Z.R. Stein
The Avengers from Earthland – A Fairy Tail/Avengers crossover AU fic.
I do not own the characters to either series in any way.
Wassup, readers! So, I realized I've kinda been slacking on the whole writing fanfiction thing (a lot), and I have yet to author a real centerpiece story. Thus, inspired by various other authors (The Incredible Muffin and Fergus Flamacron were two of my primary inspirations, you're both amazing), I have undertaken one of my ambitions; a crossover fic in the epic vein, with little bits and bobs thrown in for my own amusement.
Fair warning, this first chapter is loaded with information from the Fairy Tail anime/manga. If you don't know anything about Fairy Tail, just bear with me for now, as it will all be explained in later chapters. For those who do know, this chapter takes place between the Tower of Heaven and Battle of Fairy Tail story arcs. Also, the first chapter will be Gajeel-centric.
I would elaborate more, but no one reads these things anyways, so whatever. On to the story!
Gajeel was pissed. Not that that in itself was an unusual occurrence. Lots of things annoyed him. Like painted metal, and designer beer that tasted like chestnuts, and that pink haired, slackjawed, knuckleheaded Salamander. However, today's annoyance was different.
And it was named Erza Scarlet.
Not that he'd ever tell her to her face; Gajeel may have been reckless, but he wasn't suicidal. No, he'd just trudge along behind her, grumbling and frowning, while he cursed the old midget for ever convincing him to join this shithole of a guild.
Which was really why he was here in the first place.
Makarov had decided that his newest member needed to prove himself before he could be fully trusted. Something about sending an observer along with him on his first few jobs. There had been a glint in the old man's eyes that he didn't like, but Gajeel had just grunted in agreement. If he'd been in the old man's position, he would have done the same, even if he'd let himself into the guild. However, Gajeel probably shouldn't have agreed to that, in hindsight.
So now, he was stuck hiking along the coast next to that scary red haired chick. Not that he'd ever admit to being scared of her.
"Oi, oi. What the hell was it we were looking for again?"
Erza sighed, her eyes glued to the cliffs towering over the shoreline.
"We're supposed to be looking for a wild Weretiger that's been terrorizing the local village. According to reports, the beast has been inhabiting a cave on the seaside somewhere around here. We are to contain the beast, by force if necessary. Did you not listen when I explained the mission last time?"
Gajeel rolled his shoulders in a vague shrug and crossed his arms.
"Tch. Whatever."
Erza sighed again. She had volunteered to be Gajeel's observer for his first Fairy Tail mission; whether it was out of caution or simply a need to occupy her mind, she wasn't sure.
The fact that they were mere miles away from where the Tower of Heaven once stood was not doing her any favors.
Gajeel trudged along beside Erza, letting his red eyes roam over the unremarkable cliffs. He had been expecting this when he joined the guild; after all, he was the one responsible for the destruction of their last guild hall during the war between Phantom Lord and Fairy Tail. He was the one who had beaten those three Fairy Tail mages to a pulp and nailed them to a tree in the park for Makarov to find. Really, he was amazed the old man had given him a chance to join his guild after what he'd done. So, he didn't want to be liked; all he wanted was a job to repay his debt and something tasty to eat every now and then. Or at least that's what he told himself.
. . .
Two hours later, after walking along deserted coastline with less than a dozen words spoken between him and Erza, Gajeel was ready to punch something. There weren't even signs of a Weretiger. Gajeel was beginning to think this mission was a bust. Of course, the universe just loved to prove him wrong.
"Gajeel."
The Iron Dragonslayer looked up in question, frowning. Erza directed his attention towards a cave carved deep into the rock of the cliffs.
Erza requipped a single broadsword, saying "This looks like a likely place."
Gajeel inhaled, letting the salt-ridden air saturate his nose. He grunted.
"Yeah, I can smell em, alright. The tiger must be in there."
Gajeel headed towards the cave, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. It was high time for some action; he could practically taste a good fight waiting to happen. Erza followed behind, her broadsword held in a ready hand.
The scent of rotting flesh assaulted them as soon as the two Fairy Tail mages entered the cave. Bones from fish and other assorted small animals littered the floor, along with a few that looked suspiciously human. Claw marks adorned the walls, gouged deep into the stone. Gajeel's arm flashed before transforming into a serrated iron blade, his keen eyes darting around the rocky walls. He sniffed at the air, trying to pick up the scent of the Weretiger.
"Down here. Somethin' smells off though."
That was all Gajeel had time to say before a blur of motion exploded towards him. He didn't even have time to react as the Weretiger barreled into him, pushing him against the wall of the cave. The whole area shook as Gajeel felt his back hit the wall, the rock pulverized into dust by the hard body of the Dragonslayer. Gajeel bit back a cry of pain as two of his ribs snapped under the blows of the Weretiger.
"Gajeel!"
Erza ran forwards, blade in hand, and made to slice the Weretiger in half. Before she had even made it a meter, the tiger ducked under Erza's guard at impossible speeds and threw her against the other wall.
Her armour absorbed most of the impact, but Erza could feel the metal protesting. She still held her sword, but the beast had her arm pinned to her side. Erza knew that a Weretiger's main advantage lay in its speed, not its strength, and she strained against its grip, confident she could break it.
When she couldn't, Erza knew that something was wrong. Very wrong, when she slowed down enough to look at the beast in front of her.
The Weretiger was small, for a member of its species, with bright orange fur and black stripes running along its body. However, blue veins pulsed all along the body of the tiger, standing out in stark contrast to its fur. The eyes of the beast were more than wild; they were enraged, full of pain and utter madness.
That was all the time she had for observation as the tiger smashed her back against the wall again, her chestplate buckling under the pressure. Erza gritted her teeth and concentrated.
"Requip! Robe of Yūen!"
Her entire body glowed with brilliant light before she reappeared wearing a purple, sleeveless kimono. Erza twisted out of the grasp of the Weretiger, the magical properties of the robe letting her slip around it. The tiger stopped for a second, as if miffed that the redhead had escaped its grip.
"Iron Dragon Lance!"
A dozen metal spears shot across the room, three of them impaling the Weretiger in various places. Erza rolled out of range as the beast roared, struggling against the spears.
"Holy shit, what is this thing made of?"
Gajeel walked up besides Erza, continuing to shoot metal spears into the tiger's body until it was secured to the wall like a veritable pincushion. The spears trembled under the efforts of the Weretiger as it strained against its bonds.
"Ethernano poisoning."
"Ehhh? I thought ethernano was…y'know, good. It's what gives us magic, right?"
Erza frowned deeply, her eyebrows knit together in worry.
"That is true, Gajeel. Ethernano is the reason that we can use magic. However, concentrated magical essence is dangerous. While it can grant one immense magical power in the short term, it destroys the body. A chunk of solid Ethernano will poison the land around it, killing everything over a period of days, weeks, or months."
Erza requipped a long spear and thrust it through the Weretiger's head. Its struggles ceased, and she turned towards Gajeel.
"We need to find the source. This Weretiger was clearly infected for some time; it was driven rabid by the magical power coursing through its veins. The source must be nearby."
Gajeel frowned deeply, sniffing at the air again.
"Guess that's what I smelled earlier. It's farther down the cave."
Erza nodded and gestured for Gajeel to lead on, spear held tightly against her body.
As the two of them walked further into the dark reaches, Gajeel tried to strike up a conversation with his red haired partner to take his mind off of the pain in his ribs.
"So…y'know a lot about this Ethernano stuff, huh?"
Erza silently glared at the back of Gajeel's head before sighing. Despite her mistrust of the man, he wasn't asking anything unreasonable. And he had just saved her life.
"I…during the mission a few weeks ago at the Tower of Heaven, I got some…hands on experience."
That was understating it. Erza still had nightmares about the flash of light as the Tower transformed after the Etherion blast, Simon's dead body, and the sight of an enraged Natsu covered in flames. Jellal laughing as he proclaimed that he was going to resurrect Zeref. The vision of her death, swirling flames, and the mad eyes of one she once called a friend blended together in her mind until she woke, trembling.
"I don't really want to talk about it. Just be careful, if you destabilize Ethernano it can be…quite destructive. I would advise you to not touch it."
Gajeel grunted and shrugged, not pursuing the topic any further. He could sense that the woman behind him was unsettled and knew it was wise not to push her. Besides, it wasn't as if he actually cared.
A blue glow suffused the walls as they walked further on. It became stronger, flooding the cave with sickly light until the two of them crossed into a large room that was partially submerged in seawater. Limestone columns ran up and down, glittering turquoise under the light emanating from a chunk of Ethernano that was roughly the size of a carriage. The smell of decay was mixed in with ozone, and a low hum filled the air.
Gajeel felt his entire body bristling. This place felt, well, wrong. His draconic instincts were warning him of danger, and he would have obeyed them, if not for the woman who was trailing behind him.
"What do we do now, eh?"
Erza and Gajeel halted two meters away from the chunk of Ethernano, Gajeel frowning as he tried to ignore the oppressive feeling of the room.
"Do we crush it or call someone or…I dunno, this isn't my area. Hey, Scarlet, are you even listening to me?"
"There's someone in there."
Erza darted past Gajeel, coming to the side of the pulsating crystal within seconds. Gajeel remained at a distance, keeping an uneasy eye on the chunk.
"Oi, oi, watch what you're doing, Scarlet! Whaddya mean someone's in there?"
Gajeel heard Erza gasp in shock, saw her fists clench, and felt the quality of the magical power in the air change.
Erza whispered one word: "Jellal."
Then she hefted her spear and struck the chunk of Ethernano with as much force as she could muster.
Gajeel's eyes widened in shock. He ran forwards, grabbing Erza to prevent her from striking the crystal again. He backpedalled, moving himself and his struggling partner away from the chunk.
"Are you insane, Scarlet!? You just fucking told me not to touch the stuff!"
Erza yanked the spear out of Gajeel's grip and kicked him away. The glow emanating from the Ethernano turned harsh and a keening sound filled the air as Erza struck it a second time. Cracks spread across the surface and blue energy began to swirl in the air.
Gajeel picked himself up off the floor, his left hand curled around his chest. He didn't know what was going on, didn't know who the hell this Jellal guy was or why Erza had suddenly lost her composure like that; the one thing he did know was that he had a very, very bad feeling about this whole situation. His instincts were telling him to run and hide far, far away from this place. But he'd be damned if he left behind the person who was supposed to be observing him to die.
So Gajeel rushed forwards as fast as his broken ribs allowed, reaching Erza just as she struck the crystal for the third time. A tidal wave of bright blue energy shot out, engulfing the room in a whirling mass of semi-concentrated Ethernano.
Gajeel grabbed onto Erza's arm, trying to pull her towards the exit, away from this place, but Erza resisted, reaching towards the body that was still partially buried within the Ethernano crystal.
"Let me go! I have to get to him, Let me go!"
The swirling magical energy rotated faster, dragging along the contours of the room. The crystal holding Jellal vibrated, emitting a dull roar as Gajeel struggled to hold Erza back.
It all happened in the space of a few milliseconds, but to Gajeel, it seemed to last hours. The shattered chunk of Ethernano thrummed, glowing brighter and brighter until it suddenly collapsed in on itself, becoming a sphere as black as the fabric of night. All of the swirling magical energy in the room rushed forwards, sucking Gajeel and Erza along with it, throwing them straight into the strange sphere of Ethernano. Then, with a flash of light and a loud crackle, the sphere vanished, leaving no trace of Ethernano or mages in that cave by the seashore.
. . .
Gajeel tried to hold onto Erza's arm, but lost his grip upon entering the sphere. He glanced wildly around, looking for her, but he could not see Erza. Nor indeed, could he comprehend what he was seeing. The world had vanished, and he seemed to be travelling through a tunnel that warped and bent as he passed through it. Gajeel felt his body squeezed and stretched as he sped along before he lost consciousness completely. The last thing he saw was a bright circle at the end of the tunnel which seemed to float in midair.
. . .
"So, what's this anomaly supposed to look like?"
Doctor Erik Selvig, an aging scientist, poked his head out of the roof of the SUV he was riding in. Beside him, fiddling with a magnometer was his partner, Jane Foster. She fiddled with her equipment as they raced over the hills of the New Mexican desert, the setting sun her only light to see by.
Jane looked up for only a second, saying "It's a little different each time. Once it looked like, I don't know, melted stars, pooling in a corner of the sky. But last week it was a rolling rainbow ribbon—"
Selvig grinned tightly, his hands grasping the roof of the SUV.
"Always said you should have been a poet, Jane."
Jane didn't seem to hear his comment as she frowned at the screen of the magnometer.
"These are strange readings, even next to the anomalies I've seen before. The magnetic fields are fluctuating wildly; I'm picking up some kind of—"
"Holy shit! Do you guys see that?"
Down below, Jane's assistant Darcy Lewis was driving, her head craned to the left. Jane looked up from her magnometer, and Selvig stared, his mouth open.
A mass of swirling blue energy had materialized in the middle of the desert, about a half kilometer west from where the SUV was. Tendrils whipped out, turning in on themselves and reappearing within seconds as a high pitched thrumming filled the air. The mass seemed to be almost spherical in shape, though it flexed and stretched like it was alive. It reached hundreds of feet into the air, writhing higher and higher with each second.
"Darcy, drive us towards it, now!"
Janes voice came down from the roof, sounding as shocked as she felt. Darcy had enough attention left to snort at that, though.
"Yeah, right, good one! Wait…you're not serious, are you?"
"You want those college credits or not?"
Grumbling, Darcy swung the steering wheel around and lined the SUV on a straight path towards the anomaly. However, just as suddenly as it had come, the sphere of strange energy left, vanishing with a flash and a crackle. A few wisps of pale blue energy were all that they could see from this distance.
Jane blinked as the light faded and turned to Selvig.
"I've never seen anything like that before."
. . .
Darcy stopped the SUV a few dozen meters away from where the anomaly had appeared, and Jane and Selvig barreled out of the doors. Jane had her magnometer in her hands, while Selvig struggled under s bag of specialized equipment.
"That was the subtle aurora you've been going on about?" Darcy commented as he hopped out as well. Jane shook her head, only looking up from her instruments just long enough to see where she was going.
"I've never seen anything like that. It was abnormal even by the standards of anomalies. An anomalistic anomaly, I suppose you'd say. God, the magnetic readings are off the charts."
Selvig walked ahead of Jane, squinting to see in the fading light. He made out a shape in what appeared to be the center of the anomaly…a shape that was moving and standing up.
"Jane, there's someone here!"
Jane looked up then, her mouth opening slightly as she saw the figure as well. Erik fumbled through his bag and pulled out a large, yellow flashlight. Turning it on, the three scientists got their first glimpse of this strange man who was, for some reason, in the center of where the sphere had appeared.
He was one of the oddest men any of them had ever seen. Wild, black, spiky hair covered his head and fell down his back in an unruly mane. He had numerous studs covering his body; three in place of each eyebrow, four on his nose, and others trailing up his arms. He was dressed in a long black coat that was singed in several places, fingerless gloves covered in metal studs and plates, and brown pants.
The man squinted at the sudden bright light, his eyes a frightening red.
"Who the fuck are you? What the…what's going on?"
None of the three were able to respond as the man stumbled closer, his hand clasped around his chest. He growled then, a low, rumbling sound. Darcy hurriedly pulled out a handheld taser and pointed it at the man. Upon seeing it, the man giggled, even though it seemed to pain him.
"Gi hi hi, you think that little thing's gonna hurt the mighty Black Steel Gaj-"
Darcy thumbed the trigger and shot the man in the chest with twin taser barbs. He twitched and fell down to the ground, spasming.
Jane and Erik turned towards Darcy, who looked back at them incredulously.
"What? He was freakin' me out!"
Jane just shook her head and rushed to the man's side, Erik not a step behind her. Selvig checked the man's pulse, frowning at the slow beat.
"He's alive, but unconscious. Looks like he's got some broken ribs and mild burns, and his pulse is slow. And of course, the electrocution didn't help him."
From behind them, Darcy chipped in a "Freaking me out!"
Jane opened one of the man's eyelids, doing a double take upon seeing his red irises.
"What is he? He just….appeared out of the inside of that anomaly?"
Erik shook his head, his brow furrowed in thought.
"Whoever he is, he needs to go to the hospital. We can ask him questions after he wakes up."
Darcy scoffed behind them.
"Cuz that went soooo well the first time. Hey, what's this blue stuff?"
The two scientists whirled around, looking at what Darcy was referencing. Their attention having been focused on the man, Jane and Erik had missed the small blue shards that littered the ground, most of them the size of a fingernail or smaller. Jane picked one up, turning it over in her hand.
"It's…warm."
Selvig picked up one as well, turning it over in his hands. It was indeed warm, and seemed to pulse with energy.
"Gather samples of everything you can. We leave in twenty minutes."
Jane made a noise of protest.
"Erik! This was a localized spatial anomaly, we need more time to investigate!"
"I know, but we need to get this man to the hospital. Tasers don't just knock people out, Jane. Not normally, anyways. We'll get what we can and leave. Besides…I doubt this went unnoticed."
Jane opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. She sighed and turned to Darcy.
"Start taking samples. Erik, are you—"
Selvig grunted as he struggled to pick the other man up.
"I'll try to get him to the SUV. Agh, what is he made out of, solid iron?"
Aaaand scene. Wow, that was a rush. If you readers see any spelling mistakes, please tell me in a review or message, I want to make this story as good as possible.
Now I know I might get some hate for this, but trust me, there is a method to my madness. I think that fanfics that blindly follow the canon of one series or another are exceedingly boring. So, Gajeel will be commandeering parts of Thor's story, but don't worry, I'll make it up to Thor. Find out what happened to Erza next chapter!
Please R& R, Z.R. Stein out!