicked out to sweep her leg. Her foot left the ground for a fraction of a second, but she recovered with an acrobat's ease, flipping back and landing in a crouch, spear leveled like a promise.
They stared at each other across five paces of open dirt. Both breathing a little harder. Neither bleeding enough to matter.
Erza twirled the spear once, testing its balance. "You're skilled," she admitted, though it sounded like an insult leaving her mouth.
Aelius rolled his wrist, loosening the tension that had built in his arm. "You're fast." He paused. "Almost fast enough."
That got a flash of teeth. She charged. He met her.
The clash that followed was louder, sharper. Aelius knocked aside the spear's head, and she immediately shifted grip, sliding her hand down the shaft and trying to hook his ankle with the butt. He leapt over it and came down with a downward slash. She blocked with the haft, sparks flying. She shoved forward. He shoved back. For a moment, they were locked together, strength against strength, neither able to overpower the other.
Then both broke away at the same second. Neither was gaining ground. Neither losing it. It was a perfect stalemate.
Erza spun the spear once more, eyes narrowing. "I don't know who you are," she growled, "but you're not dying easily."
Aelius lifted his sword into guard again. His smirk came back, smaller now, sharper.
"Funny," he said. "I was thinking the same thing about you."
"I don't have time for your games," Erza snarled, and Aelius caught it again in her voice, that sharp edge of hate that never existed in the Erza he knew. His Erza, in the tiny handful of interactions he'd had with her, never snapped like that. This one did. This one liked to. He almost had the thought fully formed before something else caught his eye, something far more urgent. Her spear shifted. Not just in grip or angle, but in shape. Metal bending, reconfiguring, the blade folding and reforming into something new. Carla had said this world was out of magic. No… she said it was fading. Weakening. Not gone. And this woman clearly had enough left to cheat.
"Fuck," he muttered, right as the triangular spearhead slammed into his side. It punched through muscle, through lung, through everything soft and vital, the force of the blow lifting him off his feet for half a second before gravity reclaimed him. He stumbled backward, unable to stop himself, only to be caught halfway by the shaft of the spear before it let him slide off and collapse toward the dirt. He barely noticed he hadn't hit the ground, because suddenly the world was too fast. Not him. Her. The weapon. That shift in form had boosted her speed beyond anything he could counter without magic. Now he understood why she terrified them. Someone at that velocity against a target with no enchantments, no buffs, no resistances? You couldn't block it. You barely saw it.
His head lolled back as he choked on the pain, vision swimming. Through the blur, he saw Natsu frozen with his fists half-raised, Wendy with her hands clasped over her mouth, the cats stiff and wide-eyed, and a handful of Edolas guild members staring in horror at something they already expected to happen but never wanted to witness again. And then, all at once, they vanished. Entire guild hall, the whole group, blinked out of existence as if plucked from reality. He figured it had to be the device Levy had been working on. The one he was supposed to be buying time for. So at least that wasn't a complete waste.
"Right… probably shouldn't have been so sure of myself," Aelius laughed, though it came out as a wet, broken sound, blood spilling from his mouth and down his chin. The taste of iron hit the back of his throat, cold and metallic. He didn't have long to dwell on it before the spear twisted in her grip and folded back into its original form, and then Erza ripped it from his body with a brutal, efficient tug that made the world go white around the edges.
His whole side was opened up, warm blood soaking through his fingers, but his voice still carried that half-amused disbelief he always defaulted to when logic refused to cooperate.
"Ow," he said, more commentary than complaint, "why is it that I only lose to bullshit magic or my own hubris? That's probably normal? Does it make sense that those are the only things that ever drop me?"
He blinked up at the sky, trying to ignore how the edges of his vision fluttered. The ground felt weirdly comfortable. Soft even. Probably shock. Probably dying. Whatever.
What surprised him was the part sitting quietly under all of that. The strange lightness in his chest. His pulse thudding with something that wasn't dread.
He actually felt good.
It hit him as he tilted his head, blood sliding warm down his jaw. This had been his first real fight without leaning on magic, without the curse gnawing at his nerves, without that crawling pressure dragging behind every movement. Just him. His body. His skill. No cheating, no sorcery, no darkness on a leash.
And he'd had fun.
Hell, he was happy, even now with his insides trying to become outsides. Happy to feel the world cleanly for once. Happy to know he wasn't just a creature shackled to some eldritch patron. Happy he could stand on his own even when he fell.
He let out a breathless snort.
"Figures," he muttered. "The first time I actually enjoy myself is while I'm bleeding out."
Erza's shadow swallowed the sunlight like a curtain dropping over a stage. Her silhouette was all hard angles and fresh blood, the spear still humming from the hit that dropped him. She stared down with that same tight sneer she'd been wearing the whole fight, her grip shifting just enough to tell Aelius that a killing thrust was already halfway through her mind.
He didn't bother trying to sit up. He'd lose that contest with gravity right now.
Then another voice drifted in from the side. Deeper. Polished. Forced smooth like someone sanding their own personality down in hopes it would slide better across the world. There was a sweet tone under it, but not friendly. More like the sound of someone who practiced flirting in a mirror.
"Why kill him, Erza?"
Aelius turned his head enough to see the newcomer and immediately wished he had not. The man looked like vanity had been weaponized. His hair was sculpted with so much gel it might function as a helmet all on its own. His armor was bright pink in a way that hurt the eyes, polished like he wanted his enemies to stop fighting just to check their reflection.
This was the kind of person who woke up early so he could spend more time being in love with himself.
The man paced forward, boots too clean for a battlefield. The smile he gave Aelius belonged on the cover of a cheap romance novel, probably titled something awful like Passion of the Blessed Blade.
"If he is part of the Fairy's Guild," the man continued, lowering himself with a dramatic little lean, "perhaps we can get some information out of him."
Erza didn't lower her spear.
Aelius watched both of them, blinking sweat out of his eyes. The cut on his side pulsed hard enough to make his fingers numb, but the absurdity of the situation kept him grounded.
Erza looked ready to run him through for daring to keep breathing. The other one looked ready to write poetry about it.
Classic.
Aelius exhaled slowly, forcing his voice to come out steady.
"You two know I am still conscious, right?" he muttered. "If you are going to argue over my corpse, at least let me die first."
The pink-armored man lit up like someone had complimented his hair. He crouched closer, armor clinking like jewelry.
"Oh? Most would be screaming in pain, or begging for mercy." His grin was bright enough to be a war crime. "But you're still cracking jokes. Refreshing."
Aelius stared at him flatly. Refreshing was not the word he'd use.
Ezra snorted, not taking her eyes off her target. "I didn't know you were here, sugarboy."
The man's smile strained at the edges.
"Sugarboy?" Aelius repeated. "That's this guy's name? Really? Spirits above, just kill me now."
He closed his eyes, not in acceptance of death but to spare himself the horror of making eye contact with the aggressively moisturized man leaning over his dying body. It was a mercy he could still grant himself.
"Unbelievable," Aelius muttered under his breath. "Out of all the ways to go, it had to be skewered on a spear while being judged by a man who looks like he fell face-first into a cosmetics aisle."
Ezra clicked her tongue. "He's being dramatic. Just finish him and let's move on."
The man in pink scoffed like she'd suggested stepping on his cape. "Ezra, please. Not everything needs to be solved by skewering. There's a little thing called tact."
"You're wearing pink armor and enough perfume to stun a wyvern," Aelius muttered without looking. "You don't get to lecture anyone about tact."
The man leaned closer, and Aelius could practically feel the cloud of floral scent descending over him like a funeral shroud.
"Bold words for someone leaking like a wineskin," the man said, voice dipping into that annoyingly smooth tone again. "Tell me, do all members of the Fairy's Guild talk this much when dying?"
Aelius cracked one eye open, glaring weakly. "I'm not dying. I'm resting. There's a difference."
Ezra jabbed the haft of her spear into the ground next to his head, close enough that he felt the vibration in his teeth. "We could speed the process along."
"See? That. That right there." Aelius pointed weakly at her. "That's why people don't invite you to parties."
Ezra's lip curled.
The man in pink hummed, tapping his chin with one gauntleted finger. "Perhaps we shouldn't kill him yet. If he truly is connected to that guild, he could be useful. And besides…" He gave Aelius a smile that should have been outlawed. "It would be a shame to waste someone with such… spirit."
"Please don't flirt with the dying man," Aelius said flatly. "I'd rather be stabbed again."
Ezra raised her spear like she was happy to grant that request.
Aelius sighed, long and pained. "Mother above, just knock me out if you're going to drag me somewhere. At least spare me the sight of Mister Peacocking over there."He didn't even get a chance to brace before the man scooped him up like he weighed nothing at all. One second, he was on the ground, bleeding into the dirt, and the next, he was tossed over the saddle of Ezra's winged beast like a sack of half-dead potatoes.
The world tilted, his ribs screamed, and he let out a hiss through his teeth.
"You wound me," the man in pink repeated dramatically, hand still pressed to his chest.
"No,she wounds me," Aelius grunted, because Ezra's mount had a spine like a row of spikes and he was currently draped across it.
Ezra didn't look back, but he could practically feel her smirk.
The man gave a small satisfied hum and climbed up behind him. "Hold still. You're making this more difficult for both of us."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Aelius muttered into the creature's feathers. "Next time I'll get stabbed in a more convenient position."
He felt a hand plant itself on his back, steadying him, firm but annoyingly gentle in that smug way people get when they think they're being helpful.
Ezra tugged the reins, the beast let out a sharp cry, and Aelius didn't have the strength left to complain as they lifted off the ground.
He settled for a grim, tired exhale.
If he survived this, he swore on every miserable star above that he was punching at least one of them in the throat. Maybe two, if his organs ever stopped grinding together in an attempt to escape. The ride toward the capital didn't help much either. Every beat of the godawful flying creature made the wound in his side throb like someone jabbing a branding iron into him. Still, he kept upright, jaw clenched, one hand pressed over the hole Knightwalker had so generously punched through him. His stubbornness was doing most of the work, and he refused to give the others the satisfaction of seeing him slump over.
The city came into view like a painted backdrop, too clean at a distance, too structured, topped by a castle that scraped the sky with impossible confidence. Sugarboy pointed toward the massive lacrima suspended above it, the thing glowing like a giant frozen sun. Even thinking of that man's name made Aelius shiver; no one should introduce themselves like that with a straight face. But his explanation was worse. The lacrima wasn't a decoration. It was Magnolia. His Magnolia. His Fairy Tail. Everyone who should have been loud and infuriating and alive was trapped inside that floating crystal, being fed into Edolas as magic fuel. Every familiar face, every obnoxious voice, every bit of home carved up and frozen above a foreign king's roof like a trophy.
By the time they landed outside the massive gates, he felt something cold settle inside him. The kind that wasn't from blood loss. The kind he remembered from older, darker days. The castle towers rose above them in jagged layers, armored in stone and gilded metal, shaped like someone had wanted to look powerful and succeeded through sheer excess. Even half-delirious, it didn't take him long to figure out this had to be the king's fortress. Every inch of the place screamed authority and ego. The kind of place that would absolutely imprison an entire town and call it "necessary."
Aelius pressed a hand tighter to his side, gritting his teeth as a sting of pain rolled through him. He didn't bother slowing his steps. He didn't look up again at the lacrima. He just walked forward, breathing sharp and shallow, knowing damn well he was bleeding too much and caring exactly none. All that mattered was inside that castle. All that mattered was getting them out of that giant glowing grave.
And if the king had even one smug word to say about it, Aelius hoped he had a good throat to punch.
Over the next thirty or so minutes, Aelius stopped bothering to track the details. He was dragged through hallways that smelled like too much polish and not enough sense, shoved into rooms where people poked at him or hit him, depending on what uniform they wore, and patched up just enough that he wouldn't bleed out on the floor. The funny part was that none of it really registered as pain. Being tossed into walls or having someone plant a knee in his back didn't come close to what he'd gone through a week earlier. After being ripped apart and stitching himself back together, this felt like child's play.
He didn't fight back. Not because he couldn't, but because he didn't think it was worth it, not when these people clearly had some magic to use against him. The guards seemed confused by his lack of reaction, which only made them hit harder, which only made him more bored. Their attempts at intimidation were so half-baked, he wanted to tell them how to do their jobs better. At one point, someone punched him in the stomach, and the only thing he felt was irritation at the way it reopened the wound the medic had just closed.
Eventually, they hauled him down a narrow staircase lined with iron torches that flickered with sickly green flames. The air grew damp, heavy, and stale, the smell of mold creeping into his mask. Aelius let himself be dragged, boots scraping occasionally when they weren't lifting his feet properly. The corridors here were quieter, thicker, the stone older. Dungeons. Great. Classic.
The guards stopped at a rusted iron door, wrestled it open, and without ceremony hurled him inside. He hit the ground on one knee, caught himself, and rose slowly. He fully expected them to strip him down, search him, and take anything that could be a weapon. Basic capture protocol. Every sane military force did that.
But the door slammed shut. Bolts slid home. Footsteps faded.
Aelius blinked once.
He still had the mask. He still had the cloak. He wasn't Searched….
He stared at the door for a long moment, a vein ticking in his temple.
Of all the things done to him today, of all the idiocy he'd endured, that was what really pissed him off.
If you were going to capture someone, then capture them properly. How hard was that? Remove the armor, take the weapon, tie the hands, and maybe do the bare minimum required when detaining a clearly dangerous individual. But no. They'd thrown him into a cell like a sack of laundry and walked off without even checking if he was armed.
He let out a slow, aggravated breath, hand dragging down the front of his cloak.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, pacing the small cell. "If you're going to kidnap someone, at least commit to it."
He sat down on the stone bench, back against the wall, fingers drumming idly on the hilt of his sword.
If the king's guards were this sloppy, getting out would be easier than breathing. The part that bothered him was that this meant his real problems were higher up the chain.
And those were the ones he couldn't afford to underestimate. Like he admittedly had with Erza. He had taken one look at her, assumed a certain level of honor and predictability based on the woman he knew, and nearly got skewered through the spine for it. If this world still had access to even the most basic forms of magic, let alone whatever kind of shifting monstrosity her spear had turned into, then everything from here on was going to be much harder than he had planned. The only silver lining was that if magic still lingered in the corners of Edolas, then maybe, somehow, there was a way for him to get his own back. Maybe there was some mechanism, some anchor, some crack in laws used to suppress it. Aelius wanted to hope for that. He really did.
But a thought lodged itself in his mind like a splinter, sharp and unwelcome.
Did he even want it back?
He leaned forward on the stone bench, elbows on his knees, palms pressed together. The cell was quiet except for his breathing. No shouts. No chains. No voices from beyond the veil. Just silence.
Even if he died here, that would be it. No resurrection. No return. No crawling out of a grave because some unseen force decided he was still useful. No rot in his bones. No decay eating at his skin. No pestilence whispering under his ribs. No constant reminders that he was something unnatural and wrong. Here, stripped of magic, he was simply a man. Wounded, exhausted, annoyed, but clean in a way he had forgotten was possible. He was free to be himself, whatever that meant now.
So, what reason did he have to want his magic back?
He thought of Natsu and Wendy. They were still around, and Natsu had the ridiculous ability to survive anything short of the sun collapsing. Between the two of them, they had enough raw spirit to drag their entire guild out of an apocalypse. Levy came to mind next. She was a headache half the time, always reading him like he was some strange puzzle she had the right to solve, always prying with those curious eyes. Yet he tolerated her. Sometimes he even caught himself enjoying her chatter before he remembered he wasn't supposed to. She talked too much, but she meant well, and he had seen far worse.
And Virgo. His chest tightened just a bit at the thought of her. The one spirit who had been with him through things she should never have stayed for. But even she was safe. Spirits did not die the way humans did. They did not fall apart the way he had. If anyone would thrive in Fairy Tail, it would be her. She deserved that warmth. She deserved that chaotic, loud, ridiculous guild more than he ever did.
He searched himself for some spark of desire, some lingering hunger to reclaim what he had lost. He combed through the old instincts, the memories of power, the way it felt to grip the world by its edges. He tried to summon even a whisper of longing.
There was nothing. No spark. No pull. Just a steady, hollow certainty.
He did not want it back.
He sat there in the dim quiet of the cell, breathing through the ache in his side, letting the realization settle like dust around him. It surprised him a little. It hurt a little. But it also felt honest in a way he had not allowed himself to be in a long time.
He had spent so many years being something he never asked to be. A tool. A weapon. A monster held together by magic and necessity. And now, stripped bare, sitting in a cell meant to break him, he finally understood something simple.
He liked being just Aelius.