A/N: The last chapter! Eeeeeiee! ***BEFORE YOU READ!*** Know that today I wrote a new, more romantic Gajevy fanfic that I am posting RIGHT NOW! It's called "The Things I Do". It's different from this, definitely. So are my other stories...haha..they're all different from one another, so if you didn't like one, don't be disheartened! lol

As if on cue, Gajeel's stomach rumbled. Levy laughed, it was a welcome relief from the strain she was feeling. She hadn't yet figured out how to get him out, but hopefully getting some food in to him would help.

"I'm going to do the same thing to the iron that you did to yourself," she explained. "Except I think I'll rewrite the spell—it'd be silly to vanish it to the mirror world, we'd have to unvanish it before you can eat it. But since we basically now know what happened, it shouldn't be hard to work something up."

Gajeel didn't say anything. Instead he watched as Levy gathered the supplies she needed. Ten minutes later, she was waving a sheet of paper through the air to make the ink dry faster. The spell was fairly simple, and she'd given it a directional boost by including some of the mirror shards. She cast a rune circle around the hunk of iron she'd made earlier. By infusing the ring with the pieces of glass, she could ensure that the iron would go to the right place. When the light faded, the iron was gone and a smaller pile of glass dust lay in its place. Levy turned back to the mirror.

"Do you see it anywhere?" Gajeel looked around, and squinted at something several paces off. He walked deeper into the mirror and retrieved the object.

"Hey Shorty—I dunno if this means anythin', but it was layin' where that chunk was missin'. And," he held it up to her, "it's flat."

"Oh dear. That certainly proves that theory." Levy frowned.

"What's that." Gajeel's question had no inflection at the end.

"That was pure iron—as soon as the mirror world processed the substance, it converted it to a two-dimensional object. Gajeel, this is bad. As soon as it figures out what you're made of, you're toast," Levy's hands were beginning to shake.

"So get me outta here!"

"I'm trying! I just—I need to think!" Levy turned and sat back down on the bed, her knees hugged to her chest. Gajeel took a bite out of the flattened iron and chewed noisily.

By sending something from the human world to the mirror world, she'd been able to pull something from the mirror world into the human world. Could she pull Gajeel back the same way? She'd sent a human object (iron) and received a mirror object (a piece of mirror itself). Gajeel had also exchanged himself for a piece of mirror—so it seemed as though mirror was all that existed in the other world. Otherwise, something more substantial ought to have taken his place.

With that in mind, perhaps if she sent a mirror-world object back, it would return Gajeel? Unfortunately, the glass had all broken and she doubted that it would equate to a fair exchange. She sighed in frustration. Inter-dimensional travel was a finicky thing, she'd discovered in her reading. Even if the broken glass was a fair trade, the path of transfer in this case was unequal. It was easy to go from three-dimensional to two-dimensional—going the other way took a heck of a lot more power.

"Hey Levy?" The girl in question jerked her head up. She couldn't remember the last time he'd used her name. "What is this squishing-thing supposed to feel like? Coz—yeah I ain't feelin' so good," he finished. It was true—he was beginning to look a little funny. His clothing had taken on an odd shape and his piercings were starting to deform as well.

"It's started," she whispered. The rate of conversion seemed to be slow still, but the mirror world had obviously begun to process some of the simpler materials. She could only imagine what was going on inside his body. She shuddered, but forced her voice to remain even. "Hang in there, Gajeel—I'll get you out!"

In a flash, she was back at her desk with the red glasses on and a book in her hands. The glowing dome of light over the pages shone brighter than Gajeel remembered having seen before. She finished the first book in a matter of seconds and quickly jumped and snatched a second and third one off the shelf over her bed. When the pages stopped flipping in those, she pulled a new sheet of parchment to her and began scribbling furiously with her pen.

"If we can just… weaken the barrier… you might be able to…" she muttered as she wrote. "Yes! Gajeel!"

"Just tell me what to do," he grunted, grimacing. His body was beginning to writhe uncomfortably as the cells were being processed.

"I'm going to cast a spell on the mirror, and you need to try to shatter it from the inside," she said in a rush. "Do you think you can do that?"

In response, Gajeel morphed his arm into a giant iron beam.

"Good." Levy began drawing the multi-layered circles over the mirror. They spun counter to one another as they pulsed. She began speaking rapidly in a low voice as her hands and fingers twisted and contorted into one complicated gesture after another. The light grew in intensity before turning yellow and fizzling out altogether.

"Shrimp?" Gajeel was bent double in the mirror, still trapped behind the glass.

"Damn it!" Levy cried. "I don't have enough power! I need something, I need to be stronger!"

"I swear, Shrimp, when I get outta here I'm never gonna look at another mirror again! Now get. Me. Out!" Gajeel ground out, now on his knees.

"That's it!" Levy's eyes were wide as realization hit her. "Gajeel, wait for me!" She opened her door and ran from the room. When she returned, she was panting. Alongside her she was dragging a large, heavy object. She pulled it into the room and leaned it against the wall opposite Gajeel. It was a second mirror, borrowed from one of the other girls.

Gajeel couldn't get any words of complaint or confusion out—the metal arm he had been sporting was beginning to crush in on itself. Levy stepped between the two mirrors and glanced behind her at the new one. There she was, standing next to Gajeel, reflected a hundred times over.

"Gajeel, let's do this again!" She cast her rune circles once again, but this time her motions were multiplied by the Levys reflected in front of and behind her. Light bounced all around the room, and she cried "NOW!"

For a moment, she was worried that he'd been too weakened by the conversion to smash the glass. But then she heard the shatter and felt thousands of tiny shards slice across her face and shoulders. She threw her arms up to block the spray and knew instantly when the entire room shook that Gajeel had landed heavily on the floor in front of her. When the noise settled and the light dimmed back down, she opened her eyes.

Laying before her was a heavily-breathing Gajeel. His clothing was rumpled and his piercings somewhat flatter, but aside from the small cuts caused by the broken glass, he appeared uninjured. Levy crumpled to her knees next to him and collapsed over his chest.

"Thank Mavis," she breathed. She lay there, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as his lungs filled with air. After a few minutes, he shifted under her.

"Oi, Shrimp," he said. Levy sat up and looked down at him, blinking wetness from her eyes.

"Y-yeah?" Her voice shook a little.

"Iron pancakes ain't so fillin', ya know." Gajeel's statement was punctuated by another rumble from his stomach. Levy laughed and wiped her cheeks.

"I don't think I have it in me to make you more iron, how about we go get some dinner out?"

"Giehee," Gajeel grinned. "But you're buyin'!"

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me to the end! I've never been much of one for plot, but I had a lot of fun coming up with the logic for this story and I hope I managed to fit it in well enough with FT canon.

I would definitely love feedback on a couple things-namely, what do y'all prefer? Longer stories, shorter stories, lotsa chapters, a few chapters, long chapters, short chapters? I know when I'm reading, sometimes I crave a 35 chapter epic and other times I don't want the commitment that goes with anything that isn't 4,000 word oneshot!

Until next time! xoxo