Bookworm And The Dragon {GaLe}

Chapter Two: Waking Up

Gajeel's eyes snapped open as he sat up in alarm, his piercing red gaze looking over the room. He found himself on the rugged floor in a large dusty study, the only light being provided by candles lining the wall and the fireplace flicking at his side. The scent of the burning pinewood made his nose wrinkle. "Where the heck am I?"

He continued to inspect his surroundings as he stood, and soon after noting everything as suspicious, he decided to leave the room. As he walked down some more candle lit hallways, avoiding cobwebs as he did so, Gajeel tried to think back as to how he had ended up here.

He recalled going to the guild, and then he remembered his conversation with Juvia. After that... His face paled as he remembered the spell's words clearly in his head. Had that really worked!? Did that mean Levy was here with him..?

His pace quickened. If she was here, then he had to find her and make sure she was safe. If anything happened to her, then he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. The thought made him think back to the dark time of his life that he spent at Phantom Lord, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

He brought them into this mess, so Gajeel decided he was going to do everything in his power to make sure they got home in one piece.

He passed a torn painting on the wall and stopped a couple steps past it. Slowly, with wide eyes, he backed up to where he could fully see the framed portrait. He frowned up at it, not liking that he was staring at himself, except in the painting he was wearing a suit and his long hair was pulled back in a fancy ponytail.

First the dusty old mansion he's never been in in his life, and now an old painting of himself he's never seen before that made him look as if he were loaded with cash. "Well, that's not creepy at all."

Gajeel decided to ignore the painting and accept that whatever World he was thrown into was just a weird one. At least, it was doing a good job of weirding him out.

The farther he ventured into the -what he now realized to be a castle, not just a mansion- he couldn't find Levy's scent anywhere and was pushing down the thought that maybe he was the only one to make in here. Pulling at the ends of his black hair, he cursed in frustration before stomping up the large marble staircase and passing more empty rooms.

"Why does this place have to be so dang big!?" He kicked the wall and heard a rather loud crash on the other side. He groaned before entering the room to make sure he hadn't caused too much damage. Normally he wouldn't have cared less, but he didn't know what this place would do to him if he broke too many of it's stupid spell rules...

The place was just lit enough for him to be able to see everything clearly, and he clicked his tongue at the sight of a large broken mirror that used to be hanging above the mantle until Gajeel's anger aftermath had gotten to it.

He sighed and bent down to pick up his mess before he made eye contact with his reflection. "What the..." He blinked before finally looking down at himself. His skin was a dark grey in color and as hard as steel. His teeth were pointed a little more than usual, and his neals were long and sharp like claws. It was very similar to how his Iron Dragon Scales felt so he hadn't noticed the difference until he looked at it in the mirror. As he stared back at himself, he found with relief that he still had his signature piercings. However there was one big difference that he didn't usually have in his normal form...Horns. He had thick black horns on his head that weren't there before. Slowly he reached up and touched them, but they felt odd. It was almost as if they weren't really there, they were so light. No wonder he hadn't felt them before, guess they just made him look a little scarier than usual, heh.

When he tried to gather the magic he needed to turn back to normal, he realized that there wasn't any, making him irritated. What was the point of looking like he did if there wasn't any magic power? Part of him liked looking cool and bad-out, the other part of him didn't want to be scary all the time. He groaned. Thoughts like those are why Lil' always called him a softy...

Turning back to the task at hand, he started shoving all of the broken glass under the dust covered bed. Giving a grin and his signature "Geehee!" he called it clean before leaving the room altogether, slamming the door behind him.

He wandered back downstairs to try and find the front door. When it was finally in sight, he thought he had head familiar voices. Turning around to follow them, all curiousity was thrown out the window when he heard a scream unlike any other. One he knew so well it made his blood run cold.

Without even skipping a beat he burst out of the doors and through the Castle's rose garden all the way into the dark woods. Like a beast, he ran on all fours, finding it faster that way. It was freezing and it only made him push forward through the six inch snow. The smell of blood was in the air and it worried him to the point that he was struggling to breath. A howl of victory in the distance made Gajeel tense, but he ran anyways.

When he finally caught sight of her, he shouted her name. "Levy!"