Face Your Fears (Fairy Tail Fanfic)

One Fateful Night

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail, or any songs or artwork I post.
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*nine years ago—at the Fernandes household*
{THIRD PERSON POV}
It was two in the morning when the door squeaked open. Eight year old Reiki poked his head inside. Seeing the entry hall was dark, he breathed a sigh of relief and stepped through.

The lights flicked on. It was an ambush.

Reiki's mother, Fairy Tail's strongest active female mage, stared angrily at him with her hands on her hips. "Do you have any idea how late it is?"

Reiki backed up nervously.

Erza smothered him in a big hug. "I was worried. I thought you also—Reiki, where were you?"

Reiki winced in pain. Erza gasped, backing up when she realized that he was covered head to toe in bruises and lacerations. Reiki had been attacked and beaten, badly. His skin was cold, clammy, and chalk white. He was trembling like a leaf.

His appearance had changed too. Reiki used to have dark scarlet hair and blue eyes, with a blue birthmark around his right eye, exactly like Jellal's red tattoo. But the birthmark was gone and his eyes were now the same maroon color as his hair.

And his magic power. Erza couldn't sense it anymore. It was gone? No, that wasn't quite right. It was still inside him, only much weaker.

Someone had attacked her son and stolen his magic. Erza gritted her teeth. She'd been angry before, but had never felt rage quite like this.

"Who did this to you?" She asked calmly, trying to keep the venom out of her voice.

Reiki clung to his mother for comfort. His eyes flashed with pain and fear as he relived the memory: his training with Lexi, finding the snake, its nasty hissing, hoarse words permeating his mind.

And Lexi's screams. Reiki shuddered. He would never forget the sound of her screams.

His mom wouldn't believe him. No, Reiki decided; she would believe him, but he couldn't bear to tell her of the fate that had been pushed upon his shoulders.

"I-I tripped." He lied.

"But—"

"I tripped."

"Reiki—"

"I said I tripped!" Reiki pushed his mom away, then stumbled and nearly fell. Erza caught him easily and supported his weight.

"I'm taking you to Porlyusica." She said decisively, pulling her son up and carrying him like a toddler on her hip. Reiki buried his face in the crook of her neck and whimpered. Pain, lack of sleep, and blood loss were finally catching up to him.

Erza flat out ran to Porlyusica's cabin in the woods. The old healer grumpily opened the door, but quickly woke up when she saw Reiki's condition.

As soon he was all bandaged up on the patient bed and his condition was stable, Porlyusica assessed Reiki's missing magic power. She pursed her lips before softly relaying her observation to Erza.

"A Seven Sins Seal?" Erza echoed.

"Yes." Porlyusica confirmed. "Ancient and very powerful. Even I don't know much about it. The method was too complex, and it doesn't even seal one's magic power fully. As there became a market for simpler and more effective devices, such as magic sealing stone, its use fell out of practice."

"Can you undo it?" Erza asked desperately.

Porlyusica shook her head. "I told you, it's ancient. Even further beyond Lost magic. As in, near the beginning of magic. It's vitality is it's strength. Although Seven Sins is considered one seal, it's actually a conglomerate of seven smaller seals...

the first seal of pride;

the second seal of greed;

the third seal of wrath;

the fourth seal of envy;

the fifth seal of lust;

the sixth seal of gluttony;

and the seventh seal of sloth. Without the caster, I'm afraid you won't be able to unlock them. The good news is Reiki can still be a mage. He'll just never reach his full potential, because the Seven Sins Seal will block a massive portion of his magic power."

*simutaneously—at the Dreyar household*
"She's never been out this late before, what if something's happened? What if she and Reiki went too far and got lost? Shouldn't we go fetch her?"
Mira fretted, fidgeting anxiously.

Laxus, seated next to her, sniffed the air. "Calm down Mira. There's no need for that. She's here."

Lexi opened the door. Both her parents jumped up in alarm when they saw her. She was covered in severe blistering burns. Lexi tottered over and clung to their legs for comfort, trembling.

"Who did this to you?" Mira cried. She knelt down and rubbed Lexi's head, observing carefully to avoid making her injuries worse.

Lexi's eyes were blank. She wasn't the smiling, cheerful girl who left them that afternoon.

Laxus observed her burns more closely and felt a spark. "These are electrical burns."

The truth hit them like a battering ram.

Lexi had been born with unusually high magic power. Since her birth, it increased exponentially without Lexi even needing to train. At seven years old, she could go head to head with adult wizards who had far more experience and technique. She simply overwhelmed them with sheer quantity of magic.

However, with great power comes great risk. If her magic power grew too strong too quickly, the pressure increase could break her human shell. Similar to a balloon popping from overfilling.

There was always a chance that Lexi's magic power would attack her from within. Porlyusica constantly reminded them that such a thing would traumatize a young child, possibly to the point of making her lose faith in her own magic power.

While that wasn't fully what happened, it was close enough to the truth that the effect was the same.

The burns were a manifestation of Lexi's lightning magic. She could no longer trust that her magic power would protect her rather than hurt her.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "Never. I'm never using magic ever again!"