What Would You Do?
"I just left the library and am heading home now, there's no need for you guys to leave when I'm already on my way." Levy said into her cell as she walked down the street.
"But Levy, a young lady shouldn't be walking by herself at this time!" Jet tried to argue on his end.
"Yeah! We should come pick you up!" Droy was heard saying but was a little harder to hear since he wasn't holding the phone.
"It's 3 o' clock in the afternoon." Levy deadpanned. "And I already left and am just few blocks away. If it'll make you guys feel better I call back when I get home. Deal?" Levy offered, hoping that will persuade them to stay at home.
"Alright, deal. Just call us as soon as you get home." Jet said as Levy heard struggling, no doubt Droy was trying to take the phone from him.
"Bye guys." Levy quickly hanged up and put her cell away and continued down the sidewalk.
'Honestly, it's the middle of the afternoon but they're acting like it's the middle of the night. I mean really, what can happen in the middle of the day out in public?'
With that passing thought Levy continued till she reached a quad. There were a few people around, Levy smiled at a seven-year-old girl, who was also a bluenette but several shades darker, who smiled back as she walked by.
Her thoughts turned to what she would be doing for dinner tonight, but before she even reached the end she heard a male voice say.
"Hey! Where were you?" she turned to see a large man, with long black hair that went down his back, and she could have sworn there were piercings in his forearms, holding the arm of the same little girl she just walked by in a rough manner. The girl pulled back, trying to either free her arm or trying to get him to loosen his grip. Levy didn't think much of it.
'Oh boy, guess this little girl ran off when she wasn't suppose to.' Levy has seen this before at stores and other public places, little kids causing trouble and not listening to their parents. Levy turned back and barely took a step when the girl said something that caused her to freeze in her tracks.
"Stop it! You're not my dad! Someone help!"
Levy turned back so fast her hair whipped her face but she ignored that as she watched the two in a whole new light. When the man didn't say anything to rebuff the girl and instead started to drag her away, Levy's blood chilled.
'Is he really kidnapping her? Is the really happening?!' Levy looked around to see if anyone one was coming to the girl's aid. Levy saw a man walking towards them. 'Oh good, he'll help her.' She the other man walk closer and closer and then much to her shock he continued walking, only looking back once before facing straight ahead and didn't look back again. Levy's mouth dropped. 'Unbelievable!'
The pieced man continued to drag the little girl, who was futilely trying to dig her feet into the ground, towards a crosswalk and all the while she continued to yell "Help!" and "You're not my dad!" yet no one interfered. Levy remained frozen, not knowing what to do.
'Do I call the police? Do I take a picture to show them? Call someone? What do I do?!' Levy watched them till she realized he was getting closer to the crosswalk and it struck her that if they crossed that and disappeared down that street, where Levy knew was nothing back streets and alleyways, the girl would most likely never be seen again. Mind still in turmoil her body took action instead as she suddenly found herself after towards them.
"H-hey! Leave her alone!" Levy yelled as she approached them. The man turned to her and glared down at her.
"Mind your own business," he said coldly, it was enough to make her freeze. It only once she was up close that she realizes just how intimidating this guy was. He had to be at least six foot for she barely reached his shoulders, he had even more piercings than she realized that decorated his face, and his blood red eyes seemed to look straight through her.
Levy regained the ability to move again when the man made to continue on with the little girl in hand and Levy did the only thing she could think of to stop him. She swung her book bag, filled to the brim with her latest library load, with all her strength at him and to her shock and satisfaction it hit dead center in his face. The force was strong enough to make him let go of the girl, Levy quickly pushed her behind her the second he did, and sent him flat on his back.
With the man down Levy was about to run with the girl to a safer area when said girl suddenly ran around and crouched down next to her intended kidnapper.
"Gajeel! Are you okay?"
"Huh?" Levy watched, flabbergasted, as the man, whose name was apparently Gajeel, sat up while holding a hand to his nose.
"I'm fine," he said with a nasality tone thanks to his hand. "Don't think it's broken, but dam what was in that bag? Bricks?"
Levy sputtered, mouth and mind trying to come up with words when her attention was turn to the side when she heard laughing. Just a few feet away from them was a young man, probably around her age, with pink hair laughing so hard he was bent over with an arm holding his stomach.
"That was great! You should have seen your face! Oh wait, you can! And I can watch it over and over!" the man said through his laughing fit.
"This coming from same guy who got his ass handed to him by Erza on one of your runs. I got off easy compared to you," Gajeel countered and Salamander immediately stopped laughing as his face filled with pure terror at the memory of his encounter with this Erza while Levy was getting more confused by the minute.
"Can someone please tell me what the heck is going on here?" Levy asked when she finally got her voice back.
"Sorry about that," a young woman with long, white hair appeared with a man behind her holding a camera. "We're doing a social experiment to see just how many people would intervene in a child abduction that's taking place right in front of them"
Levy let the words sink in for a second.
"Wait, so she was never in any danger?" Levy asked, referring to the little girl who was still at Gajeel's side who was now being tended to by a woman 'Where did she come from?' who looked like an adult version of the girl.
"Nope, that's her mother right there and we even have a police officer over there." The woman pointed to a dark skinned man who held out his badge for her to see.
'So if this wasn't real then that means…' Levy looked at Gajeel and saw that a tissue that the girl's mother placed on his nose was quickly turning red with blood.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you! I mean I did when I thought you were kidnapping her but I just wanted to help her!" Levy began to apologize profusely.
"Don't apologize shorty. You did exactly what I was hoping somebody would do if it were my kid, if I had one," Gajeel said as held the tissue to his nose.
"Alright let's take a little break before we start the next one. Natsu can play the kidnapper again for the rest of the afternoon," the white haired woman said.
"You can come with us if you want?" the woman who was tending to Gajeel offered.
"Um, sure," Levy replied. After Gajeel got back to his feet Levy followed them off the quad down a street to where a van was parked. As they got closer she could see monitors and other surveillance equipment inside.
"I'm Mira by the way," the white haired woman, Mira introduced herself. "We have Warren, our cameraman. My sister Lisanna," Mira pointed inside to a younger woman with the shorter white hair who sat by the monitors. "She's in charge of all the other hidden cameras. Lily is the nice police officer who's helping us out and to make sure things don't gets violent, most of the time. Out little star is Wendy and this is her mother Grandina. And last we have Natsu and Gajeel, the latter you already met, who take turns playing the kidnappers for today. And your are?"
"I'm Levy. So what exactly is this experiment you're doing?" Levy asked once all the introductions were out of the way.
"It's pretty much like we already told you, we wanted to test people and see if they would step up when they see a child abduction in the making. Natsu and Gajeel are acting as kidnappers today but we have different guys who play the kidnapper each day to see if different sizes or race make a difference, we even had a friend of Gajeel's named Juvia play the role to see if it'll be different if the kidnapper was a woman instead. So far the results have been really unsettling."
"What do you mean? Surely plenty of people have come to Wendy's rescue? "
"They've been doing this for a week and so far only just over five people have done anything when they saw Wendy being taken. You make six," Natsu said, shocking Levy. She then remembered that man who just walked as Gajeel was dragging Wendy away as she called for help with barely a backwards glance.
"Seriously? In all that time so few people did anything?"
"Sadly yes. You were actually the first person to come after Gajeel when he played the kidnapper," Lily suddenly added.
"Really?" Levy could understand why, Gajeel was a big man who looked like he was member of a gang or something. But looking at him now, as he playfully messed up Wendy's hair, who pouted as she tried to catch his hand, Levy was really glad that he wasn't a bad guy after all.
"Yes. It's also a little ironic in a way because even though he plays her kidnapper he was also one of the few who not only took action but was also going to physically fight her pretend kidnapper," Grandina suddenly said.
"Hey I helped too!" Natsu added.
"But I thought you two in on this?" Levy asked, confused.
"We weren't originally part of this little experiment shorty. We thought it was real like you did," Gajeel explained, though Levy couldn't help but wonder why he kept calling her 'shorty'.
'He better not be poking fun at my height.'
"I actually have the video of that day. Just let me…" Lisanna started messing with some of the monitors. Levy moved closer to get a better view. "Here we go, watch these two."
Two of the monitors showed the quad, one showed the main quad and the other showed the farther edge. Levy watch Wendy standing by herself, as if waiting for someone, when a large man with white hair came up to her and grabbed her arm the same manner Gajeel did earlier.
"That's our brother Elfman," Lisanna commented.
Just like moments before Wendy called for help, yelling that he wasn't her dad, as Elfman started to drag her off. Lisanna tapped the other monitor, bring Levy's attention to it, and on that monitor she saw Gajeel and Natsu, who had been walking by carrying plastic bags and apparently arguing with each other, stop and watched them. A few seconds past before they shared a look and started walking towards them. When Elfman continued to drag Wendy off as she called for help they dropped their bags and began running straight at them, spreading out to cut off his sides.
Elfman let go of Wendy backed away as Natsu and Gajeel closed in on him, they were almost completely on him when Elfman raised his hands in the air and saying "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! This is a social experiment! There's a police officer right there!" he pointed someone where off the screen, Levy assumed he was pointing to Lily, and Gajeel and Natsu and another man with blue hair stopped in their tracks, looking back and forth between one another but kept an eye on Elfman.
"Who's that?" Levy pointed to the other man who looked Wendy over, making sure she was okay as Elfman told the guys that they were real men.
"That's Jella. He was driving by when he saw was going on," Mira answered.
"Threw on his brakes and jumped out and joined forces with us," Natsu added.
"We weren't about to let anyone get away with taking her, even though we didn't her at that time," Gajeel grinned as he ruffled Wendy's hair.
"And you don't see it on any of these monitors but an elderly woman was on her cell phone calling 911 while they closed in,"Grandina also added. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I tear up when I saw what they did."
Levy could only imagine. Losing a child is a parent's worst nightmare and Grandina had probably spent hours seeing her daughter being kidnapped in public and no one doing a thing to stop it. Thankfully Wendy was never in any real danger but the knowledge that if it had been real, so many people would just stand by and do no nothing shocked Levy and shook her faith in humanity.
'Well, not everyone did nothing.' She looked over at Gajeel an inwardly cringed when he took a fresh tissue from Grandina to replace his bloody soaked one.
"Sorry again for hitting you in the face with my book bag." Levy apologized once more.
"'Again' no need to apologize shrimp-"
'I'm shrimp now?'
"Sides, ain't even broken and the bleeding's almost stopped. But seriously what's in that bag? Bricks?" Gajeel asked as he tugged on her book bag.
"No." Levy pulled the bag back and opened it to show the books inside.
Gajeel just grunted. "Meh, close enough."
"What do you mean 'close enough'? Books and bricks are close enough at all."
"Tell that to my bloody and battered face."
"It's just your nose and it's not even bleeding anymore!"
"You two would make such a cute couple!" Mira exclaimed, stopping their short lived bickering match in its tracks.
"Where did that come from?!" they both said at the same time. Unexpectedly Natsu was the one that came to their rescue.
"Hey Mira can we get started already?" Natsu impatiently asked, bringing Mira's attention back to their experiment.
"Oh sure. Let's go people."
Within five minutes everything was ready for the next ran. Levy sat in the truck with with Lisanna, Grandina, and Gajeel and watched the monitors while everyone else was back on or near the quad.
"Hey shrimp." Levy heard Gajeel but didn't verbally acknowledge him, wanting to watch the monitors, but she did titled her head a little in his direction to let him know she was listening. "You did good earlier. You're a bookworm to be reckon with."
Levy will forever deny the blush that crept to her face at his odd compliment. "Um, thanks. Maybe for now on I should make sure my book bag is filled to the brim whenever I go out, never know when that will come in handy again."
Gajeel snorted but he had an easy grin on. "No kidding." Gajeel's attention suddenly turned back to the screen "Looks like Natsu's got another one."
Levy turned to the screen to see a familiar face run up to Natsu as he tried to drag Wendy out of the quad.
"Hey that's Lucy." She paused when she saw Lucy's body shift. "Um guys, you might want to call Lily-" She didn't get to finish as Lucy unleashed her infamous 'Lucy Kick' dead center into Natsu's face. "Uh, too late."
Gajeel went into a laughing fit as Grandina muttered something about having brought plenty of bandages.
"She's definitely your friend, you both go for the face!" Gajeel managed to say through his crackles as they made their way to the quad to explain to a baffled Lucy the experiment she stumbled upon.
Be honesty, how many of you thought Gajeel was really kidnapping Wendy at first or did I not get ya? This little shot was inspired by this What Would You Do special and just like what was explained here very few people did anything when a little girl was being kidnapped in broad daylight. She did everything Wendy did and it was finally 3 men who acted and it mentioned that an elderly woman was calling the police while the guys moved in. Thankfully it wasn't real but the result still unsettling. Here's a link below to that video that inspired this. Just take out the blank spaces. If that doesn't work you can find it on Youtube and type "What would you do kidnapping child" and two videos should appear right at the top.
www .youtube watch?v= p6Z03 Nj7JtQ