The Phantom Lord quild was all but destroyed. The place was shattered, the members scattered all over the land. The only two that remained in the city were the „runners". Mages that ran to another quild right after their home was destroyed. The new members of Fairy Tail, the traitors. But noone would dare to say this to their faces. It would cost them their lifes if they would.
The tall black-haired male was sitting at the bar in the guilds house. He was chewing on an iron plate, silently staring at the wall in front of him. He has not fund a decent quest in a while. His panther-cat was sitting next to him, siping from a glass of beer.
The mage was stripped of his S-class title when his former quild fell and now was no job a real challenge for him. Yeah, he always got the diamond for the job. It was quick and easy, but taht was exactly what bothered him. Only Salamander and his noisy friends got the cool jobs. That pissed him of.
He growled and spit a screw from the iron plate on the floor. It was not fair and he already had enough. This quild brought him nothing but trouble, he should have never gotten involved into any business concerning them.
„Stop it!" he shouted at the cat next to him.
Pantherlily put the glass on the bar and looked puzzeled at his human companion. He knew Gajeel was in a bad mood and he certainly didn´t want to prowoke him, but he was like this for the past three weeks and it was affecting their jobs more than ever.
„You could ask to go on a quest with them, you know." He said calmly after a while of silence.
The raction was as expected. The Iron dragon bashed the iron plate into the bar, destroying the upper panel and releasing splinters in the air.
He stood up, not giving his cat friend a single look, and rushed to the exit. Pantherlily, and even everyone present in the quild at that time, knew better than to stop him. They´ve seen enough of his destructive power when he was their enemy.
Gajeel left that fucking place. He wasn´t a real member anyway. That little dwarf Makarov only wanted him as a test subject anyway. He walked fast through the city streets, meaning to get into his apartment near the train station. It was a cheap place, little old, but it was still standing and there were no neightbours because of the sound of passing trains.
But he didn´t mind the sound of iron wheels on the tracks. And an ironmongery was near too. Although he didn´t like the owner much. He was always making a fuss about selling his products as food. He should not care as long as Gajeel payed for the stuff.
„If he doesn´t shut up soon I´ll stop paying him."
said the mage to himself while walking towards his chosen destination. They might even send someone after him then. That would be fun. He grinned.
However, his joy didn´t last long as he was thrown back into depression by the sudden change of weather. The clouds turned dark and cowered the sun in just a few minutes, as if the weather decided to mock him as well.
He walked faster. Why would an iron dragon want to get wet and rust? But why would he even fear getting wet? He slowed down again. He would not fear anything, not even this hellish watery weather, that was about to begin.
„Nothing can hurt ME." He thought and looked straight into the dark clouds. He would accept any challenge, he was Gajeel, the Iron dragon slayer, the best iron mage ever. Bad weather could not hurt him. He stopped to glare angrily into the sky while little drops of water started to fall down on the whole city.
The young woman just arrived back from a little journey. She had comleted two quests and earned quite a lot of diamonds. Her original plan was to head right back to her apartment in the Fairy Hills, but the weather was quite nice so she decided to go right to the quild and report back.
Well, the weather wasn´t really so perfect, it was raining heavily and fog has fallen on the low places, but it was a nice weather for her.
She walked the empty streets lined with streams of rainy water. The sound of drops shattering on the surface of her umbrella made her somehow happy. It was not because she simply liked rain, but bacause this was the first time it was not her who brought the rain here, but simply the nature itself. And that was why she could enjoy it so much.
She stopped. Something interrupted the rhythm of the raindrops. She looked around but there was noone. Who would want to be outside in this rainy moment, right?
But she heard it again.
A little quiet squaky sound. The source could not be that far away and so the blue-haired girl decided to find out what actually caused it. She turned left right behind the corner and slowly entered a dark narrow back alley. The sound became more intense.
It wasn´t only the annoying squaking , but also a sound of something heavy dragging along the roadstones. She started going faster, thinking it could be thief, utilizing this moment when noone is outside, to steal something. She turned right again and found herself in a little open space between three building. There were two paths that went here. The one she got here through and another little dark sidewalk.
But how big was her surprise, when on the ground in this little place, she found the source of the strange sounds and even when she realized, that the source was actually familiar to her.
Gajeel woke up. The last thing he could remember were dark clouds. His whole body ached and he was lying on something uncomfortable. The first thing to do would be to sit, but as he tried to proceed with the act himself, he found his own body too hard to move. Did someone attack him? He felt like if his body were one big wound. But even that could not stop him from doing something, he could not just lie here. Even though he didn´t even know where he was.
He finally got his right arm to move, put it under him and pushed his upper body up, finally sitting up. He sat on the floor of a room…a girl´s room as far as he could tell.
The floor was violet, the ceiling wooden, there was a bookshelf, a table, a blue bed with some pretty stuff on it, as far as he knew that stuff was supposed to put on windows.
But more improtantly…How the hell did he get in here?
What did he do with some girl to end up on the floor of her room? „Hey, ain´t somebody here?"
he shouted, deciding he would not stay silent till someone told him what was going on.
The answer to his shout came with the opening of doors. As far as he could tell, that door led to a bathroom, as there were blue tiles visible behind the one who stood in them. And that person was far more familiar to him than he would have ever anticipated.
„Rain woman?!"
He shouted in surprise, as how could he get in HER room?
„Oh, Juvia sees Redfox is finally awake."
the girl replied, closing the door behind her and slowly comig forward to the mage on her floor with a glass of water in her hand.
„Why the fuck am I here?" came another question.
„Juvia found her quildmate outside in the rain and as he looked nearly dead, she tried to save him."
she said calmly, not hasitating to axplain how he would end up in a place like this, probably to clear any possible misunderstandings as fast as possible.
„I wasn´t nearlydead!"
protested Gajeel madly. „Doesn´t matter to Juvia." She replied and put the glass next to him on the floor. „Juvia wanted to go to the guild and see other guilmembers…but she just met you."
Yeah, right. He knw who this water woman wanted to see. Her interrest for that stripping idiot wan undeniable.
„But Juvia doesn´t think that is someones concern. You should better look at yourself…"
she said before the iron mage could ask any more questions.
He would not normally take such order or suggestion, but it sounded as he would find something if he did so.
And yeah he did.
„The Fuck?!" he shouted, looking at his hard body being out of clour. He did, in fact, rust in that damned rain. How the hell could taht have happened. He was nearly at home, wasn´t he? This moth couldn´t just be any worse!
If Salamander hears about this…"Was…was tehre someone else you met aside of me…" he muttered with anger. „Juvia already said she met just you."
Good. At least there was noone else to tell.
He looked out of the window. It stopped raining, but there were still heavy dark clouds in the sky. He wanted to get from that cursed room…and that cursed woman that has embarrassed him.
He tried to pull himself up.
His joints creaked by the attempt and he felt like he would be breaking his own bones by doing so, but after a moment of cursing, he was finally on his feet, ready to get finally home and recover from this hellish state.
„You should relax a ittle bit, or Juvia will find you in a puddle again." The girl said, sitting now on her absurdly decorated bed.
„ Keep those damned hints to yourself"
he moved slowly towards the door taht seemingly led outside.
„Have a drink…and by the way, Juvia doesn´t thik you would like other girls to see you."
She remarked coldly. Was she really mocking him?
That fucking rain woman, she surely did that on purpose, so she could laugh her ass of as he would rust there in the rain.
„Shut up, ya rainy thing." He groweled and turned, knocking over the glass with water.
„Why would I drink that poisonous thing, don´t ya think it has done enough to me?"
he shouted, slowly loosing his nerves with this annoying girl.
He started to move towards the window instead. He could jump out and not risk being seen by others. There would be that redhead. Oh yeah, Salamander´s frind, S-class off course, he was sure they would all laugh if they saw him in this state.
The sun was getting down and it was raining again. The Fairy Hills´s windows glowed into the coming darkness, shadow created creatures on the curtains. And in one specific window, one could see a shadow of a man…
„The fuck am I still doing here!" muttered the mage in anger as he was still trying to reach that window so far away. He WAS moving, but his rusted body was so slow, that he had barely moved a meter in all those hours. And that rain woman was still sitting on that distasteful bed of her´s and watching him, which was driving him crazy.
He heard her saying some absurd thing like „If Greay-sama comes to visit me(Juvia), what´ll he think?" and „When will I(Juvia) be able to go to sleep?"
He would shut her up if he could. But yeah, she was kinda theclosest person in that damned quild to him. And that was just because they came from that dark quild together.
„Hey, rain woman!" he shouted and waited for an answer from thatblue-haired girl. But as none came, he continued his lines.
„You got any Iron?"
It was request. He knew it, but he was too angry to let her watch him for even a minute longer.
There came no answer but he heard the sound of her boots getting away from that bed. At least she did not protest to his orders. Yeah, that was no request, but an order.
He heard the claping again and then she stood infront of him. She was slightly smaller than him and looked a bit sick in his opinion. That pale skin and thin body…a good mage should have muscles. „That´s all Juvia has" she said wth the same expression she had for hours now and from her arms fell a few things on the ground. She turned and went away, propably to sit on her bed again.
Gajeel looked down on the things that woman had brought him and there really wasn´t much. A door handle, somescrews, some wires…where did she get those from?
But he, doesn´t matter, if her things fuck up cause she pulled out something, her fault.
He began to slowly bow for those little metal things that would give him at least a bit of juice, regretting letting that great iron plate at the guild. His knees let out a horrible sound, he felt like he would crumbel under the weight of his own body. What was wrong with him? Could this really be just from that little bit of water?
Finally he found himself in a position where he could grab all those iron accessories and eat them. He couldn´t even describe how good it felt to bite into that scrap metal. He felt it´s power pour through him. That was him, a was machine. Indestructable. He stood straight up, feeling the comfortable heaviness his body always had. He could even feel his skin getting a better coulour again. He grinned over his newfound power.
the distance between him and that cursed window was overcome in a second, even though he still felt the rust in his joints and his back was sore, he was again that old Gajeel, the devilishely powerful beast. He was right at it to jump out of that damned room, when he suddenly stopped and looked back at that blue-dressed woman.
She watched him with a cold expression, reminding him of the times of Phantom Lord. But now she beared the Fairy Tail emblem on her tight. And he had it on his shoulder…
„Juvia did not cause the rain today" she said, still looking at him from her bed „and Juvia thinks she spend her afternoon and evening on the trevels…"
„Whatever."
replied the Iron dragon, jumping out of her window into the dark night.
