Chapter 13

Wendy POV

[Time skip 3 hours ago]

"What is this…." I mumbled. Two guards had forced Natsu and me into a massive cavern, with the walls and ceiling covered in blue lacrimas. There was a walkway up to a moderately sized cliff, with a weird machine with a skeleton carving on the front. A gurgled laugh came from the front.

"So, the famed "Dragon Slayers" are finally here?" said a short stubby man. His head had only two points of hair sticking upwards, and held a staff. He looked at me with the look of someone inspecting an animal, which scared me a little.

"Where are our friends?!" demanded Natsu.

"Shut up!" One of the guards hit him on the back of the head. His body dropped like a brick. Natsu! I tried to run towards him, but was hauled back by another guard. I tried desperately to squirm out of his grasp.

"Yes, Lord Byro," said the other guard. Byro came closer. He examined the duo and smiled creepily.

"Chain them to the machine," he instructed. Wait what? Those are machines? I looked more closely at the skeleton markings. I gasped in surprise and jumped back. One of the guards forced me back.

"What is wrong with this person?" wondered one of the guards out loud.

"Maybe Earthlanders are just stupid," said the other. I barely heard their words as tried to process everything. Edolas's idea is to take magic from Earthland to use for themselves, which is why the guild was taken. Dragons Slayers weren't affected for some reason…..it probably had to do with Carla's "Mission". So the only logical explanation is…..no, no! I tried even harder to escape, but to no avail. Since your pretty small, it'll be almost impossible to escape a stronger opponent through sheer force in a fight. Makoto had said.

The guards chained my arms and legs to the rock, and pulled me taunt. It felt really uncomfortable, but that was nothing compared to what was about to happen.

[Present]

I felt like my body was on fire. It felt like parts of my body were slowly being sucked off of my body, and I was constantly on the verge of passing out. It would be so easy just to give up, to just close my eyes. But Natsu didn't. Neither did Carla. They kept going, even though the odds were stacked against them. So, I would too; for them.

"You know," began Byro. "Your magic will be invaluable for our coming plan." What is he talking about? I had thought they just wanted to use our magic like a lacrima.

"With this energy," he continued, "We'll be able to destroy the exceeds!" How is that going to work? "We will use the dragon cannon, (powered by your magic) to launch the lacrima into Extalia!" Wait, what?! Byro re-aimed the machine at Natsu.

"Stay away from him," I said weakly. Byro turned back to me.

"Still defiant ar-" he fell over, revealing his attacker.

"I wonder why villains always tell the hero their evil plan," said a familiar voice. Makoto stepped over the old man's limp body. I was a bit confused. How had he managed to not be absorbed by the anima?

"How?" I said. Makoto had his armor on, so I couldn't see his face, but I was pretty sure he looked concerned.

"First, we need to get you two out of these chains." He summoned a sword and cut through my chains. I stumbled and landed in his arms. I was feeling very tired.

"S-sorry," managed to get out, with my face red.

"I-its fine," he stammered as he sat me down on the rocks. He then went over to Natsu.

"Hey!" Makoto yelled. No reaction. "Guess it's time for plan B." He summoned a lacrima the size of my arm.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"From one of the floating islands," Makoto said. "Apparently, magic is the only thing keeping these islands afloat." He then shoved a small chunk of the blue rock into Natsu's mouth. My eyes widened.

"What are you doing!?" I demanded. "Aren't lacrimas poisonous?"

"You never heard of his fight with Earthland's Jellal?" He asked. I shook my head. "Well, to power up, Natsu ate a bunch of lacrimas, and because of his physiology or something, he was able to survive. This should at least power him up again." As if on cue, Natsu's eyes snapped open. He glanced around, very confused.

"Where are we?" he asked, sniffing the air. He then suddenly noticed that he was chained up. and began trying to rip them off.

"Woah!" Makoto said. "Calm down! I'll cut them off." After doing just that, Natsu was able to sit up began to get angry.

"That little…!" his face contorted into a snarl. He began staggering towards Byro. "You'll pay for what you did to Wendy!" Bringing his fist down caused a shockwave that shook even the stones around them.

"Natsu," I mumbled. "Natsu!" his fist stopped moving

"Ye-yeah Wendy?" he said shakily.

"This isn't right," she got out. "This isn't you."

"But…" he trailed off.

"She's right man," Makoto bent down. "Fairy Tail doesn't stand for this. We protect our family. Not punish those who do."

"Okay." He let out a hacking cough. "So what now?"

"Well, I have an idea." Makoto summoned a lacrima. It slowly was drained of its strangely pinkish color, to be replaced by a gray one. "Can you guys stand?" I tried to stand, but a jolt of pain passed through my ankle.

"I..I think I broke my ankle," I said.

"Okay then," he seemed to be mulling through his options. "Well, time to resort to plan Z."

"What's the plan …Woah!" I yelped as he scooped my up, bridal style. I felt my face become hot. "Makoto…?

"That's why it's called plan "Z"." he mumbled. "I'm only moving you a couple of yards."

"What's a yard?" Natsu asked.

"You know what? Nevermind." Makoto sighed. "Just come over here." We moved to the back area of the platform.

"You guys are just going to have to sit tight for now." he said, with a twinge of regret.

"Why? We can help!" Natsu exclaimed.

"Yeah, but I need to find Gajeel to get your magic back," Makoto replied.

"Gajeel's here?" I exclaimed.

"I'm going to place some illusion magic on you guys, so you'll look invisible, but try not to bump into anyone. It'll wear off in a couple of hours." He dodged the question. "Alright, see ya!" He bolted from the room.

Makoto POV

I needed to get out there fast. At this point, I had been a little too close to revealing my other worldly status , and I wasn't sure if I was ready to reveal that fact about me yet. Turning a corner, I found myself directly across the hallway from….I had a double take there. It was Erza, but with a totally different hairstyle, wearing a black bra and skirt. Are you really that dumb? Mike asked. Oh right. It was Erza Knightwalker. She seemed to be talking with Panther Lily

"…do with the blonde girl?" Lily seemed to be asking. "We don't need her, just the dragon slayers right?"

"Correct," Knightwalker answered. "I think we dispose of the earth lander."

"Are you sure?" Lily asked.

"Yes," she said more forcefully. She looked at him a bit concerned. "Why?"

"Nothing…" he trailed off. He looked right at my armored face. "It's the rouge wizard!" Time to run! I dashed forward, as Erza transformed her spear before throwing at me. Jumping to the left, I pushed off the wall before continuing forward.

"Not this time!" Lily roared as he swung his massive sword. This time though, I had a plan. Jumping up, I landed on the top of his blade, using it to somersault ion the air before landing behind them and continuing my flight away from them.

"Get him!" Erza shouted. Out of nowhere, a wave of soldiers dressed in gray and blue charged at me. A little help? I asked Mike. The armor plating on my arm suddenly moved, collecting into a thin, but strong tower shield.

"Sorry guys," I managed to say before breaking through the crowd, sending groups of the soldiers sprawling. A few tried to shoot me in the back, but most of their shots went wide, and hit their comrades instead.

Finally managing to break through the crowd, I made a left. There! A stairwell leading up. Bounding up the stairs, I zipped by pairs of soldiers going down to the dungeons.

"Woah!" I heard one say, before his voice faded away.

"Geez, I didn't think that it would be morning already," I muttered of myself. I had gotten into the castle last knight. No way it was already morning. The light of... I wasn't sure actually flowed through the window in the main hall. I heard some voices coming from the west side of the hall. Turning invisible, I managed to barely moved out of the way for a large squad of soldiers ran me over.

"We have to protect the lacrimas!" one of the guards...or were they soldiers? shouted. I took me else than a second to realize that he was talking about Erza and Gray. As the last one past me, I quickly took off, staying towards the back of the group, before darting around them. At this point however, I was getting bored. Are you sure you want to go through with this? Mike asked. Yes! I turned around just as my invisibility disappeared.

"Hey!" A few of them yelled. "It's the rouge earthland wizard!"

"Let's get him!"

"Yeah!"

"We outnum-" before that kid could finish his sentence, I kicked him in the side, before jumping off his body to punch another guard. Duck. Swing. Dash. Push. My mind went on autopilot, and at some point, I had summoned two swords. Can we try the Starburst Stream thing from SAO? I wondered. Suddenly, my hands moved to create an x-shape, before glowing yellow. Huh, sweet.

"Hah!" I dived back into the fray, using the sword skill to take out multiple guards at once. Soon, the group was reduced to a beaten pulp. I was feeling pretty good about myself, before hearing the sound of an iceberg breaking.