Mercury liked to spend his nights in one of two places.
First, the cliff just outside of Magnolia. He liked being able to overlook the marina from far enough away that he wouldn't hear the call of the ocean attempting to lure him in, but close enough that he could bask in its gentle energy.
These sorts of nights were the ones that made his eyes finally look like they belonged to someone as old as he claimed to be. There were memories swimming in them – good ones or bad ones, an observer wouldn't be able to tell, though there was an obvious untold sadness. A heavy one.
Mercury was far away on those nights. Almost unreachable. Even if you called out to him, he wouldn't give any sort of indication that he'd heard, instead remaining a distant eye contact with the ocean.
Sometimes, he sat with his legs hung over the cliff's edges, leaning back and listening to the wind carry upon it the feeling of the waters below; it had given people quite the scare before, because to someone unknowing, it looked like he was going to jump, body poised, yet relaxed as it prepared to take a fall that even someone as sturdy as him wouldn't come out unharmed from.
(Sometimes, he thought about it too – what would it be engulfed by those angry waves below? Would they tear him apart? Would they take him home?)
Nothing ever came of it, and Mercury knew it scared his guildmates to see him like that, so he tended to attempt to refrain from sitting there.
The second place that Mercury could be found, if not his house or the cliff, was the guild hall – it wasn't an uncommon spot for the older members to hang around well past dark, but he tended to enjoy it in a detached, cozy sort of way that really only made itself known when the hall itself was closing up. He joined in on the fun while it lasted, of course. The guild was most welcoming when they were inebriated, and even the relatively standoffish members like Mercury were dragged into the drinking soon enough, whether they wanted it or not.
Even though he'd never consumed alcohol, the atmosphere was intoxicating. Nothing at all like the home he'd come from. The way that the guild became one giant conglomeration of drunken laughter, slurred words, and the heavy feeling of cheap bear felt so unnatural to him, yet that was what drew Mercury in.
Parties were a nightly thing, often lasting until the early hours of the morning. Very rare was the occasion that the guild hall was relatively empty approaching midnight, and those were the nights that the water mage found himself staying the night for the sake of never leaving the building empty.
On those sorts of nights, the younger members left early, or weren't present at all, either out on jobs or having turned in early. It was those rowdy twenty-something year olds that kept the guild alight with their jubilant personalities, so their absence made everything much more dull and subdued. Mira would leave her barkeeping early, then the stragglers would follow soon after, either on their own or assisted by likewise inebriated fellows. The white-haired bartender would tell Mercury goodnight as though sensing that he was planning to stay the night, then lock up the remainder of the alcohol and leave for her own house.
The emptiness made the building feel a lot less welcoming than when it was full, but Mercury enjoyed it in its own sense.
He found solace in having a building to call "home." His own house always seemed to lack this feeling, instead being a resting space rather than somewhere he would be able to relax, so the empty Fairy Tail guild hall was a place to rest his mind. Even when the building was silent save for his own breaths, it was calming – a feeling that no one would ever associate with a guild as rowdy as theirs.
Whether these feelings were from a sense of loneliness or a side effect of the absolute fear that he sometimes found piercing his mind – fear that it would all disappear, that this was all a dream – Mercury didn't know.
What he did know was that being here made everything feel better.
Nights spent at the guild were usually some combination of reading, dozing, and pacing. Never enough to constitute more than a little bit of reprieve from the tiring nature of everyday life, but enough to settle into a sort of monotonous pattern to pass the twilight hours.
He'd read from the library, taking the books from the well-worn space (that was now only ever really occupied by he and Levy) to the bar, as though the space was lonely without her patrons. Or he'd sit at one of the benches and rest his head on the wood, taking in the feeling of his guildmates and the residual magic they left behind. Tonight, Master was the loudest feeling – he wouldn't admit it, but he had been worrying incessantly since Natsu, Lucy, and Happy had taken on the S-Class quest without permission.
This was why Mercury's evening was spent not sleeping or reading, but pacing.
If it was possible for his feet to have worn a hole through the guild's already damaged wooden floors, he was sure it would have already happened. A deep unease raced through his body. Something was telling him that shit was about to hit the fan, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly what the issue was.
Maybe it was just residual anxiety about the S-Class mission, or even a figment of anger that thrummed in his body at Laxus's crass disregard for the situation.
Natsu was strong, that was a definite fact – but strong enough to take an S-Class mission and return unharmed? Mercury was unsure, especially with the fire dragon slayer having dragged Lucy, who was inexperienced, and Happy, who was silly at the best of times and distracting at the worst, along with him.
That wasn't even taking into account the fact that they had apparently kidnapped Gray to go along with them.
Fortunately for Mercury's anxiety and unfortunately for the group of miscreants, Erza had been sent after them. That was the only thing giving the water mage any sort of relief.
She'd bring them all back alive – though they might wish they weren't in the end.
(This would not be another Lisanna situation. He refused to believe it.)
Even Erza's departure, however, had not relieved him completely of the wriggling sensation that made up his stomach at the moment. After what felt like the millionth time up and down the hallway next to the bar, Mercury forced himself to pause for a moment.
The situation wouldn't get better if he kept worrying about it. He knew this, and yet…
Some part of him couldn't shake the unease.
His feet thoroughly ached from the constant walking back and forth, his fingers raw and healing from the way his anxious habits had him biting at the corners, so he forced himself to sit at the bar for a moment.
Everything would be fine. Nothing would take this away from him – whether "this" be the guild, his guildmates, or even the comfortable life he'd come to enjoy. The paranoia in his bones was just that – an unfounded fear that everything would once again come to an end, leaving the water mage behind.
The guild creaked ominously the moment he sat down. It was as though the hall itself was attempting to mess with him, the noise sending metaphorical alarm bells ringing in his head at the unnaturalness of it.
Nothing ever happened late at night. Nothing should have ever happened this late at night, save for rowdy bar fights. Nobody was insane enough to mess with the most idiotic, crazy guild in all of Fiore.
But Phantom Lord was, apparently.
A calm night, just like any other, and then, with the sound of shattering wood and creaking metal, steel poles rained down from the ceiling.
Mercury was startled enough to be on his feet immediately and dodge the heavy spear-like beam from above. It didn't seem as though it was aimed at any area in particular - the metal poked through the roof like a fork in a napkin, then slammed itself into the bar to his right. Then another one fell, this time piercing the second floor and sending wooden planks splintering cascading into Mercury's face.
He saw red. Who dared assault the building in his presence?
The perpetrator had clearly not expected anyone to be present. A normal person wouldn't – it was much too early in the morning by now, and even if they were doing some sort of nefarious deed, the inside of the building had been nearly silent for hours now.
A man dressed in black with long, spiky hair and a well muscled body nearly jumped out of his skin as the section of roof that he had been standing on collapsed from the inside, the edges pierced with a beam of high-pressured water.
"Gah!"
The sound that was made as his body hit the floor wasn't pleasant, but it gave Mercury a feeling of pleasure to know that it hurt, even a little.
Mercury's eyes raced to pick out the details of the guild's assailant – though he lacked the ability to taste or smell, his eyesight was several times better than a humans, especially in the dark. In fact, the current dimness of the guild was even easier to see in than when it was light.
A thick pile of black hair was the first thing he could make out, followed by tanned skin and the hallmark ripple of abdominal muscles that accompanied a well-built body. Said body was attempting to pull itself upwards, having been caught off guard by its sudden tumble from the roof. It looked thoroughly soaked. The ripped sleeves and shirt that accompanied it heralded a steady drip of water droplets, accompanied by the gruff string of swear words that fell from the man's mouth the second he got his bearing.
Mercury eyed the metal studs that lined the man's arms and nose cautiously. Though the person in front of him looked no different than the average thug, he most certainly wasn't.
"Who's there?" The intruder called. Then, he lifted his nose, nostrils flaring as though to smell who was there.
Could he target Mercury through smell? Wasn't that something Natsu could also do?
A black guild mark stuck out like a sore thumb against the man's tanned skin – and it certainly was a familiar one. Phantom Lord.
Mercury's mind raced as he went through all the people he knew of from Phantom Lord; though he no longer went on jobs, he was rather up to date with the current famous mages, and the guild often kept records of said mages in their archives – which were available to anyone in Fairy Tail, if they cared to look.
The man in front of him was certainly not Aria; he was much too thin, though also buff enough to rule out the earth mage, Soll. He wasn't a woman, so that ruled out Juvia, and he was also not Totomaru, and certainly not José. Their descriptions may have been similar – both being tall, dark haired men – but this intruder was nothing more than a fly compared to the might of a Wizard Saint.
Which meant that, unless he was mere cannon fodder for Phantom Lord, this man was most likely to be "Black Steel" Gajeel Redfox, an up and coming mage currently known for both his cruelty and intense physical strength.
With a name in mind to match the picture in front of him, things became a lot simpler.
Gajeel apparently did manage to accurately pinpoint Mercury's location through smell alone, and lunged forward with a ferocity that would have startled the water mage if not for the fact that both Laxus and Erza were both much faster. The iron-clad man's hands warped with a twist of magic, extending towards Mercury. A metallic clang behind him as he leapt over the beams told Mercury all he needed to know about how Gajeel's magic worked; he'd turned his arms into metal poles.
Upon his landing, Mercury inhaled deeply. The rush of magic to his lungs felt old, out of practice, but the moment he called upon it, the world just felt so perfect, so right. Like they were meant to be filled with the salty brine that surged within them.
With a second flourish of magic, the water was exhaled. Even with the salt running harshly off of his tongue, he couldn't taste it, the sense instead replaced with the dull throb of magic surrounding the two mages. One was his own; cold, archaic, and crashing around the wooden building, while the other was most certainly Gajeel's – similarly feeling old in a way that felt misplaced, and warped with a sound that manifested to Mercury like a metal drum.
Fitting, he surmised, for a mage that manipulates his body to be iron.
The water exited his lungs with the speed of a bullet, slamming into the iron mage with just as much force. It engulfed the mage entirely. If he hadn't hardened his legs just a moment before impact, he'd have been swept away entirely – only the way his heavy limbs dug into the soft wood below him prevented him from becoming a little stain on the wall, though he looked more than a bit disoriented with the spray dissipated into the air.
Maybe getting blown away would have been a better option. Any exposed skin on Gajeel's body became an ugly, torn red. Even the majority of his clothes had been torn by the attack, remaining fabric dripping thick globs of water onto the floor below.
Gajeel panted heavily. Mercury would have taken the opportunity to get in a follow up attack if not for the way that the guild was already soaked; any more, and they'd end up wrecking the floors even more, or worse, knocking one of the two steel beams down in between them.
Instead, he bit out, "What's Phantom doing here?"
And of course, Gajeel's only response was an arrogant sneer as he snorted out the remainder of the water that had forced its way up his nose. All over the ground in front of him.
Then, without another response, he lept in the air, swinging his arms around in a circle to generate enough momentum to flip forward. Shattered wooden fragments went up with him, but the iron mage paid them no mind, instead using the same attack he'd used moments ago to lengthen them like swords.
Pain surged through Mercury's arms. He barely managed to get them up in time to successfully block the attack, and even then, it was hardly enough to get away unscathed. The sharpened edge of Gajeel's left sword-arm dug into the bone on Mercury's right tightly. His own left fared no better, catching the blunt end of Gajeel's right.
One arm was sliced; the other was likely broken, or at the very least, incredibly bruised.
It took a brief moment for Gajeel's momentum to send him crashing back down to the floor, but that was enough for Mercury to clearly make up the twisted grin on his face.
Blood dripped ominously down Mercury's right arm as the metal pulled itself free. It was better off than the left, though, which felt entirely immovable, pain shooting all the way up to his shoulder when he attempted to move it, despite the wound itself only being on his forearm.
Yep, definitely broken. That one would take a moment to heal.
Mercury flicked his right arm forward. The blood on it surged forward from the motion, stinging, but he did his best to ignore it – this was far from the worst pain he'd ever experienced, and he'd likely experience worse in the future.
Besides, the wound itself was already starting to close. That said nothing of the jabbed bone underneath, but, hey – couldn't win them all.
With the motion of his hands, the water that now coated the guild floor from his previous attack surged upwards towards the legs of the iron mage. It heeded his command, attempting to snag the man's ankle in a watery embrace.
The attack proved too slow for Gajeel, or perhaps he'd seen it coming – one of his guildmates was an accomplished water mage in her own right, so it stood to reason that he'd seen an attack like that before. Instead of leaping backwards, which was hardly any safer for him, still covered in yet more water, he jumped upwards towards the rafters with more agility than Mercury expected of the man. He was clearly a very heavy man, yet moved with such swiftness – even if it was devoid of any sort of grace.
It may not have been the best move, however, because Mercury still had a repertoire of ranged spells he could call upon. Many would have been overkill, potentially bringing even further damage to the already groaning hall, so he knew that he would have to be careful.
(Besides, something within himself was already starting to hurt with a dull ache that could only be exhaustion; pretty pathetic for someone who'd only used two spells, huh?)
Gajeel made the decision for him; he inhaled, arm shifted into something of a pickaxe to hold onto the wooden pillar supporting the roof, and Mercury already knew what to expect upon his exhale.
Metal shards rained down from above. By the time the first ones dug themselves into the floor at his feet, he'd already attempted to place himself out of harm's way by taking his own leap backwards, feet landing somewhat unstably on a table behind him. Pain surged once more through his left arm. It hung uselessly at his side, nothing more than a heavy counterbalance.
The dodge hadn't been perfect – several of the small blades had already dug into unprotected skin, tearing thin lines on his arms and legs – but he was out of harm's way for a moment while Gajeel recovered his breath.
It left the iron mage open. Mercury was glad that breathlessness wasn't a drawback he had to experience from that style of attack.
Once more, the water surged upwards, and Gajeel had to wrestle his arm out of the wood to dodge it. Even then, it wasn't enough. The geyser erupted, knocking the man's foot and sending him tumbling painfully once more into the tables below, the crash that followed riddled with curses.
Mercury thought he caught a, "... didn't think anyone would be here," but he couldn't be sure. The mage's voice was lost under a loud groan of the rafters above, shards of wood tittering down from the section that had been pierced by Gajeel's steel beams.
Would it crash? The possibility filled Mercury with a brief fright – if one, or both, of the pillars decided to give into gravity, there was a chance he could get caught up underneath it, or worse, the guild hall could be irreparably damaged.
Despite his better judgment, his eyes sought out the source of the creaking.
It looked okay, at least to his untrained eye. The sound might have just been from his water sloshing around, soaking into the wooden floors and causing them to expand ever so slightly.
That would have been okay.
The real issue would have been if the entire guild collapsed. There were, after all, two giant metal beams still skewered through the roof, and Mercury had no idea how stable they might be. Gajeel might have even planned as much. It would be the perfect opportunity to destroy the entire hall if the two mage's haphazard attacks would knock the poles down to collapse the roof – assuming that destroying it was his goal in the first place.
A few holes in the roof wouldn't be that big of a deal. Laki could fix those, no problem.
If one of the beams that definitely weighed at least a ton each, though? They could collapse the entire structure on the way down – and that would have been a catastrophe.
A catastrophe that Mercury did not want to be responsible for.
He flipped around, back towards where Gajeel had been moments ago – it would be prudent to finish this now – to find no one in sight. The debris pile was empty, iron mage gone.
Mercury highly doubted that he'd run. Even if it was a losing battle for the man – which, unfortunately, it wasn't – a member of Phantom Lord would never turn tail from a member of Fairy Tail; it just went against everything that the guild's supposed rivalry stood for.
Though the light of the hall was dim – starting to slowly lighten from the sun peeking through windows, but still dark enough that Mercury felt he had the advantage – the water mage found neither hide nor hair of the iron mage, which was a feat in itself. Gajeel was loud, the clanking of metal following whenever he moved and his heavy footsteps being their own giveaway.
Which meant he must be hiding behind something.
A table? A beam? No, definitely –
A gleam of light streaked forward the moment that Mercury whipped towards the bar counter, the only place a man as large as Gajeel could feasibly hide, and the water mage cursed his body's slow reaction time. Though he could see the man – see the way his muscles tensed and rippled as he raised his arms, how his arms were now mallets aiming right for Mercury – he couldn't move. Couldn't dodge.
The blunt end of Gajeel's arms made painful contact with the side of Mercury's head. It was clearly a knockout shot – the iron mage wanted this scuffle done, and he wanted it done now.
Of course it was painful. Of course it made Mercury's head spin. Of course it sent him flying back towards one of the tables that had been knocked over earlier, pinning his broken arm underneath him and flooding his senses with pain.
The angry cackle of wood scraping against wood filled the hall as the table collapsed under the sudden pressure. Or maybe that was just the sound of Mercury's head hitting the ground. He couldn't tell, the sudden increase of pressure just above his left ear causing his brain to thrum painfully, a thin trail of blood already starting to trickle down the side of his face.
Shit.
Around Mercury, the world shattered.
Several words managed to force their way out of his mouth, though he wasn't sure there was any coherence in them. Vision swam; ears rang. Eyesight was gone, partially, the world lit up in vibrant colors in some parts while scratched and blurry in others.
He was definitely concussed. No doubt about it.
The iron mage approached Mercury slowly, like a predator stalking prey that had been fatally injured – and maybe if it was any other mage, he would have just taken a lethal hit. Blood was already seeping through the arm of his jacket. And the collar. And his pants. And his nose. Was that broken? Had he hit it on the way down?
Incoherent thoughts blasted through Mercury's head, though he fought to push them down just as he fought to get that blasted arm out from underneath him, if only to put a pause on the pain that scorched through it.
Gajeel stared down at him, watching the seemingly pathetic struggle. Even when Mercury managed to wrestle himself into an almost sitting position, chest stuttering from the cough building in his throat, the iron mage said nothing, simply glaring with a small smirk. His eyes, though, looked conflicted.
And his arm was the shape of a blade.
Its edge looked cold – even Mercury's fractured vision could see how sharp it was; while the blunt iron beams he'd used earlier were certainly to disarm, this weapon was filled with intent to kill.
Of course, the iron mage could try. Many people had, and many people had failed. The water mage doubted a young mage like the one in front of him could do it, especially given how reluctant the look on his face was – his mouth and eyes were tilted like he wanted to do it, but the look in his eyes just wasn't there. They contained no bloodlust, no intent.
At least, that was what Mercury could see. It wasn't like there was any definition in Gajeel's face, nor in the area surrounding the two mages. He was just too dizzy to make out really much of anything, let alone the deeper contours of an ugly mug like Gajeel's.
It was some relief, then, that the man on top of him paused, nostrils flaring once more and eyes scanning the direction of the guild's entrance, and even Mercury could tell why. His ears were no more sensitive than a humans, yet he could hear the drunken slurs and swearing of two familiar voices as they tried to make it into the building.
Instead of stabbing him, Gajeel merely spat on the mage in front of him – wow, he really had some manners, didn't he? – and climbed along one of the beams to exit through the roof just as Macao and Wakaba stumbled in.
It was entirely anticlimactic.
Well, probably not anticlimactic enough for the two drunkards, if their startled shouts were anything to go by. Actually, it would have been more surprising for them to have not shouted with some mixture of shock, surprise, and some other emotion Mercury couldn't place – fear, maybe?
Though, he doesn't understand why anyone would be scared. Gajeel had already left, and the guild hall was now empty save for them and the slow dripping sound of water.
Except that slow "dripping" was coming from somewhere very close to Mercury's ears.
(His head.)
The world around him spun painfully; his arm seared; the incessant stream of questions asked by Macao – Wakaba had gone to go get help – was like a knife to the brain. He was fine, but just couldn't get the words to come off his tongue, at least not without biting the inside of his cheek to get his focus centered on his mouth.
"I'm fine," he said – lied, maybe, because the words didn't come out of his mouth correctly. He'd be fine (if they gave him a couple of hours).
Indeed, Macao looked incredulous at the notion that the man in front of him – who was laying with several shards of metal in his thighs, an arm that was already swelling and a painful purple, and a literal indent in his temple, to say nothing of the blood pouring from it – was anything short of needing a trip to the hospital.
To combat these worries, Mercury pushed himself up off the floor, against the man's complaints. It was impossible to keep a wince off of his face, but he tried his best. The carefully curated mask that he so often wore to cover blank or unpleasant features easily slipped into place once he was standing, despite the fact that the world around him was still spinning faintly.
Macao fetched a medkit with a sigh.
Not that it was needed all that much; by the time he returned from the storeroom, Mercury had already peeled any shards out of his legs, the wounds slowly starting to sew themselves shut. Likewise, the wound on his head had already started to close – though that said nothing of the dent in the skull located underneath.
It would take a while for that one to heal. Bones just weren't as easy as surface-level wounds.
Mercury just hoped that, in the meantime, nothing else went wrong. He could already predict Master's rage, even though the man (despite his scarily astute senses) was still likely asleep, unaware of the storm that would be coming the next morning.
He hoped Makarov wouldn't be too mad – though he wasn't sure about what. About the soggy, ruined guild? Or about the fact that someone had been brazen enough to attack them in the dead of night?
Or maybe about the fact that Mercury's blood now stained the floor?
The water mage doubted that his blood was worth all that much – at least, it wasn't worth getting worked up after – but it was only a small comfort as he realized that this attack was definitely heralding something bad.