When the Lights Go Out
Chapter 3
A Return to Madness
He was alone in the darkness a long time. At least it felt like a long time. Then he heard sound. He didn't trust the sound anymore than he trusted the darkness – the darkness that he watched tear Wendy to pieces – but it was something. He oriented himself by it, trying to decide if he was still in the guild, or if it was him who had been transported and not the others.
The sound was moving. It was, he thought, the humming from earlier. When the enchantment first fell upon them.
He wasn't running into tables or the bar, and the room seemed bigger than before. It made him … gah, stupid word … hopeful. Maybe he was dead, not the others. For reasons he didn't feel like exploring at the moment, he preferred that.
The humming turned to singing, then to laughing, and it was his voice and Erza's voice and Levi's voice and a voice he was afraid to name and the voice of darkness.
He was sitting at the bar. Eating. Well not eating because a chill was crawling slowly up his spine. Something wasn't quite right. His eyes scanned the area, trying not to make a big deal about it, and saw nothing alarming.
Mirajane was laughing at something Bunny said, which Gajeel didn't get because Bunny wasn't funny.
Gi hi hi hi, he was so clever.
Moving on.
Natsu was on Bunny's far side, sucking down a fucking torch. It looked like absolute bullshit, but he guessed his dinner looked the same. Next to fireface was Juvia's annoying ice-prick. He still didn't get what was going on with that.
Speaking of Juvia, she was sitting at the table behind Gray being genuinely creepy. She looked like she wanted to eat him; to swallow him whole.
Pantherlily was chatting with Erza, and that bothered him a little, but it didn't have a damn thing to do with the feeling of unease that haunted him, raising the hair on his arms and shifting the bolts in his skin.
Then there was Levi. Face buried in a book – her resting state – and an unknown woman lingering at her side.
"What are you reading, dear?" Though the face was young, smooth, and unlined with age or experience, the woman's voice was ancient, textured, and dark. The body was a lie. Every nerve in his body recoiled at the sound of her voice as it echoed in his ears. It was – he suddenly realized – the first fucking sound he heard since he turned from his food. Before he even knew what he was doing he was off his barstool and in the old woman's space.
"Who the fuck are you, old hag?" Levi looked up at him, shock the only emotion in her eyes. The old woman in her construct of a body looked up at him, and her eyes were slithering cruelty.
"Do you truly not remember? Do you actually not know? Search your memories, Dark Son of the Dark Earth, and find your answers there. If your mind actually contains memories without the bookwhore. I searched and found very few of any worth."
He bristled. His eyes narrowed. But he didn't rise to the bait. Instead he said, "I was never the earth's son. The earth dragon wasn't my teacher. Who are you?"
"It was not to the dragons I referred."
"Who the bleeding fuck are you!" Gajeel roared, and finally he realized that nothing moved. No one reacted. The world was still. Frozen.
Then the woman was gone and only her voice remained. "I am the darkness."
And then the darkness fell on him.
He remembered the emptiness. Remembered the enchantment. But he did not remember the woman being from his past. Was this the illusion, or was that? He wondered if the impatience and rage he felt was a product of the spell, but he thought wasn't. It was his. He had every reason to be angry.
"What the fuck is the goddamn dark earth?" He literally roared into the void. His power gathered in his lungs and flew from his lips in an unseen vortex. "What is this shit, and WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" His teeth cut into the air around him, but it didn't bleed.
He wanted it to bleed. He needed it to bleed. The killing rage was upon him, and a death needed to occur under the rough flesh of his hands. A pulse needed to stop. A breath stop. Life stop. He needed to hear the pain, smell the fear, devour the weakness in something.
His skin was hard, and his arms were blades. But he cut nothing; nothing.
'Goddammit,' he thought in the corners of his mind with what was left of his sanity.
"Gajeel?"
The voice was steady. The voice was calm. The voice was familiar. As was the scent. The heat. The pulse. The life. He knew this person. This woman.
His prey.
He turned to face the disembodied sound and launched himself at her. At last there would be red blood to light the darkness. Paint the night in the colors of life, and it would fill the stillness. And he would command the darkness.
The smoke rolled once more under his skin; he could feel it, and he didn't know what it sought. But he didn't care. He smelled metal, and a sword touched his scales. Bounced off. Her sword could not hurt him. Not him.
A second sword joined the first as they fought. Danced. In darkness. Other voices whispered encouragement in his ears, but she said nothing. Asked no questions. Made no declarations.
Scum. Trash. Waste of fucking space.
He wanted her dead. He would see her dead.
Well … maybe not see.
He felt his blade part her armor. From the level of his arm it was somewhere in her torso. From the movement against the blade, he suspected it was her arm. Maybe her side if her arm was raised. He smelled the thick perfume of the iron in her blood. He was grinning. The red of it was a powerful thing, and he could see it inside the hollow darkness.
Magic flooded his senses, and his blade was pushed back by new armor. He grinned. So the fight would continue.
"G-Gajeel?" the small, sweet voice did not shake him, but he was more aware of it than he was anything else in the black. Even the blood. Well, except maybe the humming. He suspected the humming was the old hag.
He heard one of the swords sing to him, in defiance of the blood loss. Then the second. But he wouldn't be taken in by a sword. Never again. He took it into himself, making it a part of him. Devoured it with his arms and hands. Consumed it directly into his blood and let it leach into his cells.
Using the hilt, he pulled the sword bitch to him. She put her steel foot and then steel fist in his gut, but he was steel too. What the fuck would that do? He dragged her hand up and put his teeth to her gauntlet. Ate it. Fucking tasty. Fantastic.
"Gajeel stop! Please!" the other voice was closer. Briefly he wondered how that one could see when he remained blind.
"The enchantment's made him sick Erza. Please don't kill him."
Pugh, like any stupid sword scum could kill him. Water and salt filled his nose. Tears. He growled and struggled to hold on to his rage. His mind was divided into two halves, the side trying to be free, and the side that consistently wished to feel the collapse of flesh and bone under the solid steel of his hands.
"I can fix it," came a whisper almost softer than air.
The light in her skin … no the light in her words. Stillness. Calm. They sank into his skin in the same way the sword had. Then she ripped pages from a book and threw them into the shadows.
'Ripped a book?' he could not move, but the rational, controlled part of his brain was getting stronger. Because of her words. Because he could see her. And because her actions just now were almost more powerful than her words. 'She ripped a book?'
Because she was here, and he wasn't alone in the shadows any longer.
Erza, for some reason, didn't count.
Pantherlily would make a big fucking deal about that, but he preferred to ignore it. Shit like that wasn't fucking relevant.
Her pen emerged from no where he could see. Characters he didn't recognize just fucking appeared and cut into other words that looked like no words he had ever seen. Not even when she destroyed Fried's runes. Not even when they had trained together.
The shadows cracked. Filled his his ears with tinny screams in the death of what lived in the shadow and silence.
But he was – he cringed – glad with the quiet of the screams. Even with evil, he figured that Levi would be … uncomfortable with ending life. Even if that life was shadow. Even if that life had killed. She had forgiven him, after all.
She was too damn soft. But...
But …
That's what made her so amazing.
Compelling even.
That she could exist in a world so filled with absolute scum and not be … tainted by it. Lessened by it.
"Gajeel?" The concern shamed him.
"I'm okay, Shrimp." He felt Erza's glare boring into the back of his head. "Um. Yeah, thanks."
"What happened?" Erza stepped to his side in armor as dark as the night had been. "I feel like I've been here forever."
"Not that long," Levi answered. "You were gone only for a little while when I arrived, and I wasn't in the library more than an hour. And I don't feel like I've been here forever," she added. "I don't know what happened. Everyone shouldn't be gone. The rule on the number of people was very defined. Solid. Direct. There was no wiggle room there. More solid than the lack of light, which obviously I was able to break."
"Did you?" Gajeel's words were distant. "I've been hallucinating. I don't know if this is you. I've seen you both already, and that wasn't real."
"Hallucinating? For how long?" Erza turned her steady, unforgiving gaze on him.
"Don't know. I heard things from the start. But the real shit happened after you left, but before I saw Wendy killed and was separated from … the rest of them." He wanted to say 'the nuts', but Erza's gaze discouraged that sort of word choice. And he was the one hallucinating, so he wasn't exactly one to call people crazy.
"Wendy was killed?"
"Listen to my words, Bookworm, since words are so," he skipped 'fucking' because he remembered who was in the room with him, "important to you. I saw her killed. I didn't say she died."
"O-oh. Right. I'm sorry."
"Back to the point. How the hell do I know you two are actually you?"
"I am most certainly me," was Erza's unhelpful answer.
"I can't give you any hard evidence, but … well would you have known the magic I used to break the darkness? Would you have known the symbols? Would whoever is doing this have known my magic? How I use it?"
She had a point. He let it drop.
"Who in the world is doing this, and why?"
"It's me," he grumbled, almost unwilling to admit it because he didn't understand. But he needed help. He needed help and Lily wasn't here with him. He'd have to settle for Salamander's leader and a tiny girl he'd only fought beside once. He might not trust them – he trusted almost no one – but he could respect their power.
"You are not doing this." He managed not to take Levi's words as an insult.
"Not the doing, the why. It was in the hallucinations. Some woman told me I'd know why when I remembered," he shrugged, "but I don't remember her."
The women looked at one another and seemed to decide that discussion could be left aside for now.
Erza cleared her throat. "So did we move or did everyone else?"
"Us, obviously," he scoffed. He was more sure of that now than he was earlier. But maybe he shouldn't be so certain.
"I don't think so, Gajeel." Levi's tone was more humble, but her posture was more sure. "We can't be anywhere but within the enchantment. Neither can they. Like I said before, the number of people was solid, fixed. We're in an alternate level of the same physical space."
"What the bleeding shit does that mean?"
Erza frowned, "Are you aware how disgusting you sound?"
"Sure," his grin was sharp Her glare was steady. She did not sigh. She did not roll her eyes. She glared. His grin did not falter. They both turned their expressions on Levi, and she shook her head. Possibly in disgust. "Well?"
"It's a complex theory," obviously assuming they wouldn't get it, which was probably true. "You were both in Edolas -"
"So were you," he pointed out.
Sometimes Levi's glare was as good as Erza's. 'It must be some sort of girl gift,' he thought, 'along with tits and all that other shit.'
"You were both aware and human in Edolas," she amended. "The theory here is similar. Your experience with an alternate world proved the idea of plural worlds, or, rather, alternate or divergent paths of what might have once been a singular world."
"That sounds believable," Erza said.
"It sounds what ? Are you serious?"
"Well, she sounds smart."
"She is smart, but that doesn't mean that shit sounds believable. You'd have to fucking understand it to believe it."
Levi was ignoring them. But blushing. What was up with that?
"This is a version of the same thing. Someone, most likely the same someone who cast the enchantment, caused a divergence in our time and space. We exist, in some way, in the same place as our nakama. The same physical dimension – unlike Edolas, which was in a split dimension, but the same geographical location in its universe but, as you phrased it Gajeel, separated from the others.
"I suspect that Lu-chan could bridge the divide with her spirits if she knew about this. In fact, think of the spirit world as a bridge between alternate realities."
"How can you know it's a bridge?" was Erza's only question. He had dozens but wasn't able to find the right words to ask them.
"Because Lu-chan used her spirits in Edolas. If the spirit world was only connected to us and our world, she wouldn't have been able to do that."
That made more sense, but only a little. But the important question was, "Can you get us out?"
"I … I'm not sure I'm that strong. This person, whoever they are, is bending reality. I don't know how you even begin to do that and breaking an enchantment with no information is … hard."
"Well Erza and I sure as hell can't do it. And you're incredible with this shit. You own at this shit. Don't be such a whiner."
Levi was blushing again, and Erza had a sweet, un-Erza smile. Damn. He probably said something he shouldn't have. But what?
Bitches were hard to figure out.
"I'll … I'll try. But I don't know … the light might not hold if I mess with the rest of the enchantment. Let me know if your hallucinations come back. The enchantment might fight me."
"Will do, Bookworm, just get to it already."
Without tables, she once again chose to kneel with the books she brought spread out on the floor before her. Ass in the air. In his head and with his eyes, he appreciated the empty room and the resulting position. It wasn't something he'd ever mention aloud, but it wasn't only her mind he found incredible.
He'd never say it. NEVER. Lily'd jump on that, and the teasing would go on forever. Plus getting kicked by those two lovesick puppies that followed her around … ugh. Not that they would do any damage, but he fucking hated holding back in a fight, and he'd have to hold back. They weren't Erza. They weren't Natsu. They were weak, and if he no longer hated weakness like he had, it still wasn't worth his effort.
Levi was fidgeting over her books, mumbling. "If ha-kana is the base and tsu is a texture … Rfan is … no wait; the accent. Rfaq? Lower language? Yes, it's a misdirection. But so obviously? Is the misdirection the true base? N is a pillar. Ma … second base layer. A form of the actual reality, not the divergence. Lng; high class slang? What does that … It is not a standard character in any of the three dialects!" She groaned. Groaned again. Lifted her glasses and pressed her fist into her eye. "I've never seen anything so complex! It has to be; I get that, but still."
The time dragged as they watched her, but she was obviously making some sort of progress.
"Dt and dng … not spacial. Emotive. What are they...? Yes! Yes. There. That's it. Ka, kap, kn."
He glanced at Erza, and she shrugged. Good to know he wasn't the only one in the dark.
The pen came out and the glasses came off. "Mai ra kai, chai ka ng … lngban!" Her voice rang out and her hand swept the air. "Reveal!"
The final word appeared as a shining mirror, and the room was instantly surrounded by the same sort of characters in her book and the papers she used to destroy the darkness. He and Erza could read none of it, but both soon discovered that – in addition to the walls, ceiling, and floors – they were touched by the same style of letters. He activated his iron scales, but the characters were still there.
"Ahhhh, I thought so," Levi's face and hands and stomach and legs also glowed with the words. "This is what I need to break. It only touched us." She grinned at him and he was caught by her expression. "Thank you, Gajeel. You were right. I can do this."
"Good," Erza nodded. "We need to get back to the others. If this is happening to us, it could be happening to the others as well."
"Then get to it, Shrimp."
"Yes!"
Author's Note: Not much longer, but a bit, to make up for the short chapter 2. More Levi and some gore. Hope you all enjoyed! Thank you again (in general, I will also thank individually!) for all of your support! If you would please leave comments in your review of what you think, I would greatly appreciate it!
Also: . for Levi and Gajeel during the Battle of Fairy tell arc. He's TOTALLY checking out her ass.
Also, also: check out my other G/L stories. (Shameless pimping.) I'm getting a few comments and PMs asking for plots and things I've already written about. So … yeah. Maybe have a look!