Written by: DamnHeFLy

A/N: Continued due to response

Disclaimer: Not my characters...

The rebellion was successful for many, but not for one red-haired girl. Her role model, friend and crush had turned on her, on everyone. Everyone was leaving, but she didn't want to leave without Jellal. She couldn't leave without Jellal. And it may very well be her downfall.

"Jellal, please..." The eleven year-old girl bawled out her eyes and got on her knees, begging the blue-haired boy to break out of his possession. But it was to no avail. The boy's eyes expressed nothing but despair, hatred and insanity. Jellal was gone, no longer a friend, no longer an ally.

No longer a nakama worth fighting for.

"Don't you get it, Erza? There is no such thing as freedom! Even if we get off this island, we starve to death, or get beaten to death by thugs or monsters. We can never escape this life of ours!" Dark magic burst out around Jellal, encasing him in a skyward beam. Erza was frightened at the sight of this dark magic. She had thought her newfound ability to control weapons were powerful, but the magic exuding from Jellal was on a whole new level. Jellal, the one who influenced her righteous personality, the one who taught her about the resilience, had become the polar opposite of what he was the last time he was seen.

The Jellal in front of her had given up.

"Erza, there's nothing worth fighting for. It's hopeless." Jellal had influenced her so much in the past, and she had trusted his beliefs that now...she was starting to see the "hopelessness" Jellal was talking about. As Erza succumbed to the hopelessness in the situation, her legs weakened as a result of her despair. She propped herself with all four of her limbs, as if bowing to her demise. She might as well was.

"Nothing...worth fighting for..." Erza sobbed out like an echo.

"Then find something worth fighting for."

Erza looked up to see a black blur, as the tears distorted her vision. The black blur blocked her view of the dark energy and Jellal, like a shield that deflects the despair that was trying to attack her. She blinked away the tears to see the distortion, who was an orange-haired man with black robes. His back was to her, but she was sure he was talking to her. The man was like a blanket in the darkness, seemingly protecting her from the creatures of the darkness. But like a blanket, Erza didn't know whether he was actually able to protect her. He could be just another false hope. One was enough.

The man propped the object in his hand on his shoulder, causing Erza to notice that the man was wielding a sword. More like a cleaver perhaps, due to it's lack of a proper hilt, but it looked lethal nonetheless. The weapon was huge, but the way the stranger held it made it look weightless.

"There is such a thing as freedom, blue-haired boy. You're just too weak-minded to fight for it until the end. But I'll forgive you for that that, since you're possessed or something." Erza couldn't see the man's face, but she knew that this man was probably scowling at Jellal, expressing how disgusting Jellal's words sounded. The disgust was apparent in the man's voice.

"I don't need your forgiveness! You're a fool for thinking that way, so don't try to influence Erza!" Jellal's pillar of dark magic increased in a burst, the pillar widening such that the man's body couldn't screen her from the sight of the magic. Erza was horrified, but the man stood calm, as if unimpressed by the demonstration of power. To remained unfazed at the sight of such power...this man must have a high mental strength or maybe...he was way stronger than Jellal.

"We think way too differently. I think you're the one trying to put your twisted thoughts into this gaki. Just because you think you can't win, doesn't mean it's not worth choosing over the easy way out. You have all this dark magic power, but you are weak in the mind. And when you are weak in the mind..." The man pointed his blade at Jellal with one hand, before starting to glow along with his blade. "...you are weak all over."

Jellal was enraged to the point of speechlessness, and to the point of summoning a darkness magic circle at the feet of the glowing man. Before Erza could cry out a warning, the magic circle exploded. Even though she dodged to the right, the explosion still affected Erza, knocking Erza back and sliding her abrasively across the rubble-filled flooring.

Maniac laughter that came from Jellal was heard through the smog, but was for some reason cut off. The smoke cleared to reveal the orange-haired man still standing in the same position, not even flinched. But this time, his sword was no longer a huge cleaver, and his robes were replaced. Instead, he wore a long-sleeved, knee-length black coat, wielding a long, black and thin katana (Bankai). A side-view of the man's face was now available to Erza, and Erza didn't know whether it was the clothes, the stance or the face, but he looked really dashing.

Jellal summoned a magic circle again, but this time the man dodged so fast that Erza's only working eye couldn't keep up. All that she could see was a flash of his image before he appeared behind Jellal. With a swing of his sword, a crescent of glowing blue energy was flung Jellal's way. Jellal instinctively commanded shadows to take the blow for him, but the energy sliced through the shadows, knocking Jellal a good twenty feet back. Jellal became more enraged, and the murderous intent that could be detected from his eyes could instantly kill someone. Erza found it difficult to look, but the man scowled deeper into Jellal's eyes, increasingly disgusted the more murderous Jellal seemed.

Jellal crouched on all four limbs and summoned another magic circle below him, before propelling himself like a meteor. The man glowed again, but this time when the light cleared, he was wearing a white suit that looked like an exoskeleton (Complete Fullbring). With a quick movement, the stranger drew the short sword from its holster on his back, dashing forward with as twice as much speed, something Erza thought wasn't possible. Even though Jellal was faster than humanly possible, the stranger was at speeds rivaling sound, dodging the assault that Jellal was executing by jumping over the straight-forward attack. By rotating his body in the air, the stranger stabbed Jellal in the shoulder, causing Jellal to scream out in pain. Red sputtered out of the wound, spilling and painting the ruined site crimson.

Erza was shocked, but not worried. It made her gasp, but it didn't make her cry. She took this as a sign of hopelessness she held towards saving Jellal, and started to run to the ships, where hopefully Millianna, Sho, Wally and Simon were still waiting.

"Erza!"

Said girl turned to see a speeding Jellal heading towards her, and she would have dodged if she didn't look into Jellal's petrifying eyes. Blood-lust was the only thing she saw. And in a flash, she saw the last thing she would see while conscious: a white blur, and everything went dark again. Everything always went dark for her. She just hope this would be the last time.

Light was the first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes. Erza didn't know whether to be grateful or not. This could mean a new hope...or just a continuation of her suffering. She hoped for the former but started believing it was the latter.

She sat up despite the throbbing headache and aching limbs, and found herself sitting on an empty shore. Almost empty, except for a man in front of her with a white shirt with black pants. Then she recognized him. She only saw one person that had orange hair in all her life. The man that gave her a chance.

"Oh, gaki, you're awake." The man sat cross-legged in front of her, looking down on her with his superior height. He was scary, constantly scowling whether engaged in battle or not. Erza lost her balance and crashed into the sand to her right, making the orange-haired man laugh. She didn't know whether to be embarrassed or freaked out, so she was a little of both. She scurried away from him hastily, looking at the man tentatively.

"Who are you?!" The man didn't put back a scowl, instead seemed more laid-back as opposed to her first impressions of him. The man scratched his head for a second, as if contemplating whether answering her would be a good idea.

"I can't tell you who I am, because I hope you may not remember my name in the future. But if you want, you could call me..." The man tapped his chin slowly, brainstorming on aliases that fitted him. But Erza thought of a pretty good one.

"Carrot-head." The man raised his eyebrow at the weird suggestion, not at all offended by how blunt of an insult it was to his hair color. Erza thought maybe she should explain. "You have orange hair and a sharp jawline."

The mysterious swordsman just smiled, nodding in reply. "Alright. Carrot-head shall be my alias. And you should be Erza." Carrot-head stood up and dusted his pants before stretching his hand as an invitation to help Erza up. She took it, and she dusted her own rags as well. Rags. A reminder of her enslavement.

Carrot-head caught on with her thoughts, waving a hand in her face to get her attention back. Her head snapped back up, a little embarrassed to be caught in a daydream.

"I saw you controlling weapons from afar. Is that your magic?" She nodded, and Carrot-head shoved his hands in his pockets. "You know, in battle, others may not use weapons, but magic instead. And you can't control others' magic, can you?" Erza nodded again, starting to question this man's motives. Why was did he help her? Why was she helping her now?

"Do you know what magic I used?" Erza shook her head, her neck starting to ache from head movements. "Then I shall explain. There is a magic space where I can store weapons and armor. I can summon those weapons and armor at any given time, allowing me to be all-rounded. The armors that you saw me use are just a few out of a hundred."

Why the hell is telling me about his magic? Erza stared at Carrot-head, starting to think of him as a weirdo than a knight in shining armor. Knight in shining armor? Erza thought she had ditched that thought a long time ago. Jellal brought it back, and but had forced her to ditch it again. But she considered him one, now that she was free. Oh...she was free!

"Why did you save me?" Erza blurted it out before she could stop herself. Carrot-head switched from his laid-back persona to his constantly scowling one. The one that freaked her out. It made her want to apologize, but she thought against it and stood her ground. He looked down at her sternly, like how a mentor would look at his disrespectful disciple.

"If I have the ability to save someone, and I don't, it would feel as if I killed them. But there is only so few people that is willing to think this way. I see the potential in you to protect those you care about. You are righteous by nature, strong in the mind. And when you're strong in the mind-"

"-you're strong all over." Erza unknowingly muttered the remainder of the sentence for him. This made Carrot-head smile a little, and she found herself smiling back at his heart-warming smile. Not long later, he snapped back to his straight face, transitioning abruptly.

"Exactly. So I'll give you the ability to protect others, and hopefully you'll spread my beliefs to the people around you. You can control weapons, but you can't make them. And you certainly can't carry a hundred swords wherever you go. By teaching you my magic, I can allow you to maximize your magic, allowing you to fight for your beliefs, because some beliefs are worth fighting for." Erza unconsciously widened her eyes at the wisdom that this guy supposedly packed. He looked roughly eighteen, yet he spoke like a sage who's a thousand years old. And the magic power this man possessed...made Carrot-head a thousand times more enigmatic.

The said orange-haired stranger place his hand on her shoulder, and Erza stiffened like a soldier. Erza slowly raised her head to meet the eyes of Carrot-head, feeling like he was imparting wisdom that words couldn't demonstrate through eye contact. He smiled once again, and his sincerity was undoubted.

"Erza, I shall teach you how to recreate weapons. I shall teach you Re-equip Magic."