Gisela dropped the cloud carrying the five of them carefully to the ground, they were still about an hour away on foot but Jura had decided that it would be better not to use the extra magic.
She very carefully didn't sigh in relief as the cloud dispersed, instead she took a moment to breathe.
A moment which was promptly interrupted when she found herself stumbling forward, still velocitized from keeping her cloud going.
Nobody saw that, right?
They started walking in silence. Nobody in the group was much for chatter except Mickey and Pi-chan.
At least that was the feeling Gisela got from the others. Gisela satisfied herself with watching the woods.
Don't twitch.
It was something about walking through territory that she knew was dangerous, it felt more severe because she was in a large group too.
Gisela could feel Mickey and Pi-chan, Lyon, and Jura, their tension echoing in the forest.
It seemed tranquil, all the normal winter wood sounds where they should be. Gisela didn't trust it.
Here there be vulcans.
Gisela didn't even know where the last thought had come from. Focus.
The more she tried to focus the harder it was. Every sound made her want to twitch, jump. She had to prevent herself from summoning clouds to hit some poor woodland creature on at least two occasions.
In the end she ended up in a slight meditation, focusing on the chirping of the birds and the various other forest noises that meant that there wasn't a predator around.
"We should stop here", Mickey announced suddenly, standing by a tree about a half an hour into their walk.
It was a nice tree.
A tall tree.
It wasn't unusually tall for the forest or unusually anything really. It just looked like a tree Gisela held her tongue through, if Mickey stopped them then she knew that there was a reason.
"You sure this is the right place? We need to meet up with Jura and Toby, you said that they were going closer", Lyon pointed out.
"Does this look like your guild mark?".
Gisela looked at the tree again, following Mickey's finger. There! On the bark Gisela could see a rough fairy tail insignia, next to it an odd shape that Gisela guessed was supposed to be Lamia Scale.
Gisela tried not to shift at the sudden tension between Lyon and Mickey.
It would be fine.
"Good eyes", Jura interrupted, "we will wait here".
"Should we scout?", Mickey asked, "Pi-chan's good at being eyes".
"We will wait. It could be that the first team has taken care of the vulcans. If not then it would be better to coordinate anymores before we make them".
"But-".
"That said, an idea of the area would be beneficial to us. Take Lyon with you".
Gisela had her mouth half open at the last bit and only the fact that she knew that Jura was in charge and questioning his judgment would be a bad idea and rude stopped her from pointing out that Mickey and Lyon didn't seem to be getting along and-
Trust Jura. Gisela reminded herself. He was a more experienced mage who had led teams before, he would obviously know more than her. Trust Jura. She repeated to herself.
Gisela waved slightly and Mickey ducked off with Lyon.
It will be fine. It would be. Lyon and Mickey might have been taking shots at each other but they were both profesional.
It would be fine.
"Do you think that was a bad choice?".
Gisela wanted to freeze. She wanted to freeze because this was bad and he had figured out that she had been questioning his judgement when she knew that she didn't have enough experience and Gisela knew that this needed to go well because they were working with another guild and-
Breathe.
She needed to say something. "I just noticed a little tension between the two of them earlier".
"Exactly, I figured it would be a good idea for them to work together on something low key first".
"Oh". That makes a lot of sense.
It made her nerves a little better.
It still didn't help the fact that she was alone with Jura now. Am I supposed to say something?
Gisela glanced at him, trying not to make her scrutiny obvious. He didn't look like he wanted to talk.
They just kept sitting, the cool under Gisela and slightly damp. It was chilly in general but not freezing.
Cloud magic for the win! Gisela thought, amused. Well that and a good coat. Still, that led to another question, Is Jura cold?
Rock or earth magic didn't seem like it would give much in the way of a cold immunity so anything he had would be pure magic resistance or clothing.
It didn't look like he was wearing much. Gisela let herself focus on that extraneous thought, using it to distract herself from trying to figure out if her teammate for the mission was annoyed at her or not.
There was a crashing sound in the distance, Gisela shot up, cloud already emerging-
"Wait".
It was so much harder than Jura made it look. He was in charge. She knew that.
It still couldn't stop her from listening.
Time stretched on. Gisela strained her ears, trying to see if there were any other hints of what was happening.
Nothing.
Jura was still standing, calm,
I guess they don't call him the Iron Rock for nothing.
Gisela heard the motion a second before she saw the figures. "You're back!".
"Thought we wouldn't make it?", Mickey asked, faced flushed.
"No, no", Gisela countered, waving her hands. She glanced down. "Maybe a little".
"I'm hurt, do you have that little faith in us?".
"Sorry".
"All good. Look who we found ''. Mickey gestures behind her.
"Laki, Max!".
"Sorry we didn't get this cleaned up before you guys got here", Max said as he came over to stand by them, "there's a lot of the buggers, it's definitely a nest of some kind. We've mostly been doing perimeter, trying to scout out their bolt holes'".
"How has that been going?", Jura interrupted.
"Pretty well. I think we'll smoke 'em out soon", Laki reported.
It was introductions time again. Gisela knew that they were important and it was necessary that they had good communication with each other.
It was still a process.
Be patient.
She could do that. She could breath and be steady through the stress.
Finally they got to the actual planning.
"We think that they are in some old underground ruins' ', Yuka said.
"Yeah, I noticed some odd patterns in the ground. My magic with sand mostly but I know a few earth tricks".
"I will check that out, lets go".
Max and Jura left, leaving the rest of them to wait.
Hurry up and wait, Gisela muused as she shifted positions, enjoying the wooden benches that Laki had shaped in moments.
They were hard but dry. Gisela didn't mind being outside but she could appreciate a little separation from the damp earth.
Wind whistled through the trees.
Gisela breathed, trying to calm the tight ball of tension she felt inside the longer she sat about, nothing more than a burden on this trip.
Be patient. She reminded herself. Be patient.
All she had done was play transportation. She hadn't gone scouting like Mickey or Lyon. Laki and everyone else had already been out here pulling their weight for the time it took Gisela to finish up the job that she had taken.
Mickey had just fought a scout vulcan with Lyon. Apparently it had been total overkill, Gisela had to admit she was not at all surprised about that. Briefly she let herself enjoy the image of Mickey and Lyon pummeling some poor vulcan, bursting it in minutes but all to soon worry crept in once more.
Laki and Max and Toby and Yuka hadn't wanted to take on the vulcans.
If there had been enough vulcans that four mages hadn't wanted to fight them then Gisela just hoped that they were enough.
That she was enough.
This mission had gotten ridiculously outside of the original escort premises that it had had but that was fine.
She was a member of Fairy Tail. She could deal with this.
Besides, Gisela reminds herself as she traced the entirely straight wood grain, it's not about you alone. Mickey and Jura are strong.
Having teammates was nice.
Still, when did all her jobs start going so crazy.
Everything I did with Kagura was so simple. Gisela put that thought away. Leaving had been the right thing for her to do, no matter how guilty it made her feel sometimes.
Kagura would be fine without her. Gisela had only been slowing her down anyways and Mermaid Heel had been right for Kagura and wrong for her.
Gisela was pretty sure that she could remember that Kagura had been a canon member of Mermaid Heel.
She thought so anyways. Maybe it's just you pretending. That sounded like something she would do, pretend she knew a character's fate just to save herself the guilt of messing it up.
After all, a quiet voice whispered in her mind, you already did that once.
It was getting darker, Gisela watched the sunset bleed through the branches, painting the sky red.
There was rustling. Gisela tensed, feeling rather than seeing everyone else as they watched.
She breathed.
Jura and Max were back. Gisela tried to make out the expressions on their face in the twilight.
Jura was inscrutable like the rock he was named for but she could see the worry on Max's face.
"What's the news?", Mickey demanded, breaking the tension.
Most of the time Gisela liked being right, it meant that she wasn't totally incompetent and a failure.
This time she would have loved to be wrong.
Max had been right to worry.
Gisela stared at the network of caves and tunnels that Max and Jura had sketched out, seeing how many areas were obscured, apparently there had been some sort of background magic that had made it hard for them to sense it out.
"We can't collapse it or anything can we", Laki said wistfully, "it would be easy to give the smash".
"Unfortunately vulcans can go incorporeal when weaked, we would just end up with an angry swarm above ground".
"Lets not do that".
At least we can agree on something? Gisela thought, trying to be positive. Between the nine of us we should be able to come up with a plan.
"Do we want to keep choking them out? I could freeze some of the tunnels shut".
"Would that hold them?".
"Don't underestimate my ice".
"Sorry".
The nausea was back. It was great.
Pay attention!
"I believe that Lyon was onto something, we could collapse some of the tunnels in order to lead them to a chosen ambush site".
"Then they would just be funneled to attack us".
"We could set a trap".
"What type?".
"My wave magic cancels other magics. The vulcans rely on possession in order to act so-".
"-We could use your magic in order to break their soul bonds and trap them in the lacima", Mickey finished, grinning sharply.
"Do you believe you can do this?".
"Of course he can!", Toby snapped. Gisela forced muscles to stay loose
"I did not mean any offense", Jura said as calmly as he had said everything else. The conversation stilled for a moment as everyone looked back at the rough map.
Should I?
It would be fine. Probably. It wasn't a very important question but Gisela wanted to know and it would break through the silence that had formed in Toby's outburst, maybe it would even take the focus off the other mage. That would be good. Probably. "Do we know what dug these tunnels?".
"I believe they are ruins of some sort of lab, that would explain the irregular ethernanosn distribution".
"How many old labs are there?".
"That would be a question for the treasure hunting guilds, I believe that they do a thriving business".
They got back to trying to work out a plan after that, figuring out who could block which entrances and who would have to hold the others.
"What if we don't get them all", Gisela worried as she stared, her clouds were good but the only ones who could really work the earth were Jura and Max, Laki too if she counted wood.
It just didn't seem like enough.
Breathe. Gisela reminded herself as she studied the map, trying to commit the warren of tunnels to memory. Breathe.
They kept planning, trying to work out when they would have to go into the tunnels to herd vulcans back and who would stay out and trying to come up with a million different plans for when things inevitably went wrong.
It's going to be a million and oneth thing that goes wrong.
Gisela tried to put that thought away as they settled down for the night.
They had more than enough people for watches. It was a funny feeling, being in a camp full of tense mages, she didn't even have to take one.
Apparently they really wanted her ready for the next day.
Maybe I'm just that useless.
Gisela pushed that thought away. She didn't have time for it.
"Enjoy", Mickey had said, grinning after seeing the guilty expression that Gisela knew she was making, "I know you've been pushing hard to get us here. We need to get ready for tomorrow. Sleep will help you be your best".
Gisela knew that.
It still meant that she would have nothing to do but think as she waited for the morning to come.
Actually...
It was a pretty good plan.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In.
The magic itched at her as Gisela sunk into a mediation, she could feel the rest of the team around her, Mickey and Pi-chan's magic easy to read in how intertwined it was, even if it was oddly quiet. Laki's magic steady and plusiing with energy, ready to burst out and grow at the slightest provocation.
There was an odd note to it through, a shimmer or layer of some sort.
Gisela stored that information in the back of her head and moved on.
Max's magic shifted and seemed to dance. It was dry and wide open, flowing but not like a river.
Max's magic was the desert.
Gisela moved on.
Yuka's magic made Gisela shiver. It felt like a void and things breaking up and falling apart and she knew it was natural because that was what his magic was supposed to be like but it was still wrong, wrong, wrong and-
She wrenched herself away from his black hole of broken things.
Toby's magic was mixed. Gisela focused on that, trying to figure out how he balanced the two seperate conversions.
Jura's magic felt like a wall. It felt like someone had drawn a line in the sand and said 'here I am, this is where I stand. You will not move me'. It was hard, not cold or warm but firm.
He was bright through, so bright he nearly blotted out Pi-chan's small, suppressed glow.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Gisela kept breathing, reading the clear skies that would continue for the next week before transitioning into some type of rain snow mix, it was hard to tell from how far in the future it was, there were still several elements at play.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
There was more magic. Reaching, grabbing magic. Magic like Marc's when he had reached out and-
It was strong.
Bright. Jura's magic had drowned it out from a distance but now that Gisela was reaching and feeling she could feel the strength powercontrol behind it.
She could feel the age.
In.
Out.
In.
She kept feeling.
It was just so much.
Around there were other cores of wantgrowdeserie itching and creeping and crawling and pulling.
Vulcans. The part of her that was still thinking noticed.
In.
Out.
It was vital that she tried to figure out what the bright one was.
Vital.
In.
Their senses reached out farther, trying to read the ethernansos patterns in the air.
Out.
Everything was underground. It was just so hard.
In.
She had to do this. She didn't have a choice.
Out.
Then it was looking at her.
Gisela jolted back to chaos and screaming, in the darkness she could see blurred faces above her and it was only the lingering magic sense that told her these were the rest of the team.
She was safe.
Breathe.
She forced her breath out of a meditative rhythm as she tried to dig her fingers into the dirt. This was real.
She was real and the light was distant from her. The patterns of absorption were here and now and in this moment she was fine.
She was fine.
Then Gisela became aware of the hands and the noise. People were asking questions and she needed to focus and answer them.
She closed her eyes, letting the world dwindle to just herself and her core. Gisela ached to spend time trying to compare her magic to the others, trying to figure out the relative differences.
She didn't have time for that.
Breathe.
Gisela pulled her scattered consciousness together. She needed to make a report.
She opened them again. Faint in the light of the moon she could make out Mickey's face, mouth twisted into a frown and worry in her eyes.
Pi-chan looked worried as well, though Gisela was not sure what in a bird's body language could speak of fear.
"I'm okay", Gisela forced out.
"What happened", Mickey demanded. "You were just sleeping against that tree and then you screamed".
That explained the noise. "Wasn't sleeping. I was meditating". How am I supposed to explain this?
"Was it that boring?".
Any other time Gisela would have burst out laughing. Meditating was many things, but Gisela had never found it to be boring. "No. I was just trying to feel the patterns to get a better read on everything and I reached out and", Gisela usttered, trying to get her words out, "it was just so reaching and grasping and there was something big in there, something old".
"Do you know anything else?".
That wasn't Mickey. That was Jura.
There was an iron band around Gisela's throat. It was pressing in on her at all angles. "It looked back at me".
Gisela paused and saw the expressions on the others faces, various studies of disbelief. "I don't know if that was the right word but it was trying to figure us out on its own wavelength and whatever it is it felt like a vulcan but bigger somehow. Older. Dangerous".
"How so?".
Gisela looked down at her hands, they were covered in grime from her flailing earlier. "I don't know".
"Then we will just have to be more careful tomorrow. Can you point to where you sensed this concentration?".
She could do that. Quickly following the map and doing her best to match it to the impressions in her head Gisela pointed out the spot, roughly in the center of the map.
There was more talking afterwards but there really wasn't much else to say. Gisela knew that. It was still hard.
Meditating was supposed to make sleep come easier!
Typical.
