Prologue:

Popular theories exist about how interconnected everything is. Everything happens for a reason, they say. Or consider the concept of predestination, where everything that ever happens has been laid out before us. Even better, think about the claim that a butterfly flapping its wings on one continent will cause a tidal wave on another.

While it's hard to actually verify that type of cause and effect, some things seem to come down to certain key points. If one person hadn't made that one decision, everything would have turned out differently. If there hadn't been that earthquake, there wouldn't have been famine for the next three years. If mage guilds hadn't participated in the Second Trade War, the loss of life would have been much less severe.

When considering the mage guild, Fairy Tail, these cause and effect relationships get even more bizarre. If Fairy Tail and Tartarus hadn't destroyed each other, would the continent have been better prepared when Alberez invaded? If Fairy Tail and Grimoire Heart hadn't clashed on Tenrou Island, would Acnologia have been summoned to obliterate the lot, destroying the little that remained of Grimoire Heart and causing the core members of Fairy Tail to disappear for seven years? If Fairy Tail hadn't played a crucial role in the alliance that defeated the Oracion Seis, would Grimoire Heart have chosen to take them on? The list goes on and on.

Yet, if all of the connected strings are followed, and a thorough investigation completed, it's easy to see how many of these events trace back to one single individual. It is the opinion of this author that the major events of x794 can be traced back to both individuals, through many of the major events of x791 and x784, including, but not limited to the defeat of Tartarus and disbandment of Fairy Tail, the vanishing and reappearance of the Tenrou Team from Fairy Tail, and the disbandment of the Magic Council after the Tower of Heaven incident.

In x686, Fairy Tail's first master, Mavis Vermillion, the Fairy Tactician, and her companions Precht Gaebolg, Yury Dreyar, and Warrad Sequen came across a Black Wizard in the woods near Magnolia. This wizard taught them magic, including the spell which would later become known worldwide as Fairy Law. However, when Mavis Vermillion used Fairy Law in its incomplete form, she was cursed with the Ankhseram curse. At the date of publication, only one other individual is known to have borne the same curse: the Black Wizard Zeref Dragoneel, teacher of the founders of Fairy Tail.

Through a long series of events, to which you can refer to several texts (recommended reading material on these events can be found at the end of this volume), Fiore came to x791 and the disbandment of Fairy Tail. At this time, Lucy Dreyar (nee Heartfelia) elected to remain in Magnolia, and through a number of circumstances came to be a contracted mage with the town of Magnolia. One of three living Celestial Mages at the time, Lucy was considered the most powerful, with ten zodiac keys in her possession, as well as other silver keys. While not useful to wizard who weren't Celestial Mages, Zodiac Keys are extremely valuable collector's pieces, due to their rarity. At some point in her contract, the mayor of Magnolia began making attempts to wrest the keys from Lucy's control. She resisted, and his actions became increasingly illegal, leading him to order an assassination attempt on the woman before he was arrested by Mest Gryder, who was at the time a member of the Magic Council and answered to the name Doranbolt. At the time of arrest, it was unknown how deep the conspiracy ran, and that brings us back to the interconnected nature of these events.

As time progressed, it became clear to the individuals investigating the matter that the mayor of Magnolia was only the tip of the iceberg. By the end of this volume, it will be clear that the conspiracy reached all the way to Zeref Dragoneel.

And thus everything came to a boiling point in x794. The board was set and the pieces were in order. All that was needed was a spark.

This volume begins at the tipping point in x794, when most historians believe the final battle between dragons, demons, and humans began. While it contains an accurate chronicle of events, it is not intended to be a historical accounting and analysis. Instead, the volume contains firsthand narratives of the members of Fairy Tail and Sabertooth, who are hailed as the guilds at the forefront of this conflict. It is this author's hope that by the conclusion, the reader will understand the day to day struggles faced by those who were present. The style is that of a novel, but I assure you, everything contained within these pages is true.

Anonymous

(Widely believed by most scholars to be

either Lucy Dreyar (nee Heartfilia)

or Levy Redfox (nee McGarden))

***Okay, we'll try this again. First things first, good to see everyone!

Second: this takes place 3 years after the manga chapter 416 and 1 year after the end of Still Standing. The chapters are much longer than I usually write, and I'm currently 10 chapters in and 40k words written. Because of that, I'm posting every two weeks on Fridays.

Third: I'm having computer issues. My computer leaves today on vacation and hopefully comes back repaired, but for the next week or so I'm reverting to an old, Windows XP laptop that wasn't great when it was young. I think I have a workaround for that, but we'll see how it goes.

Fourth: When I originally tried to post this chapter, the site messed it up. So if you got notified, I apologize.