Ever After

The Source

*YOUR POV*

I woke up a few hours later, surrounded by my guildmates. They were standing in Ezra's room with us, talking quietly, so as not to wake us. I stood, drawing everyone's attention. They shuffled around, looking like they'd been caught doing something wrong, and I sighed. "Alright, come on. Someone fess up. Why do you all look guilty and what were you talking about before I stood up just now?" They all averted their eyes, none of them speaking, until Erza surprised me by chiming in from the bed behind me. "They were talking about the corruption in Lamia Scale. And how it's spread. But they didn't want us to wake up because of the theory they had about it." I turned to my wife, the only one giving me a straight answer.

"What's the theory right now?" Erza hesitated, holding Lillith close.

"They think it's your sister's fault. They think Ashley corrupted them." I inhaled sharply at this thought. No. Not my sister. It couldn't be.

"Why? Did you happen to hear why everyone thinks this?" Erza shook her head, so I turned back to my guildmates. "Then will one of you actually answer me and explain why you think my sister is responsible for this?" Cana stepped forward.

"Y/N, we were talking it over, and believe me, none of us wanted to blame her. We still don't. But there's only evidence of it starting shortly after she came to you, and everyone acted normally during the Games. And Ashley was nowhere to be seen during them, so all signs point to her." I shook my head.

"No. It was happening before, just on a smaller scale. And I saw her during the Games, in between fights. She talked to me about the corruption and warned me to be careful. And as for acting normally, you saw how Lyon and Cheria acted when Juvia and I were fighting them." I looked up at my guild. "You all did. And you didn't see what I did. Their eyes... They weren't normal. The color was different and there was a malice that wasn't there in other fights." Erza spoke up from behind me.

"A different color? What did they look like?" I racked my brain for a good way to describe it.

"They were normal, but it almost looked like there was a translucent film over them. It was gray-ish black with streaks of moving color, red, green, blue, and purple, all mixed together." Erza tensed and sat up, looking straight at me.

"Did you see the bubbles that Minerva made when fighting?" I nodded, recalling how scared I was for the safety of both my wife and child.

"Yeah... They were horrible... Why do you ask, sweetheart?" Erza smiled at the endearment, but then set her face into a grim expression.

"Was the film in Lyon and Cheria's eyes the same color as Minerva's bubbles?" I hesitated, thinking, then nodded. Erza swung her legs out of bed, still clutching Lillith, and stood. "Then I know exactly what caused the corruption. We need to go pay Sabertooth a visit."