When the Lights Go Out
Chapter 10
Dark Sun for the Dark Son
Going through the gate was like dying after you were given a second chance at life. There was no Levi. No light. No words to ease the darkness. No words to anchor your body to. No heartbeats to monitor time.
Okay, so there was his heartbeat, but that was beyond the point.
He felt alone, but he knew he wasn't. The hag was here. Waiting for him. And he'd be willing to bet Natsu's life that Wendy's eye was lurking somewhere as well. Maybe it was still on the floor in the room it was in before.
If the rooms were what they were before.
He sensed nothing. He half suspected the hag to meet him at the door. But he wasn't surprised by this either. Waiting was its own form of suffering, and she did say she preferred to see him suffer.
So he turned left. Or what he thought of as left, and headed for the Master's rooms. Might as well see if the eye was still there. He had some barely-formed idea that it might be useful to Wendy.
Though going from what he knew of Erza's experiences, there could be a lot useful in an artificial eye too. Still, it was the only place he thought of to go. Levi's power no longer forced even this room into a set size. Even this room wasn't small. But he didn't complain about the time it took to cross. Complaining could stand in like behind the planning and the fucking huge amount of justified anger he was carrying around.
He grinned and waited to run flat into another wall.
He couldn't actually think of a way to kill the hell bitch. Since she'd never shown him the extent of her power. He'd been stupid and impatient. He should have asked Levi more questions about what happened after she kicked him out.
Like exactly how she had gotten Wendy away. How the hag acted. How it felt to be truly alone in this place.
Because it was so much different than before without Levi's words to protect him. To light a way in the darkness. How she spoke to him and smelled and sounded, reminding him that he was still alive.
Which was hard to remember now.
There were the stairs. He made progress. Pride filled him. He had made progress.
There were tiny lights on the steps before him. It wasn't like the stairs were suddenly awash in light and free of the darkness, but he recognized the curve of each line. They were Levi's words. She had left them for him.
Something settled in the lower portion of his gut. Tingled in his fingerprints and changed the tempo of his breathing. Even when she was struggling with her own fights she thought of him. Left him help, even if it was only emotional.
The words didn't do anything except fill him with courage stronger than his own bluster. But that just might be enough.
Every step was closer to his goal. Kill the bitch who thought it was a good idea to manipulate two of the very few people in this world he actually gave a shit about.
What she did to Levi was bad enough. Way beyond bad enough. And he couldn't explain how much it made him want to rip into the soft flesh of something dark and killable. But what she did to Wendy …
They weren't as close as they could have been. He wasn't the sort of person to really get close to people. But there was something there. He watched her when she was happy. When she wasn't. Usually there were dozens of other people willing to keep her happy, to help pick her up and hold her there.
He only stepped in if he was the only choice. Because he knew he wasn't the best choice. But she was a pleasure to share breathing space with. Happy, curious, innocent, smart … and she didn't know him from Phantom Lord. That made a huge difference in how she looked at him. A huge difference that fucking meant something to him.
Most of them had forgiven him for that. Especially the ones who mattered. They wouldn't forget, they would never forget, not even if Levi kept acting as she did now. But they had all managed to move on. That was the most important part. Their anger and fear didn't hound him like it had at first.
But Wendy never knew any of that. She was just another dragonslayer, and with Lily and after the fight in Edolas that was even more true. He couldn't say he loved her, because he didn't, not really, but in some way she was his. Maybe not like she was Charle's or Natsu's. The people who stepped up first. First to teach, first to give praise, first to lecture when a rare wrong was committed. But she was a part of his guild. For a short time she was trained somewhat like him. She had been more cared for, but there was some commonality between the dragonslayers.
There was some commonality in being new to a guild. She came from a fake one who loved her and lied to her. He saw the sadness and distance in her eyes in the down seconds. The tightness of her arms when she held Charle. He knew there was some part of her that thought it might all fall apart and leave her. That her cat was the only one she could trust not to go away.
He had never wanted to be alone, but for a long time he had no choice. Now it was the thing she feared most, and he would do what he could – from behind her, without her knowing – to keep her from ever feeling what he'd felt.
And then this bitch turned her into a machine. Made her try and kill her friends. Made her rip out her own goddamned eye!
That stretched his feelings of undefined care to something far more primal. They were all his nakama by now, and he thought of Levi in more than a simple way, but the girl … the girl was his. She was something more … and his actions now would reflect that difference.
His lips parted and his teeth sharpened on his thoughts. The bitch would die for what she did, but he'd make sure she realized the scope of her wrongdoing, her crime, before she went.
Those sharp teeth and steel arms would know blood before he returned home. And his ears would echo with the sound of her last breath.
It was impossible to stay so angry for as long as he climbed. Because of the words he could see some, but it was all he could do to focus on the stairs in the dark. They'd already extended more than ten times the length that they should be. That they were in his version of reality. That they were in his guild.
He hadn't fallen yet, but he expected traps on each stair. There were none. His nose found nothing. His ears only heard the fall of his feet against what must have been would, though the acoustics of the darkness and different size of the room altered the sound in an undefinable way.
Then eyes that saw only black and words caught a sliver of gray. It was above him to the left. Makarov's rooms. Directly on the stairs, not the hallway. The hall it usually faced. But then the stairway had run past the length of that too.
Makarov's rooms. Where he first saw her use Wendy as a surrogate body. First took Levi's control away. First had her hate herself. Doubt herself. By hurting him.
Where the eye was waiting for him.
Watching for him.
He turned into the door and saw it there. Still on the floor. Facing the entrance. Bright and wide and brown and black. There was very little of Wendy left in that eye.
This time it shone with something new.
Excitement.
The air was dead. Nothing he could destroy. Except the eye, and that wasn't what he needed. That was for Wendy.
"Welcome back Dark Son. Has your memory grown? Have your thoughts widened since the return of your bookwhore and my tiny walking death? You know the longer you stay here the more of her former compatriots she devours."
"I'll leave that shit to Wendy and my guild. You underestimate Fairy Tail if you think she'll kill them before they save her."
"Do I?" the voice in the air was tinted with laughter. Though it didn't actually laugh. "They would still be trapped in the darkness if I hadn't freed them after I satisfied my own ends. I think it is you who expects too much of them."
His nose flared, but with no body there was no scent. He couldn't tell if the hag was lying to him. Couldn't do anything to destroy her. Could only glare. Bitch.
Bitch.
"I tell no lies. I gave the light back to them when I returned the sword mage. I had no need to hold them anymore. No need to waste my power on those unimportant pieces of trash."
A low growl vibrated in his vocal cords. It was difficult to keep his mouth shut. But he remembered that he had thought much worse of them. Said much worse to them. He would kill the bitch, but not over something like that. It would be for Wendy. For Levi. For him.
"I took the red-headed sword user first because I assumed you would be most drawn to someone with power. That if anyone drew your eye or your care it would be one who could match you. What a surprise it was that you reacted to her disappearance with the same response you would give to any acquaintance or casual friend.
"But then I saw you with the little girl. The sky mage. When you searched. I heard the word mage with her books. I knew then that those were the two who would cause you the pain needed to bring you into my domain."
The more he listened the less he moved. This place was gray where the rest was dark, but tendrils of that dark had slipped into the room and taken him from behind when he wasn't looking. To bent on the hags words, which came from somewhere in front of him. Somewhere behind the eye.
Shit.
Arms bound to his side. Feet bound to the floor. Neck wrapped in shadow. All he had was his mouth. All he had were words. And words were never his power. He could not beat her with declarations. So he asked questions instead. Questions to keep her at bay while he tried to figure out an escape. And a way to destroy her when she had no body.
He pulled and pulled and pulled and roared and turned his entire body into a weapon. But there was nothing to kill. Nothing at all.
"Why could you take them with nothing but only me with the fucking pain?" All he had was the movement of his hands and fingers. His mouth. His eyes. Some bend in his knees. Shit.
"I can't see how you don't know. Not know what you are."
"I know what I am!" he roared again. Fighting his bindings. More movement in his hands. It wasn't as strong as when Levi was made to hurt him. Levi had taken some power from her.
"I suppose you know enough about yourself now to survive, but you don't ask the questions that matter."
"And what the hell should I be asking?"
"Why are you a dragonslayer?"
"I thought this wasn't about my goddamn dragon. Why do you fucking care? Why would I give a flying horse shit about why?"
"It's not about the dragons. It's about the magic. The power. Not about those fool lizards who taught dragon-slaying magic to those who could use it against them. It has nothing to do with those who are criminals to their own kind.
"This is about you. You and those two others. And the others after them. But right now it's about you. Why, out of all the people in the world were you chosen to learn one of the rarest magics in existence?"
"How the fuck would I know? For half my life the jackass was …" he clinched his jaw. He didn't want to talk about any of this shit, but he had to keep her talking to make any progress himself. "That jackass was the only thing in my life when I was a little brat. I didn't ask questions because he didn't give a damn about questions."
"Nothing is learned without questions. If you accept everything as what it is, then you are a fool. And I suffer no fools, Dark Son. Fools are to be destroyed." The voice was clearer. The gray room darkened into the usual black. The eye no longer stared at him because it too was lost to the darkness.
Then, as always there was light.
But no Levi.
No Wendy.
This time she had no one to steal. No one to imitate. Not even the first woman he saw her in during that guild illusion. Her true form was before him. Absorbing light. Tossing light aside.
Her skin was black oil. Her eyes green as hard emeralds. Her claws glittered sharp on the end of long fingers were hard steel. Her lips were copper. Her hair long strands of spider web. The shift draped over her was white. Too white. It hurt the eyes.
She was ancient but ageless. He'd seen it before in his dragon.
"I cannot express to you my rage. The bookwhore is gone, and she took Howl from me. Not that you will get your Wendy back, but that she was taken from me is an unforgivable offense. But she is not here to pay for that offense. You are. And you will."
"Yeah? Well I'm angry too. You're the bitch who took us all in the first place. You're the one who hurt the guild. You're the one who tried to destroy Wendy and Levi. You didn't lose them. You didn't have them taken from you. They were rescued from the creature that stole them."
The emeralds darkened, deepened. She lifted a hand. The skin on her palm parted like fleshy curtains, and an eye looked out. Blinking as if only now coming awake.
Fuck.
That was Wendy's eye, wasn't it?
"With this eye I can see everything, Dark Son. I already know your memories, but I can also see the truth that you refuse to acknowledge. I see the things you would rather forget. So I'll ask you again: Why are you a dragonslayer?"
"I said that I don't know, bitch. Lay off it already!" With every bit of his power he pushed forward, stretching his bindings to hit the creature who finally existed in her true physical form. Was finally killable.
He broke free. Swung his blade. Felt it hit something. Felt it break.
There was something wet on his face.
It wasn't her blood.
She had no blood.
The sensation of falling into unconsciousness was becoming very familiar.
"All elements have two sides. Soft side. Hard side. The hearth fire, sun fire, controlled fire. The wild fire and molten fire. The wind and breeze. The violent storm. The life giving water. The killing floods and raging seas."
The voice entered his ears before the image of her pierced his eyes. He was nothing but agony from one part of his body to the next. All of him hurt. One part of his … his … he couldn't feel most of it. Eyes. Hands. Chest.
Hand. Not hands.
Fuck he hurt.
Hand?
Even if the blade broke his hand ...
Where were his legs?
The voice from the oil woman continued.
"This had nothing, nothing to do with the dragons who stole our hard work. Stole the seeds that were planted to create ordered and disordered change in the world. The seeds from which you eventually grew. Though it is amusing, that you think some part of you is human. But it is unacceptable that you would forget me. I am the one who gave you your power. It is me who directed your creation. Your mission.
"But the dragons took all of you. Which we accepted because you would still do the job you had been given. Even the dragons couldn't take that which we had planted. Even if you would destroy at his whims and not those given to you by the hard earth.
"But you still destroyed, and that was enough.
"Now, however, you have stopped. You radiate kindness, like a disease. You stopped. And in stopping you have weakened me. I planted the seed of the hard earth. That seed became you. When you emerged from the rock, you were perfect. All edges with no center. No softness. Your eyes cut even me. You would be death to the world. There was no controlling my rage when you were taken, but I saw, eventually, the benefits.
"The dragon took you and enhanced that unbridled power. Made it into something controlled. Something less than what you could have been. But still you managed to create discord as the dark earth should. The hard earth is greed, and hard, and deathless. But you no longer embody those things as you once did. Your greeds are small, simple, human things. Your hardness has left the steel of your bones and moved into your soft heart. To protect others. To serve others. And you are no longer deathless. No longer the hard diamond that will last forever. The metal in you bends now. Breaks now. And you will die, as you would not have before.
"If you continue down this path you will destroy the delicate world, and that is against all of my plans. You have unbalanced the hard and soft of earth. And so you must either die, so I can use your energy to create another seed. Another lesser seed because it is reused power and newborn. Or if you live, you must live as you were created. Live at your own pleasure.
"And destroy at mine."
He clinched his teeth trying not to listen. Trying to get away. But his ears were too good, and he heard everything despite his wants.
"Like fuck I will," he muttered testing his bonds with the one arm he could feel.
Her response was not colored with any emotion. It was fact as hard as the most perfect rock. "Then you will die."
"What about the others. Salamander and the girl you stole. What about them?"
"Soft side of fire. Soft side of air. Turnable of course, as you were turned. Made into the soft side of earth," she spat. Her eyes went from green to gold and then back. "The air girl made a useable model for the hard side of air. The storm. The wyrm. The dragon's distant kin, but beholden to us and not free as they are free."
She moved closer to him. So close her could feel the rot in her breath and feel the gaze of the eye in her hand as it touched his shoulder.
His legs. Where the fuck were his legs?
… wh … where the fuck were his hands?
"If you can't do what I need you to do, you must be replanted.
"And I will start over."
His hand broke free. Lashed at her once more. The hand was his own. Not iron. Not steel. Flesh. It touched her. Hit her. But she did not bend. She was not human. She was one half of the earth. Greater than anything living.
She did not even blink those emerald eyes.
He felt the bones in his hand shatter.
Why did he think of blue hair?
Soft lips?
A smile … who would smile at him?
It was the last thing he thought.
The black this time didn't feel like unconsciousness. It felt like hitting a wall.
Levi …
Author's note: One more chapter.
To the Anon reviewer: I think Gajeel IS harder on them than they deserve, but at the same time I think he would be. Because they would do their best to move on. I'm not saying they actually don't care, but it's not like they haven't lost members before. Lisanna for example died, and they managed the strength needed to accomplish their day to day. A whole group of people can't just stop their lives for 4 months. People die, people disappear, and still we have to go on. Regardless of our grief, we have to go on.
I think Gajeel attacks them so much because he hurts so much. Instead of showing fully his own grief and his own fears, he compensates by attacking those around him who aren't, as he measures it, as loyal. Turns his grief outward as scorn instead of keeping it inside where it might change him in some way that he doesn't trust. Having spent a lot of time with grief growing up and earlier this year, I think everyone has their own path there. Some laugh, some tell jokes, some spend their days locked in themselves or locked in some physical space. Some change their lives completely. Some lash out in violence and anger, and some show little because they feel that pushing their grief on others only leads to more pain.
And almost everyone moves on with their day to day. We speak words to our families, to our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our cousins, our aunts and uncles, our grandparents, our friends, doing what we can to help, but since we weren't there with them, since our grief isn't on the same level as theirs, we ourselves begin to feel hopeless. We don't know the right words or the right actions. We fear that any action we take will be wrong. And so we draw away. To give them space we might say, to give them the time they need.
Sometimes you move on and try to pretend it didn't happen. You don't say their name or think of them in a way that might remind you they're gone. It's true of death, and it's true of disappearance. I might have been a little hard on the guild, sure, but I don't think I was that far off the mark.