OKAY! Finally got this edited and up. Finally. I hope you enjoy! We got one more chapter (and a companion one-shot) to go before we're done with this arc! Woo!
Author's Note: So, as stated in my other stories that I've updated, I FINALLY discovered (cough had someone point out to me cough cough) the Review Response button, so I'll be using that from now on for everything but guest reviews. Hope you all enjoy the chapter and Review Responses are on the bottom! Also, I have an Ao3 account now! I'll ... try to update my profile to reflect that but for now, if you prefer reading on Ao3, I have begun crossposting over there as SecretEnigma (not SecretENGIMA like I am here, long story). Not everything is up or up to date, but I'm getting there. Also, for anyone who bothers reading the Author's Note, I've seen a lot of anticipation for a giant "Fairy Tail invades and kicks butt" battle scene and I hate to say it but that won't show up in this arc. It will show up in the companion one-shot if I can swing it, but I had to choose between hanging around in this arc for another 5-6 chapters for proper battle setup/description or shortening it to this chapter and the one after this and then move on to introducing the next canon character and I chose the latter. Sorry. There will still be an epic final fight though! It'll just be focused more on one or two characters specifically rather than the entire FT cast that is present.
Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, Attack on Titan, or any references made in this story. The only things I own are my OCs and my runaway plot.
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Chapter Forty-One: Lies, Keys, and Magic Circles
(2 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, 2 days since joining Fairy Tail)
The walls of the chamber shook under another earthquake and dust rained down from the ceiling as Levi whirled back and forth across the chamber, chasing and dodging, steam filling the choking air as titans fell only for more-more-more to come pouring in through the broken wall. Wren pressed her hands to her aching head, trying to think past the nerve-scraping pulse of wrong-wrong-wrong- to do what she needed to do. Levi blurred past, blades flashing as he flitted about the confined space of the chamber like a swallow, only just faster than the monsters chasing him. Another rumble shook the chamber as the titan went down and her senses wailed as another four crowded into the chamber in its place.
Levi flipped over grasping, mutated fingers with barely an inch to spare. Wren tried to stand, felt her legs turn to jelly and acid in her mouth at the mere thought of going further inside the room. I can't do this-. Her watering eyes caught on tattered green as a flailing limb nicked Levi, sent him reeling in the air, one arm now limp and face twisted in pain. There was a flicker of time as he fell, grey eyes locking with hazel across the shaking cavern of a chamber. Then he recovered with a flip and a hummingbird's heartbeat of magic, his remaining blade clenched tight as he bellowed, "Wren!"
The shout jolted through her and she grabbed it, clung to the demand —the plea, the promise, the command— ringing in it. Forced her legs to work and her hands from her head as she straightened her spine and ran despite the nauseating screams of dark-twisted-hungry-wrong tearing at her mind with every step she took.
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Earlier:
It had started with another of her Nightmares. One of the ones that were so terrifyingly vivid and lifelike while she dreamed it, but that she could only remember snatches of after she sat up screaming silently in terror —and hadn't that just terrified all of the little people around her, it was a good thing Isabel had managed to call them off—.
This Nightmare —it deserved the capital darn it— had been a new one. Something about … something about a book, and monsters, and a magic circle glowing on the ground with such malice and hunger that it's every detail was burned into her mind even hours later. It haunted her thoughts as Levi got everyone moving again. It itched at her mind just like the strange feeling in the air even as they finally arrived at the castle and sent everyone there into a panic at the sight of her.
There had been quite a commotion over her arrival, with scouts scrambling for weapons, only to freeze when Levi yelled at them to stand down, before some of them —fellow officers she assumed— yelled at Levi for going insane and bringing a titan here. To which he'd retorted that a titan didn't wear clothes and would have already bitten them in half by now so shut up and listen to him.
Wren had ended up just … sitting there. Tired, hungry —one ration bar in the morning just wasn't enough with her stress—, magic itching, and that strange magic circle from her Nightmare still chewing at her thoughts while Levi yelled at his fellow officers, they yelled at him, Isabel and Farlan yelled in defense of their oldest friend, and Hanji just … yelled in general. Something about not damaging the greatest discovery of the century maybe.
Watching a bunch of lilliputians debate her fate was … surprisingly boring. She kept an ear and eye on them of course, ready to teleport away if she had to, but mostly she just … let her thoughts drift as she sat there, legs crossed and fingers trailing aimlessly in the dirt. It wasn't until a polite cough sounded at her feet and Levi snapped, "Oi, Wren," that she realized the yelling had stopped and there was a blond man standing just out of her arm's reach next to Levi.
The man was distantly familiar, and she somehow wasn't surprised when cold blue eyes —cunning eyes, eyes that looked at insane risk and saw opportunity instead of danger— met hers without flinching, "I am Erwin, Commander of the Survey Corps. I am told you are Wren, and that you consider yourself human?"
Wren nodded and bit back her anger at the "consider" part of the sentence. He studied her, gaze blank, "Why are you here?"
She glanced over at Levi ,who gestured for her to answer, then wrote out slowly, "Washed up on shore. I don't remember how I got there."
The crowd of scouts all gasped at her use of magic and one of the younger ones —who sounded like Eren, nobody else in the anime hit quite the same intensely murderous pitch— yelled, "How does a Titan use magic? Only the Military Police Brigade has magic users!"
She frowned at the crowd, "Not monster. Human. You're all just small."
"That's a rather bold claim for a spy." She stared back down at Erwin in confusion. He met her gaze coolly, as if he hadn't just accused her of spying. Which didn't make any sense. She was way too noticeable to be a spy and why would he even…?
"I'm not a spy. I didn't even know this island existed until I woke up here."
Erwin didn't seem bothered by her denial, just pointed to something just in front of her, "Care to explain the map then? It's slightly outdated, but still exceptionally accurate."
Map? What map-. Oh. Wait, what? Looking down, she saw that her absentminded fingers had drawn an exact replica of the magic circle from her dreams. Three circles, one inside of the other, with small bubbles coming out of each one at the four compass points. Woven through the three circles were dots of differing sizes and lines that connected all of them together like some kind of puzzle. She felt the distinct urge to wipe the circle out of existence, just in case it activated suddenly —why had she drawn that it was evil and dangerous— but doing so would just make herself more suspicious in the Survey Corps eyes, so instead she wrote, "That's not a map. It's a magic circle."
Isabel peeked around Levi's shoulder, "Ah hate ta say it, bu' thah is an old map oh tha island. All it's missin' is some oh tha newer towns an' roads."
Wren scowled, "It's a magic circle-."
"Quit lying!" A tiny bundle of green-eyed fury —Eren, there'd been no mistaking the miniature protagonist— burst from the wary ranks of scouts, stomping past Levi before the shorter man could stop him, "What are you, huh? A spy? Did your people send the titans to our island to keep us caged? Answer me-!" One booted foot stepped over the outermost line and the circle exploded with light. She dived for him on instinct, yanking him out of the circle before he could be trapped in the suddenly glowing lines. Everyone scrambled away as the air thickened with wrong-wrong-dead-wrong- and the ground within the circle bubbled like a witch's cauldron. Something oozed out of the circle, burbled onto the ground outside the glowing rings, then began to warp and harden into shape.
Wren forgot all about not using her magic without Levi's permission and not revealing her black hole to them, she just yanked on the doors in her mind in a vicious panic of kill-it-kill-it-get-away- that overrode every other thought. The magic circle, the tiny, half-formed titan crawling around outside it, and the second blob of ooze trying to form were all devoured by the tiny black hole she summoned. Her magic shook loose of her control and the black hole snapped shut seconds later, leaving her to stare at the frozen crater in the ground, shaking like a leaf while Eren sat stunned in her hands.
It was Erwin that broke the silence, "So," hummed the tiny man in a ridiculously placid tone,
"it would appear that we are both right. A magic circle and a map of the island."
Levi exhaled harshly, curses Wren had never heard before slipping past his clenched teeth. The rest of the scouts unfroze from their shock and the shouting started all over again, this time over the circle and the titan they had seen crawling out of it. Someone yelled that it was Wren's plan all along, to unleash titans inside the walls. Hanji, surprisingly, shot it down with a shriek of how Wren was the one who yanked Eren to safety and destroyed the magic circle.
Eren squirmed free of her hands, tumbled to the ground, but didn't join in the shouting. He just stared at her with an angrily baffled look on his face. Wren stared back with a far more blank look, processing the implications and realizations that were hitting her like a truck. Erwin, Levi, and Isabel had all said that the magic circle looked like an older map of the land inside the walls. The circle had started to create a very tiny titan after Eren stepped into it, like his presence had triggered it- no. Like his presence had fueled it.
All humans had ambient magic inside them. Not many people could use that magic, but everyone had it. The anime had implied that, and Laxus had outright said so once after Bickslow asked a question on the topic. It was why anyone could use magic items even if they weren't mages. Because while it took a lot of magic to form a circle from nothing, it only took a tiny bit to fuel a circle that was already formed. The bigger or more complex the circle, the more magic was required. Which meant a normal civilian wouldn't be able to drive a magic car, or set off something massive like Phantom Lord's moving castle. Which would explain why the titans Eren had triggered were so tiny. Not enough magic.
But what would happen, whispered a voice in the back of Wren's mind, if it wasn't just one person powering it with ambient magic? What if it was thousands? Living, breathing, dying. Generations upon generations of people all spending their entire lives in constant contact with the circle? How big could you make the circle then?
How big would the monsters the circle created be then?
I'm going to be sick, was the only thing Wren could think before she scrambled to her feet and stumbled away from the yelling scouts. She managed to make it to a thin patch of trees a few yards away from the truck-sized castle before she threw up what little she'd eaten over the past few days. She braced herself against one of the trees, unable to see past the sheer revulsion in her veins, the slamming revelations. This was- she couldn't- who would do something like this?
People like Tartaros, people like Hades, people like every villain Fairy Tail ever faced in the anime. It didn't help. It was one thing to see grand, despicable plots played out on a screen, but living it was something else entirely. There was a level of disgust in her soul that made her want to just grab her shadows and hide-.
Magic fuels this circle.
It circled in her head over and over as she slowly straightened up and gasped for air. Magic fuels this circle. That's why there were so many titans. It was probably why they hunted humans, they were after the little seeds of magic inside them. The bite mark on her arm throbbed and her stomach twisted in on itself as the thought circled back again, louder and more desperate, like there was a part of her mind that knew something the rest of her didn't and it was deathly important the rest of her realize it too.
She pressed the side of her head against the tree, stared blankly at the Wall she'd passed through the previous day. Magic fuels this circle.
Wren stopped breathing.
Magic fuels this circle … and I'm now standing inside it.
I'm now fueling this circle.
And she had so much more magic than any of the little people she'd met so far. She'd been using magic inside a circle that ate magic in order to create monsters. The more magic, the bigger the monster.
She twisted back around to where the Survey Corps were staring at her while Erwin, Levi, Farlan, and Hanji held a hushed, frantic discussion. She stumbled closer to the group, drawing the attention of the officers again, reached for her shadows, froze. She dropped to her knees in front of them, ignoring how Levi wrinkled his nose at her and Erwin's shoulders tensed a fraction as she dragged a shaking finger through the dirt to shape upside down kanji, "I need to get out of here."
Levi's eyes narrowed, "You surrendered to the Survey Corps, you can't just-"
She dashed out her previous words, scribbled, "Everyone has a little bit of magic inside them even if they can't use it. Magic circles eat the magic of whoever is inside the circle. The more magic, the bigger the effect of the circle-"
Farlan got it first, perhaps because he'd seen how much magic she could use, perhaps because he was just quick on his mental feet like that. His face went white and he swore before rounding on Erwin and Levi, "She's right, she needs to get out of here or it will be Shiganshina all over again."
Erwin continued to stare at her words without expression, but Levi sent a demanding look at Farlan, who rasped, "She's got enough magic to take on the entire Military Police Brigade, Levi! If Eren touching that tiny circle was enough to create two titans on its own, she's got enough magic to let the thing create another Colossal."
Hanji sat down in the dirt, eyes wide behind her glasses, "And we don't know where it will form this time. Oh mercy."
Erwin's gaze finally left Wren's words, "Explain."
Hanji jumped to her feet again and paced, "The government might restrict all in-depth knowledge of magic to the Military Police and the elites, but at their basis, all magic circles are just formulas. Any regulated creative process is. If the Walls and … and the original towns inside them were the basis of an … island sized, titan-creating formula, then the changes to the map are like changes to the formula. You change the formula, it's no longer stable, if you break part of the core of the formula, the Walls, then the formula becomes fundamentally flawed. We know from experience that titans still existed after Shiganshina and Wall Maria fell, so that means it isn't production that's now broken. It will be something else," she looked at Erwin grimly, "like production control. Or size. Or location."
Levi swore, whirled on Wren and didn't wait for Erwin to speak, "Get out of here!"
Wren stood and turned to run. The only reason she'd waited through their discussion at all was so that none of the scouts chased her and forced her to use more magic —what would her teleportation do in here? How much magic would that feed it if she had to use it?—. Erwin shouted before she'd managed two steps, "Wait!"
She almost didn't. She didn't trust Erwin, he was ruthless and cunning and not afraid of collateral damage if it helped his ultimate goal. These people didn't know magic like she did —was the government that restricted such knowledge also responsible for the creation of the circle?—, any plan Erwin might have in mind for her would probably just make this worse.
She stopped anyway. Curse her. Curse the desire to help that was still strong even when buried under terror and panic. Because even if she left, the circle would still be there, trapping and killing and now made even stronger by the time she'd already spent inside it. She couldn't abandon the innocents trapped here like that. Wren turned impatiently and Erwin didn't mince words, "You seem to know about magic circles. How do you break one from the inside?"
Break one from the- of course that's what he'd want to know. This was his home. His people. Stunning revelations aside, if there was a way to end the imprisonment and slaughter… She shoved down her panic, tried to dredge up everything she knew about magic circles. It wasn't much. She knew the basics, she knew about how they worked and how they fed off magic. But circle construction was instinctive for her, she didn't need to know how to construct a shadow magic circle, she just did it through sheer will. Most mages were like that.
But Freed wasn't. Freed liked to be precise and he rambled about the fine details. So think. What has he said about magic circles? What has he said about magic traps.
Find the key.
Wren closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her temples, think. Key. Every circle, every trap has a key. A loophole. Just in case the creator or an ally get's caught in it. In a rune trap, it's the cornerstones. But circles don't have corners, so they don't have cornerstones, so what would be the anchor point? Where would the key go where it wouldn't destabilize the circle, but where it could shut down every other part of the circle if triggered?
The center. She looked down at Erwin, clumsily crouched down to write in the dirt, "Center of the circle. There has to be something there. A key. A source. If you find the key and destroy it, the circle can't work anymore."
"What would it look like?"
Wren hissed in frustration and was too frazzled to care when the scouts all flinched save Erwin and Levi, "I don't know. This isn't my circle. It could be anything at this size. But it has to be something that doesn't change. Or move."
Isabel perked up, "Like a palace? Tha royal palace is at tha center of tha entire city!"
Erwin didn't take his eyes off Wren, "No. They've altered it over the years. Added wings, torn down sections. The 'key' must be something smaller."
"The old Temple of the First King." Everyone looked at Levi. Levi directed a carefully blank stare at the horizon, "It's been untouched for as long as the Walls have stood. Maybe longer."
Hanji's head tilted, "Hardly. That was torn down to make way for the palace seventy years ago."
"Not the sacrificial chambers," refuted Levi grimly, "those were below ground. Underneath the palace. Nobody has touched them."
Farlan made a noise of comprehension, "Levi's right. The entire Underground was built around the walls of the temple's sacrificial chambers. There's no door to get in or out, but nobody lives near it if they can help it. Too many stories of hearing voices wailing and chanting through the walls at night."
Wren saw flashes of her nightmare again. The impressions of horror and hunger, the magic circle burned into the insides of her eyelids and the impression of pages in a book. I don't… that can't be right. She didn't have seer magic, no matter what Laxus and Bickslow thought, and the magic circle had been in place for a long time, at least a century if this place matched up with Attack on Titan timeline-wise. Even if she did have seer magic, it wouldn't tell her what had been, only what was to come and the book… the book had been… hadn't someone been writing it in her dream? Anything connected to the circle would already be written by now.
Unless she hadn't been seeing the future. Unless her dream, for whatever reason, had been showing her the past.
The magic circle in her dream had been correct. Maybe … maybe the book was too? Maybe this place, this deathtrap, was so steeped in its own magic that someone who knew about magic, who used it freely, could "see" glimpses of what made up the magic circle?
She didn't have a better explanation, none of her Nightmares had ever held any kind of importance in her real life before, and being here was the only thing that had changed.
Before she could think better of it, she scribbled in the dirt, "The Temple of the First King, it was a religion?"
"A cult," corrected Erwin, "A cult dedicated to the first king of Isayama after the Walls were built. They claimed that he was imbued with supernatural magic that allowed him to raise the Walls in a single day. The cult is almost entirely wiped out now."
"Yeah," grumbled Isabel, "now all tha idiots 'round here jus' worship the Walls directly."
Erwin fixed Wren with a dissecting stare, "You know something."
Wren settled on her heels, urge to flee pushed back for the moment in favor of trying to help these people who were trapped —who were forced to be fuel for their own destruction—. She made a so-so motion before writing, "Maybe. The magic circle. It came with a … book. I think. If I'm right, then the book should be the key. It would make sense to hide it in the temple of the person who made this trap in the first place."
"You know this, how?"
Wren looked away with a grimace. How was she supposed to say that she dreamed it? Well, maybe she didn't have to. Maybe just … fudge the details a bit, "The magic here inside the Walls. It's very old, and contains a lot of memories. I'm sensitive to magic, so I … saw things when Levi brought me in here. I couldn't make sense of them at the time, but," how to put this and not sound crazy when even she thought she was crazy, "Magic is more than energy, it's memory. Sometimes, if the magic is old enough, or strong enough, bits of memory get shared with a mage that knows how to listen. Or is just unlucky." Like Ul's melted ice in the ocean currents, or the apparition of a dragon Wendy had talked to beneath the stadium during the Grand Magic Games. Huh, put like that, maybe she wasn't as crazy as she thought.
She wiped out her previous words and continued, "I never knew about that magic circle until I came here, but I saw it after being brought here by Levi. But I also saw a book. If the magic circle is real and connected to the monsters, then the book probably is too."
Eren finally spoke, angry but surprisingly quiet, "That … sounds crazy."
"So is a pair of titans crawling out of a glowing circle in the earth," pointed out Farlan. He ran a hand through his hair and looked like he wanted to go get drunk for a while, "Fine, let's assume the key to this giant deathtrap is either the old temple or is a book of some kind hidden inside the temple. What do we do about it?"
"Destroy the key," Erwin's tone was almost breezy despite its solemnity, "figure out if our current royal majesties know about this and, if they do, how long they've known."
Levi muttered a few curses, "Getting to the Underground is one thing, but how would we get inside the temple? Or know what we're looking for? A book could be hidden anywhere in an old building that size."
Wren knew the moment Erwin looked back up at her that she wasn't going to like the next words out of his mouth, "The most efficient course of action would be to bring an expert along."
No. She almost said as everyone stared first at Erwin and then at her in disbelief. I'm tired of this place, just being in the outer part of this circle makes me feel sick. I don't want to help you, I don't want to break into someplace even further inside this trap. The longer I'm here the more chance this circle will create something none of these people can kill. Wren squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to cry, I just want to go home.
But how would she do that? She still didn't fully remember how she'd gotten there, let alone how to get off. If she left the intact Walls, the many titans already out there were sure to hunt her down and she couldn't stay here indefinitely. She didn't even want to stay here for another day if she could help it.
I just want to go home. She rubbed her hands over her face, breathed deep past the tears that slipped free. I just want the rest of the Raijinshū, to come rescue me. Is that too much to ask? Something niggled in the back of her brain, quiet and persistent, that sounded like Cana's voice and Wren stilled. Maybe … maybe it isn't. She hadn't had her locator card with her when she was training with the Raijinshū in her last memory. But she already knew she had a gap there. If … if she assumed that something had happened, that she and the others had been on a job rather than in the guild hall when the water crashed in and swept her away. Then maybe…
She took a deep breath, lowered her hands, wrote, "I'll help on two conditions."
Erwin raised an eyebrow, "Let's hear them."
"Condition one, no matter what happens, you don't let your rulers, or your cultists, lay a hand on me." No way was she ending up like Eren had in the anime, or worse, "No capture, no experiments, no turning me over to save your skin when this blows up in all of our faces." She waited, silently dared Erwin to deny her, even though she wouldn't entirely trust him at his word.
Erwin nodded, "Agreed. Second condition?"
"Let me try to call for backup first." Every scout went rigid except for Erwin.
Isabel's eyes were blown wide, "There are more of ya on Isayama?"
"Maybe not, but I'm a mage. Mages usually work in groups. I'm not sure how I washed up here, but they have to be looking for me, and if they're nearby, they can help." She paused, added, "They have a lot of magic, I'm not sure what adding them to the circle would do to it, but if we're breaking the key anyway, they can at least help fight any monsters that spawn. One of them also knows more about magic circles than I do. He would be able to help pinpoint the key."
Farlan swallowed hard, Eren and several others shouted something to the order of how her condition was insane. Levi merely looked over at Erwin. It reminded her a little too much of the moment Eren and Annie rampaged through the city and that military police man had held a musket to Erwin's heart. Erwin hadn't blinked at the sheer loss of life his plan had created, and Levi had followed Erwin's lead, no matter what his own opinion was. But this time, as much as it sickened her to think it, that ability to risk anything for the goal might work in her favor. Would he risk letting more magic-wielding giants into the Walls, the place that was both a safe haven and a death trap for his people in order to ultimately destroy the titans once and for all?
"Agreed." The word fell heavy as a judge's gavel, "You attempt to contact your people, if they can arrive in good speed, then we will use their assistance. If not, then you will assist my scouts in finding and destroying the 'key' to this magic circle regardless."
"Deal." Even though it felt like one with the devil. Wren turned away from them, focused her mind on her requip instead of her pounding heart and sick stomach. She would have noticed if the card was in her pockets, and she couldn't hold more than a few items in her requip space, so it couldn't be by itself. Which meant, if she'd brought it at all, she would have stored it in something else. She could only think of one thing she would have felt safe to hide it in.
Harsh whispers began behind her as she pulled her violin case out of her requip. Now that she was feeling for it, she could sense a foreign tug on the spell, a tiny but noticeable drain that forced her to use more magic than usual to retrieve the item. The magic circle really was feeding off any spell she used in it. No time to worry about it now. She'd just have to push through with all the reckless abandon of a Fairy Tail member and pray it worked out. She flipped open the case with shaking hands, searched through the little compartments in desperate hope.
There. Under her rosin. The little card Cana had designed to track and broadcast her location. It had a built-in SOS signal too, since they still hadn't figured out a way to make a card that could transmit more than one or two written sentences. Wren pulled it out, shut her violin case, then tucked the case away in requip again. No way was she risking her precious violin in this place.
She clenched the card in shaking fingers, breathed in, breathed out, shoved magic into it with all the vicious desperation that wanted to come out as tears instead. The card lit up like a red beacon despite the drain of the deathtrap in which she was standing. Please. Please be near enough to pick this up. Please- The card flashed green, the sign that her signal had been received by Cana's other cards-.
Magic cracked loud as fireworks as Mest tumbled out of the air, the entirety of the Raijinshū clinging to his shaking limbs like limpets. Scouts screamed and scattered save for the officers, who just retreated to the castle rooftop with stunned expressions. Wren didn't have time to catalogue their reactions after that, because she was swamped by the arms and desperate voices of the other Raijinshū as they mobbed her.
Laxus was shaking faintly and there was steam wafting off parts of his clothes that reeked of titan, they were on the island too? Laxus pulled away first, "Okay. Okay, we found you. Explanations later, for now Mest get's us out of this Mavis-forsaken place-" Mest was already reaching for Wren and she squirmed free of the limbs clinging to her. With how badly she wanted to put this cursed island behind her, if they teleported away now before she could explain her deal … she didn't think she could bring herself to come back, word of honor or not, and that … the stoically adult part of her mind knew that she would regret that later. Once the terror wore off, she would regret abandoning her promise and the people here for the rest of her life, even if she reported the situation to Makarov and let him sort it out.
Bickslow scrambled to his feet, "What are you doing? Do you have any idea what this place is? We need to get out of here right now-"
Wren whistled, shrill and demanding through her teeth, "No!"
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.
.
.
Levi managed to keep his face frozen in a mask of calm only through sheer dint of experience. On the inside, he was probably just as much of a gibbering mess as the scouts hiding and whimpering in the trees or on the rooftop of the castle.
Six. Six more giant not-titans with more magic than the Military Police put together that had appeared within seconds of Wren-brat's playing card —and why the h*ll was a playing card a signal for anything?— lighting up like some kind of magical bonfire. No need to worry about the Walls that had supposedly kept humanity safe —he was going to get good and drunk over the sheer depth of that lie if he survived this—, no need to get past all the defenses painstakingly set up by the generations of Isayamans before him.
Just- a snap of the fingers and they were there, yelling and bubbling with enough magic even Levi could feel it against his skin. A pack of massively oversized brats —literal brats, none of them sounded or looked to be over sixteen and oh f*ck their fate rested on a bunch of giant kids— demanding to leave right now —and there was nothing stopping Wren-brat from doing just that, they'd been played—.
The shrill whistle just about blew out Levi's eardrums and it took several seconds of struggling to cope with the ringing in his ears before he realized that the shouting had stopped. He pressed a hand to one ear even as he and everyone else stared at Wren-brat. The titan-sized kid —which she was, even if she also acted too much like a street rat for comfort she was a child, Isabel and Farlan owed their lives to a literal child— took a deep breath, then looked at the other giants and … began gesturing like a lunatic.
He blinked. Maybe he should reconsider that hallucinating theory. It would fit the way his week had been going. A glance at Hanji showed she was scribbling notes despite her shaken expression, a glance at Erwin revealed nothing more than his leader's intent, carefully neutral thinking face. Levi went back to staring at Wren-brat and yep, she was still waving and stamping and whistling —more quietly than before thank f*ck—.
The big blond bared his teeth, far too much like a wild animal or a titan for comfort, "You can't be serious. We need to get out of here."
More finger wiggling and whistling and several pointed gestures in Levi's direction. Grey eyes that promised murder —definitely too much like a cornered animal for comfort— studied them while the one in sporting a shirt with a hood and visor hissed, "Then we tell Jiji about it when we get home. Or tell Oyaji back on the ship and have him tell someone! Wren, this place is evil. You're hurt, you've been missing for three days, and I thought you'd drowned. Now you want us to let you run off even further into this place? No way!"
More gestures toward them, a flash of bared teeth. Levi really wished he could speak giant-flail, because only having one side of an argument was f*ing annoying —and terrifying, but he refused to admit that right now, not while there was still danger—. The visored kid flung his hands in the air, "Who cares what you promised them-!"
The tallest of the group with scars on his face grabbed Visored Kid's shoulder, "Bickslow." Visored Kid —Bickslow apparently— clicked his jaw shut and twisted his head to stare at Tall and Scarred. Tall and Scarred looked meaningfully over at the blond and said pointedly, "We are Fairy Tail. What one of us promises…"
The blond bared his teeth, feral and unhappy, "the rest of us follow through. For the honor of the guild."
"Because if we don't stand together," finished Tall and Scarred quietly, "we don't stand at all."
Those oversized brats couldn't be saying what Levi thought they were saying. Yet the blond straightened his shoulders, and Levi realized in an instant who the leader of the rabble really was, "We find the key to the circle, destroy it, and then get off this island. No ifs, ands, or buts. Who's in charge here?" Wren-brat pointed with a low, rolling whistle and a few flicks of her fingers and grey eyes shifted over to them again. Leader-brat eyed Levi, then shifted his gaze to Erwin, "My name is Laxus. These are my Raijinshū. We belong to the mage guild of Fairy Tail. Wren, one of mine, promised to help you destroy the magic circle on this island. What do we have to do to accomplish that?"
Erwin stepped to the edge of the roof, not batting an eyelid at negotiating with children who were all well over seven feet tall, "A team needs to infiltrate the suspected location of the key, with one of your team who knows about magic circles. We were told you had someone with experience-"
"Freed stays with us," interrupted Laxus-brat.
Erwin shifted sentences smoothly, "Then Wren-san will have to go with us, unless you know enough about magic circles to suffice?"
Laxus-brat began to nod when Wren-brat caught his arm and gestured again. An argument started up rapidly among the … Raijinshū over whatever she had proposed. There was much pointing toward her bandaged injury and yelling from the one called Bickslow, but in the end, Wren-brat won the argument and Levi mentally readjusted the picture he was building of this group's hierarchy. Laxus-brat might have been the leader, but for all her smaller —comparatively— size, Wren-brat clearly wielded a sizable influence in the group. It fit her high intelligence and abnormal maturity levels he supposed.
Laxus-brat bared a single fang —he bared his teeth a lot, Levi was beginning to suspect there was some kind of animal instinct screwing with the kid's head— and lightning bolts —honest-to-f*ck lightning bolts— flickered off his shoulders before he turned back to Erwin, "Fine. Wren goes with the infiltration team, but only if he," a finger jabbed at Levi, "leads it and you," the finger stabbed at Erwin, "are not on that team."
"Done. Any particular reason?"
"Wren trusts him," another gesture in Levi's direction, "she says she wouldn't trust you to watch the back of a rock unless it was conducive your current grand scheme." A few scouts made noises of outrage at the slight to their leader, but Levi found himself exchanging a glance with Farlan and Isabel. Funny. Wren-brat had been in Erwin's presence for less than an hour and she already had him pegged. But why the f*ck does she trust me? Maybe because Isabel and Farlan so clearly did. They had been her first contact on the island after all, and people —especially children— tended to take cues from whoever they'd been in a disaster with the longest, even if it was only by a matter of hours.
Erwin and Laxus-brat —who was surprisingly mature for a teenager, maybe it was a giant thing?— hashed out a quick team roster, followed by a summary of what they knew about the unstable magic circle of the Walls and the revelation that there were more members of this "Fairy Tail" —who named their organization that anyway?— on the outskirts of the island. There was an argument over how the plan should work. Erwin and Laxus-brat were equally stubborn and had clashing priorities beyond destroying the magic circle. A magical calling card —what the actual h*ll— was thrown into the mix to let the leader of the other group in on the growing mess of a plan. This one sounded far older than any of the brats, which made Levi wonder why he was stuck dealing with actual oversized children instead an adult —why children were the ones getting thrown into the bloodbath instead of the adults, wasn't this place messed up enough already? Levi tried hard not to feel nauseous at the thought—.
The last details of their hasty —crazy— plan were finally settled on and the various teams scrambled to get their gear together. Levi stayed on the roof, watching the Raijinshū cluster around their wayward Wren-brat and mutter to each other. The one Levi had mentally dubbed Grass-brat because of his hair fidgeted with his bangs and stage-whispered, "Laxus-sama?"
"Yeah, Freed?" Freed, the one who knew about magic circles.
The boy shot a worried look at Wall Rose in the distance, "It will take three days to get everything set up right?"
"That's what Commander Erwin said."
Freed-brat hesitated, then made a loose circle motion in the air with his finger, "Considering the damage to the circle. I'm not sure we're going to have that long."
Laxus-brat tucked the green-haired kid under his free arm —the other had been wrapped tight around Wren-brat the entire meeting—, "Then we'll just use Fallback One. It'll be fine."
Tall and Scarred slid down to sit against a tree, looking too tired and old for his skin, "For once, I think I'd rather just call the Council. Let them deal with all this. It's their job after all."
The other Raijinshū settled around Tall and Scarred, "Can't get a signal out past the Storm," grumped the brunette girl, "We're on our own until the magic circle is destroyed."
"Just our luck," muttered Bickslow-brat, "Also, Imōto? After this, you aren't allowed to go anywhere without backup. You're Luck sucks." The tone was jesting, but Levi had been in the Survey Corps long enough to know frantic stress-suppression when he heard it. The entire group were about two and a half steps —his steps, not the ones those brats could take— from breaking under the stress. But the fact that they knew how to suppress their emotions like that at all, let alone do it instinctively and in concert was … telling.
He tried not to think about it. They weren't scouts. They weren't his problems to look after. Weren't his idiots to distract with cleaning or unite under the shared banner of despising their overly-strict midget of a corporal. Definitely weren't his former street rats to watch over so they could catch a few hours rest like Isabel and Farlan —and their behavior definitely wasn't yanking on those sentimental instincts that had let him to adopt Isabel and Farlan in the first place, nope, definitely not—.
But Isabel wandered over to them within minutes —Farlan had finally submitted to going inside and being looked at by a medic—, and settled fearlessly on Wren-brat's lap in the center of the group like they weren't all capable of killing her by rolling over accidentally. Isabel began asking questions in exchange for stories, eyes bright to hide her unease as her first question —how old were they anyway— led to the confirmation Levi was afraid of —too young, way too young to be this good at strategy, way too young to be gearing up for a war against monsters, even Eren-brat was older than most of these kids—. So Levi drifted over to a convenient tree branch to guard her and ended up correcting her shoddy details —like always— and if he ended up sharing a silent watch with Laxus-brat when the others finally drifted off… Well. Isabel was still there, like the idiot she was, and he had to look after his own.
From the way Laxus-brat didn't even question his continued presence, just maintained his own silent vigil over the other oversized kids, the sentiment was clearly shared and Levi had to wonder if that was why Wren-brat had decided to trust him. Something to think about later, when he could safely get drunk somewhere nobody but Farlan or Isabel could find him —or never, because there were too many implications in that budding theory that he didn't want to look at too closely—.
A few hours later, the Raijinshū were roused from sleep, separated into the appropriate teams alongside his scouts, and Levi took off with a small group of trusted scouts and two very large —but necessary— risks in the forms of Wren-brat and Tall and Scarred.
It was time to break into the Underground and maybe —hopefully, insanely— end this.
.
Review Response: Dear Gerbilfriend, hi! Thanks! Glad you're enjoying the fusions/x-overs so far!
Dear Therashae, hey there! Hmm, pretty much. Though they might not get near as much combat screen time as you're hoping since I'm trying to wrap this arc up sometime within the next century (laughs).
Dear Crystal Blue Butterfly, hello there! Glad you think so!
Dear Blaise Welshman, greetings! ...Nope. Still don't get it. But anyway, it doesn't matter. People either like it or they don't so I'll just keep plucking away... Eh. Not quite. Remember, Bickslow is a scared, impressionable kid. What he THINKS he's seeing may or may not be what is actually going on. You'll see (winks).
Dear GiantPsychoGecko, hey there! Hmmm that would be GREAT except I'm very sure it would end in a lot of tiny people deaths and we can't have that on Bickslow's conscience now can we? Great theory, but not correct, sorry. Great guess though!
Dear Oldwinterfang, heya! Awww thank you for saying so!
Dear stardust-clearwater, hello! Well, thank you for sticking around anyway. I'll ... try not to overwhelm you with fusions. But they are going to keep happening, I have too much fun with them not too. I'll try to keep it to just a few cameo characters though and not too many full-on arcs (I hope).
Dear de junco, hey there! Yeah, Levi's gruff, but he isn't THAT big a jerk. Raijinshū are here and things are heating up!
Dear Ember Flame03, hi! (laughs) oooh you haven't seen anything yet!
Dear xPricefieldx, greetings! (snickers) You'll seee...
Dear Saiyan god.101, hello! As you can see, they are! Thank you for your patience!
Dear ScarletSea, heya! I know, I don't get it either. Glad you're enjoying it though!
Dear Lightsbane1905, hello there! Beware Raijinshū, the island of evil still has a few tricks up its sleeve!
Dear Asuka1920, heya! ... it isn't intentional? It just kinda ... happens.
Dear The weird one, hello there! Awww, thank you! That's so sweet! Sorry for the lack of character explanation, I didn't want to drag out the arc any longer than I had to. Lemme see if I can help at all: Levi, Isabel and Farlan all grew up together on the streets of an underground city/slum beneath the capital, Levi was the eldest and took care of the other two, but Farlan was the second eldest and is supposed to be the happy medium of their group between Levi's "We're all gonna die" pessimism and Isabel's "Let's do this!" enthusiasm. Erwin, the Commander, kinda ... blackmailed them into leaving the slum to join the Survey Corps where they've been ever since. Eren is the MC of the AoT anime and can be summed up as HULK SMASH 98% of the time because when the outermost wall fell to the Titans, Eren saw his mom get brutally eaten. Erwin is the commander of the Survey Corps and is very much a "Ends Justify the Means For the Greater Good" type which can be useful but is also not so good. Hanji is the head scientist of the Survey Corps and is obsessed with all things titan in the hopes of finding a way to stop them (or just knowing more stuff about them, it's kinda a coin toss with her). That's everybody I can think of and all the info I can think of to say without rambling for several thousand words so... I hope that helped?
Dear KEZZ 1, hi! (very belated) Happy new year to you too! I hope you enjoyed the update!
Dear Fox Moonshadow, hiya! Thank you SO MUCH for saying that, I needed to hear it. I'm so happy you've been enjoying the fusion/x-over despite not knowing half of the setup, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Next one should be the climax.
Dear wolfsrainrules, hi! Pretty sure I covered this in our PMs, but MWAHAHAHA. You are SO not ready for the next chapter either. So not ready and I am RELISHING IT.
Dear Dragon Lord Draco, greetings! Well, thanks again anyway. It makes me happy to hear/read.
Dear Masimagine, hello! (evil laughter). No worries, I never intend to leave you guys hanging for as long as I do it just ... happens. Because I write slow. Hope you enjoyed!
Dear beingajacksonakasquisher, heya! (grins) That's my job as a fanfic writer. That and basking in the capslock reviews I get when I do my job right. XD
Dear KyraReid, hey there! Well good!
Dear StrangeLady1331, hi! So-. You're review-. I just- jhgfghjhgfHGFGHG. You have no idea what your review DID TO ME you have basically made my entire month with this. I could literally rant about how happy this review made me for hours but I won't because that'll just delay the next chapter XD. Instead, I shall endeavor to answer your question: Wren, when she was 6/7 was about ... I wanna say 3ft 6-ish inches. Wren is now 7/8-ish (I suck at timelines and dates, even my own so sorry if this is too vague) and so is now about ... I wanna say 3ft 9 inches at tallest. Probably closer to 3'8". The average 8yr old is supposed to be around 50inches aka 4ft 1 inch so she's a midget basically XD. Also CORRECT. I'm pretty sure you're the first person to spot that the girl was Mary Hughes actually, so congrats! (laughs) I'm actually not sure how much that'll change compared to canon, I guess we'll both have to find out when we get there!
Dear MangaTrash27, hello! The song she played is Taylor Davis's cover of the Fairy Tail theme which you can listen to on youtube. And yes, it has sheet music! Taylor Davis sells sheet music of her covers, which I believe she has a link to in their respective videos, so by all means go support her!
Dear Shadow demon kitsune, greetings! Happy to hear it!
Dear 1, hey there! Aww, thank you! I hope you enjoyed the update!
Dear RedWolf Lover, hello! I'm actually working on a one-shot to detail just that XD so hopefully you can look forward to reading it (eventually).
Dear 19Teardrop94, hi there! (stares with huge eyes) I am so VERY VERY flattered but also, please take care of yourself. My story will still be here if you go take a nap or something. Uh, does it help if I point out that it isn't the ENTIRE Whitebeard crew from One Piece? It's only- like- him and my favorite officers/characters to there's only about 10-13 of them counting Whitebeard himself. I don't think even Fairy Tail could handle the full crew from One Piece. Glad you're enjoying this arc! For the record, Newgate isn't actually taller than the wall. He's REALLY close compared to everyone else, but the wall is 50 lilliputian meters tall and Newgate is only about ... 32-33 of their meters. So he's over the halfway mark, but not quite there.
Dear .xx, greetings! ... it kind of is, yes. And, as you can see, it keeps happening. XD. I enjoy this too much to stop though, and it saves me a lot of work coming up with OCs every twenty minutes so... enjoy?
Dear kaosninja, hello! Aw, thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying it so far! This arc should wrap up soon, and after that we'll get to meet another FT main cast character!
Dear Myusernameisoriginal, hey there! (does the happy dance) so glad you like it! We'll be meeting another FT canon character soon, I just have to wrap up this arc, so you can look forward to that!
Dear redtippedquill, hello! Everybody has been looking forward to the little people meeting Newgate, which I admittedly didn't think of until everybody kept mentioning it. That will be covered in a one-shot later, for now, hope you enjoyed this update!
Dear Sparksofrandomness, greetings! (sighs) Nobody ever reads the Author's Notes I swear ... okay, lemme see if I can explain this. This is not the AoT "world/dimension/etc" this is an island with the counterparts of that setting and those characters. Like how Mashima always reuses his own character designs (see Happy in Eden's Zero and Jellal's counterpart Seighart from Rave Master)? So, these people are naturally lilliputian sized, and Wren, being a regular human from the mainland, is by coincidence roughly the same height as a small titan. SHE IS NOT ACTUALLY A TITAN. She's just tall compared to everyone else for once in her life. I hope that clears things up?
Dear PheonixQueen15, hello! Hope you enjoyed!
Dear Verity Moonchild, hi there! Well thank you for having faith in my insanity. I swear I do have a point that I'm going with this arc. I'm just also rushing it a bit because I don't want to get stuck on this island for the next 20+ chapters because of my long-windedness (see every AMOSC arc ever).
Dear StargladesTime, hello there! (tips hat) So happy you liked it! Hope you enjoyed this update!
Dear HamClad, hey there! Ah, I see that I have found a fellow sufferer of Japanese language/writing/what-the-flippery. That ... really does actually make sense? I mean, they copied it from the Chinese for some Mavis-forsaken reason and that's why there are alternate readings on top of the usual confusion so...
Dear Imane Sadik, hello! Awww thank you! It means a lot that you like my OC and story. Yeah, Naruto fics get a bit tiring after the billionth time don't they? It was actually because I wanted to see this kind of story in a fandom that WASN'T Naruto that I started writing this actually... Hope you enjoyed the update!
Dear Oldwinterfang, hello there! Hope you enjoyed the update!
Dear lonfiretessa, greetings! Well, if you made it all the way to chap 41, you'll know by now that I cut down on that a lot by this point. Sorry it was an annoyance, but the whole point was to help illustrate Wren's confusion. She didn't know all the japanese words off the top of her head either, which made her life a bit difficult. The only reason I added translations at the bottom at all was if someone casually wanted to know some of the words after reading the chapter. I never intended people to scroll all the way down and then back up to their spot in the narrative.
Dear adelphe24, hey there! Awww, thank you! Yeah, I had a lot of fun with the Ivan/Circus Night feeling the wrath of the entire guild scenes. (tips hat) glad you enjoyed! I was literally just doing my own inner reactions to titans the first time I saw clips of the show for Wren, so I'm glad that was scary enough. Well, it seemed like something Gray would do, plus it was fun to write. Hope you enjoyed the update!