A/N: I really apologize to those who missed the chapter on Saturday! My dad took my laptop on a business trip and I couldn't write for five whole days! I'm really sorry! I hope this makes up for it!
Please review :)
Survival
Onibus, 13 years before the Dollhouse Incident, year X770-
Arrow stood in a gray, long-sleeved turtleneck sweater with the sleeves draping over his cold fingers as he held the large box Wild had purchased, full of alcohol, cigarettes, and the like. The turtleneck was warm, yes, but it wasn't out of charity that he had been given it; Wild didn't want anyone to see the scars, burns and bleeding sores left on the boy's body. Arrow wore the same ripped up pants as before, tied around his bony waist with a dirty rope. The pants were too long and covered his feet except for his toes. He was fine without shoes; in fact, he didn't like shoes. They constricted his motions and made it difficult to run.
He walked three paces behind Wild, as instructed, almost habitually. Anytime he broke this rule he got smacked across the face so hard he almost always bit his own cheek. A few of his teeth had fallen out, but he didn't know if that was because of Wild's beatings or because it was just his baby teeth.
All around him whispers rustled like wind in the trees.
"Poor boy…"
"Wild's boy? Poor thing,"
"Another one? The last one died I heard,"
"He looks so frail…"
"I'm shocked he survived the year. Bet he won't make it 'till summer,"
"Of course he won't last until summer, it's Wild we're talking about,"
"Poor thing,"
"Poor thing,"
"Poor thing,"
Arrow seethed with fury, his feet scuffing across the stone walkways. Poor thing, they said, but they did nothing, nothing to help him.
Damn them, he thought viciously. It had already been nearly half a year; it was now mid to late spring and the weather was warming up. Though he spent so much time incapacitated and unconscious that it hardly mattered. His body was so scarred up it was hard to look at himself in the mirror that Wild kept.
Seven years old and he looked like a whipped dog.
Arrow… Target now, had lived in Hell since his mother's death. He held on to nothing worthless, and that included life.
Wild did not allow him to die.
Knowing that, Arrow began to fight back until he clung to his life out of sheer spite, living even when Wild was prepared to kill him. It displeased Wild that Arrow's soul remained unbroken.
"Keep up, Target!" Wild snarled, flicked the ashes of his cigarette into Arrow's face. The boy walked a bit faster, and they reached Wild's house in due time.
"Clean," the man commanded, and Arrow begrudgingly complied, "I have someone coming over today, and I don't want you screwing it up."
"Yes," Arrow gritted out. The boy already knew who was coming over. Another damn whore that Wild would hole up with for a while, and Arrow would be subject to the torture of hearing them do… things.
Whatever Wild did to the women he brought home, Arrow decided he didn't like it. The younger girls screamed and cried. It physically pained Arrow to hear them.
Often when Wild was with his women, Arrow would sneak out and wait until he could wait no more before returning. Today, however, that didn't seem to be the scenario that would be playing out.
Wild walked in with a woman that had boobs at least the size of her own head. Arrow looked at them, not in a perverted manner as he was far too young to have thoughts geared in that direction, but more wondering how such a small woman could support such large breasts and not fall over. He crept out from kitchen, staring at Wild and his companion from the shadows.
"Oh…." The woman sneered as she caught sight of the boy, "I didn't know you had a son,"
"He's not my son," Wild replied with a smile, "He's my punching bag."
"Oh?"
"You want to see?" Wild asked her, his wicked grin widening into a mask of evil pleasure, "It would be a nice prelude to our evening together, no?"
"Kill the brat," she said dismissively, as if she thought Wild was bluffing; Arrow knew better, "give him as much pain as you think he can take."
Arrow's eyes widened with fear as Wild approached. This time wouldn't just be a beating and Arrow knew it. So did the woman.
Wild picked up the stick he usually used to lash Arrow and started forward again. Arrow tried to scramble away but was unable to as Wild snatched him by the back of his shirt and dragged him back.
The first blow landed in Arrow's stomach, and the boy doubled over, but did not cry out or fall.
He smiled.
If he cried when Wild beat him it just agitated the man even more, so now, in the face of adversity and pain, Arrow smiled a crazed, lilting grin that made him look about as insane as he felt as his grip on the world fell away.
He was struck again and again, but he smiled anyways.
Wild's hits got harder, and Arrow was knocked into a wall. His head struck the corner of the desk and he began to bleed from a cut on his scalp. His bronze hair turned copper-red as blood flowed down the boy's face.
His lip had split again, and he licked the blood off before baring his teeth in that twisted smirk.
Hit me again, it said, Do it. See if I care. See if you can make me stop smiling.
Blow after blow fell on Arrow, and eventually he was reduced to laying face down on the thin rug, blood soaking into the carpet beneath him.
The woman shrieked with laughter.
"Stop ruining my carpet," Wild growled, kicking Arrow over. The boy remained limp, no breath exiting him. Wild assumed he was dead. "Damn it all, I've killed the little shit. Whatever, I'll clean up later."
The pair turned away and walked deeper into the house.
Arrow picked himself up.
As he was lying on the ground, he had felt something against his chest.
His key.
The key to the box.
Only take the treasure when you cannot survive any longer, and keep it with you always.
Survival.
Aroata Mielus Jax went to go find the box he had hidden in the wall so long ago, dragging his leg behind him as he found it to be broken, or at least fractured. His sweater was covered in blood, and he could barely see, but on he went.
He could only wonder what the box held.
…..
Yrid, 13 years before the Dollhouse Incident, year X770-
"Ojii-chan, do I have to go to your old-man meeting? It seems more fun at the beach…." A young nine year old blonde boy in a red shirt that sported a lightning bolt on the front sounded disappointed as he spoke to his grandfather, an extremely short old man: Makarov Dreyar, master of Fairy Tail. The boy fidgeted slightly as they walked, showing how excited he was to be outside of Magnolia. It was his first time traveling with his grandfather.
"Laxus…" Makarov sighed to his grandson, "I can't let you go to the beach on your own. You're too young and the only experience you have swimming is in the Magnolia Channel; the ocean is completely different. We'll go later, alright?"
"Yes, Ojii-chan," Laxus agreed, the tiniest bit begrudging. It was beyond amazing to have a guild master for a grandpa, but sometimes Laxus got a little bit annoyed with the amount of work the old man had to do.
"Hey!" the boy suddenly cried in excitement, stopping in his tracks and staring to his left, into the front yard of a home.
"What?" Makarov asked, halting as well.
"They're just like me!"
"Who? Like you how?" Makarov queried, confused.
"Those kids! They have magic just like me, but they're younger!" Laxus said happily.
Indeed, where Laxus pointed there stood three children. A young boy sat with his torso sprawled over a wooden picnic table; this wasn't unusual but for the fact that the tree he sat under dropped leaves in the strong sea wind, leaves that spiraled, spiraled, spiraled…. Froze. In a six foot diameter about the boy, nothing moved but his own chest as he inhaled gently. Not even the grass was swayed.
A bit further into the yard, two girls grinned at each other. Mimicking one another like distorted, discolored mirrors, they preformed the same actions and received the same results. The pale girl in black wrapped herself in shadows and vanished into a pool of darkness on the ground. The dark girl clad in white gathered light to herself and shimmered into nothing but footprints that bent the grass.
The shadows bubbled like water as the night-clad child rose from the darkness, and bear hugged the boy, who jerked out of sleep with a cry, the leaves scattering on the wind. An invisible hand plucked one such leaf from the boy's curly hair before the other girl became visible. The girls laughed and the boy grinned with quiet joy.
"See, Ojii-chan?" Laxus was more excited about finding children like himself than he was about the beach.
Makarov marveled. Laxus was an oddity, a child with powers he could control to some extent, and not even he had mastered the lightning completely. These kids were on a whole other level, their magic practically pulsing out of them in waves.
"Can I go talk to them Ossan?" Laxus asked with puppy eyes, forgoing 'Ojii-chan' in favor of a shorter reference to Makarov, "Please?"
"Let's talk to them," Makarov said, giving in. Laxus ran on ahead and engaged the three in conversation.
"You can use magic?" the blonde cried. Instantly the three took a defensive posture, the two girls slightly behind the boy, one on each side. The girl in black linked arms with the girl in white.
"… and if we can?" the boy asked softly.
"Me too!" Laxus practically sang, "Look!" the blonde furrowed his eyebrows in concentration and a spark began crackling in his hand. After a moment it dissipated. "I'm not very good yet," he said with disappointment.
The brunette boy in the yard picked a wild poppy that had been growing in the grass. Plucking off the stem, he held the flower in his palm. Laxus watched in amazement as the flower floated up a few inches and twisted closed into a bud again. It then dropped back into Wish's hand and regrew at super-speed. The girls behind him had disappeared again.
Laxus started violently as two little girl voice murmured identically in his ears.
"So you're a magic user to?" they pair murmured.
"See, Ojii-chan?" Laxus grinned. Makarov smiled at his grandson from the edge of the yard. The other children who had been unaware of his presence until now gave him the looks of startled rabbits as the two girls flitted back to the boy.
"May I ask your names?" Makarov asked gently. He received no answer. "May I speak to your parents?"
"Are you going to try and take us away to a guild?" the girl in white asked, chin raised defiantly, "Because we won't go!"
"Yeah mister! The three of us are gonna start a guild all on our own! See! We already gots marks!" the girl in black cried. The two younger kids showed messy marker drawings on their skin. The boy remained still until the girl in black prodded him in the ribs. He sighed and raised his hand to reveal the same marks.
"We're gonna be Midnight Sun! We're gonna beat all the other guilds and be the best!" The girls said together.
Makarov just smiled at them.
He wondered if this was how Fairy Tail had started out, just a couple of kids with dreams too big and a set of washable markers.