Latest update:November 5, 2022(Today)
Summary: Natsu knows of his real identity, and the dragon's children remember their roots. The Dragon Slayer Lacrima is more than just magic in a stone, but Laxus can't find a way to tell anyone without sounding like a maniac. The changes are minuscule, but the ripples are large. A Fairy Tail Rewrite, from the very beginning.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13623950/1/Guided-by-Fireflies
Word count:87k
Chapters:17
Chapter 1: X777 and before.
Gajeel's first memory was of Metalicana and a boy with salmon pink hair. Then it was a beautiful lady with blonde hair, and golden keys shimmering in the light.
Then, Phantom Lord.
Living along, scavenging for scraps. It's a relief that he can eat iron when things come to dire straits, but it's not nutrition.
(Little Blue tells him it's probably not good for his tummy.)
(Sunshine and Mini Edgelord always think he's cool, and he loves the attention.)
(Spitfire. Spitfire thinks eating iron is gross- as if eating flames would be any less nasty.)
He doesn't remember any of their names, and their faces are all a blur.
Maybe that means it doesn't matter who they are anymore. After all, he's alone now, isn't he? That has to mean something.
(He's just too tired to care. If he can't find an island-sized dragon in this world, what are the chances he'll ever see the others again?)
Munching on a handful of nails like they're a mouthful of cookies, Gajeel thinks he's fine. He has Juvia here to judge his eating choices.
That's enough.
"Dragon Slayer Magic- that's Ancient Magic, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I learned it from a dragon."
That's a common conversation for Gajeel, and each time, Gajeel was careful about it. He didn't know a thing about his past, but he knew what was important.
"But they're extinct."
"Yeah," Gajeel would always tell them, "they sure are."
Then he'd punch them in the face or throw the closest thing to his hand at them, depending on his mood. And then the guild would laugh at their plight and Gajeel would sit down at the table, waiting for the meek little waiter to serve him his bowl of iron salad.
Dragons are extinct? What a joke.
They're literally looking right at one, aren't they?
Blind morons.
He saw a girl with bright pink hair in the crowd one day, but he held himself back and didn't do a thing. He simply blinked and turned in the opposite direction, throwing some hunger excuse behind him.
Juvia sighed behind him.
Gajeel never looked too long in her direction, either. Blue hair, just a shade too off, and it's the most he can take.
He liked being alone, but he didn't like being by himself .
He remembered the days where it was just the five of them and their dragon parents, when every day was fun and loud and joyful, even though pink was annoying, blue was naggy, white was obnoxious, and black kept getting lost.
He still found himself instinctively looking around every once in a while, only to belatedly remember that his Mini Edgelord wasn't around and he didn't need to keep track of it anymore.
It's not quite a habit- it was more of an animalistic instinct, and a dragon-hungry need for companionship.
(No, no being sappy isn't like him. Damn it, he's tougher than this.)
Then it happened, one day.
Dressed in an oversized sweater, a kid with too much hair on his head. A little homeless kid, no doubt, a little thief with an armful of apples and an angry grocer hot on his heels.
Probably, he's seven or eight years old.
Gajeel's reaching over before he even realizes it, an arm hooking over the kid and scooping him right up by the scruff before hooking him over his back like casual baggage.
A glare is enough to chase the shopkeeper away.
Gajeel barely has time to turn over before the kid is biting him in the hand. With a squawk, Gajeel lets go unceremoniously, essentially tossing the child away from him.
"Ah, shit!" he'd thrown too hard.
The kid lands harshly, but he rolls to a stand and continues running immediately.
Gajeel doesn't waste a second.
"Wait, you!" he raises his voice. He's not sure why he bothers, but the words leave him in an act of desperation.
He only helps him for a second, but the smell lingers.
This familiar, home-like smell.
(Gajeel can't let him leave.)
"I'm Gajeel! Who're you?!"
To his own surprise, the kid stops running. Arm still full of apples, the kid slowly turns around. Eyes squinting in confusion, he shrinks back a little when Gajeel steps forward.
"Gajeel?" the child repeats.
Gajeel is quite a bit older than him, towering over the kid in height.
He approaches slowly, because damn the kid is fidgety and he looks like he's ready to punch Gajeel and run- but Gajeel crouches down before the kid to get a closer look.
He rubs the back of his neck.
Gajeel doesn't know how to talk to kids, "well, how do I say this… you're like me, aren't you? It's been a while, and you were a brat, so maybe you don't remember me… what's your name?"
The kid squeaks a little, hugging his apples protectively. He's keeping a close, suspicious eye on the older boy, but his gaze darts around every once in a while, in a way that means he's looking for his first chance to run.
"...Ryos."
This is so troublesome.
"You hungry?" Gajeel asks instead. "Wanna come with me?"
The Dragon Lacrima gave Laxus a little more than just an overload of magic.
It gave him a voice in his head.
Gildarts squints skeptically at him. "Laxus, did you take too many of those motion sickness potions again? You know they make you kinda woozy."
"I'm being serious here!" Laxus yells, not for the first time in the past hour. He throws his hands into the air. "Fuck this, none of you are going to believe me, forget it."
Gildarts laughs as Laxus turns around and marches out.
All this was hopeless.
Makarov had never liked anything Ivan did, so Laxus kept the lacrima a secret to begin with- but if Ivan and Gildarts both didn't believe Laxus- would Gramps believe him?
(He didn't.)
(So Laxus never bothered to tell anyone again.)
(They might just send him to a therapist instead.)
It might have just been a side effect of the Dragon Lacrima, but Laxus' nights are plagued with nightmares of a time he isn't old enough to know.
The magic gave him keen ears, a sharp nose, and a sensitive feel for magic.
And it always whispers to him, pleading him, like a raging, undying soul bound to his magic- and it's asking him a favour.
("I'll lend you my magic, so take care of our legacy.")
What legacy? Who are you?
He asks and asks, but the answers don't come. The soul of a dragon resides in his magic, but it's willpower and willpower alone. The dragon itself is long dead, leaving only the creed of its life soaking in, fusing with his will like it did with his magic.
"Who am I supposed to take care of?"
X777. It's been years since Ivan was expelled, Gramps found out about the Lacrima, and the guild began to fill with children.
Children.
When Laxus looks at gramps, and then at Gray, Erza and Cana- he finds himself wondering if the dragon was talking about this sort of legacy. Not a physical object, but the next generation, one that can hold onto their will and achieve what they couldn't.
What would the child of a dragon look like? Is that what Laxus is supposed to take care of? Why would they ask an artificial Dragon Slayer like them?
...Or maybe because Laxus is the only successful Second Generation Dragon Slayers, as far as this continent knows. This dragon was asking just anyone for help, not Laxus in particular. Maybe.
Implanting a Lacrima successfully is a one-in-hundred-thousand chance, and you'd need the affinity for it to begin with. Laxus himself was simply alive because Ivan dabbled in dark magic to some degree to cheat his way through.
(Why would a dragon give him Dragon Slayer Magic and then ask him to take care of their… legacy, if it was a child? It made no sense.)
Laxus, if he were to admit, was only a little interested in this favour.
If they were so desperate that their dying wish passed through their long-dead soul and still lived on in their magic, maybe it's important. But it sounded like a pain and it sounded incredibly troublesome.
He doesn't like to feel obligated for something he didn't quite sign up for.
He didn't sign up for the nightmares either, but he has to deal with them and that's about enough bullshit for a lifetime.
(Maybe he'll deal with it if he comes directly to him, but if it's on the other side of the world, Laxus isn't going to bother.)
"Woah, it's huge! Is this a wizard guild?!"
Instantly, Laxus's magic power shrivels up, curls in with its thick, thunder-lined claws- and it roars .
It came so suddenly, he stumbled from where he was standing and crumbled to his knees in pain. There was only fog in his vision, and in the distance, someone called his name in worry.
He clenched his heart, feeling the magic of the dragon in his veins boil and churn and scream and resound .
(That's it.)
(That's the one.)
He looks up.
Gramps is at the entrance, along with a pink-haired child with a scarf like scales and a dance of fire in his smile.
"Laxus! Laxus, are you alright?"
Oh, is that Cana? Shit, he's still on his hands and knees, on the ground- he's dizzy and he feels like he's going to throw up. This is worse than a train.
He leans back against the wall and groans. The kid is still there, he's cheerful, he's excited, and his magic sings with the power of a dragon's core. But it's not like Laxus… this kid… this kid is the real deal.
A real Dragon Slayer, in this era.
No, not just a Dragon Slayer. Unmistakably, that was it- that's what the dragon inside him is pitting his dying wish, his dying hopes on.
(It's a real, living dragon, surviving in borrowed form.)
(Natsu didn't just have a voice in his head. Natsu had the real, living thing, and Laxus just had the disembodied zombie haunting his head. That's the main difference between them.)
He massages his temples. "You've got to be shitting me right now."
"What's wrong, Laxus?" Makarov asks, from his spot on the counter. "You've been staring weirdly at the kids since Natsu joined. You interested in your fellow dragon?"
Laxus rolls his eyes.
"Fellow nothing, that's an actual dragon you're looking at," Laxus says. Enno hands him a glass of juice, so he takes it with a short word of thanks.
"Oh not with your teenage angst again," Makarov pointed his stick at his grandson, "you might just have a Lacrima, but you're still a proper Dragon Slayer, got it?"
That's not what Laxus was referring to, but he's not going to correct his Gramps.
Laxus sets his eyes on the kids again- Gray is fighting with Natsu, and Erza is busy studying Cana's cards with her, so she hadn't moved to stop the scuffle yet.
Laxus can't deny that he is interested in the kid, though. He's so interested, he would rather never interact with the little fire dragon ever.
("ProtEct him yoU imbECile I am LEndiNg you my pOWer")
Ow ow ow ow okay I get it I get it stop-
That voice in his head is such an utter headache. Karma is also an asshole- why did the kid have to come to Fairy Tail? Can't you read the mood and stay in some other continent?
"I'm going on a mission," Laxus decides with a sigh. "Natsu, you wanna come with me?"
Laxus doesn't know shit about taking care of a child, but well, if this Dragon wants Laxus of all people to 'take care' of a kid, Laxus is going to make them regret it.
"Laxus, what's gone over you?'
"Who are you and what have you done with our resident teenage edgelord?"
"Master, call Porlyusica! Laxus is sick! SICK!"
"Master, that's a fake Laxus! Destroy it!"
It takes Laxus less than a minute to clear the guild hall of overdramatic morons. A punch to the head each for the kids, a sock in the gut for the other assholes.
Then he stands in front of Natsu.
Natsu, big bump on his head, looks up with teary eyes.
"I'm only asking one more time," Laxus says, dusting his hands and readjusting his headphones on his head. He sets the mission- a subjugation and retrieval- in front of Natsu so he can read it, "you coming or not?"
Natsu doesn't hesitate. He straight up sparkles .
"HELL YEAH!"
It soon became a staple for Laxus to have a kid trailing behind him on his missions, fire-punching the little things every so often and being lugged around like a sack of potatoes when he was up to too much mischief.
And when three others joined Fairy Tail, many years later- the five of them became known as the Thunder God Tribe.
Natsu has always lived with a little too many weights on his chest.
He would say he's not a child, but he really is. He lost his ability to mature at a normal rate along with his humanity four hundred years ago. He will forever be a child, though his body grows.
He doesn't want to grow up. If Zeref can't grow up, he shouldn't either. It just wasn't fair.
(At least, that was his mindset the last time he saw his brother. It's been too many years now, Natsu still feels the same way, but the resolve just isn't the same without Zeref to hold onto.)
Thinking isn't like him. He shouldn't think about it.
(When he thinks too long, hours and days can pass by before he blinks.)
(Immortality makes your sense of time dull out.)
He joined Fairy Tail only half a year after he arrived in the world.
A child as he was, he was fascinated by everything. Modern technology, huge buildings, the amount of people and strange clothing everywhere in the world. The sense of family in Fairy Tail. The rivalry between him and Gray, between Fairy and Phantom.
It was all so fascinating to him. And it only made him realize how different he was.
He sees Gray sometimes and he has to remind himself that he isn't Gajeel. That isn't his childhood rival, no matter how similar their relationship is. He has to bite his lip and remind himself that Lisanna isn't Wendy, and Romeo isn't Sting.
They're their own people, and though Natsu doesn't need to push them away, he shouldn't think of them as replacements.
It's in the same way as how Makarov wasn't a replacement for Igneel, and Igneel isn't a replacement for Zeref.
They're different people, in different eras, a different family.
He just has to adapt.
The silence was loud.
For one long moment, no one in the guild moved. All eyes were turned toward the counter, where Gray had just punched Natsu in the face.
Gray punched him all the time, that was nothing new.
But this punch was different.
"You take that back, Natsu!" Gray yelled, and he was furious .
There was none of his usual rivalry in this- this was just sheer rage, and it didn't take a genius to realize Natsu had probably crossed a few lines too far with whatever he'd said.
Natsu- the usual Natsu would've blown up and retaliated with a punch of his own, yelling back angrily and fiercely denying his own guilt in all of this.
But this time, Natsu didn't.
Natsu just sat there and glared.
"You know nothing about him, and yet you're talking shit," he spat out the words, "and now you're telling me to take it back?"
Gray lunged.
"Who's the one that knows nothing?!"
"It's you, obviously!"
"You can shut the hell up!"
"That's my line!"
Erza, snapping out of her daze, immediately stepped forward. "Wait, you two! Stop fighting already!" she said, but for some reason, she felt like this time, her little punch and yell wouldn't be enough.
"What's going on here?"
That's Master, but Natsu and Gray don't stop yelling over each other. One look at the disarray in the guild, and Makarov has his hands out, extending it leagues forward and crushing both of the brats under his fist.
"Master!"
Makarov stepped between them, letting the kids uproot from the debris- but the fire wasn't gone yet. Gray's expressions were dark and Natsu was aflame. When they yelled, there was real heat behind it.
"Natsu's actually defending Black Wizard Zeref!"
"You're the one that started talking shit!"
"He doesn't even know who Zeref is!"
"You're the one that knows nothing about him!"
Makarov slammed a hand on the ground. "ENOUGH!" he yelled. "Both of you, apologize to each other."
"But he's the one that-!"
"Just apologize, both of you!"
After that, Natsu was brought into Master's office.
Zeref was the epitome of darkness in the world, and Master had to make sure he knew that. It was something most of the children easily understood upon being told- so he had no idea why Natsu was so defiant about it.
"Before they joined the guild, Gray and Erza suffered greatly at the hands of Zeref's worshippers," Makarov said.
And that, that had Natsu looking up, horrified.
"You can justify anything in this world, Natsu- criminals, enemies... with time, surely, anyone can be redeemed," Makarov said, "but you cannot justify what happened to someone else for them. They are the only ones that can come to a closure about their own pasts, no matter if they're right or wrong. Give them time, Natsu."
"Hey, Lisanna. Do you hate the Black Wizard Zeref, too?"
Natsu had asked her that one day, in the lonesome of their little hut, with the blue egg between them and the sunset before them.
"You're still going on about that?" Lisanna asks, and Natsu feels his stomach drop, his fists clench. Lisanna chuckles, "well, if you really think about it, I don't hate him."
Natsu's shoulders lift, just a little.
Lisanna chuckles. "He's a few centuries old! Maybe he's just an old man," she says. Then her smile drops away. "But I guess we all hate what he left behind. All those demons, all that dark magic, it's hard not to hate his... legacy ."
And Natsu can tell.
She's trying not to hurt Natsu's feelings. She's trying her best to see both sides, trying to be reasonable in a way that isn't fierce like Gray.
She's just being nice.
Not knowing that she's saying exactly what hurts Natsu the most.
"I guess you're right."
And on that day, Natsu swore upon himself to never speak of Zeref in front of them again. He learned to think twice about his beliefs, and learned to never tell anyone of his real age between the lines.
He told them about Igneel, but nothing more and definitely not about the dragon's spirit in his veins.
He knows that he can never trust them fully.
One day, they'll find out what he is and they'll reject him.
It's inevitable.
(Because he is Zeref's legacy, something even the kindest little Lisanna hates.)
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13623950/1/Guided-by-Fireflies