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Laxus & Gajeel
“So keep quiet, or I’ll snap the little fairy’s neck.”
Laxus swears loudly at the downright evil words coming from the redhead currently beating the snot out of Lucy. Clenching his fists tightly at his sides, he can feel his heart hammering in his chest. He couldn’t see Asuka or the rest of the guild clearly from where he was standing with the rest of Fairy Tail’s B-team, but his ears never lie.
Even through the screaming and jeering from the crowd, he had heard those words loud and clear. That crazy bitch had just threatened to kill a toddler.
He should’ve expected some shit like this from a member of his father’s guild. And on some level he had. But, to his traitorous heart, still just a little bit too hung up on their shared blood, this was further than he ever truly believed his dad would go. Even when Laxus himself was at his most unhinged, he would never have threatened to snap a little girl’s neck. These were the kinds of sick methods they used in his old man’s guild.
It’s in this single moment that he finally feels the last kernel of loyalty to his old man vanish. Laxus had already hated him, but now the rage he feels is like a tangible thing, crawling through his chest and wrapping its hands around his rib cage. He can feel it growling, rattling at the bars of its enclosure.
“You heard it too, right?” Gajeel asks from his side. When Laxus looks over, the other dragon slayer’s expression is just as furious. His posture is rigid, fists clenched at his sides like he’s itching for a fight.
“What is it?“ Juvia asks worriedly, eyeing them both and wringing her hands anxiously.
“That flame-haired bitch is threatening to kill the gunslingers’ little girl. That’s why Blondie stopped fighting back,” Gajeel explains, the veins in his neck standing out starkly. Lucy was screaming out from the arena, excruciating pain clear in her voice. Her redheaded opponent just kept laughing and laughing, this creepy fucking cackle that had Laxus itching to wrap his hands around her neck and squeeze.
“Oh my god,” Mirajane whispers, clutching her chest as if physically wounded. “That's really why Lucy stopped attacking? Asuka?” Laxus nods and Mira’s blue eyes burn with a familiar anger. The devil is making an appearance. “They would really stoop that low? Those bastards. We have to do something!”
Laxus shakes his head darkly, “We’re too far away from where the rest of the guild is sitting. It would take us too long.”
Juvia stares at him in shock, nails digging into her palms in clear agitation, “So you’d do nothing instead? Asuka and Lucy both need our help right now.”
“I didn’t say that,” Laxus replies, feeling vaguely insulted. The petty emotion hardly registers alongside the boiling rage in his chest. He’s sure of one thing, though. If he’s feeling this protective of his guildmates, there’s a certain fire lizard who must be even angrier.
Messing with Lucy is a pretty dumb move, Laxus thinks, smirking to himself. He calls out, clearly and loudly, “Natsu!”
Realization dawns on Juvia and Mira simultaneously, the tension in their frames easing. Laxus strains his ears and sure enough, he hears an immediate response, gasped out between panting breaths, “Already on it, Sparky.”
The dragon sounds murderous and out of breath from sprinting.
Laxus’ shoulders drop slightly and he feels some of his more violent anger dissipate, knowing that Natsu is on his way and Lucy’s tortured screams would soon stop. He feels a rush of fondness for the pink-haired boy. He’d never say it to his face, but Natsu embodies Fairy Tail’s spirit of love and family more than anyone else ever could.
Gajeel grins toothily, clearly having also heard the fire-breather’s reassurance. Jellal is just staring silently out at the arena, fists clenched and gaze piercing. His eyes are always so unnerving.
In front of them, Lucy is struggling desperately in Flare’s firey bindings, clearly terrified, though whether for herself or for little Asuka is unclear. All of them watch silently, with one thought in their minds: ‘Hurry up, Natsu.’
Laxus turns and glares towards his father in the stands. He imagines ripping that dead-beat apart with his bare hands. That whole good-for-nothing guild would get what was coming to them soon enough. He’d see to that.
Chelia
“I'm sorry guys. I forfei—“ Lucy tries to call out, but before she can finish speaking, flaming red hair is violently winding itself around her jaw and cutting off her words.
“Shut up, blondie. Didn’t I tell you not to speak? I’m not done having fun yet.”
“This is absolutely horrible! There’s no love in this fight at all,” Chelia cries, clapping her hands over her ears and feeling sick to her stomach. She watches the blonde mage cry out painfully and feels the air around her speed up, sharing in her distress.
Lyon steps forward and places a hand on her shoulder, looking concerned.
“I know this battle is intense, but you’ve never had an issue with brutal combat before. What’s wrong, Chelia?” Jura asks, cocking an eyebrow at her squeamishness.
“This is hardly a battle at all! She’s getting tortured. That redhead is way out of line,” Chelia exclaims, waving her arms out towards the scene in front of them as if this should be obvious. She sees Lyon and Jura exchange a thoughtful look and feels a rush of defensiveness. They’re treating her like a little kid.
“It is quite awful,” Jura agrees, “That Flare woman is clearly unhinged, but she hasn’t broken any rules. It has simply become a one-sided fight,” he explains. He looks displeased about it, but nowhere near as disturbed and sickened as Chelia feels.
She realizes with a start that without sharing her heightened sense of hearing they don’t know what’s truly going on. That has to be why they’re so calm about this.
“You don’t get it! Lucy hasn’t run out of magic, Flare is threatening one of her guildmates to get her to stand down and take the beating,” Chelia bursts out.
Immediately, Jura and Lyon’s expressions darken. “Chelia…are you sure? That’s an incredibly serious allegation to make.” Jura asks, face grave, and Chelia nods vigorously.
“I can hear them. Lucy even tried to surrender and hand the fight over to Flare, but that psycho just gagged her and kept on going!” Chelia’s hands are shaking. She enjoys a good fight as much as anyone— they can be really fun, but the healer within her can’t bear to watch this any longer, stuck on the sidelines and unable to help.
“That’s sick,” Lyon spits, watching the scene before them with new eyes. Lucy is screaming and shaking, completely at Flare’s mercy. He frowns, “She would go through all of this pain and humiliation to protect her friends…” He trails off, shaking his head with a wry smile, “Of course she would. She’s a member of Fairy Tail.”
Chelia stares, captured by the uncommonly fond look on his face. He must be thinking of Gray. Before now, Chelia had never gotten to personally meet these members of Fairy Tail, or even learn much about them; they had been locked away on that island for most of her childhood. But the stories she’s heard from Sherry and Lyon were always filled with this sense of begrudging admiration.
She thinks that she understands it now. These wizards really are amazing. The pure love that this blonde has for her guildmates is incredibly inspiring.
Sting & Rogue & Orga
“Try anything else and I’ll snuff her out like a candle!”
“Damn. That’s brutal.”
Sting cocks his head towards Orga when he hears the words, watching the bigger man’s eyes widen in surprise at the turn the fight has taken. His own gaze flits back to the battle and he can’t help but agree. Even by his standards, it was getting pretty rough.
It’s still a little crazy to him just how quickly the tables had turned on the blonde from Fairy Tail team A. He’d thought that she was pretty strong. Nothing compared to him or the rest of Sabertooth, but he knew enough about Yukino’s magic to know that the whole ‘two zodiac gates at a time’ thing is considered pretty impressive. And she’d wielded her spirits capably.
However talent clearly isn’t enough to win when her opponent is playing dirty. The moment the creepy red chick threatened the life of the blonde’s youngest guildmate, the celestial wizard had completely given in to her attacks, allowing herself to be tortured without complaint; taking lash after lash from her opponent’s freaky hair.
“Flare has threatened to kill one of her guildmates if Lucy puts up any kind of fight. This definitely isn’t in line with the rules,” Rogue states, tone as hard to read as ever.
Sting lets out a chuckle, “It’s a pretty clever tactic, though, you gotta admit. The fight’s less fun when you play dirty like that, but I respect the strategy.”
The blonde girl, Lucy, lets out another piercing shriek and Sting finds himself wishing that he didn’t have to hear each one so clearly through his slayer senses.
“I can’t find it within myself to respect any strategy that involves threatening a five year old,” Rogue says coldly. Yukino’s eyes snap to them, shocked and clearly disapproving. She keeps her mouth shut, though, and simply looks back to the battle with furrowed brows.
Sting’s own smirk falters a little bit, but he shrugs, “Well, it doesn’t matter if you respect it or not. You know that the master would approve of this type of strategy for us— if it meant winning the games.”
Rogue frowns slightly, cutting his dark eyes away as if disappointed, and Sting feels a stab of annoyance. He turns away as well, crossing his arms.
Without making a conscious decision, he finds his ears focusing in on a little girl in the Fairy Tail guild’s viewing section, hollering encouragement to ‘Lulu’. She’s completely oblivious to the threat on her own life, just watching in childlike confusion as her guildmate gets thrashed. Sting feels his heart pang. He pictures the kids that had crowded around him and Rogue for autographs in the city the other day, admiration shining in their eyes.
“Now, what should I make you do?” Flare asks, rhetorically, smiling as the celestial wizard scowls and slumps defeatedly against the hair binding her arms and legs. The redhead’s mouth is too wide for her face and it creates an unsettling, shark-like grin.
“What if I made you strip off all of your clothes in front of everybody? What do you say, Blondie? Wanna put on a show?”
Rogue’s eyes narrow disapprovingly. It’s a subtle enough shift that if you didn’t know what to look for, it would just seem like his normal detached expression, but Sting sees it. This time he can’t help but agree. He’s all for a rough and bloody battle, but this event isn’t the place to play out some weird humiliation fetish.
Not his guild, not his business, though.
“Then again, I’m feeling artistic today. I think I’ll brand you with the Raven Tail guild mark!” The blonde girl goes from angry but resigned to horrified and panicked in mere moments. She struggles against the bindings with renewed vigor, eyes wide and scared.
Sting gapes at the redhead’s words, fully caught off guard for the first time. He doesn’t have any love for Fairies, and he can understand doling out a little unnecessary brutality or humiliation on your enemies (it’s practically a requirement for being a Sabertooth wizard), but this is starting to go past even his moral threshold.
Orga shakes his head slowly, “Woah. Red is a complete psycho. This was a little entertaining at first, assuming she’s bluffing about killing the kid, but now it’s just getting kind of…sad.”
“Indeed,” Rogue murmurs.
“Where should I put it? Oh, I know! I’ll cover up that ugly Fairy Tail mark on your hand.”
“No, please! Anywhere but there. Stop!”
“Holy shit…” Sting mutters. Now he’s actually starting to feel bad for the blonde girl. His guild mark means everything to him. It fills him with pride every time he sees it. He thinks pretty much all wizards aligned with a guild value their emblem deeply. Which is exactly why her sadistic opponent is targeting it.
Yukino looks at him curiously, obviously bemused by all of their dramatic reactions. None of them are prone to sympathizing with their enemies. He turns to her to give some context.
“Fire-chick just threatened to burn the Raven Tail emblem into Lucy’s skin. Right over her Fairy Tail guild mark…” He watches as the pretty white-haired mage claps a hand over her mouth in horror.
“That’s awful. I hope that someone puts a stop to this unnecessary cruelty,” Yukino whispers, expression twisted.
“I’m sure Natsu is on it,” Sting reassures, trying to comfort her. For some reason, though, the thought of his old idol rushing to the rescue of his guildmate makes Sting feel a little bit better too.
“Or Gajeel,” Rogue adds, shoulders finally relaxing once more. “One way or another, she’ll be fine. Fairy Tail wouldn’t let a guildmate suffer.”
Sting smirks at him teasingly for the words, hearing some of the boy’s old hero-worship make an appearance. Rogue blushes slightly, tipping his head away and pointedly avoiding eye contact.
“Whatever happens, I hope that Lucy-sama gets a few more good hits in,” Yukino mutters, and Sting and Rogue exchange an amused look.