Here we go! Next chapter! I know a lot of you wanted me to skip straight to Erza's arrival, but I really wanted to put this arc in and I also didn't want to time skip quite as drastically as meeting Erza would require. So here we go, a new arc! Just a warning, this chapter get's a little ... scary in the latter half. Quick aside: Review Responses will be at the bottom of the chapter.
Author's Note: SO, new arc, which is going to be something of a crossover in the same vein as meeting Newgate and the others were. Not a true universe-to-universe crossover, but me borrowing characters from another anime and creating Earthland counterparts for them. Hopefully everybody will enjoy it! Also, because of how many lovely reviews I get (thank you guys!) I've decided to change how I reply to reviews. If you're a member I'll PM a response to you as soon as I have the time, while Review Responses in the chapter will be reserved for those who aren't signed in when they review/guests. This time around I'll still answer all the reviews in the Review Response like normal, but afterwards I'll start PMing review responses to members. Please note that when I PM you a review response PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO IT unless you have another story-related question. It isn't that I don't really appreciate the reviews or anything, but I don't have the time to keep track of 20+ different conversations on top of Real Life, writing, editing, etc. I would inevitably lose track of who I've replied to and who I haven't and accidentally end up ignoring someone and I really don't want to do that to anyone. Anyway, I think that's everything. So onward!
Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail or any other references in this story. The only things I own are my OCs and the plot.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Stranded
(2 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 5 days since joining Fairy Tail)
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Grit and sand against her cheek and arms, the steady hush and hum of waves climbing and receding from the shore. Everything ached. Most of her body felt hot, but her legs felt cold from the water splashing up to her calves at regular intervals before retreating without her. Wren frowned, trying to put together what was wrong about … well, everything, while her mind struggled to finish waking up. I think … I think…
Thunder. Pounding rain. A sudden, almighty crash that shook her teeth. The split-second realization that the wall on her right was gone and water was everywhere-get-her-out-get-her-out-can't-breathe-
Wren's eyes jerked open with a gasp that promptly turned into a hacking cough as sand tried to crawl down her throat. She pulled herself to her hands and knees, hacking remnants of seawater and the gritty particles of worn away rocks that made up every beach known to man. Her head joined in the general dull clamor of aches and pains, but considering the faint snatches of memory dumping adrenaline through her veins, it was a miracle she didn't feel worse. Seawater… seawater? How was seawater coming through the Guild Hall wall?
She rolled carefully away from the sick-dampened patch of sand and squinted at the sky above her head. Since when is it late morning? It was already afternoon wasn't it?
Something was wrong.
Wren sat up slowly and looked around, trying to get her bearings and remember what had happened to land her in her current circumstances. It had been a training day for the Raijinshū, no jobs to be taken in favor of practicing their teamwork on Laxus's newest obstacle-come-torture course —complete with a pair of Vulcans he'd intimidated into being useful for a change in chasing the boys around instead of the girls—. After surviving an entire morning of Laxus's training methods and working together successfully in whatever random team pair he called out —Cana and Evergreen had been the most epic near-disaster yet, they were even worse than putting Bickslow and Cana on the same team— Laxus had called a break and they had all trooped down to the guild hall for lunch and then…
Thunder. Pounding rain. A sudden, almighty crash that shook her teeth. The split-second realization that the wall on her right was gone and water was everywhere-get-her-out-get-her-out-can't-breathe-
And then waking up here with an aching body and head. Wherever here was. She could see nothing familiar in her surroundings. The beach was an ocean beach, not any of the lake beaches she knew. The horizon was endless and untouched by land and behind her the beach gave way to unfamiliar rolling grasslands which in turn gave way to a forest at least a mile away. Certainly not the beach-hugging woods she knew around Magnolia. This was not anywhere she had been before to her memory.
And that was the problem wasn't it? There was something wrong with her memory. Nobody went from walking into the guild hall for lunch to flashes of drowning to an ocean beach with nothing recognizable in sight. Not even Fairy Tail. No, there were pieces to this she was missing, probably big ones, and that realization had all of the hair on the back of her neck standing up. Wren pushed herself to her feet, confused and worried, and did another check of her surroundings.
There was no sign of the other Raijinshū.
She pushed down the automatic flair of worry and borderline panic. The Raijinshū could handle themselves, and Fairy Tail luck never threw members into something they couldn't survive with enough elbow-grease and bull-headed stubbornness —which were both things her teammates had in spades—. So, instead of worrying about them, for the moment she should worry about herself.
Too open here. Too obvious. She needed to leave the beach. It flew in the face of the big number one survival rule of her old world —sit down and stay put until help arrives— but in Earthland, staying in one place could easily —and had easily in the past— turn into a trap. She was too exposed here. Even the grasslands behind her would be better, the hills and rocks would provide at least some ways to break an enemy's line of sight, and the tree-line would provide shadows to use in self-defense once she reached it. The others would just have to either find her or lead her to them with their explosive tendencies.
Decision made, Wren turned away from the ocean horizon and made for the forest in the distance.
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Less than twenty minutes into her trek across the grasslands, Wren realized that there was something … very weird about her surroundings.
The grass was mowed. Or at least, it kind of felt like it was. The entire area might have given off a wild, untouched aura, but the grass was far from the waist-to-chest high oceans she was used to slogging through in areas like this —being a short seven-year-old was not fair on so many levels—. Here, it was barely up to her ankles. The rocks were on the smallish side too, not the boulders she'd been halfway anticipating to use as cover should someone —or something— try to attack her. True, the grass was nowhere near as short as it should have been if a proper lawnmower had been used on it, but how did wild grass stay so consistently short without outside interference?
Uneasy, Wren decided to take a risk and use her magic to just teleport straight to the forest. Her reserves had grown by leaps and bounds since joining the guild, so it shouldn't take too much out of her to teleport that far. She stepped into the shadow of one of the rocks and mentally reached out in the direction of the forest. Velvet ghosted up her arms and brought faint sensations of cool shade and old oak smell along with the now anticipated glimpses of what lay beyond the shadow she was reaching for. She selected a shadow that was a decent distance in from the tree line, but wasn't far enough away to strain her range too badly —hey look, Laxus's crazy training was paying off, her range was getting bigger every week—, and pulled.
A moment later, she was in the forest, studying her surroundings through the monochrome lens of the shadows. No monsters were prowling, no giant snakes, no bandits, and the trees didn't look particularly carnivorous upon her fifth and even eighth paranoid inspection —long story, new mild phobia, yay her life—. She finally stepped out of the shadows, then waited twenty seconds for disaster to strike. When disaster didn't throw anything more dangerous then a cursing chipmunk of some kind —far too high pitched even for a squirrel, it sounded high and quiet enough to be a baby chipmunk honestly—, Wren concluded it was safe enough to resume walking. Where, she had no idea, but the opposite direction of the beach seemed as good as any, so on she padded with ears open and magic at the ready.
By the end of the hour, Wren stopped by a large, shallow stream for a breather and to reconstruct her slowly cracking composure. Because one, her memory of how she got here still hadn't returned, two, Fairy Tail Luck hadn't shown up yet and that was making her paranoid, and three, there was something even weirder about the forest than the grasslands. It was too quiet. Not in the dead silent, danger is near kind of way. But in the "there are no deer or large animals of any kind and the only animals she could hear were tiny birds and baby chipmunks" kind.
As a mute, and a shadow mage, and a midget in general, Wren had learned the use of her ears over her eyes in judging her surroundings pretty fast. As a musician, pitch and key had been hammered to the point of being essentially etched into her DNA. She knew when something sounded higher or lower than it should, or when something was too quiet. And the forest animals checked off those boxes splendidly. It didn't help she hadn't been able to spot them during her entire trek, only hear them amid the oak branches —and there was something off about the oaks too, she just couldn't pinpoint it—.
She splashed stream water on her face and neck and through her hair to finally wash off the beach sand, but she retrieved the large water canteen from her newfound requip space —it could only hold a grand total of four items at the moment, which were her future-knowledge diary, the canteen, a box of energy bars, and her prized violin— from which to drink. She didn't trust her surroundings and she was not going to tempt Fairy Tail Luck by drinking water that might be enchanted somehow if she could help it.
She was just finishing her last reluctant sip —she wanted more, but she'd read enough novels before coming to Earthland to know about conserving supplies— when all of the hairs on her arms went up and something deep inside her recoiled with a sensation of wrong so intense it made it hard to breathe. Wren stood up in an instant, moving back into the shadow of a large tree and stuffing her canteen back into her requip space as she tried to find the source of the wrong.
Footsteps echoed eerily through the quiet. Something big and heavy, probably two-legged unless it's leg movements were very synced. Wren slid into the world of shadows, watching through the safety of a monochrome lens as something moved in among the trees. The feeling of wrong grew worse, roiling in the pit of her stomach like poison and chilling her spine like ice. The thing came ever closer, and every step it took made Wren feel like the character of a horror movie. Or a nightmare. Trapped in stillness, afraid to move and risk being seen, terrified to stay and see what was coming closer.
It stepped through the trees and Wren felt like throwing up as her magical senses screamed at her wrong-perversion-unnatural-get-away-get-away-from-me- with a force that trapped bile in her throat and drew blood from her palms from the pressure of her fingernails.
It looked like a person —it wasn't a person it was wrong-dead-wrong-evil—, but a naked, awkwardly proportioned person that had no … private parts to hide —it wasn't meant to procreate, only destroy run away run-away-before-it-sees-you—. It's head was too big, like a bobble-toy, a permanent —broken, perverted, unnatural get-it-away— smile pasted onto its face and short, toddler-like limbs flopping heedlessly against its beer belly. It was also big. Dangerously big. At least eight feet tall, and for all of its awkward, bumbling —twisted, unnatural, not living— proportions, it could easily break her bones if it got ahold of her, cartoonish toddler-shaped limbs or not —it would do more than that, it would kill her eat her she-needed-to-get-away—.
Wren didn't dare breathe, even though she knew logically it couldn't know she was there because she was in the shadow world and unless she broke cover and moved through a sunny patch, nobody had ever spotted her. Not when in a ambient patch of natural shadows. That same logical part of her brain told her she shouldn't be so terrified. Grossed out, yes, embarrassed, yes —because it was weird and humanoid enough for its nakedness to be awkward, lack of actual parts to cover up notwithstanding—, but not terrified out of her breath and soul. But her instincts were howling a different story, and she had learned to listen to her instincts over her head in matters of strange things long before joining Fairy Tail.
It tilted its head back —how did that tiny neck not snap and why did the thing look as familiar as it was horrifying— and sniffed the air like some kind of particularly ugly bloodhound. It sniffed several more times, then slowly lumbered forward-
Directly to the spot where she had been standing moments before.
Something that looked suspiciously like drool dribbled from the corner of its endlessly grinning mouth as it dropped onto all fours and snuffled the short grass for several seconds, then slowly turned its head to look. Right. At. Her.
Her courage shattered as her instincts overrode everything else. She recoiled from it, scrambling for a different shadow to teleport to, any different shadow —anywhere but right there— that might be safer as it turned and began to slowly shamble toward her current shadow with that eerie-empty smile. Her senses flared, searching whatever parts of the forest she could reach in seconds and coming to the horrifying realization that there were more of them scattered across the entire area and how had she not sensed them before run-run-hide-RUN-
There was a flash of white in her mind's eye, a towering shadow just barely on the edge of her range, as far away from the creature in front of her as possible, and she yanked blindly on it. She fell backward through the cold black of the space in between the shadows, tumbling out graceless and shaking and scared out of her mind in the huge shadow of what her mind dimly registered as a very large stone wall.
She didn't pay any attention to the wall though, just turned and ran, as fast as she could in the direction opposite the thing —she knew what it was now, she knew that creature, but that was impossible, it was, it had to be, she didn't dare name it or else it really would be real— and its scattered lookalikes. She ran in shadow form for longer than she ever had before, a blind dash guided only by the flaring burn of wrong-wrong-get-away-get-away on her senses that alerted her panicking mind whenever she got too close to another one of the wandering creatures and made her swerve away.
Eventually, her blind flight was forced to a halt by her dwindling magic and heaving lungs. Skidding to a shaky stop, Wren looked wildly around for a place to hide —don't rest out in the open, they'll find you-they'll-kill-you—. Her gaze only half took in the ruins of a once-respectable town —too short, like standing in the set of a movie or being in a dream where everything only came up to her shoulder or just above her head and all the windows were no bigger than her fist—, not really registering just how wrong the proportions were aside from the desperate lack of a good hiding place. Her eyes fell on the largest building in the town and instinct —she knew that shape, knew those kinds of windows and it meant safety and quiet and hidden away— sent her scrambling to it.
The door was a bit small, but not too small for her to frantically nudge them open and crawl inside on her hands and knees —too small for the things to get in after her, and the stone walls of the building were hopefully sturdy enough to withstand physical assault—, practically turning sideways to fit her shoulders through the opening. She kicked the doors shut once inside —couldn't advertise she was here, open doors begged exploration— and fled all the way to the far back of the building. The inside building was much more spacious than the door had been. At least twice her height and long enough to have counted as a hallway if everything was normal. It was only about two, maybe two and a half feet wider than she was tall, but that was okay. It was a good hiding place, a safe place to recover her magic or buy her enough time to get away should trouble find her and that was all she needed.
It wasn't until she had shimmied and bumbled past the stacked crates and ruined furniture to tuck herself away in a far corner that was invisible to the door and spent several minutes panicking and gasping that she fully registered where she was hiding. It was a church of some kind. Like a smaller version of the one that had sheltered her and Bickslow when they were homeless children, albeit one that didn't seem to have a bell-tower and had definitely seen better days.
The pews were mostly gone, only a few battered and out of line survivors scattered around parts of the building. A lot of the floorspace was taken up by stacked crates and boxes and barrels she couldn't determine the content of, which indicated somewhere in the back of her mind that the church was being used as a warehouse by somebody —if that somebody hadn't been caught and killed by the things already, a part of her mind whispered—. Most of the colored, picturesque windows were missing, either entirely or in big pieces. Dust motes drifted past her wide, frightened eyes as she stared around and it was easily clear that nobody had been in the church in quite some time.
Of course, with those —wrong-broken-unnatural-perversion-of-life— monsters out there, Wren couldn't exactly be puzzled over that now could she?
Not just any kind of monster. Just like this is not just any kind of church. Wren cradled her head in her hands and took deep, shaking breaths as the first of the only two gory anime she'd ever been coerced into watching came flooding back into her mind and clicked with her surroundings and the … thing she had seen. A choked hiss escaped her teeth as she squeezed her eyes shut to keep tears from escaping.
How, in the name of all that is holy, did I wind up in Attack on Titan?
She didn't know. She didn't know and she prayed she was wrong, but she didn't know how she could be wrong after what she'd seen. That creature had been a titan —if a small one? Compared to what she would have expected at least—, she had caught glimpses of the broken Wall —M-something, a girl's name, not near as high as in the anime, but still tall, it was the Wall's shadow she'd used to escape the first titan—. There were ruins of a town and no signs of people, no doubt either all killed or fled to one of the other Walls.
But there were things that didn't add up to that theory. She was one hundred percent human, yet the buildings were far too short —except this church, and even it was small for the level of ruined splendor it contained, not to mention the crawl-sized entrance—. So what did that mean? That whoever had lived here wasn't human? Or that they were some kind of … Lilliputian people?
And none of that even began to cover how she would have gone from the Fairy Tail universe to Attack on Titan —and if she did that, how would she teleport through shadows? Why would her magic react so viscerally to the presence of Titans? AoT didn't even have magic beyond bite-thumb-be-monster-Eren—.
What had happened in between heading to the guild hall for lunch and now?
What…?
The exhaustion and stress —both physical and magical— tugging at her senses dragged her under somewhere in the middle of her frantic thoughts, pulling her into a fitful sleep despite her best efforts.
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Review Response: Dear Danny Phantom 619, greetings! Glad you liked it!
Dear GiantPsychoGecko, hey there! (cackles) Definitely that, if Gray doesn't do something to anger Wren before Natsu shows up. Which is a possibility considering the shenanigans he gets into.
Dear Dark Rose Charm, hiya! Well, I'm back! Don't worry, Gray will still be on Team Natsu. Remember, the formation of Team Natsu is years away, plenty of time for Gray to have some fun with a different team before they all settle on missions specialities and stuff. Well ... I can tell you that the first time Wren officially meets her love interest, they will try their very hardest to punch each other in the face. Hows that for a clue? Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!
Dear Smile4the-World, hi! (Flourishes hat) Thank you, I try. Glad you are enjoying the changes. They're gonna get bigger as time goes on (though some things will stay the same because Fairy Tail). Well, I hope you can wait a while longer, because the pace isn't really going to change at all. But we'll get there eventually and when we do, I think you'll be VERY happy with who she's gets paired with (winks). Thank you for your patience and see you next chapter!
Dear BlackDove WhiteDove, hello there! (offers tissues) The Christmas chapter does seem to do that to people, which was my intent, but still. Also, all hail Gray! You're welcome, I hope you enjoyed this newest one too!
Dear KEZZ 1, greetings! Well, wasn't really 'soon' but it's here now. Did you like it?
Dear thatgirl221b, hi there! He is adorable isn't he? I had a lot of fun writing him.
Dear YumiKnowsBest, hi! Erza is the next canon member to meet, though you'll have to wait until after this arc for her to show up. There will be an extra member for Team Natsu because of this, but I'll let you guess which of Gray's friends it'll be. The canon answer to that is that Pauz and Doronbo were off doing other things when Natsu's Fairy Tail Luck happened. The Real Life answer is that I hadn't read Ice Trail yet and so didn't know about them. Don't worry though, they're still fine during the events of Wren's time travel. Hope you enjoyed!
Dear Arthanos, hey there! Glad you liked it! Don't worry, I'll get around to Erza's introduction soon, I just need to finish this arc (and maybe one or two other loose threads).
Dear SilverKnight037, greetings! You're welcome, I'm so happy you enjoy it! Don't worry, we'll get there eventually.
Dear Gerbilfriend, hello there! (grins) I've always felt that Grey and Natsu just ... clicked with the guild instantly. They just have the nature for it you know?
Dear RedWolf Lover, hi there! I'm so sorry you weren't feeling well, I hope you got better soon (and are still better). I couldn't resist the pun, even though I usually don't like them. I've been fine, just a bit busy is all (and about to get busier but meh, such is life).
Dear Natzed202, hello! You're welcome, hope you enjoyed!
Dear Guest, hey there! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, even without Bickslow's conversation with Wren (it was all overprotective brother ranting anyway so...).
Dear Blaise Welshman, greetings! Oh, I never really STOP writing for more than a few days, I just have a lot of different projects to work on plus Real Life to deal with, so it can take me a while to update any one story. (Laughs quietly) Oh, knowing me, it probably will end up as long as Russian Roulette. Yeah, but it's starting to get to me, so after this I'll be PMing responses as much as I can. These sections can get a little ridiculous, even if I love getting reviews.
Dear Raijinsh Member, hello! (laughs) well, I can't say whether you are or aren't the only one, but I very much appreciate the reaction either way!
Dear Dragon Lord Draco, greetings! Couldn't resist, it was just too easy to do. Ooh, okay, that makes sense. Fist of justice ... isn't that a One Piece thing?
Dear Captain343Spark, hello! Aw, thank you! That makes my day to hear! (Reads pun, slow claps) THAT was so bad, it was absolutely awesome. Hats off to you.
Dear Therashae, hi! Eventually yeah, I just need to work through this arc first.
Dear WhiteDogwood, hey there! Me too, I enjoy writing this one a lot more than canon Laxus. So happy you like it!
Dear Oldwinterfang, greetings! Aw ... that really makes my day to hear, thank you! I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!
Dear ChocoGummies, hey there! Indeed! Gray is a hoot to write (when he isn't being frustrating).
Dear Freereader18, hello! I do my best to reply to every review I get. Thank you, I try really hard! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and see you next time!
Dear SumCheeze, hiya! Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter too. Aw, thanks. Wren is actually one of my favorite OCs now, so it's always wonderful to hear when she wins someone else over too.
Dear WolfGirl01, hello there! Hmm, sorry, can't tell you either of those because spoilers. But hopefully you'll enjoy the changes Wren makes when we get there!
Dear Fei Shuki, hello! Well thank you for giving this story a try despite your misgivings! I'm so glad you like Wren as a character. I've tried to make her fit in with the rest of Fairy Tail's crazy bunch. Ice Trail was fun! I really enjoy most of the Fairy Tail spin-offs I've gotten my hands on, so I hope to include others in the future too. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Dear Nariel Helyanwe, hi there! (offers tissues) Well ... that's kinda my job as a writer? So glad you enjoy it though!
Dear Wicken25, greetings! The girl with the blue hair that Marco is so protective of is little Levy. He thinks she's adorable and since she's the youngest barring Wren (who acts like a mini-adult most of the time) his mother hen instincts go a little nuts around her. I might end up doing a few more future one-shots, but they're hard to write because I don't know how the plot will change between then and now and I wouldn't want to leave a plot hole that way... We'll see.
Dear Dragon27998, hey there! Um ... as amazing as that theory is, I'm afraid it's incorrect. Gray's backstory went exactly as canon, I just call Ur by Ul instead because it makes so much more sense to me. I mean, Ultear's name is supposed to mean "her mother's tears", by combining her mother's name with the word tear. So by that logic, then technically Ultear should either be URtear or Ur should be UL. I like the spelling Ul better than Ur, so I just made a switch over of the letters. Sorry that made you get your hopes up for a massive AU in Gray's backstory. We will be getting very AU in other areas eventually, so ... I hope you still like the story?
Dear Kalmaegi, hello! I know right? I like writing the Raijinshū as the guild's collective big sibling team.
Dear The Independent Variable, hiya! Why thank you, it's always wonderful to know that I've done my job as a writer correctly. Hope you enjoyed the latest chapter!