Dance of the Fairies, Flight of the Phoenix
Chapter 3:- Making an Impression
"What the hell kind of place is this anyway?" Gajeel muttered as he trudged his way down the pavement. After a night of walking, he had at last he had actually been able to get somewhere, following the coastline until he'd run into something that looked like a mid-sized village of some kind. But though most of it was similar to the kinds of thing he'd seen many times before, there were differences.
Namely, the roads. It seemed that every single lane between them buildings was designed to have cars and other vehicles going down it, while back home they were usually only ever used by pedestrians and drawn carriages. And there were so many vehicles as well - they were literally everywhere. Cars lined up behind each other half on and half off the pavement, while more breezed their way up and down in both directions intermittently. There were other larger vehicles that Gajeel couldn't even begin to name as well.
Most of the rest of it was vaguely familiar though, although some of houses were painted very strange colours. But there were also shops that when Gajeel paused to look in the window and see what they were selling… he hadn't a freaking clue. Things like weird boxes with screens that were playing moving images and all kinds of other things besides. None of it made any sense to him. Just where the heck was he, anyway?
There had been a sign on the way into the village when he'd stepped in through the road. A sign which read - Welcome to Portree. But Gajeel had never heard of it before and it certainly wasn't ringing any bells right now.
The people here certainly seemed no different either, although he was drawing a lot of stares. People seemed to stop and watch as he went past, and those that were on the same side of the street as him quickly crossed to the other side when he was heading towards them, mothers and fathers putting their kids behind them slightly. Gajeel couldn't help but smirk. Even bandaged and bruised it was good to know that people still found him intimidating.
There was one couple, boy and girl, who were kissing on a bench and didn't notice his approach until he was right in front of them. He paused and stared at them with a raised metal-studded brow before coughing pointedly. When they both broke apart and saw him, he offered them one of his most sadistic grins, and the boy yelped and scrambled over the back of the bench to crouch behind it warily while the girl seemed frozen in place.
"Well its clear who wears the skirt in this relationship," Gajeel snickered at the cowering boy before he turned to the girl and said, "So, would you care to tell me where the hell I am?"
"U…um…" the girl swallowed nervously. "You're, um… in Portree…"
"Yeah, I know that. But where the bloody hell is Portree? I need details, girl! What freaking country am I in?"
"You… you don't know which…?" the boy began before Gajeel sent him a glare that had him cowering again.
"I'm talking to your lady friend, bub," he growled. "A guy who jumps behind a bench to hide from a guy he's afraid of and leaves his girl unprotected ain't worth my time. So, girl… what country am I in?"
"Um… you're on the Isle of Skye… Scotland… United Kingdom…" the girl murmured slowly, waiting for some sign of recognition on Gajeel's face but finding none.
"…Nope… that don't help…" Gajeel muttered. "Let's try this instead. Does a place name Fiore mean anything to you?"
"Er… no… I don't… know that place…" the girl replied nervously.
"Where the hell has that bloody dragon sent me," Gajeel muttered to himself but he heaved a sigh and muttered, "Fine. Can you at least tell me where I can buy something metal? Like knives and forks or something. Heck I'd settle for a spork."
"Try… try over there," the girl pointed across the road and down the street to a shop with a sign on the front that read 'Co-Op.'
"Thanks…" Gajeel nodded curtly, turning and marching towards the shop, calling, "Your boyfriend's a wuss, by the way!" over his shoulder. Ignoring the cry of protest from the boy in question, he strode across the road, a car screeching to a halt to stop from hitting him. The driver of the car beeped a horn loudly at him, causing Gajeel to clap his hands over his sensitive ears. He growled and slammed his fist down on the hood of the car, crushing the metal and smashing into the engine inside. The whole street went silent as they stared in shock at this stunning act of vandalism but Gajeel merely shook his hand in the air and continued on as if nothing had happened.
But when he entered the Co-Op it was like another world entirely to him. "The hell is this?" he looked around the supermarket, staring at all of the rows upon rows of food. Customers scattered before him as he marched through, looking from side to side impatiently before he finally found some cutlery. He scooped up a couple of handfuls of them haphazardly and searched around for some place to pay for them. He spotted the till and joined the back of the queue, making the three people in front of him extremely nervous, as they kept glancing back over their shoulders at him, as if worried he was going to stab his cutlery into them.
Gajeel grimaced impatiently until it was finally his turn and he dropped all the shiny objects in front of the man on the other side of the desk. "How much for all these?" he asked.
The man coughed, looking Gajeel up and down slightly. "Er… are you sure you're okay there, son? You look like you should be in a hospital with all those bandages on."
"I'm fine. I heal quickly," he replied, which was true - the bodies of mages were generally far sturdier and tougher than those of regular people. "Now, can we hurry this up? I'm hungry."
"Don't you have any cutlery in the house already, sir?"
"If I had any cutlery I wouldn't be here buying some."
"I… see… well… you've got quite a bit here… so I'd say… that's fifteen pounds and sixty pence, please."
"…Fifteen what?" Gajeel frowned.
"Um… pounds. And sixty pence," the man said hesitantly.
"Is that some kind of money?"
"It's the currency of Great Britain, sir. Which is where you are…"
"Someone out there said I was in the United Kingdom."
"Well yes… but… um… don't you have the money, sir?"
"I've got about seven-hundred jewels," Gajeel reached into his pocket and pulled out the strange looking notes and placed them on the desk. "Can't you use this?"
"…I've never seen money like this before. Sorry, sir, but I can't take this money. I don't know the exchange rate."
"Shit," Gajeel growled loudly. "Well where am I supposed to get my hands on some pounds then?"
"Well, there's a bank down the street. Maybe they'll be able to exchange this money for however many pounds its worth…" the man was looking at Gajeel edgily now, as if he wasn't sure whether the Iron Dragon Slayer was completely sane.
But Gajeel looked nonplussed. "There's a what down the street?"
"A bank…" the man said, slowly, now sweating slightly. "You know… where you can take and store your money and then go and get it back when you need it?"
"Why the f*** would anybody leave their own money with other people?" Gajeel snorted. But he just grunted and said, "Fine. I'll be back for these. Hold them for me." And he stomped angrily out of the store and back into the street, taking his jewels with him. The automatic doors almost closed on him and he had to resist the urge to punch them before he stepped through them. What kind of messed up complicated place was this anyway?
So… where the heck was this bank place anyway?
When he finally found a place with a sign that read 'The Royal Bank of Scotland' and marched inside, he groaned when he saw another queue leading to the desk at the other side of the entrance hall. If he'd been in Phantom Lord still he would have punched his way to the front and have done with it. But, he was a Fairy Tail mage now and hurting innocent people needlessly was not their way so he reluctantly joined the back of the queue.
He got about halfway to the desk before the first gunshot went off.
Screams ripped through the bank as four men wearing black balaclavas and gloves barged in through the front door, each one of them carrying a firearm and one of them firing it up towards the ceiling, putting several holes in it. As Gajeel spun around to stare, everyone else in the bank immediately dove for cover, cowering on the ground even as the man firing the gun yelled, "Everyone hit the floor! Stay down and you won't get hurt! Unless you try and call the police - if we see anyone with a phone we will shoot them!"
The men spread out across the room, roving their guns from left to right to keep the entire room covered, the clerks cowering behind their desks. Gajeel was now the only one still standing and he looked around at the shock on the faces of the others. Clearly this place didn't get much crime and yet he'd walked right into the middle of something.
"You there, big guy! Get down on the ground now!" the speaker aimed his gun at Gajeel, who turned back to raise an eyebrow at him.
"The hell do you think you're doing, kid?" he glowered, guessing that the man with the gun couldn't be any older than eighteen. "Get that peashooter out of my face."
"This is a bank robbery! We'll be taking all the money in this place. And this is a real gun!" he lowered it to fire a shot near Gajeel's feet, making everyone else scream though Gajeel didn't flinch in the slightest.
"Take my advice, boy," Gajeel sniffed at him. "Go crawling back home to your mother. I'm sure she can prepare a nice warm bottle of milk for you to suckle on."
"I said get down!" the robber pointed the gun right at Gajeel's face. "Do you wanna be shot!?"
"Have you got the balls to pull that trigger?" Gajeel leered, glancing sideways to where one of the others, despite the situation had thrust a bag to one of clerks behind the desk and demanded they fill it up with everything that they had. "You ever killed a man before, son?"
"Have you?" the man replied, faltering slightly.
"Nah… but I've come pretty damn close many, many times," Gajeel grinned, socking one fist into his palm and cracking his knuckles. "And just about all of them were tougher than some wet-behind-the-ears airhead like you."
"You don't think I would do it?!" the robber yelled thrusting his hand out even further.
"You haven't pulled it yet," Gajeel took a step forward and then another, slowly advancing across the room towards the robber, who was shaking a little now. "I bet this robbery idea sounded much better on paper than it does in practice, huh? This bank place is a stupid idea anyway - I prefer to keep all my money in one place… where I can easily cave in the heads of anyone that tries to nick it."
"I'm warning you…!" the robber took several steps backwards towards the door - and by this point the whole room including the robber at the desk and clerk had stopped what they were doing to watch the altercation.
"Pull the trigger," Gajeel suggested with a harsh grin. "It won't make a bleeding bit of difference."
"Oh for God's sake," another of the robbers raised his own pistol, prompting Gajeel to swing around to stare at him instead. "I'll do it then!" And the loud shot flared through the bank, screams erupting from every corner of the room as Gajeel's head snapped backwards from the impact, teetering on the spot for a moment…
…before slowly bringing his head back downwards to grin at the stunned shooter. The bullet was caught firmly between Gajeel's teeth and as a wall of shocked silence fell over the room, Gajeel casually bit the bullet in half, catching the end that fell out in his palm and tossing it into his mouth with the rest of it, chewing noisily for several moments before swallowing.
"Not the most appetising meal I've had for a while," Gajeel grinned, grabbing the bandages that covered his torso and ripping them away, revealing the scars on his arm before he clicked his shoulder. "Got any more?"
"What… the hell… what did you just…" the second robber stumbled over his words, unable to form a coherent thought let alone a sentence.
"You picked one hell of a bad day to try this robbery," Gajeel snickered. And then he roared, "TETSURYUUKON!" and lunged forwards, his arm morphing into a blunt, flat-ended club that extended outwards like a piston and slammed into the robber's torso, shattering his gun and breaking several ribs while slamming him back against the wall hard enough to send him crashing straight through it.
The other three robbers, including the one that had been hesitant to shoot him, panicked and opened fire on him instantly, the other customers screaming and yelling as they covered their heads, shots flying over the top of them, only to bounce of Gajeel's skin, which had suddenly become iron scales and tinker to the floor around him.
Gajeel spun around and turned his feet into clubs, thrusting himself up into the air with them to fly across the room, slamming bodily into the robber by the desk and smashing him backwards, splintering the desk under the impact. Seizing the gun and yanking it out of his hand, Gajeel tore a chunk out of the metal with his teeth and chewed it down before tossing it aside, grabbing the robber by the front of his shirt and spinning around, blocking several more bullets from another robber with the metal palm of his hand. He then sprang into the air, heaving the robber up with him and spun him around, seizing him by the leg and flinging him downwards to crash into his partner.
The one closest to the door that Gajeel had been talking to balked and dashed out and away, while the other two scrambled to their feet. The only one still armed immediately pointed the gun at a woman on the ground and yelled, "Back off, man! Or I'll shoot this…" He didn't get any further before Gajeel's arm shot forwards across the room on extending metal, his hand seizing the gun and slamming it up into the robber's face before he spun into a sweep kick, his leg becoming a club and lengthening in mid-swing to catch both the robbers in the stomachs and send them crashing back across the room.
"Shouldn't have done that, mate!" Gajeel growled, taking a deep breath. "Cos that made me angry! TETSURYUU NO… HOUKOU!"
With an explosion of magic, a huge grey breath attack burst out of Gajeel's jaws, a tornado of Iron Dragon power filled with little shards of metal blasting across the room and enveloping both the yelling robbers, slamming them into the air and flinging them backwards. The attack smashed into the wall of the bank and blasted it to rubble, stone and brickwork cascading out into the street as the robbers were flung outside to sprawl, unconscious on the pavement with several broken bones and lashes across their skin from the metal shards. They were almost run over by a car whose driver had lost control with shock at the sight of half the bank being blown away.
Gajeel powered out after them and landed on the pavement, cracking it under his feet as he swung around in search of the final robber. He spotted him through the window of a car that was furiously pulling away from the pavement, the panicked robber behind the wheel as he shot off down the road and away. But Gajeel dashed out behind the car, summoning a green magic circle in front of his hand and morphed his arm into a spear, levelling it at the back of the retreating vehicle and ignoring the screams of the pedestrians.
"TETSURYUUSOU: KISHIN!" he bellowed and fired a multitude of large spears out from his arm in rapid succession, like a mini gun filled with giant arrows. The spears punctured the boot and the back tyres, bringing the car to a screeching halt as the driver was slammed into the wheel, having forgotten to put his seatbelt on. He cringed as another spear smashed through the back window and skewered into the radio right next to him.
The robber scrambled out of the car, only to find Gajeel had already crossed them distance between them. "No, please…!" he yelled as Gajeel seized him by his shirt and hauled him upright. "Don't… don't kill me!"
"I ain't killing ye," Gajeel rolled his eyes. "But let me ask you, do you think crime pays now?"
"No! No, it doesn't! No way!"
"And will you ever try and and take what don't belong to you again?"
"No, never!"
"Good!" Gajeel grinned, before he slammed his iron forehead into the head of the robber, knocking him out. "I'll take your word for it."
But, as he dropped the limp body to the ground and deactivated his iron scales, Gajeel looked around him at the people who'd seen this altercation. Almost every one of them was staring at him in abject horror and fear, except for a couple of children who were trying to run towards him crying, "Mummy, it's a superhero! A real superhero!" only to be held back by their wide-eyed mother.
"What the hell are you all looking at?" Gajeel growled. "You never seen a mage before?"
Dead silence met his question and Gajeel's eyes widened when he realised… no, they hadn't. They'd never seen anything even remotely like him before.
Again, the question sprang up in his mind - where the hell was he?
He glanced back towards the bank and saw about a dozen people watching him through the massive hole he'd torn in it with his breath attack. Nobody moved to congratulate him. Nobody even seemed to want to move lest they drew attention to themselves.
"Looks like I've overstayed my welcome here," Gajeel muttered. "Well… at least that bank thing is still standing… just about. And at least I got myself a meal."
He tore several strips of metal off the robber's car with his bare hands and tucked them under one arm for later. Then, without a backwards glance, he turned and legged it, dashing away until he was out of the town and heading back into the wilderness.
Kingsley Shacklebolt sighed to himself as he tried hard not to pace back and forth. Thus far, it seemed that there was very little reason for him to actually be here. He and several of his fellow Aurors, but the order of Rufus Scrimgeour, had been stationed out in this farmer's field for a whole night. It was already well into the next morning by now and as of yet, there seemed to be very little reason for the Aurors to actually be there.
The sphere just sat there in the middle of the field, partially buried in the ground and no matter what the members of the Department of Mysteries had done - all these little experiments they'd been performing that Kingsley couldn't even begin to make sense of - they couldn't seem to make heads or tails of it. At least not that Kingsley could see.
All the Aurors could do was patrol around it and make sure that the charms they'd set up repel Muggles and keep them from noticing they were there stayed in place. Because the sphere itself seemed to be very little threat.
Although, having said that, Kingsley had gone right up to the edge of the Sphere and peered in through the translucent wall. And although he couldn't make much out, he could tell there was something inside it. Two somethings actually if he wasn't mistaken.
"Sir!" called out an Auror from the edge of camp. "That Curse Breaker that you asked for has arrived."
"Thank you, Dawlish. Send him over," Kingsley nodded, his deep bass voice almost seeming to instil a calm in everyone around him. He had to suppress a smile when he saw Bill Weasley trudging across the campsite, being escorted by none other than Tonks.
"Wotcha, Kingsley?" Tonks winked, totally ignoring the fact that he was her superior and she was supposed to address him accordingly. She glanced at the sphere and murmured, "Jeez, is that the thing you're guarding. It really is weird."
"Weird doesn't begin to describe it, Nymphadora," Kingsley replied.
"Don't call me that!"
"We don't have the faintest idea what this thing could even be," Kingsley went on, ignoring her objection. "And the fact that it apparently fell from the sky just adds another mystery to the pile of ever-growing puzzles. And you…" he turned to Bill. "You must be William Weasley, I assume."
"Call me Bill, sir," Bill extended a hand and Kingsley shook it firmly. Of course the two of them were already acquainted what with being members of the Order of the Phoenix, but they had to be careful about appearances. After all the Ministry were always on the lookout for people who might be 'conspiring' with Dumbledore, so they had to keep up a pretence that they didn't know one another.
"Tonks here says that you're one of the best at what you do," Kingsley replied, keeping the act up.
"Well, I would hardly say that, sir. There's lots of great Curse Breakers out there."
"He's just being modest, Kingsley," Tonks grinned. "We were at Hogwarts together though, so I know what I'm talking about. He was a whiz at Ancient Runes and stuff like that."
"Good to know," Kingsley nodded. "I know your father reasonably well. Very nice man, so its a pleasure to be working with you. But tell me, Bill. If you're so good with runes, do you have any idea what that thing on the side of our mysterious orb might be?"
He pointed over towards the sphere in question, specifically at the glowing symbol that blazed proudly on the side. An image that looked vaguely like a cross between a bird and a comma, a pointed head like section at the top left with several wavy upward spikes extending out towards the top left and a single, long tail like projection sticking diagonally downwards from right to left.
Bill stared, non-plussed, at the Fairy Tail symbol. "I've never seen anything like that one before, though I have seen a few strange things in my time in tombs. Can I get access to it?"
"Of course," Kingsley nodded. "Just let me get these Department of Mysteries goons out of the way so you can have unimpeded access.
After that, Bill spent a good half hour walking around the sphere, examining it at seemingly every possible angle, flicking out his wand and murmuring several spells under his breath with seemingly no visible results. He spent a particular amount of time staring at the symbol, flicking through a large tome of Ancient Runes in an attempt to track down its origin but he, of course, found absolutely nothing.
Eventually he stood up and nodded for the other two to come over. "Well?" Kingsley asked hopefully.
"It's like nothing I've ever encountered before, sir," Bill shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "Usually when it comes to strange magical phenomenons like this there are small chinks in the magical barrier, tiny little avenues which a Curse Breaker or anyone that knows how can exploit to find a way to undo the spell. But with this, there is nothing. It is, quite simply, a flawless shield against anything and everything that seeks to force its way inside. And its strong too - I can feel its sheer power."
"Is it dangerous?" Kingsley asked.
"Oh no, I wouldn't say so. I believe its perfectly harmless. But I also bet that if we were to summon one thousand wizards to perform a blasting curse at this sphere at the same time it would remain totally unaffected. It puts the basic Shield Charm utterly to shame. I bet… that this would even be able to block the Killing Curse."
Kingsley's eyes widened. The Avada Kedavra Curse was notorious for being one of the few curses that remained utterly unaffected by even a Protego Maxima. But if what Bill said was true and this could… oh if only they could harness its power for their own. All the Aurors that would be saved from Dark Wizards haphazardly throwing Killing Curses around with something like that… it would be nothing short of amazing.
"But, if this is something like a Shield Charm…" Tonk stepped up to the side and squinted in through the wall. "Then what's it shielding? Isn't there something in there?"
"We believe so, but we cannot really make them out. Can you see them, Tonks?" Kingsley replied.
"I can see… something," Tonks murmured. "Looks like… a person of some kind. No, wait… two people. Yeah it definitely looks like two people, though one of them's really large and the other's quite small in comparison. Lot shorter and slimmer. I can't work out if they're boys of girls but I'm sure there's people in there. They aren't moving though. It's like they're… frozen stiff or something."
Bill stepped over to peer in as well. "Looks like there's definitely something in there," he agreed. "But I don't think I can break into this. What do you think you'll do with the sphere?"
"I suppose the proper course of action would be to take it back to the Ministry and hold it within the Department of Mysteries until we can make some more sense of it," Kingsley grimaced. "We certainly cannot leave it here out in the open. Though how exactly we're going to move it is anybody's guess…"
"Sir!" Dawlish suddenly scrambled over, waving a note in his hand. "We've got an urgent message from Scrimgeour. It looks like there was some kind of magical attack on a Muggle Bank up in Scotland. Some village named Portree on the Isle of Skye."
"The Isle of Skye?" Kingsley looked alarmed, his eyes unconsciously meeting with Tonks and Bill's. They were all of them thinking the exact same thing.
The Isle of Skye was not far away from Hogwarts School.
"Dora, you're with me. Mister Weasley, it was a pleasure to meet you but if you don't feel that you can work on this case any further then please feel free to leave. But I thank you for your co-operation."
"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help," Bill replied, but he got Kingsley's silent message - go and tell the Order about this immediately.
"Everyone else stay here until we return," Kingsley replied, and he and Tonks immediately whirled around to disappear with a cracking noise, Disapparating into thin air.
When they appeared again, it was to a shocking sight. The area was already filled with wizards who seemed to be trying to track down and use Memory Charms on just about everyone in the town. And for good reason. One wall of the bank had been practically ripped to shreds and there were a couple of wizards and witches pulling large metal spears out of the back of a car, staring at the razor sharp blades in morbid fascination.
"Ah, Shacklebolt, Tonks…" a slightly gruff voice hailed them from across the street, and when they saw Head Auror Rufus Scrimgeour waving them over they both hurried to join him. "Glad to see the two of you could make it so quickly."
"What happened here?" Tonks stared up at the shattered wall. "That must have been one heck of a Blasting Hex."
"Something like that, I guess," Scrimgeour murmured.
"Do we know what motivated an attack like this?" Kingsley asked. "The position of the rubble suggests to me that this attack was fired from the inside of the building. But why would someone want to attack a Muggle bank at all, let alone from the inside like this? Was there any money taken?"
"None, as far as we know. But the reports indicate that this was carried out by a single man. We were wondering if it could be Sirius Black."
Tonks had to resist the urge to growl - Rufus didn't know her cousin was an innocent man after all and she was not meant to know it either.
"I rather doubt it," Kingsley replied. "All the information I have been gathering on Black suggests that he is most definitely overseas."
"Well it would not be the first time Black attacked a crowded area full of Muggles, although thankfully there were no deaths this time. But the reports don't really make much sense to me. There was talk about his skin turning to metal and shooting spears out of his hands and… I don't know, it all sounded utterly ridiculous to me."
"Well, you know how Muggles can be when they see something they don't understand," Kingsley pointed out.
"Indeed, but I've got some of my men patching into the camera network," Rufus replied. "We intend to erase all traces that can be linked to magic and play this off as some kind of gas mains explosion or something like that. Standard procedure."
Kingsley nodded. Honestly, the amount of CCTV the Muggles had around now was making it increasingly difficult to keep the Statute of Secrecy in force. And it was predicted only to get worse as the Muggles tried to make themselves feel safer but adding bunches of cameras everywhere since they couldn't do protective enchantments. But at least the Auror Department had a few wizards in it that actually knew what they were doing with modern Muggle technology. After all, no spell had been invented to change the images recorded on a video camera.
But suddenly a woman stepped out of the bank and called, "Sir! You should… probably come and see this."
"What? See what?" Scrimgeour turned and hurried forwards, Kingsley and Tonks on his heels.
"It's the Muggle security cameras, sir. We've found the recorded footage of what happened. It's not Black that did this sir. But actually, it seems like the person doing this was defending the bank from a Muggle robbery rather than attacking it sir. The Muggle robbers in question were rounded up by their police before we got here but… you should really see this."
She led them all into a room with several monitors - a Muggle man sitting in a chair in a magically induced sleep until they had finished working. But when the images on the screen began to play and the Aurors all watched the feed of the wild-haired, bandaged man battling it out with the robbers… they could do nothing but stop and stare.
"Dear God," Scrimgeour murmured as he watched the man blasting some kind of metallic tornado out of his mouth. "What the hell… have we stumbled across?"
When Bill stepped back into Grimmauld Place shortly afterwards to relay the news… he paused and blinked in surprise. The usual crowd of the middle of the day were all gathered - it was usually only Sirius, Remus and his mother that were here around this time since everyone else was at work, although occasional Mad-Eye or Mundungus could be found hanging about.
But Bill hadn't been expecting to see the oldest Weasley brother after him sitting at the table tucking into his mother's delicious cooking.
"Charlie?" he faltered. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello to you too, Big Bro," Charlie replied with a smirk, standing up out of his chair and walked over to embrace his brother who hugged back. Charlie was shorter and stockier than Bill but was physically stronger and more muscled and had so many freckles that there was almost no part of his face without them.
"It's great to see you," Bill replied. "Of course it is. But I thought that you were staying in Romania to try and recruit foreign wizards to the cause against You-Know-Who."
"And I have been," Charlie replied. "I'm not staying long. But I got an urgent message this morning from the MacFusty clan to come back to Britain. I thought I'd take the brief opportunity to say hello and get something good before I move on."
"The MacFusty clan?" Bill asked, with a frown.
"I have mentioned them before, you know," Charlie replied. "They're a Wizarding family up in Scotland that have taken on the responsibility of looking after and managing the population of Hebridean Black dragons. We've worked together a few times - I've taken a few Hebridean Blacks off their hands and transported them to the Dragon Reserve when they've had problems with overcrowding."
"Oh yeah, I remember now. What do they want you for?" Bill pulled up a chair alongside his brother.
"I'm not actually that sure," Charlie replied. "It said in the letter that a couple of the dragons clashed over territory, which isn't unusual. That happens all the time with that species. But they said something about the dragons having received strange injuries that they don't think were inflicted by one another and they wanted me to take a look."
"You mean something else attacked a pair of dragons?" Bill asked with wide eyes.
"Looks like it," Charlie nodded.
"We were just discussing what in the world would be foolish enough to try such a thing when you showed up," Sirius added. "But we've been coming up with squat. Less than squat really."
"Anyway, what about you? How did the work with that fallen sphere go?" Remus asked.
"I came up with about as much as you did for the dragon attacker," Bill shrugged. "But that's not what I came to talk about. Kingsley wanted me to tell you that apparently there's been some kind of attack on a Muggle bank. One not that far from away from Hogwarts, on the Isle of Skye."
A hush fell over the room as all of the occupants looked at each warily - all thinking the same thing.
"The Death Eaters wouldn't attack a Muggle Bank, would they?" Mrs. Weasley fretted. "It can't be them."
"Well, if it was not them, then who could it have been?" Sirius asked.
"It may still be an entirely unrelated incident," Remus said calmly. "We cannot lose our heads so quickly. The Death Eaters are not the only malignant Wizarding force out there, even if they are the most prominent at this time."
"Now I'm wondering if this could be related to the dragon attack," Charlie suddenly voiced. "The Isle of Skye is in the Hebrides as well after all."
After this statement they all fell into silence, consumed by their own individual thoughts. But they were all thinking pretty much the same thing… there had been a slight surge in bizarre, unexplained events in the last day or two. What was going to happen next?
"WEEENNNDDYYYY! WEEENNNNNNDDDYYYYYY! WHERE ARE YOU!"
"Charla, I don't think that's going to help anymore," Happy murmured dejectedly as he floated along beside the frantic white-furred Exceed.
"Well, what do you suggest?" Charla rounded on him and snapped angrily. "That we just sit back and do nothing! What would you be doing if it was Natsu out there?"
Happy flinched back and hung his head slightly, making no comment since he knew he would be doing pretty much the same thing. Charla's expression softened when she saw his reaction and she sighed, placing a paw on her head and murmuring, "Sorry… it's just… I'm so worried about her. Where could she have gone."
"We're all worried about her, Charla," Happy replied, reaching across to touch his paw to hers reassuringly. "But we're going to find her. And we're going to find everyone else too, just like we said we would. We always pull through don't we? And Wendy's tough. She'll be alright."
Charla nodded, feeling a little better but unable to stop the gnawing worry in her gut. She let Happy touch her paw for several seconds before she slowly drew it away. "I know. I just don't know where to start looking."
The two Exceed were flying over the ocean once more, scanning the waves below for any sign of the young Dragon Slayer. Mavis was not far behind them, accompanying Lily and keeping an eye on him. The ghost had lost sight of whatever it was that had taken Wendy away last night quite quickly but she'd been able to deduce it was following quite a specific, straight course and it had pulled upwards to make sure Wendy could breathe so it clearly wasn't interested in killing her. At least not yet. When she'd lost it, she'd doubled back to tell the Exceed and they were proceeding along the path that the creature had taken, but the cats had all worn themselves out to the point of exhaustion so Mavis had eventually forced them to come and get some rest, floating on top of a buoy not far from the shore of another island.
Lily was not in the best shape. He was a tough little thing but the burn on his back was obviously paining him a great deal. He'd allowed Mavis to rub salt water onto his back last night to help with the healing, which was the best Mavis could do for him. But the burn did look better today and Lily was a tough little soldier. He kept pushing on, refusing to slow the search for Wendy down because of him.
"What do you think that creature was that took her away, First Master?" Lily grunted as he bobbed along in the wind. "Did you get a good look at it?"
"Unfortunately, no," Mavis replied, shaking her head. "All I saw was that it had a fish-like body and greyish skin and scales. I know what I might have assumed it to be if we were still in our own world. But we are no longer in our own world. Who knows what creatures lie in wait in the waters of this world that we don't have in our own."
"That is true," Lily nodded. "In the world I come from, there are no real dragons, whereas in the world you come from there were no Exceed until Edolas sent one-hundred over through the Anima. Perhaps this world has both Exceed and dragons. Perhaps the Exceed are as dumb and wild here as those dragons were too. We simply cannot say."
"Exactly," Mavis replied as she floated along after Charla and Happy. "But I think I know what it could have been. But even if I am right… what would they like in this dimension?"
Wendy groaned slightly and coughed, water spraying from her mouth slightly as she screwed her eyes up and rolled onto her back. She didn't have the faintest idea where she was but when she opened her eyes it was dark. In fact, the only light source seemed to coming from a pool of water next to her, which was glowing slightly in a strange ethereal way.
She waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom and discovered she was in a small cave of some kind, low rocky ceiling above her and several ledges and boulders dotted all over the place. There was no sign of an exit but Wendy could smell a very faint breeze that implied it opened somewhere, but wherever that somewhere was it was probably only a very small opening.
But how had she got here? The last thing she could remember was falling off a cliff after the attack from the two black dragons. She was still very wet so she definitely hit the water below but… what had happened in between? Where were her friends? Were they alright? She didn't have a clue what had happened to them - for all she knew they could have all been eaten by the dragons!
"Charla?" she called out into the darkness, nervously. "Charla, are you there? Happy? Lily? First Master, Mavis? Is anyone here at all?"
The only thing that answered were her echoes.
Until the water next to her suddenly bubbled and rippled slightly. Wendy started and drew back away from it, watching with wide eyes as… something came out.
It looked humanoid but it had distinctly none-human qualities such as its sallow, pale-grey skin, bright yellow eyes and wild green hair that hung around its head like a large clump of seaweed. She couldn't see it that well in the darkness but she could swear that its jagged teeth were also very yellow. And, although she really had no idea, it looked a bit like a young boy. If it were a human she would have said he was roughly her age.
The grey-skinned boy cocked his head sideways, curiously staring at her.
"Um… er… hello?" Wendy tried nervously. "Did you… did you bring me here? Was it you that saved me?"
The boy didn't reply and continued staring, so much so that Wendy started to feel extremely unnerved by it.
"Do you… can you… understand what I'm saying?" Wendy tried.
The boy opened his mouth and Wendy immediately clapped her hands over her ears as a high-pitched, piercing scream came out. Wendy's screech of pain instantly mingled with his own, scrambling away from him and hunching her head to bury her face against her knees as if this would somehow help.
The boy looked rather unhappy at this reaction and stopped screaming. Wendy slowly raised her head to look at him again but as soon as she did, he started again. She pressed her hands harder over the sides of her head, but watched the boy curiously. It was almost like he was trying to communicate but it wasn't happening right.
Eventually the boy appeared to give up and dived back down into the water, a large fish-like tail splashing the surface as he went. Wendy blinked at that. Had that been a part of him?
That was… a merman? Or a merboy? Whatever you called a young merman…
If it was it was unlike any merman that Wendy had ever seen pictures of. And it was certainly nothing like the only actual merperson she knew about and that was Lucy's Water Bearer Spirit, Aquarius. Although, having said that, Wendy had never actually met Aquarius before. Lucy never liked calling her outside of battle situations because Aquarius usually got angry whenever she summoned her at all. And Wendy had never actually been there whenever Aquarius had been summoned before. But she'd seen pictures of her and knew well that she didn't look a thing like that. Aquarius was a beautiful woman, looking entirely human from the waist up.
That merboy… not so much.
But where had he gone?
Was he coming back?
And where was she?
Eventually, after about half an hour or so, the merboy returned, rising out of the water once more and pointing wildly at Wendy with one finger. And this time, more were with him. Two adults, both of them female, or so Wendy assumed from the pebble necklaces and the cloths around their waists they wore, rose up with the boy to stare at her as well. But they were no more human looking than the merboy, and they certainly wouldn't have won any beauty contests. Their eyes were bulging and their faces seemed shrunken, giving them fish-like qualities even on their upper half.
"Um… hello…" Wendy murmured, hugging her knees and staring at them. "Please, can someone tell me where I am?"
One of the mermaids let out a similar high-pitched scream to the boy with Wendy reacted strongly to once again. The mermaid in question grimaced and, when she regained Wendy's attention, she began to beckon to her, bidding her to come closer to the water's edge.
"Um… why do I need to…" Wendy questioned. "You're not going to scream again, are you?"
The mermaid shook her head as all three of them backed away from the edge. Wendy brightened, finally knowing that at least they could understand her, and crawled slowly towards the edge. She'd already spent the half an hour the boy had been away trying to find an exit and failed so she had nothing to lose really.
But as she drew closer to the edge, the mermaids and merboy sank back beneath the water. Wendy blinked, waiting for them to come back up, but after half a minute or so one of the mermaid's grey hands rose up and waved her downwards, trying to indicate for her to come into the water.
Wendy faltered slightly, hesitant to enter an environment where she couldn't breath with a bunch of strangers. But, thinking quickly, she summoned some of her Sky Magic to manipulate the surrounding air and use it to form some kind of air pocket around her face. As she slowly leaned over the side to poke her head into the water, her head and hair were promptly soaked, but her face including her mouth nose and eyes remained dry, though she had to concentrate hard to maintain the air bubble in this environment.
It turned out there were several more merpeople down there. Mermaids and mermen, adults and children alike, all of them staring at her with interest. And finally the reason for the glowing water was explained - the place was dotted with dozens of bioluminescent fish that were flitting about like underwater fireflies.
The mermaid who had beckoned her was at the fore and this time when she opened her mouth, words came out.
"That is in an interesting trick you have there," she said, her voice slightly hissy and raspy but still quite coherent. "And I hear that you have many more unique tricks at your disposal, human girl."
"Um…" Wendy murmured. "Why do I have to be like this when we talk?"
"Because we merpeople cannot speak above the surface of the water. The air distorts our vocal chords and only allows us to scream in our own tongue rather than form the words of yours."
"Oh…" Wendy murmured, deciding not to mention Aquarius being fine with this just in case it hit a sore spot. "Well… can you tell me why I am here? I'm grateful to be alive but… where am I? And who are you?"
"I am Murcus, the Chieftainess of the merpeople of the Great Lake. And you are in a cave deep underground. This young merboy is responsible for bringing you here after you fell off a cliff, according to him."
"Oh, well… thank you for rescuing me…" Wendy smiled at the boy, who looked somehow sheepish.
"He did not rescue you," Murcus shook her head. "Not really. If that had been his intention, he would have simply dropped you off at the beach next to where you fell. Instead, he has dragged you many dozens of miles to reach this place."
"Dozens of miles?" Wendy gasped. "But… why would you do that?"
"He did it because he is an adventurous boy who doesn't follow the rules," Murcus glowered at the boy, who cringed and hid slightly behind another mermaid, possibly his mother, who also looked annoyed at him. "It is against the rules of our colony for children his age to head out of the lake and go to the sea without supervision. Sea-going merpeople are not as peaceable as we are and if they had found him wandering through their domain they would surely have attacked. But he wanted to go on a little adventure, and when he was on it, he saw something he thought was interesting - a young girl with the ability to fire a tornado out of her mouth fighting against a dragon. So, what does he do? He brings the girl back with him so that he can show her off to his family and friends, like a funny shaped rock or a colourful shell. Conveniently forgetting the fact he would be in trouble as soon as he got back."
"Oh…" Wendy murmured, looking perplexed. "Does that make me… a souvenir? Are you going to keep me here?"
"No, you do not belong down here," Murcus shook her head, her long heir floating erratically like a kelp frond. "We have nothing you would need to survive down here, so we will take you back to surface world shortly. However… the boy's tales have peaked our interest. Can you really fire a tornado out of your mouth?"
"Well… something like that…" Wendy giggled.
"Could you show us?"
"Not in here - there isn't enough room," Wendy shook her head, before she noticed something - one of the mermen had something that resembled a large bitemark on his arm, recently made by something Wendy didn't dare guess at. "But maybe I can show you something else. Can you come here?"
The merman looked to Murcus questioningly, who nodded and he flicked his tail and moved over until he was next to Wendy. Wendy instructed him to hold his arm out and raised her hands over his bite-wound, her palms emitting a greenish glow as she focused her magic into them. The merpeople watched in stunned amazement as every trace of the bitemark swiftly vanished, leaving not a mark in sight, as if it had never existed.
"Well, I'll be," the merman rolled and inspected his arm. "Maybe I should keep you around until I finish training that pet Grindylow of mine."
"It seems you are indeed something new," Murcus hissed in appreciation. "I have never seen anything of the the like before, though admittedly my contact with the surface world is limited."
Wendy smiled but said, "Now can you take me back to my friends?"
"Unfortunately… no…" Murcus shook her head.
"Huh? Why not? You said you'd let me go."
"And we will. But we cannot return you to your friends because this numbskull," she reached out to bop the boy on the head with the staff of her crude trident. "Can't remember exactly where he was when he found you. We have no idea where to go to return you to your friends."
"What?" Wendy cried. "But that's… that's just…"
"Keep calm…" Murcus sniffed. "We will not just take you up to the surface and leave you to wander around. We will take you somewhere that is safe. You can begin trying to find your friends again from there and you may even have a good deal of help in doing it from other humans."
Wendy brightened. So there were other humans in this world after all? Well, that was a relief at least. It was hardly the solution that she was after but that seemed to be her best option right now, so she merely nodded her head. "Okay," she said. "Sounds like a plan. Thank you so much."
"We apologise for the extreme inconvenience this must be," Murcus replied.
"It's fine, it's fine. Maybe if he hadn't brought me here, I might have drowned. I don't know what happened after I was knocked out… I just hope all my friends are okay."
"Come…" Murcus extended a greyish hand out to her. "You will need to hold your breath for it is a long way back to the surface from here. Frankly I am surprised you survived the trip here through the underground tunnel."
"Well… I have very good lungs…" Wendy chuckled, reaching out and taking Murcus' hand. One by one, the merpeople turned and swooshed back down into the darkness.
Wendy lifted her head back out of the water and took a deep breath before she plunged all the way in, Murcus whisking her down the tunnel like it was some kind of chute. Wendy's Sky Dragon Slayer lungs meant that she was capable of holding her breath for a good five minutes if she wanted, but the water was incredibly cold and she didn't want to be in it for any longer that necessary, so she stretched her hand forwards and silently cast a Vernier spell on all the merpeople present.
There were yelps of shock as suddenly they all blasted forwards much faster than they'd ever gone before and when Murcus looked down at Wendy, the young girl could only give her a thumbs up.
Murcus chuckled. "I wonder what Albus Dumbledore is going to make of you."