I had a ton of fun writing this chapter! I hope you all laugh as much as I did gihee :)
"Gajeel? Can you hear me?"
"Hey, Metal Head...wake up!"
"Natsu, are you really planning on hitting him?"
"Maybe we should just let him sleep."
Gajeel groaned and tucked his body into itself. Everything hurt, everything ached, and he just wanted to sleep but the voices in his head kept poking and prodding and…
"Gahhh!"
He jerked up, eliciting startled hisses around him. His chest heaved and his breaths frantic as he took in his surroundings.
No white, strange place. No mysterious figures. The morning sun was shining on a familiar lake, the long grass was swaying in the slight breeze. The castle ruins were to his back, the forest just a short distance away. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was home. And yet.
Gajeel blinked, squinting his eyes. Was the green always that dull? And he remembered the reflection of the sun being much dimmer than that; now it hurt his eyes if he looked at it for too long. He tilted his head, listening to the birds, the wind. Everything sounded the same. He sniffed. Yes, his nose was working just fine too. So why did everything feel so...different.
"Hey, Iron Breath...CAN...YOU...HEAR...ME?"
"Gah, Natsu!" He jumped and swiped a hand at the annoying fire dragon, "Quit yer yellin', I can hear...just...fine." Gajeel stared at the hand in the air.
A hand.
Tanned, large, definitely a human hand.
His eyes slowly traveled down the hand, to the wrist and arm connected, all the way to a human body. Attached to him.
"Gahhhh!" His yell startled birds from the trees and the dragons surrounding him. He bolted upright, hands and arms flapping wildly in the air. "WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!? WHERE'S THE REST OF MY BODY?" He stumbled backwards on two legs. Two legs? Why only TWO!
"Gajeel, please calm down!"
"Where're my claws? I only have two legs! Gahhh!" He wobbled on his FEET and landed heavily on his rear. He gasped, moving to all fours and looked behind him. "My tail is gone! The blazes is going on!? My wings...where are my wings!"
"Gajeel, I want you to look at me."
He jerked at the sound of Wendy's voice and lifted his head, gasping. "My...my wings. My tail, they're gone."
"Sit up and focus on me."
"O-ok." Gajeel struggled to get his body to cooperate. The pants he wore stretched as he moved his legs and the shirt twisted around his upper body, almost choking him. He sat on his rear and put his legs in front of him. Legs that were definitely attached to human feet. His hands...hands, fumbled and shook as he untangled the shirt from around his neck. He stared at the hands, no longer able to breathe. Stars formed on the edges of his vision and he looked to Wendy in a desperate plea for help.
The young healer smiled, her voice calm and collected. "Focus on breathing for me. In...and out. Follow me."
She demonstrated for several minutes, Gajeel struggling to follow her example. His hands shook, his arms grew tired. His entire body...a human body shivered. He breathed sharply through his mouth, breath hitching, and looked at the dragons surrounding him. Rogue and Sting stared at him in silent shock and even Natsu was more subdued than usual. He took several more deep breaths until he was finally able to speak.
"What...happened?" he asked, breathing a sigh of relief when he recognized his own voice.
"That's what we want to know, Metal Head. Why're ya looking like that? Ooof." Natsu hissed and backed away from Wendy, who had slapped him with her wing. She glared and bared her teeth at the idiot dragon.
"Levy was taken by Makarov's knights," Sting gave as an answer. "We hurried after you as quickly as we could and saw them leaving. They attacked you with swords-"
"We thought you were dead," Rogue whispered, his face hidden beneath his wing.
"Do you remember what happened after they attacked you?" Wendy asked gently, giving Natsu a warning growl.
Their concerned voices had a calming effect on him, allowing him to study his new body without allowing his panic to overtake him. Gajeel twisted his hands around to get a better look, but held them as far away as his arms would allow. "I'm...not sure what happened. I woke up in a bright place and there were these two...people standing there."
"People?" Sting asked.
"Yeah...um, they called themselves Mavis and Zeref?"
The dragons looked at each other and shook their heads, not recognizing the names either.
"Are they the ones that turned ya into...this?" Natsu grunted and Gajeel's temper flared.
"Hey! It's not like I asked them to do this! They said I was dying and something about bodies and magic and GAHHHH!" Gajeel clutched his arm and screamed in horror as it transformed into a long metal rod. The rod grew at a rapid pace and impaled a nearby tree, shattering the trunk. The dragons flew backwards with growls and hisses, leaving him alone in the grass.
"Your arm! Gah, your arm!"
"I KNOW, Natsu, quit shouting at me!" He shook his arm, swiped at it with his other hand. "Turn back, turn back, turn back!"
As quickly as it came, the metal appendage shrunk in size and disappeared, turning back into the tanned, normal human arm from before. He struggled to breath and stared at his arm as if it were a violent creature.
"What...was that?" Rogue ventured, the first one brave enough to start walking forward.
Sting followed more slowly. "I don't know, but I hope it never happens again."
Gajeel shook his head, a trail of water trickling down the side of his face. "I don't have time for this. I need to get to Levy."
"Hate to break this to ya, but yer not going anywhere like that." Natsu sniffed him and snorted, rubbing his nose in the grass.
"We could ask our parents for help?" Wendy asked.
Sting shook his head. "They won't know what to do."
"This stinks of magic, and a strong one at that." Gajeel shied away from Rogue's snout, mere inches away from his face.
"But how are we going to find someone with strong enough magic to understand this?" Wendy sighed and looked across the lake as if the forest held all the answers to his problem.
Natsu cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention. "I might know someone."
"Who?" Gajeel growled, using Rogue's snout as a support to stand. His legs wobbled and Wendy moved to his other side. He took several shaking steps forward, testing out his new body.
"Heh," Natsu huffed, smirking at the group. "It's a human, a friend of my dad's. His name...is Gildarts."