Previously on Fairy Tail
"NOW YOU ALL WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN A RACE! THE FINISH LINE IS AT THE COLISEUM! ONLY THE FIRST EIGHT TEAMS TO REACH IT WILL MOVE ON IN THE GRAND MAGIC GAMES!"
"A path-" Vyra gasped as a pathway began to paint it's way in the sky
"YOUR WELCOME TO USE MAGIC IN ANYWAY YOU SEEM FIT THERE ARE NO RESTRICTIONS! BUT REMEMBER, ONLY THE FIRST EIGHT TEAMS TO REACH THE FINISH LINE WILL CLEAR THIS ROUND."
"ONE MORE THING... WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS OF LIFE THAT MAY OCCUR IN THE LABYRINTH..."
"Say what-" Natsu gasped
"SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LET THE PRELIMINARY ROUND IN THE GRAND MAGIC GAMES BEGIN!"
"Okay you guys this is our start-" Vyra jumped onto the floating road taking the lead in the sprint
"Our path to victory!" Erza proclaimed in confidence
"Yeah!" Natsu, Gray and Lucy cheered
"Elfman, Lisanna, Happy-" Erza looked back to the three
"What is it?"
"Go help and look for Wendy and Carla, I'm really worried that they might have ran into some real trouble!" The red head shouted
"You can leave it to me!" Elfman reassured the girl as the three soon took off from the hotel
"AYE SIR! AND GOOD LUCK!" Happy spazzed cheering
"Team Fairy Tail, let's go for number one!" Natsu shouted flaring up his palms
"Woah. Look at this place" Vyra gasped looking around the labyrinth
"It's like some three dimensional maze-" Gray pointed out
"Arghhh. I really suck at stuff like this..." Natsu groaned
"Don't give up already- we have to finish in the top eight or we can kiss the title of number one in Fiore goodbye!" Lucy snapped at the dragon slayer
"Yeah your right! We gotta get through this so we can get the chance to kick Sabertooth's butt!" Natsu smacked his flaming fists together
"I love where his priorities reside..." The bluenette sweat dropped
"Let's just make sure we reach the goal before they do-" Gray crossed his arms
"When we were on the ground... the coliseum was to the east correct?" Erza questioned the blonde
"I think that's the direction we should follow-"
"I got just the thing to help us out!" Lucy perked up summoning one of her celestial spirits
"We need your help Pixis, can you show us which way is east?" She questioned the spirit as it began to calculate the direction
"Ha! East is that away!" She pointed along side Pixis
"Yes I'm well aware..." Erza stated
"...because I brought a regular compass..." She rose the compass upward
"Thanks for the help anyway Pixis..." The celestial duo shuttered in the corner
"Alright east here we come!" Natsu shouted running up a flight of stairs
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Vyra questioned behind the dragon slayer observing the labyrinth
It sure was confusing.
"Yeah, with the way this place is laid out I'm not sure we'll be able to go straight east!" Lucy nodded in agreement
"We're going to have a hard enough time just figuring out which way is up" Gray spoke
"H-Hey Natsu-" Vyra walked over to the pink haired boy
This thing has definitely been in motion, and he's not throwing up?
"You're not sick?" She questioned
"You'd think I'd be puking my guts out right now, but no I feel just fine-" Natsu replied as the little pumpkin commentator showed up on the screen
"ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN! A SPECIAL MAGIC WAS CAST ON THE LABYRINTH ALLOWING PARTICIPANTS WITH MOTION SICKNESS AND FEAR OF HEIGHTS TO BE ABLE TO COMPETE ON EQUAL TERMS IN THE PRELIMINARY ROUND!"
"Oh I see." Erza looked up
"So it's like troia magic" Natsu concluded
"Let's keep heading eastward!" Erza saluted trying to keep everyone on task
"Right!"
As they furthered into the labyrinth, every door the tenrou team opened just led to another trick room.
"Woah woah woah woahh!" Natsu charged through one of the doors, only to open it and almost fall to his death
"You need to be careful ya dobe-" Gray shouted grabbing the dragon slayer by the collar catching him before he fell
"Y-Yeah n-nice one-" Natsu stuttered
"That was close-" Vyra held her chest
"Good job Gray" Erza nodded
"Yeah, when he was talking about loss of life, he wasn't bluffing-" Lucy stated
"Watch your step cause I don't think anyone would survive a fall into the city from this thing-" Gray looked down from the Labyrinth
...
"I think it's prudent for us to take notes along the way" Erza put a hand on her hip
"On what?" Vyra questioned
"We should write down the path we have taken from our starting point and the locations we passed-"
"We need to know precisely where we are so we can make progress" Erza concluded
"I mean yeah, it would help us stop running around in circles" Vyra nodded next to Gray
"No joke, I guess we better start mapping stuff out" He responded turning to the bluenette
"How are we supposed to make a map of this topsy turny place?" Natsu scratched his head
"Quit whining and help-" Gray started
"Can't you sniff out the goal or something?"
"Don't you think I would've done something like that already?!" Natsu snapped
The boys were at it again.
"The magic that's cast on the Labyrinth must've dulled your sense of smell-" Lucy turned to the dragon slayer
"It's the same for every team, so let's keep moving." Erza concluded as the team began to move forward
...
"East is that direction-" Erza pointed
"This maze is harder to map out then I thought it would be..." Lucy held some notes in her hands that she created
"Well what do you expect when everything around you looks the same?" Gray said
"Hey Vy-" Natsu whispered to the bluenette who was behind him back to back
"Yeah I hear it too..." She nodded as the team began to hear shouting
"I almost forgot-" Lucy gasped
"It's been so quiet that it's easy to forget that there are other guilds in here" Gray looked up to where the shouting was coming from
"Man you gotta be kidding me..."
"You again?!"
"It's the Fairy Tail guild!"
"Ahh not those clowns..." Natsu sighed
"Ew it's Twilight Ogre" Vyra scowled as she watched the guild in disgust
Twilight Ogre stood across from the Tenrou team on one of the paths, upside down.
"I see your guild is just as shawdy as ever-" Thibault spoke
"HAHA LAMEE!" Another goony laughed
"I'm surprised to see you losers in the tournament!" Gray shouted
"You have no right to call us losers! You're the guild that always comes in last place!"
"Fairy Tail's taking first place this year just you watch!" Natsu proclaimed
"We'll see about that-" Twilight Ogre readied themselves
"Oh hold on a sec!" Lucy retaliated
"You wanna fight us right here?" She spazzed
"Why not? We can use magic without restrictions but I don't blame you for being scared-" One of the members taunted
"You Fairy Tail punks are going down-"
"They're hilarious if they think they can win against us" Vyra scoffed
"I'm fired up now" Natsu flamed up his palms
"We're really going through with this?!" Lucy spazzed
"The fewer the rivals the better our chances" Erza rose up her sword
"Your going to pay for having us looking bad in front of the boss" Thibault shouted as they began to attack
"We don't have time to mess with you!" Natsu smirked
"Because we gotta take down Sabertooth!" Gray smacked his fist in his open palm
"To be number one in Fiore!" Vyra transformed into her moonlight form
"No way!" Thibault shuttered as the three attacked Twilight Ogre together knocking them out of the labyrinth
BING. BING. BING.
"Hey woah! What the heck is happening?!" Vyra shouted as the floor began to shift
"Oh man I don't like this-" Natsu sweat dropped
"The ground's moving! Hang on!" Gray shouted trying to grab a hold of Lucy
"It seems the labyrinth itself is starting to rotate-" Erza concluded
"No way for real!?" Lucy spazzed
"Nobody warned us about thissss!" Natsu echoed as he and Lucy were in midair falling towards the city
"Ahhhhhhh!"
Erza, Gray, and Vyra's eyes widened
"It's turning on it's Z-Axis!" Erza shouted
"Here that guys we gotta turn to the side!" Gray said
"Yeah we would, but were already falling!" Lucy proclaimed as she held her hands to her face
"AHH! IF ONLY HAPPY WERE HERE!" Natsu spazzed
"It's fine I got them-" Vyra lifted herself up off one of the platforms and jumped gracefully in the air to grab Lucy and Natsu
"You guys are so lucky I'm in my moonlight form..." The bluenette sighed as she put them down gently
"Thanks Vy..." Natsu mumbled
"Y-Yeah t-thanks-" The blonde stuttered
"Hey Vy you okay?!" Gray shouted next to Erza
"Yeah we're good!" Vyra waved a hand
...
"Hey what's that?-Did they make a map too?" Lucy peered over Erza's shoulder
"It appears they have..." Erza whispered scanning the notes of Twilight Ogre
"Talk about a lucky break!" Gray began
"If we combine our notes with Twilight Ogre's, then we'll have an even better map of this place."
"H-Hey-" Vyra snatched the notes from Erza as she stood up
"How about that? I just figured out how we're going to get ahead in the preliminaries..." Erza said with glares in her eyes as Natsu, Vyra, and Gray had matching devilish smiling expressions
"Woah! What's with the creepy look in their eyes?" Lucy shook nervously
One by one, team Fairy Tail began to eliminate every guild they came across with.
"Sweet! We got six maps!" Natsu smiled
"It's great and all, but I don't even know where to start with this..." Vyra eyed her map that she collected
"This kind of stuff is Lucy's specialty so let's ask her!" Gray jumped pointing at the celestial mage
"Yeah! All we gotta do is gather as many maps as possible and let her figure them out!" Natsu nodded
"Who me?" Lucy questioned taken back
"Thanks..." She muttered holding the maps closer to her face to analyze them
"Look at me! I got four of them!" Vyra boasted as she shot out crystals at another team causing them to fall out of the labyrinth
"Not too shabby, but I got seven" Erza looked back to the girl in her black winged armor
"Look- It's gonna move again!" Gray shouted as the Labyrinth eyes began to glow
"Hold on you guys!"
Each of the members hung on to dear life as the labyrinth then turned back to normal.
"It stopped!"
"Yay-" Vyra huffed slugging back over onto the one of the platform
"Time to get moving again! Let's go!" Natsu proclaimed
"I feel like there's no point to try and head east from the surface of the labyrinth because we're just going to keep running around in circles since this thing keeps rotating!" Lucy said as she lined up all the maps on the brick road they were now on
"So you decided to bring us to the center?" Vyra questioned
"Yeah, I thought it would be easier to find east from here but apparently I was wrong-" She put a hand up to her chin trying to solve the puzzle
"I mean it makes sense" The bluenette nodded
"Who would've thought we would find such a peaceful landscape in the center of this monstrosity" Erza ignored the two as she stared into the sky
"Yeah..." Gray began
"It would be more peaceful if it wasn't upside down..." He sweatdropped
"If that wasn't strange enough... it appears there isn't any east or west anymore..." The red head pulled out her compass
"Look, even our compass is dizzy!" Vyra pointed out
"There's no telling which way we're supposed to go..." The bluenette dropped her shoulders releasing her moon form
"True, but we can't afford to stop moving either-" Erza concluded
"Hehehehe..." Lucy chuckled
"Yes I've been waiting for this moment!" She stood up putting her hands on her hips
"Lucy?" Vyra tilted her head
"What's gotten into you?" Natsu said aloofly with his hands interlocked behind his head
"Ha!" She shouted pulling out one of her keys
"Open gate of the compass! Pixis!"
"Hey, why does it look so scared?" Natsu questioned looking at the spirit
"Erza's compass must've terrified him" Lucy hugged Pixis comforting it
"I didn't mean to upset him" Erza said
"Okay pal! Don't be scared-" She crouched down to the spirit
"This is your time to shine, Erza's compass is completely useless-" She boasted as the little guys eyebrows rose
"Observe." Erza held out her compass
"It keeps spinning."
"See! I told you we could really use your help!" Lucy began
"I apologize for upsetting you, will you assist us?" Erza tried to reason with the little red spirit
"You can do it little guy!" Vyra said excitedly
All the comments from the girl's gave motivation to Pixis as it began to jump in enthusiasm
"That's one simple minded spirit-" Gray held in a laugh
"Yeah, but I bet he's still smarter than Erza" Natsu joked as the redhead turned around demonically
"What did you say?"
"Nothing! Nothing at all!"
"East is that way!" Lucy and Pixis pointed
"One small problem! That way is up-" Gray said
"Are you sure about this?!" The dragon slayer questioned
"Of course! Celestial magic is never wrong!" Lucy spoke confidently
"So now all we have to do is wait-" Vyra sat down closing her eyes
"Wait?! We got no time for waiting Vy!" Natsu spazzed
"Just give it a sec" Erza smirked knowing what the bluenette was talking about
BING. BING BING.
And down they went falling into the river.
Vyra splashed in the water until she clung on to the nearest person around her which happened to be Natsu.
They all exited the river and sat down on the grass staring at the painted sky
"Would ya look at those birds-" Natsu began
"Sure is peaceful ain't it?" Gray said as he laid down wrapping an arm around the bluenette as she snuggled up to him
"Come on-" Lucy shot up
"We worked too hard and fell too much for us to get knocked out of the preliminary round- We gotta get back at it!"
"This is no time to be relaxing, were still in the middle of a race-" Erza spoke sternly
"Let's go! We're taking first place in the preliminary round!" She shouted as they began their march
"Yeah!"
"How long is this freaking path!?" Lucy spazzed as they felt like they were running for hours
"I don't know, but it's the only one around which means it has to lead to something!" Vyra responded
"Okay team, it's time for one final sprint!" Natsu said confidently
"Let's go!"
"Gray Fullbuster!" The ice mage smiled
"Erza Scarlet" The red head nodded
"Vyra... um.." Mr. pumpkin man looked down not knowing the last name of the girl
"Just Vyra-" The girl shot back putting up a peace sign making the little pumpkin guy sweat drop as he went on
"Natsu Dragneel" Nastu smiled smugly
"And Lucy Heartfilia!" The girl put up a hand to her cheek
"Woo Hoo Team Fairy Tail! You cleared the preliminary round!"
"We did it!" Natsu proclaimed
"Why do you sound so surprised? I knew we were going to make it-" Gray crossed his arms making the bluenette laugh
"I'm dying to know, did we come in first place!?" Lucy jumped in anticipation
"Uhhhhh, no."
"More like-"
"8th place."
The tenrou team stood stiff as a board.
"You just barely qualified."
"WE CAME IN 8TH PLACE?!"
A/N: And that's that. I was going to skip the Preliminary round, but for this arc I think it's really important to have it in there.
-Julia
