6. Ice-Make: Prevention

"The only way to stop this is by not allowing it to happen in the first place."

Erza looked down at her gloved hands, inspecting the falling snowflakes as they melted into the fabric. They seemed so ordinary, just like natural snow, but yet, they weren't. They were made with magic, that was for certain, but how?

Erza kept pondering the question as she trudged through the accumulating snow in the boots she had requipped into. It wasn't everyday that she had to change into her winter clothes in the dead of summer, but as she noticed the people around her hurrying back to the warmth of their homes in their summer clothes, she figured she was just fortunate to have attire for practically every situation at her disposal. Thinking back on it, she probably shouldn't have sent Natsu and Lucy out into the sudden change of weather as unprepared as they were. She didn't need to worry about Gray, as this was practically his heaven.

Thinking about Gray made her stop. Did he have a connection to any of this? If he did though, Erza doubted he was aware of it. He seemed pretty astonished when the snowstorm began, or he could just be a good actor.

Stop it. Erza thought, shaking her head. He has nothing to do with it. His magic acting up now is just a coincidence. Right?

She couldn't believe she was thinking these things. How could she accuse her best friend like that? She knew Gray would never do such a thing, so why was she having these doubts?

She had to find out what was really going on, but how?

Erza looked around, her eyes scanning the snow covered street in front of her. That's all there was, just piles of snow. What clues could she possibly obtain from that? Sighing, Erza turned around, ready to make her way back to the guild. Investigating the snow wasn't turning out to be much of an investigation. They needed a different approach.

As Erza turned the corner, her gaze fell onto a young girl leaning against a closed storefront. The girl's attire had caught her eye; she was dressed for the winter. Her black coat and heavy boots would've fit in perfectly with the ongoing snowstorm if it were actually that time of year. Now, however, her winter dress stuck out as strange.

Erza could sense magic energy coming from her, so it was possible she could have used requip magic like she did, but what were the odds of finding another requip mage in Magnolia? The chance was slim, so Erza began to wonder if the girl had somehow known about the coming snowstorm, and had likewise prepared for it. She knew it was a farfetched guess, but it couldn't hurt to try and get some answers.

Erza approached the girl who's gaze had been directed downward the whole time. "Excuse me?"

At the sound of Erza's voice, she immediately looked up, her eyes wide and darting back and forth. "Can I help you?" She muttered.

Erza smiled. "Maybe. I hope you don't mind me asking, but I couldn't help but notice that you seem prepared for this strange weather."

The girl looked away. "So do you."

"I'm a requip mage. I can dress for any situation with barely a second's notice." Erza explained. She tried to speak in a friendly tone, as it seemed like the girl was suspicious of her. "I do sense some magic energy from you though, but something tells me we don't share the same magic."

"No, we don't." The girl continued to look away, but Erza couldn't tell what she was looking at. Her eyes kept darting around, almost frantically, as if she were searching for something.

"You still haven't answered my initial question, though."

The girl's panicked gaze stopped racing as she lowered it, staring down at her black coat dotted with clearly visible white snowflakes that had fallen from the sky. She opened her mouth to say something, and Erza could see the hesitation in her eyes.

"You know something's up, don't you?" She said, her voice almost in a whisper. "You know someone's causing this snow."

So maybe this girl did know something. "Yeah, I do. I know someone's doing this with magic, though I'm not sure why they're turning all of Fiore into an ice age. That's what I want to find out."

The girl suddenly looked up at her with a panicked expression. "It's not just Fiore. It's all of Earthland!"

"All of Earthland?" Erza asked. "What are you talking about?"

The girl sighed and lowered her gaze again. "Hargeon wasn't the first city to be hit by an early winter. The summer snowstorms actually began in Isvan a few weeks ago, as well as in some other countries in the Northern Continent. Then they started heading south to Fiore and other places too like Bosco and Stella. It won't be long before the whole Earthland is stuck in an eternal winter."

The girl's words didn't make any sense to her. She was still missing part of the puzzle. "What do you mean 'an eternal winter?' And how do you know about this?"

The girl suddenly looked up again, this time her gaze was directed towards the crowd of panicked people hurrying about a few blocks up ahead. "I have to go."

"Wait!" Erza shouted as the girl began to walk in the opposite direction of what she had been staring at. "I need to know what's happening so I can stop it! Can you at least tell me where I can find you again? Or just your name?"

The girl slowed down her pace and turned around slightly. "My name's Lena and while I appreciate your concern and your drive to help, I'm afraid there's nothing you can do. The only way to stop this is by not allowing it to happen in the first place. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that."

Before Erza could even think of what to say, Lena turned back and disappeared around the corner. Whatever was going on, this girl, Lena, knew exactly what it was and yet was reluctant to give her all the details. According to what little she did say, however, there was nothing Erza, or anyone for that matter, could do to stop it. Earthland was doomed to an eternal winter and nothing could be done to prevent it.

Looks like I'm the first one back. Gray thought as he returned to the guildhall. The rest of his team were nowhere in sight, so he figured they were still out. As Gray looked around, he noticed that the place seemed emptier than usual and upon further examination, he realized that most of the guild members had gone out as well, probably to inspect the snow.

Doubtless they'll find anything. Gray thought as he stared down at the frozen replica of the snowflake he'd found. I just got lucky.

"Hey, Gray!"

Gray looked up to see Levy sitting nearby, waving him over. He quickly placed the snowflake in his pocket and headed over towards the solid script mage.

"Hey, Levy." He said, sitting down across from her. "What's up?"

"Did you find anything out there?" Levy asked as she looked up from the open book in front of her.

Gray turned away, debating his choice of words. "I'm not sure if it's anything important. I think I'll first wait until the others come back and see if they found anything."

"Oh, okay." Levy said, though Gray could tell she was interested in what he had found.

He didn't know why he was so hesitant to show it to her. What if she or the others didn't believe him? It did seem rather ridiculous of him to say that it was the exact same snowflake as the one he'd seen the other day, but he knew it wasn't because it was true.

He couldn't say anything about it, or at least not yet. He needed something to change the subject. "So, what are you reading?"

"Oh, this?" Levy asked, gesturing to the book in front of her. "It's just an old book I found about a bunch of forbidden spells. The book isn't that informative though, as many of the articles don't really say much."

It wasn't the most interesting of subjects, but Gray felt he could tolerate it for a bit. "What kind of spells are in there?"

"There are some pretty cool ones in here." Levy said as she flipped through some of the pages. "There's this one spell that prevents the sun from rising, making it nighttime forever. I'll try to find it."

Gray glanced at the pages as Levy flipped through them, looking for the spell she was talking about. As he watched the pages fly by, a certain picture on one of them caught his attention.

"Levy, wait a minute." Gray said, causing Levy to stop turning the pages. "Can you turn back a few pages?"

"Sure," Levy said and proceeded to do what he had asked her. "did you something?"

"Yeah," Gray said as Levy turned to the page he had wanted. "right there."

Gray looked down at the page, his gaze falling on a picture of a very familiar snowflake.

"So why this one?" Levy asked as she too examined the page.

Gray reached into his pocket and pulled out the snowflake. "Because of this."

Levy looked over at the snowflake in his hand, her eyes widening as they darted back and forth between it and the picture. "They've got the exact same design."

"Yeah, though this is actually just a replica of the real one I found outside. It was melting so I made a copy." Gray explained, purposely leaving out the fact that he had seen it earlier too. "I didn't really want to show it to you at first because I didn't think you'd believe me, but now with that picture, this can't be a coincidence."

"Well, if that snowflake is connected to this weather phenomenon, then maybe it has something to do with this forbidden spell."

"That's what I'm thinking." Gray said, relieved to finally have a lead. "What's the spell called?"

Levy brought the book closer to her and scanned the page. "It's called the Eliftis Spell."

"Eliftis?" Gray asked as he repeated the name in his head. It sounded so familiar, yet he couldn't place where he'd heard it.

"Yeah," Levy replied. "do you recognize it?"

The doors to the guild then opened and the rest of the team staggered in.

"We're finally back and out of that snow!" Natsu exclaimed.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Like you were even outside at all. I found you and Happy hiding away in the bakery!"

"But it was warm in there, Lucy." Happy said in defense.

"Oh, whatever." Lucy said as she caught sight of Gray and Lucy. "Oh, hey guys! Did you find anything, Gray? Natsu and I certainly didn't. And you, Erza?"

"Sort of. I'll try to explain it as I'm still trying to make sense of it myself." Erza answered as they headed towards Gray and Levy. "What about you, Gray?"

Now he remembered where he had heard of it. Ur had told him and Lyon about it when they were training under her.

"I got it! I know where I heard it!"

The rest of his team looked at him funny, and as if on cue, asked, "What are you talking about?"

She kept running as fast as she could, just trying to get as far away as possible. She knew it was a risk coming to Magnolia. He was here, and she had to avoid bumping into him at all costs.

"Lena!"

She froze, but refused to turn around and face that familiar voice.

"I knew I'd find you here, Lena. You can't keep running from us forever."

Lena kept her back turned. "Did Vesperus send you? Or was it Pelphides?"

"Neither, I came on my own."

"Liar!" She shouted, turning around to face the young man standing behind her. "You were sent to get me to come back, Alvaro. You might as well just leave because I'm not going with you. I still don't agree with what you guys are doing."

"You don't have to agree with our plans." Alvaro said as he walked closer to Lena. "But we need you to come with us so we can make sure you don't foil them."

"There's no way I'm going with you!" Lena shouted. "I'm going to stop you guys!"

"We'll see about that." Alvaro said. He then stopped his walking and lifted his hand, a blast of ice shooting forth from it and tearing up the snow covered ground right next to where Lena stood. "That's just a warning shot. Just come with me and I won't have to hurt you."

"Oh, please, Alvaro." Lena said, smirking as a magic circle appeared beneath her. "We both know my magic is stronger than yours."

Lena outstretched her hands as two tubes of ice shot forth, coiling around Alvaro and restraining his movement.

"I'll just destroy them!" Alvaro said angrily as he tried to remove the frozen tubes that were binding him.

Lena smirked. "Your destructive ice can't even make a dent in my ice binds. I will bring you guys down, Alvaro. You'll see."

Lena turned around from Alvaro and began to run.

"Don't run away from me, Lena! We won't let you stop us!"

Yay! New chapter! And with some new characters...so this is actually the first time I've written something with my own characters, but I promise you they're essential to the storyline and they're not gonna be main characters, so don't worry.

Also, this is just a little thought of mine about Gray, but is it just me, or does anyone else think he may have an above average visual memory? I came to this observation after that part in the Edolas arc where he uses his ice make to replicate the key. When you think about it, he only saw it like what, once? And it's not like he was scrutinizing it and memorizing its exact detail, so to be able to remake that in such short notice is pretty impressive. I think Ice-Make in general really requires a good imagination and attention to detail to be able to create something just by visualizing it. Anyway, that's just another silly headcanon of mine, but thanks for listening to my rambling :D

Anyway, thank you guys so much for all your fantastic reviews, they're really big motivators! I'm so glad people are actually enjoying this story, so thank you so much for taking your time to read this.

-britishsconesahoy