Chapter 1

Do You Believe in Fate?

I heard a click as something was placed in the back of my head. My heart skipped a beat as I stared across the table at my childhood friend, an unsettling smile appearing across her face.

"L-Lass, isn't this a bit much for a joke?" I started to sweat a bit. My eyes glanced behind me to see a woman with long blonde hair tied into a pony-tail. "This was your idea, right, Lenora?"

"Yep! We knew you wouldn't go along with it, so we decided to trick you into coming over," Lenora replied, tilting her head.

"Go along with what?" I swore it had to be some elaborate prank. That Lenora would pull the trigger, and bubbles would come out or something.

"Going to the next world!" Lass clasped her hands together. "Lenora said if we killed ourselves another world awaited us, but she felt that you'd refuse, so we just decided to plan this."

I bit my lip not saying a word. Sure Lass could be a bit violent, and Lenora a bit weird. But they'd never plan a murder-suicide right?

"We'd figure you wouldn't mind since we're the only ones that you care about." Lenora ran her fingers through her hair with her free hand. "You'd probably kill yourself once you found out the news."

It was at that moment I realized they weren't joking. I didn't know what Lenora told Lass to convince her this was a good idea, but a strange knot started to form in my stomach.

I wanted to say something, anything to convince them not to go through with it. That was until I heard the chamber clicking into place.

"See you on the other side, Thomas!" The cheerfulness of Lenora contrasted with the sound of a gunshot.

Rushing water filled my ears. I felt strange like someone was dragging me out of a pool of water.

"To think, someone from a cult saving someone else..." A grumbling voice entered my ears. "It doesn't help that he looks like a dog..."

"Come now, Scruffy. We couldn't let a body float down the river without at least investigating it a little.

My body hit the ground, at least that is what I assumed I hit. I then felt someone place their fingers to my neck, checking my pulse.

"He's still alive," the male voice stated. I slowly started to open my eyes to see a set of orange eyes, staring back at me. I attempted to sit up before a strange nauseous feeling overtook me.

"I guess asking if you are okay would be pointless," the dark-skinned woman standing over me said, her silver hair waving in the breeze.

"Ignoring that, what should we do with him now?" The blonde man asked. "If we took the time to fish him out, it'd be pointless just to leave him here."

"Let's take him back to the building. We are pretty low on members, and any additions can help."

I didn't respond, mostly because it felt like my head was going to leak out of the side of my brain. Just thinking was painful, so I decided not to do that as the blond man picked me up and placed me on his shoulders.

"To think, we sunk so low to have to pick up random strangers..." The blonde man sighed. "What if he doesn't want to join?"

"Then I will personally eliminate him," the silver-haired woman said. I felt I should have been fearful of her comment, but instead, I was put at ease. I didn't know why, and I didn't care.

I just wanted the pain coming from my head to stop. So I did what any rational human being would do and closed my eyes and attempted to drift to sleep.

I didn't know how much time passed between where we were or where we were going, but I could feel myself being placed on something soft. If that was the case, I didn't need to worry anymore, at least that is what I thought.

I allowed myself to fall asleep, not caring what happened next as long as my headache would be gone when I woke up.

There were no dreams or anything like the sort. The only thing that was able to jog me awake was the sound of people talking around me, like some lab experiment.

"H-he does have wolf-ears and a tail..." I heard one voice state.

"I also heard from Jerome that he has red eyes, is this guy even human?" Another voice rang out, causing me to snap my eyes open.

I instantly sat up, causing the few people that were crowded around me to quickly back away. My gaze promptly made its way to the four corners of the room. It was dark and dirty. The only thing lighting the area was a few torches that had been placed around.

Strangely enough, my first thoughts weren't to where I was, but rather something else. "Where are they?" I asked blankly hanging my feet over the side of the bed.

"W-what are you talking about?" One of the oddly cloaked men asked, causing my eyes to narrow. "D-do you want to see Jerome and Briar?"

Those names were familiar, but they weren't what I was interested in. Instead, it was the names of two people that were the most important to me.

"Lenora and Lass, where are they!" I snapped, I could feel my hand twitching. I felt a well of anger crawl through my body, even if I had no idea why. Wind started to flow through the room, blowing the flames from the torches in every direction.

"D-damn it. He's an actual mage, get the staves!" One of the men yelled, the instantly he did everyone in the room ran towards one of the corners of the room. Just as expected there were large wooden rods with orbs attached to them.

I didn't know what they were used for, but I wasn't going to find out. I lifted my hand, swiping it through the air, in an instant, all the staves were broken and cut into pieces. Leaving the clocked figures frozen in place.

"Where are Lenora and Lass..." I repeated my question. I gritted my teeth as more and more wind picked up around. I didn't bother letting them answer the question, at that moment a small gust of wind blew open the wall flinging everyone out into the nearby hallway.

I walked through the newly created hole, taking a deep breath. I held my head, trying to recount bits and pieces of information. My name was Thomas. I was from Idaho. I recently graduated high-school with my two friends Lenora and Lass.

Despite that, I felt like there was something important I was missing. Whatever it was, I wouldn't find it here. I prepared to walk through the building, that was until I heard a voice.

"Hey, what happened here-" The voice cut itself off as I turned my head. At that moment I saw a pink-haired girl, around the age of fourteen just staring at me. She was wearing a black dress, with bright yellow eyes that had star like pupils.

She looked at the destroyed room and unconscious guards. "W-what? What are you doing?!" She yelled as I took a step towards her. I was fully prepared to attack her until she added something to her statement.

"W-we're the ones that saved you!" She cried out, shielding her face. When she did that simple action I stopped, my head was still throbbing.

"Oh, you're awake." A familiar voice called out to me. I turned my head once again to see a dark-skinned woman walking towards me. Stepping over the destruction that I must have caused. "I guess my hunch about you being able to use magic was right..."

My body relaxed somewhat as the woman continued talking. "Did you need to destroy the entire room, though? We are low on supplies as it is, we don't need any more problems cropping up."

"Ah, sorry..." I apologized without really thinking about it. My sense of reason seemed to have been returning to me, like an animal that was slowly waking up from anesthesia.

"Don't be, if I'm lucky you will more than makeup for it." The silver-haired woman brushed her hair to the side.

"Y-you need to be more careful who you bring into the building!" The pink-haired girl whined. "I could have lost my head or something!"

The dark-skinned woman sighed, looking over to the teenage girl. "Sorry about that Venom tongue, I'll be more careful considering how fragile you are!"

D-don't call me that in front of new people," the pink-haired girl quickly counted. "Plus can't you come up with something more cute for me? Like Kitty?"

The silver-haired woman sneered at the proportion. "You and I both know that's would be a lie to your true nature."

The pink-haired girl then grumbled crossing her arms. Her eyes locked with mine before she raised her hand, giving a salute. "The name's Mary, nice to meet you...I guess."

"My name is Thomas, sorry about trying to attack you earlier. I don't know what came over me..." I frowned. I never really considered myself a violent person, quite the opposite.

"That's fine..." Mary pouted, "Briar probably did some horrible things to you on the way here..."

The moment those words escaped Mary's lips, Briar's eyes twitched.

"We should probably be on our way..." Briar groaned, turning away from both me and Mary.

"Um, what about all of this?" I pointed to the destroyed room and unconscious guards.

"Don't worry. Mary will handle the cleanup!" Briar snickered.

"Wah!" Mary stamped her foot, but before she had a chance to say anything, Briar had already made her way halfway down the hall. A part of me wondered if I should stay and help the short girl, but ultimately, I decided to follower the silver-haired woman.

The whole situation was still somewhat confusing to me. Even more so given the location. It was like we were in a strange gothic manor, causing me to wonder if everyone around me were vampires.

"Our priest, Alok, is out right now, but I think considering how few of our members have actual magic he'll allow it," Briar said causing my mind to wander.

I should have been more shocked by the situation, yet I was going along with it. Like I had forgotten something, and I was experiencing deja-vu.

After a few minutes of walking through the dark, depressing building, we finally came to a large circular room. It was like a giant dinner table filled with seats. Sitting there was a tall person wearing heavy armor. The armor on his shoulder appeared to have demons on him, and his mask removed all identifiable facial features.

Sitting across from him was the blond man I had seen earlier.

"Where's Mary?" The blonde asked. "I feel all the members should be here if we are recruiting more mages."

"Don't worry, Venom Lips already met him, and she said it was okay..." Briar said, leaving quite a lot of the truth out of her statement. She then took a seat next to the other two before pointing to the chair across from hers. "Please take a seat."

I tilted my head, deciding not to go against it. I mean, I had no real reason to do so. I took my seat glancing at the three people as they stared back.

"Is he a mage?" The blonde ask.

"As far as I know, he is," Briar replied. "You need to be a bit more positive Scruffy."

The blonde grumbled, his gaze still fixated on me.

"If he is, then we should at least ask Jerome, he does not appear to be a part of the magic council." The tall armored figure spoke prompting Jerome to sigh.

"Perhaps it's better to be upfront about this..." The blond scratched his cheek. "Would you like to join our...group."

The way he phrased that made it sound far shader than I expected. I honestly had no idea what to make of the people around me, even more so since they all looked pretty strange and acted strange as well.

Still, they did save my life.

"Just to let you know, if you re-"

"Sure," I replied, cutting Briar off.

"W-wah?" Briar was taken aback by my blunt response, so much so that I had to repeat myself.

"I will join." Thinking about it, I didn't know why I was agreeing, but for some reason, it felt like this wasn't the first time I joined this sort of organization.

Briar frowned. "Are you sure? You don't even want to think about it?"

Jerome slumped his shoulders. "Weren't you the one that wanted him to join? Why the second thoughts?"

Briar shook her head. "No, I still want him to join, I just expected for it to take a bit more convincing that's all."

"With that, it has been decided..." The tall masked figure spoke.

Jerome crossed his arms, "I suppose we should try to get you a room, but before that..." The orange-eyed man scanned me. "Have you heard of a dark-guild know as Interminable Guerre?"

The moment that name was brought up, I felt something digging into my brain — a strangely nostalgic feeling, with a hint of unpleasantness to it. Despite those flood of emotions, however...

"I can't say that I have," I replied as blunt as possible.

"I guess you're lucky," Briar sighed, pressing her hand against her cheek. "Those guys have been giving the Balam alliance a ton of trouble. They even managed to kill one of Grimoire Hearts strongest members and cripple another one."

Those terms, I had heard them before. The more I hung around the area. The more things started to come back to me, like a computer slowly loading a webpage.

"Perhaps it's for the best," Jerome added. "The alliance never took us seriously, so if another dark-guild wants to put them in their place, it can only be advantages to us."

They seemed to have been talking about a ton stuff that was going over my head. Though a strange realization started to dawn on me, I was in the Fairy Tail world.

I didn't know why I had such a delayed reaction to that fact. I had just used magic, after all, but my mind finally seemed to be comprehending the situation I was in.

Which meant the people around me were apart of the cult known as Avatar. It was kind of weird, I should have been reacting to it more, but I couldn't muster up much shock or enthusiasm for what was in front of me.

"We can talk about that later since our next mission is about them," Briar said her eyes focusing on me once again. "D-6, show Wolfy here to his room."

"Wolfy?" I raised a brow. I then felt something shift on the top of my head. I flicked it, noticing that I had indeed grown another set of ears on the top of my head. "I guess it matches the tail..." I frowned, realizing no one was ever going to take me seriously again.

"Come on..." The dark, clad man lifted himself from his seat, exiting the room. I couldn't help but wonder if following him was the right thing to do.

I got up leaving Briar and Jerome to talk amongst themselves. I followed the dark clad man through the dark hallways, taking note of how few members there were in the building. Despite that fact, even I realized there probably wasn't enough space for everyone to live there.

"Um, does everyone have rooms?" I asked.

"No, only those with their magic are permitted to have rooms here."

"I guess that means a lot of members don't have magic then?" I recalled Briar saying that finding me was lucky when she found out that I could use magic.

"That is correct," D-6 replied. "Most followers here use magical items of some kind.

It made sense, from what the series told me only 10% of people in Earthland could use magic. Which never made sense to me, but I decided not to question the logic of the series. I probably wasn't going to question a lot of things I was going to see from here on out.

We finally got to the room at the end of the hall, causing the black-clad man to place his hand against the door. "You will be staying here."

I had a hard time telling if he was being rude or just being blunt. "Thanks, is there anything else that I need to know?"

"I do not think so..." The man replied it was nearly impossible to tell what was going on through his head. I blamed the mask, making it challenging to know what his expression or thoughts were.

After all, most people communicated with their face, so having that blocked off made someone naturally more inhuman.

"...Can I ask you something?" I looked at the masked man.

"..." He didn't say anything, allowing me to take his silence as a yes.

"Why are you letting me join Avatar? Are you that strapped for natural mages?" I could see it happening with the Balam Alliance around. Most of the talented mages that worshiped Zeref probably went to one of those three — leaving Avatar to eat up the scraps.

But even then...letting a random stranger join your cult seemed a bit much.

"...Do you believe in fate? That there is a reason why we met?" D-6 asked, causing my stomach to twist into a knot. "The members of Avatar do, it was no coincidence that Briar and Jerome happened upon you, perhaps it was Zeref that blessed us with another mage."

I didn't respond. I guess because I knew Zeref's story, it was impossible for me to see him as a god. Still, it wasn't my place to shit on someone's beliefs besides, the way D-6 phrased his statement reminded me of Lenora.

Just replace the words fate with gravity, and it would be one to one. Lenora always believed that people had a pre-destined place in the world, and trying to go against it would only cause pain.

"Thanks," that was the only thing I could say as D-6 started to walk away.

I sighed, preparing to open the door.

"You know not all of us believe in that stuff."

I froze, turning my head, leaning against the hallway wall was Mary.

"Huh?"

"Even if Zeref's a god, I think peoples actions are there own." The star-eyed girl tilted her head. "At least, I hope...even if I'm a dark-mage I don't want to live in a world where everything is pre-determined."

It was nice to hear, though that may have been my beliefs. "Then, why would you join a cult like this?" It was a stupid question to ask. No one knows why they join a cult after all.

It was like asking someone why they became a serial killer or something. If they had the answer to it, then they probably wouldn't be serial killers.

"No one else would take me, plus I'm looking for someone?" The pink-haired girl said. "What about you? The meeting didn't seem to take that much time, but it seems you are already member."

"I guess...I'm also looking for someone," I frowned recalling Lenora and Lass. The last thing I remembered was Lenora driving the three of us to her house to stay over after that everything was a blank.

"That's good enough I suppose," Mary smiled, placing her hands on her hips. She then walked up to me, placing her hand, on the top of my head, scratching behind my wolf-ears.

"H-hey don't do that..." I strange feeling overcame me as she motioned her fingertips.

"W-woah, they actually are real. I thought you were wearing a headband or something!" Mary's fingers started to furiously dance across my skull, like she was petting a dog.

I enjoyed the feeling, but I still had to maintain my pride as a person.

"Will you stop!" I grumbled removing Mary's hand from my hair. "I'm heading into my room now." My nostrils flared as I slipped into my new room, shutting the door behind me.

I could hear Mary giggling on the other side as her footsteps echoed through the hallway.

Still, I was alone now. I glanced around my room, noting how empty it was, which made sense. I didn't have anything with me, so of course, my room was empty.

Though a handy calendar and mirror were hanging on the wall, I walked up to it examing what year it was.

"X784..." I should have expected as much though this was more than eight years from their introduction proper in the canon, which might have explained why all the significant members weren't there yet.

I then walked over to the nearby mirror. My black-hair drew my attention to my eyes. "Were my eyes always red? And these clothes, these weren't what I was wearing when I, Lenora, and Lass all went to Lenora's house..."

The looked far too close to clothes from earthland to be anything from earth, which was impossible since I went straight from there to here.

A lot of things weren't adding up, and how well I was taking being sent to a new world didn't help. Most people would be freaking out, but for some reason, I was at ease. It made me feel weird. There was nothing worse than knowing you should be feeling one thing and feeling the complete opposite.

"Whatever, I just have to find Lenora and Lass, from there we can find our way home..." I let out a sigh. Wondering if joining an evil cult was the smartest choice.

Though, just like my feelings with earthland as a whole, I felt strangely at ease. Like joining an ordinary guild would have gone against my very nature.

Which was odd, since I wasn't a violent person, regardless Jerome and Briar found me first. So it was only natural that I would end up joining them first.

Thus my days as an Avatar Member began.

Author note

I always wanted to rewrite this series as I said above. Make it a bit faster paced and get straight into it. Plot points introduced in the original will be kept if rearranged slightly. I felt it was pointless to start an entirely new fic with the same characters etc.

Despite the paring list, I don't want this to become a Harem. It's more I'm going to let reviews tell me who Thomas should end up with.

Don't know if I got it across in the chapter, but I wanted to make it obvious that Thomas actually forgot the part about being shot in the head by his friends.

I wanted to also present Avatar as pretty weak. Since their display in canon was...far from a strong showing, and that it felt like they just mocked up a ton of former dark-guild members for their cult since it only had around 2000 members.

Next chapter.

Will three dark mages be able to defeat one ghosty girl?