From One Dragon To Another: The Next Tail

Chapter 7 - Time Is Ticking

I continued to chase after Gajeel to finish him off, but he was quickly regaining magic power. Levy managed to supply Gajeel with extra iron to help him out, but that made me even angrier. I managed to grab hold of Gajeel's wrist and started attacking him again.

"Akari! Stop! I'll give up if you just let me go!" Gajeel shouted.

"You want to get rid of me so you can hurt Laxus!" I shouted back.

"What?" Gajeel replied back with confusion.

I managed to punch Gajeel in the face and knock him to the ground, he crabbed away from me as I continued to walk towards him.

Freed's POV

"Freed, you need to set up an enchantment for Akari! If you don't then she won't be stopped." Levy shouted.

"I know, sorry for taking so long." I apologized.

I began getting to work on an enchantment to stop Akari from fighting. Short hand was the quickest and only way I could trap Akari, I just hoped that it would buy us enough time. I set up the enchantment and wrote it, if Akari keeps walking towards Gajeel then she'll get caught.

"Gajeel! Run now!" I shouted.

"Got ya." Gajeel replied.

Gajeel got up from the ground and sprinted away from Akari. Akari followed him just as I planned. Akari ran into the area of the enchantment I set up and couldn't move from that space. Finally, we managed to stop her, I just wished that I had done something sooner, I don't know what came over me.

Akari continued hitting the walls of the enchantment, trying to get out to fight Gajeel. I must admit, it was scary watching her, I've never seen her in this state, something must be seriously wrong.

"Gajeel! Fight me!" Akari shouted angrily as she continued trying to escape the enchantment prison she was trapped in.

"Freed, I think you have some explaining to do." Levy said.

Me, Levy and Gajeel were sat on the ground, watching Akari still going berserk.

"Only a little bit of explaining, most of what is going on with Akari is confusing to me too." I replied.

"You don't know either?" Gajeel asked.

"No, the only thing I know is that she wasn't feeling her usual self since a couple of days ago. When I came to pick her up for the trial she was being sick for a few minutes, then when she came downstairs, she was covered in scales." I explained.

"That's really weird. How long is your enchantment going to work for?" Gajeel asked.

"Half an hour. I was hoping it would buy us enough time to figure out a solution." I replied.

"If she was that ill before the trial then why did you let her come?" Levy asked.

"I didn't do it on purpose. Akari insisted she could do it and nothing that I said would change her mind. Things might've been different if Laxus was around, but he wasn't." I explained.

"She was cranky on the boat and earlier on when Natsu and Gray were messing about, maybe that has some correlation to what is going on at the moment." Gajeel stated.

"Maybe. I'm just wondering if it's because she's pining for Laxus." I said softly.

"It doesn't seem logical to me, I mean she's been away from him before and she was upset, but she was nothing like this." Levy explained.

"At first I thought it was Dragon Force, but it doesn't seem so possible now. I know she was really powerful and everything and her magic power had a bit of a boost, but the markings don't seem right." Gajeel commented.