sin & sorcery

7. painted red to fit right in

Natsu and Gray help the Resistance come up with a plan to take down the Wall, but the decisions they have to make are more difficult than they'd imagined.

TW for descriptions of scars from torture

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i raise my flags, don my clothes
it's a revolution, i suppose
we're painted red to fit right in

"How the hell are we going to get home?"

Natsu and Gray sat at the table in the resistance hideout, staring at the plethora of charts, maps and diagrams that were pinned to the wall and spread across the table. They were currently alone – they'd searched for Edo-Gray after he'd fled earlier but hadn't been able to find him. When they'd returned to the hideout, the room had been empty.

"I don't know," Gray admitted, leaning his head in his hands and looking like he was going to cry. Natsu scooted closer to him, wrapping his arm around Gray's shoulder and leaning their heads together.

"We'll figure something out," he whispered, trying to reassure both of them. Gray shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands as the tears began to spill.

"He's just so... broken," he said, voice shaking as he wiped furiously at his face. "Th-the drugs, and I just... I get it, I do, I j-just..." He exhaled sharply. "They're... god, they're monsters. Faust, and Joekel, and whoever fucking... cut his arms up and beat him and... god, it's just..."

"Yeah," Anger and pity flashed across Natsu's face in equal measure. "The drugs, and that scar, and Lyon's gone..."

"He's so sad and angry," Gray murmured. "He misses here-you so much. And here-you misses him too." His fingers drifted to his lips, thinking of the sad, desperate kiss he'd shared with Edo-Natsu before they'd headed inside the Wall. What was Edo-Natsu going to do when he found out that his Gray was alive?

"We're gonna fix this," Natsu said, voice suddenly determined. He pressed a kiss to Gray's temple, then turned to look back at the information spread across the table. "We have to."

"We're going to need a lot more frags."

Edo-Gray stood with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at the holographic map of Acropolis that was floating over the table. He'd shown up at the hideout half an hour ago, apparently clean and acting like nothing had happened the day before. At least, Natsu thought it had been a day. It was hard to tell without the sun.

"And where are we gonna get those?"

Natsu turned to see that Bickslow was speaking. Erza had summoned the rest of the Resistance members, and the small room was crowded with about twenty people. Natsu recognized some of them – Bickslow, Mest and much older looking Romeo from Fairy Tail; Sting, Rogue, Yukino and Rufus from Sabertooth; Jura and Sherry from Lamia Scale; and Hibiki from Blue Pegasus. The other few were unfamiliar faces.

"He's right," Erza replied. "The creds that Fairy Tail sent can only buy us so much." She tapped her fingers on the table, sighing. "But we need them to take down the Wall. With Fairy Tail's magic, it'll be easier to get to the Stone and skrag it." She glanced over at Natsu and Gray. "After we get you two home, of course."

Natsu swallowed, not responding. There was something incredibly terrifying about all these eyes staring at him and Gray like they were some sort of freak exhibit instead of familiar friends.

"We don't necessarily have to blow anything up," Sting said, and Edo-Gray looked almost disappointed. Sting stepped forward and swiped away the view of the Acropolis, then pulled up another map of Imperium and the mainland. Three red dots were highlighted – one close to Louen, one further north, and one on the island of Imperium. "Fairy Tail sent this intel along – these are the generators powering the Wall. They're connected to a backup, which means we'd need to nix all three at the same time. I could make data spikes that would overload the system, it's just getting to them that's the problem."