Disclaimer: I own no part of Fairy Tail
"Maybe... This wasn't such a good idea." Hana stared down at her hands as she confessed her thoughts to her companion, Reiki. They were currently riding a train to Magnolia, and she was starting to seriously doubt that they should continue their journey. "I mean, Papa might yell at me, and what if we get lost? I don't think-"
"Hana." Reiki cut her off, gently interrupting her. "Of course this was a bad idea. We could get too cold or too hungry or run out of money. Really, an endless number of things could go wrong. But we're already so close, and it's not like we're the only ones making bad decisions here." He ended his sentence with a smug look directed at the girl.
"That wasn't exactly helpful. And what do you mean, we aren't the only ones?"
"I mean, sometimes good people have to do bad things to help bad people do good things. You know?"
Hana blinked a few times, letting that sink in before she burst out laughing.
"Hey!" Reiki protested, getting slightly red in the face. "That was supposed to be all deep and stuff. You weren't supposed to laugh at it!"
Hana calmed herself down just enough to squeeze out a sentence. "I know, but you just sounded so old, Reiki!" And she started laughing again.
"Hmph." The green-haired teen crossed his arms against his chest, trying to look offended. But Hana's laughter made it hard to stay angry with her. Since she had shown up at his guild, she had been tense, not really laughing or smiling much. This was the first time in a long time that he'd heard her sound so happy. Despite his efforts to stay mad, he soon found himself laughing along with Hana. "Yeah, I guess that was really old man-ish advice. Sorry about that." he said, rather sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it. You're right, after all." Hana admitted.
Reiki scoffed. "Of course I was right. I'm always right!" His remark sent the pair into another uncontrollable fit of laughter, one that was barely contained once they realized they were disturbing the other passengers on the train.
Reiki held his hand out for a fist bump, and Hana returned the gesture. "Let's go save our dads, then." They agreed, bumping fists as the train pulled into a stop. They were still several hours from Magnolia, but now that they had given each other the courage to continue, they knew it would feel like no time at all.
"...Up! Gajeel! Wake up!"
"What happened?" He asked, rubbing his head and prying his eyes open. The iron dragon slayer could feel a massive headache starting up, which was not helping him concentrate on trying to remember why he had blacked out.
"We don't know what happened. Lucy ran over and told us everyone was passing out, and-"
"I'm not the only one who blacked out?!" Gajeel looked around as he asked. He was still in the Fairy Tail guild hall, which had been wrecked even more than it had been at the beginning of the day, and all around him were his fallen companions.
"Yeah. Lisanna and I were watching the kids at Mira's, just like we had planned, when there was a frantic knock on the door. When we answered, it was Lucy, all out of breath and telling us that they were attacked and everyone was dropping like flies. So I came over to try to find you, and the Guild hall was abandoned, and you were all on the floor."
Gajeel processed the information for a while before panic and anger set in. "Why did they send you?! What if you'd been hurt?!" he yelled.
Levy just giggled. "I came because I missed you, silly. I haven't had to be away from you for more than a few hours since we found out about the baby."
Although he was mad that Levy had been so foolish, he couldn't pretend his heart hadn't warmed up after hearing Levy's reason for being reckless.
Instead of yelling at her more, he stood up and started walking over to Natsu. Levy followed him, holding her hands out in case he fell.
"Oi! Fire Breath! Wake up! Oi!"
"Gajeel, don't kick him!" Levy protested. Gajeel had, indeed, landed a swift blow to the salamander's stomach, to which he had no reaction.
"Tell him to wake up, then!" Gajeel said, matching his wife in tone.
Before their dispute could escalate, there was a grunt from the floor. "Guys...? Where am I?"
"Natsu! You're awake!" Levy said, bad mood evidently forgotten.
"Yeah, but... why does my head hurt so bad? And why's everyone asleep?" He added, taking his first glance around the guild hall.
Levy launched into the same explanation she had given Gajeel seconds earlier, and he wandered off, not caring to hear the tale a second time. Instead, he started looking around for Lily. The Exceed hadn't been next to him when he woke up, and he wanted to know where the cat had ended up.
The iron dragon slayer was scanning faces, going through a mental checklist of who was present.
Juvia... Gray... Master... Evergreen... Elfman... Laxus... Jet... Droy... Wakaba... Cana... Wendy... Happy... Carla... Erza... Jellal? Why wouldn't Jellal be right by Erza?
And then it dawned on him.
"Guys?" Levy and Natsu were still deep in conversation, and obviously hadn't heard him. "Guys?!" He said, louder this time
Levy turned to Gajeel, irritation all over his face. "Gajeel, I was in the middle of talking to Natsu. You shouldn't-"
"Where's Jellal?" He asked.
"You mean... He's not over there?" Natsu asked.
"No. I've been looking for Lily and I just realized he wasn't by Erza."
"Wait... You noticed Jellal was gone... because Lily wasn't by Erza? That makes no sense!" Natsu said, baffled by his friend's logic.
Gajeel only had to shoot a look at Jevy for her to know exactly what he was thinking.
"No, Natsu. Jellal wasn't by Erza. Lily had nothing to do with it." She explained, trying to stifle her laughter.
"Oh. Well, you could've said that!" Natsu said, now frustrated with Gajeel.
"I did." He growled.
Levy cleared her throat, trying to all the attention away from the brewing fight. "Well, where exactly is Jellal then?"
"You mean, he's gone?" The guild asked.
After Gajeel, Levy, and Natsu hadn't seen Jellal by Erza, they searched the rest of the guild, waking people up as they went. Once they had scoured the place from top to bottom twice with no sign of him, they declared him missing. Now, the guild was in varying states of confusion as they tried to think of where he could've been.
"He wouldn't have run away, would he?" Levy suggested, rather hesitantly. Erza, to the shock of no one, shot that idea down.
"Well, where is he then?!" Levy yelled, which shocked her guildmates. Levy was generally calm and level-headed, but the weight of the situation was getting to him.
"Well, if you think about it, he's likely-" Gajeel started, but was interrupted by Erza.
"I don't know where he is!" She yelled, ignoring Gajeel.
"I think I know where-" Gajeel tried again, slightly louder this time.
"Well, maybe you should figure it out, instead of just shooting down the other ideas!"
"Stop fighting!" Master Makarov roared. After a few suspended seconds of silence, he continued in a much calmer tone. "Levy, I know we're in an especially stressful situation, being under attack with a guildmate missing, but yelling can't be good for the baby, can it? And Erza, I know you're close to panicking. After all, your husband is missing. But we'll find him, so just calm down, both of you."
Both the girls took deep breaths and apologized to each other.
"So... nobody has any idea where Jellal could be?" Natsu asked.
"Well, if you would listen to me, I think I know where he is!" Gajeel said.
"Well, why didn't you say so earlier, Gajeel?" Levy and Erza asked at the same time.
"I was trying, but you two were having some sort of fit and-"
"JUST TELL US WHERE HE IS!" They yelled.
Gajeel winced at the volume fo the two girls' voices. "Okay, okay." He started. "If you think about it, we're under attack, right?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure we noticed that, genius." Cana remarked. She got a dirty look from Erza, who was eager to learn the whereabouts of her husband.
"And we were all knocked out for who-knows-how-long, right?"
"Actually, based on when Lucy got to Mira's to warn us, I'd say you were only out for about..." Levy let the sentence die as she realized it had been another rhetorical question.
"The point is, when we woke up, Jellal was gone. So he must've left- or been taken- when we were all asleep. Since we've already ruled out the possibility of him ditching us, the only other option is..." His sentence dwindled off as he decided to let everyone figure it out for themselves. It didn't take very long for them to piece it together, but Erza was the first one to say it out loud.
"Then he must've been taken by the people that attacked our guild."
Jellal cracked his eyes open, not understanding where he was or what he was doing there. Surely this was not Fairy Tail?
The blue-haired mage knew he was somewhere potentially dangerous, but he couldn't remember anything that had happened prior to waking up in this strange place. Knowing he should be careful, he looked around.
From what he could tell, he was laying in a fairly comfortable bed, spare the fact that it was much too small for him. On one of the walls, there was a bookshelf that was overfilled with books that Jellal couldn't read from his spot on the mattress. There was also a small window on three of the walls, and a door on the remaining one. He got up and tried to twist the nob, but found that it was locked from the outside.
Guess I'm trapped, then.
Instead of pounding on the door for someone to let him out, he made his way to the bookshelf. On it, there was an assortment of fairy tales about dragons and wizards, a long series of the adventures of a ninja and a knight, and a single, tattered book about spells and magic. To his surprise, Jellal recognized most of the books. He had read them before, when he was a small boy.
I haven't seen these since I was about... maybe nine or ten? He thought fondly.
Just as he was about to remove a book from the shelf, the door creaked open, commanding his attention. In the doorway, there was a green-haired man, who Jellal identified as one of the men that had attacked Fairy Tail.
"Are you enjoying yourself?" He asked, without the slightest bit of interest. There was clearly something else he wanted to know, and Jellal demanded to know what he was really asking.
"Ahh, so you're a quick one." The man said, but left it at that. At this point, he was standing next to Jellal at the bookshelf, fondly fingering through the pages of a fairy tale.
"This one was his favorite." He said, showing Jellal the book he was holding.
Jellal had recognized that the man wasn't going to reveal what he really wanted, so he played along. "It was who's favorite?"
"My son's."
"Oh. I didn't realize you had a son." Jellal said, genuinely surprised. The scarred man before him didn't exactly seem like the fathering type.
"Yes. I had two, actually."
"...Had two? What happened?"
The man had the same pleasant look on his face that he'd had the whole conversation, but now he let out a dark chuckle. "You ask as if you don't know."
"I really don't." Jellal said, not understanding what had happened or what he had to do with it. he had never seen this man, so how could he know what had happened to his children?
Finally, the man's tolerant face dropped as he put the book back on the shelf, he turned to Jellal with pure hatred in his eyes and spoke a single sentence.
"You killed him."
A/N: Sorry to end there! It's kinda late though, and I'm tired and kinda sick, but hey, two chapters in two days! And I said to expect one every other week! *pats self on back*
Anyway, please review and all that. I'm too tired to even try to write a halfway decent Author's Note, so goodnight for today! Please read, Bye!
-K