Chapter 29

It was freezing, and the rain didn't help, but Gajeel wasn't sure if it was the weather or the unending dread holding his legs in place. Laxus wrapped Gajeel in his own coat.

Bellden seemed much less like a town and more an overgrown village. It's people scarce, but active and working despite the weather. There were two kids running around in the mud being called in by their mother. Elders perched under shade or hiding inside their homes stared at the mages as they traversed, looking out for Pantherlily and Rogue.

"Gajeel?"

"Hah?" Gajeel looked up at Laxus, somewhat startled.

"C'mon, you're sniffling."

He hadn't even noticed. Laxus pulled him into an empty tavern, with just one woman behind the bar. Gajeel felt relief, as he could feel people's stares outside.

"Hm. More new faces. What a weird week." She says as she finishes cleaning silverware, "What can I get you boys? You look like you're starvin'."

Gajeel's eyes widened, for a moment worried that his illness was this obvious. He shook it off, knowing the woman was simply trying to be kind. "I...what do you have?"

"Well, we have a special lunch but it's a tad early. I suppose it wouldn't do any harm to feed a hungry newcomer, huh?"

"...Okay, I guess I'll have that."

Laxus ordered the same. He watched him and felt miffed, frowning at his charisma whilst he felt awkward. Though, Gajeel could feel an oncoming panic attack. They sat away from the bar, in the corner of the little tavern, and Gajeel stared up at Laxus again before placing his hands on his head.

"...It's him."

"What's going on-"

"It's Cadaver."

They were alone, but they spoke in whispers regardless. Gajeel didn't even say the name aloud, something in the back of his throat stopping him. Laxus stared at him for a brief moment, mouth slightly agape, but then placed his hands on Gajeel's wrists, pulling the other's hands away from his head. He'd seen this coming. Of course Cadaver would get in the way of something like this. Gajeel tried to let himself relax his head into Laxus' hands while they were alone.

"Are you sure stoppin's a good idea…" Gajeel asked, murmuring.

"I'll be honest, no," he admitted, "But I don't want you to get more sick 'cause you soaked looking for this guy...I'm sure if they get impatient Lily 'nd Rogue 'll find us, anyways."

"...I am starving."

"That too." Laxus chuckled.

For a tiny, beat up tavern in a village that looked abandoned, the food was good. Laxus remarked it to the red-haired girl, and she brushed it off. "It's all my ma'" she said.

Laxus tried not to stare, but it was difficult not watching Gajeel eat. His partner stared out the window, visibly uneasy. Gajeel was a good eater, and he was trying to eat. He was hesitant, for some reason. Something was stopping him.

"Gajeel," Laxus whispered, "...Where is he?"

"..." He stared down and shook his head, "I can't see him," he answered, "It's...it's...I know he's here. It's like I can feel him fucking breathing on me. Like his hand's grazing around my neck."

Laxus frowned. The thought of Cadaver this close to Gajeel made him sick. It was as though he were mocking him right now. He just knew the beast was grinning down at him, if he truly was standing right behind Gajeel. He couldn't express too much anger and stress the other out, and certainly not get them both kicked out of the tavern.

Gajeel sighed and tried to eat, a defeated look on his face.

"YOU THERE!"

Laxus nearly choked on his food, having focused so much on Gajeel he hadn't heard the door swing open or the bell above it ring aggressively. He turned, looking over his seat to see the old man from before. Taking him in detail now, he noticed a lot of ornaments and beads in his beard, not done neatly, rather as though they were tangled. His hair was almost as bad, though balding, but quite long and gray. And he'd probably be as intimidating as he'd like to be in this moment if it weren't for his short stature, the only thing supporting him being the comically large cane.

"I knew these new faces were strange from the start-!" the old man babbled on as he stumbled through the tavern, making his way towards the dragon slayers, "YOU THERE! YOU! LEAVE!"

"...shit-"

Laxus stood, quickly putting himself between the old man and Gajeel.

"Who the hell are you?"

"I should be asking YOU that!" He yelled, "You are a danger to this village! Who do you two think you are!?"

Gajeel's face faltered. He's…

"I don't know what the hell you're on about," Laxus stood his ground, "but we aren't. Going. Anywhere."

The bell rang. Just as Laxus said that another man stepped inside the tavern. Unlike the old man, he had to duck beneath the door frame to enter. He was more imposing, around Laxus' height. He was much younger than the other, and unlike him his hair was dark and short, and his beard was trimmed. He stared at the old man, Laxus, and Gajeel. He stared just at Gajeel for a moment.

"...What's going on."

"My boy," the old man spoke, "Please, escort these two out of this village! And while you're at it why don't you find those other 'mages' and get them out of here as well! They're affiliated! They must all go, we are not safe with them-!"

"You know where they are?" Laxus interjected.

"You see!? I told you they knew each other!" The old man huffed as he placed a hand on his hip, extending a cane towards Gajeel.

"That one, my boy...He's bought with him...that spirit! THAT spirit! The one we've come here just to avoid, and he's come here with him in tow!"

Gajeel's stomach sank, suddenly wanting to throw up everything he'd just eaten. He wanted to speak up, but he was just frozen, watching them yell back and forth. He's talking about Cadaver. He's talking about Cadaver. He's talking about Cadaver.

What about me?

Gajeel felt as though everything were being pulled away from him, as though he were drifting away, suffocating in space. The pressure against his body became difficult to bear as everything became so distant. He couldn't hear them, couldn't even see them. He wasn't even there.

I know you're trying to get rid of me.

You'd be a damned fool to think you could get rid of me.

"Don't you understand!" the man shouted at the younger behind him, "They are harboring a demon! It will destroy us, all that is left of us! WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE!?"

He was very much ignoring the old man. In fact, he instead stared down Laxus, who matched his look.

"Sheesh, haven't seen this much drama since I took over," the tavern owner finally spoke from behind the bar, "Hey...is...your friend okay?"

Laxus furrowed his brows and pulled his attention away from the other man finally, turning towards Gajeel, still seated, staring out. His fists were balled, tightly, and he struggled to breathe.

"Damn-!" Laxus wrapped his arm around Gajeel's, placing a hand over the other's shoulder to shake him, "Hey-Gajeel!"

"SHIT!" Gajeel kicked the table, their dishes rattled by the sudden movement.

The tavern was silent, save for the storm outside. Gajeel stared down at the table, reality slowly coming back to him, perhaps in the most unfortunate situation. Laxus is very close to him. It was nice...and he's warm. He was being held. Gajeel was shaking. His leg hurt. People were staring at him.

He felt small.

"Cadaver?"

Laxus and the other two men looked up at the woman behind the bar as she whispered his name. "...It's...well it's him, ain't it?"

Gajeel did not look up. Laxus nodded.

"Then you're all probably here lookin' t' get rid of 'im. You're lookin' for the elder."

"Elder?" Laxus stared at the old man beneath him, "So 'ts not you?"

"That's my grandfather," the man laughed, "he's a bit of a loon, you'll have to forgive him."

"Ol' Wellis, and his grandson Marus." the owner introduced the two, "'nd you can call me Reya."

Gajeel felt ill. As though everything inside of him were trying to come out through his gut. He was allowed to rest in the booth while the others sat around. He was, however, attentive as they spoke about their situation, trying to be at the very least.

"It started before these two were even born," Wellis began, "Our village wasn't a village, rather it was a city, far far away from where we've placed ourselves now...twenty-eight years ago now. There were two brothers, you see. Jacob and Vincent Aruli."

Laxus winced.

"Familiar with the name?" the tavern owner smiled somewhat surprised by his knowledge.

"...familiar...we met Vincent."

The old man paused for a moment. "You...met him? Vincent? Just Vincent, surely."

Laxus nodded, "We...went to an amusement park. We thought it was a normal-and it was, everything started out completely fine-but it was full of these ghosts only dragon slayers could see and hear. Some of them were tiny...others were human sized. A few of 'em were giant, one was-"

"The Spirit Queen," Reya interjected. "We've only been told stories about her."

"That's the one...Vincent-well-Cadaver was obsessed with her. He was obsessed with us, with Gajeel. He wanted his magic, apparently because unlike the rest of ours Gajeel's was physical and tangible."

"I see, then you know nothing about the other yet?"

Laxus just stared at the old man. The other? Jacob. As Gajeel healed, he struggled to get his partner to talk. He talked about Vincent and Cadaver being the same person, this was obvious. He talked about his obsession with him...and Laxus knew what he'd done to him. It wasn't a very clear conversation, rather panicked reactions to nightmares that revealed anything. Gajeel never talked further about "Jacob."

The lightning mage turned to the other, who was no longer looking at the group. Gajeel bit his inner lip, hiding a somber face in his arms knowing Laxus was looking at him.

Cadaver's hands were all over him.

Laxus is mad. Don't say anything.

Laxus wished he could talk to Gajeel, but the back of his mind told him not to press. "I don't...know anything about Jacob," he answered, "We didn't see him at the park."

"Hmm…" Wellis sighed, "Alright then, Dreyar. Jacob is Vincent's younger brother. They both lived in our old city. He was an artist, an architect. And he was a mage. A medium who could see and communicate with the dead.

"Vincent however was no mage, but he was very interested in magic. So much so he would go out of his way to experiment on human beings to learn about their own magic. He would discover dragon slayer lacrimas, and it would go downhill for the whole city from that point forward. The man had gone mad for knowledge; he'd spend years researching dragons and dragon slayers and their long history, even making a heavy profit off of it...And with the money Vincent earned from books he'd published to seminars he'd taught, he would acquire hundreds of dragon slayer lacrimas."

The thought nearly gave Laxus a headache. Hundreds of dragon slayer lacrimas. This seemed impossible for him to just buy on his own, with his own money. His own father struggled to come across one for himself at all let alone one that he could afford. Unless he had trillions of jewel, hundreds was an impossible feat. There was something else here, Laxus knew.

"Vincent's a real, uh, character," Reya spoke, "I've been told he was known around the city for being a handsome, schmuck with a...bit of a sex drive," she whispered, "He used to meed people at fancy parties and invite em over, and he did this often, with anyone. But it was noted that he had a preference for men, in particular those who were strong. Same went for what he'd end up doin' t' people with his lacrima experiments. He'd start soliciting people to his home to drug and put a lacrima into 'em, just to see how it interacted with their bodies, and their magic if they had any."

"But in the end, it always killed them." Marus said, his brows furrowed as he looked down at the table, "Always."

"Our city's people were dying, you see, at such a high rate you wouldn't believe it was all at the hands of someone who wasn't even a mage." Wellis' fists clenched, but he exhaled and relaxed them as he continued, "...these disappearances were a mystery to the entire town...except for Jacob. The entire time he'd been seeing so many new spirits of so many innocent people, dead at the hands of his brother. But according to him, they were all silent. He had never known Vincent was the cause.

"I think back to this...and often I feel as though this grave mistake was by my own hands. I had asked him about it, given him the tip twenty years ago that Vincent may very well have been the one causing the disappearances of all of these citizens. And Jacob told me that he would confront him. That was it, he did just that. And...Jacob would be Vincent's final experiment.

"Somehow, Jacob was had, and Vincent placed the lacrima inside of him. It also killed him. But the magic within Jacob, stronger than any of us had believed, still reacted with the lacrima post mortem, reanimating his body and creating some kind of demon. That demon killed Vincent, and absorbed his body. Their interests, their knowledge, their strengths would all create something powerful and terrifying. The spirit called himself Cadaver, and he took control of the spirits of those Vincent had already killed, those already dead, and those of the innocent people he crossed paths with that he would kill as he destroyed our city."

Cadaver was two people. He was a dragon slayer. He is dead. A spirit himself. He'd been dead the whole time.

"We're all that's left, and, well, this is Bellden now," Reya shrugged, "We all escaped up here to hide from Cadaver. Me and Marus 've been here our whole lives...but...now he's-"

"Now he's trapped inside of Gajeel."

They all turn to the two standing at the door. Laxus had been distracted, and hadn't even heard the door open. Finally, Rogue and Pantherlily were there. Or, likely, they'd been there a while.

"We encountered Cadaver. He kidnapped Gajeel, and Laxus 'killed' him," Rogue continued, stepping forward, "But not entirely. Cadaver isn't just your average ghost, he's a shadow spirit. The fact that his body was comprised of two people, that one of the persons within him was a medium mage, and the mixture of the dragon slayer lacrima all together happened to make his spirit strong enough to have a physical form...He lost it, and is now using Gajeel as a vessel."

"The elder says we can remove him," Pantherlily says, "...but we don't know if he can be entirely destroyed."

Laxus grimaced. The other three turned back to him.

"Wait, wait. what!?" Reya leaned closer to him, the back legs of the chair lifting off the floor, "Y'all fought him? And you actually killed him!?"

"...Doesn't feel like I did shit-"

"How the hell did you two even come back alive, taking on a beast like that!? You must be mad!" The old man yelled. "How strong must you be to have killed a monster such as Cadaver-"

"Well clearly he's not FUCKING DEAD is he!?"

His outburst was sudden and silenced the tavern. The rain persisted. It began to thunder, though Laxus was unsure if it was his doing. Calm yourself, damnit. He stood up, eyeing Gajeel. The iron dragon was looking up at him again, now much more worried.

"He's not. It's not possible to just kill him in combat." Wellis sighed, "I mean, you have to consider you can't kill what's already dead. We've considered that. We learned that lesson. That's why we hid here instead."

Gajeel didn't want to pick his head up again. It felt heavy, everything did. But he could sense Laxus' stress and confusion...and anger. There were some things he should have told him that he's finding out now. There are still some things he needs to tell him. In hindsight, Gajeel couldn't speak for most of the month, but even when he could, when it came to the events of Spirit Park, it was difficult not to clam his mouth shut. Rogue was here, and so was Pantherlily, his exceed partner. He'd normally be excited to see friendly faces he hadn't for a while, but he didn't want to look anyone in the eye.

It was as though something were holding his head down.

"We spoke to the village elder yesterday," Pantherlily said, "He said he might have a solution, something they'd been using here for years. Follow us."