Outsiders (Fairy Tail - Gruvia, Gale)

10. Intimidated

Juvia woke up the next day to someone knocking on the door. She put on her nightgown and made her way to open the door. 

"Hello? Oh, hello..." It was Lily in his battle form. She gasped slightly when she first saw him, since she hadn't seen him in that form in a while, and her tired eyes took a while to process who the tall, dark figure was. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Oh, did I wake you up?"

Juvia shook her head. "No, I had just woken up," she lied. "What's wrong?"

 "Have you seen Gajeel? We were supposed to workout together this morning."

"Oh, right. No, I haven't. Sorry. Have you checked the inn gardens? He's probably found a scrap iron yard or something."

"Yeah, true," Lily frowned. "Alright, I'll see you at breakfast," he said, then left. Juvia closed the door, got dressed, then opened all of the curtains. It was still quite early, so she opened her terrace door and stood outside to look at the view of the garden in front of her, and the river at the bottom of the long stretch of grass. She took a long, deep breath of fresh air as the wind rustled through her hair. 

She looked up at the clouds in the sky and frowned. It wasn't raining, but nor was the sun out. Juvia had never seen the sun. The rainclouds followed her everywhere, she had never been anywhere where there was a clear blue sky. She had mastered how to prevent the rain from falling, however she couldn't quite get rid of the gloomy grey clouds. They were part of her. 

Underneath her, Totomaru's terrace door opened and he walked out onto his terrace to do a quick workout. Sol was reading in his room next to Juvia's, while Aria was just getting ready to take a small walk around the garden. 

Gajeel was in the city centre, after finding a scrap yard on the other side of Crocus to eat in privacy before the yard opened. 

As he walked, Levy was emerging from a paper shop. "Oh, thank you Mr Pizzo! I can always count on you!" 

"No problem, Levy! You're my best customer after all!"

"She was holding a fresh new set of notebooks. 

"You come by any time you want! I'm always happy to open early for an old friend."

"Thanks, I will. Send my love to Katalina. I'll be back soon!" she waved at the shopkeeper, then started making her way back to Fairy Tail's inn. When she saw that Gajeel walking behind her, she sped up the pace, looking back and blushing awkwardly. He just smirked and carried on walking. 

Levy bit her lip, then closed her eyes and stopped, turning around. 

"Hey, um, Gajeel, is it?"

"What do you want?" 

"Sorry, I, um, well, I'm writing a special on the games... could I be able to ask you a few questions?"

"No," is all Gajeel said, looking unamused. 

Levy nodded quickly. "Okay, sure. Sorry I asked."

"We don't do the whole talking thing. We aren't here to make friends."

"Why?" Levy pestered. Gajeel was now standing right next to her. She looked away as she felt her cheeks burn. "Sorry."

"Stop apologising," he said, looking at her. 

"So- okay," she answered, then looked at him. They both caught eye contact and stood staring at eachother for a second before some people walked loudly past them.

Gajeel raised an eyebrow, then turned and started walking away. 

"Can I ask you one thing?" Levy tried again, following him. 

"No."

Levy sighed. "Okay. Um, good luck today. Bye," she said, then rushed off in another direction, muttering to herself about being so embarrassing. 

Gajeel narrowed his eyes towards her, then as he started walking back to the inn tried to wipe the thought of her face out of his head. 

* * * 

 "Alright, ladies and gentlemen! For todays special event, one member of your team will be given the change to prove their strength and power in equal terms with the rest of the competitors, by being tested on a Magic Power Finder!" 

"That's it?" Totomaru said. "Surely not."

"Yes, don't you see? It's the ultimate test," said Juvia. "It tells the other guilds precisely how powerful one of your wizards are, by showing everyone exactly how much magical power they have. If you put your strongest wizard there you'd be done for. It's just a way for the organisers to see who technically the strongest one here is."

"Who's do you think is our strongest? Do we even know who that is?" Lily asked Gajeel. Gajeel smirked.

"It's between me, Aria and Juvia," he muttered to Lily, then said in a louder voice, "Aria should do it."

Juvia nodded. "If this is simply a test of who has the most magic power, I think so, too," she said.  "Aria?" she looked up at him. 

"Yes," said Aria. A council representative emerged on their balcony, asking for the representative to go down to the stadium floor. Aria nodded at his teammates, and disappeared through the door. 

The audience were watching him emerge out of the side with interested expressions. He hadn't fought yet, and nobody knew what he was capable of. He stood on the floor next to Sting of Sabertooth, and the rest of the competitors all stood in a line as the MPF was being set up. 

"If there's no fighting involved, I wanna do it," said Lucy to Erza. 

Erza frowned. "But you did Chariots yesterday. Laxus, do you want to do it?"

Laxus raised an eyebrow. "Nah, I'd rather stay out of this one. I don't want everyone knowing my magic power." 

Erza frowned. "Okay, go on, Lucy." As Lucy went running down to the stadium floor, their replacement, Cana, who was sitting with the boys behind grinned.

"This is gonna be an interesting competition. Not every guild is putting in their best competitors. Look, Kagura isn't competing." 

 "Jura from Lamia Scale is there, and that Ten Wizards Saint guy from Phantom," Erza said, watching the competitors turn up. "So is Sting. This could be interesting."

 Natsu and Gray jumped up to watch the competition. "Wait, so do you think that guy is Phantom's strongest wizard, or not?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I guess we'll have to see. I definitely want to see how he'll compare to Jura though. That'll certainly tell you how strong they are."

"Well would you look at this! Two members of the Ten Wizards Saints! Let's see whether they're worthy of the title! Alright, competitors, time to draw straws to find out which order we will be going in!" the presenter announced. 

"Aria of Phantom Lord," said Jura, watching him standing opposite him as the competitors stood around the mascot, who handed them a number. Jura was given the number 5, and Aria the number 6.  

"Oh, Aria's going last," said Juvia, who was now standing at the front of the balcony holding Lily. 

"Good. They've saved the best till last."

Juvia smiled, watching the first competitor line up to begin. "True. They don't even know what's about to hit them."