The shrubbery whipped at her face, painfully marring it's surface with bloody oozing lines as she sped through the dense woods. Above her the moon shone bright enough to illuminate the area well but she didn't have the time to examine the path for the safest route to camp; instead choosing to cast herself through the thicket with a very un-Levy abandon. Behind her she could hear the laughter echoing between the trees, moving with an otherworldly speed, not bothered by the obstacles that tripped and beat at her almost every other foot; the chilling sound gradually getting closer and closer. She may have been moving like the wind but the darkness seemed to be everywhere at once. The knowledge made her heart hammer against her ribs so hard she was sure it was on the verge of outright failing her. Her lungs burned. The soles of her feet ached. Her muscles started to weaken, slowing her down. There would be a swift resolution to this game of cat and mouse she was currently playing and she knew it. She couldn't keep going like this.

In the distance she saw the faint glow of a camp fire but despite this she knew that the sanctuary of the camp was still too far. She was already painfully aware that she could be overtaken at any point on this mad dash. The purpose of chasing her was to wear her down. Tire her out. Let her get just to the borders of safety and then snatch her into the shadows. Get her in such an exhausted state that she wouldn't be able to mount much of a defence. Out of the corners of her vision she spotted a clearing. Just an empty field, about a hundred yards wide filled with long grass. With a renewed purpose she steeled herself for what was undoubtedly going to be a short lived battle and darted abruptly to the right. The laughter at her rear stopped and the wind whispered something unintelligible. From behind her a shadow moved so swiftly in the same direction that even if you had been looking directly at it, it more than likely would have slipped by unnoticed. The shadow sped passed her, lingering at the center of the clearing, directly in her path.

When the script mage heard the faint laughter ahead of her she came to an abrupt halt and before the shadow could react the words 'SHIELD' and 'SUN' appeared above them. Heat and light exploded from the center of the clearing and a roar of pain resonated as a figure was literally dragged kicking and screaming from the shadow world. His iron body caught in the magnetic field of the makeshift sun while the shadow world he'd been moving in was viciously burned away in the searing light. A few feet off the ground and the iron scales covering his body withdrew and he fell to the earth, couching like a cat, no longer caught in the worst of it's pull. A moment he gave to wonderment and agony, looking at her magic it in all it's glory; watched flares explode from the surface of the letters only to collide with an invisible barrier. Thousands of them per second and all so close that he reckoned he could brush it's surface with his fingertips. His eyes burned but he found it difficult to look away. To move away from it's heat. It was beautiful, sitting above them, the extent of it's destructive power contained inside a bubble he couldn't even fathom the strength of. How strong would a barrier be to trap a sun? Even a tiny, conjured one. The moment of distraction cost him and the only warning he received of an attack was the blur of an armoured fist a second before it materialized through the blinding light and struck him in the face, hard enough to make even the dragon slayer momentarily see stars as his feet left the ground and he collided with the earth several feet away.

He managed to clamber back to his feet a few moments later only to just about dodge another heavy swing. The sight of her then made the sun look shabby in comparison. Breath left his lungs at the image as her whole body shined in the light, as though she were made of steel. The colour of her hair and her skin and clothes gleamed a silvery white. Even her normally brown irises shone with the same metallic sheen, making her hard expression appear downright menacing. Emblazoned across her chest was the word 'TITANIUM'. 'STRENGTH' was etched into her stomach a few inches lower. He winced openly. He'd never seen her employ her magic like this before, and in a direct fight? Applying stuff like this to yourself was always a risk and an attack like this would cost her every ounce of magic she had and they both knew it. Already the drain on the script mage's magic was taking it's toll as the sun above began to dull and shrink. Solid script magic could create a lot of things but the like of shields and suns in this case required a constant draw of energy to maintain.

Through the pain Gajeel let a half grin slip. She'd done all of this on the spot while being chased through the woods by a dragon slayer. Job at the council? She should be leading it. He took a stance to deflect another blow as the woman pulled back her fist but the burden was already beginning to show and she was moving even slower than she would normally. That's when he spotted it and balked. The skin on her bare shoulders had begun to crack and tear at the joints. Oil like blood oozing from the seams. The script word wasn't just armour, it was sinking deeper than that. Impromptu, on the fly, unpractised script magic often had it's own risks and consequences but this was something else. She was wincing in pain. She was becoming the word; it was changing her. Her chest heaving with the need to taken in oxygen. Very few mages would ever experience what it felt like to have their insides turn to metal. It was often very, very far from pleasant.

Her third assault was much too slow, giving Gajeel time to recover his senses. As physically strong as the magic had made her she was just not fast enough to dodge his counter attack, taking the full force of his rough, somewhat desperate tackle square in the midsection. With a guttural 'OOOMPF' that very nearly sent bile screeching up her throat, the sun above winked out of existence and she landed painfully on her back, Gajeel sitting over her hips pining her arms at shoulder height. He didn't know how deep the magic was spreading but she was almost out of energy and it didn't look like it was stopping.

"You need to undo it. You need to undo it, now," He was only vaguely aware that he was panicking. The woman's expression focused and much to his relief her skin started returning to it's normal fleshy texture, albeit far paler than it had been and coated in a layer of sweat and dirt.

His eyes locked in worry at her now freely bleeding shoulders.

"Yeh really went all out, Shorty," He said before letting out the breath he'd been holding and releasing one of her wrists to prod the wounds, careful not to open them any wider. To his relief they were shallow. They'd heal quickly. She closed her eyes and took a few shaky deep breaths. She tried to speak but her throat was on fire. Her limbs felt like they'd been swapped with lead. She'd very almost made it back to camp. Almost even beat him in a direct confrontation but she lacked stamina and that last spell had backfired spectacularly. The word for strength had meant to reinforce the armour, instead it had changed the very nature of the script word itself. In an a very interesting way mind you, and however painful it opened up avenues for future testing.

Gajeel moved to sit at her side and put an arm under her shoulders lifting her into a sitting position.

"I thought the game was escape and evade back to camp? Heh. Caught me off-guard with that, Shrimp," He flashed her a side grin.

"I figured... there was no point...in running this time," She rasped between breaths, smiling. "You always catch me."

He let a thumb caress the skin on her cheek, beneath the long cut that had appeared there during the chase. The smear of blood that followed the digit made his insides tighten. He withdrew his hand sharply but a much smaller one latched onto his wrist.

"It was my idea to do this," She wheezed. "Don't go getting all guilty on me now, Gajeel. You're going to make me bigger, remember?" She smiled tiredly at him. Blood stained lips, bruised and cut face, crimson soaked arms. The sight of her and his heart literally skipped a beat. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. The cold normally never bothered him but tonight his skin goosebumped and his limbs trembled in response to the mild chill in the wind. Levy looked at him in abject fascination. Gajeel Redfox was a swirl of contradictions and internal struggles.

They sat there in silence for several drawn out seconds before a warm hand on his cheek snapped him back to himself. Unwittingly, he leaned into it's heat. A simple act of comfort that stilled his shaking, the chaste kiss that followed on his opposite cheek breathed life back into his body.

When he opened his eyes Levy had already made her way to her feet and was offering him an outstretched hand. A smile was still plastered across her face. He took her small digits in his and stood. Adrenaline fading fast Gajeel realised just how much his insides hurt. Walking back to the fire was going to be painfully unpleasant. Gingerly they made their way out of the clearing and in the direction of their temporary camp where Lily would undoubtedly be waiting with the food and wondering where they'd gone off to at this hour of night. Gajeel knew he'd be in for another beating when Lily caught the sorry state of both of them. For all her injuries that night Gajeel was astounded that they were just superficial. While he might have won the fight, he very almost didn't. The dragon slayer was fairly sure that sucker punch of hers had fractured his jaw on one side and the magnetic forces had done a fair bit of damage to his internal organs. Might explain why his stomach still felt like it was sitting behind his ribcage. That and it would seem her magic was growing. Solid script magic held the ability to make something out of nothing but what she'd done had gone off in a new direction entirely. Transformative magic. Perhaps not even that far from actual enchanting. Using words to change one thing into another. He laughed then, and laughed again when the movement caused sudden jolts of pain through his core.

Levy gave him a curious side glare. Unsure about what it was he found so amusing. Lily was undoubtedly going to annihilate them. There was nothing amusing about the conversation with fangs waiting for them back at camp. Gajeel stumbled then and the smaller mage caught him by the shoulder and slung his arm across her own.

"Yep, I do believe that exceed is going to kill us," She whispered amid Gajeel's increasingly boisterous laughter.