Barry left the restaurant as fast as he could (well not really or else he would've destroyed the place by pushing off the ground.)
This whole situation was a new level of impossible.
Not only was he somehow trapped in the Fairy Tail world Earthland by some magical fucking miracle.
But he didn't even get to keep his own body, he had inhabited Acnologia's body.
Y'know the most dangerous person to ever exist on Earthland. The single most hated entity in the entire world and the cause for the extinction of an entire race as well as the fall of a whole nation?
Yeah, that Acnologia.
Except there was another factor.
Acnologia at this point was dead. One shotted by plot induced bullshit because Mashima rushed the fucking ending. His soul was vaporized by Natsu's flaming fist of friendship.
Nope, he needed to leave Fiore as soon as fucking possible before the same thing ended up happening to himself. He didn't need to be "Nakama'd" into the afterlife.
Also, there was another problem.
He hadn't the slightest clue how to fight.
He never had to before besides the odd tussle. Fighting a fictional protagonist was not something he was looking forward too, no sir. Even if he was fairly positive that he was one of the strongest people on the entire planet, taking on Fairy Tail was suicide.
Although then again, maybe if he just actually aimed his attacks a lot of them would die. Acnologia during the Alvarez Arc was a mindless husk after being thrown into the space-time rift and was just shooting everything at random. As for how the soul part of him lost?
A combination of linking the entire continent's magic power together to create an unbreakable Fairy Sphere that also froze the soul so he couldn't block Natsu's attack. Also forgetting that he had no left arm.
The body had just vanished afterwards.
…wait what?
No
He couldn't believe it.
Acnologia's human body hadn't vanished at all! Otherwise, he wouldn't be in it, somehow it had reverted to human form and just fallen off Gray's ship! It had sunk to the bottom of Hargeon and his skin was probably too tough for anything to properly eat him, so his body was just laying on the seafloor for a whole year!
'Hope I don't have some fish eggs laying in my insides.'
If he saw a mage of any kind he was hiding immediately. The last thing he wanted was for Fiore to gang upon him.
Alvarez was out of the question too since the remaining Spriggan twelve had been present at the fight with Acnologia.
Now there was another option.
Explaining the situation to Fairy Tail before they tried anything.
Although Fairy Tail seemed to be a more "Hit first ask questions later" kind of guild. He didn't want to know what Natsu's fire felt like, or what being frozen felt like no thank you.
Although it may not even hurt due to him being Acnologia.
He had to wonder if he was still immune to magic or not.
Question for later.
Barry walked up the street while in deep thought, casually avoiding any carriages that rode his way while doing so. He was snapped out of his train of thought when he saw a whole legion or real Rune knights running through the streets.
"The signal is around here sir!"
"Find it at once! It's the largest magic signal ever seen since the war with Alvarez and Acnologia!"
"Jura and Hyberion are en route now sir!"
"What of Fairy Tail? They are the closest guild!"
"They are sending in Gajeel Redfox, Panther lily and Levy Mcgarden!"
"Good, at least we have some former council workers with us for this."
Barry paled, they were there because of him! They were already sending wizard saints and Fairy Tail members after him.
"Can you pinpoint the signal?"
"No sir! It's too freakishly large! Our detection lacrima weren't built to deal with this level of magic power!"
"Evacuate Hargeon immediately! Send all citizens to Magnolia where they can be protected in case we are about to undergo an attack!"
A loud alarm system began blaring out a moment later on the street posts that Barry hadn't noticed before. Large, black pillars also rose from out of the water, and suddenly Hargeon was protected by a large, glowing, purple magic wall.
'That's new. They must have realized how vulnerable Hargeon was after the war and upped the defences.'
"All citizens! Please evacuate Hargeon immediately! This is not a drill! Repeat! This is not a drill!"
'Welp guess that includes me, if they can't pinpoint my magic then maybe I can slip out with everyone else before anyone like Gajeel or Jura recognizes my appearance. Still, am I exuding that much? I can't even feel anything...then again what does magic feel like?'
He still couldn't believe this was happening and was still half-convinced he had done hard drugs and was in the most vivid dream ever.
He was becoming less convinced of that theory as time went on though.
Still, he couldn't taste the food! That made sense for a dream right?
Except he still felt the seawater dripping off his hair.
And he could feel the hair.
Shit.
He decided to stop thinking about it for a moment and followed a large crowd of people heading for the train station and roads out of Hargeon, being guided by a large series of Rune Knights. Barry suddenly had an idea and did his best to tuck his hair in behind his cloak. Practically shoving the hairy equivalent of a caucasian shepherd into the space between the back of his neck and the collar. His hair was soft, it had an almost feather-like texture to it.
Now at least his hair was out of sight and he could cover the rest of his body up minus his head quite well by tugging his cloak together with his one hand.
That was still something he was getting used to.
He walked onto the train, the rune knights weren't doing much for checking citizens since the whole town was being evacuated at once. Trains were lined up and all ready to head to Magnolia.
Of course, that in itself was dangerous. However, Barry couldn't afford to stay in Magnolia, Ishgar, or Alvarez...and Giltena was probably the worst of all three with the God Dragons living there!
Maybe he could stay in Ishgar but just roam to a new country.
Like Stella
Stella seemed nice. Although he wasn't sure if it was an island or not since the movie fucked up a bit on that one. (Stella was supposed to be connected to the mainland).
Sonya was there too. Acnologia had tried to save her when he was younger. Animus was dead
Maybe she would help him.
Barry resolved himself.
He would escape Fiore as quickly as he could, and journey to Stella to find Sonya.
Of course, there was a more present goal in mind.
Get out of Magnolia before Fairy Tail senses his presence almost instantaneously.
The train began moving, and Barry began to experience the absolute worst case of Vertigo in the world. He had always found Natsu's motion sickness both stupid and amusing, now he was sympathizing with him. It was instantaneous, and a completely awful feeling that drained you of all power. Scratch that he could probably still fight, he would just have to puke in the middle of the fighting. So he sat still with his arms crossed, and leaned on the side of the train, trying his best not to puke.
He couldn't make out any other voices due to how sick he was feeling, and he wasn't doing his best to listen to them either. So the train ride was more like one long, absolutely torturous blur to him. He actually couldn't believe he hadn't puked by the time the train had finally slowed down to a halt. His vision suddenly stopped swimming, the nauseous feeling quickly left his gut and his senses returned to normal.
'Oh thank Jesus Mary and Joseph it's over!' He mentally exclaimed in relief. Now came the harder part, escaping Magnolia ASAP.
"Hey, mister! You alright over there? It looked like you were about to hurl." A feminine voice spoke. Barry looked out of his seat and his jaw dropped slightly.
'...FUCK!'
Standing in front of him was a young woman with short, white hair and crystal blue eyes.
'Lisanna Strauss...I think...okay cool it, I don't think she ever saw Acnologia's human form.
Maybe I can just play it off and get away from her.' He thought to himself nervously.
"I'm okay. If you'll excuse me, miss." He said quickly while standing to get out of his seat.
"I just wanted to ask if you were a dragon slayer or not, I have a few friends who are dragon slayers and motion sickness is a common trait amongst them. I know I shouldn't assume but you certainly look the part and something around here is exuding a lot of magic power. It wouldn't be you would it?" Lisanna asked. Barry paled but kept in control as much as he could.
"No, I don't think myself capable of that kind of power. I'm not a dragon slayer, just bad motion sickness is all. Can you not pinpoint the magic?" Barry asked. He was being formal but could you blame him? If he was rude in any way she might say something to the guild and someone like Laxus or Gajeel would recognize his description and go ape-shit. He wasn't sure if Team Natsu left for the one hundred year quest or not.
"No, it's way too big for a wizard of my level to pinpoint. Anyways sorry for bothering you, mister. Stop by Fairy Tail if you ever want to join." She offered. Barry just shrugged and let her go ahead of him. His hair was making his cloak all poofy and it looked weird to him. He would let it down after he fled Magnolia, he had no intention of joining a guild where half of the members would try to kill him on the spot. Lisanna left the station and he caught a glimpse of the towering behemoth that was Elfman running to her.
"Sis! I was so worried! What's going on in Hargeon!?" Elfman roared. He shot Barry a glance before looking back to Lisanna.
"Oh, well the council found something with a lot of magic power in Hargeon while I was shopping there and got frightened. I felt it too, they even used those rumoured Black Pillar shields and everything."
"Woah! Really? Gajeel and Levy went down to check it out a little while ago. I don't know why Levy didn't stay since...well y' know sis."
"Yes Elfman I know about the baby, but I'm sure she plans to let Gajeel handle most of the heavy lifting. Besides she probably wants to be near her future husband."
"That's so manly!"
Barry had heard enough of that and made a quick pace out of the train station. By the time he entered the town, Lisanna and Elfman both noticed something.
"Hey, Elfman. You felt that magic too right? It just vanished."
"Y-yeah, I didn't know what it was at first. Geez, that was pretty overwhelming, I was just so worried I didn't even notice."
"It's like it just got up and...walked out of the station," Lisanna said suspiciously. Her eyes narrowed to the ground.
"What? Like a person? No way! That's way too much magic for one person to be carrying around! I can even still feel it a little."
"No, but it might be some kind of magical item that someone is carrying around...was he?"
"Hm?"
"Never mind. I just saw someone on the train who looked like a strong wizard. Looks like he's gone now. I thought he was a dragon slayer due to his looks and the fact that he was motion sick the whole train ride from how he looked when I saw him."
"Really now? What did he look like?"
"Long Blue hair, around the same length as Gajeel's from what I saw under the guy's black cloak, dark skin, and blue tattoos all over his body."
"He sounds manly!"
"He said he wasn't a dragon slayer though, he just had motion sickness."
"Oh, that's a lot less manly."
"Tell me about it. Let's head back to the guild Elfman. I'll tell the master about what happened at Hargeon in more detail."
The two of them left the train station soon after. Meanwhile, Barry was currently looking for the fastest way to get out of the city without taking a train (Dear god those things were death traps) and without arousing much attention.
'I need to head Northeast. Which way is North fucking East!?'
There were no real signs or markers that showed all directions. So he just decided to walk through Magnolia and pray to God he didn't go anywhere near the Fairy Tail guild.
"Laxus! Hurry it up or we won't see the new members that enrolled in Fairy Tail today!" Barry heard a voice behind him shout out.
It had to be Freed.
'SHIT! Uhhh...RIVER! CAN'T SMELL ME IN WATER CAN YOU!?' Barry thought before diving in without hesitation.
Freed's head shot over to the side.
"Did someone fall into the river?" He asked himself out loud.
"Geez Freed could you pipe down for, ugh, what's that smell?"
"What is it Laxus?"
"Smells like the ocean around here."
"I thought you liked the smell of the ocean."
"I do, but not like this. This smells more like fish and too much seaweed. Also blood and wet hair."
"How odd. Anyways right before you came by something fell into the river, I'm going to go have a look and see what exactly it was just to make sure no one fell in."
"Yeah whatever, but be quick about it, I'm hungry."
Freed nodded and walked to the edge of the canal before peering into the river. He didn't see anything. He looked around for another minute or two before giving up.
"Guess it floated off. Let's head back to the guild then."
"Finally, I need some grub."
Barry waited a solid ten minutes before rising out of the water with a fish stuck in his hair. He had hidden under the bridge and used the stone to keep himself from floating. Although the hair certainly did its part to hold his body down, that was for sure.
"...I spend way too much time in the water lately." Was all Barry said as he stepped out onto a stone platform and squeezed the water out of his hair (As well as throwing off the fish stuck inside of it.) He walked up and quickly made sure the coast was clear before walking into the street again.
'The mighty Acnologia, reduced to jumping off of bridges to avoid unwanted gazes and noses. How ironic.' Barry thought. He avoided the large crowds of people and remembered that it wouldn't take much time at all for the council to realize the magic had moved into Magnolia. Barry needed to act as fast as he could, forget Stella for the moment, he just needed to get out of civilization ASAP.
So he picked up his pace and remembered that a light push off the ocean floor sent him flying miles into the sky. If he found a secluded spot to jump forward, he might be able to clear all of Magnolia in a single bound!
'Worth a shot!' He said before searching for a relatively empty street. He would need space to jump, but also a spot secluded enough that he wouldn't be instantly seen by a large number of people. A few he could deal with, but not a large group. However, that had grown rather difficult to find since all of Hargeon had been moved into Magnolia by the council!
Then he found his saving grace.
A large park with some trees around the area, with people, dispersed enough so that even if a few saw him it would be alright. He walked into the park.
A dog immediately started barking the second it saw him. He looked at it and his face twisted in annoyance.
The dog ran off in the opposite reaction leaving the owner rather confused.
Barry blinked in surprise.
'I can't believe that worked.'
Well, he wasn't one to question good grace so he just walked to an area with a large number of trees, and planted one foot behind himself while placing the other in front of him.
'Okay you can do this, just a medium power push and you're home free.' He thought. He braced himself and pushed with his forward foot.
He was not prepared for the ground to crumble underneath himself as he shot into the clouds in less than a few seconds like some super-rocket. The wind that was rushing past his body caused him to spin in mid-air.
"GODDAMMIT!" He screamed in the air as he flew through the sky.
Back on the ground, a certain guild master looked into the sky as a black dot sailed out of view.
'Whatever or whoever that was had an awful lot of magic power. I wonder who it could be? The power felt familiar, yet also unfamiliar all at the same time.' Makarov asked himself.
He wondered if whatever that was had anything to do with the panic in Hargeon.