Find Me

What Lurks in the Dark

Gajeel

The first thing that woke me up was the sudden lurch forward as our carriage came to a sudden halt. The second, the loud yelp Lucy let out as Natsu crashed into her.

"Sorry, Luce." He said while rubbing the place on his shoulder that now definitely had a huge bruise.

"S' fine." Lucy said, now nursing a busted lip from being slammed into the window.

Laxus got out and started arguing with the driver. After a few minutes, he came back, looking very pissed.

"The bastard says he won't take us any further." He said bitterly. "Why the hell not?" I asked, starting to feel very agitated.

"Says it's the wish of a mad man to go into those woods. Said any one who goes in there never comes, be he human or demon." Laxus replied.

" We don't have much of a choice, do we? If the demons who captured Levy can get through there, so can we." Titania said, hopping out and grabbing her bag.

The rest of us followed her lead, and as soon as the last bag was out of the carriage, the driver sped back through Magnolia.

"Let's get going then." I said, and we started our trek through the Great Forest. As we got deeper in, it grew very dark, and I could barley see 15 feet in front of me, even though it was the middle of the day. The tall trees were thick with foliage, and all sorts of creepers and vines hung around us. There was a faint path that wound around the trees, and we decided it best to follow it. It finally got so dark, Natsu had to light his hand. Natsu,Laxus and I were known as Dragon Slayers. There was a special serum that had been injected into us when we had joined the army. The serum had dragon DNA in it, and it gave us dragon like abilities. Natsu was the fire dragon, Laxus was the lightning dragon, and I was the iron dragon. With Natsu's fire to guide us, we walked on. A few times, I had to turn my hand into an iron sword to cut through the ridiculous amount of vines that were keeping me from Levy. Levy. God, I hope she's ok. If that bastard lays a damn finger on her, I'll rip him apart myself.

"Lets stop here for the night. Well be entering Fiore by tomorrow night, so we'll need our wits about us." Titania said, interrupting my thoughts. We were in a small clearing, just big enough to fit the six of us. I pulled out my sleeping bag and got in. Natsu and blondie were curled up together, and Laxus had taken up a spot very close to the already sleeping Mira, in an almost protective way.

I shot him a look and he glared back at me. "Shut up."

Erza had volunteered to stay on guard, and was walking around our clearing, happily swinging her sword around. I slowly drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

For the second time, I woke up to Lucy's screaming, and frankly, I was starting to get very annoyed by that fact. I turned over in my sleeping bag and was about to tell her off when I saw what had a hold of her.

A huge demon was lifting her off the ground. It had the body of a spider with the torso of a human and the head of a bull. It was deep red with long furry legs, and rivaled me in height. A Minonite. I jumped up and formed my arm into a sword just as Natsu sent an enormous tunnel of fire at it. "Get away from my girlfriend, you spider bastard!" Natsu screamed. The fire distracted the huge monstrosity, and it dropped Lucy . Natsu caught her and set her down just inside the tree line as the demon turned on Laxus. I could see Erza hulling herself of the ground, which meant the thing must have knocked her out. Laxus punched the demon with a lightning covered hand, and as it rolled onto it's back, I jumped up and impaled it with my sword. It stopped moving and lay dead. I turned my sword back into my hand and wiped away the green, sickly smelling blood.

"Natsu, I'm fine, really." Lucy drew my attention away from the Minonite to where she was leaning against a tree. I tried not to laugh at Natsu, as he was being quite thorough while checking Lucy. So thorough in fact, he was checking down her shirt. The worst that had happened was a small cut under her eye. After putting a bandage over it, she swatted Natsu away. We quickly packed up our stuff and headed forward through the forest. The sun was still fairly low in the sky, which meant we still had plenty of daylight.

"What do you think that thing wanted?" Laxus asked as he fell into step with me. "We probably just disturbed it's nest or something." I grunted back. "You don't think Ivan sent it, do you?" He asked, sounding slightly nervous. The thought was almost comical, seeing as he always acted so confident. "I suppose it's a possibility, but we have bigger issues right now." I replied. "Like what?" "Can't you smell it?" I asked. It was now late. We had been walking the entire day and had had lunch around noon. We were nearing the border of Fiore, and I could smell a small group of demons heading straight for us. Laxus tensed as he caught the demons scent and Natsu growled.

Laxus pulled Mira out of the way just as a huge demon called a Mock Dragon lept out of the trees, poison claws dripping a putrid green liquid. 5 more Mock Dragons hurled themselves at us and we were launched into battle. They were all black and had scaly wings. They looked slightly like dragons, but had a human stance and barley any powers.

"Iron Dragon Sword!" I shouted, and started attacking the demon in front of me. "You'r never going to get her back." it said in a raspy voice. "The hell are you talking about?" I nearly shouted. It was so damn loud with all this cursed fighting. "Levy McGarden will be killed after Master Ivan has drained all her power! You will never see her again, filthy human!" it shouted as it charged at me. "You obviously don't know who your talking to. I will never rest until she's safe!" I nearly screamed at it as my blade impaled it in the stomach. A gurgling sound came from the thing's mouth as blood raced down it's side and my arm. With one final tug, I dislodged my now normal arm from the Mock Dragon as it fell to the ground, dead. I looked around, seeing the others had managed to finish off the other demons.

"Let's get out of here. I'm getting really sick and tired of this damn forest." The others nodded and we grabbed our bags. We soon came to the edge of the forest and looked out at Fiore. I felt like I had stepped into a different world. What little was left of the grass was off-white and the ground was black. The sky was a very unnatural shade of red, and black, wispy clouds hung lazily in the sky. We put our hoods up and started across the barin landscape.

'I'm comin, Shrimp.'