June 19th 1925 6:00 PM

(Two hours before the show)

Dr. Tucker, a local therapist was walking home alone that night after leaving work and later a restaurant that he had dined in. He was feeling especially eager and proud tonight because tomorrow he planned to publish a book he had written about how his studies had helped numerous patients. He was certain that this would be his ticket to the recognition and fame that he had sought after for years.

"Excuse me! Dr. Tucker!"

He turned around to see a young woman approach him. She looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, a pretty thing. Fairly innocent looking too.

"Can I help you young lady?" He asked her.

"Yes! I'm so glad that I found you!" She said sounding desperate. "My brother is in desperate need of psychiatric help!"

"Well I suppose I could schedule him an appointment first thing tomorrow."

"No you don't understand! You have to talk to him now! Tonight! It's an emergency!"

"With all due respect, I'm certain that it's not the extreme."

"He says he wants to kill himself!" She cried. "I've tried all that I could to stop him but nothing seems to work! He keeps making a grab for his switchblade! Please help him! I don't know who else to turn to! I've heard about your work and I'm sure that only you can save my brother's life!"

Now a normally therapist would have gone straight to the police upon hearing these news but Dr. Tucker saw this as another chapter to put his book. A gratifying story about how he saved a mentally ill man from suicide, he would go down in history as the greatest therapist ever.

"Take me to him."

The young woman led him to an abandoned junkyard that lay at the end of an alleyway.

"He likes to hang out here." She said. "He says it's the only place in the world that has any order."

"He believes a junkyard is a place of order?" The doctor said. "He must be mentally ill."

She handed him a switchblade.

"Should I leave you alone with him?"

"I think that would be best."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Then could you please sign your name here." She held out a sheet of paper to him. "Just in case you don't get through to him and he actually goes through with it, I don't want anyone to think I killed him. The signature of a well known therapist who saw him will ensure that he was suicidal."

"Of course."

He signed his name on the paper but he was suspicious of the woman. Suspicious that maybe her brother wasn't really mentally ill but she was making him come off that way so she could kill him herself. Now he obviously had no proof of that but he was sure that he could get the poor retard to say it.

He went into the junkyard and found a rugged young man with dark hair and dark eyes, sitting in a corner. All scrunched up and playing with the fingers of his gloved hands rapidly, as if he were a bored child. When he sensed Dr. Tucker's presence, he faced him with a look that was identical to someone who was depressed.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"Hello, my name is Dr. Tucker, I'm here to help you."

"Is that right? And just how are you going to help me doc?"

"Well your sister has been telling me that you want to kill yourself. Would you mind telling me why that is?"

"Can I ask you something Doctor?"

"If that makes you feel more comfortable, then yes."

"Are you right-handed or left-handed?"

"Left-handed. Why do you ask?"

"Oh just curious. You know my aunt once told me that there was a time where people believed that those who were left-handed were associated with witchcraft or the devil."

"Do you believe that you're associated with witchcraft or the devil?"

"No. Not really. I mean I do sin and give into temptation like everyone else in the world but I don't practice any of their rituals."

"What about your sister?"

"Now why would my sister be associated with any of that?"

"Is it possible that she has you convinced that she's a witch and that she's cast some spell on you? Make you ill with fear so she could possibly harm you?"

"Is that what you're trying to do Doctor?" He stood up. "Make it look like my sister is trying to ruin my life just like you tried to make it look like that banker ruined his daughter's life?"

"What?"

The man approached Dr. Tucker slowly.

"You see doc, I have a confession to make. The woman who brought you here? She's not my sister. But she is the sister of a patient you treated about ten years ago. Anne Marshall, you remember her don't you?"

Dr. Tucker's face lost all color when he realized where this was going.

"She's that poor girl who was suffering from stress and came to you for help. But you used electric shock therapy and manipulation to brainwash her into thinking her father was molesting her. He was arrested and sentenced to death. One year later she realized her mistake and felt so guilty that she killed herself."

"I...I can explain."

"Explain what? Explain how you could callously ruin two innocent lives and cause their deaths without any remorse, all so you could publish a book?"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh yes I do. You see Anne's little sister wasn't too happy about you getting away with what you did so she decided to do a little research. She talked to some of your other patients who you manipulated and they had quite the stories to tell. How you treated them with lies and torture, then gloated about how famous their misery would make you."

"You're mistaken! Miss Marshall was in denial of the terrible truth! She couldn't face it! That's why she took her own life! Her sister needs to accept that!"

"She can't accept you becoming famous for killing two people she loved with your lies and frankly neither can I." He stuck his left gloved hand into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade. "You see I have a certain code of honor I live by. One where justice must be served and if not by the police, then by me."

It all happened so fast. The blade was slashed right across his throat and he dropped to the ground, instantly dead. When the dark-haired man felt that the twisted therapist had no pulse, he placed the switch blade in the man's left dead left hand, moved the fingers to grip the handle, and left the weapon there. Once that was done he left the junkyard to greet the woman who called for his services.

"Is it done?" He asked her.

"Yes. One suicide note, confessing what he did to my family and that he took his life out of guilt for it."

"You wore gloves right? You made sure only his prints can be found on the note?"

"Yes."

"And you got his signature?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. The police won't suspect a thing."

"I can't thank you enough for doing this. I know revenge is wrong and I considered letting it go but after I talked those other patients, I knew that he was only going to keep ruining lives for his own ego. He had to be stopped."

"I agree and there was no way the police were going to believe any of them. they'd write them off as crazy. You were right to come to me and don't worry, if I'm caught I won't mention your involvement."

"And you're certain that you want no pay for this?"

"All I want is for you to pretend we never met. Is that clear?"

"Yes. I understand. Thank you. Maybe now my poor mother can finally have some peace. Knowing that the monster who destroyed our family is dead."

Gray Fullbuster never gave his name to those who seeked him out and he never met with them during the day, only at night where they couldn't make out his appearance properly. He asked for no money or favors in return for his services, only evidence that the target assigned to him was indeed guilty. He was a vigilante. One that the papers called the Ice Devil because his victims were always killed in ice cold blood. He hunted people who committed crimes and acts of evil without facing the consequences. Rich and powerful men and women who managed to use money or influence to avoid jail time. Sinners that the law couldn't touch.

What drove him to this was the injustice committed against him during his childhood.

Gray had been the son of a white plantation owner and a creole nightclub singer. They fell in love despite their racial differences and had a very happy marriage. But many people disagreed with this union, including Deliora Galuna. A bigoted of rival who was always jealous of Silver's success. One night he rallied up members of the Ku Klux Klan and led them to mercilessly beat the couple to death then burn their entire house to the ground. Gray was eight at the time and he survived because he had hidden himself among the cotton plants. He was later found and taken in by his mother's half sister Ur who tried to get justice for Gray's parents but the majority of the police and a judge who Deliora bribed, looked the other way. It broke her heart and her nephew's.

Yet despite her grief, she raised Gray the way her sister and brother in-law would have preferred. She educated him in bible, sent him to all the best schools, made sure that he understood how his father's business worked, but most of all she made sure that he always knew that he was no different from anyone else. Sadly it wasn't easy for him to keep that in mind.

For as long as he could remember, he was constantly being despised and mistreated by people. Despised and mistreated by white people for having color in him, despised and mistreated by colored people for having white in him. In this time period people were usually shunned by only one ethic group but Gray was shunned by two.

"Half-breed!" They would call him. "Mutt! Bastard! Traitor! Trash!"

Other times they would say things like;

"You know it really is fitting that your name is Gray. Because that's what you are! A great big blob of Gray!"

"You should be working in the fields not running them!"

"You think you're better than us just because you're lighter toned?"

"Hold him down in the mud! Rub more dirt on him! Rub harder!"

"Here's the bleach! He wants to be white, let's make him white!"

It was all he knew for so many years and no one save for his aunt would ever help him. So one day he snapped and he became a man who would do what the law couldn't. Serve justice to the sinners that slipped through the cracks.

"One down, four to go." Gray said before going home to burn his bloodied gloves and clothes, clean himself up, and prepare to meet his next victims at the cabaret known as Fairy Tail.