Both the dragons bellowed and pulled apart, shaking and tossing their heads and lifting their front feet to scratch at their eyes, which the others could see were starting to turn pink and swell shut.
...
"Alright, we did it!" shouted one of the men, before he suddenly noticed Pantherlily standing not far away from him, sword still held tightly in hand. The man stumbled backwards and almost fell over, screaming, "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?"
"Hey! Wait a minute!" Lily raised his hands. "We're not…"
"GAH! IT CAN TALK! STUPEFY!" The man pointed his stick at Lily and fired a reddish beam of light at the giant cat. Compared to most magical things that Lily had had thrown at him it looked rather meagre, but he was not stupid enough to let himself get hit by it when he didn't know what it was. He dodged sideways and ducked down into a crouch as the panicked man fired another one moments later, wincing at the pain in his back as he raised his wings and hoisted himself into the air.
"HOI! WILL YOU JUST…!" Lily started but suddenly several of the other humans were flinging similar light jets up at him. Lily brought his sword into play and expanded its length and width, catching several light bolts on the flat of the blade but grunting as his back panged at him. "Damn it," he muttered. "I don't have time for this!"
"Leave them, Lily!" Happy shouted, as Charla had already dived off the cliff towards the sea below. "We're making a bad impression here anyway. Let's just find Wendy and try and talk to people another time!"
Lily nodded in agreement and shrunk his sword down, dodging another red blast as he followed Happy over the cliff, yelping a little as he switched back into his smaller body and the pain somehow became rather more condensed with it. But he bore it as the three Exceed dropped down towards the ocean, searching for any sign whatsoever of the young Dragon Slayer.
"Wendy! Wendy! Answer me please!" Charla begged. "WENDY!"
...
A fair distance below the water, Wendy was sinking, a thin trail of bubbles glubbing out of her mouth as she drifted down into the depths. Normally a fall from that height, even into water, would have killed most humans or at least broken most of their bones, but Wendy had managed to cast an Armour enhancement spell on herself before she hit the cold water, sparing her from that. Nevertheless, she had still been knocked unconscious by the impact with the water and was now helplessly drifting downwards, unaware that she was even drowning.
But there was something else that was.
A grey-skinned and clammy hand slowly reached out to grip her firmly by the arm and drag her sideways through the water and away. Away from the three cats who were now frantically looking for her.
But not before Mavis, who had dropped beneath the water and was moving through it as easily as if it were the air since she was weightless and did not need to breathe, spotted what was going on and hurried after her.
...
"What the hell kind of place is this anyway?" Gajeel muttered as he trudged his way down the pavement. After a night of walking, he had at last he had actually been able to get somewhere, following the coastline until he'd run into something that looked like a mid-sized village of some kind. But though most of it was similar to the kinds of thing he'd seen many times before, there were differences.
Namely, the roads. It seemed that every single lane between them buildings was designed to have cars and other vehicles going down it, while back home they were usually only ever used by pedestrians and drawn carriages. And there were so many vehicles as well - they were literally everywhere. Cars lined up behind each other half on and half off the pavement, while more breezed their way up and down in both directions intermittently. There were other larger vehicles that Gajeel couldn't even begin to name as well.
Most of the rest of it was vaguely familiar though, although some of houses were painted very strange colours. But there were also shops that when Gajeel paused to look in the window and see what they were selling… he hadn't a freaking clue. Things like weird boxes with screens that were playing moving images and all kinds of other things besides. None of it made any sense to him. Just where the heck was he, anyway?
There had been a sign on the way into the village when he'd stepped in through the road. A sign which read - Welcome to Portree. But Gajeel had never heard of it before and it certainly wasn't ringing any bells right now.
The people here certainly seemed no different either, although he was drawing a lot of stares. People seemed to stop and watch as he went past, and those that were on the same side of the street as him quickly crossed to the other side when he was heading towards them, mothers and fathers putting their kids behind them slightly. Gajeel couldn't help but smirk. Even bandaged and bruised it was good to know that people still found him intimidating.
There was one couple, boy and girl, who were kissing on a bench and didn't notice his approach until he was right in front of them. He paused and stared at them with a raised metal-studded brow before coughing pointedly. When they both broke apart and saw him, he offered them one of his most sadistic grins, and the boy yelped and scrambled over the back of the bench to crouch behind it warily while the girl seemed frozen in place.
"Well its clear who wears the skirt in this relationship," Gajeel snickered at the cowering boy before he turned to the girl and said, "So, would you care to tell me where the hell I am?"
"U…um…" the girl swallowed nervously. "You're, um… in Portree…"
"Yeah, I know that. But where the bloody hell is Portree? I need details, girl! What freaking country am I in?"
"You… you don't know which…?" the boy began before Gajeel sent him a glare that had him cowering again.
"I'm talking to your lady friend, bub," he growled. "A guy who jumps behind a bench to hide from a guy he's afraid of and leaves his girl unprotected ain't worth my time. So, girl… what country am I in?"
"Um… you're on the Isle of Skye… Scotland… United Kingdom…" the girl murmured slowly, waiting for some sign of recognition on Gajeel's face but finding none.
"…Nope… that don't help…" Gajeel muttered. "Let's try this instead. Does a place name Fiore mean anything to you?"
"Er… no… I don't… know that place…" the girl replied nervously.
"Where the hell has that bloody dragon sent me," Gajeel muttered to himself but he heaved a sigh and muttered, "Fine. Can you at least tell me where I can buy something metal? Like knives and forks or something. Heck I'd settle for a spork."
"Try… try over there," the girl pointed across the road and down the street to a shop with a sign on the front that read 'Co-Op.'
"Thanks…" Gajeel nodded curtly, turning and marching towards the shop, calling, "Your boyfriend's a wuss, by the way!" over his shoulder. Ignoring the cry of protest from the boy in question, he strode across the road, a car screeching to a halt to stop from hitting him. The driver of the car beeped a horn loudly at him, causing Gajeel to clap his hands over his sensitive ears. He growled and slammed his fist down on the hood of the car, crushing the metal and smashing into the engine inside. The whole street went silent as they stared in shock at this stunning act of vandalism but Gajeel merely shook his hand in the air and continued on as if nothing had happened.
But when he entered the Co-Op it was like another world entirely to him. "The hell is this?" he looked around the supermarket, staring at all of the rows upon rows of food. Customers scattered before him as he marched through, looking from side to side impatiently before he finally found some cutlery. He scooped up a couple of handfuls of them haphazardly and searched around for some place to pay for them. He spotted the till and joined the back of the queue, making the three people in front of him extremely nervous, as they kept glancing back over their shoulders at him, as if worried he was going to stab his cutlery into them.
Gajeel grimaced impatiently until it was finally his turn and he dropped all the shiny objects in front of the man on the other side of the desk. "How much for all these?" he asked.
The man coughed, looking Gajeel up and down slightly. "Er… are you sure you're okay there, son? You look like you should be in a hospital with all those bandages on."
"I'm fine. I heal quickly," he replied, which was true - the bodies of mages were generally far sturdier and tougher than those of regular people. "Now, can we hurry this up? I'm hungry."
"Don't you have any cutlery in the house already, sir?"
"If I had any cutlery I wouldn't be here buying some."
"I… see… well… you've got quite a bit here… so I'd say… that's fifteen pounds and sixty pence, please."
"…Fifteen what?" Gajeel frowned.
"Um… pounds. And sixty pence," the man said hesitantly.
"Is that some kind of money?"
"It's the currency of Great Britain, sir. Which is where you are…"
"Someone out there said I was in the United Kingdom."
"Well yes… but… um… don't you have the money, sir?"
"I've got about seven-hundred jewels," Gajeel reached into his pocket and pulled out the strange looking notes and placed them on the desk. "Can't you use this?"
"…I've never seen money like this before. Sorry, sir, but I can't take this money. I don't know the exchange rate."
"Shit," Gajeel growled loudly. "Well where am I supposed to get my hands on some pounds then?"
"Well, there's a bank down the street. Maybe they'll be able to exchange this money for however many pounds its worth…" the man was looking at Gajeel edgily now, as if he wasn't sure whether the Iron Dragon Slayer was completely sane.
But Gajeel looked nonplussed. "There's a what down the street?"
"A bank…" the man said, slowly, now sweating slightly. "You know… where you can take and store your money and then go and get it back when you need it?"
"Why the fuck* would anybody leave their own money with other people?" Gajeel snorted. But he just grunted and said, "Fine. I'll be back for these.
Hold them for me." And he stomped angrily out of the store and back into the street, taking his jewels with him. The automatic doors almost closed on him and he had to resist the urge to punch them before he stepped through them. What kind of messed up complicated place was this anyway?
So… where the heck was this bank place anyway?
...
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