Gajeel and Levy began to walk through the maze, which was either surprisingly easy or cunningly difficult. They came to very few dead ends, but they could've been heading down a long path that lead to nowhere and have to go all the way back to find their way. Levy'd almost completely gotten over how Gajeel'd underestimated her on their request, and she was talking to him like normal.
"Jet and Droy aren't talking right now, which makes our team dynamic incredibly uncomfortable. They're normally such good friends, we all are," she told him.
Gajeel had no interest in Jet and Droy, weak idiots, but he did care about Levy. "Yeah, what happened?"
Levy let out a heavy breath. "It's dumb, really. Jet was running around one night, slap-happy I guess, and he trampled Droy's garden. In the morning, Droy confronted him about it, but Jet tried to blame it on wild animals, though he was clearly at fault."
"What's so important about Droy's stupid garden that he has to give his best friend the silent treatment?"
"He uses plant magic, and he grows most of the plants that he harvests his magic seeds from himself. Jet's carelessness cost Droy a lot of magical resources," Levy explained.
Gajeel gave a soft laugh. He remembered Droy's plant magic now that she mentioned it. Levy's two teammates had attacked him right after he joined Fairy Tail: payback for what he did to them for Phantom Lord. Gajeel looked at Levy. She was bouncing along beside him, her wavy blue hair dancing around her head. Every time he thought of that night, he wanted to beat himself to a bloody pulp. How could he have done something so terrible to this adorable little girl? True, she was seventeen years old, hardly little age-wise, but in appearance, she was quite tiny.
Thinking about Team Shadow Gear, which consisted of Jet, Droy, and Levy, Gajeel decided that Levy may actually be the team's most powerful member. He laughed again, finding it hard to see Levy as the most powerful of anything. She was just too cute and little: something to be protected.
"Gajeel?" Levy said, raising an eyebrow when she caught him staring at her with a smirk on his studded face. "What's so funny?"
"Nothing," he said, brushing her off. "I was just thinking about how cute it is that you're the most powerful member on your team."
"How is that funny or cute?"
"Well, it means you've got a pretty weak team, is all." The words slipped from Gajeel's mouth before he could catch them or see how offensive they were.
Levy scoffed. "There you go again, underestimating me and insisting I'm some weak little girl who can't take care of herself and drags two clowns around with her! Why can't you just be confident in my magic for once?"
"I'm sorry, you're right: Jet and Droy are a couple of clowns," Gajeel hooted.
Levy strode ahead of him. "I'm going ahead. Stay at least ten feet behind me and absolutely silent. I don't want to have to talk to you."
"Why are we bothering with the maze, anyway? We're mages! Can't we just cut through the hedges?"
Levy gave up. There's no way Gajeel would agree not to talk to her. "They're protected by some pretty dangerous runes, so don't even try it."
"Yeah, but can't you just rewrite them like you did to Freed's during the battle of Fairy Tail?"
"Don't you think that's the first thing I tried when I saw them?" she snapped at him. "These are more powerful than Freed's. I can't rewrite them, and I bet he can't either, wherever he is."
"Hmph." Gajeel didn't get her. One minute she was complaining that he didn't have confidence in her, and the next she says she can't do what needs to be done.
Eventually, Levy let Gajeel catch up and walk beside her, and they talked again. "Why do you have so many piercings?" Levy wondered.
"There was one request I went on—I barely remember the details of it, but I was trying to get his guy. He ended up trapping me in some kind of cell made of stone, so I couldn't use metal to get out. Obviously, I just whipped up some dragon slayer awesomeness and took care of it all, but it felt so unnerving to not be in contact with any metal whatsoever, that I decided I should have a good supply of metal with me at all times. The earrings came first. Somewhere along the line, I lost my eyebrows, and they never grew back, so I replaced them with studs. The others followed 'cause I wanted more metal on me and liked how it looked."
"Oh, that's an interesting story," Levy said, glad to have an excuse for her staring. She liked how it looked too.
Out of nowhere, two figures appeared down the path. One was a tall, muscular young man with long, shaggy black hair, dark clothes, and a lot of piercings. The other was a short girl in a yellow-orange dress and armband-sleeves with wavy blue hair that had a plaid headband tied around it that matched her clothes and a pink flower stuck into the side of it. Gajeel and Levy could've been looking in a mirror, but one thing as wrong: the sides they were standing on were flipped so that Gajeel faced the mysterious Levy, and Levy faced the mysterious Gajeel.
Both pairs walked forward until they were face-to-face in the center of a wide clearing. Runes sprouted up from the ground to trap Levy with Maze-Gajeel and Gajeel with Maze-Levy on separate sides.
"Who are you?" the iron dragon growled. "What's going on?"
The maze versions of the two mages stood silently before them until writing appeared on the runes: Fight. Maze-Levy rushed towards Gajeel stinging him with Solid Script.
What? I can't fight Levy. She's too helpless, Gajeel thought, despite the respectable attacks Maze-Levy was throwing at him. Levy, on the other hand was giving it her all against Maze-Gajeel and actually got a few hits on him. "Wait, Levy! Just hold on till I beat this… you… and I'll come over and help you beat me."
Levy rolled her eyes and caught Maze-Gajeel in a floating pit of Solid Script quicksand. No matter what happened, Gajeel had absolutely no respect for her power. "I can handle you myself, Gajeel. How about you stop being mean to me and focus on beating the other me!" It's not like he could help her even she wanted him to. The runes wouldn't allow it.
Gajeel, in offering his help to Levy, had turned his back to his opponent and didn't even notice that she was running up behind him with the word "fire" blazing in the air in front of her. Gajeel flipped around and struck her as hard as he could with his iron pillar arm. The sight of Levy, hurt by his hand, recalled painful memories for him, enough to distract him just enough for Maze-Levy to roll around and trip him. Once he was down, she smashed a Solid Script stone down on his back repeatedly.
Levy glanced over for just a second, worrying that the maze clones were more powerful than the originals—she was powerful, but she doubted she could beat Gajeel, normally—and that the Gajeel she was fighting would be even worse. Do we even stand a chance? she thought, but shook the thought from her mind. Giving up wasn't the Fairy Tail way.
Maze-Gajeel, still suspended in quicksand, shot his Iron Dragon Roar towards her, and she narrowly dodged it.
"Levy!" Gajeel called from the other side, where he was rolling out from under Maze-Levy's stone and jumping back up, though his body ached from the beating.
"I'm fine, Gajeel!" Levy shouted back. The side of her body that was hit had several bad scratches and a few deeper cuts, but she'd tend to them later. Now, she had to fight. The two original mages exchanged a glance saying, good luck, and charged towards the clones.
I'm not losing to Gajeel now, Levy told herself. I'll show him what happens when I'm underestimated.
She's not the real Levy, Gajeel had to remind himself when he felt his attacks hesitate. But she is just as weak. I'll take care of her and then find a way to help the real Levy with my clone.
Before anyone could notice what was happening, the maze shifted, moving the ground so that the two fights moved towards instead of alongside each other. The runes disintegrated, and the copies vanished, but the originals couldn't see it and ran for each other, thinking themselves to be enemies. It was Gajeel who noticed when he turned to check up on the real Levy's fight that no one was there anymore, and the Levy in front of him had different wounds than she had before.
"Levy, stop! The clones are gone! I'm the real Gajeel!" he insisted.
But Levy didn't stop, she sprang into the air and flew down onto him with a blazing Solid Script Fire. "Die, Gajeel!"
"Levy!"
She crashed into him, the fire singeing his hair and heating his piercings so that they stung his skin. When Gajeel opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the ground with Levy, the real Levy, sitting on top of him. "I win," she said. "Who's weak now?"
"Ugh," Gajeel moaned, rolling over so that she fell off of him and standing up. "Sorry I was so mean to you earlier."
"And everyday," Levy added. She didn't want to fight with Gajeel; she actually kind of liked him. "Come on," she said, pulling him forward into the maze.
Gajeel marveled at how the soft little hand that held his could wield so much power. She beat him. She was amazing. "Hey, uh, Levy?"
"Yeah?" When she turned towards him, her green eyes sparkled in he moonlight like nothing he'd ever seen before, and it took his breath away. Well, he had seen something like it before: he'd seen those eyes sparkling that night months ago. The night he regretted with everything he was. "Gajeel, what's wrong?"
"Levy, I need to tell you something," he began, taking her hands. "Lately, I can't stop thinking about…." He couldn't even finish his sentence. Gajeel wasn't a very emotional guy, but if he didn't tell Levy how he felt now, when would his next chance like this be?
"What? What is it?" Levy pressed. She knew what he wanted to say, or at least the gist of it. After all, she was thinking the same thing. She was thinking about how even though he hurt her and her friends, he cared about her now, and she cared about him.
"Shorty, you are so beautiful," he got out after a bit of stuttering and choking. "And, fighting you back there, it made me think about how strong you really are. That night I attacked you and your team, I was being stupid. No one else knows this, but I wasn't specifically ordered to hurt anyone in Fairy Tail, just provoke the guild. I saw you walking, and I knew it would work all too well."
"Gajeel, where are you going with this? I know you're sorry for what you did, but that's behind us now. What's wrong, Gajeel?" Levy hated seeing Gajeel stumble over his words when she knew exactly what he was trying to tell her. She didn't stop him, though. This was something he needed to say.
"Levy, when I saw the three of you walking that night, my first thought was how gorgeous you were. I saw Jet and Droy and wanted to beat them up solely because they were in a place I could never be: you cared for them. Jealousy took over me. You remember I took them out first and… and then you…. I hurt them out of jealousy, I hurt you simply because it would look strange if I didn't. And now, I look at you every day and all I can see is the monster I let myself become that night. Every time I touch you, I feel something I hurt, something fragile—but powerful—that I should've been protecting rather than breaking. Levy, I love you. I know don't deserve your love in return, but you make me want to be a better person."
Heart soaring, Levy sprang into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck, where her hands clutched his shaggy hair, and kissed him. She kissed him because she loved him, because he loved her, because she forgave him, because he deserved forgiveness, and because he was there with her, under the night sky.
Gajeel, stunned but overjoyed, finally relaxed and wrapped his strong, studded arms around her little body. Stumbling back a bit, he fell to the ground, and she was on top of him again.
Levy looked down at him. His eyes were happier than she'd ever seen them, probably happier than they'd ever been. They were red eyes, eyes she should be afraid of. But Levy had come to love a lot of things she should normally fear. She could still feel the cold paint of the Phantom Lord sign on her belly and her shoulders still ached when she remembered how she was hung up in that tree. Her entire body could recall the pain of the night she met Gajeel, and yet, she still looked down into his dangerous red eyes with love.
Gajeel looked up into her dazzling hazel eyes and wondered how he ever could've gotten so lucky. Her blue hair dangled down, tickling his face, and her mouth was only a few inches from his. She moved it slightly lower, and he reached up to kiss her again. He couldn't believe that this beautiful, fragile, brilliant flower could grow in the darkness of his dragon's den, brightening his world.
"We should keep moving," Levy whispered.
Gajeel agreed and swept her up into his arms. They walked until they came to the center, a wide circular clearing, at nine forty, according to the large clock in the ground. Most of the other mages were staring at Freed accusingly, and the two of them felt an ache. Freed was innocent. Those runes weren't his. But soon, the glares were broken as everyone turned their attention to the clock, which had started to glow. All thirteen mages were present.