Hey All!

I have finally returned to Fanfiction after an 8 year hiatus (wow!), and what better story to do than a Gajeel X Levy in a Modern AU

This first chapter is mainly world building, and the next will jump right into the juicy details of how the two will eventually meet.

As always, the characters belong to Hiro Mashima.

- M

MAGNOLIA UNIVERSITY

EST. 378

Founder: Mavis Vermillion

"Mistakes aren't made by locking your feelings away and holding back, they're made while wearing your heart on your sleeve"

The bluenette pressed her hand against the cool stone of the university signage, tracing her finger's over each letter as she began to take in her surroundings. The road ahead of her was overwhelmed with the influx of newly arrived students for the first day of term. There were people hauling luggage towards the dorms, closely followed by anxious family, those laughing and reuniting with friends from the previous years, and those… well she didn't quite know what to make of it, but it seemed like two boys were engaged in fiery hand-to-hand combat on one of the main quads.

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want to change your mind Levy? I still think we could find you somewhere closer to home" The meek woman was wringing her hands, looking in the direction of the two boys that were fighting. They appeared to have attracted a bigger crowd, with a number of people cheering them on, and some had even joined in.

"No mum I'm sure"

Levy swung her background across her shoulders and reached down to grab the remaining bags in the passenger-side door of the car. It had taken her two years to get the grades for Magnolia, an additional year to convince her parents to move across the country, and a gruelling 2 weeks to make the road trip in time for orientation. Nothing was going to change her mind now.

"I'll be absolutely fine", she smiled, grabbing her mums' hands "This place has access to some of the oldest and most previous books in the country, just you wait, I'm going to be one of the greatest linguists and translators you've ever seen."

This seemed to relax the tension in her mother hands slightly, but Levy knew that she, along with the rest of the family, thought that her moving was a bad idea.

A sharp whistle filled the air and Levy looked over to see the skirmish in the court yard promptly break up. A woman with scarlet red hair appeared to have the two culprits by the ear, and was dragging them inside the main hall doors, much to their protest. The rest of the crowd quickly dispersed.

"Besides it looks like they are really making an effort to get combat the Fairy Tail and Fairy Hills reputation now"

Levy was of course referring to two of the main residences within Magnolia university. There were six in total, Fairy Tail, Fairy Hills, SaberTooth, PhantomLord, Blue Pegusas, and Lamia Scale. Until recently there had been a sixth residence Phantom Lord, but Levy heard a rumour that this was disbanded because of the resident head was involved in an embezzlement scheme. Fairy Tail and Fairy Hills, more than any other were always making the local news due to students running wild, burning down dorms by accident, and causing general mayhem across the university. The only reason students seemed to not get expelled from these residences, was A: because magnolia university founder Mavis Vermillion, founded the Fairy Tail and Hills residences; and B: so far no one had managed to get harmed in the crazy antics besides the members themselves. As long as the members paid off the damage and keep the crazy to a minimum, they seemed to be tolerated by the magnolia academic council.

Despite the reputation for housing women with 'fiery' and 'chaotic' personalities, Levy had elected to go to Fairy Hills. She liked the idea of an all-female dorm experience, and besides…

She the least likely person in the world to get caught up in trouble.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(GAJEEL POV)

*knock knock*

Gajeel stirred, squinting open his eyes to see his alarm clock blinking 2:00PM. His head was still pounding from the night spent with Laxus on the town, and he hadn't made it back to the Phantom Lord dorms until 4AM.

"Fuck off" he grunted, throwing the pillow on his bed in the direction of the door, "I don't have to be downstairs for another 3 hours yet".

*knock knock*

Two knocks, no forced entry into the room? He thought. Can't be Laxus or the rest of the boys, it must be Juvia

"Doors open" he barked, rolling himself over to face the door as the tall blue-haired woman made her way in.

He never really understood why him and Juvia got along. He wouldn't say they were friends, but he definitely enjoyed her company more than the other Phantom Lord girls, who either fawned over him, or avoided him like the plague. Today she was wearing a floor-length dark-blue dress, matching hat, and held an umbrella in her right hand, even though Gajeel could clearly see sunlight peaking in from under the curtains.

"Bit overdressed don't you think?"

"Juvia doesn't think so" she murmured back, taking a glance around Gajeels room and eyeing the number of empty beer cans, smoke trays, and dirty dishes, "At least I am dressed at all."

Gajeel scowled and grabbed the T-shirt hanging over the end of the bed. "Why you in here anyway, I thought you weren't coming back this year?"

"Plans have changed."

Gajeel raised his eyebrows. Since the incident with Jose last year, most of the old Phantom Lord members had left, not wanting to be associated with the rumour of suspected criminal activity. No one from the university had come by to kick them out of the building just yet, but if he had to count, only 6 or 7 people remained. Gajeel was fine with this. If anything it proved who the weakest links were in the building. When the going got tough, almost everyone bailed.

"Well don't just take all day, tell me what's happening?"

Juvia reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled envelope, "Jose reached out to Juvia and wants us to finish the job this year. He has some instructions on what we need to do." she paused "He also said that if you do it right, he'll take 4 years off your time, but Juvia doesn't know what this means"

Grabbing the envelope, Gajeel quickly scanned the letter inside. Something like this was just what he needed.

"I think this year is going to be interesting Juvia"

(LEVY'S POV)

Finally getting to Fairy Hills, Levy walked to the end of the corridor and eventually found the door marked 376. She raised her hand towards the handle, but hesitated, realising she could hear a muffled female voice inside.

Roommates? I'm only supposed to have a room to myself she thought anxiously. Levy pulled out the stack of papers admin had given her to check if this was the right dorm. She couldn't understand how a mix up could have happened. Maybe the headmaster has rescinded her scholarship without her knowing and given her place to another student?

Before Levy could do anything else, the door swung open, and a striking blonde woman walked through, clutching a bundle of keys in one hand while speaking into the cell phone in her other. She was definitely taking advantage of the warm magnolia weather, wearing a blue and white mini-skirt combination with a plunging V-neck top that accentuated her generous chest size. Levy wished at this moment that she had dressed in anything this morning other than her old high school sweater and leggings.

Looking up, the girl suddenly registered Levy's presence and finished her phone call "Erza I'll have to call you back"

"I'm so sorry I must have the wrong room" Levy started,

"No not at all you must be Levy!" the girl exclaimed, breaking into a wide grin, "I'm Lucy, one of the Student Residents of Fairy Hills. This is definitely, your room, I just had to do a final inspection and make sure all the lights and locks works."

Levy felt the anxiety leave her body hearing this. Of course it was her room, it was so silly to think she would be kicked out of the program without anyone telling her. She followed Lucy into the dorm room and plopped her bags onto the bed. It was going to be amazing to finally have her own room and not have to share with her brothers and sisters. As much as she loved them, Levy was ready to have her own space that she could decorate as her own.

She took in the sight of the dorm room and started to make plans for where all her books and various posters could be stored. The one thing that caught her eye however were the thin iron bars against her window.

"Oh yes I should explain" Lucy chimed in, seeing Levy give the window a concerned look "Erza and Mirajine, the Fairy Hills self-appointed 'Guild masters', decided at the beginning of this year that we needed to get some extra security installed."

"Is there a reason for that? I always thought the Magnolia campus was really safe"

Lucy blushed a bright pink and waved her hands. "No no nothing like that. We just had a bit of an issue with… certain men trying to sneak into dorm rooms and staying the night" Lucy avoided Levy's gaze. "Unfortunately one of them got caught by Ezra one night trying to fit through an outside window, and the rest is history."

Levy was no detective but Lucy was clearly omitting certain details from this story, probably because she was somehow involved, but Levy felt she wouldn't press the matter just yet.

"Anyway I'll leave you to unpack! Don't forget that orientation week activities start at 6 at Tenroe Bar." Lucy picked up the large bundle of keys in her lap and made her way out of the room. Before closing the door she quickly added in a serious tone

"My advice, If I were you I'd wear clothing you wouldn't mind getting wet tonight"