Twenty - Jellal Fernandes

Jellal was on the floor again and wondered if it was even worth getting back to his feet. It was hard to tell if his ribs were just bruised, or if Natsu had actually broken one of them. Either way, he was in a considerable amount of pain, and it had been less than five minutes. He didn't bother fighting back; he deserved what he got. Natsu moved toward him and he braced himself for more injury, but was saved by the opening of the door.

"Natsu, stop!" a familiar, beautiful voice commanded.

"Erza?" Jellal groaned.

"Don't talk to her!" Natsu growled, kicking him in the side and causing him to wince in pain. At least one rib was definitely broken.

"I said stop," Erza reprimanded, stomping over and pulling Natsu away. Gray glared down at Jellal, but she snapped at him too. "Get away from him, Gray," she said. "You two are going to leave him alone."

"Like hell!" Gray protested.

"You're supposed to be fencing," Natsu grumbled.

"Erza," Jellal said again, but she was too busy scolding her friends. Why is she here? he wondered. Why did she stop them? At gym class it made sense. Fighting is at least sort of against the rules. But this is karate club. They won't get in trouble for this.

"You don't understand anything that's going on," Erza said.

"We understand that he did something to make you cry," Gray countered.

Jellal wished he had been kicked again instead of being reminded of that. He didn't want Erza to cry at all, much less because of him and his complete idiocy. He sat up carefully and looked up at the redhead, who was glaring at Natsu and Gray rather than at him. Jellal waited for her to turn her anger on him. He was the one who deserved it.

"I don't care," Erza said. Jellal was confused. Had he missed something? "What happened in the past will stay there."

"Erza-"

"Quiet, Jellal," she said. He shut his mouth and waited. She didn't even look over at him. She still stared down Natsu and Gray. "You're going to leave him alone."

"I will not!" Natsu exclaimed.

"He knows he did wrong," Gray said. "Otherwise, he'd have fought back."

Erza's eyes flashed with anger. Gray faltered slightly, but Natsu remained stubborn. Jellal wasn't sure exactly how the following fight started, but the three of them practically destroyed the room in the process. Jellal didn't dare interfere; Lucy, however, heard the commotion and ran in to try and pull Natsu and Gray apart. How they had ended up fighting each other was unclear.

"What the fuck is going on in here?!"

Everyone looked over to see a very irritated Laxus standing in the doorway. Jellal didn't know him well, but he knew he was Headmaster Makarov's grandson and that something was going on with him and Mirajane. The four Fairy Tail kids stopped and looked around the room. It was a disaster. Natsu spoke first.

"You wanna fight too, Laxus?" he exclaimed, as everyone else groaned in exasperation.

"You're all suspended," Laxus growled.

"What?!" Lucy cried.

"In fact, you're going to chaperone the middle school field trip tomorrow as your punishment," he added.

"Why that?" Gray asked indignantly.

"Because I don't want to do it," Laxus shrugged. He glanced over at Jellal, who was still sitting on the floor, bruised and bleeding. "You... just take the day off. I dunno what's going on with you lately, Myst, but you obviously need time to sort yourself out."

"Uhh, right," Jellal said.

Laxus turned back to the rest of them. "Now, get the fuck out."

He spun on his heel and walked out, leaving everyone slightly stunned. Erza recovered first. She walked over to Jellal and held out her hand to him. He stared up at her in surprise as she gave him a small smile. Hesitantly, he accepted her hand and she helped him get to his feet.

"We'll talk later," she assured him. "You should go home and clean up. I need to help put this room back together."

"Erza..." he said, trying to think of what to say.

"We'll talk later," she repeated.

Jellal nodded slowly and left the room, confused, but happy that Erza seemed to loathe him less. He tried not to bleed all over the floor when he got home. It would be good that he didn't have school the next day. He was about as injured as many of the Fairy Tail kids had been. He would have to think of somewhere quiet to spend the day.