Nyehehehehehehehe I've been waiting for this chapter since the start.
Chapter 13 - Erza (or, "Laxus Dies")
Erza cocks an eyebrow at the scene. She looks around as she walks in, eyes taking in the fresh damage.
"Did I miss something?" she asks, approaching. Laxus stiffened at the voice and we both freeze under her scrutinizing gaze. Suddenly Laxus' arm around my shoulders feels like a leaden log.
"OH ERZA! IT'S WONDERFUL!" Mira squeals, bouncing up and down. Oh god no. Don't do it Mira. Don't do it.
"Lucy and Laxus are in luuuuuuuuuuuuuvvvveee!" the voice came from behind Mira, where a sneaky looking Happy steps into view out of seemingly nowhere. Erza stares at Happy then blinks.
"Exactly! They're a couple and everything!" Mira squeals. Erza's eyebrow raises, and my heart stops beating for a moment.
"Uh, yes…?" she says slowly. "What, did you guys not know?" she asks in confusion, her head cocking to the side.
WHAT.
WHAT?!
Both mine and Laxus' jaws drop.
"WHAAAAAAT?!" we both roar, startling the redhead who looks at us with wide-eyes.
"Sorry, was it a secret or something?" she asks, scratching the back of her head. I splutter incoherently. Laxus pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Are you telling me… you knew?" he asks drily. Erza shrugged.
"Well, yea. You didn't exactly hide it that well," she says off hand. "Where's Natsu and Gray, by the way?"
"wha – When the hell did you find out?" I sputter, ignoring the question. Erza shrugs.
"I've known Laxus for a long time. It wasn't that hard to notice the change in behavior." She turns to Laxus. "Trust me, if I didn't think you loved her, I would have castrated you long ago," she says with an unnervingly serious tone of voice, the (assumed) joke bringing back memories of a few nightmares. "You've never looked at someone the way you look at her. I was just happy you were getting back to your old self, from before the whole fantasia thing. Besides – Lucy can take care of herself. If you managed to mess things up with your emotional constipation," at this Laxus grunted in annoyance, "she'd be able to put you in your place." She finishes with a smirk. Mira claps.
"I know, right! They're going to be so cute!" she giggles. "We need to have a party to celebrate!" she announces, turning around to run towards the bar but stopping mid-step.
"Oh my god, I forgot! Lis and Cana!" she squeaks, sprinting towards the back room.
"So you don't care that me and Laxus were fuckbuddies at the beginning?" I ask incredulously. She stills and her eyes sharpen before boring into Laxus with a fiery rage.
"What. Did. You. Do. Laxus?," she growls, a sword requipping in her hand. My face drains of blood as I realize my mistake. Of course she didn't know that part! And of course she would be pissed at that! What the hell is wrong with me?! Laxus holds her stare unflinchingly and I suddenly feel an odd feeling of dread. Wait - I know that feeling. It's my special sense that warns me when he's about to be an ass. Before I can stop him, he calmly points at me.
"Lucy," he says plainly. "I did Lucy."
Every drop of blood in my body just froze. My wide, unblinking eyes are burning. The eternity of silence stretches on and on. This is it. His snarky attitude just signed his death warrant.
Erza snorted and her mouth twitches before she laughs, relaxing her stance. "I was actually just kidding," she giggles. "Lucy, honey, he's been pining after you like a hopeful little puppy since he came back to the guild," she chortles, covering her mouth with her hand and her eye twinkling mischievously. Laxus huffs in offense.
"That is a bold-faced lie, Titania, " he scoffs. "I do not… pine." He pulls a sour face at the term, but his cheeks were a little pinker than normal. She waves her hand dismissively.
"And Natsu was talking to Gray about it a little bit ago, and those two have volume problems sometimes. Anywho, I'm a few thousand Jewels short of the new sword I've been eyeing, so I'm off to find a quick job."
Erza continued walking towards the job board and I just stare at her.
"So, there was basically no reason for us to sneak around, was there?" Laxus deadpans. I nod slowly. "And if we had just told everyone right away, we probably wouldn't have had to deal with any of the shit that's happened." I nod again. He starts to chuckle.
"But in our defense, up until the whole 'official mate' part I'm pretty sure things would still have gone badly, since, y'know… we were kind of just no-strings-attached sex buddies," I whisper back. Erza appeared next to me with a cake box in her hands, startling me.
"Oh, and Lucy. Master wants to meet with Team Natsu tomorrow at noon. There's some kind of special mission that we were specifically requested for," she says offhandedly. She walks off with the cake box nonchalantely.
"Dammit Erza, I said you could take a piece, not the whole thing!" Mira shouted from the bar. Erza's speed increased to a speedwalk until she disappeared from sight out the doors. Laxus gestured towards the bar.
"C'mon, Blondie. Let's get some breakfast," he offers, arm slung around my shoulders. I try not to giggle when I notice his puffed up chest as we walk. He's showing me off and strutting like a goddamn peacock. I slip my hand into his back pocket and smirk at the low growl he makes.
"If you get to parade me around, it's only fair I get to do it to you, babe," I purr, my smirk widening when he flashes his teeth in a glorious grin.
After a normal breakfast for me and the usual outrageous-sized dragonslayer breakfast for Laxus, I noticed a head of blue hair sneaking in though the side door.
"Levy!" I called out, making the small bluenette jump. She looks at me with wide, oddly guilty eyes. She eyes Laxus sitting next to me, and sweeps her eyes around the room while cautiously approaching me. I look at her curiously. "Uh, you alright there, Lev?" I ask. She nods slowly.
"LEVY!" Cana and Lisanna's voices rang out angrily, and my friend squeaked. Me and Laxus watched as the two made a beeline for the script mage and came to a stop in front of her, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. Levy smiled apologetically, sweatdropping and rubbing the back of her head nervously.
"H-hey guys! So, looks like everything worked out, huh?" she laughs awkwardly. Cana and Lisanna glare harder.
"You little traitor!" Cana jabbed a finger at her.
"You ditched us with my rampaging sister!" Lisanna added, hands on her hips. Levy shrugged and raised a hand.
"yes, I did immediately run away and leave you guys at her mercy," she begins diplomatically. My eyebrows raise and my curiosity is officially peaked. Laxus watches the scene unfold with a bored expression, not even turning his torso. "But in my defense…" she begins, trailing off. A moment of silence passes. "Mira is scary." She finishes, nodding to herself sagely. Cana facepalmed.
"Yea, no shit, Lev!" she moans.
"Okay, what is going on?" I finally break in. The three women turn to look at me.
"well, you see, Luce… um…" Levy starts nervously.
"So you know how there was that whole surveillance footage thing that led to me and Cana getting tied up and interrogated?" Lisanna begins. Cana huffs while I nod slowly. Laxus cocks his eyebrow in question.
"Well, this little traitor immediately ran away as soon as you and Laxus were getting down and dirty on the screen, effectively leaving us to deal with Mira's rampage," Cana finishes with a harrumph. Levy shrugs and I look at her incredulously, ignoring Laxus choking on a bite of bacon. "The cheeky little cock-waffle…" she mutters under her breath venomously.
"WHAT?" he chokes out. We all ignore the poor guy.
"Wait – what? Levy, why didn't you break the fucking screen or something?!" I squawk. Laxus ogles at me. Levy holds up her hands.
"Again, in my defense, by the time I got over the shock, it was too late. I simply made an intellectual decision that leaving immediately was my only possible course of action in the situation." She explains confidently. Cana and Lisanna steam at her. "Oh come on, guys! Are you telling me you two wouldn't have made the exact same decision if you had reached the same conclusion I had?" she asks rhetorically. The other two women look at each other.
"Seriously, what the fuck are you guys talking about? There's a video of me and Blondie?!" he interjects again.
"Yep," Cana says, popping the "p".
"I'll fill you in later, babe," I mutter.
"Regardless, you have to go take your punishment from Mira! We got punished because we kept it a secret, you have to as well!" Cana demands, sliding back on topic effortlessly. She picks up Levy and tosses her over her shoulder, much like how she usually carries her barrel of booze. Levy shrieks and flails, and then something strange happens.
Suddenly, Levy's skin turns a dark, shiny, smooth texture, and Cana wobbles unsteadily as if her weight had increased. The two mages crash to the ground with a louder thud than expected.
"The fuck?!" Cana shouts. Levy rolls out of her arms and hops up, showing that her skin had turned to iron, just like how Gajeel is known for doing. The iron kind of… melts back into her skin and she looks at her hands in wonder.
"Did you just turn into metal?" Lisanna asks in awe. Levy's eyes furrow into her usual "thinking" expression.
"I think… hm. Interesting," she mumbles to herself. The guild hall is quiet and everyone is staring at Levy as she most likely sorts through information in her head. I look at Laxus and he just looks back, eyes confused. Finally, Levy straightens up with an "Aha!"
"So that's what it meant by 'power leak'!" she exclaims, snapping her fingers.
"Huh?"
"Okay, Lucy, you should probably hear this, too. Okay, so, apparently Dragonslayers and mates have something referred to as 'power leak'. Gajeel said Metallicana never went into any more detail then that. It would seem that some of the Dragonslayer's own unique powers transfer to the mate, in other words, 'leak' through the bond," she rambles excitedly, holding her chin in thought. She perks up and looks at me excitedly. "I bet you'll be able to do lightning stuff!" she exclaims, making my eyes bug out.
"that's…. That;s…. That's fucking awesome, guys!" Cana cheers, wobbling to her feet and clapping Levy on the back before burping obnoxiously. "I wonder if the iron skin thing is all that transferred?" She wonders aloud. Levy grins.
"Oh man, I gotta go find Gajeel!" she says, heading for the door. "Oh and sorry about abandoning you guys to Mira's wrath!" she calls over her shoulder as she leaves. Lisanna and Cana's faces fall and they deflate a little.
"Oh well. Hey does that mean you'll get fire powers, Lis?" Cana asks, making me spit out the sip of orange juice I had just taken.
"WHAT?!" I shriek, staring at Lisanna in surprise. She blinks, face blank.
"um… what?" she asks.
"You're mated to Natsu?!" I blabbered in surprise. "When did this happen? How the hell did I not know about it?!" I ramble, leaping from my chair and grabbing her shoulders. "I thought you two were just dating! What the hell!" Lisanna looked at me dumbly for a moment. Cana starts to laugh.
"Oh my god! You've been too busy fucking to keep up with the gossip!" she chortles. Everyone ignores her pointedly.
"Uh, yea. We're not fully mated or anything, we haven't even gotten to the first marking yet," she explains awkwardly in a small voice, blushing profusely. This halts me.
"Wait… but… you've been able to like, control yourselves?" I ask, blushing at my own question. Lisanna nods timidly, pressing her pointer fingers together nervously and her face taking on a color that would give Erza's hair a run for its money. I looked at Laxus and find that he, too, was very surprised by this development. Or maybe he's just still trying to come to terms with the fact Mira has footage of us banging.
"Then why the hell did that weird lust-spell type thing happen with us?!" I demand of him, and he just raises his hands.
"Blondie, we've been over this. I went into this whole mate thing completely blind. I had no idea what I was doing for most of it," he admits slowly. I think for a minute.
"Now that I think about it, how did Gajeel and Levy manage to be in that awkward 'friends-but-totally-circling-each-other' stage for so long? I know for a fact they made skin on skin contact at some point. Why were they able to control themselves for so long?" I wonder aloud. Laxus wrinkles his brows in thought, Lisanna mimicking the action. A silence passes. "Okay, I think we need to have a Dragon/Mate meeting. C'mon Laxus, let's go catch up to Levy and Gajeel. Lis, you go find Natsu and meet us at… Let's meet at Levy's place." I plan out quickly. Lisanna nods in agreement, and Laxus shrugs, attempting to look bored, but I can tell he is curious as well. We break apart and head out.
"So here's what we know. We have three different mating situations here," Levy announces, pacing with her chin in her hand. For once, the three dragonslayer men were behaved and silent in their seats. "First, there's Lisanna and Natsu. Natsu's dragon has chosen Lisanna, and they are undergoing the mating process, but slowly and in a seemingly more natural and less sudden way." Natsu grips Lisanna's hand tighter and smiles at her reassuringly.
"I may not get why we haven't had the explosive lust-spell thing, but I assure you, Lis – I want you, and I love you. And you're my mate," he whispers to her, making both of them blush.
"Next," Levy continues, "We have Laxus and Lucy. Pretty much no former contact had been made prior to mating, but after a skin-on-skin contact moment a pulse of magical energy occurred and an extreme lust-enchantment was triggered between the two." My face burns at the memory of our first… intimate experience. Laxus shoots me a toothy smirk.
"And Last, we have me and Gajeel, whose experience is basically a combination of the two. It was much more like Lisanna and Natsu's situation, up until one seemingly random day a few months ago, during the Games. At which time, we made skin-on-skin contact and the same magic energy lust pulse occurred." Her eyebrows furrow and I admire her for being able to handle this without a hint of blush. She turns to Gajeel. "Gajeel. Go over the process from your side of the experience again," she demands. Gajeel gihi's but obliges.
"Well, like with Salamander, it was a strong, but bearable pull at first. Skin-on-skin had happened a few times via hugs, handshakes, or whatever else," he starts. "It definitely got stronger the longer I tried to deny it, but it was almost always bearable as long as I kept to platonic situations. It was pretty bad with a few of the more sexy situations, but I was still able to wrestle the inner dragon back. Then, after the three month training period everyone took, things seemed to shift with our next meeting." His eyes glaze a little, probably getting lost in his reminiscing. "I had noticed Levy's scent and presence had become quite a bit stronger, but I assumed it was from the time spent away. I made the stupid decision to try and handle it the same as always - and I let myself hug her, which had been something I usually could handle before. As soon as our skin touched that time, well, the same thing that happened to Sparky and Blondie happened to us, and we ended up fucking in-"
"GAJEEL!" Levy interrupted, throwing him an embarassed glare. He just gihi'd. "Ahem. Now then. I took the chance to call Yukino, and it sounds like they are experiencing the same process as Natsu and Lisanna. Which leads me to believe the 'normal' process is what Natsu and Sting are experiencing, as well as what me and Gajeel experienced in the beginning. WHich means something triggered me and Lucy's bonds." she ticks off on her hand as she moves through her train of thought.
"So it was probably something that happened during those three months of training," I offer. I make a face. "Well, it was three months for you guys. For our gorup it was a couple days," I groan at the memory. Laxus, Gajeel, and Lisanna look at us in confusion. "Long story short, my spirits wanted to have a party, and our training group got invited. It took place in the celestial spirit realm, which is all well and good, but Virgo informed us after we got back that time moves differently in the Celestial Spirit Realm. About three months to every one day, to be more exact," I finish drily.
"Wait, but if you guys didn't train at all for those three months, how did you all get so much stronger?" Lisanna asked. Natsu scratched his chin in thought.
"Hey Luce, y'think it could have something to do with that second-origin spell Ultear used on us?" he wonders aloud. Levy's face blanks, then lights up.
"That's totally it!" she squeals. "Me and Lucy got our second origins unlocked by one of Ultears Arc of Time spells! I would guess forcibly and quickly expanding someone's core magic containers would probably jumpstart and strengthen anything involved with a mage's core. And as we figured out with the 'power leak', the link between Dragonslayer and Mate is through the magic cores!" she explains excitedly. "Natsu, you wonderful idiot! You figured it out!" she squeals, clapping her hands together with the excitement she always gets when a complex mystery has been solved. Natsu grins at the praise, ignoring the "idiot" remark. He flashes a thumbs up at me and turns to wink at Lisanna proudly. I chuckle at his antics.
"HOld on a second," Laxus's voice cuts through the excitement. "DId you guys say you had your second origins unlocked?" he asks incredulously, looking at me in wonder. I nod.
"Yea, it was pretty rough though. Hurt like hell for the whole night," Natsu says. Gajeel looks at him with narrowed eyes. I'd assume he was now trying to figure out how to catch back up to the fire slayer.
"Blondie... HOly shit. Only S-Class have ever had their second origins unlocked!" he exclaims. Natsu cocks his head.
"Is that why the spell didn't really do anything to Erza?" he wonders. Laxus snorts.
"No shit, ash-brain. As much as I hate to admit it, there's a reason Titania got her name," he begrudgingly admits. Levy giggles. "But seriously... that makes a lot of sense, actually. Everyone from your training group was tremendously more powerful. I just assumed you had managed a really good, vigorous training regimen." he mutters in awe. I smile up at him.
"Don't you remember the Urano Metria spell I tried to use on Flare? Before Raven Tail cheated of course," I hastily add on, making a sour face at the memory. Laxus's booming laughter rang out and he ruffled my hair.
"Well, don't you ever let anyone call you weak, Blondie," he says with a warm smile. My heart swells and my lips curl happily.
"Hey Laxus, man, I got a question I've been wanting to ask recently," Natsu pipes up, making Laxus' euebrow tick in apprehension. He turns to look at the pink-haired slayer, who scratches his chin in thought. "Who really would win in a fight between you and Erza?"
THe room goes silent and everyone looks at him expectantly, leading me to believe all of us had wondered the same thing. Laxus grunts.
"It depends," he allows, scowling. "In terms of sheer power, I win. But..." he trails off. He readies himself with a large sigh. "If it were a fight to the death, I cannot be sure. It could go either way, honestly. Because apparently the woman is fucking unkillable. And she never, ever stops," he grinds out. "Hmph. Pretty sure the only way to beat Erza in a fight to the death would be to remove at least three of her limbs. And even then, I wouldn't be surprised if she had some kind of armor that would function as makeshift prosthesis. Let's be honest here. If she has at least two limbs, she would still be fighting." I have to admit, he has a point. "Tch. Let's leave it at that. Titania is one of the most capable mages I've ever met, and I would not want to ever be her enemy. Especially in a fight to the death," he finishes. Everyone nods in acceptance.
"I wish I could give you shit for admitting that, but you're kind of completely right," Gajeel mutters. Natsu laughs.
"Well that's Erza for ya!" he exclaims happily. Which reminds me of something.
"Oh yea. Hey Natsu, Team Natsu is supposed to meet up with Master tommorrow around noon. I guess there's some kind of special mission request specifically for us." I remember. He hops up and bellows fire.
"AWWW YEA!" he bellows obnoxiously. Gajeel jumps up.
"Chill the fuck out, Salamander! Don't burn my fucking house down!" he roars. Levy, Lisanna, and I all falter at the sudden change in atmosphere before Levy huffs angrily.
"SOLID SCRIPT: ANVIL!" she shouts, dropping an anvil on the two slayers. She glares at the moaning duo.
"No fighting inside!" she says threateningly. I lean over to Laxus.
"Let's escape while we can."
Nyehehehehehehehehe.
Yea, I've had Erza's reaction planned since the beginning lol. From the start I had it planned to have her be the last one to "find out", and have everyone be super scared cuz they think she's going to murder them, and build it up like it's going to be CRAZY, and then BAM! She knew the whole time. And also doesn't really care all that much. It also made some of your reviews even better because it would appear I had you all going.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA anticlimax, bitches. I picture Erza as being one of the biggest trolls of the bunch. The "U mad, bro?" kind, not the creature kind. Especially since her and Jellal are already together in this AU so she's happier and more laid back.
On a side note (As always because I apparently need to have ungodly long Author's Notes every single time), things will be taking a darker turn soon. I'll try to fit in one more smut chapter first, but things are about to get rough. Just like in the anime/manga. Can you guess which "Special mission" team natsu is in for? Does anyone actually read these? I'll admit, I probably wouldn't.