Considering the artifact was gone, the council were suddenly extremely concerned with the safety of Levy and her sister. They'd rapidly swung from potential executioners to overbearing protectors in the space of an afternoon. Council thugs had appeared everywhere. They interrogated Fairy Tail mages over seemingly unrelated trivia, despite the fact that the theft had taken place over two days from Magnolia by train and all the guild members were accounted for. Most either on jobs where there were witnesses, or in the guild hall itself.
Maeve's had become distant and troubled. Her attitude to them all had cooled. Wary and suspicious. She holed up in her room refusing to speak to anyone. Snapping even at Levy. Unlike her sister, the script mage took it far better; she was a Fairy Tail mage, after all. Possible world wide calamity wasn't anything more than a standard at this stage. While it was clear that Levy had wanted things to settle down, she wasn't necessarily panicking that complications had developed.
The problems had arisen when the council started interfering in her comings and goings.
"Exactly what the hell do you mean?" She stood toe to toe with a man almost a good two foot taller than her. His bald head glistened with sweat from the lights in the hall. The lacrima so close to his scalp, thanks to his substantial height, that it looked like they were burning his skin. These weren't men trained by the council. These were mercenaries that the wizard's council had hired at short notice. Their forces already stretched so far beyond thin at present. The man snarled down at her, inches taller than even Gajeel. But Levy had spent days cooped up indoors with an increasingly more agitated Dragon Slayer. She could have lived with it if it had been her choice, but they weren't giving her the option of freedom. She wanted out.
"I'm not your prisoner. You can't keep me here," She poked the man square in the chest. "Now, I have an appointment, so if you don't move, I'm going to have you moved," She bit out. Frustrated and feeling more than trapped. She couldn't stay in Gajeel's home forever.
"This is for your own protection. If you knew what was good for you..."
"Wouldn't finish that sentence," Gajeel interrupted, snarling. The man looked to him as he moved to stand behind Levy. Offering her his unwavering support.
"We have someplace to be...so step aside," He said calmly. The Dragon Slayer had no intention of starting arguments, least of all with the council, but he also wasn't going to become a prisoner in his own home. He wasn't going to let Levy become one either.
The mercenary didn't look impressed. In fact he seemed almost eager at the idea of this ending in a fight.
Levy decided against that scenario. She poked the man in the guts again, her finger lingering a moment longer than before. After a few seconds Gajeel heard the most gods awful groan from the mercenaries bowels. The man went as white as a sheet. A wide panicky look about him as he wrapped his arms around his gut, doubling over with a whimper. Levy turned and pushed Gajeel out of the doorframe and back into the apartment as the council goon clumsily rushed in after them, staggering confusedly, looking about.
"First door on the left!" She shouted after him, the man heeding her words and disappearing into the bathroom. Levy took Gajeel's hand and pulled him outside and into the street.
"What the fuck was that?" Gajeel asked.
"Solid script diarrhea," She said so matter-of-factly that he almost wasn't sure he'd heard right. Gajeel had to stop with the terrifying realization that his girlfriend had just disabled a man by making him shit his pants. He wanted to laugh. He really did. It'd probably be funnier when he got over the fact that she could have done that to him a dozen times over when he was sent to find her. He was really glad she didn't hate him. But gods it made all those times he was casually annoying her seem like a dance with disaster.
Bickslow was in the guild waiting for them when they arrived. The mage had an arm in a sling and looked like he'd taken a tumble out of a moving train onto the tracks in front of another moving train. It was no wonder he was late. His clothes were still stained and dirty, his armour was cracked deeply in places. He still smelled like sweat and blood. It was clear he hadn't even been home yet; the mage looked like he hadn't slept in days. His dolls hovering lazily in the background lacking their usual energy, seemed to back the theory up.
Anxious to get it over with, Levy took a seat in front of the mage, taking in a deep breath to calm herself. Bickslow removed his broken visor, revealing a gradually blooming black eye and a deep cut in the brow over it. Despite his appearance he seemed in good enough spirits. His eyes were as sharp as ever.
"Hey, little Lev, don't look so nervous. Be over in a flash " He said with a smile. His eyes glowed green and Levy felt like she'd been stripped naked in a cold room. Dissected. Bare and vulnerable. But just like the sieth mage promised, it was only a moment, just a ripple of unease, and then it was over.
Bickslow scratched his head, thinking.
"Good news," He smiled reassuringly. "No evil, extra dimensional hitchhikers," He gave her a thumbs up before growing a little more somber. "I'm sorry...life's been so hard on you," She knew he could see it. The marks and scars she carried inside. The stains on her soul. She was weighed down with so much death. It would be the first time he'd seen it. The mage had rules about invading peoples privacy like that.
She tensed to think of what he might now know. Gajeel sensed her discomfort and was behind her in an instant, his hand resting on her shoulder comfortingly. She reached up and grabbed at it. Reassuring herself that he was still there.
"But there's nothing evil," He shrugged. "Both of you are doing pretty okay."
"Both of us?" Gajeel grimaced.
"Yeah, got a snippet of yours. Cause of the fact that you were practically hanging off the chair. You're pretty much joined at the hip, now, huh?" He laughed.
Levy sighed, relieved. She let his comments about Gajeel slide. Clearly Bickslow hadn't had much time to chat to anyone at the guild that morning, because Levy was sure their couple status was a major talking point.
"Well, that's good to know I'm not possessed or something," She said looking at Gajeel hopefully.
Gajeel was grinning. It was now really truly sinking in that the sex on the kitchen table, diarrhea weaponizing mage was all her. And better than that, all his. She wasn't the perfect person he'd let himself believe at the start. She was way more interesting. He let a finger brush the nape of her neck as he walked around her and Levy blushed.
Bickslow rubbed his hands together.
"Now where's Freed and the other one so I can get this over with and get stupidly drunk," He blurted eagerly.
"Aren't you on pain medication? You really think its a good idea to be drinking?" Levy asked, giving him a disapproving look.
"Haven't had any yet," He intoned miserably. "Interferes with the eyes. Alcohol will work just as well anyway," He grinned stupidly at the pair of them. Gajeel gave him a bored look. He was seeing that expression more and more as people started realizing the script mage and him were likely more than friends. Gajeel tried to ignore it.
"Your sister's probably stuck back at the house with Freed, Shrimp. We had a tough time leavin' and Freed wouldn't see the need to start trouble." He reassured Levy. Turning to Bickslow. "You'll be going home eventually, anyway. He'd probably just wait for you."
Bickslow stood and stretched.
"True, and the booze back home is better too," He shrugged, unfazed.
Gajeel had never given Bickslow much consideration before. The man was a little high strung and the Dragon Slayer was still getting used to the energy of some of the guild members. So upbeat. Eternally optimistic. Add in a dose of lecherous weirdo to that and you ended up with the soul mage. And then Gajeel watched him make the guards, who happened to be refusing him admission to his own house, dance with each other in the street. Not 'we're two friends out to pick up girls' kind of dancing together. Gajeel doubted the men would be able to look each other in the eye any time soon. Hand on hips, dipping, slow swaying. The works. All to some unheard tune. People on the street stopped to stare at them.
Gajeel decided he liked Bickslow.
There were more guards inside. Gajeel could smell them. They stank of cheaper than cheap booze, smoke and women's perfume. They were nothing more than mercenaries that had been given a council insignia. He recognised the stench of low lives. Freed would probably have them hanging from the ceiling if they caused trouble.
The house was unnaturally still. Despite it being close to midday, the rooms were overly dark. For Gajeel it was glaring. The shadows were moving. Sinister, slithering things. Expanding and shrinking like the breath of some beast and it chilled Gajeel to the bones. Moving through shadow was like submerging in water. The real world became distorted. Sounds muffled. In a lot of ways it was very peaceful. Gajeel sometimes found he often enjoyed it more than the hustle of the regular world. He wouldn't be entering it here. There was something in there, waiting.
"What the fuck is that?" Bickslow spat out. The man ripped his visor off, staring down the hallway. His eyes flickering an intense luminous green. Peering through the shadow. He sensed it. Whatever it was. Taking his arm out of its sling, he flexed it. Working through the pain. Knowing he might need it, even injured as it was.
"No fuckin' idea," Gajeel growled. "We need light in here," The Dragon Slayer looked back toward Levy and Lucy. Levy pulled out her light pen and scrawled something on the floor. A ring of brilliant white glowing runes circled them, slowly expanding; driving back the darkness.
No soomer had the hallway lit up when the front door slammed behind them and Lucy collapsed onto her knees. All the strength draining out of her. Her arms and legs becoming useless.
"I...I don't feel right," She wheezed out. Her skin was changing colour. It had already taken on a pasty, grey pallor. Levy turned and pulled against the front door but it wouldn't budge. Gajeel, recognising that they were suddenly trapped, struck it with an iron pole but there wasn't even so much as a crack in the wood.
"Don't bother. Doors and windows are all enchanted," Bickslow grumbled. He pulled Lucy to her feet. "How do you feel, cheerleader?" The seith mage asked. His eyes scanning her. Seeing something that clearly frightened him.
She doubled over in response, clutching her stomach and dry retching.
"Like my insides are being ripped out of me," She said, her lungs fighting for air.
When she looked up they all noticed the colour of her eyes. Once a deep brown, now black.
"The cuffs on that stand," He pointed to a small table by the front door. "Give them over," Bicklow motioned to Gajeel who tossed them into the mage's waiting hand. He clapped them on Lucy and almost immediately she straightened gasping. Her arms and legs becoming rigid. A putrid black oozing from her nose. She vomited again and what came up was like tar.
Levy stepped away from it. The liquid reaching for her. She threw solid script fire at it and it shriveled, drying to ash.
Lucy gripped Bickslow's arm tightly.
"What's...wrong with me?" Her words were almost slurred.
"Your magic, cheerleader." Bickslow answered. "Celestial mages are basically funnels for otherworldy energy. You open gates to another plane and channel the spirits through yourself, little lady. Well, there's a gate of some kind opening here and it is fucking pouring into you."
Levy wiped away her own tears and pushed Lucy's hair from her sweat covered face. One of her eyes was now completely black. Even though the blonde didn't seem able to focus on anything, Levy felt like the eye was following her.
Levy knew the feeling of being watched. Had felt it in the void. This was it. The darker well was seeping through into their world.
"We need to find the source of this and shut it down,"
Gajeel looked to Levy and nodded.
"Agreed," Bickslow spoke up. "There are souls here. Things so dark...I've never fucking seen anything like it before. They've been fractured. Sundered and broken, then reformed together," His face looked pained. "Whatever is going on here, Lucy's presence is speeding it up. Its latched on," He bit out.
And the council men had just been outside. No clue any of this had been going on behind the scenes. No idea that hell itself had been pouring nto existence feet away from them.
"The study," Gajeel seemed certain. "It gotta be coming from there. I can't hear a fucking thing and I know for a fact that room's soundproofed."
Bickslow hoisted Lucy up, his breath catching painfully with the strain on his injured arm. Levy winced looking at the manacles on her friends wrists. The skin touching the metal looked to be raw, like the contact was burning her. It took her a moment to realise they were anti magic cuffs. More than likely to slow the spread of whatever it was that was infecting her. Mr Cleary had said it fed on magic. It might buy her time.
The script mage walked behind Gajeel, her palms sweaty as she held her light pen like a blade. Bickslow with Lucy behind her. The liquid was still pouring out of her nose at a terrifying rate. They hesitated at the study doors. Gajeel's hand shook briefly, hovering over the door handle before gripping it tightly and flinging them wide.
The scene that greeted them made Levy scream. A pitch that would have shattered glass if there had been a single unbroken item in the study. There were books everywhere. The shelves that had been holding them had been destroyed and broken furniture littered the room. Freed's beloved writing desk was now no more than splinters. Freed was sprawled out, half buried under broken wood. He was alive. Barely breathing. However, still in the land of the living.
But what made Levy scream were the black tendrils growing like branches of a tree along the walls and ceilings. Their origin was a rip in the world. A sparking, crackling fissure into absolute darkness. The void had come for them. It wanted them back.
A noise drew their attention and at the far side of the room they witnessed something truly terrifying. A creature, tall and tree like held Maeve by the throat, at least four foot off the ground. Its face was empty; no eyes, no mouth, no ears, no nose. Looking at it made Levy's chest ache. Her heart faltering. She swallowed the urge to run. A part of her knew it. Had felt it in the well. When she looked to her sister, Maeve's eyes were wide and bulging. She kicked her legs struggling against its grip. Her hands had blackened, covered in the same substance crawling over the room as she dug her nails and fingers into the creatures hand and wrist.
Levy bolted forward but Gajeel turned and caught her, she didn't even see him, her eyes so focused on her sister. The sudden movement garnered the creatures attention. It turned toward them. An eyeless face staring at them. Into them. The entire form seemed to shudder. Its long rake like fingers unfurling enough for Maeve to be able to draw breath. For her to be able to speak.
"Release me!" She commanded. The creature dropped Maeve with difficulty. Every fibre of its visage resisted but eventually it succumbed to the words. She landed as a cat would. Her mouth now twisting into a grin, knowing she had power over it.
"That's not possible?" Bickslow whispered behind them.
"Die!" Maeve voice rang out. However, while there were some things it could obey, this thing didn't appear to be alive enough to be worried by something as permanent as death. Maeve's focus broke when nothing happened and the creature struck out; a long spindly limb collided and sent her careening into what was left of the bookshelf. She fell, clutching her arm. The elbow twisted at an odd angle. She screamed in pain and the noise made the thing recoil. Even without ears to hear, her voice penetrated it.
It lifted its enormous arm to strike again but Levy was suddenly between them, her arms raised above her head, a solid script shield protecting them. The thing hesitated. Its arm paused halfway in its strike. The hesitation was enough time for an iron pole to collide with its face. The metal passed through it like water. Insubstantial. No damage to it at all but it bought them time.
"G-Go...back. Go back...to the well," Maeve croaked and suddenly there was an enormous wind in the room. The black tendrils snaking their way around the house were ripped from the walls and sucked toward the breach.
The wind increased. So much that Levy slid several feet before an iron pole erupted in front of her, blocking her slide and giving her something to grab hold of. The seith mage wasn't doing quite so well. Struggling to both hold onto Lucy and maintain his own distance from the door to the well. The creature resisted too, but its fluid body could gain no traction and as the form in its entirety was dragged toward it, pieces were breaking away. The thing shrinking from its enormous size. As it reached the breach it made one final effort to remain. A familiar scream ripped through the room turning Levy's blood to ice.
The sound was so piercing that Gajeel was forced to cover his ears against it. Levy felt like getting sick.
A block of wood sailed by the seith mage, clipping the man on the temple and Bickslow slipped. Unconscious, he let Lucy go. Her smaller, lighter form flying from his grasp. He fell, but at the last moment a hand snatched him by the armour, preventing him from following. Freed's face was covered in blood. Cuts around his cheeks and eyes, but he was alive at least and with a firm grasp on his friend.
Lucy wasn't so lucky, and they watched in horror as her body rushing toward the opening.
The creature, still desperately trying to claw its way back from oblivion, lashed out, an arm striking the Celestial mage and forcing her away from the gateway, Gajeel seizing the opportunity and pinning her to the wall with some iron. There was a collective breath released and they all watched, relieved, as the last pieces of the form broke up, disappearing into darkness.
When the last shred of black disappeared the fissure popped out of existence. A small puff of smoke lingering in the air and the utter ruin of the room, the only indication that it had existed at all.
The majority of broken wood and books had vanished into the breach. Levy knew how rare some of them had been. Felt their loss keenly. But it could have been a lot worse.
Gajeel was at her side pulling her to him while Freed tended to Lucy after establishing Bickslow was okay. She felt him there. His presence like an anchor. He put a hand on either side of her face and lowered his head, enough so that their foreheads touched. She closed her eyes in relief. There were so many questions. Even more than before. If the creature could open fissures at will, why did it need them at all? Why was it here? Were were the council's men?
But no concern to Levy was more pressing than one. The most obviously unsettling to her. The thing that gave her greater pause than what they'd just witnessed; the creature that mysteriously just spared Lucy a grim, one way trip to hell.
That wasn't Maeve's magic.
Notes
Yes, its dark in a creepy sense. I'm not one for unnecessary death. If you have to start killing established characters to get emotional reactions you're doing something wrong lol
piranha pk- I looooove my cliffhangers
I'm psyching myself up for the next chapter. If its crossed your mind that Gajeel has saved Levy a lot so far, well, turn about is fair play. Some things will be answered. More questions coming.