Fairytale of Doom

By CrimsonStarbird

Chapter Nine – Beyond this Provincial Town

Embarking upon their rescue mission gave rise to mixed feelings in Levy.

On one hand, setting off to save Lucy from the dragon who had kidnapped her meant leaving the bounds of Beauty and the Beast. Even though this wasn't technically her story, the familiarity still brought her a measure of comfort. Speaking to Maurice, humming along with Lumière as he directed the dancing dishes into the washing up bowl, tucking the enchanted silver mirror into her belt – these things helped her feel safe in a world that was clearly not her own.

On the other hand, it was difficult to fear entering the unknown when she was travelling with someone who was so incredibly organized.

She'd never seen anything like it before. She'd been all for rushing straight into the wilderness before her nerve failed her, but Jellal had led them back to the dining room instead. They didn't know where they would next be able to get food from, he'd said, and it would only weaken them later if they didn't eat while they could.

Then, while she was dazedly picking at the remains of the feast, Jellal – with the help of a highly approving Mrs Potts – wrapped up a parcel of cold food to take with them, as well as collecting clothes, tools, and coins for their journey. These he packed with such neat efficiency that it was as if the small bag was swallowing twice its volume in supplies. He'd even found a map.

It felt so strange to Levy to be planning out their route in advance, using landmarks they had glimpsed Lucy's kidnapper flying over in the mirror. This was the complete opposite of the Fairy Tail way. Even she was guilty of jumping in without looking, just as she had done when she'd first found herself in this world, and she'd blindly sent Belle off to fight the Huns through her ignorance and lack of preparation. At some point, the guild's recklessness had infiltrated her own common sense, tearing it down from the inside.

"Sorry," he said, with a slightly abashed smile. "Old habits. I've spent seven years without a place to call home; I can't trust this world any more than I can my own."

"It's nothing to apologize for," Levy assured him. "I'd just forgotten that sensible people exist, that's all. Mind if I take notes?"

And his smile had become a little freer, and he'd seemed more comfortable after that.

If they'd understood the maps correctly, the dragon had taken Lucy to the castle at the heart of the kingdom adjacent to their own. The Guardian Kingdom, the maps labelled it. Although the name didn't ring any bells with Levy, she assumed it was how Sleeping Beauty's kingdom was known in this fictitious world, since the evil dragon had to have been Maleficent.

Still, Levy couldn't shake her concern. Maleficent had never done anything like this in the fairytale she knew. She had a feeling that she and Jellal weren't the only ones who were stepping beyond the boundaries of their story.

Maurice had offered to take them to the border between kingdoms in his cart. Philippe, his draft horse, plodded unwaveringly along under his guidance, while Levy and Jellal sat in the back, listening to the inventor's tales of his crazy contraptions.

The border itself was no more than a sign in the road, informing them that they were now entering the Guardian Kingdom. Levy had half-expected to see soldiers blocking their way, but a chuckling Maurice informed her that there had been nothing of the sort since the formation of the alliance between the Five Kingdoms. Her ears had pricked up at that. It wasn't exactly concrete evidence, but Five Kingdoms indicated five fairytales – so assuming a male and female protagonist of each, it meant ten of her friends were trapped here.

That wasn't good odds for those left behind in Fiore. The fact that she was heading away from her story when she had previously theorized that the way home lay at the end of it left guilt twinging in her stomach.

Still, she told herself firmly, there was no point speculating about possible futures when Lucy needed them here and now.

They bade farewell to Maurice, and watched as his cart rattled cheerfully back the way they had come. Well, she watched him. Jellal, she noticed, was staring up past Maurice's shrinking cart to where a thin line connected the earth and the clouds, perfectly straight and yet somehow grotesque. From this distance, all signs of the Beast's Castle were invisible. That silhouette was all the Tower of Heaven.

"Jellal?" she ventured.

He tore his gaze away from it at once, though he offered no explanation, and she did not dare to ask what had been going through his mind. "Shall we go?" he invited, before she could.

Levy nodded, and they set off together.

A minute passed, and then a few minutes more, walking side by side in a silence that seemed to thicken around her feet with every step. Maurice had been bubbly and enthusiastic, bursting into any lull in the conversation before it could become awkward. Now, the full weight of being on a quest with an almost-stranger was hitting her.

She had to say something, but what? When it came down to it, she knew next to nothing about this man. And what she did know – second-hand accounts of the Tower of Heaven incident from Erza's team; endless arrest warrants for Crime Sorcière when she was working for the Rune Knights – wouldn't exactly make for happy topics of conversation.

She cast an anxious glance at him out of the corner of her eye, seeing him fixed resolutely on the road ahead. He was taller than Gajeel, she thought, though not as tall as Pantherlily in his humanoid form. He didn't look as imposing as either of them, neither rough like the Dragon Slayer nor wild like the actually-highly-polite Exceed… and not at all like the Beast of the story.

What did she have in common with a man like this? Erza, she supposed, but she wasn't about to bring that up out of the blue when what little she knew of their relationship convinced her that it was a highly private affair. But what other option did she have?

Well, that wasn't quite fair. It was possible that they had loads in common, and she just didn't know about it. Alright, so he probably wasn't eagerly awaiting the next book in the Phoenix Love Rising series, but there had to be something…

"You don't have to entertain me, you know."

Never mind that he'd spoken so quietly; she still jumped, and it was a good job indeed that they had yet to encounter any enemies on their travels, as she had clearly not been paying attention at all.

He continued, "I spend a lot of time travelling in the company of my guild. There are quite a few of us now, but for a long while it was only Meredy and myself for days on end. There is no need to feel awkward; I am quite used to travelling in silence."

Levy could feel her cheeks reddening. "Yeah, well, I'm not," she muttered.

Jet and Droy had been her best friends since childhood; conversation flowed as effortlessly between them as teamwork during battle. When she had started taking more jobs with Gajeel and Lily instead, they kept up entertaining banter, something she'd been drawn into even further during their time as Rune Knights. And that was not to mention the joviality that accompanied her guild even into war…

"Ah," said he. "My apologies."

Now even more uncomfortable, Levy was wondering why she hadn't just kept her stupid mouth shut when he continued, as calmly as anything, "If we are both in separate fairytales, do you think Lucy has been cast into a third?"

Levy could have glowered at him. To think that he had a topic of conversation all ready to go, and yet he'd left her struggling to fill the silence… well, no, that wasn't really why she was annoyed. It was envy, she supposed, that here was a man who explicitly preferred the silence, yet could still lead a conversation so easily, when she hadn't even known where to start.

Dammit. She needed to stop overthinking things, and just talk like a normal person.

Then again, was it really overthinking, when he genuinely did seem to notice every little detail?

Aware that he was waiting for an answer, she forced her thoughts back to the present. "Yes, I do. My first guess for her would have been Cinderella. Lucy didn't have a great childhood, you see. She was never a slave, but she wasn't loved, not after her mother died…"

"But?" Jellal prompted when she tailed off, sounding not just polite, but genuinely interested to hear her thoughts.

"Well, the similarities are quite superficial, aren't they? If our roles were determined by something so trivial, I would definitely have been Belle. I mean, the one thing everyone knows about Belle – everyone who is familiar with her story, that is," she added, with an apologetic nod towards him, "is that she's a bookworm. No one in Fairy Tail fits that description more than me, especially not Erza. There must be more to it than that."

A sigh escaped her, a lament that things couldn't have been simpler. "Either that, or it's completely random."

"It won't be random," Jellal asserted. "Not magic like this. It is too powerful, too deep, to not have meaning. We simply need to find it."

"You've already found yours, haven't you?" she observed suddenly. For some reason, it wasn't surprising at all that this man understood himself well enough to have unlocked his own destiny already. "You know why you were cast as the Beast."

To her surprise, he did not answer straight away. "There is one thing that has been bothering me about the Beauty and the Beast story you told me," he said, and she nodded, intrigued. "At the very start of the story, the prince turned the enchantress away because he was repulsed by her haggard appearance. He was selfish and shallow and did not understand that true beauty was found within. The only way for him to break the curse that was placed upon him was to learn to love another, and earn their love in return."

"It's a fairly standard clause for fairytale curses. Nothing is more powerful than True Love."

"But Belle was very beautiful, was she not?"

"Clue's in the name," Levy grinned.

"So despite the enchantress's lecture, the prince still ends up falling in love with a conventionally beautiful woman. The one who has to look past external appearances isn't the Beast at all, but Belle. It seems to me that the main moral of the story was never the Beast's to learn."

"…Huh. I'd never thought about it that way." She didn't even notice she had slowed her pace as she considered it further, as if the real world had become as difficult to navigate as the integral part of her childhood he had so casually upended. "I suppose that Belle's ability to love him despite how he looks proves to him that it is what's on the inside that matters, enabling him to believe it himself?"

"Perhaps, but is it not true that the Beast wants to break the curse in order to return to his own beautiful human form? Being a beast isn't harming his health or ability nearly as much as his vanity. And only once the curse is broken are he and Belle able to be together properly."

"I think the only is there for the convenience of narrative structure rather than a definitive element of the story's moral," she dissented, but it was a weak argument and she knew it. Structure mattered as much as content; the way in which the words were presented mattered as much as the words themselves. "And the Beast wasn't the only one who was punished by the curse; breaking it was also done for the sake of the servants whose cursed forms were far less convenient than his. The Beast clearly cared for them by the end, even if he had taken them for granted before his curse. But yes, fundamentally, I cannot disagree with your interpretation off the top of my head, as uncomfortable as it makes me."

Jellal nodded slowly. "Then, to answer your question, I know exactly why I was cast as the Beast."

The bitterness in his voice caught her by surprise, from a man who always seemed to be in control. She glanced at him so suddenly that she almost tripped, but though he could not have failed to notice, he did not meet her gaze, nor did he offer an explanation.

Boldly, Levy asked, "Is it related to why you were in no hurry to meet up with Erza when we saw her in the mirror?"

Now he looked directly at her. In the gathering gloom, his eyes glimmered like the golden scythes of sunset, both slicing through the shadows and simultaneously lengthening them.

Yet his voice was entirely calm as he said, "Erza can look after herself, and she appears to be doing well in this world. Lucy is in far more danger."

"Sure, but we didn't know Lucy was in danger at that point," she pressed. "You had already decided you were happy to not see her."

There was a pause. Levy's heart was racing, and she didn't know why until he spoke again, and every neutral word was a dagger: "I will tell you, if you tell me why you were so keen to stay away from Gajeel."

Levy stopped in her tracks. How did he know about her and Gajeel? Dark mage hunter, escaped criminal, someone she had spoken to maybe once before in passing – how the hell did he know who she was in a relationship with? Know and be confident enough about it to weaponize it against her?

This was why the Magic Council were so afraid of him, she realized. This was why they'd been willing to execute an amnesiac who did not even remember his own name, let alone the crimes for which he had been charged. This was why they continued to persecute him seven years on from his prison break – seven years of capturing villains and saving innocents and protecting the society that should have been their responsibility.

It wasn't because they feared his magic. There were powerful mages out there on both sides, and Jellal's guild, being so outspoken in their struggle against the underworld, drew the ire of the dark mages like a lightning-rod. He was more useful to the Council alive and independent than dead.

It was because of this. The way he knew things he had no right to know about people he had no reason to think he'd ever meet. Collecting secrets like weapons on the infinitesimal chance that he'd need them. Too mature to care about gossip like who was going out with who, yet who knew all too well the power it had over others.

Though they were almost strangers, he knew exactly how to get to her. How to wrongfoot her with a single sentence. How to deflect her prying comment away and force her onto the defensive.

She was no match for Gajeel in single combat, but she could run rings around him in conversation. This man, though…

But rather than backing down, as he clearly wanted her to, she met his gaze with a winning smile. "Okay, sure. I'll talk about me and Gajeel."

She set off down the trail again, and after a moment, he fell into step at her side. This time, she was setting the pace.

"So," she began cheerfully, as if she wasn't sharpening her knives, ready to slice up and display her heart to the world. "You may have heard that Gajeel and I got together after the guild broke up. It was… organic. Natural. Right. He asked me if I knew what I wanted to do once the guild disbanded; I said that I was open to ideas; he came out with this outrageous plan of joining the Rune Knights that I just had to see… and the next thing I know, we're renting an apartment together in Era. There was no dramatic confession or great revelation in the middle of battle, or anything like that. It would have made for a very disappointing fairytale, I'm sure, but it felt as much like a dream as reality ever will."

Levy cast him a sideways glance, wondering if she'd managed to bore him yet, but his expression remained mildly curious. They were really doing this, then; neither willing to back down.

"Then the guild got back together, and the next thing I knew, we were at war. Gajeel and I went north with a group of our friends. We fought against a creature called Bloodman, a demon of the Spriggan Twelve. Gajeel wanted me to stay clear, but in my determination to help, I did something very stupid and became infected by the demon's curse. Killing it was the only thing that could save me.

"And Gajeel did it," she added fiercely. "He defeated that villain and turned the tide of the battle in the north. He avenged Sabertooth and Blue Pegasus; a victory which rallied our friends and proved that the Spriggan Twelve weren't as invulnerable as they proclaimed. But it wasn't without cost. In the demon's death throes, it seized Gajeel, and dragged him through a portal to hell…"

Even though she knew it was over, that he had survived, that the nightmare which her life had been for a few screaming minutes was over now, she couldn't stop the tremor in her voice.

"He used the last few moments of his life to tell me how I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He'd always been a man who lived for the moment, but in me, he'd found a future. All the things he'd written off as someone else's dream were suddenly, unexpectedly, within his grasp. Marriage, children, love… once he'd sneered at such things, and derided those who sought them as weak, and now he found that it was all he wanted. He gave me all his reasons to live as the demon dragged him to his death. It was the most beautiful, the most horrendous thing I could ever imagine… but he survived," she said, a tremulous smile upon her lips. "He was the one who inspired us to get back up after Universe One scattered us. And even though we've been flung into this fairytale world, he's here with the rest of us. The future he longed for is still very much alive."

This time, not even Jellal could conceal his confusion. He'd been expecting a tale of tragedy, lovers broken beneath the harsh blows of war, or perhaps simply some juicy gossip that had caused a rift the fighting had not yet given them a chance to mend. "So… if that's all good news, why are you reluctant to see him?"

"Because it's awkward!" she exclaimed.

"…I'm sorry?"

"Gajeel does not talk about his feelings," Levy told him vehemently. "At all. He would never have said any of that if he hadn't been about to die. Thought it, yes; I've known he felt that way for a very long time. Living with Gajeel, you've got to get used to picking up on the things he struggles to say out loud. But he wouldn't have said it if he'd had any inkling that he might survive. It's not him – it's not us."

Sighing, she dragged the words out like she would haul her feet reluctantly through deep snow. "So the fact that he did survive makes it awkward. Wonderful, but awkward. I don't know what it means for us now – and I can guarantee that he doesn't either. The only thing that would make that worse is if, say, our first face to face meeting after that dramatic confession happened to take place in a fairytale world where everyone is going on about True Love. It's best if I just give him some space, and then next time we meet, it'll probably be in the middle of some epic final battle and we can focus on that and everything will go back to normal."

Enjoying Jellal's perplexed silence a little too much, Levy slid her hands into her pockets and looked up at him daringly. "So, that's why I'm not too keen to rush to the side of my significant other. Your turn."

She hadn't been expecting him to respond at once, and indeed he didn't. Their feet fell out of sync upon the darkening trail, crunching the dust of summertime beneath their boots.

At last, he spoke. "I do not think you are being honest with me."

"Excuse me?" Levy demanded. With the noble, maligned way in which he presented himself, she'd never have pegged him for a sore loser. "I just confessed to you in good faith something I would struggle to tell my closest friends, and you have the nerve to tell me I am lying?"

To her dismay, the accusation had about as much effect as a Solid Script attack on an ex-Wizard Saint. "Then," said he, "perhaps you are not being honest with yourself, either."

Levy stopped. "And what," she said, her voice a hiss, "is that supposed to mean?"

She'd known he wouldn't answer that, but the expected silence did nothing to lessen her outrage. "My feelings have nothing to do with you. If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it. I don't care what issues you and Erza have – it gives you no right to tar my relationship with the same brush!"

After a moment, he dropped his gaze. "You are quite right," he conceded quietly. "That was out of line, and I apologize."

Levy gave a sigh. The firecracker of a temper hidden deep within her chest fizzled and went out. "It's alright. I provoked you first. How you feel about Erza isn't any more my business than my relationship with Gajeel is yours." A grimace touched her lips. "My worry is that this fairytale thing is going to make it everyone's business, whether we like it or not."

"I fear you may be right," Jellal replied, just as gravely. Then he gave a rueful smile, and it fit so well upon his face, weathered by years of hardship and yet still able to find a reluctant happiness in the world. "It almost makes you wish the whole thing could be rescuing princesses from dragons, doesn't it?"

"I can't argue with that," Levy laughed, and they set off again, together. Somehow, despite their near-argument, and the questions left unanswered, things seemed lighter.

Travelling with this man she hardly knew – though that description was becoming less true every minute – was still awkward, but it wasn't risky. There was no need to be on eggshells around him. Not around someone who could admit when he was wrong, just as she could.

So many in her guild had tempers that sparked easily and burned for days, so young and free with the blood of the wild in their veins. It made a nice change, being on an adventure with someone who actually acted like a grown-up.

"Would you be so kind as to tell me some more fairytales while we travel?" Jellal inquired, a peace offering.

"I'd love to," Levy smiled.

The new recruits had potential, Erza decided.

Sure, some of them were clearly more used to handling hoes and livestock than weapons and warhorses, and sure, some of them hadn't known one end of a sword from the other until she'd whacked them across the buttocks with the flat side of one, but the most important thing was, her soldiers were keen.

In fact, ever since her impromptu speech in front of the trainees, they had been hanging onto her every word. Chi-Fu, the emperor's administrator, was the most dedicated of the lot. Despite his initial opposition to having a woman in the army, he was now tripping over himself – and the hem of his robe, as he was more often watching her than where he was going – to help her. He and his clipboard would come down hard on any recruit caught questioning her orders.

Which wasn't many of them, to be fair. They'd all realized pretty quickly that she was the only one who knew anything about proper warfare. Listening to her was their best chance of survival – both for themselves, and for this fantasy kingdom which was under threat.

It wasn't Erza's fault that Gajeel, who was supposed to be leading the army, had gone and punched a superior officer. As a result, he had been carted off to the asylum for apparently losing his mind and failing to recognize his own father, while General Li himself could hardly train the new recruits from his hospital bed. The fact that Gajeel was in this whole Mulan story was fairly strong evidence that she, Erza, wasn't supposed to be, but she could hardly leave the recruits with no one to train them. Besides, they all thought she was Mulan now. She had a duty to see this through.

Thus she was leading her men through a quarterstaff training drill when there was a commotion at the edge of the camp.

"Make way! Make way!"

A young man was gesturing grandly as he walked through the ranks of synchronized men. It was a testament to the skill of Erza's trainees that none of them struck his wildly waving hands with their weapons. Instead, they fell back, a ripple of disturbance spreading through the regimented manoeuvres as fists were lowered and staffs withdrawn.

Clicking her tongue, Erza cast her own staff aside and turned to face the intruder – but Chi-Fu got there first, brandishing his clipboard threateningly. "Who do you think you are, interrupting the most enlightening teachings of General Mulan?"

The young man wasn't exactly tall, but he was taller than Chi-Fu. It likely didn't happen very often for him; he seemed quite enthusiastic to be towering over the emperor's administrator, even as he ignored the half-trained soldiers towering over him in return. "I am Guibert, aide to General Li. And at the General's request, may I present the hero of the Guardian Kingdom: the legendary Prince Phillip!"

He stepped aside with a flourish, revealing a rather bamboozled-looking Laxus.

Erza blinked. "Laxus?"

Before he could speak, Guibert jumped angrily back between them. "What? How dare you not recognize the great, the magnificent, the manly Prince Phillip?"

The corner of Chi-Fu's clipboard flashed to the knave's throat. "And how dare you speak to General Mulan in that way?"

"General?" Guibert retorted. "The only general round here is General Li!"

"General Li suffered an unfortunate accident during training and is currently recuperating in hospital," Chi-Fu sniffed. "His son, Li Shang, has had a mental breakdown and has been sent to an institution to aid in his recovery. In his absence, the great General Mulan has stepped forward to lead us."

"No, no, no." From his belt, the squire drew a scroll and waved it around with an enthusiasm that would have taken someone's eye out, had it been a weapon. "General Li suspected that his son didn't want to succeed to his position. That's why he sent me specifically to the Guardian Kingdom to request the aid of the peerless strategist and glorious leader Prince Phillip to take command of the army!"

"Well, we already have a glorious leader in General Mulan, so your pretty-boy Phillip can turn right around and go back home."

"Ha!" Guibert scoffed. "Prince Phillip could defeat your so-called general with one hand behind his back!"

"Oh, you think so? General Mulan would only need her little finger to pound your fancy-pants prince into the dust!"

As the argument became more heated, Erza and Laxus glanced at each other. "So, uh…" he started. "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

"A little. Who are you?"

Laxus gave her a strange look. "I'm… Laxus."

"No, no, who are you in this world?"

"This Phillip guy, I suppose. Guibert here seems to be quite a big fan, and even he didn't notice I'm not who he thinks I am."

"But which story are you from?" Erza persisted. "Mulan? Beauty and the Beast? Or something else entirely?"

"Aren't those fairytales?" Laxus frowned.

"Oh, you're familiar with them?"

"Not really." He affected a shrug. "Gramps used to play them in the guildhall sometimes. But that was years ago. They're for kids, aren't they?"

"Apparently, they're for us too," Erza informed him gravely. "Levy worked out that we are trapped inside different fairytales, and that our most likely chance of returning home lies at the end of our stories. She determined that Mulan was mine and Beauty and the Beast was hers, although in retrospect, we may have got that the wrong way round. Which one are you?"

"How should I know? I don't care about children's stories. I've never even heard of a Prince Phillip; I thought they were all called Charming."

"Well, how did you get here?"

"I woke up in a fake version of the guildhall, was attacked by a dragon, and barely managed to escape alive."

"You didn't stand and fight?" Erza inquired, surprised.

"With what?" he snorted. "A carving knife and a sword that's stuck in its sheath? There's no magic here! After I escaped, I ran into Guibert who said I was needed to help fight off some kind of invasion."

"There's no need to concern yourself with that," Erza assured him. "I have the Hun problem under control."

Something flickered in Laxus's eyes as he glanced around the circle of men staring unabashed at the two of them, but when he spoke again, his voice was as flat as before. "Yes, I can see that."

"Well, maybe you're also part of Mulan," she suggested. "We should stick together. It may make it easier for us to reach the story's end."

Unfortunately, by this point, the increasing volume from the two attendants at loggerheads was making it impossible to hold a normal conversation.

"There's only room for one general here!" Guibert bellowed.

"My thoughts exactly!" It looked like smoke might start pouring out of Chi-Fu's crimson ears at any moment. "And we've already got one, so yours is not needed!"

"Prove it! If your untested, inferior nobody can defeat Prince Phillip in a fight, I will concede that you can have her as your general, because it'll make all your enemies die of shock!"

"Fine! And when General Mulan wipes the floor with your prince, it'll be your kingdom she conquers next!"

Both of them rounded upon the bemused pair of Fairy Tail mages.

"Kick his ass, General Mulan!"

"Put that upstart in her place, Prince Phillip!"

Erza and Laxus looked at each other again.

"You know," Laxus remarked, "if any of those old films had gone like this, I'd probably have enjoyed them a lot more."

"We do appear to have gone a little off-script. However," Erza continued, severely, drawing her sword to the sound of cheers from the crowd. "The men are expecting a show, and it is important for whoever is going to take on the role of their leader to demonstrate the necessary authority and competence in order to win their respect. While I would much rather turn my blade upon the Alvarez army, I believe that an honest competition of strength would be the best way to boost the morale of these troops ahead of our battle against the Huns. What do you say?"

She saw Laxus's hand go automatically to his own sword's hilt, though unless her eyes were deceiving her, it did not move even an inch under his grip. He released it roughly, the scabbard bashing clumsily against his knee, and Erza realized her rudeness.

"Ah, forgive me," she told him, returning her own sword to its sheath. "It would be unfair of us to do battle with blades, when it suits my natural fighting style in a world without magic far better than yours. Let us make this battle fair, and use only our fists."

This time, it wasn't just a flash of emotion in his eyes. It seemed to twist his whole face – and time around it, hurtling Erza back to that day when she'd faced him within Kardia Cathedral, the Battle of Fairy Tail in full swing outside. Back before he'd grown up. Back when he'd been a man ruled by dangerous passions, too much anger and too little self-control.

And then it was gone again. Once again, his expression was blank, like it had been on Tenrou, and after their return to the guild, and throughout the long days since.

"No need for that," he said. "It looks like you're doing a good job with the army, and I don't see much point in changing that now. I don't want to be in charge anyway."

Guibert's mouth hung open. His bottom jaw flopped uselessly as he tried to form a reply: "B-b-but…"

"Ha!" Chi-Fu crowed. "Take that! Even your mighty prince knows his place!"

Ignoring him, Erza inclined her head towards Laxus. "I graciously accept. I will do everything within my power to defeat the Huns, and I would be glad to have you as my second-in-command, if you are willing to help."

"Yeah. Sure. Not like I have anything else to do in this world."

"Excellent." Erza clapped her hands together, and then rounded on the nearest goggle-eyed soldiers. "What are you staring at? Back to your drills! How do you expect to defeat the Huns if you lack focus?"

"Yes, General!" they saluted, turning immediately back to their quarterstaff routines – and if they continued to sneak awed glances over their shoulders, she pretended not to notice. Respect was as important as discipline in a unit whose survival could depend on obeying her orders, and thanks to Laxus's arrival and subsequent concession, the soldiers held her in even higher regard.

It was very mature of him to put aside his pride for the greater good like that. She really would have to thank him for it later – out of earshot of her men, of course.

For the time being, though, she had another member of Fairy Tail by her side, a second-in-command that she could trust with her life, and her soldiers were coming on in leaps and bounds. Things in this fairytale world were really starting to look up.

A/N: Okay, I'll admit, I'm having way too much fun writing Levy and Jellal overanalyzing everything. They're awkward and I love them. And in contrast, Erza and Laxus absolutely aren't on the same page at all... Not much else to say this week, just a lot of setup really, but thanks for reading! ~CS