Chapter 68:
The air was as hot as molten lead and Gajeel's lungs felt scorched with purple fire. Hellebore's veins glowed stark against frigidly white skin with iridescent melted amethysts that crawled up his throat, pulsing not unlike a heartbeat but to a rhythm all its own, up the sides of his face to irradiate the violet in his eyes. His visage shuddered and trembled in heat that only precedes the shock of an explosion, violent and deadly. Like a child that had just smote an ant beneath his magnifying glass, he looked proud in a way that was smug and wicked. He took a step forward with the same elegance as a snaking candle flame, a wide sneer wrinkling his nose and making his eyes narrow.
"I told you I would call, did I not?" he hummed as Oria and Fross moved to his sides, intent clear on their faces.
Gajeel didn't respond. He could feel Ezal curling against his shadow, believing he could go unnoticed if only he managed to stay in the Iron Dragon's protective cover. He watched patiently as Oria entered the cell, studied how the massive man's broad shoulders blocked the exit. He was an ox with surly arms and stocky legs, broad and barrel chested. He tilted his head back at Gajeel's gaze, a frown soiling his large face as he crossed his arms. There was no way to escape.
"Gajeel, was it?" Zahir prompted but Gajeel wasn't giving him the grace of his full attention. He was studying the way Oria shifted his weight from one leg to another, favoring his right.
"Kurogane," he corrected, licking the cobwebs off his old title with each syllable that slithered from his mouth, foreign and familiar. He slid his tongue against the dagger tips of his sharper teeth as something in his chest stirred, something with venom, "You boys look like ye've been up ta no good."
Zahir shivered with what could have only been pleasure and his waves of heat swathed the room anew. Lavender sparks danced from his figure and appeared in the air as if burning the fragments of dust that lingered too close.
"Oh, of course not," he tutted innocently, his head lilting to one side, "Just preparing for a change of scenery… new management, you could say."
"New management…" Gajeel growled, his gaze resting at Oria's throat, on the collar that was still there. His eyes drifted to Fross who was holding himself like a man who thought he'd seen a real fight before but never truly had. He had his fists clenched and his feet spread wide, but his dominant shoulder was forward. If he aimed a hit at Gajeel, he'd be taken off balance, "What did ya have in mind?"
"Something a little more anarchic," he pulled a long, violet string of hair from his shoulder and twirled it around his finger, "You seem like the type of man who'd enjoy that."
Gajeel allowed his attention to drift to Zahir, taking care to look down on him in the gentlest way possible. He was relaxed with spine curved and hips twisted. He looked like a nymph with hands poised to present some intoxicating destruction. He was… attractive. His body moved with a fluidity and allure Gajeel rarely saw in a man. He wasn't rough muscle like Oria and Fross. He was decadent, seductive, and the horns that curled from his makeshift crown gave him the look of some enticing demon. There waited the touch of mania in his eyes with each thrumming pulse if magic through his veins.
Dangerous thoughts…A vehement feeling hissed in his insides. His flesh skittered.
"Well, I hate ta disappoint but I ain't really interested," Gajeel said calmly and something flickered in Zahir's eyes but it was gone before he could tell what it was.
"Excuse me?" the corners of his mouth curled wickedly.
Gajeel squared his shoulders and his lip pulled into a nasty snarl as he bared his teeth, "Did I stutter?"
Zahir scoffed, paused as if he were waiting for the punchline of some good joke, and then laughed. He laughed in a way that wasn't right. It sounded sick, as if a common wolf had just opened its mouth and attempted human speech. It was cacophonous and mocking and made Gajeel think of harpies or crows, bouncing off hard walls and ghosting through his body, banishing the warmth that had settled in his bloodstream just moments earlier. He narrowed his eyes at him, shooting quick looks at Oria and Fross who both waited at the man's sides, stock, stone, and still as sentinels. Fross grinned in eager anticipation.
Zahir stepped forward, as blasé as a viper approaching an easy meal. Gajeel swayed with him, kept his body firmly between him and Ezal. He could smell fear undulating off of the teen in waves, and as flames began to dance up Zahir's knuckle bones it nearly turned to panic. Gajeel lashed his tongue against the backs of his teeth. He took a step forward, dropping his ready stance for something more vocal, more absolute, possessive. There was challenge in the daggers that Gajeel bore into Zahir's eyes.
Dragons desire a hoard. They will defend it.
"My dear man, you're hilarious," smoke wafted from Zahir's mouth as he spoke. He eyed Gajeel's stance purposefully, raking those sparkling irises up and down his body in a way that was far more savorous than it should have been, "There's no need to be so defensive. You're among friends."
He refused to reply, to even grunt in response. He was boring an unbridled glare into Zahir, putting weight behind it, and Zahir didn't seem to care.
"What have these Rune Knights done for you? Hm? Aren't you tired,Kurogane, of being forced into a cage? Of being demeaned? Treated like some common animal?"
Gajeel could have told him this was nothing. He'd been treated like an animal before and even the poor treatment from the guards couldn't hold a candle to what that was like. The mere fragments of memory had his blood turning fetid in his veins. He stayed the thought before acid began seeping into his bloodstream. He needed a clear head.
His body was working against him.
"The Rune Knights do their job, just like I did. I ain't huntin' 'em down…" he glanced at Oria and how the man hadn't moved, how there was little chance he could get past him, "…but I'll stay outta yer way."
Again, that sickeningly sweet laughter broke the tense, blistering air. As the noise babbled away, though, the look of glee slowly slipped from Zahir's features. A mild understanding was there for a moment before it was replaced with mock confusion. Gajeel wanted to roll his eyes. In his current state, he was in no mood for theatrics.
"Oh, you're serious?" Zahir's voice twisted, becoming something far more sinister than before, his fluid movements snappish, "Oh… oh, my dear boy, it simply doesn't work that way."
Gajeel narrowed his eyes at him and he happily elaborated.
"You see, you are not only a valuable mage but you have quite the amount of valuable friends…"
"The Phantoms and Wolves don't work under me," Gajeel retorted and Zahir scoffed.
"Don't they?" he raised a brow at Ezal and Gajeel's body surged. He clenched his fists, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Zahir's eyes widened and his look was keen, "Touchy."
Gajeel ground his teeth.
"You willjoin my side, Kurogane, or you will die. Those are your only options," his sweet smile rose to his face again as the purple flames licked up his arms, "Might we try again?"
Oria took a step forward. Gajeel growled.
"Ezal!" he snapped and felt the kid jump behind him, "Stand up."
"Oh please, you're not going to try to fight your way out of this, are you?" Zahir simpered.
"Find Kellen."
"What? But… but I-"
"What did I say about takin' orders, kid?" he snarled as the flames made their way up Zahir's throat. The man frowned, "Find Kellen. Stick with him. Don't come back fer me."
"But…"
"Stand up, Ezal," he hissed, eyes trained on three targets in front of him, on breathing and coiling muscles and fire. Focus, focus, "Ya don't get a second chance."
"You absolute fool," teeth were exposed, yellow and ugly, like a man with a boar's mouth. The snake had bared its fangs and Gajeel's muscles were trained, snapped with energy even if it wasn't magical.
He let out a slow breath and everything in the room was still.
Lightning struck in the tiny cell as Oria moved, lightning in the form of a man with an iron club and red-oxidized eyes. Oria stopped the blow but he'd led with that right foot, that damned dominant step, and Gajeel's booted foot slammed into his shin with enough force for there to be a crack. The bull reared and Gajeel rammed his side with his shoulder, doubling his efforts for the man's enormity. It was like moving a brick wall, but the foundation had crumbled and gave him a chance. Oria was desperately grappling at jailing bars, knowing to fall would mean demise, when Fross had swung. Gajeel felt the movement in the air and dodged back with the swiftness of a cobra that had missed his strike, not quite fumbling as he sank fingers into whatever of Ezal he could hold and quite literally throwing the kid out into the cellblock. Ezal – eyes wide with horror as tree-trunk arms wrapped around Gajeel's torso and lifted him into the air, constricting out air and threatening to break ribs – gaped with open mouth as if to scream but no sound ever came. Heat was melting everything. The walls looked soft to the touch and the ceiling sagged, or maybe that was from the lack of oxygen rushing to Gajeel's head.
"Kellen!" Gajeel ordered, throwing his everything into arching his back and bashing the back of his skull into Oria's nose. Again. Again.And the grip loosed enough that he slipped free and faced Zahir. His hand was out, poised, commanding destruction to surge from his fingertips. Gajeel knew he wouldn't survive that touch. Fire was dripping from palms like water and in a split second Gajeel saw a dark blur in his peripheral. He reached blindly, grabbed an arm and pulled. All it took was a touch, a touch, just a touch, and the resounding explosion shook the entire prison.
Gajeel couldn't stop the scream as he was thrown, back slamming into his cell and then crashing into the bed that had been bolted to the ground. Devoid of what had been holding it up, it crumpled beneath his weight and force. His ears were ringing and the room was whirling around him at a dizzying pace. For a moment, he felt as if he were still careening through the air. Through the haze he could hear the tight swoosh, swoosh, swoosh of his pulse like some maddened ocean current. Something bumped against him as he struggled to get his arms out from under him, to lift himself, to move. His lungs were devoid of air, shriveled like plums that had been left to the searing heat of the sun.
He gasped, wretched, felt sharp pain in his stomach and kidneys from hitting unrelenting steel. Seared into his eyelids was the visage of Fross, body filling with purple light and bubbling, boiling, and bursting like a star. Oh gods, there were pieces and bits of him everywhere, scattered like shattered glass and burning away to powder. The smell of blood and burnt meat branded the insides of his nose. Hajime had killed a man like that once. A well-aimed shot of red lightning had cooked a man from the inside out and left him, mouth open and screaming from heat that turned bone to ash in half-seconds, milliseconds, eye-blinks. But where he had a body left over, Zahir left nothing. There was just ash and pieces that quickly turned to ash. Nothing. There was nothing left.
And suddenly the true threat sank fangs into the back of Gajeel's neck. Zahir had bested the system, not because of his strange internally burning core, but because he was powerful, terrifyingly so. Stronger than him, stronger than Natsu, stronger even than Hajime. He was Laxus levels of strong, the kind that shouldn't be able to be contained by human form and yet somehow was. And fuck, what was he supposed to do with that sort of knowledge besides curl up and die? Because his lungs were burning and his body ached and he was powerlessbut Zahir was far from done. The prison was a crematorium and Zahir was the flame, stoking and stoking until they'd all be turned to piles of dust and bone. There was no way he'd make it out alive. Not like this. Not without magic.
For a moment, he couldn't find the strength to move his screaming body. His forehead pressed to his knuckles. He could tastepain.
"Fross! Fross, you stupididiot!" Zahir spluttered, glaring at the blackened floor where the man had stood just seconds before, "In my way! You were always in my way!"
He felt something, a vibration against his arm and, shaking, he lifted his head enough to glance at it. The lacrima was there, pressing humbly into his skin, alive and working. Vaguely, he realized he hadn't turned it off before, only hidden Laxus's image. He was still on the other end somewhere, watching. Gajeel heard faintly his voice, just like he'd heard it when he'd fallen in front of Unaven. It was a whisper that was almost a prayer.
"Get up."
He'd had blood in his mouth then, too, had thought there was no way to win, not against that kind of power. But he'd done it. He'd beaten Unaven. He'd survived. He'd found a way, then.
He could find a way again.
He tried to move and it hurt. He was so weak without magic, reduced to nothing more than a man…
"Gajeel! Get up!"
He gritted his teeth, circled his fingers around the mangled mess of mattress and metal beneath him, a bone-tight grip. He could move. If life had taught him anything it was that he could move, and if he could move, he could fight. He forced his hands to the bedframe and pushed. He was heavy, so, soheavy. A knee beneath him and then a foot. He sucked in a muddled breath and bared his teeth to the strength it took to simply stand. Knees were forced to lock and his back straightened. He swayed on faint feet before they held strong beneath him and he threw back his head. Violet eyes snapped up, accusation and rage overtaking him. Zahir's veins pulsed, glowing vibrantly as if his skin couldn't hold him.
"You."
"Me?" Gajeel jeered, the tang of copper drip-splattering a lazy crime of swollen scarlet beads at his feet, "How hard is it to kill the right guy, Hellebore?"
Zahir's eyes widened and the fire climbed up to consume his long, violet locks. His crown was stark and black against him, two mangled, metal horns curling and somehow sustaining against his insane heat. Those yellow teeth flashed again but this time not in a grin, but in outrage. He brought his hand forward and seethed, "Enough of this!"
Gajeel lunged, knocking Zahir's hand up in time for the shot to go wide. The mere heat of the man's flesh seared Gajeel's palm and he hissed as he dodged around him, narrowly avoiding a swipe aimed for his side. He was horrified of those hands that could destroy completely with just the slightest touch, had honed completely in to the man who danced and moved for him like a flame devouring gasoline. So focused was he on Zahir that he'd forgotten Oria. A hand clamped onto Gajeel's fleeing form, dug nails into his forearm and lurched him back into the wall. His brain rattled in his head and stars exploded across his eyes when he hit. Hands seized his throat before he had time to recover and he was dragged up the rough stone, a scream ended before it could fight its way free.
He gasped, taking in what he could before the inevitable close as Oria's massive hands constricted. He struggled, trying to pivot his shoulders to get free only for Oria to wrench him from the wall and slam him again. His brain scattered and his fingers fought for purchase in skin, dug trenches until again Oria threw him. His breath left him, chased from his lungs with sheer force and murderous eyes that dug into his throat. He clutched at Oria's hands weakly, baring his teeth as he tried to choke through. His feet couldn't touch the ground and Oria's arms were longer, his head tossed back lazily to use his height to his advantage. Gajeel couldn't reach for anything vulnerable, his arms too short as he swiped feebly for Oria's eyes, neck, chest, anything. Black began to edge into his vision, creeping slow and languid across his eyes. His mind was swimming… swimming…
Gajeel, staring blearily as he strained against the hands that throttled him, slowly began to feel his body throb. His heartbeat, tired from fighting and running, drained of fear and drive and adrenaline, thrummed idly in his ribcage. He felt weary. He felt somber. He felt powerless.
It's strange what the mind reflects on when the inevitability of a situation begins to truly take root and bloom. The thought sifted its way through the mush of his brain as smoke had done once through his sinuses when he'd tried his first cigarette, and again he was gasping and wheezing and losing precious air:
This was how he was going to die.
He wasn't afraid to die. He hadn't been afraid to die since Hajime had taken him under his wing. It had been the first lesson he'd been made to learn of the human world when he was a young mutt prowling the streets, his only aid in the world being the eyes of a devil. He remembered a man of a different time, before silver had begun choking out ebony locks like the weeds that fought through sidewalk cracks, before scarred flesh had been set across strikingly blue eyes, before time and the shaping of what was to come could age and wear him. He remembered that first lesson Hajime had driven into him with the practice-sure strikes of his hammer: Never show weakness. In the face of demise, the surety of death, or the shock of your first kill; nevershow weakness, or fear, or emotion. Because Gajeel was a mercenary, and mercenaries were cold. Mercenaries were ruthless. Mercenaries did the job no one had the guts to do. It wasn't a stiff upper lip, it was a heart of cold steel that kept him going. Lips could quiver, lips could loose and weaken, betray and lie and be enticed, but steel would never yield.
His hands weren't moving like he wanted. They were bumbling and dense, refusing to obey. His chest ached and sharp pain was scattering his brain, scrambling it like eggs to a hot pan. He'd be seared black as charcoal soon. A choked hiss, a desperate noise, collapsed from his paling mouth onto massive wrists.
Hajime hadn't taught him self-defense because Metalicana had been there to guide him first. It had been his dad who'd shown him how to fight, had shown him what it meant to be a Dragon Slayer, to be born with war in your veins and magic in your soul. Metalicana had taught him how to live. Hajime… Hajime had taught him that there would be those who'd try and steal that life from him. And when that time came, he taught him to do everything he had to in order to make it home. He'd said it more than once and Gajeel had never questioned him – not out loud – not until the day Hajime said he wasn't coming home and never would be again.
He remembered feeling angry and treacherously abandoned. He remembered thinking that once again the man he'd learned to think of as father had turned his back on him. He'd turned Hajime's words against him, screamed at him the mantra he'd repeated to Gajeel on days when he didn't think he could do the job anymore, on days when he'd been beaten and nearly killed, on days when he'd turned knives against himself. You promised we'd always make it home.
"Even if ye come back home broken, in pieces…" blood, there had been blood. There had been two men standing in the dark rain of night as red lighting danced around them and iron made his mouth taste like the overbearingly hot pressure beneath the earth's crust. There had been tears that he'd pretended was rain. There was Hajime standing before him, brandishing his hammer as if he'd actually use it, eyes desperate as he begged silently for Gajeel to understand even though iron fists were bared in hurt, "Even if ye come back a different man then ye left. Ye do what it takes… yeah, lad? Ye always make it home. Ye'll have someone waitin' fer ye, one day. It'll be someone ye care for… more than money, more than the job, more than yer life, lad… She's mah home now, lad, I 'ave ta go back ta her. I made me promise."
At what cost?
Hajime had made it back home but not without staring into the mouth of the abyss, blinded forever in one eye, spared only because the iron in Gajeel's chest hurt too much to allow him to finish the job. Gajeel had known before what it was to be callous, to be obstinate, to be absolute, but never had he known the color black as he did after that. In the end, Hajime had taught him the meaning of Black Steel and Gajeel had accepted the title with crimson hands and with screams.
It was harder and harder to continue his struggle against Oria, against gravity, against his dying body. His lungs were screaming, his mind fuzzy, fuzzier. Fingers lost their grip and reached blindly to substance, desperate for something to hang on to. His vision was so filled with black and red he could no longer tell if they were even open. His feet were still, too heavy to move, to kick, to attempt freedom.
Gajeel wasn't afraid to die. He'd turned his back to that feeling a long, long time ago; back when he'd told his old master he wouldn't kill the man who'd raised him, back when his old master would take out his disappointment with fury and the breath of ghouls and the reminder that life could end and no one would care about it, would notice an absence like his, in fact, they might even rejoice from it. But it had been ages since then, and Time in all her expected impassivity had taken him to a new place, had shown him something that wasn't unfeeling and immovable and dark. Just like Hajime, he'd found a new home.
He'd found a home in auriferous eyes that snapped with rage and magic that could rend skies to slivers and crash hellishly on mountainsides like the end of the world itself. He'd found a home in yellow ochre hair and a beautiful scar and deific presence. He'd found home in chivalry, in a man who'd stand unflinchingly in his shadow to rescue, to draw him back from the edge he'd become so familiar, to intervene, exist, and remind him that there was a Gajeel that survived outside of Phantom Lord, outside of Kurogane, outside of cold, black steel. He'd found a home in a man who showed him that he hadn't survived all his life just to be consumed by his past, but he could charge into his future, whatever that may hold, and then proved he had interest in staying at his side through it all. He'd found home in love, raw and passionate and uncontrollable and oh-so-Fairy-Tail love.
It must have been the work of his delirious, oxygen-deprived mind that brought forth the image of Laxus, eyes like the imperial bands in rutile quartz, shimmering with lightning he could barely contain and air that buzzed as he pressed into Gajeel words he'd never been asked before, had never even asked himself before, as if they mattered, as if he mattered,"I'm asking you… Is this what you want?"
It doesn't matter what I want, Laxus.
"It does. You always have a choice."
He always had a choice.
Was this what he was choosing? To give up? To die? But he died fighting, didn't he? He could say that at least… right? What really was to be expected of him when he was like this? Weak. Pathetic. Just a man. Without his magic, he was powerless… he was nothing…
Nothing… he was nothing…
…Well…
Except…
He did have magic… didn't he?
There was fever in his veins, a primal magic that worked even when the rest of his body didn't. There was Heat in him. There was Rage. There was dwelling in his core the innate drive to thrive, to fight, to survive.To go home. The rattlesnake in his gut still waited, tongue slipping through simpering lips as it coiled, ready for the command to strike. It stared him down in the same way he stared at himself in the mirror, with devil eyes and knife-tip teeth, and the knowledge of what it took to kill. Just as the charmer knows when he dares the cobra from its slumber, Gajeel knew all he had to do was reach out his hand. He could still feel the rattle, the telltale warning that in just an instant it could all be over. He could be bitten. He could have venom.
He always had a choice. And should he choose to live, then there truly remained only one more question: what was he willing to do to make it home?
He felt ice surge through his neck.
He gritted his teeth. His heart pounded once, savagely.
Who in the hell was he?
He snapped his hand up and gripped Oria's knuckles, digging his fingers through the vice around his throat
What a pathetic piece of shit. Had he really planned on giving up so easily?
His other hand rocketed forward, dug nails into the flesh of Oria's arm. Dug nails… dug talons.
He was iron wasn't he? He was unyielding. He was impenetrable. He wouldn't be broken by a man's bare hands! Not when he had so much to lose!
He got a grip on one of Oria's fingers and wrenched it backwards, hearing the distinctive snap.
Who was he?
He forced an eye open and gazed up lazily, making out Oria's stunned figure, the gnashed teeth, the full body hovering close to him, full of disbelief and mounting dread.
He was Gajeel fuckingRedfox. He was the Iron Dragon Slayer of Fairy Tail. He was Kurogane. And he would make it out alive, just as he'd done all his life. He would make it home to the people he loved.
No matter the cost.
A laugh bubbled through his tight throat, pushed past fists that couldn't understand why their hold no longer crushed the man beneath him. He laughed and Oria's murderous intent slowly melted as Gajeel buried iron claws into human flesh. Gajeel had thrown his iron club at the beginning of the fight and it had clanged against the wall, forgotten. Now, Gajeel could feel the iron in close proximity, could smell it, damn near taste it. Oria was standing on it.
He pulled back his lips to grin.
"You stupid motherfucker."
An iron spike shot from the floor and Oria screamed, lurching backward as it stabbed through his foot and speared him into place. His body tilted back dangerously and he staggered, hands fumbling to grip it and tear it from the ground but Gajeel had been thorough. He'd staked it into the ground as well.
As soon as his feet hit the floor he gasped one delicious gulp of air but he didn't stagger. No, because Kurogane didn't stagger under the weight of his injuries. With slow deliberation, he tilted his head to the side and popped his neck, feeling a release like the soothing trickle of hot water shiver down his spine. Oria cursed at him and attempted to swing but Gajeel caught his fist, wrapped his fingers around his wrist and twisted. He twisted until he heard it snap and Oria was screaming again and he kept twisting until all Oria could do was clutch at him, all he could do was sob and shriek, until his wrist was nothing but a jumbled mess of fragmented bones stabbing into flesh.
He slipped back in so seamlessly. He'd been raised since he was a boy in the clutches of a massive dragon to live and to fight. He was a feral child who'd listened to the songs of ancient spirits in the middle of the night. He'd been a kid in the streets stealing food to live and then a teen mugging tourists for the hell of it. How was it his fault that as a man he was actually more an animal? That when cornered he surrendered whole-heartedly to what it meant to survive? Staring down at Oria, he was reminded of every other man he'd seen in this position. He saw men he'd executed, dozens of faces, some enraged and cursing his unfeeling countenance, others begging for mercy.
He licked the blood from his lips.
"All you fuckers," Gajeel snarled down at him, at eyes that were slowly growing wide with horror and tears that wrenched free because of the pain, "You all cry like little bitches in the end."
He didn't kill him, not with even the chance that Laxus could witness it, but he diddo the next best thing. He fisted a hand into dark brown locks and pulled him bodily backward, relishing the sound of Oria's voice tearing through the air in agony as the spike sliced his foot in half. He threw him against the wall and as the goliath tried to find something to keep him standing Gajeel's fist connected with his jaw hard enough to knock his skull into the cement. The man crumpled and with him the world fell back into silence.
Gajeel turned his attention to Zahir, the latter of which was standing in the middle of the cell motionless. A look of awe simmered his eyes under the guise of a wry smile.
"How exciting."
Gajeel clicked his teeth and lunged. He was a bullet straight from the muzzle of a shotgun, the first cacophonous shrill of a fiddle before a wild waltz. Silvery shrapnel narrowly missed white skin and violet veins. Each move aimed for Zahir was parried, each strike diverted. It shouldn't have been so hard for a blade to slice through flesh and yet Zahir seemed to dance with each trained hit, pinpoint accuracy damned by a chaîné. Gajeel was throwing himself into the fire again and again, growing red hot and flexible with each near-hit but never gaining the advantage. Zahir would glide and pirouette, always out of his grasp, always just a millisecond too fast in their ballet, their Danse Macabre, until Gajeel mixed up his rhythm. He took a step left instead of a step forward, feinted when he should have rocketed forward, and as Zahir responded with a jab of his own, Gajeel's right hand whizzed around and connected with the dancer's soft cheekbone.
Gajeel was breathless, holding his dominance by standing over him and commanding belligerence, power, and bloodlust into every shadow that twisted across his body. Zahir's hand was to his face, eyes wide and flames shocked still. Violet eyes dragged up to him slowly, looking up at him as a range of perverse emotions paraded across his face before finally settling into disbelief, outrage, and ultimately fury. Gajeel didn't get the chance to react before the blaze sent him skidding back on his heels, snarling at the flames that licked up his arms and chest. A ring of fire appeared around Zahir's hips before it shot outwards, wracking his entire body and searing away the water that had kept him safe thus far. Again, the pulse surged, this time with the force to make him stumble and fall down to his knees.
"Rude… that was…" a noise came from the wizard's throat that didn't make any sense, "That was rude."
Gajeel clicked his teeth as he pushed himself to his feet, suddenly standing in the blazing heat of a bonfire with Zahir so close to him, iris eyes dancing with incense and enthrallment. Zahir closed that short distance between them with fingers aimed for Gajeel's chest but he caught his wrist, gritting his teeth at the calidity. Ice leaked into his esophagus, was slipping down his veins, inching towards his chest. His collar was fighting his magic, trying to stop him, but he called forth iron scales anyway. The pain in his hand eased as they rose across his skin, covered his body and shielded him from the fire. Zahir's eyes widened and a smile played about his lips.
"Oh, you're full of surprises, aren't you?" Gajeel didn't like the way his voice dropped, how it turned thick in his throat before spilling out, "But metal can't withstand fire."
Gajeel narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth, "Try me."
His twisted smile widened, turned to near glee, and the room exploded with heat. He could hear Oria wheezing from where he'd fallen, his body fighting reflexively the torridity that could burn lungs like rice paper. Zahir coursed forward and Gajeel retreated. He splayed his fingers across his chest and Gajeel felt fever and fervor wrap themselves together in his body, each writhing and twisting around each other for dominance, Zahir's fire against Gajeel's will. It was so hot in the space Gajeel was sure Hell was jealous.
"Did you know, it takes a fire of over fifteen-hundred degrees to vaporize bone? And carbon steel melts at fifteen-forty?" Zahir hummed and the air hummed along with him. His eyes pulsed and the luminescence of his veins intensified, spilled into his irises as he stared deeply into Gajeel's. Smoke slithered from his mouth, his nose. He felt the fire in his chest strengthen, the cracks in his scales becoming incandescent as coal embers, "I wonder what it takes to melt you, hm?"
Gajeel growled, stepping forward and using each inch he had on Zahir to its full advantage, "If I can survive a lightning strike, I can survive whatever ye think ya can throw at me."
"Oh… oh my dear… you don't know much about chemistry, do you?" Zahir's eyes lightened and he chuckled sweetly as if Gajeel had just made some witty joke, "I don't need to be as hot as a lightning strike to wipe you off the face of the earth and there's but a simple reason for that."
"An' what's that?"
"Duration."
A flash and then Gajeel was crashing to the ground, his body shivering from the impact as once againhe had been thrown brutally into the wall of his cell. He hissed as he pushed himself onto his arms, winced as the collar corrected him with more voracity than before. He felt dizzy and cold. The ice had almost made it to his frantically beating heart. He heard a quiet whooshand looked up to see Zahir at the entrance of his cell, his hand consumed in purple flame that slipped down his arm, across his chest, gliding over him until his entire body was consumed. Gajeel could have sworn he saw a flaming tail twist down to settle lithely around his ankles.
"You may have survived a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun, Kurogane, but it was merely for the duration of the lightning strike, less than a microsecond," his purple flames flickered and dimmed, "Kurogane… come to think of it, doesn't that mean Black Steel?"
He looked at him and there was meaning behind it, a look of finality that was somehow equal parts decisive and prurient, "If only I knew the boiling point of steel…"
Gajeel pushed himself to his feet but it was too late. The fire raced down Zahir's body to the ground, searing a wall of fire between them and Gajeel had to stop in the wake of the heat. He stepped back as the violet inferno inched forward, snapping at his feet and making the rubber of his boots melt.
"Coward!" he growled and Zahir only grinned.
"If you do find a way to survive, darling, please come see me," he raked his eyes lazily up Gajeel's figure, unabashedly centered his gaze on his lips before flickering his gaze up to Gajeel's eyes, "I would soenjoyto talk more chemistry with you."
"Hellebore!" Gajeel roared as the flames surged higher, covering the exit and eating at him even faster. He could feel his lungs burning, covered his mouth with his hands. It was hot, so damningly hot. As the flames began licking up his legs and thighs he felt his metal skin soften, faltering under fire that could boil metal. He tried to get closer to the wall but it was even hotter, so hot he choked on it and stumbled back. He set his jaw, brought his arms forward and tried again. This time he lunged, determined to just leapthrough the fiery wall but as if in anticipation to his plan it lunged back at him, a roar erupting as the swell of heat blasted him and threw him into the ocean of fire.
He went under, rolled and fell on top of what was left of his mattress, now only the charcoal remains of burnt fabric and a steel frame that was turning red hot and melting rapidly. Dumbly, he went to put his hand on it and help himself up but he just sank with the mollified frame, landing harshly on his hands and knees.
The collar dug deeper into his throat. The ice was ferocious as it reached his heart, slinking cold fingers around his ribcage as he desperately tried to fight the oncoming fatigue. He gripped at his chest and couldn't find it in him to stop the desperate whine that clawed its way through his burning lungs and cracking esophagus. He squeezed his eyes shut and he would have been crying if it weren't for the heat of the flame evaporating tears before they'd even arrived. Rage tore its way through him and he tipped his head back, unable to quell it as it swelled and filled the space with around him with a scream that wracked his entire body. He threw his fists down to the floor with as much strength as he could muster and the ground cracked beneath him, brittle from fire and crumbling beneath his force.
He raged and screamed and raked talons into the ground and blinded himself to the feeling of his magic draining, of ice working its way down his arms and torso, of his heart fighting to keep beating. He'd never been a man to call upon gods for anything aside from a good curse, but in his impudence he turned his eyes up to the ceiling, searched upward as if the heavens might have the answers, as if they'd even grace him with them if they did. He bared his teeth up and cried as if someone were actually listening him, as if someone up there actually cared.
"Couldn't take me when I wanted ta die, could you?! When I was goin' ta fuckin' jump for ya, ya weren't ready?! Had ta wait 'til I…" he lost steam for just a moment before something nauseating surged back up through him, something bruised and sorrowful and desperate, "I finally decided I wanted to live! W'kind a' divinebullshit is that?! Eh?! Fuck you!"
He collapsed, pulled his claws from the dust and cracked concrete and sobbed pathetically. He gasped, gulping down a lungful of devastatingly blistering air, and then immediately wretched as his body tried to expel everything that was wrong, the anguish, the distress, the Heat, the antimagic, and the fire. He was dying, his body wasdying. He couldn't last much longer. He soon would wither and either he'd pass out from the poison in his veins or his scales would fade away and he'd burn to death. He gritted his teeth.
A popping sound garnered his attention, static that surged and then faded. He looked over and through the tint of lavender he was able to make out a sphere. The lacrima. Somehow, someway, it was still working. It was cracked from the heat and the noise was distorted, fading and growing as the magic in it was released haphazardly and without control. It pulsed faintly with words that at first Gajeel couldn't understand and then didn't know what to do with.
"Wa… main… The… ter… main…" Gajeel furrowed his brow at it. His hand was shaking irrepressibly as he lifted it and cradled it in his palm.
"What? I can't… I don't…"
"The… ter… Water…"
"IF I HAD ANY FUCKING WATER I'D-" the words died in his mouth, "Water… main… the water main?"
"…ss! Ye-eszzs!"
He turned his eyes to the sink that was now brilliant crimson and sagging towards the ground, melting. Water spurted and immediately evaporated from the spigot. Even though it was only across the room it felt miles away, but he had no choice but to drive himself for it. He snarled as he pushed himself to his feet, still holding the lacrima in his hand as he waded through the fire. Each step was woozier than the last as his strength began giving out. The sink was melting, sagging towards the ground and a brilliant red. He sank his hands into it and pulled, dragging it so it collapsed to the ground with long strings still attached to the wall. Water spilled from the pipe but it was quickly stopped as the metal melted shut.
"You're fucking kidding me!" his snarl turned into a whimper, "I can't…"
"…zzxtss… mai… . . . tr y. .. betw… . ... . … wall…"
"I don't understand!" he seethed, exasperated and in pain and so ready to give up. A shock of pain zipped down his arms and up his legs and he screamed and shuddered, suddenly falling to the ground. He fell to his knees and covered his face as his scales disappeared and fire, tortuous and hungry, began to sear his flesh, "No! NO!FUCKING COME ON, KUROGANE!"
His magic surged weakly, scales covering him once more and extinguishing the burning, but only for a short while. He found he didn't have the strength to move anymore, not after the pain of burning alive. He curled himself up and made his body small. If he were completely honest, he'd always hoped he'd go quickly. Fire was a terrible way to die… fire and drowning, probably, of course he would only know one for sure.
"Gazzsss… … . yy. …ag… ain. … . Ple…asze… . … ."
"N'just… a moment…" Gajeel whispered, his eyes screwed shut as he clutched the lacrima close to his heart, "I'm dyin', ya know, it hurts…"
"Ple… Gaj-… . .. For… . … I… ve… .. you…"
It took so much out of him to convince himself to move, but he did it. It wasn't glorious, it wasn't a surge of pent up strength and fever that he had repressed. The antimagic had taken the last of that away. The motion was tired, so, so tired, as he pushed himself up. He gripped the pipe and yanked on it, dumbly trying to get his hands around it and wrench it free, but he didn't have the strength any longer. His arms and legs were lethargic stone. He fell against the wall and the warm cement pressed against him, holding him up, keeping him steady. He buried his forehead against it and it was almost cool. He closed his eyes, telling himself that if he could just rest for a few minutes it would be fine, that he'd wake up again, that the fire wouldn't kill him.
Idly, he ran his hand down his face. Every inch of his skin was hot to the touch. His forehead, eyelids, cheek, neck. Even the collar was hot and soft beneath his fingers as he brushed over it, pressed fingertips to the soft of his throat that was already bruising from Oria's massive hands. He opened an eye and gazed over at where the body had been and wrinkled his nose because it was gone and he didn't know what that meant. He wrapped his fingers around the collar and let the weight of his arm hang from it because he was tired, and he just didn't-
His hand fell down and he nearly stumbled even as he leaned against the wall because he hadn't expected it. He'd wrapped his fingers around the collar, hadn't he? He'd been holding onto it? He stared at his hand, at the black band laying in his fingers. He furrowed his brow because he couldn't process what it was he was holding. His neck felt naked and relieved and he brought his other hand up to brush against it. He hesitated, then dragged his fingers over bare skin, over and over and the collar was off. He pulled two black pieces from his skin and marveled at them, the barbs that had brought him misery for so long, The fire, the heat, it had melted and warped it so and now it was hanging loosely in his hand, quickly turning to mush as the fire liquefied whatever damned materials it was made of.
He giggled because he was free for the first time in months and it was only because he was burning alive in hellfire. He dropped its remains to the floor and watched it boil, a strange thing to see even as the world raged around him. He looked up at the wreck of his cell, at the steel frame that was fighting to hold its shape, at what was left of the sink, at how the toilet was sagging and collapsing, and his thoughts went back to water. Maybe it was euphoria and delirium, but he was sure he could hear water in the walls. He glanced at the space he was in front of, at the wall that was holding him up, and realized that in order to get water to both the sink and the toilet, there needed to be a water main somewhere between them. He realized that the water would be more pressurized, it would be cold.
He stared down at his hand, shaking and tipped with iron claws. He glanced back to the cement walls, damaged from the hellish blaze and brittle from lack of moisture. He could have apologized to the thing, feeling some strange sort of attachment for the only thing in the damned prison that had offered him support in his time of need. He made his hand into a blade, tips of his fingers resting on the concrete, he drew his elbow back and plunged forward. It crumbled like sandstone beneath his weight and dust sprayed into the air. He was caked in white up to his elbow when he struck lead. He wrapped his fingers around it, the iron of his body so hot that he could feel the weaker metal bended beneath him, and he pulled. He pulled like his life depended on it, and when that didn't work, he pulled up his soulless boot and planted it against the wall and put his backinto it. He yanked once and felt the wall shiver. Twice and cracks shivered through the surface. On the third, the pipe wrenched in half and he fell on his back on the ground as water, pure and beautiful and coldwater erupted from the wall. It doused him and his entire bodyscreamedfrom frigid cold, from moldable and red-hot iron being forced to suddenly cool, and the flames raced away in full retreat from him. Steam filled the air, pushing the fire out from the cell and defending the man on the ground.
Gajeel… Gajeel breathed for the first time since Zahir had walked into his cell. Exhausted, he let his eyes fluttered closed.
It was eternities before the flames finally subsided enough to see through the wall of violet fire that had blocked off what had once been Kurogane's cell. Eternities, or rather, somewhere close to thirty minutes. A small crowd had formed, waiting with quiet apprehension for the Iron Dragon Slayer to emerge in some hellish fury that never came. Men filtered away, running to the corners of their cells and trying to find some resemblance to order or safety as Zahir gathered men to capture Rune Knights for a fate yet unknown. It was Kellen who stayed with Ezal by his side, waiting patiently even as the other men lost hope and left in search for other Wolves, other Phantom Risers, and for a leader that wouldn't falter when confronted with the Fire Demon Hellebore.
After somewhere close to thirty minutes, Kellen straightened from his slouch against the wall, eyes and ears trained for the flaming door. Ezal, not hopeful and still clinging to the wet blanket that had kept him safe from the heat, glanced up at the man he'd been told to stay beside until Gajeel's return. He opened his mouth to say they should go, no one could survive that heat for any length of time, let alone thirty minutes, but he saw something shimmering and putting out what remained of the fire.
Water.
There was a sound in the flickering, steam-filled cell, a sound like someone stepping in a puddle. Kellen was off from the wall, standing at attention and ready for whatever was about to walk out. And damn, did it walk out. Because Gajeel was standing there with arms banded in burning red and eyes blazing. His skin was tan and soot-covered, blisters forming on his forearms and deep purple bruises on his neck. There was something strange about him, something wild and savage in the way he moved. His eyes rested on the two men with a look that was cold and stern and silence spread between the three because Ezal and Kellen knew there was no way he should be alive, and yet he was.
"What's the plan?" Ezal broke the silence, looking pointedly to the circlet of light colored skin that had replaced Kurogane's collar.
"You got guys?"
"No," Ezal drawled out, crossing his arms, "But you do."
"Perfect."
Somewhere, miles away, lightning struck a mountainside.
Author's Notes:
Guys... I did... so much research.
Y'all ready for some fun facts?
Anytime you see blue in a fire it is hotter than white, the range is between 2,600 and 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,427-1,649 C) and its the most oxygen-rich type of flame.
Violet light can sometimes glow at around 71,000 degrees Fahrenheit (39,427 C). For reference, our sun buns at 8,500 degrees Fahrenheit (4,704 C). Effectively, this means Zahir's normal, every-day burning temperature is well above that of the surface of the sun :) (if you ask me if I chose violet for Zahir for this reason, the answer is no. I chose it because I based Zahir off of a questionable character my sibling has in one of their fics who is a purple fire elemental. This little bit was pure coincidence. OP might have chosen purple flames for that reason tho. I have no idea.)
Your average bolt of lightning strikes at around 53,540 degrees Fahrenheit (29,727 C). Which then begs the question: how in the hell does one survive that? And the answer is: Duration. (Apperently, Zahir is an anarchist with a PhD in Physics) What I read was that quote: "total energy transferred will be proportional to the difference in temperature of the 2 bodies involved, integrated over the duration of the event. In this case, the difference in temperature (between human body and the lightning) is enormous, but the duration is minimal. As such, there isn't enough total energy transfer to cause more than some skin burns. Its the same reason you can quickly move your hand through an open flame without being burned. If lightning had any kind of significant duration, it would incinerate everything it struck. (source: www reddit com /r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2essno/eli5_if_lightning_is_hotter_than_the_sun_then_how/)
How fast is a lightning strike? A quick Google search says: The return stroke (the current that causes the visible flash) moves upward at a speed of about 320,000,000 ft per second or about 220,000,000 miles per hour (about 1/3 the speed of light)
Common metal melting points - Common metal boiling points:
Aluminium: 1,220 F (660 C) - 4,478 F (2,470 C)
Copper: 1,983 F (1,084 C) - 4,633 F (2,562 C)
Gold: 1,945 F (1,063 C) - 4,892 F (2,700 C)
Iron: 2,100 F (1,149 C) - 5,184 F (2,862 C)
Lead: 621 F (327.5 C) - 3,180 F (1,749 C)
Steel (Stainless): 2,750 F (1,510 C) - 5,275 F (2,913 C)
Titanium: 3,040 F (1,670 C) - 5,928 F (3,287 C)
There's your quick Physics/Chemisty lesson for the week! If y'all wanna know my sources... I don't have any. It was all google and just sort of looking around until I found what I needed lol. If you guys want me to list my "fun facts" when I do big research projects in future chapters, let me know. I know there are a lot of other writers that might find themselves in need of random information like this, so I'm happy to share.
As always, thank you all so much for reading and for your lovely comments! They keep me chugging along :)
Have a wonderful week, beautiful beans!
-Your Exhausted StevMarie