{"Why do you defend them so much? They are all holding you back."}
Kain Reynolds could only put a hand on his head while yawning as he trekked down Magnolia streets nearly at the crack of dawn.
{"Because they aren't helping you get home."}
He gritted his teeth as he shook his head. Despite his best to think of something else, his mind started to think back to everything he's been doing so far in Earthland, practically bugger all except find a way back home. A darker side of him argued Fairy Tail wasn't doing anything to help him at all. They were just messing around doing whatever they wanted.
Did they really even care about him?
Kain's walk ended as he reached the guild. He sighed before he swore he heard sounds coming from the door.
"No matter how early I come here, it's amazing how many people like Master Laxus and Mira make it look like I'm late, even when I slept in the guest room." The brunette sighed again before opening the door—
…
…
Kain blinked.
One would think that Fairy Tail, being the lively place that it was, would be currently starting a fight so early in the morning.
But no.
As if hell froze over, as if pigs started flying, as if the sun stopped shinning and the world was seeing a sun through delusion, all of Fairy Tail….
Was doing… research?
It was the only thing Kain could see as boards were set up with pieces of torn newspapers with a series of pins holding down different colored strings along with paper clips while everyone looking through and reading books. There were even papers flying in the air through some magic then had others catching them. Lucy, who was usually a deep sleeper, was drinking coffee and seemingly calling someone about books from her mansion. Cana, also had a drink in her hand that wasn't beer—lord, Kain must have stopped his mind several times to look over and scan the mug with steam coming out of it. He must have thought that it was some kind of new magical beer or something, but with how even Cana was drinking it and not smiling, it indeed looked like regular coffee as well. Even Natsu and Gray were looking through book with… laser focus? The hell!? Gajeel was reading through some encyclopedia-sized books too!?
Kain, seeing this alien sight before him turned around and put his hand on his head again. "Shit! Did I enter into a twilight zone of a different world that I'm not even from? How the hell does that even work?" It was the only way his brain could process this impossible scenario that no amount of magic could perform.
When the boy turned around, he didn't notice Mira carrying some pieces of paper and books, look at the open door and say, "Ah! Kain's here!"
Those three words were all it took to make the busy Fairy Tail members look back towards the entrance, with Kain looking back at the sound of the voice.
"Uhhh, hello?" The brunette with dark brown eyes gave a small wave at the group.
"KAIN!" They all shouted before Jet sped up and pushed him into the guild.
"W-Whoa?! What's going on?!" The brunette cried out before he found himself near a white board with many articles, newspapers, and pieces of string pinned and tied together.
Jet circled and gave the young man a book. "Here! This place looks interesting! The continent of Argus is a land filled with history that even their ancestors don't know everything about that place! In one area, named Vorenium Forrest, they say you can see fragments of other worlds!"
"What?" The brunette was confused, but right then, Max came in with a picture of a valley in his hand.
"Jet! We agreed that place was haunted! Now this spot looks promising! In the Country of Yonshi, in the Xiamen Continent, there is this valley that is said to come from 'unknown outsiders'! No one knows where they came form or how they got there, but people seem to agree this lost civilization may have come from a different plane of reality!"
Levy walked up, holding a book and. "Max, you're the one pushing wrong things! Most of those are theories and some historians argue they may have just come from another continent. If there is a lead to another world, it's through the future, not the past! Some Gorandor scientist, you remember Gorandor, right? The same country that was the one that made the 100 year quest for your armlet? Well anyway, the magiscientists there are amazing! They have worked out a theory that could potentially allow us to look beyond time and—"
And Kain could no longer listen to another word at his state. "Okay! Okay! Can we all PLEASE calm down for a second?!"
His shout silenced the guild, and as soon as it did, the young man felt more embarrassed than satisfied. He sighed in resignation. "What are you all doing?"
The young man expected anyone to answer, he wasn't expecting everyone to suddenly do a 1-80 from the vigorous energy they were displaying to suddenly looking meek and embarrassed as well. Some even looked away form him which only made the boy more confused.
Thankfully, Natsu Dragneel held no such thing called embarrassment—or tact, or subtlety, or grace, or—and spoke out for him. "We're helping you find your way back home."
"You are?" Kain replayed the memories from a few seconds ago. His eyes widened as he realized what those ramblings were in context and looked around the entire guild.
"All of you were researching how I would get back home?" That question was not just for them, but for him as well since he couldn't understand what brought about this sudden change.
Instead of Natsu answering again, another voice answered, "Of course we are, I ordered it." Kain snapped his head up towards Laxus with a neutral face. "Though it looked like they were all going to do it anyway."
What should have sated his curiosity and satisfied his confusion only brought more of both to Kain Reynold's mind.
"Why?" The word escaped his lips while his mind kept jumping on information.
"Because we all heard what you said about Pierre." The young man turned over to the red haired S-Class mage walking towards them. "And Laxus revealed that Pierre had said some rather… cruel... things."
At the mention of that Fairy Tail looked ashamed. Even Natsu was uncharacteristically looking away.
"The worst part of it all," Erza continued. "Was that he was right. We really haven't done anything to help you find your way home while you have given up nearly everything for us. So, we have all our sources and manpower to figuring out how to get you home. Pierre acknowledged it existed, so we did did all we could to find anything about traveling to other worlds. We should have done more to help you find your way home, we're sorry."
There were no words coming from the young man… only a sudden burst of laughter. The young man's laughter came out so suddenly that even Kain wasn't completely sure why he was doing it, just that it relieved a great burden on his shoulders. The laguther did eventually died down and the boy could only smile. "Thank you guys, I mean it. Now then, what have you guys really have?"
It felt weird to see that the library beneath the guild was actually emptied out in some shelves.
Still, it was kind of annoying that it feels like I made a breakthrough with all of these potential clues, but with everyone putting in their own opinions, it feels like they cancelled all each other out and I'm back at square one.
Yet, I do admit this feels like I'm actually making progress. However...
{I admit, it's mostly a rumor, but in my travels, I've heard of a story of the ability to travel to 'far away lands that distance cannot measure'.}
Pierre was directly quoting something. It wasn't like the others where they were looking for rumors and the words of others, he either read it off or heard those exact words spoken. He seemed sure that quote did have something to do to bring me here.
{Do not go home.}
Wait though. The Shaman I met in Sun City… that guy warned me about not going home. Are those two talking about the same thing? If they are, does that mean that the way back home has something to do with spirits? Dammit! I still know nothing about Earthen Spirits!
Oh well, it should be easy to look them up since they're mostly uncommon—
KRACK!
"AAH!?"
THUD!
"OW! What the hell!?" I screamed before looking down. It seems like on my way to pick up a book about shamans, the floor beneath me gave way and now I found myself waist deep into the floor.
As I tried to move my legs, I realized something: the floor inside was strangely hollow, and secondly my feet felt like they were hitting something that wasn't wood or concrete.
After using the armor to get back up, I found out that I fell through a trap door rather than solid wood. I wondered why that out of all the people down here, it would break under my weight so easily? Do I need to like go on a diet or something? Erza already trains me like a drill sergeant… even more so since… bah I'm getting distracted.
I had found out that there was some kind of secret place with a box of dusty orb Lacrima. But something was weird about these that I couldn't really tell what they were. I picked up a book about Shamans before heading back up with the box of Lacrima orbs.
"Hey, guys!?" I yelled out as I took out the box. "Are you aware you've got a secret stash of Lacrima Orbs at the basement?!"
Everyone looked towards me as I put the dusty and old looking box on a nearby desk.
"A secret stash of Lacrima?" Even saying it in her own words sounded weird to Mirajane.
The sound of someone stomping on a table caught my attention, followed by an accusation. "Wait a sec! Is that it!?" Natsu was one of the last people I expected to understand what I had. "I thought the rumors said Master Makarov buried that under a tree! That jerk! Was it in Fairy Tail the entire time!?"
"Natsu, what is it?" Or a proper question was what he thought it was, but hey, Natsu did have these smart moments sometimes out of his… exuberant ones.
My friend had this devilish smile on his face as he came closer to the crystal orbs. "Oh yeah! These are definitely the ones! These look like old Memory Lacrimas!"
I blinked as I heard the name. My mind immediately understood the basics of that name. "Wait, they're some kind of recording magic?"
"Yeah! See, I heard a rumor a while back after I beat Gajeel—"
"LIKE HELL YOU DID, SALAMANDER! I WON OUR FIGHT!" The Steel Dragon Slayer cried out.
"Hell no! I did!" Natsu yelled back and with how Gajeel stood up, the two were about to settle their feud the only damn way they ever settled things despite being together fore like a few days.
The two closed in before I stood between them and performed the darkest glares I could muster. "If you two start a fight right this instant, both of you are going to find your debts quadrupled in one minute."
Ahh money. The root of all evil and a damn good tool for keeping these two idiotic dragons in check. "Good," I relaxed as the two of them suddenly lost their will to fight. "Natsu, continue what you were saying about a rumor and Master Makarov?"
"Oh!" Natsu's smile went back as he pointed to this thing. "See, I heard that there was this collection of embarrassing photos of Fairy Tail and I couldn't even find it no thanks to Lucy!"
"Don't drag me into that!" Lucy's comment came in from the side.
Even with that, Natsu continued. "But I thought it was beneath the tree in the park, not in here the whole time! And now it's mine!"
I doubted that these were the embarrassing photos that he heard about. But Natsu already seemed to activate one of them—
The Memory Lacrima suddenly shined bright and lifted into the air.
While the face of everyone was that of shock, I futile asked, "Memory Lacrima are supposed to do that, right?"
"They don't do that!" Laxus screamed out before the light blinded everyone inside the guild.
"Damn it, Natsu!" Huh, I heard several other voices besides my own shout that out before the light swallowed us all.
…
…
"… Oh thank god, I'm not in another jungle/volcano isle." I swear to all that is evil and good, if I was warped to another volcano isle, I was going to throw Natsu into it… and maybe Gajeel. They might kick my ass before I could, but i'd be so pissed of I don't think I'll be thinking at all by then.
Speaking of Natsu and Gajeel, they were both right next to me when Natsu activated the Memory Lacrima. "And you two seem fine."
Gajeel looked around. "Where the hell are we?"
It looked like someone's house, or studio because it was very spacious. Further scans showed littered metal objects and odd devices—were we in a lab?
"Really, burned brain!?" Ah, there's Gray and the others. They all seem to be in the same place as I last spotted them, or at least the same direction. "You just activated something and you didn't know what it was?!"
"Hey, it was a Memory Lacrima! I've seen them before!" Aaannndd now those two are butting heads again.
"Enough, both of you!" Erza pushed them both away with great ease before looking around. It seemed like everyone in the guild was warped into this strange studio.
"Ah!" That sound made everyone look over to Warren who was at one edge of the room, in front of a large, metallic device that I had no idea what it could do. "Guys! Check this out!" He stretched out his hand towards the device, and despite some people warning him not to touch it, Warren ignored them and pushed on through, everyone then saw his hand phase through the metallic object as if his body was made of light.
"Whoa, how'd you—OWW!" Max began asking while walking towards Warren. However, it suddenly looked like something was in his path that we couldn't see. "What the heck!?"
As we all looked in front of him, a table from the guild popped up directly in front of Max Alors' path.
"Hey that was the table we were using just a minute ago!" Laki pointed over to the desk.
Soon, everyone started to move. Some were like Max, and hit invisible tables from the guild that soon reappeared, while some others who wanted to touch the strange metallic devices, could only have their hands and bodies phase through as if they weren't there.
I turned to the two dragon slayers near me. "Where are we?"
Natsu sniffed the air. However, the look on his face was that of confusion. "That can't be right. I still smell the guild hall!"
"What? We're still in the guild?! That can't be right!" Lucy screamed out.
"Everyone," Laxus began before we all looked towards him. He had his hands folded and he was looking up. We all followed his sight to see that the Memory Lacrima was still there, now with a rainbow hue around it. "Natsu was right. We still are in the guild. The memory Lacrima is showing us an image of when it was recording and it's overlapping the entire guild."
"Oh… well thank god it's nothing dangerous." The last thing I needed was another adventure.
It was then that Erza started talking that made me feel like I might have jinxed us. "But Memory Lacrima are only meant to show pictures inside them, not project overlapping 3D memory like this." Despite the fact that I was surprised 3D was an actual world here, and to hear this was a special case did not sit well at all.
"Finally!" An echo-like voice shouted out from the second floor of the garage we were on. There was a woman wearing a jump suit with dirt, dust, grime all over clothes and pieces of her face. She was wearing some kind of special goggles while her hair was black and tied up in a bun. "I got it to work! Yes! I will call it: the Hypercam Lacrima—Okay, I need something catchier than that, maybe just Hypercam… anyway! This will surpass all Lacrima by not just recording things in one area, but in a 360 radius—even more than a normal's person view! AHAHAHAH!" The girl laughed maniacally before slipping and falling from the second floor.
Erza seemed to act fast and try to catch her. However, her body fell through Erza's arms and she ended up crashing through a dust cloud.
"I-I tried to..."
"Erza, I know you meant well, but I think I'm starting to get it. This is a recording of the inventor of this specific Lacrima. These are all past events we're just watching." My mind thought back to how everyone in the Isle of the dead spoke about seeing my memories. This was like that, only less dangerous. "We can't really interact with a memory but just watch what happened"
"Right, I see." Erza calmed down and stood up.
"Oww..." the girl soon got back up before the Lacrima floated down towards her. "Right! I gotta get to Fairy Tail and show this to Precht!"
Those words made everyone look to her as she ran to one corner of the room with the orb following her.
"Did she just say Fairy Tail?" Cana's voice spoke what we were all thinking, but I was focused on the other thing said by the creator.
"Precht? Wait a second that's the second master's name!" I cried out before the creator finished packing and the Hypercam started to float and follow the creator as if it was repeating a path it once took.
Instead of everyone moving, the scene beneath us was moving for us. Everyone, including myself were flabbergasted as the creator and the Lacrima went out of the studio, and revealed to be on top of a hill looking down a rather humble looking town.
Everyone in Fairy Tail watched as the creator and the orb ran down, and the scenery moved as well, even though all of us were stationary. We watched the sky move, we watched memory of trees pass by and through some people to stunned to get out of the way.
It was like we were in a hologram that kept moving even with us in it.
As we entered into the humble town, people were waving hello to the creator.
"Hey it's Lara!"
"Sup Lara!"
"Lara! Can you go three more days without causing an explosion!? I'm in the middle of a bet with Seemon!"
It wasn't hard to figure out the creator of the orb was named Lara, or went by that name. However, it wasn't long before we all noticed where Lara was heading for.
"Is that!?" Elfman gapped as he pointed to what we were all looking it.
"It's the guild! I recognize that symbol anywhere!" In the distance was indeed a humble building with the words, 'Fairy Tail'. With words like Percht and Second Master, that could only mean…
"This is Mangolia in the past!" I blurted out as we looked back at the humble town that would soon become the large city that it was.
Soon, Lara closed in to the doors of the old Fairy Tail. Everyone, including myself was filled with anticipation. After all, how could we not? This was about to show us a Fairy Tail in it's early days before it's many renovations over the years!
Though… even though I hyped it up, I found myself a little disappointed. Just like when I first saw the guild, I had too many high hopes about what the guild was like in it's beginnings. It was just a plain old building, just like when I originally expected something like Hogwarts when entering into this world.
The Fairy Tail in memory was so much smaller than the guild before the Phantom Lord attack, and it seemed to have less people than before, maybe it was still in it's early stages since it felt like the highest numbers reached thirty.
Lara looked around in the old guild and then ran up to a dark cloaked man with pale blonde hair and an eyepatch.
Just before she did, she inhaled deeply before trying to shout out, "Y-Yo! Precht!" No sooner than the greeting came out, her face momentarily twisted in agony from her own words betraying her mouth.
The man sighed and turned around in the recording memory. "What is it, Korho?"
"Why do you keep calling me by my last name?! Anyway, check this out!" As Lara started talking about the flying orb, I managed to walk closer to the man who Maakrov claimed was his master.
He was so young! And considering how I heard stories about he was also one of the founders of the guild.
"Hey guys, I think this is a memory of the very first members of Fairy Tail! One of the founders and second master of the guild is as young as Laxus!"
"So this is the very first Fairy Tail? Man, it looks crummy." Lucy then elbowed Natsu in the ribs for saying that. "What? It is!"
"As fun as this is, is there a way out of here?" Cana asked as she looked around. "I can't find the bar."
Since I was close to the Lacrima. I went and reached for the thing. As soon as I grabbed it, the orb's glow shined less and all the people of the past. I then did the reverse of what Natsu did to put I on, I twisted a part of the Larcrima in the opposite direction.
As soon I did this, the memory around us was sicked into the orb and it was powered down. The Guild returned to normal—well as normal as it was a while ago.
I ended up walking back towards the box I had found. "There are more of these. They all have recordings too, I bet."
"Man, I guess they aren't the embarrassing photos." I turned and gave Natsu a flat look after saying that.
"I'm not even sure Makarov knew about these." When I looked down into the reflective surface of the Lacrima, I was treated with the sight of what exactly people see when my brain is forming an idea by how my eyes seemed to widen and the smallest of smiles appeared. "Hey guys? How about we take a break?"
They all looked towards me as I raised up the orb. "We've all had a hectic month that just ended, and while I am amazingly thankfully you all want to help, I think this is the best way for us to sit back, relax, and watch what adventures and recordings these Lacrima have."
"What makes you think they have any adventures in them? They could be just about some boring stuff?" I spotted Evergreen comment from the side, already sitting back down in one of the seats.
"Well, for one, it's our predecessors, do you really think that's boring? Secondly, even if they are, do you really want to miss out about a device that can make someone as close to the past as possible?" Evergreen thought about it before shrugging her shoulders, figuring there really was nothing better to do. As I glanced around, I could see the same going on through other people's minds.
There were several sighs of relief while some I could hear about wanting to see what was in the recording.
I looked over to Laxus who just shrugged his shoulders, obviously not caring either way.
That was pretty much the 'all green' signal to me.
I could feel the smile stretching my mouth that moment and I thought to only validate these rising feeling with a showy speech. "Okay guys! Grab your favorite snacks, grab your favorite drinks, put aside all research and woes at the door because to day is when Fairy Tail does something unthinkable: relax and watch someone else's adventure!"
I grabbed the Lacrima and reactivated it with a twist.
And the light enveloped Fairy Tail once more.
{Author Notes}
Gotta get back! Back to the Past! WATCHA!
And here we go! An Original Arc I've been planning for a while. It's no grand adventure, in fact, it's just a pretty chill one. Present Fairy Tail gets to watch a very specific adventure in the past, involving the founder, Percht.
And if I'm including young Percht, you all know who else is going to be in the recording. This is basically a story set up for me to write a story about 'you know who' and the others and some of their adventures! This one I hope you all enjoy and are as excited about it as I am.
Also, I'm looking to do some rewriting in the future, mostly around the Tower of Hell arc. So some time in the future it will change, because of how many negative reviews and how I myself dislike how it is. But that's going to take a bit, but it shouldn't be slowing this down by much...
See ya guys soon!