Tides of Virtue (Fairy Tail Fan-Fiction)

You Look Like a Deep-Fried Lobster

Tides of Virtue – Chapter 12 (Fairy Tail Fan-Fiction)

After collapsing into Natsu, Serenity experienced an odd state of being in between consciousness and the black void of insentience. All around her she could hear what was going on: the muffled voices of her defeated guild mates, the shuffling feet, and an angry Natsu, who soon gave her over to Gray before leaving to get back Lucy. As much as that made her want to smile, she couldn't get the corners of her lips to listen to the pleading commands of her exhausted brain. It irritated her, knowing what was happening, but not being able to move and react to it, especially when she heard Mirajane talking about the approaching Phantom Lord fortress, and then how she ordered Reedus to take her and Lucy to the secret Fairy Tail hideout, because it was them that Phantom Lord wanted.

Serenity desired nothing more than to get up and fight alongside her comrades, but her body wouldn't comply, and she was forced to let Reedus pull her and Lucy into his arms and bring them to the place they were supposed to be safe, "away from the action." If she'd had the energy to cry tears of frustration, the world would have been flooded. The depths of oblivion kept pulling at the corners of her mind the entire time, endeavoring to drown her in its emptiness, but she fought against it, clinging onto the small threads of the conscious world that she was still aware of, and soon, she was finally able to open her eyes. What had suddenly given her the strength to was beyond her for a moment, but then she saw it.

Gajeel was holding Lucy up by a clump of her golden hair, which was laced with grains of dirt from her being thrown on the filthy floor. By the pained look on her face, Serenity could tell that Gajeel was saying all sorts of horrible things to her, and who knows what he'd done to her before Serenity had miraculously been able to pull herself back to the conscious world.

Placing a hand on the ground, Serenity forced herself up onto her elbows. She knew that she wasn't going to be able to fight him, because, as much as she hated to admit it, she was too badly wounded, and, at the moment, too weak. However, she could take the beatings if it meant saving Lucy from any further pain.

"Hey, Ironhead!" she called, glaring up at him when he turned toward her—dropping Lucy to the ground. "You leave her alone, you bastard! Take it out on me instead!" Though she was in a state of pure agony, the fiery determination that always lit up her eyes didn't waver for a moment as Gajeel sauntered toward her.

"With pleasure," he said, picking her up by her throat with one of his large hands. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up. I was getting bored playing with your little friend." Serenity spat in his face, which made him visibly enraged: his red-eyes seemed to light up with an evil kind of fury, his muscles tensed, and he scowled at her like she was a piece of trash that needed to be thrown out.

"She's my sister, you piece of scrap metal," she growled through her clenched teeth.

This made Gajeel laugh. "You think you're a wise-guy, don't you?" He lifted her higher off the ground so that the tips of her toes hovered just above the floor. He then used his free hand to squeeze her injured side. She choked back a cry. "Well, I got news for you, punk." Gajeel rammed one of his fingers into her stab wound. "I don't take nicely to wise-guys."

Black stars danced across her vision, and she could vaguely hear Lucy, over the hammering of her palpitating heart, begging him to stop and torture her instead, but the Iron Dragon Slayer paid her no mind as he threw Serenity onto the ground like a weightless rag doll, and before she knew it, he was on top of her with a dagger pressed against her throat.