Back at the guildhall Zeref was trying to control his anger. Nothing was working and he hated it. The Spriggan were being overwhelmed and Mavis was far out of his reach. He had calculated this attack for years, waiting to strike until he was certain that his armies could deal with both Fairy Tail and Acnologia... he hadn't expected the mages to be this strong.

"Father!" someone cried bursting through the doors breaking Zeref's concentration. It was Larcade.

"Do not call me that," Zeref muttered under his breath.

"Father the Ishgar guild's are advancing, we need to leave," Larcade wheezed. He was greatly injured and had come a long way, "they'll kill you."

"Good," Zeref smiled, "If I can't fix the world or destroy it I'm better off dead."

Larcade seemed to be fighting back tears, Zeref was certain if they were from his wounds or his heart, "You can't die! I won't let them hurt you!"

Suddenly Larcade was on the ground contorting in pain, "You will not stop them," Zeref gritted raising his hands as we walked over to Larcade, "You are not my son. You are a mere book of Zeref, the world will be graced with your death today," Zeref gritted.

"No father, please don't!" Larcade cried.

A huge explosion sounded through the room. It knocked Zeref back into the wall of the guildhall but it did not affect Larcade.

"You know, I've been trying to play nice," someone said walking through the smoke, "I've been trying to become a real member of society." Jackal emerged standing between Larcade and Zeref he wore a green cloak and matching gloves, "But the fact that you raise your hand against my kind just pisses me the hell off."

"Jackal?" wondered Zeref, his eyes narrowing.

"I tried so hard too." Jackal growled ripping his gloves off exposing his clawed hands, "I told myself that I would keep it down, try to turn over a new leaf, not kill people. Now, I'm just gonna light you up."

"You want to fulfill your purpose, try to kill me" Zeref sighed, "You are not at that caliber."

"No. Now if killing you only killed me and Salamander, I would do it in a snap," Jackal said snapping his fingers; this caused thousands of explosions to go off across the battlefield knocking out thousands of Alvarez troops. "But, Seilah doesn't deserve to die, and this kid, Larcade, he doesn't want to die." Jackal looked back towards Larcade.

"I don't know how you're alive, and I don't know how you got here, but I recommend you get out of my way or you will perish."

Jackal began laughing, "You think I'm just gonna walk away!? After what you've done to this kid? After what you've done to my guild!?"

"I had nothing to do with Tartaros's destruction," Zeref scoffed.

"I'm not speaking of Tartaros!" Jackal roared ripping the cloak off revealing his Fairy Tail mark, "I'm talking about my new guild! I'm talking about Fairy Tail!"

"You... you joined Fairy Tail?" Zeref shook. This was another unplanned predicament.

"Yes. And I'll fight to my dying day for them. They taught me how to live; they taught me how to love. With them, I am cared for and can forget my deadbeat creator who just tried to kill my brother!"

"Brother?" Larcade whimpered.

"You're a demon right?" Jackal snarled sending Larcade a sideways glare, "that means you're family and so help me you're gonna live and love and even be happy!"

"What?" Larcade whispered

"You realize that with a snap of my figures I could destroy you?" Zeref laughed.

"I refuse to obey you. I refuse to listen, and I even refuse to hate you. You have no control over me!" Jackal yelled preparing to attack.

"You think that's enough?" Zeref scoffed.

Jackal ran forward, Zeref snapped his fingers. Jackal hesitated, feeling pain and continued forward raising his hands. Zeref raised his hands and tensed. Explosions rocked the guild sent out by Jackal's hands. Zeref tensed further and Jackal cried out as he fell to his knees.

"You will die," Zeref yelled.

"No!" Jackal yelled in defiance, sending more explosions forward.

"Yes." Zeref hissed. Jackal froze and reverted to a golden book with Jackal printed on the cover, "you put up a good fight, but you are of no more use to me," Zeref said preparing to snap his fingers. A book slammed into his hand stopping him from proceeding. There was another, and another, Zeref wasn't able to move his hands or fingers without being slammed with a magically flying book. In the chaos, Seilah sneaked in and grabbed Jackal's book. "Seilah!" Zeref cried.

"My apologies father, but I can't let you hurt my brother," she whimpered.

Then she sneaked over to where Larcade was all while Zeref tried to snap.

"Come on," she whispered to the injured demon. She supported Larcade and helped him out all while Zeref was angrily trying to fight books.

The books finally ceased attacking Zeref and the dark wizard ran to the entrance, where he met Acnologia.

"Stop chasing after your kids, you can go apologize after we finish," Acnologia growled putting a firm hand on Zeref's shoulder.

"Do not refer to them as my children," Zeref snarled backing away from the towering dragon king.

"Why not, you made them. You raised them. Granted you then erased their memories hoping that they would hate you and you would love them... that didn't work out for you," Acnologia laughed.

"Acnologia, what do you want," Zeref gritted.

"Quite frankly, I'm stalling until the others get here," Acnologia shrugged, "I move to fast and they can't keep up."

Seilah and Larcade had made their way to safety. Seilah picked up Jackal's book and set him free.

"Ow," Jackal said looking rather pale, "that was a whole lot harder than I thought."

"You did well Jackal," Seilah smiled.

"Thank you, both of you," Larcade said bowing.

"Don't worry about it," Jackal waved sitting down with a grunt, "Oh that hurt," he hissed as something cracked.

"No, I'm serious... father would've... he would've-" Larcade said sadly.

"Stop it, you have nothing to thank me for," Jackal said stretching making more things snap.

"Don't take what Zeref says to heart. He's a broken person and broken people say and do things that they don't mean... he's forgotten what it means to live." Seilah smiled patting Larcade's shoulder.

"I'd pat you, but I lost my gloves... those were expensive too," Jackal sighed looking at his bare claws.

Further away Erza's mother admitted she loved her, and then committed suicide much to the Erza's horror. 

"Mother?" Erza trembled.

"Keep smiling," Irene breathed as she looked up at the sky. Wendy walked up to the two gingerly and then got to her knees, she bowed to Irene.

"Rest well... Dragon Queen," Wendy breathed.

"Acnologia has raised you well," Irene chuckled she looked to Erza again and gave a weak smile, "Keep smiling my child."

Then Irene Belserion, Queen of the Dragons, mother of Erza Scarlet, breathed her last.

The world went back to normal.

"Eleven of the twelve have fallen," Zeref gritted.

"Yeah," Acnologia nodded sensing the death of the dragon slayer.

"How... How did you beat August?" Zeref asked looking at Acnologia in rage.

"You'll know soon enough."

"Then now is the time."

"Time for wha-"

Zeref raised his hand and sent a magic beam into the air much like a flare, it broke through the roof and lit up the sky, "it's time for E.N.D to awaken."

The "hospital" for the injured was in the Magnolia cathedral. Meredy, Ultear, and Gray were there watching the weak figures of Lyon, Ur, and Juvia breathe.

Ultear kept choking and sobbing repeating the phrase sorry. Meredy tried to comfort Ultear but ended up breaking down as well. Gray, however, sat next to Juvia's weak body and watched her, staying abnormally quiet.

"Gray," Porlyusica said walking over to the silent ice mage, "are you alright?"

"What makes you think otherwise?" Gray whispered.

"You haven't turned off your devil form, I don't like it," Porlyusica stated.

"It's none of your concern," Gray said softly.

He was hit in the back of the head with a broom, "You're in my hospital so it's my concern!" Porlyusica cried.

"Invel... never mind. Soon you'll know."

"Know what?"

"Soon," Gray repeated, he reached out and grabbed Juvia's hand, "soon it'll all be over."

"Lucy?" Natsu called, "Happy?"

"Hey Salamander," Gajeel called running up to Natsu.

"Hey Gajeel, have you seen Happy and Lucy?"

"I saw Happy a little while ago, he went southward last I saw."

"Thanks, Gajeel."

"Hurry up, I've got a bad feeling," Gajeel growled looking back towards the guildhall and the rest of Magnolia.

"Bout what?"

"Don't know; just feel like something's about to go wrong... so hurry up."

"I will!" Natsu called.

Lucy struggled against the stupid roots that held her immobile, next to her Happy struggled as well trying to get free.

"What do you want!?" Happy cried.

"He should be here," a soft voice sighed, "I didn't go through all the trouble of possessing this demon, gaining Zeref's trust, and suffering humiliation for little Summer to pull a no-show."

"Let us go!" Lucy cried.

Mard Geer stepped out of the shadows and looked over the forest from the hole in the mountain he was standing on. He ignored Lucy's cries from behind him and smiled at the distant battlefield, "Come on little summer, come to grandpa Tyregenium."

Natsu smelled the air, Happy had been there but his scent was stale.

"Happy!" Natsu called.

The forest was dark and Natsu was beginning to get a very bad gut feeling. He had left the battlefield far behind following the scent of Happy. He stopped at a broken bush where he recognized blonde hair laying in the leaves... Lucy.

He smelled the hair and went back to tracking.

"Stay away from Natsu!" Happy cried.

"Little Summer will awaken his darker side which in turned will rip away at my apprentice's humanity," Mard Geer smiled gleefully.

"Happy, he isn't Mard Geer. He talks differently," Lucy warned.

"Is he using illusion magic?" Happy whispered.

"No... I think he possessed Mard Geer," Lucy shook trying to gain freedom once more.

"There you are," Mard Geer laughed looking over the forest, "now let's set you free." A bright light filled the sky... the signal from Zeref. "Perfect timing you idiotic black wizard," Tyregenium laughed. He raised his hand and a dark magic circle appeared above both Lucy and Happy.

"What are you gonna do?" Lucy asked.

"Kill you," Tyregenium shrugged, "or get you very close to it."

"Lucy!? Happy?" Natsu's voice split the air.

"Natsu it's a trap-" Happy began to call, the roots wrapped around both his and Lucy's mouth muffling their desperate calls.

"Goodbye you two," Mard Geer smiled, the spell activated.

"What have you done?" Acnologia gritted grabbing Zeref by his throat.

"In all honesty, I don't know. I left it to Mard Geer," Zeref said sadly. "I left it to the final Spriggan."

"Please... tell me you didn't-"

As if to answer him a fiery explosion rocked the mountain that was a few miles away.

"No," Acnologia said in horror, he dropped Zeref.

Gray looked up as an inhuman roar rocked the battlefield. He got to his feet and walked out of the hospital.

"Gray, where are you going?" Ultear asked her eye red and puffy.

"To end it all," Gray answered.

"ZEREF" an inhuman voice roared shaking the battlefield.