"Gray my darling are you sure this is the right way?"
The truth was Gray was far from sure that they were going in the right way, they'd already gone round what felt like the entirety of this stupid palace, the dungeon proved hard to find - they'd gone down so many corridors looking for a door or passageway that might lead them down (the usual direction of dungeons they'd figured) but had come up short.
"Well we've tried every other which way, I'm just hoping for the best", he looked to Juvia and she could see the frustration clear on his face, they had one job to do and it was proving to be more difficult than they'd hoped. Thankfully at least they'd not run into many guards on their way, those they had Gray had quickly encased in ice or Juvia had taken care of with her water magic sending them far from the palace - they were both lucky that the environment was perfect for their magical attributes.
They reasoned their lack of guards was likely due to the ruckus of noise coming from elsewhere, with Natsu right in the middle of it if guesses were to be made.
"Oh thank the icicles", to their right was an archway which finally had a downwards path - there were no stairs just a slope of the floor (stairs being rather redundant underwater for those without legs).
"Juvia knew you could do it!"
"Thanks Juvia, now let's go. Sounds like Natsu has been making plenty of trouble out there, I say it's our turn now", he turned slightly to her with a smirk and mischief sparkling in those deep eyes of his. She could stare in those eyes all day but shook herself from her trance - Lucy needed their help, and love rival or not she'd become quite fond of her.
"Yes darling, let's go"
They swam downwards in the passageway with Gray leading the way, he paused and held his hand out to stop Juvia hearing voices up ahead.
"...please can I go?"
"No, you are on dungeon duty - I'm sure they are fine up there"
"But it sounds way more fun up there than it is down here. Sounds like there's fighting!"
"Hey, dungeon duty is very important"
"Tch, yeah sure cos these are all hardy criminals down here"
"Mind your tongue, if the King heard you he'd have you locked up in there with them"
"Yeah, yeah, you know as well as I do no one in here should be here. Which would mean WE wouldn't have to be here"
As the two bickered on Juvia swam up so she was next to Gray and could whisper in his ear, they exchanged some hushed whispers, with a decisive head nod Gray emerged first from their hiding spot. The two guards in front of him still bickering between themselves.
"Sorry to interrupt boys", the two guards snapped their heads round to look towards Gray.
They floundered for a moment just staring at him, Gray just waited for them to compose themselves, staring them down to unsettle them further. The guard on his left seemed to gather his wits first, "Who are you?"
From his voice Gray could tell it was the 'serious' one from the bickering before.
"Names Gray, I'm here to take all your prisoners" he smirked back at them infuriating both of them with his smug grin.
"Can't allow you to do that. Please leave now else we shall have to detain you and have you join these fiends."
"Fiends? Now that doesn't sound right, from what I just heard neither of you seem to think anyone in these cells should be here", now he was in the dungeon itself he could see some of the cells closest to him and they were packed. So many poor people looked to be trapped here and none looked like criminals to him.
"Whatever the case, we have our orders and so if you do not intend to leave..." he quirked an eyebrow at Gray prompting an eyeroll as he took up a fighting stance placing his fist down in his open palm, small sprinkles of ice forming and drifting silently to the floor beneath them. The guard sighed but took his sword out ready to fulfil his duty, his companion ripping his out too, a gleam in his eyes ready to finally see some action.
The brash loud one charged at him first, his novice ability clear to Gray - his sword moved in wild slashing motions, no true aim about it. He dodged the wild swipes able to see them coming clearly. The momentum from his swipes had the merguard swimming past him and, unfortunately for the guard right in front of the passageway opening where Juvia still was, her eyes glaring at him in fury.
"Big mistake buddy", Gray threw a smirk back over his shoulder with a slight chuckle, turning back to the other guard already knowing the one behind him was defeated (or would be momentarily).
"You dare to attack my precious Gray-sama!" Juvia didn't even need to pull on her magic, she twirled around and caught the merguard unexpectantly in the head with a strong roundhouse kick. He lost consciousness and drifted down to the floor, his sword slipping from his hand and landing with a clang.
"Good job Juvia, I'll take care of this guy." Despite his bravado their first guard had proved to be very little competition. This was far from Gray's first fight though and he knew not to assume anything in a battle. Just because the first guard had been easy didn't mean this one was, and by the way the other guard held himself he had certainly got more experience than the first.
Gray took his fighting stance again and waited for the guard to make the first move. He was not however as impulsive as his friend had been though, and instead held his ground waiting for Gray.
Tired of this stand off Gray decided to take the initiative and make the first move, "ice-make: swords", ice formed like swords off each of his arms and he kicked off from the ground towards the awaiting guard. The two parried as they twirled around, the inhabitants of the dungeon had taken interest in the newcomers and were cheering for the strange ice wielder much to the disdain of the guard.
The guard landed a solid hit against Gray and managed to push him some distance away - the hit itself had landed against one of his swords but had managed to cause splintering down it. Knowing the sword wouldn't last much longer under those hits he knew he had to end this fast - he had plenty of other magic at his disposal but with the ruckus upstairs he wanted to keep as much as he could not wanting to expend it all down here.
He looked to Juvia, she'd so far kept back but remained ready, and furious if the look in her eyes were anything to go on. He was impressed she hadn't stepped in already but he'd said he would handle this guard and she was supporting him through it, they'd had a lot of conversations about boundaries and believing in the other (usually in relation to 'love rivals') and it seemed Juvia was finally starting to truly respect those, he couldn't help but feel really proud of her. He couldn't help but chuckle to himself, here he was mid battle in a water dungeon and he was getting distracted by Juvia - he really was well and truly hooked and he couldn't be happier about it.
"Is something funny darling?" those blue orbs were on him, the fury laced with confusion at his sudden laughter.
The guard was a tad thrown off too, he'd taken the reprieve to regain some composure - though he'd managed to throw Gray away he'd received quite a few injuries himself from Gray's swords and sported a number of gashes across his body, the worst being across his abdomen - not deadly but the level of blood pouring from it wasn't good and he was starting to feel faint, the laughing of his opponent he found irratating at best. "Oi, stop your laughing!"
Gray chose to ignore the guard but replied instead to Juvia smiling sweetly at her, "it's nothing, but I could do with your help Juvia." She perked up instantly happy to be of help, "I could do with a spin please", she quickly picked up what he meant and nodded bringing her hands out in front of her aiming at him ready for him.
He took a deep breath and pushed off hard from the wall behind him, as he did Juvia pushed her hands out in his direction catching him in a water vortex and spinning him violently quickly towards the guard. Try as he might the guard couldn't keep up with the speed of the twin swords and was soon disarmed, Gray came to a spiralling stop and gave a solid right hook to him square on the jaw, he soon joined his sword on the floor much like his other companion had not long before.
Gray righted himself and turned to Juvia, "thanks Juvia, now let's free everyone." He was proud of her, she had taken out her guard without using magic at all and he was grateful for the help she'd given him with the second one. She was at his side clinging to him almost instantly swooning up at him.
"Those were some great moves, I'd be very grateful if you could kindly free me so I may assist my Princess", they looked to the cell to their right where the voice had come from to see a ginger haired man standing in a black suit with sunglasses on. He smiled at them but his expression was serious. He was in a cell of his own, unlike the rest of the prisoners who seemed to be lumped in together, his also held no lock in sight unlike the rest which looked to be a standard key mechanism.
"Calm your jets man, we're gonna free everyone, your King doesn't seem very just"
"Ha! That he is definitely not, and he's no King of mine. Name's Loke - nice to meet you, Gray and Juvia was it?"
"Yeah that's us," Gray extracted himself from Juvia's hold making his way to the cell motioning for her to go to the others to free them. She found the keys on the second guard they'd taken out and went about releasing the prisoners.
"Any ideas on how to get you out, doesn't seem to be a lock here?", Gray was searching the bars of Loke's cell for a way to free him.
"Magic lock - a spell of enough magical power should do the trick to release it. From what I've seen of you both I'd guess either of you would hold enough power to release it"
"And before I do that...why are you the only one in one of these special cells. What did you do to get in here?" Gray arched his eyebrow at him, crossing his arms. He'd gathered Lucy's dad threw a lot of people in here but he did have some caution about setting free someone under so much lock and guard.
"Because I'm a threat to Jude," seeing that didn't satisfy Gray enough to make him move Loke continued, "I was friend and guardian to the late Queen Layla, upon her death Jude turned cruel and took it out on Lucy, I tried to stop him and reason with him but had me locked up here and away from Lucy. I am her guard and I need to save her"
Gray eyed him up, weighing up the words of the strange man in front of him. Deciding his words to be trustworthy he uncrossed his arms instead planting one fist in the other palm "ice-make: wall", he thrust his hands out towards Loke's cell freezing the walls of the cell which after several seconds exploded in a flurry of tiny ice shards and freed Loke.
He bowed his head to Gray expressing his thanks and started heading for the door, not two steps in he vanished in an explosion of gold.
"Well, that was weird..." Gray stared dumbfounded at the space where the man had just been for a few seconds before Juvia gained his attention back.
"Juvia has freed everyone else, I think we should go join the others darling"
Shaking his head from the oddity of the events of the last few minutes Gray turned back around to see Juvia standing at the front of all the prisoners, they were free and looked elated about it several shouting out their thanks to them.
"You're right Juvia. Now then, we are stopping the wedding - any of you willing to help can come with us, or you can just escape. We won't make you fight if you don't want to"
The crowd murmured between them looking unsure on what to do. A boy in his young teens swam forward to the front of the group turning back to them, "I say we finally take our fight to the King! Princess Lucy is really nice and she should be able to do what she wants to do. And the King is mean!"
That seemed to turn them around and the crowd jeered to join in, the young merman turned back to look at Gray and Juvia a pleased smile in place, "thanks for letting us out. My name is Romeo"
"Thanks for the help kid, now lets go!"
With Gray and Juvia in the lead the escapees made their way back up the passageway and towards the noise into the fight.
A brief interlude from the Natsu/Lucy scene to some of our the others who are helping Lucy
Thank you to all who have favourited/followed this story :)
LayLay Lives: thankfully our good dragon swept in time to at least put pause to everything! And he's Natsu - as you say of course he'd find a way to make fire in the ocean!
FireShifter: Thank you for your review! :) A few interwoven chapters before we get back to our dynamic duo!