Laxus POV
We walked through the eerily quiet halls of the castle, with the only sound being that of the rain outside and our steps against the rugs that were laid out.
"So does anyone have any idea who's in this place?" I broke the silence.
"No," Gray responded. "There's no real clue, unless you're Levy with the whole village-made-out-of-books thing."
"So for all we know there could be nobody in here?" I frowned.
"Yeah, but there's no way that nobody isn't in here," Natsu doubted it. "I mean, look at this place. Why would a castle this nice be in a place like this?"
"I don't know, but-"
"Exactly! You don't know!" Natsu interrupted me. "So be quiet and let's keep looking!"
I growled and moved to stand behind Natsu so I could smack him in the back of his head.
"Ack!" he was surprised, before becoming angry and looking back at me. "Hey! What was that for?!"
"Don't interrupt me, asshole," I glared at him.
"Well don't hit me for no reason!" he glared back at me.
"Both of you shut up," Erza commanded. "This isn't the place to fight each other, especially not when it's this quiet in here."
"What does it being quiet have to do with anything?" I asked, looking over at her as Natsu grumbled some unflattering things under his breath.
"Because with no sound, it'll be easier for Paw to hear us. Especially if we start getting loud," she explained to me. "So everyone be quiet unless you want her to find out that we're here, got it?"
The others nodded, and we kept walking through the halls before coming across a split in the path. One of the paths diverted to a hallway on the right, the other going to the left.
"Well, great...which way do we go now?" Gajeel crossed his arms.
"Why don't we split up?" Wendy suggested.
"But who goes down which hallway?"
"I think that me, Erza, Gajeel, Gray and Laxus should go down the left hallway, while Natsu, Wendy, Juvia, Levy and Rogue go down the right hallway," Lisanna suggested. "How does that sound?"
It didn't seem like any of us had a particular problem with it, so we split up and walked down the two hallways. The hallway we walked down looked normal, being decorated with painted portraits that looked like they belonged on a magazine cover instead of in a painting.
"Damn, whoever painted this stuff was horrible at it," I frowned as we passed yet another distorted painting. "You can't even tell what's in the picture, it's so blurry."
"It doesn't look that bad," Lisanna disagreed. "I mean, it just looks like the painting got wet or something."
"It looks more like someone sucks at painting..." Gajeel mumbled.
"Whatever you say," she shrugged her shoulders.
We kept walking down the hallway until we came to a throne room that didn't have anybody in it. A throne sat at the end of the room, looking important. The chair was carved of a fine oak, crested with several jewels and decorative metals forming an elegant coat of arms. We looked around the room, only for our eyes to land on the other group who had just entered into the room.
"Seriously? Both of those hallways led to the same place?" Gray frowned.
They looked over us when they heard the devil slayer talk.
"A castle that has two different hallways leading to the throne room?" Rogue was the first to talk. "That's a strange design choice."
"At least we're finally out of that hallway," Wendy seemed relieved. "That hallway was so creepy."
"What was the matter with it?" I frowned, looking at her.
"Wasn't the hallway that you went down the same?" Juvia didn't answer my question.
"No, we just got crappy paintings hanging on the wall," Gajeel answered. "What made your hallway so creepy?"
"The hallway got weird pretty fast, because the entire hallway was a mess with what I hope was black paint splattered all over the walls and floor. There were paintings hung on the walls and they would have looked pretty decent if it wasn't for the claw marks in them," Levy told us. "There were some claw marks in the walls, too."
"That sounds more weird, but I guess I can see how it was creepy," Gray commented.
I started to stop listening to what the others were saying as I let myself get lost in my thoughts, but it wasn't long before I started thinking about the two hallways.
One is clean and normal looking, while the other one is all messed up and weird. I thought with a frown. Why the hell does that sound familiar?
I thought about it for a while before I was snapped out of my thoughts by the sound of somebody loudly clearing their throat.
Screw it, I'll figure it out later. I cursed internally.
I looked to where the sound came from, only to see another me dressed in black pajamas with cartoon lightning bolts printed on it. He was seated on the throne, staring at us with annoyed eyes.
"What the-?" Lisanna sounded surprised. "How long have you been sitting there?"
"Oh, so you finally notice me?" he feigned surprise. "Well, color me flattered! How polite for some commoners to notice the king."
"You're welcome," Natsu was too dense to notice he was using sarcasm.
"Wha- Are you really-" he had a look of surprise on his face. "Are you seriously that stupid?!"
"Hey! Don't call me stupid!" Natsu sounded offended.
"If anything, he's dense," Gray spoke up.
"Yeah!" it took him a few seconds to process this. "Hey!"
"Okay, before a fight breaks out in the throne room, everyone shut up and listen to me," my doppelgänger commanded.
"Why should we?" Gajeel asked, narrowing his eyes at him. "You're only going to tell us to go home."
"Don't jump to conclusions, you moron," he answered. "For all you know I could be planning to tell you some very useful information."
"Alright...tell us then," Rogue was willing to give him a chance.
"Listen, I don't exactly approve of what Master is doing, just like most people in this swamp," he told us.
"So, are you gonna tell us where whoever is in this place?" Lisanna asked hopefully.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that I can let you pass without a fight," we spoke loudly while shaking his head at us.
He made a shushing motion by putting his finger over his lips, before quietly getting up from his throne and walking towards us.
"We have to be quiet...Master has really good hearing," he whispered. "The dreamer of this place is in the room that's behind the throne, but we have to make it look like a fight went down here."
"Why?" Wendy asked, her face showing confusion.
"Because if it looks like a struggle didn't happen, then Master will think that I betrayed her," he whispered.
"So she'll punish you, right?" Levy guessed.
"Yeah, even though her punishments are pretty stupid when we haven't been able to do anything other than protect the dreamers or watch after the dreamers," he continued in the same low voice. "It's so boring that even her punishments start to feel like literal torture."
"What do we do, then?" Natsu asked.
"You go and save the dreamer," he explained. "I'll stay out here and take care of everything."
"But you said we-"
"Right, I did, but now I'm saying that I'll take care of this on my own," he claimed, before pointing at the throne. "So get going already."
"Are you su-?" Wendy tried to ask.
"I/He already said that I/he could handle it," he and I said in unison while looking at Wendy.
We looked at each other, and he grinned.
"Great minds think alike, huh?"
"Looks like it," I answered.
"Anyways, would you guys just go already?" he asked. "The longer that we stay out here talking, the more of a chance that Master has of hearing us so be quiet and get moving, got it?"
We nodded and walked past him, never noticing that he put both of his hands up to his head. We checked behind the throne and found a closed door behind it.
We opened the door and headed inside to find a very regal looking room. At the other side of the room was Mirajane, sitting down on a couch with another Lisanna drinking tea and talking.
"Well, would you look at this. We have company," the other Lisanna who I assumed was Paw noticed us. "Didn't anyone ever teach you that it's rude to come in without knocking?"
Mirajane looked over at us and smiled, giving us a friendly wave.
"Oh, hello everyone," she was wearing a scarf, so we knew that she was the real Mirajane. "This is quite a nice dream, don't you think?"
"This isn't real life, this is a-" Lisanna tried to say, before stopping. "Wait...did you just say that this was a dream?"
"Of course I did," the demoness answered.
"So let me get this straight...you know that this is a dream and you haven't been trying to get away?" Gray was confused just like the rest of us.
"Because she likes it here, so you can just-" Paw tried to rub it in our faces.
"I can speak for myself, Paw," Mirajane's smile disappeared from her face as she looked at her. "So could you let me talk?"
"Sorry for interrupting, go right ahead," the monster apologized.
Mirajane smiled and gave her a forgiving pat on the head before looking over at us.
"To answer your question, I assumed that I would wake up soon enough so I didn't try to escape," she explained. "I will wake up sooner or later, right?"
"No, you're trapped in your dreams by her," I pointed at Paw. "As long as you're wearing that scarf, then you aren't going to wake up."
"I'm trapped just like Wendy and Lucy?" Mirajane asked.
"You aren't trapped, I would never trap you!" Paw tried to tell her only for Mirajane to give her a look. "Sorry."
"More like Lucy, because we saved Wendy already," Natsu told her. "But yeah, you're still trapped."
"Oh...how long have I been asleep?" she asked with a frown.
"Hours," Levy answered.
"Hours?" she was surprised. "It is time to wake up, then."
She set down her cup on the table in front of her, and got up from where she was sitting to walk towards us.
"H-hey! Where are you going?" Paw sounded surprised. "Don't you want to stay here and continue our conversation?"
Mirajane stopped halfway and turned to look back at Paw.
"I would like to, but I've been asleep for far too long," she answered. "I need to wake up."
"No, you don't," Paw tried convince the barmaid. "You can stay here forever, and never have to wake up ever again."
"That's not how things work, Paw," Mirajane shook her head.
"But here, it can be how it works," she claimed. "Anything is possible here and that's what makes it so much better than the real world."
"It's not better than the real world when this place is nothing but a big fake," I told her.
"Don't be an idiot, this place is just as real as any of us and none of it is fake!" Paw's eyes turned vivid turquoise, her teeth became sharp, and parts of her body darkening.
"She does have a point," Rogue pointed out. "She's most likely been here since she was born, so this world is reality to her."
"Even if it is to you, it isn't to me," Mirajane tried to tell her. "This is just a dream."
"It might be a dream but that doesn't mean that it isn't real!" Paw retorted.
"Paw, I'm leaving and that's final," Mirajane got a serious look on her face. "No if's and's or but's about it."
Paw sputtered for a few moments, as she didn't know what to say before her eyes shifted into a glare.
"If you're leaving me, then I have no other choice. You aren't my friend anymore so I have to make sure that you can't take away anymore of my friends," she spat.
"And how are you going to do that?" I asked, skeptical. "If you try to fight us then you won't stand a snowball's chance in hell."
"Who said anything about fighting?" she asked before things began to shake. "It's a shame though, this place was really the last beautiful thing in this swamp."
"You're going to collapse it?" Mirajane seemed shocked.
"There's no other choice. I could have actually saved you or even kept this place standing if you weren't a problem now," Paw said with disappointment. "And problems need to be taken care of, so I hope that you understand."
She gave us a small smile before waving at us.
"Sayonara," she bid goodbye before disappearing.
"Is she seriously going to bring down this entire place just to get rid of us?" Mirajane looked back at us.
"That's what she usually does, but we need to get out of here," Lisanna responded. "We'll talk later."
"Right," Mirajane nodded.
We headed out of the room and I noticed that the other me was nothing more than a plushie on the floor where he once stood.
Geez. I had a feeling about what had happened. He most likely committed suicide to make it look like he was defeated.
We ran down the hallway that the others had entered in the throne room from. But when we were halfway through the hallway, I heard the sound of crumbling behind us so I looked to see Erza falling down a hole.
"Hey!"
I stopped and tried to grab her, but my hand just barely missed her and she fell down into a basement. The others heard me shout and looked back.
"Erza!"
"I'm fine!" she yelled over the rumbling. "You need to keep going!"
"Erza, you can't be serious!" Natsu called down to her. "You can't expect us to just leave you down there when this place could collapse at any second, do you?"
"I'll be alright, I just have to find a way out through the basement!" she called up to us. "Now go! The longer that we stand around talking, the less time that we have to escape!"
"But Erza-!"
"GO! I'LL MEET YOU OUTSIDE!" she yelled before we heard the sound of her running off.
"She's right, we can't stand around here," Levy said remorsefully. "This place is going to collapse."
"We know that shrimp," Gajeel looked at her. "Erza's gonna be crushed to death, though."
"We can't worry about her right now, we have to trust what she says," Rogue said calmly. "So unless you want to be crushed by falling rubble, I suggest that we continue running."
It took a few seconds before everyone started running towards the exit as fast as they possibly could, leaving Erza to find a way out on her own down in the basement.
This will be the last chapter for a while until I finish twenty more, assuming that this story has twenty chapters for me to write then I'll just write however many more are left but anyways.
Review plz?
