She squinted at the bright summer sun as she exited the huge oak doors. She hugged the book in her arms and a small smile grew on her face. She made her way down the huge steps having to take two steps every other time due to her short legs. She jumped the last step and turned to head towards the park and made her way in that direction. It was a beautiful day and she knew the exact tree she wanted to sit under to read her book.

She didn't make it far when she heard her name called out from an alley she just passed.

No no no, she thought as she quickened her pace and looked back still not seeing anyone, Why today?

She slipped down the next alley and looked for a place to hide. Her name was shouted again along with a gang of laughter and she looked around frantically for a place to hide. She spotted a dumpster and didn't thin twice. She tossed the book in and crawled in after it closing the lid as quietly as she could. She grabbed the book and a box and cawed to a corner, hiding under it.

Please let them give up today, she prayed clutching the book with her shaking hands and squeezing her eyes shut. Sometimes they would give up the chase, other times-, please let today be one of those days.

"Come out and play Levy." Said a sing song voice which was copied by a few other. She heard the lid get flung open with a loud crash and she flinched ever so slightly, hoping she didn't move the box. The box was then pulled off her head and someone grabbed at her.

"Found you."

"Leave me alone!" She screamed tossing the book at him and scrambling over garbage bags to get out the other side. She fell out the other side scraping her knees and palms in the clumsy fall and barely made it two steps when she was grabbed by two of his followers.

"No!" She said kicking out and was able to get one of the boys in a sensitive spot. He let go and she tried to get out of the others grip but when she did the blonde leader caught her and shoved her into a wall.

She put her hands out to stop her head from hitting it she turned around and pressed her back against the wall wishing it would let her dissolve into it.

"Now, now, levy don't you want to play?" he asked and she looked up at the tall blonde boy in front of her. He was only a year or three older then her, many of them didn't know their real age at the orphanage. He had a gentle smile that would have tricked anyone into thinking he was being sincere. It tricked the workers at the orphanage well enough. It had fooled her but it hasn't for a very long time.

"I don't want to." She said.

"Come on Levy, you're no fun." He kicked her and she scrunched down in the fetal position. "Just like the rest of you mages."

"Please Zarin-"

"No!" He shouted infuriated. She looked up at the boy, his sweet eyes gone replaced by those of a mad man. "You're just as bad as the rest of them."

She curled up into a ball waiting for it to be over. Why did she have to be mage? Why did he take his anger out on her? She never did anything wrong! Then she heard a the flick of a pocket knife.

"I got a new toy I wanted to show you."

TTTTTTT

She woke with a start, gasping as she awoke to the feeling of cold water splashing on her face and running down her mouth. Choking and gasping she rolled farther over on her side to cough up the water. She tried to move her arms but found them pinned behind her in tight ropes, her ankles turned out to be in the same predicament as well.

After a bit of struggling she was able to sit up, the movement making her head spin from the most likely concussion of being knocked out. She tried to flex her hands but could hardly move them, guess he learned his lesson, she thought morbidly.

Finally with her back resting against the damp wall she grew curiose to were exactly she was. Levy whipped back some of the soaked hair out of her eyes to see where she was she looked around. It looked like some underground tunnel, the walls brick and sloping around her in a half circle, the ground itself was harden ground. It was dark except for a lantern in front of her giving off a circle of light which she was currently sitting in.

And she wasn't alone.

Across from her leaning on the other wall was another figure, Kurogane, but this time she wasn't fooled.

"Zarin." She said and the figure chuckled. "It was you that one night that he attacked me, wasn't it?"

Kurogane nodded and it morphed back into Zarin, she liked Kuroganes form more. "Looks like Levy is finally catching up."

"What do you want with me?" She demanded. "Why am I needed for whatever you guys are up too." She hadn't wanted her voice to waver but it shook not just because she was scared but also because it was cold. The air was cool and with her light clothes, her head and shoulders being soaked, and the cold wall on her back had her body shivering slightly.

Zarin sighed and shook his head like he was disappointed. "And always no fun. Always the serious one."

"Why did Rogue look like that? He was suppose to be in the final games today." Levy pressed remembering the figure that had shown herself to her moments before she was knocked out. She had t admit he was the last person she'd expect to see there. Besides Zarin that is.

He laughed, And it wasn't the pleasant kind of laughter either. "Levy, alway with the questions." He walked over and crouched in front of her. "Aren't you even the littlest bit happy to see me? We had such good times as kids."

She resisted the urge to move away from him. "I thought you where dead, the fire-"

He slapped her sending stars in front of her eyes so she couldn't finish her sentence. He leaned back and stood up, looking at his hand clenching it. "Nope still alive."

He grinned at her her and pointed to his scar. "Can't get rid of me that easily Lev. But that damn jail fire almost got me though. And you would have been so happy wouldn't you? Not even a little bit sad for your old childhood friend. Little Levy, free of the scum us non magically gifted are." He spat at her. "All of you mages still think you're better then us."

"That's not true Zarin-"

"Quite!" He bent down his calm demeanor gone replaced by those mad man eyes she'd known to fear. He grabbed at her throat. "You have no right to say that! You have no idea what it's like for us under your kinds tyrannical reign."

"Im sorry what happened to your father Zarin, but not all-" Levy chocked trying to finish but unable due to his grip tightening.

"Don't you dare lie, your all the same. Yes I got out of that fire, Rogue dragged me out and offered me a chance to get even at the ones who put me there." He let go of her neck and she gasped. "He offered me you and that damn old man in charge of your guild who put me in jail. Not to mention a few other hundred mages I'm allowed to dispose of at my pleasure."

He stood up and changed into Gajeels form but his voice remained. "Of course it came with a price, made a deal with the devil you might say. I had to become one of you."

"H-how?"

"That man Rogue infused my body with Lacrimals, and I gained this cursed power. A gift which turned out most convenient to his little plan." He grinned with Gajeels face. "But I got to say this magics got perks, you mages had it so easy."

Levy's throat grew dry and she swallowed. "But why? Why you of all people? Why did he choose you!"

"Because shrimp." He was using Gajeels voice now as well. "I was the kind of man he needed, and I knew you. You seem to be his winning move to his master plan."

Me? Why me? "Why would Rogue want me-"

A voice interfered from somewhere in the shadows to their left. "It was because I needed something only the knowledge dragon slayer would posses."

Levy looked to her left and saw the strange Rogue walk out of the shadows and into the lantern's light. "It was mere chance it was him exactly. I was looking for a man who didn't think twice of killing mages. He was the perfect man for the job. And when I learned that you two had a past I couldn't believe my luck. He led me straight to you, and all I had to do was wait until you'd reawaken your dragon senses and the gates where being opened."

Reawaken? Killing mages? Gates to open? He came across Zarin?, Her head was moving a thousand miles a second trying to take in and decipher what was going on. Rogue couldn't have been planning this back then, he'd have to have been a barely teenager like Natsu, and only a child when she had her dragon slaying powers as a little girl! And reawaken, like I'd already been awake as a dragon slayer to him once, but he couldn't possibly have known back then either. Levy looked Rogue over her mind moving a mile a minute. It was definitely him, yet not. like when she had woken up on Fairy Island everyone was still the same person but had changes, Grown older...

Then it clicked.

But it's impossible. "You're not the real one aren't you." Levy stated.

He laughed. "I'm as real as they get."

"I mean, you're not the Rogue of this time, you came back from the future, somehow you were able to travel through time. You're a future Rouge."

He smirked. "Guess Fairy Tail really had some brains after all. Though still so naive as the rest of them."

Her eyes grew wide. "But how can you be from the future! It's impossible."

"Just very improbable. And as you can see it worked. Though I over shot and came out 13 years to early. I had to sit around in this godforsaken time for my chance to strike."

"What's your plan?"

He laughed. "You think I'm an idiot like yourselves? Like I'm going to waste my time telling you, I came here to retrieve Zarin."

"But you said you needed the knowledge Dragon slayer. You're going to have to tell me why you at least need me."

"I don't need you specifically, all I needed is something that only you possessed. And I got my very own you." He nodded to Zarin who grinned and walked over to her. Levy tried to squirm away but to no avail. He brought his hand to her face and smiled gently. "This won't hurt a bit."

Levy felt like her body was exposing inside her. Every cell seemed to burn in a sharp pain that left her gasping, her eyes wide, in a silent scream. And as soon as it came it was over and the pain vanished. She almost had a hard time believing it happened.

"What did you do to me?" Levy demanded looking up at Zarin smiling at her pulling his hand away.

Rogue answered. "He's borrowing you."

What-? Levy blinked looking up at rogue then back at Zarin then nearly screamed but instead she froze in pure terror, her blood running cold.

Crouching in front of her was herself. She watched herself stand up and give a twirl.

"I'm you." The Levy/Zarin said in her own cheerful voice and she wanted a scream lodged in her throat. It was one thing to see him impersonate Gajeel, by to see her own self in front of her was something different. Zarin/Levy wiggled her fingers. "All it takes is one touch for me to copy another human being. The first time I clone you though it's a bit painful for the person being copied."

"No ones going to believe that's me, Gajeel the most." She said and cursed her voice for wavering. She thought she was going to be sick.

"That's where you're wrong," Interjected Rogue, "his copy, as you've seen yourself is complete, actions, smell, voice, even your little quirks, injuries, are now his own. But most importantly, he has an exact replica of your eyes."

My eyes? Why would he- Rogue pulled out a small scroll of red thick paper and waved it in front of his face and she understood. Dragon eyes.

"Where did you get that?" She said astounded.

"A story you don't need to know."

"But how do you know what it is if you can't read it?"

"the beginning is in human dialect so I know what it contains but the part I needed was in dragon script. I kept it, and when I learned you were able to read dragon scrolls I was going to have you read it then kill you."

"I didn't though did I?"

"A mishap occurred before I got the chance were you died unfortunately during a dragon raid." He said it so plainly Levy almost missed the part were he mentioned she died. But before she could question him he continued. "So I needed a new plan. And when I discovered that girl having found a way back in time I tagged along. I was going to have to take over your body as a shadow and force you to read this for me, but when Zarin powers turned out as they did I had no need to go about those methods. Now he can show me it with out all the fussing. All I had to do was wait until your powers were unlocked."

"So now what are you going to do with me?"

"All I need from you is to stay alive."

Alive?

"You and I are now now linked." Piped in the Zarin/Levy. "They only way I can maintain the powers that come with advance forms of copy is if the person I'm copying is alive."

"Then what about Charlie? You killed him."

"He had no powers I needed," the Zarin version of herself shrugged. "I could copy him easily enough to fool you with him dead, still inconvenient not having his memories at hand though."

A chime went off in Rogues pocket and he pulled out a pocket watch. He looked at it and smiled. "Time to go Zarin."

"You can't just leave me here!" Levy yelled at the leaving figures and Zarin laughed.

"Don't worry Levy, I'll be back for you." He said and that didn't help Levy at all. "I'll take good care of your fairy tail friends though while you're down here."

"Gag her," Said Rogue not stopping and walking off in to the darkness. "we don't want her screaming the whole time we're gone. Someone might hear."

Zarin walked back tied a cloth around her mouth so that it opened her mouth and she couldn't close it. "Now be a good girl and wait for me, then we can play."

She kicked out at him, only to receive a slap to her face knocking her sideways. He was strong even in her own form.

He grabbed the lantern and turned a corner following Rogue, leaving Levy to herself in the dark.

I need to warn fairy tail, was all she could think but she hadn't a clue how to or from exactly what. Whatever it was going to be, something told her, the whole world was going to be effected, especially when Rogue had mentioned dragons and her death.

Dragon raid? The thought of it sent chills down her already shaking spine. And if Zarin was willing to go along with it then it just confirmed how bad it was.

And now he was there, in her place, letting them all go to their demise while she sat here in the dark useless.

She needed to get out of here.