Might not be an update next week, busy fun times~ (not)

XXX

The feeling of being lifted up into the air was not an unfamiliar one to Gisela. She was a cloud mage, she flew herself all over the place.

It was what she did.

Being lifted by something outside her control, however, was a very different experience. It was instinct that led to her summoning a cloud to break her fall when she tumbled off the suddenly appearing pillar.

What happened!

Gisela lifted herself up, watching warily for any more pillars when she saw what had happened.

Jura had woken up.

It felt like she could breathe again, the tight knot of anxiety at having to fight again so soon unraveled. It was better than before too.

Jura was awake.

Is everyone else okay?

Gisela navigated around the next round of terraforming that they had created, there is no way this will ever be the same again, and over to the rest of the group. Everyone was there and awake and alive.

It was a good feeling. The debrief after wasn't bad as well, it was just more of the same really. A summary of yes everyone is okay and we were able to fight you after you turned into a giant vulcan thingy, the really interesting thing that Gisela had learned was that they had apparently not contacted anyone, instead waiting for Jura to get up.

Nobody noticed anything.

The fight had been so big, so loud. It had been chaos and fear and adrenaline arcing through her in a desperate race for survival.

Nobody noticed anything. It made sense in a way through, the vulcan had been giant but it hadn't been active for that long really and this was not a well inhabited area. It really shouldn't have been that much of a suprise that the whole thing had gone under the radar- the vulcan camp had done the same thing after all.

It was still a funny thought. Jura was apologizing once again in the background even though it was not his fault at all that his body had been taken over by a vulcan and he was not responsible at all for the damages.

Gisela hung back as she watched Jura and Lyon get into a not-argument on the subject, Mickey chiming in every so often.

They have that under control. Gisela reassured herself, Jura didn't need Gisela showing up and trying to tell him that there was nothing that he needed to be sorry for, she would probably just mess it up anyways.

"I apologize for everything". Gisela's head shot up at the noise, pricking her finger on the needle she had been using to fix the bigger rips in her shirt.

WhatdoIdowhatdo I do? The nausea was back. It was almost always there, really. Always worried about caves and Mickey and Jura and if she could do everything that she needed to do, Gisela was pretty used to it really.

It was very apparent right now. Gisela tried to breathe, looking back down at her fingers to make sure she wasn't bleeding badly.

Jura was still there. She could see his shadow.

I have to say something! "What do you want me to say?". The second Gisela heard her words she wanted to jam the needle into her thigh but she didn't have any choice because she had started and-

She kept going. "I mean, you know it's not your fault, maybe you could say 'sorry for being weak enough that I got taken over' but you took a majority of the risk on this mission. Earlier we fought a Toby-vulcan and a Yuka-vulcan, none of us thought it was their faults that they were taken over. It was the vulcans that did it. We were fine in the end and it's not your fault that that vulcan took you over, especially because we still don't know what type of vulcan it was or why it was so strong".

It felt awkward, like nothing that she had said even made sense outside of her head.

Gisela waited.

It was silent. She couldn't even hear the other members of their team making their own preparations.

Are they all listening? She hoped not.

Jura was still silent.

Do I have to keep going? "It's not your fault and none of us are mad and I don't know what else you want me to say, there are no magic words that will make this any different from what happened. You were possessed by a vulcan, it's not your fault". If Gisela knew anything she knew that there were never any magic words.

Gisela focused on keeping herself still, steady. She didn't have anything else to say.

"Thank you".

Gisela kept sewing, nodding in acknowledgement. There was a lump in her throat, she didn't have the energy to get around it.

Jura left after that. Gisela focused on her sewing, on the steady way that the needle drew the cloth back together.

It was soothing.

She still avoided Jura for the rest of the day. Some things were just awkward and Gisela still felt shivery somehow, like she wanted to move.

There was part of her that just wanted to fly off. It would be so easy. The sky was so inviting. She wouldn't have to worry in the sky.

It would just be her and the road and she could run and run and run and run-

Out of the corner of her eye she saw her wrist, Fairy Tail's mark a proud tattoo.

That's why I can't leave. Gisela brushed her hand over the mark, it didn't feel like anything really. There was no difference from the rest of her skin. It just happened to be blue.

Magic is wild.

"-sela".

"Yeah?".

"Come help with dinner".

"Sure". It was another nice distraction. Also while no one was a bad cook exactly Gisela just liked being part of the process.

Recipes had been one of the few things that she was able to take with her from Before, even if she couldn't remember the exact proportions for some of them.

"Did we end up messaging", Laki asked as they sat to eat.

"I sent a message to Lamia Scale today".

"So they'll give Fairy Tail a shout".

"They will".

"Good".

Conversation at dinner wasn't bad, mostly it was centered around plans for going caving they were planning for the next day, there would be two parties, one with Jura, Toby, Laki and Mickey and one with Max, Lyon, Gisela, and Yuka. It made sense, Laki and Lyon both had magic that could be used to make supports even if the dynamic nature of Lyon's constructs would make it challenging, Max and Jura had earth based magic for navigation but Jura could easily reinforce and navigate, meaning that people with him would likely be safe. Yuka was good at disabling traps and Mickey was strong.

Toby Gisela wasn't too sure about it, she hadn't really seen him fight enough to have an opinion on whether he was strong or not and he had been taken over by a vulcan, then again, Gisela reminded herself, he did manage to finish the fight with the vulcan without passing out- something that you failed at.

Gisela just hoped she wouldn't be a burden. I've done this before, she reminded herself, I can do this.

How's Kagura doing?

The whole thing made her think of a different set of caves, I hope that smith found the peace that she was looking for. It had seemed like it at the end, past the twists and turns of the cave.

Still, that train of thought led Gisela to wondering if Kagura went through with sealing the sword and swearing revenge against her brother's killer and-

Kagura does not need my advice. Kagura was a smart competent mage and swords women who didn't need someone like Gisela naging at them.

She would be fine.

Still, Gisela was relieved when Jura split the ground open, watching as a tunnel formed, going down into the dark with the creaking, breaking sounds that she was becoming all too familiar with.

"Ready for this?", Max asked, his grin lighting up his face.

"Yes", Yuka said solidly.

It was obvious when the tunnel changed from Jura's magic to the old ruins. It was by the dull light of the lacrima that the members of their group with actual forth thought, Max and Lyon, had brought that dull tiles were still distinguishable from the raw earth.

Gisela was pretty sure that the tiles had been white at some point. They were no longer white at all.

The cracks that spiderwebbed through them were not reassuring at all.

Gisela made sure not to look over her shoulder as they seperated from Mickey and her group, even though she felt the nausea in her stomach increase.

You will be fine. Your group will be fine. It's not like you guys even have that defined of a goal down here, just a poke around and see if there is anything obviously salvageable because we are all too curious for our own goods. You can't fail that.

It didn't stop her anxiety.

Gisela just kept breathing as their footsteps echoed down the tunnel.

"How long has it been since people were down here?", Yuka asked, his voice eerie in the tunnel.

"Centuries maybe. The vulcans we fought here had all possessed animals or were manifesting under their own power, it was why they went undetected for so long, they weren't stealing people".

It felt like it could be that old.

They kept walking, the only light the lacrima's steady glow until they found themselves in a large room, as heavy with dust and age as the rest of the place, and unlike the floors above it was far more intact.

People built this place to last. Gisela really wanted to know what type of lab it was, or if it was a lab at all.

Maybe it was a tomb… Gisela shook her head, the last place tunnel system she had explored might have been a tomb but she was pretty sure it wasn't nearly as old as this place was.

"I think it's there's a room here", Max said as they stared at a wall.

"May I?". They all moved out of the way, giving Yuka room to work his magic.

There was a moment when Gisela's teeth were on edge with the feeling of wrongbreakfallapart before the world seemed to blink.

Suddenly there was a door.

"You guys want to go in?".

"We came all this way, we might as well", Lyon said easily.

They all looked at her.

The lump was holding. It didn't matter. "What Lyon said", Gisela got out, making fists and trying to ignore the shivers going up her back.

Even though they said they were going in it still took awhile, the hinges on the door had rusted shut or something, if there were hinges that was. In the end Max carefully loosened the wall around the door and Lyon and Gisela ended up helping to shift the door to the side, leaving the ancient chamber open for exploration.

Gisela lept back as lights flashed across the chamber, her magic materializing in her hands as she braced for action.

Nothing.

Well, not nothing, there were screens flickering into her vision, letters scrolling across them.

Letters that Gisela couldn't recognize.

"Archive", Yuka said, voice loud in contrast to the faint buzz of the screen, "this is an old type of archive magic, it must run on a different frequency or something".

"I thought archive was a magic that was just being developed", Gisela blurted out, remembering some article she had read in Sources Weekly.

"Redeveloped, this lab is from when magic and magi-science was at its peak, four hundered years ago- it only makes sense that they would have magic we don't have anymore", Max explained, "can you two read it?".

"We can", Lyon said shortly.

I can't read this. Gisela hated it. She hated it so much. She hated the sight of words, of history trapped in another language, one that she couldn't read.

There was knowledge there. There was so much knowledge there but it was out of her reach and the only thing that she could do was watch as Lyon tried to read it and wait for his report.

She hated it.

Note to self, see if you can learn how to read Old Fioran.

Apparently just being literate in Fioran and Caelum wasn't enough anymore.

Gisela hated it.

She hated not knowing what was written on the screens and she hated not knowing the history. It was like she had gotten so used to knowing everything that she had forgotten that this was a real world with a real history seperate to what she had read in that manga and she should have known better but she didn't and-

Breathe.

She could read, she could learn, Gisela knew she wasn't good at much but she wasn't unteachable, maybe she could even attend school or something. She was seventeen, that was still high school aged or something, do they even have high school here?

Suddenly Gisela was hit with the sudden realization that she was in a teenage body and no one seemed to have a problem with this.

The second realization that she was only a year or so away from being the same age she had been before knocked the wind out of her.

I've almost caught up.

She was seventeen years old in some ancient ruins sitting around and being useless. Last time she had been seventeen years old she had lived at home with her parents and been studying for her exams to get into college and graduate highschool.

She wasn't sure which one was better.

I'm old.

It hurt. It was like a scab or a scar or something, everytime Gisela thought she was over it something hit her and she remembered all over again.

It had been seventeen years, she had been Gisela almost as long as-

I don't have time for this! Weird caves were not the place for flashbacks. Not at all. She could go back to her house, the house she shared with Mickey, and once she was there she could freak out.

Gisela took another breath. Sometimes that was all she could do.

Finally it was over, Lyon pulled back from the flickering screens. "This was an old facility researching how magic beings could be sealed into objects, I think that vulcan was a test case that had been sealed but because it was sealed all of it's magical power built up and allowed it to be much stronger".

"Did you read that?".

"No, all of this is just old scientific reports, you would need references to decode all of it, most of the equations are beyond our levels, not to mention half the data is incomplete".

Gisela tried not to take too much pleasure in the fact that she was not the only one rendered partially illiterate by the lab.

Then again, her mind whispered, you weren't able to do anything at all, Lyon could read the writing, it's not his fault he doesn't know four hundred year old science.

You don't have an excuse like that.

There wasn't much else in the room. They didn't want to touch any off the odd machines that lined the walls, too much risk involved there to make poking at them worth it when they only had the vaguest ideas of what they could have been used for.

"Should we keep looking?", Yuka asked as he finished his last inspection of an empty closet.

"We've been down here awhile, we should probably head back up now".

The second they left the room the archive magic flickered off, leaving the space silent once more. Gisela shivered slightly and squinted, her eyes had adjusted to the extra light and now they had to get used to the darkness once more.

It was time to start heading up.

Gisela itched to pick up the markers that they had left on the way down. She knew that it wasn't a natural cave and that they would be useful for the next group to come by.

It still was one of her instincts and not being able to clean up after herself sucked, leave no trace was a thing after all.

Is it a thing here? Gisela pushed that thought aside, she didn't have time for it.

The nausea hit as they climbed out of the tunnels. Rune Knights!

Suddenly she couldn't breathe anymore. Should have waited should have waited should have waited should have waited I was so stupid and now we are going to get in trouble and-

"Mickey", Gisela gasped out, "whats happening".

"The Rune Knights showed up, that's what's happening. They are saying that we brought back proof that this is a dangerous magical site and we need to leave it to them to explore, can you believe that. They're stealing our discovery after we fought for it and everything".

"Are we in trouble?". Gisela needed to know.

"Nope! Until they got here there was no rule at all about it, we were perfectly within our rights to investigate the source of all those vulcans".

"How long have they been here for?".

An embarrassed expression flashed across Mickey's face. "A bit after our groups separated we found this old storage room thingamagig and some old lacrima, really old ones, kinda useless though, they'd need so much power to become active that'd it been hard to find a use for them", that was interesting, Gisela stored that away, "anyways, Jura said he sensed some instability so he took us all back up- turns out there were a few more vulcans in need of routing, I think we are finally done with the nest though so there is that, and we're gonna go back down when they showed up".

"Did Jura talk to them?".

"Yeah, me too a bit cause Doranbolt is here and he is sorta our friend, it's complicated".

"Can I ask how?".

"He was one of the last people to see our missing members, that and he joined to spy on us before going back to the Magic Council right after abandoning our family on Tenrou Island".

"Oh". Gisela wasn't really sure how she was supposed to respond to the anger in Mickey's voice, "will he be fair to us?".

"He'd better be", Mickey said darkly, Pi-chan chirping in agreement.

It was silly, Gisela knew it was silly, she still kept an eye out for Eric or any of the other Rune Knights who she had run into.

Silly.

Jura and Doranbolt were negotiating in quiet voices. It was a little far away to see what they were talking about.

"Should we go closer?".

Might as well.

It didn't help.

It sucked really. So they were fine and did not have to pay and fines or get arrested or permanently ruin Fairy Tail's reputation. On the other hand the lab had been deemed "hazardous", which it probably was so even though they had found the lacrima, well Mickey and her group had but it still sucked, they couldn't keep them.

Jura had argued that they should be allowed to claim them later but Gisela didn't have that much hope.

She kind of missed the Lamia Scale group on the way home, it was funny with only half the noise.

It was still a relief to be back at Fairy Tail. Back at the house that she and Mickey shared. It was good here. It was safe.

Then there was a knock at the door at seven in morning.

"You said you would teach me when you got back".