Zera Dreyar was less than a month away from her eleventh birthday when she disappeared. The world she was born into was dark and war-torn, but it did have its moments. She was a proud member of Fairy Tail's next generation. In fact, her dad was the ninth master of the guild. She was the daughter of Laxus and Mirajane, two of the most powerful wizards in Fairy Tail. While Fairy Tail was still as family focused as always, the kids born in the last thirteen years were forced to grow up rather quickly. They were at War with Zeref, his demons, and Alvarez. The war had started nine years ago, and it hasn't stopped since.
While Zera couldn't do much, though she did have very strong magic, she did help as much as she could. Her mom was very protective of her and she got very twitchy if she got anywhere close to the battlefield. So, to help where she could Zera dedicated her free time to watching all of the kids younger than her. She was the third oldest of her group, the only ones older than her were Liam and Fay. Fay was three years older than her, but she had decided to start fighting back against Zeref. Fay was her cousin as she was the daughter of Uncle Elfman and Aunt Evergreen. She took fighting the enemy seriously, but when she was out of battle, she was rather mean and bitchy. Very much full of herself. Liam was six months older than her and was the son of Gajeel and Levy. Liam was her best friend and he spent most of his time training his magic. He was extremely eager to start helping in the war, as was she. She spent a good amount of time training herself, but not nearly as much as her best friend. Their whole group was pretty big and it was sometimes a struggle keeping control of everyone. Including herself and Liam, not counting Fay, there were seventeen of them. Ages ranged from eleven to two-years-old. Plus, Aunt Erza and Aunt Lucy were both pregnant again.
Her job of protecting the kids was the main cause of her disappearance. She had recruited some of her older charges to help entertain the younger ones as there was no way she could entertain them all on her own. That was when the alarms started blaring, their hideout was compromised. She spread out the younger ones, who couldn't run by themselves, to the older ones and led the way to the secret exit to make their way to the nearest safehouse. It was all going well until one of Zeref's newest humanoid demons cornered them. Nobody knew what the demon's powers truly were. She worked with black beams that caused a lot of pain, but at times she would shoot out black spheres that would suck people into them. Those people were never seen from again, nobody knew if those people were alive or not. She had seen Uncle Jet get hit by one a year ago and nobody had seen him since.
She had screamed out a telepathic SOS to Warren and had sighed in relief when she heard an instantaneous reply. Mest teleported to them and started getting the kids somewhere safe. He could only take a few with him at a time so Liam and herself were doing their best to distract the demon. They had a good system from practicing with each other all the time and were playing a version of tag and keep away. They were almost in the clear when Zera saw something that made her eyes go wide in horror. One of those strange black spheres was heading straight towards Igneel, Natsu and Lucy's second child. Zera's body moved without thinking. She rushed to Igneel and practically body slammed him out of the way. Now Zera wasn't in the best shape to begin with, from her brief fight with the much stronger demon. She also had a slash on her arm that held her guild mark that was a few days old, but she could tell that it had re-opened as the bandages felt wet. She had trained really hard this morning as well, so she had gone into the battle not at full strength. As the sphere of magic made contact with her, however, it felt like every nerve in her body was being stabbed. As she started getting sucked into the black void, she felt her partner Bix collide into her stomach to stick close to her. She unconsciously was grateful to him; he had been with her as long as she could remember. She grabbed hold of him as best as she could, she really didn't want to get separated from him if this sphere thing didn't kill her outright. Right before she disappeared into the blackness, she heard many people calling out to her desperately. Her only thought was, "Sorry Mommy, sorry Daddy." And then she was gone. Zera Dreyar was officially marked as MIA.
It seemed like eternity passed in the total blackness that Zera found herself in. She was floating in a void that brought nothing but pain. The pain never stopped, she honestly didn't know if the pain was real or just in her head. She didn't remember getting any injuries that would match these pains, but that didn't make the actual pain go away. She couldn't see anything around her, only herself floating in a world of blackness. She didn't know how long she floated in the black void, though with how hungry she was, she was guessing it was a couple days at least.
Just as she thought about giving into the void something started to shine within the darkness. One moment there was nothing and the next think she knew there was a pretty woman floating in front of her.
She was tall, with long black hair. A glass orb was tucked under one of her arms. A soft smile appeared on her face as she ran a comforting hand through Zera's hair, "Do not fear little one, that demon made a mistake sending you to a domain I can actually interfere with. I felt it the moment you got sent here, I am sorry it took me so long to find you. While I cannot send you directly back to your time as that demon would notice and I would not be able to help you, I can put you somewhere close. From there you will have to figure out your own way home. It will be hard, but it is possible."
"Who are you?" Zera managed to croak out, her hold on Bix tightening.
An unreadable smile stretched over her face, "An old friend of your uncle Gray's. Ah, also do not be afraid of possibly damaging your present as the moment you arrive the timeline will be split. Good luck little warrior."
Then with a sudden push her world was suddenly filled with light. Then she was plummeting towards her death. She clung tightly to Bix; not wanting to get parted from him, not after all of this. She screamed in her mind, 'how is this supposed to help her?'
The moment that thought left her mind a real scream broke out of her dry throat and she couldn't seem to stop it. She felt Bix wiggling in a panic at her predicament and she willed him to hold still. As she got closer to the ground, that was way too green, her mind took note of she screamed out the first thing that came to her mind, "Happy!"
It was a well-known fact that if you somehow found yourself free falling, which happened more that one would expect, you were to call out for an exceed. Happy was usually the one to save her, though Panther Lily was a close second. All the members of Fairy Tail, and allied guilds, wore a type of harness. It basically made it so there were handles on their backs that made it easier for exceeds to grab onto.
Just as she was about to enter the tree line, trees that had leaves on them, she felt someone grab hold of the harness. She jerked to a stop and she looked up, sighing in relief. She caught a glimpse of the blue fur of her favorite exceed.
"Don't worry kid, I got you. You're safe now." Happy called out. His voice sounded a bit weird, but Zera brushed it off as a side effect of her near-death experience.
"Thanks Uncle Happy." She managed to mumble out before losing consciousness, her exhaustion catching up to her as she realized she was finally safe now. She somehow miraculously didn't lose her hold on Bix. Since she was passed out, she didn't notice Happy's moment of complete shock at the little stranger calling him uncle. Not only did she somehow know his name, but she was claiming him as family?
Bix, however, noticed and grew concerned. Why didn't Happy recognize Zera? He continued to hold still, pretending to be simply a toy. Something was wrong and until he figured out what it was it was best to hold their cards close to their chests. Bix's nonexistent heart sunk as he saw Natsu and Lucy catch up to where Happy had laid Zera on the ground. This was not their Natsu and Lucy, they were way too young!
Lucy studied the unconscious child Natsu had balanced on his back. They had absolutely no idea where she had come from. One moment they were by themselves on the way back from a mission, the next there was a screaming child falling form the sky. Natsu had said her scent had appeared out of nowhere. She was young, at least a few years younger than Wendy. She was a really pretty kid; she'll be a knockout when she grows up. There was something about the kid made her mind think she was familiar, but Lucy knew that she had never met the kid before. She would definitely remember a kid like this. Lucy looked closer, trying to appease her mind's curiosity. The kid had messy light blonde hair that fell slightly past her shoulders. She couldn't tell if it was naturally messy, or if it was because of the freefall. It was such a light blonde that when the sun caught it just right as they walked it almost looked white. There was a light scar on her left temple, though it didn't take away from her natural beauty. She was wearing a dirty and slightly ripped purple dress that stopped just before her knees. Underneath the dress she had noticed she was wearing a pair of grey shorts. Lucy was impressed; most kids didn't bother with sensibility, they just wanted to look cute. The weird harness thing that Happy had used to catch her was strapped tightly around her shoulders. A black knapsack hung low on her back, most likely to avoid interfering with the use of the harness. She was clutching a metal sphere, with one arm now, that had a face painted on it. The eyes were uneven X's and the mouth was a smile with its tongue sticking out. Honestly it looked similar to Bixlow's totems0, only instead of wooden cubes it was a metal sphere. Lucy knew that sphere was very important to the girl because even though she was unconscious her grip didn't loosen on it. Lucy's gaze traveled to the girl's left arm, there was a bandage that started at her wrist and coiled up past her shoulder. There was a bit of red bleeding through the dirty wrappings. Overall the kid looked pretty beat up. Lucy let out a sigh, they were really close to the guild hall now. Lucy was hoping that Wendy was in as she was their best healer and the kid looked like she needed help.
A few minutes later they found themselves at the guildhall's front door. Natsu kicked them open and yelled out, "Yo, Wendy you here?"
Wendy quickly stood up from her spot sitting next to Levy and Gajeel, "Natsu? What's wrong?"
Lucy rushed towards Wendy as Natsu made his way straight to the infirmary. Lucy grabbed hold of Wendy and started dragging her along, "We found a kid on our way back. She's really hurt and we need you to heal her." Lucy explained quickly. She vaguely realized that Gajeel was tagging along. The dragon slayers have been becoming much closer as of late and Gajeel had been exceptionally protective of the youngest slayer.
"Really? Is she going to be alright? Who is she? What are her injuries?" Wendy fired of questions worriedly.
"Don't know who she is, she fell out of the sky. I know she has a previous injury on her arm as she has it bandaged, but it's bleeding through. She has small cuts and bruises all over, but overall, she seems mostly fine. She passed out when Happy caught her and she hasn't so much as twitched yet." Lucy answered as best as she could.
Wendy nodded, entering a healer's mindset. They entered the medical room and saw Natsu reclining in a chair next to a blonde-haired child, "Alright you know the drill, everyone out while I take care of her." Wendy ordered.
Natsu frowned slightly, "Are you sure Wendy?" he didn't like the idea of leaving her alone with a stranger who literally appeared out of nowhere. Even if she was younger than Wendy.
"She deserves privacy, I'll be fine." Wendy said as she made her way over to the kid. Lucy nodded in understanding and left immediately, looking forward to a strawberry smoothie. Natsu hesitated for a moment but nodded before leaving. Wendy turned to look at Gajeel who had plopped himself into a chair on the opposite side of the room, "Gajeel?"
"Not like I can see much from here Pigtails. Just got comfy and I don't feel like moving." He grunted as he leaned the chair back, closing his eyes.
Wendy sighed with a smile, that was just his way of showing he cared. With a shake of her head she turned to the girl she was about to heal. As long as Gajeel stayed on the other side of the room that would give her patient just enough privacy.
She held her hands over the girl and activated her magic. As she didn't have any major injuries that needed immediate attention, she looked inwards first. She let out a sigh of relief when she found no internal damage. The girl was a bit dehydrated and her magic was a bit low as well. Honestly her low magic was the biggest concern at the moment. She didn't want the girl to get sick from magic deficiency. The young and old were both more at risk from getting sick from magic deficiency. Wendy directed her magic to heal the minor cuts and bruises. When she moved to heal the obvious injury under the bandages on her left arm she paused. Her magic could hardly do anything to the wound at all. She was surprised for a moment, but then remembered that there were weapons and magical attacks that were resistant to healing magic. This was an injury that would just have to heal on its own. She would have to change the bandages though. The ones she had on were dirty and had been bleeding through for a while. It really made her mad though that someone attacked this kid in the first place. Honestly, what was wrong with some people?
She needed to get the girl to let go of the sphere she was clutching with her left arm first though. She very gently pulled the sphere away and placed it carefully on the table next the to bed. She vaguely realized that Natsu must have taken the girl's bag off and placed that next to the bed as well.
As Wendy unwound the bandages, she saw something that made her heart skip a beat, and it wasn't the long slash going down her arm. On the girl's left shoulder was a dark blue Fairy Tail symbol. She gave a small gasp that pulled Gajeel's attention to her.
He stood up abruptly and made his way over to her, "What's wrong Pigtails?" then his gaze caught the guild mark as well. His gaze narrowed in suspicion; how did this kid have a guild mark? He had never seen her before and he knew every guild member, even the less known ones. Or the secret ones. He did act as a spy for the old man at times and it helped to know all the members of the guild in case, he had to help them out or purposefully avoid them.
"I'm going to get the old man. If she even stirs call out, got it Pigtails?" Gajeel commanded seriously.
Recognizing her elder brother figure's tone, she nodded. This wasn't a time to argue the fact that she could take care of herself. There was no way this child should have a guild mark. This was very much a serious matter. Neither of them noticed the metal sphere shift slightly in worry as Gajeel made his way out the door.
Bix was getting really worried, he had watched and listened to everything as Zera barely kept a hold of him. Everything was wrong. Trees were everywhere on their way back to the guildhall. Most have gotten destroyed or burned down throughout the years of war and the ones that did still stand no longer bore leaves to them. Magnolia was still standing, no longer a pile of burnt rubble. The old guild hall was standing from its glory days. He hadn't seen it like this for over nine years now, it was kinda nice. However, everyone was younger, way too young. He almost had a heart attack when he saw Wendy as her tiny little self again. This all looked like some time before the first war with Zeref but after they all came back from the seven missing years. He had seen Evergreen on their walk to the infirmary and she wasn't pregnant and she didn't have fay with her so this had to be at least fourteen years ago. His non-existent heart had skipped a beat when he saw himself, still alive, sitting next to Evergreen. They were in the past and that couldn't be a good thing. How was that even possible? Who was that lady that showed up in the void and sent them here? He was going to have to direct Zera to talk to Gray about the woman when she woke up. How was he going to get himself and his charge out of this? How were they going to get back home? Oh Mavis, Laxus was going to kill him again when they got back. His attention came back to reality when Gajeel and Master Makarov came into the infirmary. They both have serious looks on their faces. Uh oh, that doesn't look good. In the back of his mind he knew that Makarov would never hurt Zera, but he was extremely protective of his little charge. He had died for her after all.
"Very well I'm here now, what seems to be the problem. You were rather vague out there Gajeel." Makarov said looking between the three people in the room, even though one was unconscious.
"Well you see Master; she had a wound on her arm that is resistant to healing magic so I had to take her bandages off. When I did, we found this." Wendy explained as he gestured to the mystery girl's guild mark.
Makarov's eyes went wide, "How in the world?" he walked over to the unconscious child. He had never met this child before in his life, so how did she have his guilds' mark. He looked her over closely. She had light blonde, almost white, hair. Pale skin with freckles scattered across her face. He could see a few light scars across her body, the most prominent one was the scar on her temple. In the back of his mind he thought that she might look familiar, but that was impossible. He had his magic wash gently over her and her mark was real, there was no mistaking the magic of the guild mark. So somehow this child had been marked as a member of the guild, but it would to have been okayed by him first. Who was this child?
"Wendy dear, if you have finished healing her, I would like you to head back down." Makarov said, his gaze not leaving the child on the bed.
"Oh, course Master. I've finished wrapping up the slash on her arm right before you came back in. I hope you can figure this all out Master." Wendy said as she started heading towards the door.
"Ah, until we figure everything out, so at least until this wayward child wakes up, I would like you to keep her guild mark to yourself. No need to cause unneeded chaos." Makarov called out to her.
"Very well Master. Please keep me updated on her health if anything changes." Wendy almost made it out the door when she paused, "Oh, yeah. Master her magic reserves are really low and she's rather dehydrated. If anything changes for the worse let me know, I'll give her another boost with my magic."
Gajeel watched the door close behind Pigtails before he turned to the other resident in the room, "So, what are we gunna do with the kid, old man?"
"I am not sure yet. It shouldn't be possible for her to have the guild mark, but it is not a fake. We might just have to wait for her to wake up and we'll be able to ask her questions then." His gaze went to the metal sphere sitting on the bedside table before moving down to the bag sitting next to the bed, "Have any of you checked her possessions?"
"Nah, not yet. I doubt that Natsu would have thought to look through her stuff. Pigtails was more worried about healing the kid and I was more worried about making sure Pigtails was safe." Gajeel shrugged.
Makarov nodded in understanding and moved to the bag. Right before he could reach it though, the metal sphere that had been completely motionless until then flew off the table and started protecting the bag. It let out little hums and vibrations of warning. Both Makarov and Gajeel went on the defensive, wary of the unknown. Makarov's eyes flickered to the child and to his astonishment she was still unconscious. He recognized this type of magic, it was Seith magic. The type that Bickslow used. However, the soul trapped in that sphere should not be active while it's mage was unconscious. The souls should enter a sleep mode whenever their mage slept as well.
"Gajeel go get Bickslow immediately." Makarov barked his order. He enlarged his hand to block the exit. He didn't think the sphere would make a break for it, especially since it seemed to just be protecting his mage's belongings. It wouldn't make sense for him to leave his mage either. There was a distance limit, it wouldn't make it far out of Fairy Tail before it deactivated.
Gajeel rushed out of the room and found Bickslow still sitting by Evergreen and Freed. Laxus was out on a solo mission right now so these three would probably just laze around until he got back. He walked quickly over to the trio before grabbing the Seith mage by the arm and started dragging him towards the infirmary.
"What the hell man, let go." Bickslow yelled out as he tried to get out of the Iron Dragon Slayer's hold.
"The old man needs you in the infirmary." Gajeel said, sending a serious look to the Seith mage.
Bickslow saw the look and stopped struggling and instead started walking quickly with the Dragon Slayer, "What's going on?" he asked.
"Help. Help. Help." His totems chattered around the two as they followed their mage.
"There is a situation upstairs that needs your specific expertise." Was all Gajeel told him before letting him go. He knew that Bickslow would easily follow him now.
As they entered the medical bay, they saw Makarov trying to settle the metal sphere down. Not that they could see but Bickslow raised an eyebrow as he looked at the panicked soul.
"Whose totem is that?" Bickslow asked confused. He was the only Seith mage in Fairy Tail and Seith magic wasn't the most popular magic to begin with. It was black magic after all, though with how he used it he liked to think of it more as grey magic.
"The girl's here, I need you to restrain this soul if you are able." Makarov said.
Bickslow's eyes went wide in disbelief, "But, she's unconscious." Her magic would have to be exceptionally strong for her to be able to do that, along with years of research on Seith magic. All in all, it should be impossible for one her age. If he was absolutely serious about it, he would be able to keep one of his babies awake while he slept, in about ten years of dedication to attempting it.
Bickslow shook his head of those thoughts and extended his magic to the new soul. He focused on the metal totem. He had to be careful not to completely suppress it as he didn't want to claim the soul from the kid, that would be cruel of him. He just needed to keep the totem still. Making a totem out of metal was pretty impressive as well. Wood was the easiest thing to bond a soul to as it was born of nature. Metal took a lot more effort and focus to bond the soul to. He attached his magic to the sphere as his babies surrounded it in an effort to corral it. As he started feeling the connection to the soul his heart felt like it fell to his stomach. The soul wasn't bonded to the sphere at all, not really. It was more like the soul was temporarily possessing the puppet body. This soul was tethered directly to the kid's own soul. That was dangerous dark magic, how in the world had this kid managed that? Until he talked to the kid himself, which he was going to insist about, he wasn't going to tell even the master about the soul tether. He ignored that for the moment and managed to grab hold of the sphere. It was vibrating in anger and letting out hums of protest as it tried to get back to it's mage. He couldn't exactly blame the soul; his own totems would fight tooth and nail to get back to him as well if they were separated.
"Thank you Bickslow, are you able to keep hold of it?" Makarov said as all of his limbs shrunk to their normal size.
"Yeah I got the little guy." Bickslow answered. He was able to sense that the soul was male, but strangely that was all he was able to get from him. This soul was extremely hard to read, almost like it was protecting its thoughts and memories from him.
Makarov let out a sigh of relief as Bickslow grabbed hold of the frantic soul. This was turning out to be a rather exciting adventure. Well Natsu was the one to bring her back and, well, excitement seemed to follow him everywhere. He turned one more time to make sure that Bickslow did indeed have ahold of the troublesome sphere. Then he made his way to the girl's bag. He did feel bad about invading the child's privacy but learning more about the mysterious girl took priority. He grabbed the bag and opened it up. There wasn't all that much inside of it, which made him wonder what the soul was trying to protect. The first thing he pulled out was a makeshift med kit, it was rather low on supplies. He then pulled out a rather old and well used stuffed bunny rabbit. The next thing he pulled out was a stack of letters bundled together and a rolled-up piece of parchment. He set the letters aside for the moment, if he could avoid reading those he would, and unrolled the parchment. To his surprise it was a map of Earthland, though it didn't quite match what it should look like. Areas were colored in red, there were places X'd off in red and other areas circled in both black and green. There were notes written in random places some of them consisted of; uninhabitable, safe, no-man land, unsafe, hideouts, enemy base, and travel roads. He rolled it back up and placed it aside, hopefully this was just an elaborate table top game map. If it wasn't, he didn't even want to think what that map might mean. He pulled out a couple books that consisted of basic magic theory, expanding your magic core, and a single fiction book. The last thing he pulled out was a thick book; it had no title and the only thing on the cover was the Fair Tail symbol.
He heard the sphere's vibrations get more intense the moment he grabbed the book so he tried to open the book to see what was inside of it. Tried being the key word, to his astonishment he was unable to open it at all. The cover would not budge in the slightest, what an odd thing for the child to be carrying around. And why did it have the guild mark on the cover? He turned to Gajeel, "Do you think you could bring Levy up here. I'd like her to take a look at this book really quick."
Gajeel hesitated for a moment, he didn't really want to bring his Shrimp into this situation, but he wasn't going to go against the old man either. He grunted his acknowledgement before leaving the room.
Bickslow made his way to the chair next to the kid and made himself comfortable. He wouldn't be able to move too far from the kid as long as he needed to restrain the sphere. Not only did he feel bad for the soul in the sphere, who would want to be near his mage, but he didn't know how far he could safely take this soul away from his mage. With his own babies they could go 50 feet before they started slowing down in their response times. At the moment 70 feet was their max distance before they went into hibernation mode immediately. However, his babies were connected directly to their totems, if their totems somehow got destroyed then their souls would just make their way back to him and wait for him to make a new totem for them. This soul however was connected to the kid's soul, and he had no idea what would happen if he took the soul out of its range. Or what the range even was, who knew it could be much shorter of a distance than his own being connected directly to her soul. He didn't want to damage either of the souls in doing that. So, for now he was content to just sit and wait. He had questions of his own he wanted answered from the girl.
Moments later Gajeel entered back into the room with Levy right behind him. Levy moved past her much larger partner, "What did you need my help with Master?"
"Levy dear, do you think you could take a look at this book. I think it may present a good amount of a challenge. I can't seem to open the book up, it's magically sealed and I don't want to wreck it in my attempts to open it. Perhaps you will be able to bypass the seal on it." Makarov explained.
A determined look appeared in Levy's eyes as she grabbed the book. Without even being briefed on the situation she knew that something serious was going on. The fact that Bickslow was still here, holding onto a metal sphere that was trying to escape his grasp, told a lot. She made her way over to an empty cot and started pushing her magic at the sealed book. She would figure out how to open this book, one way or another.
"What do you plan on doing Old Man?" Gajeel asked as he leaned against the closed door, so nobody could try to sneak in at the moment. They were making a bit of a scene with Gajeel going down to keep grabbing people.
"At this point we will have to either have to wait until the child wakes up, or Levy manages to unlock the book that might give us some clues." Makarov explained.
"Did she have anything else that might give me a clue to this book Master?" Levy asked.
"Ah, yes. Here, see if any of these can help you." Makarov answered as he handed Levy the books, map, and unread letters.
Levy gave her thanks before returning her attention to her project. Everyone in the room settled in for the long run. Simply waiting until the child woke up and was able to answer their questions.