Ghost sure picked one hell of a place to commit a massacre, it was nothing if not thematic... As the man led us through the trees close to Shirotsume it was obvious that something had gone terribly wrong here.

Before we even reached the supposed magical barrier that the man kept going on about we had to sidestep a large pool of blood that smelled off somehow like there was something foreign mixed in with it. When I added in the look on the man's face, I could see a story of what had happened being painted.

It was easy to see that whoever died there was nothing more than a diversion, especially once we crossed the barrier and came face to face with several scared-looking guards, "How have things been here?" The man asked as we approached, completely ignoring the dirty look he was being thrown by Ivan.

Once again, a sign of trauma surfaced as the guards did nothing as we approached... Either they were really comfortable with this man or they had just given up.

"Are these the ones the monster wanted?" One of the guards asked in a hiss, completely ignoring the man's earlier question.

Our guide sighed heavily before nodding, "Yeah, has Vanessa come back?"  

The was met with a sharp 'no' from the guard before he glared at us as though we were the source of all his issues, "That bitch killed half our guards today, she needs to be put down."

Ivan seemed to brush this off, but I couldn't help but feel myself clench at the pure hatred that was in the guard's voice. How dare he speak that way about Ghost after everything they did to provoke her? They certainly had guts.

Surprisingly, it was our guide who spoke up in Ghost's defense, "I believe she made it clear to our leaders that she wouldn't kill anyone else if she was left alone. I assume that you tried to break into that room and she retaliated?"

That sent all of the guards right over the edge, weapons were drawn and they surrounded us within a second, "How dare you!" The guard who had originally spoken said viciously as he stepped forward, "That monster killed all your comrades, has she really whipped you enough to the point where you're her lapdog? Perhaps we should put you down right now like the coward you are!"

The guards all began to step forward- I wasn't too concerned, after all, I could take care of them on my own and an increasingly irate Ivan was also here- but they were stopped as paper dolls began to pop up in front of them, blocking their ways.

"As exciting as this is, I'm afraid I can't let you kill this worm just yet," Ivan said with a vicious snarl, "I don't trust any of you to lead me to the right place without doing something stupid. Now move aside before I finish the job and kill off all of the guards in this pathetic place."

No one was really given a choice as the paper dolls pushed in on the guards until they began to back up. It really was curious that none of them had even tried to use magic on us, normally there would be all forms of magic being summoned, just begging us to fight but there was nothing.

As quickly as that thought came, it was gone and we were inside the base, it was far less important than just about everything else that was happening at the moment. As we were led through the winding tunnels one thing from the previous interaction stuck with me.

"Hey," I said gruffly, walking a little bit faster so there was some space between me and Ivan, "Why did you defend her? It's not like she's been kind to you."

The man looked back at me only slightly with a strangely empty look in his eyes, "I didn't defend her, I simply presented the logic behind the situation. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm connected to her, but it's simple to see that she had no intention of leaving the dragon slayer's side. If they had simply left her alone, as she requested and focused on evacuating the guild rather than trying to kill her, which obviously wasn't going to happen, then no one else needed to die."

That made sense, it really sounded like these people had brought a lot of the misery on themselves, which made it hard to show them any sympathy.

Finally, we reached the place where I could sense a slight blockage. It was as though everything on the other side was muted with cotton, much like it had been as we were approaching the main guild. These enchantments had been here for a while, just what had this guild been up to?

The man looked as though he was struggling emotionally as he contemplated opening the door, but finally, he reached out a pale, shaking hand and scanned it on the lacrima causing a loud click. As the door swung open we were hit by the full range of what the enchantment was holding back...

Which certainly was more than what I was expecting.

I knew that Ghost had killed some people through this whole thing, and the guards hinted to a lot more people being killed than I expected, but to be hit by a wave of blood was shocking. And that was an understatement.

My body acted without my permission as it reeled away from the smell and my arm shot to cover my nose. I barely kept in the bile that began to rise up my throat, this would smell terrible to any normal human who walked into the room, but for a dragon slayer with heightened senses, this was pure torture.

A hand grabbed my neck and pushed me forward just enough to force me into the fragrant room where surprisingly, the blood was gone... Not the smell, that was still prominent, but I could only see a few flecks of blood here and there, which had me looking around for the bottles of blood that had to be lying around somewhere.

There was none, but I did see Ghost in the middle of the room, standing next to a surgical table that had a large, easily recognizable body lying on top of it. Her shoulders were hunched as though she was in pain and when I looked down, I couldn't help but notice the fact that her fingers were intertwined with the lightning dragon slayers... Basically, even though I could only see the back of her, she looked like hell.

"You made it." Her voice was steady, but my ears could pick up the smallest of tremors, "Good, as I promised you're free to go." The man who had been by her side practically fainted with relief as he turned around, "Don't be too worried if you experience pain or cough up blood... You have a different blood type than me, so I was fighting your body the whole time to keep my blood inside you."

This was an added in afterthought,  but once again I was floored; she put her blood inside him? Just what was Ghost's magic?

The man sprinted out of the room as soon as she said her piece, and a second later I watched as Ghost's shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, "Well Ivan, it's been a while, hasn't it?"

She looked over her shoulder with a wry grin as she nodded to the both of us. For some reason, she didn't seem to be bothered that I was there, or even shocked at all. In fact, she simply shot me a wink, obviously forcing the smile on her face.

"Ember." Ivan acknowledged briefly before he swept to her side, "How has he been?"

I followed behind Ivan silently, noticing with less surprise, that she seemed to be the source of the bloody smell, though Laxus wasn't too far behind her in that. It made sense, what with the gaping hole in his chest that was easily seen.

"He's about as well as he can be with a hole in his chest, that tends to make the whole 'living' thing difficult you know." The sarcasm in her voice was fatal, yet she never once let go of his hand as she glared Ivan down. "Speaking of which, I need you to put this back in him now before I lose control and kill him by accident."

In her hand was a glowing yellow lacrima that had been cleaned meticulously that she shoved unceremoniously into Ivan's chest... 

I was getting the idea that the two didn't like each other.

A sneer spread across Ivan's face as he nodded and swiped the crystal out of her hand, "And just how have you managed to keep him alive thus far?"

Her scowl turned murderous... I think I was missing something here... "Are you two just going to sit there and chat, or will you actually save the Spark Plug today?" I said. Perhaps it was a bit gutsy of me to interject into such a tense moment, but I was sick of the dick measuring contest that they seemed to be having.

Ember's POV

What the hell Black Steel... That's my nickname for Laxus.

I stared at the metal dragon slayer for a moment in shock before I turned back to one of the people I hated most in the world. If I hadn't absolutely needed to bring him here to put the lacrima back, then just Porlyusica would be coming here, either that or literally anyone else besides him. 

Unfortunately, Ivan was the only person I knew that had ever implanted a dragon lacrima, so I simply bit my lip and did what I needed to, that didn't mean I liked it. "If you do anything to hurt him, I will murder you in a heartbeat, " I growled quietly, the threat hanging heavily in my voice.

Black Steel was staring at me in disbelief as I laid my free hand over Ivan's, stopping him for just a moment as I took time to thoroughly convey my threat.

"Why the hell would I hurt him?" Ivan shot back at me as he shook my hand off his, "He is my son, I want him hurt even less than you do." 

Oh, don't make me laugh. I knew my eyes likely looked as they had when I worked as an assassin, but at this moment, that worked in my favor, "Don't give me that Bull shit Ivan, Laxus has told me stories and I've done research. Your only motivation here is for him to strengthen this fucking lacrima. Try anything funny and I won't show mercy."

Our eyes clashed in a flurry of sparks as I leaned in ever so slightly, tightening my hand reflexively around Laxus' as I tried to not outright attack Ivan with my magic... I had absorbed the rest of the loose blood that was around the room, which left me with far to much magic. 

Even before I absorbed all the blood I had too much magic, going into a blood frenzy almost pushed me to the point of no return... How I had managed to stay in a room with a bloody Laxus and manage to keep his heart beating without killing him was a mystery to me and now there were two more people with beating hearts trapped in the same room as me.

My vision began to turn red I lost sight of Ivan's eyes and solely felt the call of the blood. This was bad. I didn't want to fall into this again.

A sharp pain broke through the blood haze and I blinked, watching as Ivan's eyes slowly swam back into view, "Very well." I growled before stepping back just far enough to give him room, reluctantly letting go of my anchor.

Black Steel was watching me in alarm and it took me a moment to realize that he was looking down at my leg. When I followed his gaze, I couldn't help but groan slightly, planted about an inch or two into my leg was one of my shorter knives... Somehow my body decided to pull me back from the edge by stabbing myself in the thigh.

I carefully pulled the blade from my leg and covered it with my hand, "Blood Control: Coagulate." My words were quiet enough that I most people wouldn't be able to hear me, but I had my doubts with the fact that Black Steel had extra sharp, dragon slayer hearing.

The look he was shooting me as my leg immediately stopped bleeding furthered this idea and I simply shot him a look before turning back to Ivan, who was watching me passively, "I need you to remove whatever magic you have over Laxus. If it remains while I am casting the spell, it could cause unintended consequences."

That made sense, but the fact was that once my magic was gone, Laxus' heart would stop... I had spent a 32-hour period keeping it going so just the thought of purposefully letting it stop just about gave me a panic attack.

My hands bit into the legs of my pants as I nodded and bowed my head, allowing that line of magical influence to stop. This was one of the most constant drain's I had had on my magic, so to feel it release caused red to almost completely take over my vision. I needed to get rid of some of my magic and soon. Even controlling my blood from a distance wasn't enough to get me back to manageable levels.

At that moment I spaced out, allowing Ivan to do whatever the hell he wanted as I retreated into myself to try and control the overflowing dam, which physically hurt in more ways than one. A hand softly gripped my elbow and I was pulled back into the moment by Black Steel, who was shooting me a worried look.

"What's going on?" He muttered into my ear. Thankfully, Ivan didn't notice us as he was already beginning the enchantment. 

I watched him closely as I sighed and leaned back over to Black Steel... Sure, he knew that I used to be the Ghost of Fiore, but that didn't mean I wanted to spill all my secrets to him. But he had earned some form of an explanation, "I can't tell you... Not right now." I murmured just quiet enough to not gain any extra attention.

"Juvia and Lucy will be coming to my house next Saturday and I'll explain things to them. You are welcome to tag along. Meet at Balsam Village's train station."

I probably would have said more, but Ivan stopped chanting with a heavy curse, catching our attention, "No!  God damn it!"

I gulped heavily as a shudder ran down my spine... That was not a good sign.

"What happened?" I asked brusquely, stepping to his side ignoring how Laxus' chest cavity was filling with blood. "Why did you stop?"

Ivan glared as he turned harshly to face me, fury written into every line on his face, "Why did I stop? Do you even realize how delicate this process is? Has it ever occurred to your puny brain that if something goes wrong now, the lacrima could break? If I put in too little magic, the lacrima won't fuse completely with his body and  even if the stream of magic is too strong then I run the risk of shattering the lacrima!"

This all made perfect sense to me, but that didn't change my question, "So why did you stop? None of that sounded like a plausible reason for you to not be working on it right now. Why did you stop so suddenly?"

"Because I don't have enough magic to complete the process!" He shouted, freezing my blood as he spoke, "If I start without having the proper magical energy available, then once I run out the lacrima will break and Laxus' system will be flooded with ethernano... I... I can't continue until I have another power filled lacrima.

At that moment it felt like my brain was collapsing in on itself," Why... Why did you come without having the proper equipment?" I hissed, barely noticing the tremor that was running throughout my whole body.

We were slowly moving to the point of being in each other's faces, "Because last time I inserted the lacrima it was empty! I was able to break it down into small pieces and allow it to reform inside his body! This time I can't do that. If I break the lacrima down it will either shatter or lose its magical charge! And before you accuse me of not wanting to lose the magical charge because it will set my experiment back, that isn't the case!"

"Then what the fuck is it for?!" We were screaming in each other's faces now. If my brain had been slightly more present I would have seen how irrational I was being, but that just wasn't in the cards for me.

"Because if the lacrima loses the charge, it could be too weak to support Laxus' body and he very likely could die!"

The silence that resounded after that statement was deafening. My breath froze solid in my throat and it felt like all the world as though someone had taken complete control over my blood. I couldn't move I couldn't breathe... Laxus...

Ivan turned away to face his son, "If I hurry I might be able to fetch a power filled lacrima from a vendor I'm familiar with. He knows me well, so it wouldn't be a problem, but the quickest route there would take a little over a day... Even with you acting as his life support, I'm not sure he would make it."

For once we agreed, "No..." I muttered, my voice weak... There had to be something I could do, I mean, I had blood magic... Maybe if I gave Laxus a blood transfusion he would be able to make it... But that wouldn't work because we were different blood types, that would only do more harm to Laxus than anything.

My mind fogged over as I tried to think of anything, it felt as though I was missing something obvious. I watched as Ivan walked over to the big blond and soothed the hair that always ran wild over his forehead...Wait...

"Take mine," I said hoarsely as I took a step forward and grabbed Ivan cloak.

He looked back in disdain, "Excuse me? Take your what?"

"Take my magic," I said, now that my thoughts had finally cleared slightly I realized that I had indeed been missing a major factor. My blood could transfer energy from one place to another which meant that I could act as a power filled lacrima, especially since I had more magic than was safe for me to have at the moment.

Without even giving him the chance to agree or disagree my hand moved to the cut on my leg and I tore at the scab that I had formed before pulling out a length of my blood, "Blood Control: Predator. Predator: Hunt." 

Ivan didn't even have time to react before the small amount of my blood hit him and began to spread over his skin. I didn't bother with forcing my blood to sink into the skin as that wasn't needed. Instead, I ignored the horrified look he was shooting me and waved him off, "Start the process."

"Ember," He said hesitantly, for the first time since I had known him, he looked completely thrown off guard, "I... It isn't possible to transfer magic like that and even if you could, the human body can rarely lose that much magic without dying." It was odd, but for some reason, I got the feeling that he was treating me like a child who didn't quite understand reality.

Well, it certainly was lucky for him that I was one of the few people who had a good answer to both of those concerns, "Predator: Passive..." Now the question was what word I needed to use, Passive Add sounded lame and this was my first time using magic in front of someone I wasn't intending to kill... "Passive:... Supplement?" My hesitant spell seemed to do something as I felt the smallest portion of my magic leave me

"Will this be enough magic?" I asked smugly. If this worked like my passive drain, then my magic would be funneled to him as he used it. It might not give him enough of a feel for my magic, but it would help him understand that I could help him out to some extent, "I thought you had been staking all of us?" I said in a harshly teasing manner, "How could you miss such an obvious fact about me?"

Ivan's jaw tightened as he stared at me, trying to decide if I was just messing with him, "I will not take responsibility if you die." He said stiffly as he walked back over to Laxus.

My footsteps were automatic as I walked back over to Laxus' side and gripped his hand, allowing our fingers to intertwine as they had been for the last twenty plus hours, "Well then, it's lucky I don't really care about any of that." My other hand gently moved to Laxus' forehead, which was worryingly cold, "Besides, I really could care less about dying today, you'd probably be doing the world a favor if I did."

I didn't say it, but as I refused to look away from Laxus, 'Between the two of us, you are absolutely the one who deserves to live more... I want to talk to you more, to ensure that you'll be okay, but if I die to save you, it'll be worth it.'

"Gajeel, grab Ember, I don't know how this will affect her but I would hate for any pain she might be in to ruin the spell." Ivan held the lacrima between his hands as he stared down at his son, "Magic draining spells are often unpleasant."

I  could hear Black Steel approaching and as his arms braced themselves against my chest he leaned close to my ear to whisper, "Are you sure you're okay with this Ghost?"

For the first time in several days my smile was genuine as I nodded, "Of course, why else would I offer?" I said just as quietly, "Hey, if this does kill me, could you tell the old man what went down here? Out of everyone, he deserves to know what happened."

His irritation with my request was tangible, "But I hardly know what happened here, you do realize that, don't you?"

I nodded shortly, "I know, but from what I'm seen, you're pretty sharp, just make sure he knows that his grandson is okay." Was this harsh? Yeah... It would be a major burden on both him and the old man, but who else knew anything about what had happened here, besides of course Laxus, who had most likely been out a majority of the time.

Before Black Steel could retort, Ivan snapped at us, "Are you going to keep cheating on my son, or can we save his life now?" 

This immediately made my face flush as I tugged slightly out of Black Steel's arms, where the fuck did that come from? Ivan was a terrible father and he chose now to make a dad joke? Fuck No.

I sent the idiot my darkest glare and he simply shrugged before turned back to Laxus and began muttering beginning the spell leaving me to die in embarrassment and fold into myself and it seemed as though Black Steel was in the same boat as he was only gripping my elbows and no part of him was touching me... 

None of this was awkward until now, damn you Ivan.

Thankfully, before too long I began to feel a tug against my magic and immediately my knees buckled. It seemed as though I had pushed myself just a little bit too far over the last few days... 

With the tug came an excruciating burning in my chest... So this is what it felt like when you had an overabundance of magic being pulled from you forcibly, was it?

A scream ripped its way from my throat as I curled into myself as best I could.

I could say with full confidence that it fucking sucked.