This story starts right after the Galuna Island Arc, where, in the anime only, a weird request shows up on the board for 500,000J that says 'Figure out what this says'. Natsu reads it and he switches bodies with Loke. Also, Gray and Lucy switch bodies, along with Erza and Happy. It's perfect since they never explained how the guild fixed everything after the 30-minute time limit (that's how long they had after the spell was cast to get things back to normal) and everything was just fine in the following episode. I don't mind spoiling that one episode because it only appeared in the anime and it was a filler. Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail. I also don't own anything else you may recognize from other media...
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"I think this is way out of my league..."
Things were super freaky around Fairy Tail today... y'know, more than usual. Basically put, Natsu, Erza, Lucy, Happy, and Gray had gotten back from Galuna Island. Erza had asked where Master Makarov was, but Macao had said he was at some sort of important meeting. Sighing with relief at being "safe for now" from the Master's serious punishment, with Lucy freaking out that she didn't know, the five of them stayed and waited around, Loke greeting them. He had tried to run from Lucy, only to accidentally walk into Erza and fall over. Natsu found a weird request on the request board. The request said, "Read this," in a circle with an arrow that pointed to an ancient spell known as Changeling. Natsu read it without much caution, not understanding what he was reading (the request said to find out what the writing meant). Suddenly, a glow appeared and, after it went away, Natsu had switched bodies with Loke (who was lying on the floor behind him), Gray and Lucy had swapped places, and Erza swapped with Happy. At first, it only seemed that they were themselves acting strange until Erza (in Happy's body) figured out that they had switched bodies. Then they started panicking.
Then the Master returned and told them that they were affected by a spell known as Changeling, and it was a very old one, too. Once he said the Changeling spell also switches magic, everyone tried being themselves in each other's bodies, but it didn't work out so well, like how Loke had scared away a couple girls on the street when he accidentally drooled fire, or how Lucy (in Gray's body) wouldn't let Gray (in Lucy's body) start with his stripper habit. Then, to make things worse, the Master added that you needed to undo Changeling within 30 minutes of activation (unless you want to be permanently swapped) and Mirajane said that 16 minutes had already passed. All the ones who had swapped figured out after she had said that that, since their magic had not switched with them, they all sucked majorly at their new magic, with Natsu not even being able to use Loke's magic. Luckily, Levy had showed up and said she would fix things. She sat down and got to work with fixing the problem. Over the ensuing 13 minutes, with the exception of the Jet/Droy Cheering Squad, who were pre-occupied with cheering Levy on, and Elfman, who eventually started helping them, everyone was tense, with chaos brewing between everyone as they tried to prepare for the worst.
Finally believing she cracked the spell with about 10 seconds left, she tried her idea of reading the spell backwards, which did work... however, it only really helped Lucy and Gray. It not only left the remaining 4 original victims as they were, but it even switched Elfman with Cana, Master Makarov with Mirajane, and Jet with Droy (though nobody really noticed their switch much). This sent the whole guild into a panic to the present. Then, all of a sudden, an unfamiliar voice shouted, "EXCUSE MEEEEEEEE!" This quieted down everyone and brought their attention to the door, where a red-haired boy with a goatee and a backpack stood. He was pretty tall, had a sword sheathed at his hip, and an blue eyepatch.
Clearing his throat, he asked, "Hey, did I come at a bad time? What's going on here?"
Erza (in Happy's body) walked up to the newcomer, who looked down as she said, "Sorry about the mess here. You actually did catch us at a bad time. You see, we accidentally read an ancient spell that switches a person's mind with that of somebody nearby. Now, quite a few of us are stuck in someone else's body with no idea how to use that person's magic. We tried to fix it, but we didn't even have half an hour, and we failed..." Erza looked down sadly before she could even finish.
"Wow. Such a spell exists? That's crazy!" the red-haired guy exclaimed.
"Aye!" said Happy (in Erza's body) with a fish in his mouth (or would it be her mouth since it's Erza's body?).
"Eeeh... you have a fish in your mouth..." the newcomer awkwardly noted.
"Aye!" he simply repeated, smiling more.
"Hmm..." The man simply stood there with his hand on his chin, looking away from Happy (in Erza's body). "Hang on... I have the perfect solution!"
The whole guild went quiet.
"This will be the perfect chance! Okay, for this to work, I need everyone who got switched to stand in the middle next to the one who was switched with them and everyone else to stand back," he instructed, walking towards the middle of the guild hall.
"Why? Perfect chance for what?" Happy asked innocently.
"I'll tell you afterwards. For now, just help me," he replied.
"Hold on! What makes you think we can trust you?" Natsu (in Loke's body) asked.
"Hang on, Loke... err, Natsu. I don't see how we have much choice. We just have to trust him," Master Makarov said (in Mira's body).
With Natsu grudgingly complying while grumbling, everyone else did the same. Here the red-haired guy was standing in the middle of the circle made by the pairs of switch victims (Cana and Elfman, Natsu and Loke, Erza and Happy, Jet and Droy, and Mirajane and Master Makarov). He held out his hand, palm facing the ground.
"Convert: Magic!" Once he said this, his hand glowed purple.
"Room!" After he said this, a light purple magic circle appeared under the circle and a purple transparent dome formed over it, catching everyone's attention.
"Shambles!" At this, the switch victims tensed, their eyes widened. After a couple of seconds, with the magic circle gone, they started moving around.
"I... I'm back in my own body!" Erza exclaimed, looking down at her gauntlet-covered hands.
"Me too!" Cana noted.
"Hahahaha! I'm me again!" Natsu happily declared.
"It worked!" Mirajane said thankfully.
The guild cheered for another couple minutes until the Master silenced them, gaining their attention. He turned to the red-haired stranger and asked, "Thank you for switching us back, but how did you do it?"
This shifted all the attention to him as he answered. "I eventually recognized the 'ancient spell' the cat mentioned earlier as the lost spell Changeling. I knew that, if I didn't help you, you would have eventually thought to cast the spell again to reverse it. However," he quickly quelled the rising comments, "that would not help at all. For example, if you used Fire Magic and your friend used Water Magic, activating Changeling once will let you use Water Magic in your friend's body while he gets to use Fire Magic in yours. However, activating it again will make you two switch back to your original bodies, but you will still have your friend's Water Magic, and likewise, he will have your Fire Magic. The magic of those involved can't be swapped more than once by this spell. Luckily, I had other techniques for switching bodies and I went with the least awkward one-"
"'The least awkward one'? What does that mean?!" Lucy wondered nervously.
"I won't answer that one right now," the redhead answered blankly.
"Why?" Mirajane asked.
"Because we just met," the stranger answered.
"Well, what's your name, man? I gotta thank ya properly for helping us there!" Natsu said cheerfully.
"I'm Bronco. You're Natsu Dragneel, right?" Bronco answered.
"Yep. How'd you know?" Natsu wondered.
"Well, Fairy Tail's pretty famous, so it's not hard to tell who's who. For example, I came here looking for Master Makarov because I had something to ask him," Bronco replied, turning to the Master.
"Oh? And what might that be?" Makarov asked.
"I wanted to join Fairy Tail."
The guild hall went silent.
"Why?" the Master asked. His face remained stoic.
"I needed a reason? Hmm... well, I guess you could call it "I wanted to join a good guild" and I found in my research that this was the best place. Do you know how hard it is to find the right guild through what others say about it alone?" Bronco replied. Makarov simply remained stoic for a couple more seconds, apparently thinking, before he smiled.
"Well, sounds good to me! Welcome to Fairy Tail!" The guild hall was next filled with the cry of "Welcome!" by all its inhabitants.
"Yeah! Let's have a welcome party!" Natsu shouted, which everyone agreed with.
During the party...
Bronco was walking around the party pretty aimlessly. He had gotten his Fairy Tail mark over his eyepatch, so that it went off the sides of it and onto the areas both above and below his eye. On his eyepatch, it was bright red, but on his skin, it was dark blue. He was somewhat lost in his complacence when he ran into Natsu and Lucy talking.
"Oh, hey Bronco!" Lucy greeted.
"Hey. You're Lucy, right?" he asked, smiling back at her.
"Yeah. Did you hear about me?" Lucy asked.
"Nope. I can see your Gate Keys from here and you are the only Celestial Mage to join Fairy Tail that I can remember. But you did appear in Sorcerer Weekly when you went with Natsu, Gray Fullbuster, and Erza Scarlet, who are pretty well-known around here, to stop Lullaby," he answered.
"Wow, you sure know a lot about us!" Natsu commented.
"Yeah, well, like I said, I did a lot of research..." Bronco answered. Suddenly, his eyes glazed over and he stared off into space. Lucy and Natsu looked at him curiously before, after a couple seconds, he returned to normal.
"Hey, everything okay? You kinda spaced out there for a minute," Natsu asked.
"...It's nothing," Bronco replied.
"Really? You looked worried there for a minute..." Lucy noted.
"I appreciate you worrying about the newbie, but it's nothing. Really."
"...If you say so," Natsu conceded after a couple seconds, sighing.
Changing the subject, Lucy noted, "So, you got your Fairy Tail mark."
"I did. I always wondered how they did it. Now I know. It's an interesting feeling to find out things you never knew by simply being alive, isn't it?" he answered.
"Yeah, I guess so," Lucy smiled.
After the party...
By the end of the party, it was already very dark, and the guild hall was nearly empty, with only Mirajane and Master Makarov in the guild hall. He was leaving, though, so Mirajane was left to clean the pretty-trashed guild hall. While she was cleaning, she had no idea the place was being watched. The person was lying in wait, hiding behind a corner outside, waiting for the last member of Fairy Tail to leave. When she finally did, and was out of earshot of him, he quietly laughed in anticipation. He pounded his fist into his hand, smiling, his hand becoming metallic in the light of the guild hall.
"Time to teach these Fairies a lesson..."
Then he heard footsteps and hid again quickly. Mirajane walked through the door.
"I can't believe I forgot the lights..." she said to herself, turning them off and then leaving again.
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Well, here is the start of the second arc of Worlds. Not as long as the first chapter of 'On to One Piece!', but good enough. Later!
