Gajeel pounded forwards down the street until his gaze sighted on the red, windowed box thing that Moody had told him would be there. The concept of telephone boxes was lost on him, but that wasn't what that really was anyway. He thundered straight for it, the growl in his throat building up into a roar as he ran.
"Gajeel-kun, slow down!" Juvia shouted as the others struggled to keep up.
"What's going on down there!" Lily called as he swooped in low overhead.
"It doesn't matter what's going on down there! What matters is we're going in and getting them out!" Gajeel bellowed.
"How are you planning to…?" Charla started to ask, but then Gajeel suddenly hurled himself upwards into a colossal flying leap that almost took him up to the height of the building roofs around him. The Iron Dragon Slayer set his sights on the telephone box and channelled his magic into his legs.
"METSURYUU OUGI!" he roared as a magic circle formed beneath his feet and his legs suddenly morphed into a large, furiously spinning drill. "GOUMA: TETSURASEN!" He plunged down like a falling bomb and slammed into the top of the telephone box, shredding it to shrapnel in an instant flat and smashing into the ground beneath it, throwing up chunks of concrete everywhere as he burst down through the space beneath it, down, down, down…
Until he suddenly emerged out in a large room filled with people, crashing through the ceiling with a spray of dirt and sending several witches and wizards diving for cover as he morphed his legs back to normal and slammed into the floor so hard he splintered the tiles. He looked up, ignoring the screaming, the yelling and the sudden frenzy of activity that began all around him, ignoring the high walls, the impressive architecture and the golden statues in a fountain nearby, focusing all his attention to his nose as he searched for anything familiar.
"Gajeel, don't go rushing in so fast!" Lily chided him as he swept out of the hole Gajeel had made in the ceiling, closely followed by Happy, who was carrying Gray.
But Gajeel ignored his Exceed when he caught a sniff and said, "This way, quick!" and plunged into the crowd, who parted before him like the Sea of Reeds before Moses except for a few Aurors who were trying to fight their way to the front.
"Damn, and I thought he was the one who always pointed out how messed up things were," Gray muttered as he took off after him, the two Exceed right behind him. One of the Aurors managed to make his way to the front as they ran but Gray swept his arm to one side and conjured up an ice shield that the unfortunate Auror ran straight into with a solid thunk.
A couple of moments later and Lisanna dropped through the opening with her arms morphed into wings, flaring them to swoop low over the heads of the crowd, closely followed by Charla carrying Wendy and Juvia, bursting down on her own as a jet of water and reforming on the ground.
"There they go!" Wendy pointed to where Gajeel and Gray were disappearing into the distance.
"Come on, let's go after them," Juvia shouted.
"No, wait!" Lisanna interrupted, flapping over to them and landing in front of them smoothly. "Gajeel and Gray are capable of looking after themselves. We don't all need to go to the same place! But since we're here, we should work on trying to find a way to free those Clippers."
"You mean the birds?" Wendy blinked.
"Oh, come on, Lisanna," Charla wrinkled her nose. "I know they're innocent but are they really our top priority right now?"
"Maybe not, but I have faith that Gajeel, Gray, Happy and Lily will be more than enough to cover our top priority," Lisanna reasoned. "And since we're here we might as well do both the things we came here to do. Those birds are relying on us too."
"She has a point," Wendy stated. "But we'd better make a decision soon. Look!" she pointed across the room to where the wizarding security were trying to calm the crowd, many of whom were trying to dash for the exits covering their heads, but several of them were running right towards them, wands being drawn.
Juvia hesitated, looking down in the direction where Gray had gone and longing to go after him and watch his back as well as Gajeel's, but she clenched her fist and said, "Juvia knows Gajeel-kun and Gray-sama are up to the task. Juvia believes in them too. Juvia says we go for the birds."
"Alright," Wendy lifted her head and started using her own Dragon Slayer's sense of smell to take stock of her surroundings. "Got them!" she cried. "This way!" She pointed ahead and Charla whooshed off in the direction she indicated. A couple of spells were thrown up at them but Charla zig-zagged rapidly and easily dodged, and moments later the wizards firing the spells were bowled over by a wall of water as Juvia ploughed over their heads, flanked by a winged Lisanna.
And Tonks arrived in the hall shortly afterwards to watch the last of the mayhem unfolding as the girls rushed their way into another corridor.
"Well… how's this one going to be hidden from the public I wonder," she muttered to herself as she hurried to join the bedlam.
From the moment that Gildarts rushed out of the broken wall, people were there trying to block his way. The noises of the explosions he'd made busting out of his cell and getting Levy out of the interrogation room had certainly attracted a fair amount of attention and as he rounded a corner he saw a group of about ten witches and wizards running towards him.
"Stop!" One of them yelled as he pointed his wand ahead right at Gildarts. "Surrender in the name of the Ministry!"
Gildarts grimaced - most of these guys seemed to be fairly decent guys so he didn't want to do anything to hurt them if he could manage it. So he merely slammed his fist into the wall and ran off, down a different corridor instead, the corner behind him fracturing into dozens of pieces and falling in on itself like a landslide, blocking off the corridor and causing the security behind it to come skidding to a halt to avoid running slap-bang into it.
"Nnnn… nooo… keep… keep away… stay away…" Levy spasmed slightly on his shoulder, batting at the air with her arms as if trying to ward away an evil spirit weakly.
"Just hold on, Levy. We're getting you to safety," Mavis assured her, looking over her shoulder as the four Dementors pursuing them rounded the bend and swept through the air towards them, scabbed hands scraping at the air in a disturbingly zombie-like way. "Gildarts, those things are gaining."
"Well, let's see if we can't slow them down," Gildarts grunted as he spun around on the spot. "Because for some reason I mind the idea of hurting them a lot less. RRRRRHHHHAAAAAAGHH!" he bellowed as he slammed the palm of his real hand down to the ground, bursting his Crash magic down the corridor to seemingly splinter the floor and both walls into fractured, even bits, the cracks running past the Dementors.
As they approached, Gildarts couldn't help but feel several shivers running up his spine the like of which he'd not experienced for a long time, along with a terrible gnawing in gut that created an almost unfamiliar sense of despair, but Gildarts blocked it out, clenching his teeth and bursting the splintered floor and wars inwards in a colossal explosion. The Dementors screeched as they were suddenly smashed from seemingly all sides by flying bits of rubble that fell in around them, burying them in a veritable landslide.
Gildarts had no idea whether that would work on such creatures or even hold them back for long, but he didn't need to wait to find out. He turned and ran on. "First, how do we get out of here?" he asked.
"I don't know the layout very well, but we need to find the elevators," Mavis replied.
"The what?"
"The small rooms that move around on their own to take people places!"
"Oh, those. Well, where are…"
"Stop! Stop right there!" Scrimgeour's voice bellowed as Gildarts rounded another corner with no idea where he was going whatsoever. Gildarts hesitated as Scrimgeour, whom he had judged to be a decent enough man for sure, and several other Aurors, came charging in towards him.
"Don't make me hurt you guys!" Gildarts shouted across at them. "Just let us leave!"
"Can't do that! Surrender immediately or we'll have to use extreme force!" Scrimgeour replied, his wand at the ready even as he ran.
Gildarts grimaced and spun around with a swish of his cloak to run in the opposite direction. But as he did, he heard Scrimgeour shouted, "You asked for it. Now, men!"
"Stupefy!" multiple voices shout all at once and Gildarts felt the rush of an incoming attack behind him, spinning about to see several red streaks of light surging in towards him like speeding bullets. Gildarts gritted his teeth and thrust his hand forwards, generating a wall of criss-crossing lines across the whole corridors like a shield, and when the spells hit the wall they burst into teensy pieces that scattered to the wind.
Many of the Aurors actually pulled to a stop to ogle at that, but Scrimgeour pressed on with a couple of the others anyway.
...
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