Lucy flies into a wall and lets out a choked cry of pain as gravity takes over and pulls her to the ground with a thud. She lies there weakly, her body crying out in pain from being abused so harshly. Her abuser, Gajeel, retracts his pillar arm from where it hit the blonde girl as he lets out a hum of appreciation.
"Not too bad a sound." he compliments as he holds his fist at face level as if admiring the strength in his arm. Lucy whimpers out in pain as she struggles not to pass out.
Looking down at her quivering form, he lowers his arm as he gives her a half amused and half disappointed look before complaining, "But man, what a lame reaction…"
"Gajeel, don't you think you should stop now?" asks one of the lower ranking Phantom Lord mages who made it to the Giant's control room for safety. As he talks, Gajeel gets an annoyed look on his face as he turns partway to look at his fellow guild member better.
"You keep doing this, and it'll be serious trouble!" the less powerful mage continues in a pleading tone.
"But I'm bored." the Iron Dragon Slayer whines in a dismissive manner. Gajeel turns away and his expression hardens some.
"The master sure is cruel." Gajeel continues as he raises his other hand up at face level.
"Making me watch over the girl like this, and going to deal with the flies himself." Gajeel activates his magic and his upraised hand turns into his signature metal pillar while a grin of anticipation crosses his face. He walks towards Lucy, almost leering down at her prone body. Imagining the pain he is going to inflict on her.
"What's the harm in doing this to pass the time, huh?" he asks casually as if he was just suggesting to play a harmless game.
"Stop it." the same mage barks out. "If the master finds out, he won't let you off so easy!" he warns the larger man. Growing annoyed, Gajeel swings his arm to the side and extends the pillar to hit the complaining mage full on in the face. The force of the blow forces him back and pins him against the wall.
"Shut up," Gajeel commands with a hint of annoyance in his voice and a look of anger on his face.
"Maybe she's some noblewoman or something, but to me, she's nothing but Fairy Butt trash." Gajeel releases his magic and gestures toward Lucy with his arms widespread.
"And even if she's a woman, she's still a Wizard. She should be prepared for this when she joined a guild." he states simply.
"But you're going overboard." another wizard complains. "What a waste…" he trails off thinking about the money they could lose if she died from Gajeel's actions.
"Master's gonna be pissed, big time." chimes in a nearby female mage, hoping to help drive the point home.
Gajeel turns toward them with one hand on his hip and a bemused expression as he replies flippantly, "If that happens, I'll blame it on you guys." He then laughs at their expense, knowing their master will most likely believe him and doesn't care if José doesn't.
"What a jerk…" the two mages mutter in unison as the dragon slayer turns back towards their prisoner. Lucy still hasn't moved from where she has fallen, unused to the amount of physical pain Gajeel is putting her through.
"But man, how stupid." Gajeel lightly complains as he crosses his arms over his chest while staring down at Lucy. Almost as if she senses his gaze, she slowly starts to pull herself up onto her hands and knees.
Ignoring her movements, Gajeel continues in the same tone, "Now that they know she's rich, the Fairy Butts are frantic to get her back." At hearing his words, Lucy lightly scoffs as she lifts her head painfully to lock eyes with the Dragon Slayer of Phantom Lord.
Her reaction catches Gajeel's attention and he focuses more intently on the blonde woman in front of him who is making her way up to a standing position. She has one hand on the wall next to her to gain additional support as she had trouble standing.
"You guys really are complete idiots," she states in a breathy voice, still recovering from her earlier beating.
"So pitiful… I think I'm tearing up." she continues with a cocky attitude. Gajeel lets out a noise denoting his curiosity as the rest of the occupants in the room look on in horror.
"What is she thinking?" the male mage that Gajeel didn't hit questions softly. He looks on in disbelief that their prisoner still has the strength and stupidity to talk back to Gajeel.
"She's provoking Gajeel." the female Phantom Lord mage answers back, quickly grasping the situation. Lucy locks eyes with Gajeel while giving him a look of complete confidence.
She continues on mockingly, "Phantom Lord? The rulers of spirits? What a joke! I'm not scared of you at all!" She proclaimed that last sentence loudly as if she hasn't just been beaten up.
"Is that so?" Gajeel questions softly with an unreadable expression on his face. Without warning, he punches Lucy in the gut so hard with one of his pillar arms that the wall behind her turns into rubble. Teeth clenched, she refuses to let out a cry of pain as she is caught between the wall and the pillar.
"You got some balls bluffing in a situation like this," he said louder and in a slightly admiring tone.
"I must say that's not bad…" he continues before retracting his arm and letting Lucy fall down to the ground again. She lands on her knees with a gasp of pain before falling forward.
She catches herself with her hands while Gajeel keeps speaking, "But, you see… What I want to hear isn't your backtalk. I want to hear you scream." he says informatively. Lucy trembles with the force of holding back her cries of pain, not wanting to give into the sick bastard's pleasure.
Getting slightly frustrated with her stubbornness, Gajeel says more harshly, "You don't start yelling and there's going to be trouble."
Lucy pushes herself up a bit to look at Gajeel again while wrapping one arm around her stomach where she was hit before asking, "Then why don't you try killing me?" She taunted. "You do that, and you'll be in bigger trouble." Lucy threatens with that confident look still in her eyes.
"Oh?" Gajeel calls out as a manic gleam enters his eyes and appears on his face. "Well, that sounds interesting," he calls out in an interested tone.
"Let me hear it," he demands in a quieter, but a more excited voice.
Lucy intones imperiously, "Fairy Tail would never forgive you. That's the kind of guild they are! You'd be shivering under the shadow of the world's scariest guild every day… For the rest of your lives!" she almost shouts out the last part. Awestruck at her bravery, the rest of the mages in the room look on unable to tear their eyes away from the spectacle.
"That sounds like fun, too." Gajeel rumbles out with a hard glare aimed at the entirely too confident, in his opinion, blonde.
An evil grin graces his features as he shouts, "Let's try that out!" He has both of his arms turn into pillars and form an 'X' in front of him. He jumps up high, planning on using the force of his falling body to add extra damage on the already beaten up girl.
Fearing for their payout, one of the Phantom mages yells out Gajeel's name in hopes of halting his attack, but to no avail. Gajeel changes his mind in mid-jump on how he wants to attack Lucy and so then changes his leg into a pillar to land an extra-hard stomp onto her body. He cackles maniacally, enjoying the pain he is about to cause to one of his enemies.
Lucy looks on as Gajeel descends, too wounded to even try to dodge. When Gajeel gets close to Lucy, the floor in front of her quickly cracks open with red light seeping through. The Dragon Slayer looks on in surprise as he continues to descend right towards the cracking floor. A fire appears through the cracks that erupt into a full-blown conflagration that envelops the attacking mage.
The rest of the mages in the room hears an enraged roar coming from the fire. A loud thwack is then heard before Gajeel is flying out of the fire like he has been hit. He recovers before hitting the ground and lands in a kneeling position as he continues to slide back from the force of the hit. He stares at the fire, entirely not amused.
The fire swirls like a tornado from where it has burst out from the floor before it explodes and spreads out to the sides. It takes the shape of two giant wings as the enraged roar sounds off again. Blasts of hot air explode from the flaming winged figure as the rubble of the floor is burnt up in the incredible heat.
Gajeel looks on with a look of anticipation as he calmly states, "I knew it." Excitement grows in his voice as he says, "I noticed your smell!"
Lucy looks on in relief and happiness as she makes out the figure within the inferno.
"Natsu!" she says softly in joy at seeing one of her dear friends.
The fire still raging with the storm of emotions released from within Natsu, the Fire Dragon Slayer bellows out, "Gajeel!" in rage. One could almost hear the bellow of an angry beast echo with Natsu's voice. In response, Gajeel starts to chuckle lightly.
"Its so easy to lure you out, Salamander," Gajeel says mockingly as Natsu is still surrounded by his fire.
"That's 'cause you keep playing dirty, Iron Dragon!" Natsu retorts in a much calmer voice than before.
"Natsu!" Lucy cries out softly with the relief evident in her voice. Her look of joy is quickly replaced by a startled expression as she stares at Natsu's form.
"Lucy, get back," Natsu tells her gently, in a manner very unlike the way he usually would be just before a battle. His focus is entirely on the dragon slayer before him.
"Gajeel!" calls out one of the other Phantom Lord mages, wanting to know what Gajeel wants them to do.
The Iron Dragon Slayer gets into an attack stance as yells back to his guild members, "Stay outta this!" A look of anticipation and excitement appears on his face as he relishes the thought of having a good fight. Impatient to battle, Gajeel leaps into action as he charges Natsu head-on. In response, the pink-haired mage breaks off the cyclone of fire and concentrates it in his fists.
"Bring it!" Yells out an enraged Natsu as he too leaps towards his opponent. With a roar, they clash with Gajeel sending out a pillar arm towards Natsu. In return, he dodges the attack before grabbing hold of the pillar and using it to swing Gajeel around. After using the swing to gather momentum, Natsu lets go of the pillar which sends Gajeel flying backward towards a wall.
The larger mage hits the wall with his feet as he lets out a grunt from the impact. The wall itself crumbles around Gajeel's feet, a testament to Natsu's strength. Not giving Gajeel time to counterattack, Natsu follows close behind and launches a high-powered flaming punch.
Gajeel has just enough time to lift his pillar arm to use it as a shield to protect him from the attack. As Natsu's fist connects, an eruption bursts out sending flames, dust, and hot wind blasting across the room obscuring the view.
The blasts end up way too close to the Phantom wizards for their comfort. They run away screaming about how they don't want to get dragged into the fight. Gajeel busts out of the cloud of dust and smoke with Natsu following not far behind with his fists still on fire. Surprised, Gajeel is open for attack in which Natsu doesn't hesitate and punches the Iron Dragon Slayer right in the jaw.
Gajeel is sent flying back across the football field-sized room and he crashes into the wall in an explosion of dust. As the dust clears, the larger dragon slayer is still in the crater of the wall rubbing at his cheek with his thumb and lets out a pained grunt.
Natsu landed on the floor and concentrates his magic towards his feet to push off and jump high into the air which catches Gajeel's attention as Natsu yells out his next attack.
"Talons of the Fire Dragon!" the pink haired mage cries out while his feet remain on fire. Using the fire to propel him, Natsu goes in for an overhead ax kick which Gajeel is unable to dodge and is barely able to block with his transformed arm. As the attack hits, another explosion of fire occurs which pushes Natsu backward and consumes Gajeel.
Lucy takes this all in with a stunned expression. The ferocity of the Fire Dragon Slayer's attacks overwhelms her, as she has never seen Natsu fight while this angry before.
A familiar high-pitched voice catches her attention, "Lucy, are you okay?" With a start, Lucy turns to see Happy running to her with concern written all over his face.
"Happy!" she cries out in joy at seeing the little blue cat. She smiles gently at him before softly answering, "Yeah..." The smile on her face quickly fades as she turns back to watch the fight between the two slayers.
Turning to see what she is looking at, Happy asks, "What's the matter?" She looks on as clouds of dust and smoke choke the air. Natsu angrily strides toward Gajeel with all intents and purposes of beating the absolute crap out of him.
"I never saw Natsu like that." Lucy hesitantly admits.
"Aye. Neither have I." Happy agrees with a solemn nod. The blue cat then puts his paws on his hips in a confident manner and a look of fierce pride overtakes his features.
"But Natsu is really powerful right now." he strongly states. Lucy quietly looks on, knowing that Natsu can fight and take care of himself but still is worried about her friend and the outcome of this fight. Using his hand to help crack his neck, Gajeel takes on an easygoing posture.
"You're sure acting uppity, trash." the Iron Dragon Slayer says with the airs of someone who fully believes that they are better than those around them.
Natsu heatedly snaps back, "Same to you! You beat Lucy up…" Gajeel's look of self-satisfaction doesn't budge an inch which causes Natsu's ire and fist to flare up as he continues, "So I'm gonna bend that face of yours and turn it into iron filings." Gajeel gives the rival dragon slayer a shit-eating grin as he rotates his arm around in a circle to help stretch out the muscle. He lets out a more sinister laugh as his grin deepens to one of anticipation.
"Sounds like fun. Try me!" he calls out excitedly, hoping to finally get a really good fight out of this. As one, both the mages run at each other, planning on knocking the other back with a well-placed punch. They both hit the other once, then twice. The two at equal levels of power.
Gajeel goes for a longer distance attack by sending out his left arm as a pillar to hit Natsu. The fire mage, in turn, dodges the attack with a flip and lands on the iron pillar in a handstand. Using this, he pushes off with his arms to head towards Gajeel with the intent to kick him in the face.
With startling speed, Gajeel retracts his left arm and changes his right one into a blade before slicing at Natsu twice before the Fairy Tail wizard could land the kick.
Flipping backward through the air, Natsu extends one of his arms to catch himself and flip into a recovery position with his back facing Gajeel. Frustrated anger is now etched into Natsu's face as the enemy keeps heaping more and more surprises into this prolonged war.
"What's that dangerous looking thing?" he almost growls out, his expression unchanging as he looks back to give a hate-filled glare towards the larger male. As Natsu looks back, he can see the new configuration of Gajeel's arm better. It's a long, and fairly thick, sword that has extra spikes along the edge of the blade that gives the whole thing quite a nasty look.
"Sword of the Iron Dragon." Gajeel answers simply before continuing on in a much prouder tone. "There's nothing that won't be cut to shreds when hit with this!" As he speaks, the spikes start to rotate around the blade edge with greater and greater speed until they are nothing but a blur. A noise not unlike a chainsaw accompanies it.
Gajeel's voice deepens with a more sinister note, "I want to test how well this cuts on you, Salamander!"
Not threatened at all, Natsu replies back cockily, "That ain't nothing!" Lucy and Happy, on the other hand, are very threatened by the blade.
"What's that?" She cries out the question, fearful for Natsu's life.
"It's Iron Dragon Slayer Magic!" Happy tells Lucy in a fearful, yet smart alec way. Lucy is so worried for Natsu that she doesn't even notice that Happy yet again insulted her, albeit unintentionally. With a crazed grin, Gajeel jumps high into the air while laughing manically aiming to slice the pink-haired man in half. Natsu jumps backward to avoid the hit and the blade buries itself into the floor.
The blow was so powerful that the floor broke apart almost as in an explosion and the nearby Phantom mages get caught up in the blast. They yell out their complaints in getting caught up in the battle that they are trying to avoid, but the two slayers pay them no mind. Gajeel pulls his blade out of the ground and swings it towards Natsu's retreating form to use the pressure wave to push him even further back.
He laughs maniacally again before crowing, "Can't stop it now like you did before, huh?" He jumps towards Natsu and swings again and again with the smaller man nimbly dodging each slice.
"I thought you said it ain't nothing!" Gajeel taunts as he chases after Natsu across the floor. At one point, Natsu lands in front of the other Phantom mages which causes the two to pause the battle again.
"You actually move pretty well there." the dark-hair man compliments.
"Same to you," Natsu replies curtly. Gajeel releases the blade form of his arm with a smug grin.
"That last time was just the preliminaries, after all. Let's finish this, Salamander!" the Iron Dragon Slayer urges, really wanting to get a proper fight in, not these little warm up matches. Natsu wipes some dirt off his nose, the same angry expression has yet to leave his face.
"Now I'm fired up, you scrap-iron bastard!" Natsu practically spits out. Lucy, who is watching safely from the sidelines worries about how the battle will turn out since both fighters are able to transform their bodies to have the quality of dragons.
Both of them are extremely powerful in their own right, but to have the two of them battle each other, who knows what will happen. As the two dragon slayers stare each other down, a green magic circle appears under Gajeel's feet. As everyone watches, they can see that his skin turns metallic and scaly.
"I will destroy you!" Gajeel proclaims as he stares wildly at Natsu.