Not Black, Not White, Just Gray

I like my spirits drinks cold, the colder, the best.

Its one of the things that I share with the original Gray and that has survived the merging between the two. We both share a love for cold things.

Anyhow, I was slain by the King of the End at the year 1 of the Christian Calendar, but not before I managed to injure the bastard so deeply that joined me in the afterlife. Campione Slayer he may have been, but in the end, he bled and died like everyone else.

Unfortunately, my death was a temporal disaster; I died before I was born and in a time and moment that was completely different from what it should be, and at the hands of whom I should not die. It was a mess that almost gave Plutarch an aneurysm. The old cot whined like the little bitch that he is to Pandora and Epimetheus, and the couple decided that they will take the chance to send one of their adopted children to a realm that could use a bit of the Irrationality of the Campiones.

Lo and behold, my soul was taken from the Netherworld and mixed with my doppelganger of this particular realm; located in the furthest corners of the Netherealm; where I will be reincarnated and become part of that world, never returning to my original one.

I miss mama Pandora and good old Epimetheus that´s for certain but I have to admit that from all the worlds that they could have chosen, this one was actually incredible fitting for me. It was a pity that my merging was a disastrous one and was marred by tragedy.

The young Gray Fullbuster died at the hands of the very same devil that eradicated his family; a monster of ice and rhyme called Deliora. However, before he finally collapsed and perished because of his wounds and magical exhaustion, the young Gray had to witness the final sacrifice of his Sensei, the wizard called Ur.

Gray died in shame, guilt, and despair and then I came into the picture.

Our merging could be compared to a smoothie but with the young Gray being the ice, hardly fair for the young lad, but he was fated to die that day, and due to my sudden introduction on the mix, we both live.

I am Gray Fullbuster, that is my name and I carry it with pride, but from the original kid, there is little left. That being said, I honor his death by making his goals mine. Whoever created, summoned or whatever, Deliora, was going to pay in a manner that will make the gods puke and I will bring back Ur from her ice prison.

[Ice Shell] was a forgotten [Ice Magic] spell that created an unbreakable prison of ice at the cost of the life of the caster.

Through the memories of young Gray, I knew of everything that Ur has done for me and I will be dammed if I don't pay her back with the same coin. Mama Pandora would have kicked my ass all the way to Sunday otherwise.

Anyhow, I was like a battle horn, full of fury and thunder but unable to express nothing that it was not my defiance to the heavens. It did not help that the only individual that I would have called a friend; Leon Vastia; hated me deeply, accusing me of being the responsibility of the death of our Sensei.

It was the absolute truth and I did nothing to dispel that notion from him; Gray was guilty of what happened and the tragic end of a wonderful woman like Ur. That was the official statement, but I was Campione, and I was beyond any common bloody sense that this world could have. I have slain gods before, I will slain gods again if that´s is needed to start to pay my debt with Ur.

Still, like my old pal Sun Tzu said, the thousand step journey beings with one. I was a kid of unknown age, but not more than eight or ten at best, with limited resources. I needed to learn how my merging had affected my body and how to free Ur from her prison.

That was bad news, good news kind of situation.

The bad news?. My Authorities were gone, and sure that I will not gain any of them again, mostly due to the lack of a [Circle of Usurpation] on this world.

The good news?. My body was inhumanely strong and sturdy and my magical power was out the charts.

According to the running magical theory of this world; approximately ten percent of the world population could use magic. All mages store magic inside their bodies, absorbing the Ethernano in the air and turning it into magical power that is what fuels the spells that they cast. It is needed a strong will and concentration to cast magic.

Technically speaking, magic was the physical manifestation of the spirit. To use magic, the intellect and the spirit must be trained thoroughly, if the will of the mind is weak, it is more than possible that the magic will take over and destroy the mage. According to several researchers, strong emotions had a lot of influence on the strength and capability to cast magic.

All mages had a container inside their bodies that mark the limits of their magical power. Once it is depleted, the Ethernano in the atmosphere will gradually fill it again, allowing the magic to return to normal. I have those organs, as I was inside Gray's body now, but I didn't really needed them, all my body was a freaking geyser of magical power. I have more magic in my pinkie finger than the average mage.

Being completely conscious that my status as Campione; no longer applicable here; had influenced such an occurrence, I shrugged and thanked Mama Pandora and old Epimetheus for the blessings and move on with my original objectives.

The biggest problem that I had now was that I had a tremendous amount of power but had zero ideas about what to do with it. I felt that wasting power in my half-arsed [Ice Make] would be an insult to Ur and her teachings, so, the first thing I needed was a place to perfect her teaching and create a magic that would make her proud.

My path brought me to the Fairy Tail Guild.

The Guild master was a drunkard and a perverted old man called Makarov; not that I am not criticizing him, all my life I have drunk oceans of alcohol and I always have a more than healthy appreciation for the female form, that means that takes one to know one; that had zero problems in help me.

That shocked me.

I was more than capable than sense the power of the old man, even in his dwarf form, the man was more than enough to dwarf the power of Deliora. Why such a powerful mage would take time to help a rugrat like me?. Makarov helped me, explain to me why trying to unravel the [Ice Shell] spell of Ur was a sure way to kill her.

The bloody dwarf offered me a place in his Guild, a place where I could learn and earn my keep, a place that would protect me; an unregistered mage; and where I could talk with people like me.

Makarov saw Fairy Tail as a big, if not rambunctious, family and I will be dammed if I did not wholeheartedly agree with the wonderful bastard.

I got my magic stamp; the symbol that identifies me as a part of a Guild; on my chest, in dark blue, the color of the hair of Ur.

I become Gray Fullbuster, proud mage of Fairy Tail. That was one of the best decisions of my entire life.

Truth to be told, I had not much of an interest in the rest of the children of the Guild; I was hardly the only stray that has found a home in Fairy Tail; I was far more interested in shape my godly magical power into something worthy of my former title of Campione. However, as soon as I interacted a bit with the rest of the children around the Guild, I discovered that all of us have our own tragedies and traumas to deal with.

Sure as hell I have been called a lot of less than flattering names, but I always considered myself a good person at heart and seeing children with those eyes was something that pissed me off greatly. It was the kind of eyes that people that have suffered a lot had, eyes that spoke of loss and pain. Despite the infamy that the Campiones had in all eras, I was a protector of humanity and right now, my Guild, my home, needed a lot of help.

More than once Makarov had to endure the jokes about how more than Guild, Makarov was running a nursery. There were a lot of kids running around the Guild Hall, but I was sure that all of them had a lot of talent and would become something great in the future.

For example, Erza or Natsu. An exceptionally powerful mage, capable of summoning controlling dozens of weapons and armors at will, and one of the fabled Dragon Slayer, the Fire Dragon Slayer to be precise.

Or the Strauss siblings. Mages with the rare [Take Over], especially Mirajane, whose [Take Over: Satan Soul] was incredibly rare and powerful. With the unfortunate consequence of how the vast majority of the civilians that saw her developing magic confuse her for a demon and hunted her down, hurting her and her siblings.

Elfman and Lisanna had chosen different [Take Over] magics in solidarity with their sister and to make her feel not so alone in her burden. It was a decision that honored them.

There was a lot of talent brewing in the Guild Hall, but at the moment, we were all children with a lot of pain in our past and only a sliver of hope for the next day. I understood that sensation well, I have been traveling back and forth in the past due to a curse, that I could never establish solid relationships with anyone, fearing that the next morning I will be in a completely different timeline.

Thanks to Makarov, we grew up in a very positive and supporting environment, the only bad apple will be Laxus, but I knew the reasons why Laxus was doing what he was doing and up to a point, I could have related to it. Laxus was doing it spectacularly wrong, but the pride of the boy and the scar that, that bastard of a father of his left him was something that can not be mended with mere words.

In the future, Laxus will waltz at the edge of the abyss and I am sure that if it is not me, Erza, Natsu, Mira, Cana, or any other of us will punch him in the face and set him straight.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I know it well, I think I have a highway with my name on it down there.

Perhaps due or peculiar upbringing we are a very destructive Guild. Don't take me wrong, we never hurt innocent people, but the collateral damages that we produce is mind blogging. Especially Natsu and me. Natsu and I had kind of a rivalry ongoing, it was something that amused and annoyed me, but it was good for Natsu and the lad was kind of the heart of the Guild.

The enthusiastic and cheerful boy was energetic enough for the entire Guild and his antics brighten up the day of everybody around him, even myself. Unfortunately, our brawls tend to annoy Erza, who has become a disciplinarian and only ended up goading Mirajane, provoking an even bigger brawl.

It was an interesting childhood, I could assure you so much.

Discretely, I helped those on the Guild that needed a wise word, a punch in the face, or a hug, sometimes at the same time. More times than I would have liked to count, I had to punch, then hug, then give the words; I don't know if it is a characteristic of this world or just my paranoia speaking. I must have done something right because even Makarov came to me from time to time when one of the children was being especially problematic.

Curiously enough, I never had an interest in the S-class title that all mages seem to crave. I was absurdly powerful, that´s all that I needed, the S-class was just a letter; in the real world, letters like that are just a pretty little thing to hang in the banner and nothing else. Also, I was still training in my magic, trying to craft something that will stand at the side of the fabled Lost Magics and be whispered in fear and awe.

Over the paper, my magic was an exceptionally versatile one, with a strong ice and rune theme going on and that stretched into several categories of how the magic researchers categorized and classified the magic. Of course, I kept most of it under wraps, showing only [Ice Make] and some more well-known magic to keep the eyes of the Magic Council out of my hair. The last thing I needed was for a Rune Knight or a bloody investigator of the Council to came over and red tape my entire magic.

No thank you, I will freeze the entire council if they ever try such bullshit with me.

Mine was not the only voice that grumbled about the Magic Council and how they were absolute control freaks, but alas, I kept my protests in low voice. As much as I disliked the Magic Council and their ways, their influence and powers were not to be taken lightly and if I step over the line, I am sure that they will have little problems in jailing my ass for the rest of eternity without breaking a sweat.

I was young and growing, it was way too soon to flip the bird to the council. No doubt, in the future, I will have the chance to slap the Council in the face; even if I was no longer Campione, I was dammed to live interesting times, and mama Pandora has sent me to this world for a reason. So far I was just gearing myself up.

Although, I will admit that puberty completely sucker-punched me.

Puberty hit me like a train, and thanks to the cocktail that I had in my veins, I grow into could only be called the perfect male specimen. I was a mixture of Hercules and Adonis, with a toned and muscular body, raven-colored hair and dark blue eyes. My only grievance is that I was surprisingly beardless.

Due to my training with Ur, I was accustomed to walk around practically naked. When I was learning under her, Leon and I were practically naked under the glacial snows of the fields where we trained, Ur was also on her undies during all that time, so I have developed, unconsciously, the habit of walk around half-naked.

When I was a child, it could be funny, but when I grew into my teenage years and young adulthood, it became a problem. I was a stripper, not consciously, and that was another red mark on my profile, so I did all I could to stop that freaking trait and in the end, the only thing I managed to accomplish was to actually keep my pants and boots on. And not always the two of them.

I still walk around half-naked, showing off my abs and torso.

What baffled me was that my not so endearing trait only made me more popular. There is a rumor that the women of the town had approved a law that would prevent me from wearing anything waist up, I was the eye candy of the female population of the city. They still groaned about me wearing pants, something about me being like a horse; the women tend to whisper something along those lines and blush whenever I walk around.

The ladies of the Guild liked to mess with me about that, calling me stripper and stallion, but they lacked malice and I just shrugged it off. Ur ripped all possible sensations of shame out of me when I was a child. Training on nothing but shorts, in the middle of a blizzard, with a supermodel that was also wearing only a flimsy sports bra and very tight panties would do that to anyone.

Years passed, tragedies and joys come and go; life, in a nutshell; and before I realized I was already an adult.

I have always been there for my Guildmates, everybody knew that, that I was a solid pillar of Fairy Tail, but at the same time, I was so engrossed with my own personal training and development, that I was completely out of the usual standards of the rest of the Guilds. Not only I have missed all the S-Class trials until now, but all other chances of promotion. What it was worse was that I was relatively famous due to the bloody "Sorcerer Weekly" magazine.

The reporter, a lad called Jason, has been trying to interview me for ages, but I was never there; that only inflamed his passion for a story; and the best he could do was to manage to pick up some snapshots that some photographers made of me whenever I was up and down Magnolia.

Fairy Tail had its building in the city of Magnolia, in the Kingdom of Fire. The planet was called Earth Land by the way.

Without a tale to the name, the best Jason had was the rumors and gossip around me, and the tales of those whose quests I fulfilled and the public reports of my actions in the Magic Council, or, whenever I dispatched a dangerous monster, or dark mage, or bandits, during my travels.

Jason baptized me as the Iceman of Fairy Tail, a mysterious and cold figure of masculinity and kindness that waltzed through Fiore leaving only broken hearts and frozen enemies in his wake.

It was the biggest bullshit that I have ever read, but at the Guild, it was the favorite piece of my friends, that took a liking to rub that bullshit on my face whenever they want to get a rinse out of me. Natsu, especially, he has become quite adept and annoying me and starting a brawl, well, unless Erza is around. Whenever Erza is around, people tend to behave the best they could or be "disciplined" by Erza.

One day I will try to see if Erza is a closet dominatrix or something, I swear by mama Pandora that that girl is infuriating and sexy in equal measure.

Anyhow, I was another of the infamous mages of Fairy Tail and. Out of PR interest, I was going to give that bastard of Jason what he has been asking. With luck, the interview will clear a lot of misunderstandings about myself and will give me some breathing space. Fame was never something that I carved, it was a chore more than an advantage, especially when I was a Campione and all the magical associations of the world wanted a piece of me.

It truly had its perks, especially in the matter of connections and to carve good PR, but in this world, the infamy of Fairy Tail is quite well known and the only thing I wanted was to reduce the pressure on Makarov and the rest of my Guildmates, by taking the spotlight and distracting the civilians with me, leaving the others in peace.

I was not the only one that was harvesting good PR for the Guild, Mirajane was in a similar position.

After the tragedy that befall the Strauss siblings, losing Lisanna during an S-class quest, Mirajane and Elfman seriously changed their behavior. I was there for them, but even so, the wound in their hearts, run deep and that was something that only time and the support of people that loves you, could mend.

Mirajane was still an S-class mage, but she did not use her [Take Over Satan Soul] very much and instead she took charge of the Guild´s bar. Once she changed her usual punk styled clothes with a dress anyone could see how much of an absolute beauty she was.

It was one of the perks of Fairy Tail, practically all of the female mages around were of exceptional beauty.

Anyhow, Mirajane quickly became one of the superstar models of Sorcerer Magazine, reaching the splash pages and the top spots of the modeling business. She earned every single moment of glory, she has worked hard for it. And curiously enough, Mira seemed to like it.

Now it was my time to give Jason and the rest of Earthland more food for the thought.

For the interview, I chose an obscure bar on the outskirts of Magnolia. Thanks to Cana, I knew the best drinking places in town; and the rest of the country, if anything Cana always knew where to find good booze; and the owner of the local was a firm supporter of Fairy Tail. The man had a nasty debt with some thugs and loan sharks wannabes, Cana and I "persuaded" the loan sharks to left the man in peace and since then, we were VIPs on the local.

There was a table at the corner of the watering hole, from there you can observe the entire place and be out of the sight and the ears of the other customers. Not that the owner has not been clear with any of them that Fairy Tail mages are sacred in his bar. Considering the amount of cash that Cana and I have dropped in this place, along saving him from loan sharks, it was hardly a surprise.

I kept the table clear, with only two glasses and three bottles of alcohol. Wine, mead and whiskey, so Jason could choose his poison during the interview. I was already nursing a bottle of cold ale, it was strong stuff, but for me? it was like water. I was tremendously resistant to all poisons, and other maladies, thanks to my magic. I made sure of that.

The local was always under dim light and with a constant mix of smoke, alcohol, humanity, and the silent vow of do not meddle in each other business. It was the kind of watering hole that Cana and I loved when the Guild´s loud nature became a bit too much. From time to time, the silence was golden and this shadowy hole in the wall was the perfect place to sip a drink in peace.

I nursed my first glass of whiskey on the rocks before Jason appeared through the door, his appearance was not what I expected. Jason was a young man, blonde, with big open eyes childish face and cheerful smile, dressing with simple clothes and with a camera and a block of notes in his hands. His nose was sharp, like a toothpick and had a bizarre hairstyle. Now that I think about it, everyone around had bizarre hairstyles. The poor man stood like a sore thumb in this bar.

"I am in the right corner of the bar". I created a simple image and vanished it as soon as the message was sent. [Thought projection], a form of magic that creates a magic duplicate that could hear, speak, see and listen to long distances, I am still baffled that a lot of Dark Guilds had not abused the shit of this magic, I do, and I had no qualms in admitting it. It is bloody damn useful.

Jason almost jumped to the roof by the sudden voice, but he calmed himself and after locating me, he ran to the table and took a seat at the other chair available. It must be said that even the obviously less than welcoming atmosphere of the bar did nothing to diminish his enthusiasm, I could respect such devotion for his job. Although, I was still annoyed at him for the gossip that he published about me in his magazine.

Worse of all, his enthusiasm was making him talk a mile wide and I was not in the mood for dealing with another Natsu, albeit a less violent more chatting one.

"Enough", I infuse my voice with magic, it was nothing but an illusion trick, nothing out of the ordinary, but against a civilian, it did its job and cut him short.

"This is an interview, you ask, I answer, but your enthusiasm, as much as I could respect it, is starting to get in my nerves, so please, do quell it".

"Oh, sure", was the quite nod of Jason.

"Good", I smiled and reclined in my chair, leaning on the wall behind me. I could see in Jason's eyes that the wall was already creating frost over it, my magic was already sipping by and that means that my surroundings are quite cold.

"Now, ask your questions, you have come for a history and a history you will have", I am a man of my world, I promise him something and I will see it true.

Jason scrambled a bit with all his journalist gear, he carried a backpack with all of the useful things for his trade I suppose, and he took out a magic pen and started to scratch in the notebook.

"Well, for starters, who are you?, I mean, what is your full name, where did you come from, the usual", quite a normal questions, but I could see what Jason was doing, it may look sloppy but he was giving me rope, letting me told the tale.

"My name is Gray Fullbuster, I am from Isghar, the snowy lands of the North". For what I remember, my original village was grounded by Deliora when it awoke in the snowy borders of the country.

"I am born and raised in Ishgar, well, I grow into adulthood in Fairy Tail after I become part of the Guild".

"Coool", whispered Jason keeping his voice low. "How did you end up in Fairy Tail?", continued Jason. "According to all the public data about you in the Magic Council, you ended up really young in the Guild and at the time, you did not stand up very much".

That made raise an eyebrow, this man may look like a flop, but he is a keen journalist that really checks his sources. Well, to each its own. Appearances can be very decieving.

"I was barely a child", there was no reason to lie, it was very easy to check out that, "I came to Fairy Tail to learn more about magic, Guild Master Makarov accepted me and the rest is history".

"Not much of a cool history", grumble Jason, "you are one of the most powerful and respected mages of Fairy Tail, yet one of the most mysterious, only surpassed by Mystogun".

"Ah, yeah, him", I nodded.

I have barely interacted with the man, but one thing is clear, he is Not a mage. All of his magic came from the collection of staff, batons, and magical trinkets that he carries on himself. I was curious, like the rest of the Guild, but it did not meddle into his business and he did not meddle into mine. That being said, if he ever needed a hand, he only had to ask.

"Hardly a surprise. For what I am understood, Mystogun is kind of an antisocial, and the less he is annoyed, the best for everyone", that would keep people off his back for a bit, "still, he is an S-class and that is guaranty of strength, Fairy Tail is glad to have him around".

"I tried to interview the man or any other cool S-class, but except sweet Mira, it has been impossible", confessed Jason with different emotions in his voice. "Gildarts is always on the road, Titania scares me, Laxus the same, and Mira is already well known".

"I feel your pain". I empathically drank from my glass. The S-class of our Guild were not precisely extroverts or they understood social customs not in the same manner as the rest of the people of the world.

"But you are different, in the sense that you are public yet little is known about the cool you". Dig Jason for info about me.

"Well, I am sorry for disappointing you Jason but there still not much beyond the mystery", I focused in my glass and the frost-covered it again, cooling the liquid to perfection. "I am a bit of a hermit, I live in the northern edge of the city and I occupy my time with my job as Guild mage and my hobbies".

"And what are those?", that surely called his attention, in the Sorcerer Magazine gossip like that is worth its weight in gold.

"I am kind of a magic addict. Did you know that it could branch into a lot of things?", it was a surprise for me as well when I was a Campione and that has been carried with me into this new World.

"Alchemy into cooking; I made sorbets and smoothies that are to die for. Rune crafting into stone, metal, and woodcraft, I have built my own home and all the furniture in it by myself. Body related magic into martial arts and weapon mastery, all magic branches into something useful for everyday life".

Jason was smiling widely, with all that I was telling, that was gold for the article in the Sorcerer Magazine and pretty sure that is going to bring me a spot among the "mages that you would like as your boyfriend" rank that the magazine had running on since day one.

"Heck, I am quite good with a needle, I made my own clothes, buying them become a chore due my less than endearing trait of stripping", I grumbled with aggravation, that trait had cost me a fortune and even today I have lost more shirts than I would like to count.

"Ah, yes, your stripping habit is a well-known habit with the females of the town", Jason chuckled, very amused by it; "for what I am understood, they liked the view a lot".

"The powerful mage reduced to eye candy, how the mighty have fallen" I laughed and Jason joined me in the laughs.

"Among all the members of the Guild, you are considered the less destructive". That made me snort, before taking a sip from my drink and pour a new glass to myself and offering one to Jason.

The reporter smiled warily and raised his notebook, meaning that not during working hours. Again, that was some work ethic, pity the man was incredibly annoying when he was on the lookout for the next scope for his magazine.

"Ah, aye, that is a common protest of the Magic Council", perhaps I could indirectly help Makarov, although I am convinced that I am going to make it worse. More often than not, my words were interpreted the worst way.

"Tell me, Jason, are you familiar with the usual slang and sayings that runs in the Guilds?", I asked the reporter and he nodded me.

"Good", I refilled my glass and with a single exhalation, I covered it in frost, cooling the drink to the perfect level.

"Among the Magic Guilds, there is an old saying: Nine out of ten jobs will make you fight a Dark Guild and on the last one the contractor will try to scam you". Ain´t that the truth, I have lost count of the times that I have bashed the skull of a rogue mage or the contractor tried to weasel its way out of payment by all kinds of technicalities and legal voodoos.

"Magic is a very powerful force, whenever two mages collide, collateral damage is to be expected", common freaking sense; notable for its absence in Earth Land. "But the people around Fiore believed that Guild Mages would defeat their opponents and will do it without breaking a sweat, like they were the stars of a bloody theater work".

"Real magic does not work that way, I know it well, a lot of mages in the Guilds know it fucking well", I grumbled. I remember some of the bullshit that my own Guild-mates have experimented with and the shit that I have seen in the field, and I could say that anyone with an ounce of experience would soon be out of Lalaland or into an early grave.

"You seem to spoke from experience", there was a tone in Jason that contradicted his character. That was his reporter's voice, not the voice that wrote about the teenager and gossip themes that were the main content of Sorceror Magazine.

"Aye, I spoke from experience". My tone was clear that I will not talk about that and Jason understood.

"The opposite would be Natsu Dragneel, "Salamander"", Jason wisely changed the topic, "also, your cool rivalry seemed to be a very well know a thing around the town and the Guild".

"I am ice, he is fire", I shrugged, "we simply do not see things the same way. It also helps that he is a Dragon Slayer and his dragon traits sometimes get the best of him".

"Dragon Slayer, there not many of those mages around, it is considered Lost Magic", scribbled Jason.

"It is a very powerful style of magic", I nodded, "it grants strength, stamina, devastating magical power, however, it is supposedly being taught by dragons, so good luck with that".

"There are no dragons anymore, such a pity they were cool", tipped Jason the paper with his magical pen.

"A word of advice, never say that in front of a Dragon Slayer", I advised Jason, as I knew of the searching that Natsu was doing for his father Igneel, a red dragon. "Some of them are still looking for the dragons that raised them and any suggestion that they are not around anymore would be less than welcomed".

"Duly noted, cool", swallowed Jason that knew very well the kind of damages that an angry Dragon Slayer could do.

"On top of a Dragon Slayer, your Guild also has a lot of S-class mages", changed the topic Jason, "and for what I was told, you were one of them, or, at last, you should be one of them".

"Flattery will take you anywhere", I chuckled and took a sip from my glass. I have to take mental note of buying this brand, it is good.

"But nay, I am no S-class, not yet anyway". It was something that never bothered me all that much. The only downside was that S-class jobs are quite well paid. "Every time that the S-class promotions came around, I was neck-deep in other jobs at the other side of the country, or even in other countries".

"Speaking of which", said Jason, rustling with his notebook a bit, "you are one of the few mages that had actually traversed almost all the countries around Fiore, and even completed a difficult job at Iceberg".

"That was a clusterfuck for the ages", I sighed and twirled my glass, it was more empty than I remember. "It was a disaster with a Machias in a frozen spire somewhere in the northern wastelands of Iceberg; the payment was actually quite good and I really made a profit, so at the end it was bloody worth it".

"Well, how come a cool young mage has actually more traveling experience than most of the Magic Council diplomatic corps?", chuckled Jason. "in fact, I know in good faith that a lot of the Rune Knights did not really like your Guild, and that you and them have butted heads more than once".

"We are hardly the only Guild that does not have good relations with the Rune Knights", unfortunately, there is a lot of good people among the Rune Knights, but the vast majority of their forces are complete wankers that are just there just to make numbers.

"I do not really have any grudge with the majority of the Rune Knights", it was the truth actually. "The problem is that even if they are a necessity, among the Rune Knights and the mages will always exist a rift".

"Oh, how so?", Jason was a reporter and knew a lot of things, but he was a civilian that loved magic, contrary to the Rune Knights, who are mostly civilians whose job is to deal with the worst side of magic.

"The Rune Knights fight the worst side of magic every day", I resumed very simply, leaving out the millions of gray details that would be needed to explain it, "and when they see legal guilds like mine gallivanting around, they only saw potential threats because that´s what they see every day. Treating all mages as if they are potential criminals is what leads to the constant distrust between the two".

"I never saw it that way", confessed Jason.

"And I pray that you will never see it", I refilled my glass with different alcohol this time; I have been drinking the bloody bottle of whiskey as I chatted and I didn't even notice it.

"Your magazine speaks of the best of the Guilds, about the persons behind the magic, and it is a good thing", it was a gossip and pink magazine the best of days, but it helped to make the mages humane at the eyes of the civilians, "but our country, and all the others, had their own shadows. Leave those shadows alone, Jason, that´s a job for others".

"Others like you?", Jason was uncharacteristically sober and serious. Hardly not too, I was informing him of things that the Council would have preferred to keep under wraps. I have fought and killed and hunted down things that the Council did not want to see the light.

I was doing their job and they hated me for it.

"Others", I simply chuckled without compromising in anything.

"So, Who is Gray Fullbuster?", inquired Jason. All his journalism instinct was telling him that Gray was an incredibly complex man, who has seen way more than any youngster like him should have seen.

"Your average Guild mage with a big chip on his shoulder", I laughed without humor.

"Who I am?", I continued my rant, "I am Gray Fullbuster, a proud disciple of Ur, a proud mage of Fairy Tail, some calm me, friend, someone calls me Ice-brains, some ladies call me stallion, some idiots call me a monster, demon and a menace".

"But tell me something Jason", my smiled chilled and awed him to the core, as my eyes changed into the red that I suffered when I became something more than a mere human, but that is a tale for another day.

"When the wolf is at your gates and the champions of the council are defeated and broken, will you trust the devil at your side?".