Luckily for Ruby, Natsu had reacted fast enough to catch her after having noticed the others collapsing onto the ground. One sniff with his nose told him all he needed to know. "Gray. Their magic levels are dangerously low." He said, his tone serious. "Almost life threatening in fact."

Gray picked up both Weiss and Blake, easily holding them up with one hand each. "I can only imagine it has something to do with how they ended up here. We'll have to get them back to the guild as soon as possible."

Natsu nodded he grabbed Yang with his free hand and they both made their way back to the guild, not wanting any harm to come to their new acquaintances.

"I've managed to stabilize them." Porlyusica said with a sigh. "You luckily managed to bring them here before their situation got any more severe. Regardless, they'll have to take it easy for sometime." She said before standing up and walking toward the door. "I'm off to get more medicinal herbs. Keep an eye on them for me."

Natsu nodded, having taken them to Fairy Tail's medical ward. Gray had gone to fill their Master in, so he was stuck here on guard duty.

But that's when he found himself staring at the sleeping Ruby's form, a faint memory starting to stir from within him.

"I've seen . . . this face before."

And that was when the young Ruby Rose started to stir, a low, pained groan slipping from her thinly pursed lips. Everything hurt. Everything was sore. If she didn't know any better, it felt like the first time her Aura had been broken, the first time she took the full brunt of an attack. Something she would eventually come to feel several times over during the course of their war with Salem. She curled up on the bed, wrapping the sheets around herself tighter.

Wait. Bed? Sheets? Well, there was certainly something comfy beneath her and something warm wrapped around her. Had those boys brought them to this guild they mentioned? That would make sense. But that didn't explain why they suddenly passed out.

Something felt... off.

She mustered what strength she could and opened her eyes. And then immediately regretted it. By happenstance, she had angled her face to look directly at the bulb of a lamp sitting next to the bed and, upon opening them, got a healthy heap of bright white right in her face. Blinking back the sudden onslaught, she growled in annoyance and rolled her a few inches away. "Natsu?" she muttered, her voice low and weak. Yeah, that was him. Standing by her bedside looking at her funny. "Is... everything okay...?"

"Yeah." Natsu replied automatically, not really noticing that she had spoken to him. "Just . . . a faint memory of a familiar face." He said before shaking his head and realizing that Ruby was actually talking to him. "Ah. Sorry. I was zoning out. Thinking about stuff."

He reached over to the table and held out an Elixir for her.

"Here. I was told to give you this when you wake up. It's an elixir that increases the rate that your magic replenishes itself. It should make you feel better."

He was being uncharacteristically quiet and reserved. But that's because he knew these girls weren't in very good shape and he wasn't about to make a massive dick of himself.

She could definitely understand the zoning out. She was, ah, prone to it herself... sometimes. Anyway, while she was curious about whatever had been distracting him, she figured it was best to take the elixir that he offered her. She couldn't exactly find her mom if she was stuck in a hospital bed. It was a little easier to move now that she was awake, so it hadn't taken too much effort to take the vial and down its contents. The, for lack of a better word, potion seemed to work its magic fast, and Ruby felt her energy returning to her. Actually felt it. Sure, she was used to the feeling of replenishing over time, but feeling it return to her at an actually noticeable rate was weird. And a little tingly. Like when her foot would fall asleep from listening to Port's dumb lectures.

Now that she was feeling a little better, some of the puzzle pieces in her mind revealed themselves. "Natsu? Know how I said people from my world don't use magic? Most use something else. A power born from within that can protect us and enhance our attacks. It's called Aura." Some of those pieces fell together in her mind. "And when I woke up... if felt like I had run out of Aura... even now the energy inside me feels different..." A bit like the power that radiated from her eyes, actually.

Natsu crossed his arms and thought about what she had said. He wasn't exactly a logical thinker like Gray, so it took him a bit longer. Not to say he was stupid, but it was more like he had to divert his brain cells from fighting to actual problem solving.

"Well. It could be that when you got here. This, aura, or whatever you call it, was sucked out of your body and replaced with magic. There was a time in the past when I myself got sucked to another world called Edolas and when I was there, I found myself unable to use magic until I took a special pill. Your situation could be similar to that with the only difference being that aura is similar enough to magic that it could easily be swapped out."

He sighed.

"Or maybe that's a bunch of bull. I dunno. But it's the best idea I've got."

"Sounds like a better idea than anything I could come up with," she reasoned, silently pushing the image of an evil cartoon vacuum sucking out their power out of her mind. He didn't need to know that she hadn't even considered something as simple as changing the power that the container holds. "If Aura or Magic was like... some sort of battery," she reasoned, hoping this world had batteries, "then chances are this world just swapped the batteries on us, like it did with you and that Edolas place..." Maybe it was like the difference between a AA battery and a AAA battery? Eh. Suppose it really didn't matter much now. How it happened wasn't so important as what they were going to do about it.

"We should probably tell the others once they wake up. I can imagine some of them are going to come to a bit of a nasty shock." Yang definitely, as she was used to gaining power from damage done to her aura. And Weiss certainly relied on it to fight. Only she and Blake really didn't directly rely on their aura in combat. The two of them only pulled it up to enact their Semblances or to enhance their or defend against attacks.

Speaking of which. It seems that they had taken her cloak and weapon off her when they put her in bed. "Could you hand me my cloak and my scythe? I..." There was a longing look in her eye, a sense of vulnerability that she had quietly hid before. Truth be told, the two items were like security blankets to her. With the cloak representing her mother and her weapon representing her late uncle.

Qrow's passing had been a startling one. It seemed that, while he had recovered from Tyrion's stinger poisoning him, the venom left lingering in his system had caused some lasting damage. Damage that had led to his end on the battlefield. Had Ruby just been a fraction of a second faster, she may have been able to deflect the blow that he couldn't. But he had been taken from her as abruptly as Summer...

It had been a year since his passing, and she still hadn't fully gotten over it. She had accepted that death was inevitable in war, but she hadn't expected to lose so many that she knew. Velvet, Neptune, Lark... almost every team she knew that had stood with them after Beacon's fall had suffered a loss or two. Some teams had even been completely eradicated.

Crescent Rose had been damaged beyond repair during that battle. At his silent plea, Ruby had taken up Qrow's Harbinger and slew the bastard that killed him in the time it took for his eyes to close for the last time.

Needing time to deal with that loss on her own, she had run off for six months. While her team had certainly been mad at her for ditching so soon, none of them could fault her for it. It was, after all, the first human life Ruby had taken...

Ruby's expression and words struck a chord with Natsu as he quickly retrieved her possessions for her. "I can tell these mean a lot to you." Natsu said as he set them on the bed. "The way you looked when you talked about them, it reminded me of the way I think about my scarf."

A soft smile crossed his face as his hand went to the piece of clothing draped around his neck.

"This old thing is the only item my father left me before vanishing. I don't go anywhere without it." He said before his grip became tighter. "Igneel. I swear I'll find him someday."

A small, forlorn, yet understanding smile found its way across the young girl's face. So it seems Natsu did in fact know how she felt about those items. His scarf was, in a way, similar to her cloak. The one item left that tied them to the parent they care for and lost. "I'm the same way with my mom..." she muttered, pulling the white cloak around her neck and fastening it with the broach, its silver rose-covered cross shimmering in the light overhead. "My Mom wore this cloak when she was my age... it's the one thing I have to remember her by, since she disappeared when I was young..." Well, it would be more accurate to say that everyone thought her dead. But the fact that that portal led here was only proving to Ruby that her gut instinct, the unyielding sense that her mom was still out there, was true.

Hefting the scythe up- with a bit of difficulty, mind you, as she hadn't fully recovered yet- she ran warm hand over its cool, gray metal. "This weapon can transform into a sword, scythe, and a gun. With my own scythe, Crescent Rose, lying in pieces, my uncle gave me Harbinger." Qrow had always talked about how his Semblance just brought him bad luck, yet it still brought him to Ruby whenever she needed his help. But on the other hand, if he hadn't shown to that fight, he probably would have lived. But if he didn't, could she have died? He had taken over the fight to give her a few moments' rest. Shaking off the thoughts, she continued her tale in a lower whisper. "He died in my arms... Told me... 'Keep smiling, Ruby,' and... and..."

Recounting the tale had been too much for her. The tears streamed down her face, casting those vibrant silver eyes in a void of sorrow.

"You shouldn't feel ashamed for crying." Natsu said as he placed a hand behind Ruby's head and gently rested his forehead against her own. It was the same gesture he once did to Lucy when she was in emotional distress. Natsu may like joking around and he may like making light of situations, but he knew when someone needed comfort.

"A month or so ago. A very close friend to me died. But it was her death that allowed us a future. In a way, I think your uncle did the same for you."

The fact that he was still so full of resolve after dropping such a fact was impressive to say the least.

"But I want you to know one thing, Ruby. You can consider Fairy Tail your family. Even if you're not a member, we've got your back."

Two thoughts went through her mind the moment Natsu's forehead touched her own. The first was that he was warm. Incredibly warm, like she was sitting next to a cozy fire. Was that an effect of his fire magic? Possibly. The second thought was not nearly as easy to voice, but it could be summed up as an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. How could someone be so selfless and so strong? Sure, she had done everything she could to keep people alive, but she couldn't be everywhere. She couldn't stop the suffering, no matter how hard she tried. Not even in the final battle. They had accrued a hefty loss on their side, even with the results of her six-month training exile.

But his resolve was, in a way, contagious. Knowing that he could stand strong after just a month, while she still wallowed after a year was... oddly uplifting. If he could do it, why couldn't she? An awkward laugh broke the silence as she wiped the tears on the edge of her cloak. "If only you were with us during the war... I have no doubts your resolve would have led us to great things..."

She flung her arms around him in a tight hug. Hugs were a rare commodity from her. Not in the number of them, no. She gave them frequently. But only a few people had ever received them. Aside from blood relations, she had only given hugs to Weiss, Blake, Penny, and Qrow. Did Qrow really count there? He was as good as family. Same with Weiss and Blake. Really Penny was the only person she had ever hugged that was just a friend. "Thank you, Natsu..."

Natsu wasn't expecting the hug, mostly because rarely anyone hugged him. Hell, the only one who was comfortable doing so was Lisanna. She hugged him a lot. Still wasn't sure if it was romantic or platonic though, she was never clear about that. Part of him believed she just became clingy after being separated from him for so long and he couldn't exactly blame her.

"Don't mention it." He said as he pat her on the head. "Though I suggest you get some more sleep. You'll need it."

Especially knowing how crazy the guild could be.

Seemed like he was about as surprised as she was that she was hugging him. That said, if his forehead felt like sitting near a warm fire, hugging him felt like being wrapped up in a heated blanket. Definitely a feeling she could get used to. She should probably hug him more. For science, obviously. Needless to say, she felt a little disappointed when he pulled away. But he had a point. She should get some rest before daring to meet more strangers.

But if they were any bit like Natsu... She had a feeling she could get along with them.

"Okay... If the others wake up before I do, tell them about the whole magic thing for me..." And with that, she rolled over and succumbed to sleep.