Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima

Warnings: Violence, language, sexual content

(A/N: Hi Marika, Got your review on Noir. I had a Day yesterday and deleted this in a small fit of rage. So. Sorry. And sorry anyone that has me on their alert list that just got blasted with 20 million update notifications. As I said. A Day.)

Lie with the Devil

She lay on the grass staring up at an impossibly blue sky. There were three clouds, all clustered together. She tried to make shapes out of them but could not.

"I see a tiger," Lisanna whispered.

"I see a bull," Elfman confirmed.

"And I see a demon," added an unfamiliar voice. Mira cocked her head to the right and found she could, too. The clouds turned yellow. Then orange. Then red. The fresh spring day turned scalding hot. Mira couldn't breathe.

She woke coughing, choking, hacking and gagging. A wicked noise bellowed in her ears. Her skin was hot and soaked in sweat.

Her eyes peeled open. She couldn't see much of anything. Grey, mostly. Black. And yellow. Orange. Red. Like in her dream. She took a breath in through her mouth; her lungs rejected every part of it. Mirajane Strauss turned in her single bed and coughed so hard she almost threw up.

Why?

Fire, her sluggish mind suggested. Her family's log house was burning.

"Mira!" A familiar voice penetrated the grey darkness. "Mira! Mira where are you?"

Lisanna.

The young girl's voice barely travelled through the walls, small and weak.

Get up. Get up.

"Lisanna!" She had meant to be loud, but her voice came out strangled.

Get up. Her limbs felt heavy. It's the smoke. She was suffocating to death in her bed. That gave Mira the motivation needed to shuck the blankets off her body. It was even hotter outside of them. She sat up and thoughtlessly put her feet to the floor. Instead of the coolness she had come to expect when her bare skin kissed the wood, she was met with a terrible burning sensation. She bit back a yell as her feet blistered and pulled them back up on her bed. A large portion of the soles of her feet were left behind.

She wanted to cry. There was no time for tears. Bright light pulsed behind her mostly closed door. The fire was eating through the hallway. The house groaned. There was one time, when she was small, a bolt of lightning made the barn catch fire; Mira and her father had stood outside and watched the whole thing burn to the ground in minutes.

Now the house was making the same noises the barn had just before it collapsed.

Just bear it. Stand. Burned feet and pain were worth her life.

Clenching her teeth, she summoned every bit of grit she possessed and forced herself to stand. Again, the floor was way, way too hot. Her feet were bleeding. Then they were cauterized.

"Lisanna?" She thought for sure her voice was too quiet again. It tore out of her chest and fell flat against the rising smoke in her bedroom.

"Mira!" Lisanna's voice was almost a whisper against the crackling flames.

"I'm coming, Lisanna!" Where is Elfman? Mom and dad? Why haven't they come for us?

Maybe they can't.

It took more bravery than she thought she possessed to wrench back her bedroom door. Looking beyond that barrier meant truly appreciating the damage. Coming to terms with reality. We're going to die if you don't.

She grabbed the doorknob. Pain lanced through her palm, into her wrist, up her elbow. Mira cried, screamed. It wasn't enough. She still pulled open the door.

Smoke and heat and flames poured into her room. She staggered back, eyes closed, and threw her hands over her face, trying to block out the heat. Tears leaked over her lashes only to evaporate. The fire in the hall blazed and blazed and blazed. Mercilessly.

I can't. I can't.

Lisanna hadn't called her in several long seconds.

She's dying.

Or dead.

I can't.

I have to.

She took her hands away from her face and looked out into the hallway again. The flames had started licking at her doorframe.

Go out the window.

That meant leaving Lisanna. And Elfman. And mom and dad.

I can't. She didn't feel brave enough to step into the fire.

"Daddy!" Mira hadn't called her father that in years. It just slipped out. "Daddy, please! Help!"

'You are beyond help now.'

Mira thought that the smoke was getting to her head, that she imagined the words. Yet something moved in the flames.

Something's alive out there.

Not something. Someone.

"Daddy! Lisanna is trapped, and I can't—I can't get her. I don't know where Elfman is—"

The flames consolidated into something humanoid. Arms and legs appeared, a mouth. Black holes for eyes. "It brings me pleasure to send Strauss' whelps to hell." The voice was rasping and unfamiliar. Mira's body alit in goosebumps. The thing reached for her. "Join your father for his sins."

She was too slow to pull out of its grasp. Fingers made of flame closed around her arm. Her skin blistered. The smell of burning flesh and hair lifted into the air, competing for the chance to make her sick.

"Let go! Let go of me!" Mira tried to yank back out of the creature's grasp and could not.

"There are no second chances when you take on the Inferie. You'll all burn."

Mira pulled back. This time the skin on her arm sloughed off, allowing her to slip from the thing's grip. She tripped over her yellow carpet, falling so hard she smacked her head on the floor. Dazed, she stared at the ceiling for two whole beats. Then she was staring at the flame man. Flame demon, her mind suggested. She'd never seen a demon. In fact, she thought them to be legends. At least, she used to.

"Look at me while you die." It reached for her, fingers searching, flames extending.

You're going to die here and Lisanna is going to burn up.

"Mira!" A new voice called her.

Elfman.

The demon paused and looked back into the hallway. Mira followed his gaze. Elfman stood in a set of light blue pajamas, his hands wrapped tightly around his stuffed bear. His hair stuck up at odd angles, his eyes were wider than saucers, his skin chalk-white and sweaty. Fire raged all around him. He was a boy nearly consumed in flame.

"Mira, what's happening?"

Mira said the only thing she could think. "Run, Elfman! Run! Get Lisanna!" He took a step in the right direction but looked torn. Mira felt mindless. "Go!"

His indecision earned him the full attention of the demon. "There is no escape, every single one of you will pay for your father's transgressions." The demon lifted a flame covered hand and whipped a thread of fire at Elfman.

A second went by where nothing happened. Then Elfman screamed and clutched his face, blood dripping between his fingers over his right eye.

All that red. Mira stared at it and felt something inside her get as taut as a bowstring. And then it snapped. She reached out a shaking hand, driven on by some instinct, unmindful of any pain or flames that tried to consume her, and gripped the demon's ankle.

Coolness rose up from her body, leaching into every single pore. And then she was burning. Burning, but not hurting. Her heart swelled and filled with something dark as the flames took over her body. She ripped the fire from the demon, taking from him everything that made him solid, and consumed his essence, though she had no idea exactly what she was doing.

It screamed like an injured animal and tore away from her, diminished but still terrifying. Mira felt hollow. The consuming stopped, but not the burning. I am fire, she thought. But that was impossible. She was a girl.

I'm burning alive.

She wasn't.

"Cursed creature," the demon hissed. Mira prepared for another attack. It only slipped into the smoke where it merged and disappeared.

Mira blinked into the space the demon had been and felt the coolness leave her body. It was promptly replaced by heat and tears and pain as she breathed smoke into her lungs. She coughed and gasped.

Rise.

Her legs, her arms. Everything was rubber. She stood anyway, driven by fear, and staggered out into the hallway on ruined feet. She found Elfman crouched on the floor. He looked at her with one wild blue eye. His face was stained with soot and blood. His bear was still clutched to his chest, though its fur was matted and damp, soaked through with the red that dripped from his fingers.

"Mira!"

Mira lurched to his side and grabbed him roughly by the arm, pulling him to his feet. He slumped against her, small arms wrapping up and around her neck.

I can't. She could hardly carry herself.

She did, tightening her arms around his middle. Together, they rocked through the smoke and flames to Lisanna's room. Elfman alternated between coughing and sobbing.

The door was closed. She dared to touch the handle. More of her skin was left behind on the hot brass. She pushed through the pain and dug her shoulder into the door. When it popped open, flames burst into the room chased by thick dark smoke. The house squealed.

"Lisanna?" Mira called as loudly as she could. "Lisanna, where are you?"

There was no answer.

Mira searched through the gloom. Something stood out to her. The door to the closet was closed. Lisanna never closed it when she slept. She was always afraid of the monsters that hid inside.

"Lisanna!" Mira's voice cracked. Elfman in tow, she hurried as fast as she could to the closet and opened the door with blistered and tight hands. Lisanna tumbled out, face pale and hair blackened with smoke, eyes closed. There was no time to check to see if she was still breathing. Mira released Elfman's arm and grabbed Lisanna around the ribs. Grunting under dead weight, she hoisted her sister to her hip, bowing. Something cracked in the hallway and the ceiling collapsed just beyond the room.

Barely flinching, she staggered to Lisanna's window. Elfman was at her elbow. The glass was hot beneath her hands. And swollen. The frame shrieked and got stuck when she pushed it up. The opening was too small for anyone to crawl out of. Mira held in a frustrated cry and crouched so she could jam her shoulder into the opening. Then she stood, using all of her strength to force it higher.

It worked. Cold spring air gushed into the stifling room, feeding the hungry fire all the more. It was into the room now.

Mira stepped back. "Go, Elfman, and take Lisanna from me!"

He didn't hesitate, throwing himself out of the window. They were so close to the ground that when the boy hit, he was back up on his feet in seconds. Mira encouraged him silently not to panic and run. She needn't worry. He turned, reaching through the window again to take Lisanna's limp form from her. Lisanna's head lolled lifelessly.

Elfman staggered back, too small to carry her comfortably.

"Come on, Mira!" Elfman cried, his tears mixing with the bright, bright blood that marred his face. One eye was swollen closed. Mira hoped he wouldn't lose it. She placed one foot over the sill, stretching with ruined toes, searching for the ground.

The building collapsed before she made it all the way out. Mira knew nothing but agony.

Important A/N, please read:

This will be loosely based on canon. But it will be mostly AU.

The most important differences will be ages, and the creation of Raven Tail before the GMG arc.

Mira will be 13 when we first start this. When we end, she will be 19. It will be a journey. Elfman, we'll say, is 8, which makes Lisanna 7. Yes, I know this isn't actually how it is. Yes. I know you hate it. Yes. I am sorry, but this is how she goes.

Laxus' age will also be altered. He will be two years older than Mira, which makes him fifteen when we begin.