Chapter Thirty Nine - Aftermath

"Who are you and why are you in my room?"

Erigor was surprisingly alright with me breaking into his room. Despite his line of questioning, he seemed extremely calm.

"You know," I said. "You don't seem all that surprised by me being in your room."

"Oh, well..." he said sarcastically. "You see, I have prepubescent girls breaking into my room all the time."

I rolled my eyes. "Did you watch the Grand Magic Games?"

"Yes," he said.

"Then you should know who I am," I said. "I need help learning Saturn, which is Wind Magic. I was hoping that you could come to Magnolia within a week or so to teach me. I'll give you a place to stay and everything."

Even though he was extremely suspicious, the fifteen year old eventually agreed to come to Fairy Tail, within the next week or so. Though I wish he could have come sooner, I said goodbye and left.

Before we parted ways with Lucy and Brandish, there were some things that I had to do.

One of them was present Lucy with Pegasus.

"For helping us win the Grand Magic Games," I said, smiling.

Lucy took the key and tackled me, and I hit the ground with the breath knocked out of me. "Oh, Ellie-nee, thank you thank you thank you!"

I laughed and wrapped my arms around her, pulling us back up. "Yeah, well, you deserve it. And you have enough strength to open the gate. First, though, I need you to summon Corvus."

Lucy nodded and pulled out the key. "Open, Gate of the Crow! Corvus!"

He didn't end up being used in the games, but I made sure to subtly drop hint near Goldmine that Lucy was contracted to a Platinum key as well.

He out-rightly fainted, hahahaha.

"Yes, Princess?" Corvus asked, appearing.

Lucy pointed to me, and his face fell. "Oh, it's you."

"Gee, thanks," I muttered. "Anyway, I have a question. One, is there any spirits that are particularly good at ballet, that can come out on their own or I could summon myself?"

He smirked, and started cackling, pointing his hand to the heavens. "Finally, I have revenge!" He stopped cackling and looked at me, still smirking and lowering his arm. "THAT DAMN LION!"

I paused. "Are you telling me Leo the Lion knows ballet?"

He nodded. "Leo knows a lot of dance, actually. Part of the reason he wears that damn suit. He's great at ballet, and he's not that ashamed of it, or anything."

I nodded. "Got it. I'll get his key soon. Also, I have another question."

"Yeah?" He asked.

"The Zodiac Keys take approximately the same amount of strength to summon, right?" I asked.

He shrugged. "More or less. Some of them take a little more energy, but only about the amount of energy as opening up a Canis Minor. Why?"

"Should I give Lucy the Platinum keys when she can open all the necessary Zodiacs, or should I instead wait for her to be able to open both Platinum keys she's contracted to?"

"What?" Lucy asked. "You mean…you won't give me Monoceros until I can open Corvus and Pegasus? That's the strength of seven Zodiacs! That's two more that's needed!"

I shook my head. "No, not Monoceros. I promised I'd give him to you when you can open five Zodiac gates, so you'll get him then. I meant for the others."

Corvus shook his head. "I don't think it will work. Keep them separate; give them as she's ready. If you do it the other way…it will be too hard for her."

I nodded. "That's what I thought, but I wanted your opinion." I turned to Lucy. "You'll be getting your Platinum keys when you're strong enough, alright?"

She crossed her arms and huffed. "Good. You're already rounding up a bit. I only need the strength of four gates to open Monoceros's gate, and five to use his strength."

"I know that," I said. "And I'm not surprised that you noticed that, but I want you to be able to take it all, just in case."

Lucy nodded, letting her arms down, and we said goodbye and went our separate ways.

I ended up teleporting Laxus back to Magnolia early, because he was dying when he tried to sit on the train.

While he waited in the training room, I made a giant chart on a wall that wasn't used.

"What's that?" Laxus asked.

"Our ranking," I said. "This is how strong we were by the end of the second timeline. And this is where we are now."

There were seven columns, and in the middle, from bottom to top, was D, C, B, A, S, SS, and Wizard Saint.

On the left, I started pinning people in the proper places.

"Gildarts becomes one of the Ten Wizard Saints?" Laxus asked.

"No," I said. "But he was on or above that level at the end."

"I was on that level?" Laxus screeched.

"Mmhmm," I said. "I'm pretty sure there was talk of making you a Ten Wizard Saint, but they faded out. But then again, the Magic Council ended up a bit busy at that point…"

…Seeing as, you know, they were all blown up by Jackal.

"How am I supposed to get stronger than that?" he yelled.

I rolled my eyes. "Geez, you can always get stronger. Calm down."

Laxus continued to watch as I pinned people up on the board, and looked surprised at a few. "Are you sure about Macao and Wakaba?"

"Yep," I said.

"Then, they're probably stronger this time around, aren't they?" he asked.

I nodded. "Mmhmm."

When I stepped back, I had everyone ranked.

In the top section, for Wizard Saint Level, there was Makarov, Gildarts, Laxus and Brandish.

"Brandish was on my level?" Laxus asked.

I snorted. "Brandish was higher than you."

Underneath in SS, was Cana – once she had gotten Fairy Glitter, her power jumped her up even more, and by the time that Alvarez came knocking, I would place her near the bottom of SS Class.

In lower S Class, were Juvia and Freed.

In high A Class was Bickslow, and in low A Class was Evergreen.

Levy was in high B Class, and Wakaba and Macao were in middle B Class.

Reedus was in high C Class.

"Am I missing anyone?" I asked.

"Enno," Laxus said.

I shook my head. "I don't know what happens, but Enno isn't a member of the guild in the future, so I can't put her on here."

"What about Lucy?" Laxus asked.

I bit my lip. "I'm having trouble with her. Because of the pure magical power she uses when she summons spirits, she could be very high on the list. And since she also has Star Dress and Urano Metria…I'm giving her mid S Class."

I put the tiny sticker with Lucy's face on it near the line between S Class and SS, but still in the S Class category.

"And what about where we are right now?" Laxus asked.

I stuck Makarov in the 'Ten Wizard Saints' category, and put Gildarts's pin on low SS Class. "When Gildarts first arrived – back when we fought him the first time, he was probably just really high S Class. Now I'd say he's low SS Class."

I looked at the others. "Let's see…Lucy's is at about the same point; she has more strength and power, but less experience, and using your wits in battle is always good." I pinned hers in low S Class.

"Jeez, I can't believe you've already put Lucy at S Class."

"You need to remember we have no experience, Laxus," I said. "While Lucy has strength that rivals an S Class wizard, she's never fought in a real battle before, so actually fighting her is probably more like fighting a high B Class wizard."

At that, I pulled off Lucy's sticker, cut it in half, and put on back in the S Class and the other in high B Class.

"The same goes for the rest of us," I continued, putting both my and Laxus's pins in the low A spot. "Right now we don't have a lot of experience, but we've still had a little more than Lucy – which is why we can fight to our full strength."

"Are you sure that we're not higher?" Laxus asked.

I nodded. "Back where I came from, if everyone was on the same level, people would curve everything up so it was a higher score, because they did as well as the others, so it became a new average."

Laxus frowned. "That seems kinda stupid."

"In some cases, it is," I admitted. "In others, though, it's helpful. But what you're doing is mentally curving us up because of our age. If you look at our powers from the perspective of adults - if we were just like everyone else, this is where we would be."

"But we're not like everyone else," Laxus pointed out.

"I know that," I said. "But the thing is that we still need to measure on the same level. We're kids, and we do get a bit of the element of surprise because of how young we are and how strong we are, but we still need to compare on the same level. Understand?"

Laxus nodded.

I continued down the line, and put Cana in a high B and Juvia in the middle. After a moment of thinking, I put Levy down in between the middle and the bottom, and put Freed as a low B, barely a smidge lower than Levy.

"They're pretty close," I said at Laxus's questioning glance.

I bit my lip and returned to the chart. I put Bickslow at a low C class wizard, and put Evergreen and Brandish at a high D.

"Are they really that low?" Laxus asked.

"Again, experience is a big factor, here. They're all extremely powerful, especially for their age – but Brandish doesn't have enough control over her spells, Bickslow doesn't really know any spells, and Evergreen has been focusing on her eyes. They've got strong powers and large magical containers, but they need experience."

Laxus nodded.

I pinned up Reedus at a high D. "He needs to expand his container and get more experience," I said at Laxus's glance.

I grabbed Macao and Wakaba's pins and glanced between them and the board. Finally, biting my lip, I put Wakaba as a middle B and Macao as a high B.

"They're about on par with last time, right?" Laxus asked.

"Yes and no," I said. "In more than a few ways, they're much stronger. But they had also grown lax in the other timeline, and stopped spending as much time training as they should have. At his peak, I'd say Macao was a mid-A Class wizard."

After all, he took down nineteen Vulcans by himself.

Sometimes I forget that.

I bit my lip and then put Enno down at a high C. It would've been better if I'd actually seen her fight at some point.

"And that's everyone," Laxus said.

"What's that?" came a new voice.

Turning, we watched the others enter.

"I made a graph we can use to measure our strength," I said. "Depending on what I know from the last timeline."

"Why aren't I on the previous timeline?" Enno asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Does that mean I should worry?" she asked.

I shook my head. "You'll be fine."

Cana and I had made a monitoring card for Enno as well, and I kept hold of it. I'd be able to keep watch, and monitor everyone's help.

"This is from the previous timeline?" Cana asked, staring at it.

"Yep," I said, smiling.

Cana started crying.

"ELLE! WHAT DID YOU DO!?"

I sighed. "Gildarts, take a look at the board and you'll know why."

Gildarts stopped screaming at me and turned to look at the board. It took him a minute to get it, but then he realized where Cana was placed previously.

And then he was swooping up Cana and was gushing.

"OH MY LITTLE GIRL IS SOOOOOOOO STROOOOOOOOONG!"

"Dad, put me down!" Cana yelled, but her crying had stopped. She looked up at the board. "Was Dad really a Wizard Saint, Elle?"

I shook my head. "The only one in that section that actually was one was Master. But Gildarts, Laxus, and Brandish all had power on that level."

"Wow," Juvia said. "Was Juvia really that powerful?"

I nodded.

"What's the point of this, Elle?" Makarov asked.

"We're using it to measure our strength," I said. "This is where everyone is at the end of the last timeline."

Makarov nodded.

We spent the rest of the time relaxing and meditating a bit, before we all went home.

Levy's birthday was July 10th, and she wanted to go through the Magic Council's library, so Makarov got permission.

The whole group of us spent time in the library, going through books on our magic and just doing some research in general. Even though it wasn't really a conventional way to spend a birthday, Levy had a lot of fun, and we all learned a few things.

Makarov also finally got our damn trampoline installed while we were gone, after a long, long description on it that I had given him the minute after we won the final battle.

I have no clue how they made it, nor do I care.

But it was magnificent, and spanned across the entire wall, with one side leading into a foam/fluff pit. The other lead to the other end of the room, where they would tear down the wall so it would end at the pool that would eventually be built outside.

Before Cana's birthday, however, we had a visitor on the 11th.

"I'm very sorry," the man said.

"No, it's fine!" Makarov waved off. "He looks like he was having fun."

"Well, I'm not surprised," the man said enthusiastically. "This place is SOOOOOOOOOO AWESOOOOOOOOOOOME!"

Apparently, Jason's 'sooooooooo cooooooooooool' is something he got from his father.

Jacob was the main reporter for Sorcerer Weekly, and he ended up bringing his seven year old son, Jason, to come play with the rest of the kids.

Yes, that Jason.

"So, Elle, what were you saying?" Jacob asked.

"Well, we might only be kids, but we have a pretty strict regimen," I said. "We spend a few hours meditating, and we spend the rest of the time fighting one another or using our equipment."

I gestured around the training room.

Jacob nodded.

"It's a bit easier for us because we're so young," I said. "We don't need to worry about going on jobs, so we can spend our time expanding our containers and mastering our magic; though eventually we're going to start going on jobs so we can get some more experience."

"I see," Jacob said. "What are your opinions on the games?"

"It was really fun," I said. "And we look forward to next year. I'm hoping that other guilds will implement some of our training methods, and that next year it's more of a competition! Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing how much everyone has grown, especially since Laxus and I will not be participating."

"YOU'RE NOT?" Makarov yelled.

I shook my head. "No, I need Laxus for a thing."

"A thing?" Jacob asked.

I eyed Makarov. "A thing."

Makarov nodded, understanding it had to do with changing the timeline, and sighed. "How long will it take?" he asked.

"Absolutely no idea. No longer than a year, though."

He sighed. "A year….we'll discuss this later, Elle."

I nodded. "Anywho, Laxus and I won't be competing next year, and we want to give some of the other kids opportunities to fight."

Jacob nodded.

The rest of the interview was spent with Jacob (and Jason) trying out the beams and the trampoline and such, so they could get a proper description on what we were doing.

Eventually, they left, with one last warning about putting in something telling other kids about the dangers of Magical Overload, and the precautions they could take, including getting some of the magical inhibitors like the one I had.

"I think that went well," Makarov said.

I shrugged. "Something like that."

"What's happening next year?" Makarov asked.

I sighed. "It's a bit complicated. I have a very small window of time to interfere, and I don't exactly know when that is, so I'll have to be actively monitoring it there the whole time. In addition to that, I need Laxus's help to bring someone back to life."

"Back…to life," Makarov said.

I nodded. "I'll be able to explain it a bit better in time, but it's going to be tricky. If I do this right, I can get rid of a lot of problems. The chain reaction from changing this one thing alone would change our universe for the better, immensely; though I am going to go even farther than that."

"Back…to life," Makarov repeated. "I don't want my grandson cursed by Ankhseram!"

"He won't be!" I said. "This guy is already frozen at the point of death – not really dead yet, but almost. I need Laxus's help restart his heart."

Makarov pinned me with a look. "I don't like Laxus being gone so long. Or even you. When are you leaving?"

"I don't know," I said. "I have a few things monitoring the news, and when I get a certain type of signal, that's when I know that we have to go up."

Makarov nodded. "Alright. I'm still not comfortable with this…"

"I'll see if Cana and I can make some monitoring cards so you know how we are."

But we'd be fine.

I mean, it wasn't like we were dealing with demons, or anything...

Oh.

Everyone, thank you so much for your wonderful reviews! Since I was off of work today, and your reviews and comments made me so happy, I decided I would find a way to finish these and post it today. And I kinda ended up with two chapters. :3

^is that supposed to be a cat? I've been treating it as a cat face. I love cats.

If I replied to your review and there were typos, I apologize. I do everything except write my actual chapters on my phone, so there are more than a few autocorrect problems.