The ground beneath them trembled as the Gildarts Shift began to reshape the town. Buildings twisted and rearranged themselves, opening a wide, glowing path down the main street. The green light pulsing from the path bathed everything in an eerie glow as if the town was holding its breath in anticipation of his arrival.
Fairy Tail, those still standing anyway, stood near the remains of the guild hall, now a shattered ruin. The once-proud structure that had housed so many of their memories was little more than rubble barely standing. The others murmured quietly, but Erza's focus was solely on the distant figure making his way toward them, his silhouette barely visible through the haze.
"Erza," Gray said quietly, stepping closer to her. His voice was low, almost hesitant. "That's not Gildarts."
Erza glanced at him, her crimson hair catching the faint green light. "Then….that would make it."
Gray's jaw tightened, and he looked away for a moment, his eyes shadowed with surprise. Finally, he exhaled sharply, his breath misting from his magic. "Aelius."
Erza's expression hardened, her gaze unwavering. She nodded. "He's alive."
"He's back," Gray said, his head turning to look at the lone figure making his way towards them.
Erza's eyes widened briefly before narrowing again, the weight of the situation settling over her. "He sure knows how to make an entrance," she said quietly, her tone laced with surprise and shock. "I hadn't even thought-" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "He might just be what we need to turn this around."
Her eyes drifted toward the faint outline of Aelius in the distance, his imposing frame inching closer with every step. The flickering green glow of the runes reflected off his cloak, making him seem even more otherworldly.
Gray's voice cut through her thoughts. "You think he's as strong as he used to be?"
Erza's jaw tightened, her grip on her sword firm as her mind raced. "Stronger now, if that is him. That would make him the first person to ever return from a century quest."
"Yeah," Gray said quietly. "That's what I was thinking."
Erza let out a relieved sigh, her gaze not leaving Aelius's shadowed form. "The timing couldn't be better. He was stronger than I was before he left. I'm willing to bet he could give master a run now."
"Let's actually talk to him first," Gray said. "Four years is a long time, stronger or not, saying 'hey, we need you to fight a war for us,' isn't the best way to return."
Aelius's form became sharper as the lingering haze of the Shift dissipated. Towering at an imposing 6'7", he moved with a deliberate calm that contrasted with the tension crackling in the air. His entire body was enveloped in a heavy black cloak that swayed with each step, the fabric seeming to drink in the faint light around him.
What drew the eye most, however, was his mask. It was a haunting creation, split into two tones. The left side appeared weathered and fractured, green cracks running through its surface like the veins of a dying tree, emitting a faint, ominous glow. Strange runes were etched into the right side, sleek and metallic, their meaning long forgotten by most. The hollow eyes of the mask seemed endless, black voids that hid any trace of humanity. His eyes a dull green, the only visible part of his body. The heavy boots he wore crunched against the broken stone, each step echoing in the oppressive silence. His presence felt suffocating, a tide of restrained power radiating outward. Children and adults alike stared at him through the distorted remnants of the Shift's energy, their faces pressed to the warped surfaces as if gazing at a force of nature they didn't fully understand.
Erza and Gray stood rooted in place, the enormity of the moment pressing down on them like the calm before a storm. They could feel the shift in the air, the unspoken tension between Aelius' looming presence and the knowledge they held.
The silence stretched, heavy and oppressive, only broken by the harsh clack of Aelius's boots against the ground and the occasional murmur of the crowd. Each step seemed to echo louder than the last, a slow, deliberate cadence that sent ripples of tension through the gathered onlookers.
Whispers flitted through the air like nervous birds, their fragmented words barely audible yet charged with fear and curiosity. Children clung to their parents, peering wide-eyed from behind legs, while adults stood frozen, their gazes locked on the towering figure moving steadily closer.
The faint green glow from Aelius's mask illuminated the path ahead, casting eerie shadows that danced along the fractured edges of the Shift. His tall frame exuded an unyielding presence, each movement calculated and commanding.
The murmurs grew quieter as he neared, the crowd instinctively recoiling from the weight of his aura. Even without a single word, Aelius carried the kind of presence that demanded attention and left no room for defiance.
Erza and Gray exchanged a tense glance, their unease palpable. The sound of his approach carried with it a sense of finality, like the tolling of a bell, signaling that whatever was about to unfold could not be avoided.
The tension in the air grew thicker as Aelius continued to approach, his footsteps steady and unhurried, as though the weight of time itself was pressing down on everyone.
"Why does it feel like he's carrying an entire storm with him?" Gray muttered, his voice edged with frustration.
"Hey, that's not Gildarts," Natsu cut in, his voice sharper than usual as his nose twitched, sniffing the air like some primal predator. His face scrunched as if catching a scent he didn't like. "Doesn't look like him. Doesn't even smell like him."
Gray folded his arms across his chest, that old, familiar edge in his tone as he shot Natsu a sidelong glare. "You just figure that out, Flamebrain?"
"You wanna go, princess?" Natsu snapped back, taking a step toward him, the strange, shifting streets momentarily forgotten.
But it was Erza's voice that cut through their brewing argument—firm, low, and steady like a blade drawn partway from its sheath. "Think, Natsu. The town only moves like this for one other."
That stilled them. Natsu's scowl flickered. Gray's jaw clenched.
"Who else did the town shift for?" Erza finished, her gaze narrowing toward the approaching figure through the haze.
A strange silence settled over the battered remnants of Fairy Tail as a few heads turned toward the glowing path down the main street.
"Only one other crazy bastard makes the town move like it's afraid of 'im," Natsu growled, his voice softer now, but the tension in it undeniable. His fists clenched at his sides, fire flickering along his knuckles like a heartbeat out of sync.
"But he didn't need to use this for nearly two years before he left," Natsu added. As the last few steps between them stretched out.
Aelius finally reached them before Natsu could continue, his figure casting a long shadow across the ground as he stood still before them. His eyes flickered over the familiar faces of Erza, Natsu, and Gray.
"Scarlet. Fullbuster. Dragneel." His voice was calm, but it carried an underlying coldness that made the words feel final and detached. "It's been a while."
The sharpness of his tone, the lack of warmth. It struck Erza. Their past with him seemed to have been erased, replaced with a man they hardly recognized.
Erza's heart clenched, the weight of emotions threatening to show, but she steadied herself, forcing her expression into something calm, something welcoming. She took a small step forward, her voice measured but carrying an unmistakable steel that struggled to break through the tension.
"Aelius… welcome back?" Erza said, her voice pitched low, somewhere between a greeting and a question. The words felt brittle, like she was trying to bridge a gap neither of them had acknowledged yet. She wasn't sure if she was speaking to a comrade, a ghost.
The greenish light still pulsed off the shifting streets, catching in the hollow cut of Aelius's mask, gleaming off the cold curve of his eyes as he turned his gaze to her. There was no cruelty in it, no malice. Just a kind of distant, impassive focus, as though measuring what had changed and what had remained.
For a long, unsettling breath, he didn't answer. The town around them stilled, the remnants of the guild falling silent. It wasn't the kind of silence born of fear, but the wary, braced hush of people waiting for a storm to decide which way it would break.
When Aelius finally spoke, his voice was smooth, even, and so utterly devoid of emotion that it left no room for misunderstanding—but it wasn't unkind. Not quite.
"Scarlet," he said, inclining his head in the barest, most formal acknowledgment. "I see you're in good health."
It wasn't a question. It wasn't kindness. It was an observation as factual and precise as if he were noting the weather or a break in a wall. And yet—beneath that precision was a faint, unreadable echo, something unspoken he either refused to name or no longer knew how to.
Erza's brows drew together, not offended, but searching. Because he hadn't walked past them. He hadn't ignored her. He was standing there, speaking. But it was how he was speaking, like he had long since stopped feeling anything.
And in Fairy Tail… that counted for something.
Gray muttered something under his breath, but Erza didn't break eye contact. "It's been a long time," she said carefully.
Aelius gave the smallest of shrugs. "Time moves differently when you stop counting it."
A truth spoken like stone against steel.
Aelius let the weight of the silence linger a heartbeat longer before his gaze drifted away from Erza, scanning the battered remains of the guild's gathering like a soldier appraising a battlefield. His mask caught the eerie green light of the shifting streets, the slits of his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Where's the master?" he asked at last, the words clean and edged like a blade drawn across glass, not demanding, not concerned, but expectant. A question posed because it needed an answer, not because he feared for it.
Erza's expression tightened, her shoulders straightening instinctively.
Gray glanced at Natsu, who had gone unusually still again, his brow furrowed in something closer to thought than aggression.
"He's… not here," Gray said, after a moment.
Aelius made a low sound—not a laugh, not quite a scoff. More like a tired acknowledgment of something inevitable. "Convenient timing."
Erza's jaw set. "He didn't know you'd show up."
"I didn't either," Aelius replied, his voice carrying a tinge of annoyance as if stating the obvious. He turned his eyes back to her, to all of them. "It wasn't planned."
The green-hued street seemed to exhale, the heavy tension in the air thickening rather than easing as Aelius's final words settled between them. The town had stopped shifting, the Gildarts Shift complete—yet it wasn't Gildarts that stood before them, and every soul in Magnolia could feel the difference like a splinter beneath the skin.
Fairy Tail's battered remnants gathered tighter now, instinctively forming a loose defensive cluster behind Erza, Gray, and Natsu, whose unease was plain in their clenched fists, wary glares, and tight-lipped silence. The silence stretched. The town held its breath.
And then, the earth trembled again—but this time, it wasn't from the Shift.
A deep, guttural rumble rolled through the cobbled streets, the kind of sound that didn't come from nature or magic but from something monstrous, something built for war. Stone crumbled somewhere in the distance, and the glow of the shifting streets was momentarily drowned out by a looming, shadowy silhouette rising on the horizon. A titanic structure, its legs groaning as it marched—iron joints grinding against each other like the teeth of a leviathan, as it made its way through the lake.
"The Phantom Lord Guild Hall," Erza's voice cut through the cold hush like a drawn sword. She didn't need to say more. Every guild member who was still conscious stiffened at those words. It wasn't the kind of thing anyone could mistake.
It wasn't a building anymore. It was a walking fortress—a war machine.
And it was headed straight for them.
From its towering battlements, lights flickered to life, and the symbol of Phantom Lord, bold and monstrous, cast its banner against the night sky like a threat etched in blood and fire.
"Damn it, they're bringing the whole damn house," Gray snarled, his breath misting as he flexed his fingers, a sheen of ice forming around his knuckles.
Natsu's fire crackled at his fingertips, his face twisting into a snarl. "Let 'em! I'll burn it down with them in it!"
But Erza held up a hand. Not to stop them—no one could stop Natsu when he was like this—but to steady the rising chaos as the guild behind them began to stir, panicked murmurs threading through the injured and the desperate.
"Aelius," she said, turning sharply to the towering figure still standing like a sentinel in the middle of the path. "I wish we could explain more, but will you help us?"
It wasn't an order. Not a plea. It was a challenge or perhaps a measure. Erza Scarlet, who never begged for aid, asking the one man whose arrival had turned the world on its head if he was still one of them—or if he was something else now.
The air between them hung thick, heavier even than the oppressive green glow bleeding from the fractured streets. Erza's words lingered there — a request that wasn't quite a request, a command that wasn't truly a command. She had spoken not as Titania, not as Fairy Tail's strongest woman, but as a comrade, reaching across a chasm four years deep.
Aelius didn't answer immediately.
He turned his head, the cracked, rune-carved surface of his mask catching the light as though it were alive. The faintest flare of that unsettling, dead green shimmered through the fractures of the left side, making him look less like a man and more like something ancient, something other. When he finally spoke, the voice that came wasn't the one Erza remembered. Not quite.
It was colder now and edged with a faint, unmistakable disdain.
"Why should I?" Aelius asked, and the words might as well have been a blade dragged across ice. His voice was calm, collected, but the faint undertone of contempt was there, a buried ember beneath stone. "What do you believe I owe this place?"
His gaze drifted across the battered guild, to the shattered remains of their hall, to the approaching titan, the bruised and bloodied faces clinging to each other, scrambling for weapons and resolve. And though no one else dared meet his eyes, Erza did.
And for the first time, she really looked at him.
This wasn't the comrade they'd shared drinks with at the old long tables, laughing over petty rivalries and reckless brawls. It wasn't the kid who'd vanished, chasing an impossible quest with no warning.
The Aelius standing before her now carried no love. No mischief. No flicker of camaraderie. What stood here was a ghost forged from solitude, hardened by whatever things he'd faced in those four long years that none of them could even name.
Erza felt something tighten in her chest—not fear, not quite sorrow, but the icy, sinking realization that some absences leave behind things that never truly come back.
There had once been a kid beneath that frame—tall, yes, with eyes too old for his years, but nervous. Shy in his own quiet, clumsy way. A boy who'd fidget at the edge of the guild hall's chaos, uncertain how to laugh too loud, who flinched a little when his magic surged without warning, afraid of what it might do, of who it might hurt. He was the one who never quite believed he belonged, who'd glance at Erza and Natsu and Gray with something between admiration and unease, caught between the safety of their reckless chaos and the storm inside himself.
He used to apologize when his power rotted the floorboards. Used to duck his head when Mira teased him, or when Cana pulled him into games he had no hope of winning. Used to train too hard, too long, chasing a control that always felt just out of reach.
And yet—he'd laughed. Awkwardly, sometimes, but there'd been warmth in it. There had been life.
But the man before her now was all sharp edges and steely, steady stillness. That hesitant flicker she remembered—the nervous glance, the second-guessing—was gone. In its place stood something like stone shaped by endless wind, a figure who no longer flinched at the power coiled under his skin but wielded it like a silent storm. The mask only made it worse, not because it hid his face but because it suited him. As if the boy he'd been would have torn it off, but this man wore it like a second skin.
And when he spoke to her now, there was none of that unsure hesitance in his voice. The words were clean, final, untouched by affection or old loyalty. They weren't cruel, which might have been easier to bear. No, they were worse. They were indifferent.
Aelius wasn't asking for a place anymore. He wasn't reaching for someone to pull him back. Whatever battles he'd fought, whatever monsters he'd faced—out in the places no one else had gone—had burned away what was left of that boy.
And Erza, the part of her that still held tight to the guild like a fortress of unbroken bonds, felt something fray at the edge of it.
Because in Fairy Tail, they lost people. They buried friends. They bled, and they wept, and they shouted, and they fought—but they always came home. Even if it was in pieces. Even if it was crawling.
Aelius hadn't.
He'd gone beyond whatever home could be.
And now, here he was—not asking for a place at the table, not seeking forgiveness or welcome—but standing at the edge of their world like a storm poised to choose its direction.
Erza clenched her jaw, feeling that cold ache settle lower.
She couldn't save the boy he'd been.
And maybe… he didn't want saving.
But for the sake of the battered faces behind her, for the bruised and bloodied guild still breathing in the rubble, and for the broken, flickering thing that still sparked in his voice when he looked at this place, she could try.
Or, at the very least, she wouldn't let him vanish again without a fight.
Even if it wasn't the one she'd hoped for.
"I feel as if I was misled," Aelius said, and though the words came softly, they cut through the stillness like a blade drawn in a room full of sleeping men. His voice was smooth, flat, carrying no accusation in its tone—but in its weight, there was something cold, something brittle and sharp. The kind of thing you didn't notice until it was pressed against your throat.
He took a step forward, the fractured light from the lingering Shift catching along the cracked half of his mask, making the runes etched into its surface pulse faintly. His gaze settled on Erza, then on Gray, then Natsu—in turn, like a predator measuring each for threat, for deception, for use.
"Makarov is still master, yes?" The way he spoke the old name wasn't affectionate. It wasn't even familiar. It was clinical, like he was confirming a detail from a half-forgotten report. "If he's anything like how he was when I was younger…" A slight tilt of his head, the metal of the mask catching a reflection of green light as his words slowed, sharpened. "…then he'd find a way to be here."
A pause.
Long enough for the air to stretch, tight with the weight of what he wasn't saying. Aelius let it linger, watching them with eyes like dull, dead glass behind the mask.
"Which makes me think…"
He didn't finish the sentence, but the implication hung there, heavy as lead. And Erza's shoulders tensed under it, because they all knew what it meant. Aelius wasn't dense. No one survived what he had and stayed naive. The fact that Makarov wasn't here, that he hadn't come running the moment the town twisted on itself and an old ghost stepped through the mist—it spoke volumes.
And for a flicker of a moment, something almost resembling concern passed through the dull green of Aelius's gaze. Not warmth. Not worry. More… an acknowledgment. The way one might notice a familiar star had gone out in the night sky.
But then it passed.
His stance didn't soften. His voice didn't falter.
"I see," he murmured, as if confirming a quiet suspicion to himself. "So he's either dead or dying. Or worse—broken." There wasn't pity in it. Not grief. Just cold, impartial assessment. The way a man might consider a pillar collapsing in a building he no longer intended to inhabit.
Gray bristled at that, fists clenching at his sides. "Watch your mouth," he growled, ice cracking faintly beneath his skin, his breath misting in the chilled air.
Aelius's gaze flicked to him, and for the first time, there was a glint of something in it. Not anger. Not surprise. Amusement, maybe. The faintest edge of condescension curling at the corner of his tone.
"Did I strike a nerve, Fullbuster?" he asked, the words smooth as ice. "You think I speak out of cruelty? No. Cruelty requires investment. I simply observe. The old man's absence speaks for itself."
"You don't know anything about him," Natsu snarled, stepping forward, flame already curling around his fists, the greenish light of the street making the fire seem sickly, otherworldly.
Aelius didn't flinch. Didn't so much as shift his stance. Instead, he turned his mask toward Natsu and spoke with the kind of calm that made the temperature drop a degree around them.
"I know enough. I know the kind of man who could hold this house of fools together," he gestured lazily toward the remnants of the guild hall, toward the bleeding, dust-streaked survivors still clinging to the stones. "And I know what it means when he's absent at a moment like this."
Erza took a sharp breath, but she held her ground. She could see it now—the widening crack in Aelius's mask wasn't physical. It was the fracture in the man behind it. The years away hadn't just changed him; they'd hollowed him out, sanded down the rough, loyal parts, and left behind something colder, something harder, something infinitely more dangerous because it still remembered how to care—it just chose not to.
And the more they spoke, the more they pushed, the more she could see it. The shift in his posture, the edge creeping into his words. Not overt hostility, not yet. But the cold disdain of someone being pestered by things they no longer considered their concern.
It would come slowly, she realized, like a storm brewing behind glass. Not a sudden rage—but a steady, inevitable turn toward cruelty, born from old wounds left to rot and fester.
She swallowed hard.
And yet… she still stepped forward.
"Aelius," she said, her voice low, careful. "Whatever you think of us now… whatever you've turned yourself into—you stood here once. You fought for this place. For these people."
The mask tilted slightly as if he were considering her, or the words, or both.
"That was a long time ago," he said. No anger. No hate. Just the weary finality of a man who'd buried his own grave marker and forgotten the path back.
And yet… he didn't walk away.
Not yet.
Erza turned to face Phantom Lord's monstrous guildhall as it loomed larger by the second. The walking fortress trudged forward, massive iron legs rising and falling in slow, deliberate strides—but covering an impossible amount of ground with each ponderous step. It was an illusion of slowness; the hulking colossus closed the distance far too quickly, each thunderous footfall sending tremors through the earth and splashing up great walls of water from the edge of Lake Scilliora.
The sky above had darkened with the thickening haze of magic and smoke, the remaining sunlight fractured through steam and shattered glass. The twisted towers of Phantom's guildhall gleamed like sharpened spears in the gathering gloom, and their crest—bold, cruel, and defiant—hung from its armored hide like a declaration of war.
Erza could hear her own heartbeat thudding in her ears, fast and hard. This wasn't a duel. This wasn't some guild scuffle over contracts or bruised pride. This was war.
And for the first time in too long… Fairy Tail's numbers were thin.
"We're running out of time," Gray muttered from beside her, ice mist curling from his clenched fists. His face was pale, lips pressed into a hard line as the monstrous guild drew closer.
"Bastards are already within striking distance," Natsu growled, his voice low and sharp, fire licking along his arms. His eyes gleamed like a predator's, but even he wasn't smiling this time. The sheer size of the thing, the magic it radiated—it was enough to make even him think twice.
The air was tight, thick with that oppressive pressure that came before a storm breaks. Every breath tasted like copper and lightning.
Erza's grip tightened on her sword's hilt as another distant boom rolled across the water. The waves at the lake's edge trembled with each ponderous step of the advancing fortress, frothing white against the rocks. Phantom's guildhall was close now—too close—and with every grinding, shrieking movement of its metal legs, the enormity of the battle ahead loomed larger.
She turned, as if by instinct, toward where he'd stood moments ago. Toward the tall, dark figure whose presence alone had felt like a shield against the worst of what waited beyond the mist. Aelius.
But the space where he'd been was empty.
Gone.
No sound. No trace. No shadow clinging to the fog-drenched path.
Just emptiness.
Erza's breath caught in her throat. A cold knot twisted somewhere deep inside her, though she forced her expression to stay sharp, unreadable. She wasn't new to this feeling—people left. People vanished. Comrades went missing and didn't come back. She'd buried more names than she could count.
But still… something about this struck harder than it should have.
He hadn't run like a coward. He hadn't slipped away to hide. It was something else. She could feel it in the air, like a thread that had been deliberately cut.
No. Not now. Not when we need every sword.
But he was gone, and the truth was, part of her wasn't entirely surprised. The way he spoke—distant, frayed, frigid as the winds off the northern steppes. The man who had stood there wasn't the boy Fairy Tail had once called brother. That person was a memory.
And she hated herself for hoping, even for a moment, that he'd stayed.
A gust of wind stirred the waters, sending ripples across the glassy surface of the lake. The booming of Phantom Lord's guildhall drew nearer, a hulking silhouette shrouded in mist and evening gloom. It was closing in with monstrous inevitability, a stone leviathan built for crushing other guilds into the mud.
Erza turned back toward it, jaw clenched, swallowing down the leaden taste of disappointment. The others hadn't noticed he was gone yet—or if they had, they said nothing. Not now. Not with death crawling toward them on four steel legs.
"Natsu. Gray. With me," she commanded, her voice ironclad as if nothing had shifted in her chest. "We hold them at the ridge. No matter what comes out of that thing, we don't let it take another step inland."
Gray nodded sharply. Natsu's eyes burned brighter, flames crackling around his fists.
"We'll bury 'em," the Dragon Slayer spat.
"Damn right we will," Gray answered.
The tension broke in the form of another quake as Phantom Lord's guildhall reached the water's edge, the enormous legs descending into the shallows of the lake, sending up geysers of spray and churned earth. The fortress shuddered, steam billowing from its towers.
Above them, the banner snapped in the wind—bold, cruel, and unyielding.
Erza raised her sword, the edge gleaming white in the failing light.
Let Aelius disappear into the fog. Let him chase whatever ghosts still clung to him.
Fairy Tail would stand without him.