Fanfic / Melting Hours

Your last hope of salvation from a world that despises you lies dead at your feet. And even if you have to drag him, kicking and screaming, his reluctant best friend is going to rectify that.

So you've run into this problem, which nobody else can really help you with. You want to die, but the one person who has a chance of making that happen is kind of already dead. Kind of puts a damper on your plans, doesn't it? So what can you possibly do when faced with such a situation?

Well, you could always find the one survivor of the whole ordeal, and use a mysterious spell that could possibly bring about catastrophic consequences.

Melting Hours (also available on SpaceBattles) is a Fairy Tail fanfic written by EXNativo, starting after the events of an alternate Tartaros arc. When the fight against Tartaros ends with the deaths of Fairy Tail's mages, a despairing Zeref sends the last Fairy Tail member left alive back in time. Taking on the name Silver, Gray proceeds to try and save his family from the fate that approaches, and very little will be able to slow him down.

Despite the darker mood of the prologue, the story typically reads as a more comedic take on the Peggy Sue genre, with serious moments peppered throughout.

Not updated since October 2016; from the author's page, "Not writing for Fairy Tail anymore, my interest in the series has run further than dry."

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Melting Hours contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Ivan Dreyar somehow manages to be even more so than canon. See Deadly Upgrade below.
• All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles: According to Laxus, who is horrified after he is grabbed by a mass of tentacles on Tenrou Island. Apparently he had seen enough Hentai to know where it was going.
• Almighty Idiot: Deliora was an experiment in pure power by Zeref, but ran off nothing but instinct with no real guiding intelligence. Even Tartaros couldn't manage to control him and just let him continue his rampage.
• Ambiguously Bi: The only evidence (aside from a few brief mentions of Juvia) that Silver isn't asexual is a comment he makes to distract Mirajane's interrogation in chapter 19, suggesting that the only two people he would be consider sleeping with are Ur and Laxus. Interestingly, he mentions this barely a few paragraphs after the narration points out that nothing he had said up to that point was false.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Makarov, to the point that it takes seconds to realise that Silver is from the future after seeing him and Gray together.
• Bad Future: Face was successfully stopped in this universe, however Fairy Tail's war against Tartaros was less successful and the guild fell.
• Berserk Button: Indicating harm towards a child is sufficient enough to make Ur switch from laughing in the middle of a Guild War to punching people so hard they cough up blood.
• Big Brother Instinct: Back when Gray was younger a bandit managed to give him a scratch. The response? Silver punched the bandit's head off for his troubles.
• Bland-Name Product: Dick Wonalds
• Calling Your Attacks: Justified In-Universe, as it helps to structure and focus magic into spells. Silent spells are accordingly more difficult to cast, especially for Maker type magic whose use is entirely dependent on perfect structure. Masters like Silver, Gray and Ur usually don't need to do it, so when they do it is usually a good idea to get out of the way.
• Cannibalism Superpower: After eating Raijin, Laxus gains access to Storm Magic.
• Casanova Wannabe: Hilariously, Gray Fullbuster compared to Natsu's Clueless Chick-Magnet
• Celibate Hero: All of the trauma Silver has gone through and the destruction of everything he cared about has resulted in a whole bunch of intimacy issues. Juvia's death was the final nail in the coffin
• The Chew Toy: Laxus, whether it is suffering from Silver's antics during the S-Class exam or accompanying Makarov to the Guildmasters meeting.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite this treatment, Laxus is still a massively powerful S-Class Mage who is among the strongest in the Guild, perhaps able to give even Gildarts a run for him money with his Dragon Force and power he inherited from eating a literal God.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: After the incident with Bora mentioned below, Natsu concludes that he has just missed him... so he decides that it is time to eat. Yeah.
• Comically Missing the Point: Upon learning that Ultear, one of the Magic Council's newest members, is a high ranking member of Grimoire Heart and has 'more issues with her parents than he did', Laxus' first reaction is to wonder aloud how the latter is even possible.
  • He then acknowledges everything else that was said a second later.
  • Natsu doesn't realise that Bora is standing right behind him, after turning away from him to ask the crowd if they'd seen him around.
• Cool Car: The massive flying car that used to belong to the Five Bridge Familia, which was claimed by Silver.
• Curbstomp Battle:
  • Silver hands these out like candy to the villains that he had previously had problems with during the events of Ice Trail.
  • Chapter 8 begins with Gray complaining to himself how his S-Class mission wasn't hard; even though the monster was the size of a house, stole children and could breath fire. His fight with it took less than 15 seconds.
  • Natsu tried to challenge Laxus to a fight before Chapter 9. He is first seen unconscious after having his face smashed into the bar. It is a regular occurrence.
  • Lullaby ends up on the receiving end of one, by Macao and Wakaba of all people.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Silver's Devil Slayer Forbidden Technique: Eternal Midnight freezes time. Unfortunately, it also stops his heart. He is perfectly fine with using it if he has to. He has at least two more of them.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Some of the Guild members theorise this is why Silver never shows any romantic interest in anybody
  • Ur used to be the Ace of a Guild, before she was a candidate for the Wizard Saints, but she ran away when the Master died. She calls it "just another cluster of memories that the alcohol can't completely block out."
• Deadly Upgrade: It turns out that the reason that there are so few Second Generation Dragon Slayers is because the process of implanting a Dragon Slayer lacrima is incredibly dangerous, being usually fatal for adult Mages and essentially murder for children.
• Death World: The seas around Tenrou Island and as a result the Island itself at all times except winter, when everything hibernates and the S-Class exams normally take place. Makarov proceeds to dump Silver and Laxus there outside winter for their S-Class Trails, pissing off everything he could on the way out as a means to improve the challenge.

  The note Makarov left behind: Live. If you find the First's grave, great, but seriously, live. Child services are gonna kill me if I lose another one.

• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Silver punches out Deliora in Chapter 1, and from there continues to hunt down demons. It is basically his job description as a Devil Slayer.
  • In Chapter 19 Laxus eats Raijin (albeit while he was weakened and sealed) after blasting it with Fairy Law.
• Distracted by the Sexy / Show Some Leg: Ur volunteered to handle Gildarts during the S-Class Exam this way, by stripping. Poor Gildarts never stood a chance.
  • Lucy around Natsu during Chapter 12. Constantly.
• The Dreaded: Acnologia, as always. Even before any encounters with it, Makarov finds the fact it is still alive and it is as powerful as rumours say extremely concerning.
  • A more comical example with Silver. Laxus is the only person in Fairy Tail who dares to piss him off. It becomes darker in Chapter 16 when it turns out he actually does scare everyone, including Laxus and Ur.
  • Silver seriously acts as this for Tartaros, and for good reason. Apparently the last time Cube went near Magnolia, the mere proximity to such an intense concentration of his Devil Slayer Magic incapacitated two of the Nine Demon Gates. Lesser Demons died just by walking into areas where he had used magic.
• Drives Like Crazy: Gray, who on his first attempt crashed the flying car and later managed to break the rear lights by reversing into a cloud, a fact which utterly confuses Silver. Erza is somehow worse.
• Empathic Weapon: Erigor's scythe. After Erigor is brutally defeated it keeps attempting to kill Silver, only to fail every time. It is actually the sealed and weakened form of Raijin.
• Excuse Me While I Multitask: Mystogan curbstomps a bunch of bandits in the first interlude, separated from his Magic Staves, while reading a newspaper.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: There was once a small, malnourished orphan who was traumatised by war who gained power to get revenge on the creatures that destroyed his world. His name is Acnologia, the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse.
• Future Me Scares Me: To say Laxus is horrified at what his alternate future self does in the Phantom Lord and Fantasia arcs is an understatement.
• The Gadfly: Ur has entirely too much fun playing with Gray and Leon's assumption that Silver is her boyfriend. Chapter 6 reveals that whilst staying with Silver and Gray she would walk around nude just to get a reaction out of Gray. She also supplies the funds to renovate the girls dorm Fairy Hills. It is now shaped like a penis. Ur's room is located in the head. She regrets nothing.
  • The original Silver spends much of his on-screen time winding up members of Tartaros. He happily admits it is his favourite past-time.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It's shown that Silver once considered trying to become an Ice Dragon Slayer through a Dragon Lacrima, due to his jealousy of Natsu. Ironically, Gray is jealous of Slaying Magic as well, and thus is somewhat jealous of himself.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Mystogan casually uses a bandit as a club, then mentally complains that the bandit is too pliable to be a good club and wouldn't be any good for a high ranked demolition job.
• Groin Attack: Ur happily kicks Loke in the groin with her prosthetic leg when he attempts to flirt with her.
• The Gunslinger: Gray's Ice-Make specialisation, earning him the epitaph "Gunmetal". He demonstrates it in Chapter 15 by effortlessly Molding an assault rifle capable of blowing apart a table in a single shot.
• Hates Being Touched: Because of the trauma of his past, Silver doesn't do physical acts of affection.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: The kids of Fairy Tail upon reaching puberty. Especially Gray, much to Silver's mixed pleasure that Gray lacks his issues and annoyance at Gray getting distracted by Cana's chest during training.
• Hot for Student: Ur has no problems admitting that she finds Silver, a future version of her ten year old apprentice, very attractive and laments in her letter that he sees her as a mother. She was drunk at the time.
• Hypocritical Humour: Silver tells Gray in chapter 1 that he shouldn't dwell on the past.
  • A council worker calls Wakaba a toad in chapter 4. Yes, a council worker.
• I Hate Past Me: Downplayed and Played for Laughs. Silver internally calls Gray a "petulant little shithead" and "moody little bitch", but finds him incredibly amusing and cares for him like a real big brother. It won't stop him from subjecting Gray to Training from Hell when he ticks him off.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Ur's immediate reaction the second Silver mentioned time travel.
  • Silver, immediately after returning from his S-Class Trial.
  • Laxus upon realising just how close Silver was to a possible breakdown.
• Innocent Innuendo: "Like Hell you will, Ur! If anything, you'll be sleeping with Silver!"
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Bora still decides to impersonate Natsu.
  • Gildarts is still heading for Zonia Mountain on the 100 year mission, where Acnologia is waiting.
• Intoxication Ensues: Laxus spikes Silver's coffee with sedatives prior to Chapter 8, ''again'', in an attempt to make him finally sleep. In Chapter 9 he is still drugged and ends up going on a supersonic flight around the continent. Then he wakes up on Galuna Island.
• It's All My Fault: Silver specifically blames himself for Erza's death in his Bad Future, after she took a hit meant for him.
• Loyal Phlebotinum: Mystogan's staves are loyal to him, and are capable of defending themselves from anybody who isn't him.
• Magi Babble: Gray drops into this when explaining how to destroy Erigor's Wind Wall.
• Manipulative Bastard: Silver shows shades of this as early as the first chapter after the prologue, and it only gets more blatant as the fic goes on. Special mention goes out to him using a job request to trick Natsu, Gray, Erza and Happy into spending a day with Lucy, thus establishing the beginnings of their friendship.
• My Greatest Failure: Ur's sacrifice using Iced Shell against Deliora because of Gray's actions is referred to as the biggest mistake of Silver's life. Silver reasons that it doesn't matter if he is in the past or just dreaming, he would never allow it to happen again.
• Mythology Gag: Natsu has figured out to fly by creating fire under his feet to propel him, something he was only shown to do in the anime openings.
  • God Serena complains that when he gets a fire lacrima he will be able to beat Warrod. He used Purgatory Dragon Slayer Magic gained from that lacrima amongst three other Dragon Slayer Magics to curbstomp the other Gods of Ishgar in the manga.
• Noodle Incident: Almost too many to mention. Some of the more notable ones are as follows:
  • Natsu once got really drunk with Igneel. All we know about it is that he learned what his spleen tastes like and he is no longer legally allowed to enter Alakitasia.
  • Makarov observes that a sleep deprived Silver is not a good thing due to previous events involving "ice, and sharp teeth, and disturbing giggling, and incidents reports detailing ritualistic circles and chanting."
  • Laxus complains about everybody thinking he has a thing with Silver, blaming a dare for making Sorcerer's Magazine believe they are together. He whines that it was one dare and he didn't know it would feed the tabloids. Bixlow silently notes that Laxus is a dirty liar because it was far more than one dare.
  • Ur somehow became the Landlady of Fairy Hills within a week of arriving in Magnolia. She refuses to tell anybody how or why except for Silver, who apparently thought it was incredibly amusing.
• The Nose Knows: Laxus figures out that Silver is a future version of Gray by pointing out that the two smell identical while even twins have different scents. He even uses the exact words.
• Odd Friendship: Silver and Laxus, considering that in the original timeline they didn't even really interact that many times.
• Only Sane Man: Cana of all people in the early chapters. A shining example being when she is the only person concerned about Gray and Erza causing potentially fatal stab wounds in spars, the other two being utterly confused at the idea of there not being stab wounds.
• Pass the Popcorn: Makarov and Silver share a bucket of popcorn while commenting on the battle between Erza, Gray, Natsu and Laxus during the former three's S-Class Trial in Chapter 6.
• Pen Name: Lucy's "adult fanfiction" is written under name HeartFilledOfYa.
• Post-Victory Collapse: After Silver slays Deliora, his dangerously depleted ethernano levels and previous strain his body had been under after battling Mard Geer cause him to collapse unconscious.
• Power Gives You Wings: Silver managed to replicate the Aera magic used by the Exceeds, though his wings are more demonic in appearance.
• Powers via Possession: How Devil Slayer Magic is revealed to work. In order to use it, Silver has to let the magic into his mind, leaving him vulnerable to his Superpowered Evil Side and requiring him to constantly keep it under control while in use. Silver bluntly compares it to a parasite.
• Psychic Link: Zeref has a link with all of the Demons he created, and can sense when they are killed.
• Red Baron: Silver was given the nickname "Glacier" by Sorcerers Magazine. It stuck, much to his annoyance.
  • Gray later gets the epitaph "Gunmetal".
  • Natsu retains the title of "Salamander".
• Refuge in Audacity: Natsu's plan to complete the Daybreak mission: break into Duke Everlue's mansion, dress Lucy in a maid outfit with a rainbow luchador mask, and then take everything he feels like to sell to the Yakuza. It works.
• Required Secondary Powers: Natsu is immune to the lava generated by his Lava Magic, even offhandedly wiping some of it of his face after it splashes there.
• Restraining Bolt: The original Silver had restrictions placed on his Devil Slaying Magic when he was resurrected, both in terms of how much power he can use and who he could target with it, that prevent him from slaughtering Tartaros.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Silver has another one against Deliora. This one goes far more successfully than before.
• Running Gag:
  • Silver hitting Gray in the head with thrown objects.
  • Starting Chapter 5, the rumours that Silver and Laxus are "more than friends"
  • Characters reading Lucy's "adult" fanfiction of Silver and Laxus with their only qualm being that Laxus has never called the former sempai.
  • Silver's incredibly poor memory and inability to recall information. Though there are hints that this isn't as funny as it seems, because it is getting worse.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Ur, who thinks nothing of walking into Fairy Tail with no clothes at all.
• Sole Survivor: Silver was the last Fairy Tail mage standing in the Bad Future after Natsu's death at the hands of Mard Geer.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Ur.
  • Also Nez Bloom from Chrono Noise. Silver lampshades that he should be thankful to be alive this time.
• Spit Take: Gray gets an amazing delayed one after Lucy tells him mistakenly that Silver and Ur had slept together. It consists of him grabbing his empty cup, walking across the Guild Hall in order to fill it up, and making his way back to their table before finally going through with it.
• Stalker with a Crush: Ultear, of all people, towards Silver. She even had a custom body pillow made and constructed her own Stalker Shrine. Jellal thinks it is hilarious.
• The Stations of the Canon: Lampshaded and partially averted. Silver muses that all the interesting things started when Lucy joined. However, Silver has already managed to prevent the events of Galuna Island by slaying Deliora and the Battle of Fairy Tail by befriending Laxus.
• Stealth Pun: Chapter 15;
  "You seem...very..." Lucy paused, searching through her impressive author vocabulary in order to ascertain an equitable application of diction apposite within this happenstance. "...happy."
  Purrrrrfect.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: The Headquarters of the Magic Council has security described by Silver as "laughable". Considering he managed to smuggle out pieces of a massive flying car across multiple visits, he may have a point.
• Teen Genius: God Serena, who has the rank of Fourth Wizard Saint despite his young age.
• Time Stands Still: With some additional complications. When time is frozen by Eternal Midnight, light stops moving as well. Meaning that there is no image formed on the eye for the brain to see.
• Too Dumb to Live: Bora still takes on Natsu's identity. However in this timeline Natsu is a famous S-Class mage, who has his picture featured in popular magazines, with a reputation for utterly destroying things. Even Natsu thinks it is a stupid idea to pretend to be a celebrity. Bora regrets it.
• Took a Level in Badass: Everybody.
  • The Fairy Tail Guild as a whole. By the time of the events of canon begin, Fairy Tail has nine S-Class mages on its roster: Gildarts, Silver, Laxus, Ur, Mystogan, Erza, Mirajane, Natsu and Gray.
  • Originally Gray and Natsu were S-Class candidates, in the new timeline they are both talented S-Class mages who are leagues ahead of where their canon selves were at the beginning of the series.
    • Natsu has learned how to use both basic Requip magic and Lava magic, though he states that the latter still sucks. It is still more than enough to create a clone that effortlessly demolishes the Mooks it goes up against.
  • Laxus. During the S-Class Exam, Silver muses that if he was trying he would be able to curbstomp Erza, Gray and Natsu within a few seconds, simultaneously, without using his magic. The reason he didn't was because he was testing them.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Silver has a voice inside his head, as a result of his Devil Slaying Magic. It's tied to his tattoo, as when he uses Eternal Midnight he's described with a manic grin.
• Take That!: To a Fandom-Specific Plot when Silver, in his drugged up haze, comes up with this gem:
  Why couldn't he recall all the stories he'd once told Makarov, upon his Master's request? He hadn't simply been making shit up as he went along without even realising it, right? Natsu had ended up eventually kicking Lucy off the team, hadn't he? And then Lucy had eventually been chased from the Guild and ended up somehow receiving training from a Dragon at some point... right?
  Right!?
  The cogs of his brain slowly ticked into position.
  ...No, wait... that sounded a little too... farfetched.
• Tempting Fate: Silver muses that he might regret confirming that he saved Ur by slaying Deliora, but figures it doesn't matter. Cue the next chapter.
• Undisclosed Funds: It isn't made exactly clear how rich Silver is, but it is somewhere between ridiculously and ludicrously. Wolfram states that if Silver didn't constantly pay off Fairy Tail's vast and continuous collateral damage, the entire economy would have collapsed. He is just that rich.
  • This seems to be moving fully towards parody territory:
  Laxus: Silver, if this is another ten billion Jewel gag gift...
• Vitriolic Best Buds: In Chapter 7, Silver summarizes his former relationship with Natsu as this. He's also become this with Laxus.
• Weirdness Magnet: All Fairy Tail mages, but Silver gets hit with it the worst.
  • As Ur put it:
  "Only you could stumble around the continent in a drugged up haze, and then show up a day later with a Golden Celestial Spirit Key"
• Yaoi Fangirl: Lucy, who literally squee's after seeing Silver interacting with Laxus. Gray complains that "Natsu found one of them". It turns out she wrote at least one Silver/Laxus fanfiction, which Natsu and Happy end up innocently reading and commenting about in Chapter 12. Chapter 13 confirms that it is basically well written smut.
  • Judging by her interest in said smut, Erza also counts.