It was official; Natsu was Igneel's son. He picked a fight with everyone, except Acnologia. In the past thirty minutes, Natsu had fought Gray, Laxus, Gajeel, and was now attacking Gildarts. Gildarts easily punched him into a wall. Acnologia sighed, he refused to allow Natsu to grow into an arrogant flame head like his idiotic father that had almost been killed multiple times.

"I WILL WIN!" Natsu roared.

"Nope," Acnologia sighed. He grabbed Natsu by the scarf and dragged him out of the guild and into a field. Natsu struggled and kicked the entirety of the way...

"PUT ME DOWN UNCLE!" he cried.

Acnologia did just that, Natsu plunked down to the ground

"You want to fight someone?" he asked.

"... Yes," Natsu said crossing his arms, "I only fought Gray because he called me names! And Gajeel laughed and said I was stupid! I did want to fight Gildarts."

"So you want to fight someone," Acnologia sighed crossing his arms.

"Yes."

"Then fight me."

Natsu's eyes widened, "but... but-"

"Come one, fight me."

Natsu reluctantly got to his feet; he summoned a flame in his hand. Then he rushed forward, Acnologia dodged.

"You're too hotheaded; you have to think about your opponent sometimes," Acnologia scolded.

Natsu ran at Acnologia again, Acnologia moved to the side and hit Natsu into the ground.

"So running at me doesn't work, you should try something else," Acnologia sighed.

Natsu got to his feet and backed away, "FIRE DRAGON ROAR!" he yelled. Acnologia dodged the flames.

"That's more like it!" Acnologia laughed, "experiment with your ranges, change up your typical fighting style or else you get predictable."

Natsu attacked with his fists again through the flame, "FIRE DRAGON WING ATTACK!" Natsu yelled. Acnologia avoided the flames once more.

"Try combinations, the more hits you throw the more likely one of them is to hit their target," Acnologia recommended.

Natsu and Acnologia kept fighting, no matter how many times Natsu tried to hit Acnologia, Acnologia would simply move, or sidestep. Finally, as the sun began to set Natsu fell to his knees.

"I can't uncle, I can't beat you, and I can't even hit you" Natsu choked.

"Can't? Will you never reach that level?" asked Acnologia an image of Natsu defeating him flashing in his mind.

"No."

"Is that despair I hear?" asked Acnologia.

"No!" Natsu answered quickly.

"Natsu... get up and fight," Acnologia said softly.

"What's the point?" asked Natsu, "you'll always beat me."

"The point, the point! The point is that you can never get better if you pick battles and never finish them!"

Natsu looked up. Acnologia stood above him.

"You may pick your battles however you wish, but finish them, that is what matters; it doesn't matter if you picked a fight against a thousand foes, if you never finish them, what is the point in bragging? You say you can never beat me and I disagree, as long as you have faith in your ability and carry out every fight until the bitter end you will grow until you surpass me."

Natsu pushed himself to his knees, then he straightened his legs. Acnologia smiled, "I don't care who you fight, as long as you dedicate yourself to the fight you will never have reason to back down."

Natsu moved quickly, he roared first. Acnologia dodged it, then Natsu came down from above with a brilliant flames attack, this time Acnologia had to move much quicker, Natsu was getting smarter Acnologia realized happily. As Acnologia cleared the smoke Natsu attacked him with a fire dragon iron fist, Acnologia dodged, Natsu then faked him with the fire dragon iron fist and used fire dragon talon. Acnologia was hit.

Natsu was panting, tired and worn out. Acnologia rubbed his slightly singed shoulder and smiled.

"I did it," Natsu said, "I hit you."

"Yes, and with that, the battle is finished," Acnologia smiled proudly.

"I HIT YOU! I HIT YOU!" Natsu sang. The two began to walk home Natsu bragging and yipping about his victory the entire time. But the day had taken its toll on the young dragon slayer and slowly his eyes began to droop, finally Natsu looked up at Acnologia, "Uncle, can you carry me, I'm tired, can you? Please?" pleaded Natsu.

Acnologia scoffed but silently did so. He picked up Natsu and in five minutes he was out like a light. Acnologia carried Natsu all the way home, gave the boy a bit of food (not that it was any use, Natsu nearly fell asleep on his plate) and then tucked him into bed. Acnologia then went and slept on the couch.

'We do realize we just helped our previous murderer learn life lessons? Why are we still with these children? They killed us in the past life!' a voice growled in Acnologia head.

Well, he tried to sleep. Acnologia moaned and threw a pillow over her face trying to block out the voices in his head.

'Can you please just shut up, they aren't gonna kill us and we're trying to make them into better dragons. Honestly, can we just forget that past life, there's nothing good to come from it.' another responded.

'It takes one moment for them to know who we really are for them to hate us and try to kill us again.'

'They won't find out. And it's who we were, not who we are.'

'Can you guarantee it? No matter how good we are to them, they'll kill us if they ever find out. There is no denying what we did in the previous life deserves their hate.'

'We will be better, it won't end as it did.'

'WILL BE BETTER?' a third cried.

'Okay, maybe we are already better, but we can always do better. There has to be some way to make it up for it all.'

'We don't need to make up for anything.'

'WHAT!?'

'Do we need to lay our previous life out for investigation?'

'We did what we did. We shouldn't regret a thing.'

'But we do regret. We regret Igneel, all of the dragons, we regret the dragon slayers and what we did to the, we regret Anna and the pain we put her through, we regret-'

'If we regret so much how is there any hope for repentance? Sounds like we're damned.'

'...'

'DO YOU EVER SHUT UP!'

Acnologia couldn't agree more with the final words of the voices.

(A few days later)

The dragon slayers were asleep and well, the night was calm, and all seemed well, but Acnologia could not sleep. He continuously would get up, walk about and try to lie down again, he didn't know what it was, but something was bothering him. He opened the window to breathe the fresh air. The voices in his head had remained rather quiet since their last disagreement after Natsu's training course, Acnologia wasn't going to complain.

He leaned on the flimsy metal balcony and wondered why his gut couldn't settle. After a few moments, he turned and went to check on the dragon slayers who, he hoped, were fast asleep.

Then he saw a shadow move quickly from under the couch to Sting's, Natsu's, Gajeel's, and Rogue's room.

Acnologia sighed and walked into the room, Rogue was under his covers and breathing slowly, but Acnologia was not fooled.

"Ryos, what's wrong?' Acnologia sighed.

"It's Rogue," Rogue muttered.

"Fine, Rogue, what's wrong."

"Nothing."

Acnologia swore; he was not going to run circles all night with this child. His gut wouldn't stop bothering him, Natsu had almost burned the house down today, and it was one in the morning. He was done.

"Are you hungry?" he asked

"No."

"Thirsty?"

"No."

"Do you feel sick?"

"No."

"FOR GOODNESS SAKES TELL ME!" Acnologia hissed in a loud whisper.

Rogue turned over, his eyes were red from tears... Acnologia didn't need anything else.

"You dreamt about Skiadrum didn't you?" Acnologia said looking up to face Rogue. Rogue gave a silent and quick nod.

Acnologia rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, "What brought this on?" Acnologia asked.

"I got cold... and when we lived together, Skiadrum would always wrap his wings around me when I got cold... his shadows weren't cool, they trapped heat, so when I got cold, I reached for Skiadrum's wings... then... then I," he choked.

"You remembered he wasn't here," Acnologia finished.

Rogue, began to weep, he threw himself off the top bunk of the bed onto Acnologia who had a mini heart-attack before attempting to awkwardly cradle him.

Rogue cried and hiccuped a few times, then he slowly went back to sleep. Acnologia went to put him into bed.

"Uncle, can you sleep in here... until..." Rogue asked drowsily.

"No."

Rogue gave a sniff and gripped his blankets, "okay," he muttered.

Acnologia groaned. Sting shifted slightly forcing Acnologia to quiet down. He looked at Rogue who was always quiet and never complained and he knew, he understood, why this child was chosen by Skiadrum. Skiadrum wanted a student who would bite their tongue and ask for something only once. He wanted someone with the smarts to survive with nothing and the heart to live with everything. Rogue was just the student for him, and damn it ticked Acnologia off because he saw Skiadrum, his younger brother, in the boy. 

He sighed and sat on the floor, Rogue eyes lit up with thankfulness in the darkness and Acnologia fought back a smile. Rogue fell asleep and Acnologia did as well, he slept in that sitting position... one of these days he would get himself a real bed, but until then, he would settle for the floor or the couch. 

Sometime during the night Sting crept out of his bed and snuggled up against Acnologia.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked awakening.

"You're warm, like Weisslogia," Sting mumbled.

Acnologia rolled his eyes but allowed Sting to curl up in his lap.

"You both," he growled drowsily.