7. Ice-Make: Do-over

"The truth is though, that once the spell is cast, it may be almost impossible to undo it."

"As ice mages, it's very important for you boys to understand how dangerous the Eliftis Spell is." His master said, addressing the two boys in front of her. "There's a reason it's forbidden, and if you ever catch anyone trying to cast it, you must stop them."

He probably should have been paying more attention to what Ur was saying instead of focusing on writing his name in the snow. He was listening to her words, but all this talk about things they shouldn't do was starting to bore him. When would she teach them about something they should do?

"Gray, are you listening to me?"

He jumped at the sudden calling of his name. "Yeah."

"You better be because this is important." Ur said, making him wonder how many times she would emphasize that.

He looked back down at the snow. Dammit, she made him smudge the "y". Now he'd have to start over.

"How are we supposed to stop them casting Eliftis if we don't know what it is?" At least Lyon was trying to pay attention. He'd just have to ask him later about anything he missed.

"I was getting to that, Lyon." Their master replied. "The Eliftis Spell is a spell that can only be cast by an ice mage. It's a spell that the caster casts on a certain area or location, and by doing so will alter the weather so that temperatures in that place will remain below the freezing point until the caster decides to remove the spell."

So an ice mage freezes a place and the place stays frozen until the ice mage says so. See, he was listening. Now if he could just get the "y" right.

"Why would anyone want to do that?" Lyon asked.

"Because it can enhance an ice mage's power."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's a lot of power, and the mage's magic can become very hard to control." Ur explained. "But if they can control their magic, then there's essentially nothing wrong with it."

Finally, he was able to finish writing his name. He glanced over at Lyon who was so engrossed in their master's lecture. How was he not bored of all this yet?

"The spell only becomes a problem when either the caster casts it on a place without consent from the inhabitants, if there are any," Ur continued. "or if the caster dies before he can undo the reason Eliftis became forbidden was because a mage once died before they had the chance to undo the spell."

Gray looked up from his snow art and noticed the look Ur was giving him. He should probably contribute something to the conversation in order to make her think he was listening, which he was of course.

"So how do we stop it?"

"Only the original caster can undo the spell," Ur replied. "but if the caster- actually, nevermind. That's not important."

Gray glanced at Lyon, who in turn, glanced at him. Their master was hiding something from them again. If there was anything about Ur that annoyed them, it was that habit of hers.

"Okay, but that seems a bit risky." Lyon said. "If the caster is doing it for bad reasons then how are we supposed to make them undo the spell?"

She didn't answer Lyon's question right away. Gray knew she had the answer because she had the answers to all of their questions, so why was she so hesitant now? While waiting for his master to say something, he looked back down at his name sprawled in the snow. He had accidentally smudged it again when he wasn't looking. He'd just have to redo it.

"That's why the Eliftis spell is so dangerous." Ur finally said. "I wish I had a better answer for you, Lyon. The truth is though, that once the spell is cast, it may be almost impossible to undo it."

"I got it." Gray said, turning to face Levy. "I remember where I've heard of Eliftis."

"Eliftis?" Erza asked as she looked over at the open book Levy was looking through. "What are you two talking about?"

Levy pointed to the picture of the snowflake. "Gray found a snowflake outside that looked just like this one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Natsu asked as he looked at the picture quizzically. "Don't all snowflakes look alike?"

Gray rolled his eyes. "No, flamebrain. That's why this is so strange. All snowflakes are different, so it's weird that the one I found is exactly the same as the one in the book."

"Maybe you just have bad eyesight."

"I saw it just fine, and so did Levy."

Erza cleared her throat, causing the two bickering mages to end their verbal fighting. "Do you have the snowflake, Gray?"

"No," he replied, pulling out the replica from his pocket. "it would have melted before I got here, so I copied it with my ice make."

Gray placed the frozen snowflake onto the table, allowing the rest of them to see it. There was no doubt about it, its design was exactly the same as the one in the picture. There was no way they had no connection.

"You're right, Gray." Lucy said as she looked back and forth between Gray's replica and the picture in the book. "They really are identical."

"Fine, so they're the same." Natsu agreed. "But how does this help us."

"It helps us because we now know that this book may be able to tell us what's happening to Fiore." Erza said. "What's the book about, Levy?"

"It's about forbidden spells." The solid script mage replied as she looked back down at the book. "This snowflake has something to do with a spell called Eliftis. Unfortunately, though, the book doesn't have much information on it. All it says is that it's a spell used by ice wizards to permanently freeze a specific area. When the spell is cast, snowflakes of this design will fall in that area as the effects of the spell build up."

Gray didn't remember Ur telling them about that part, but then again, there was probably a lot of things she didn't tell them.

"During my search, I met a girl who told me there had been a spell cast." Erza said. "She said it would bring an eternal winter to not just Fiore, but to all of Earthland."

"Sounds like this is what she was referring to." Lucy said.

"Gray?" Levy said, catching the ice mage's attention. "You said you heard of Eliftis before."

"Yeah." He replied. "When Lyon and I were training under Ur. She told us about this spell and how it was forbidden and all that. Apparently the spell can only be undone by the castor themselves"

Or at least that's what she said. Gray thought, but what if there was more than what she had told them?

"I don't get it though." Natsu said. "What's the point of this spell?"

"It can enhance an ice mage's magic." Gray answered. "I'm not entirely sure how, but enough that it can easily become too much to handle."

Why didn't he ask more questions when he had the chance? He barely even listened to her when she warned them about it. Now they were faced with stopping the ice age that was slowly taking over all of Earthland with barely any knowledge of what they were doing.

Wait, had Erza really said all of Earthland? She said a girl told her about it, but how did she know?

"Erza?" He said, catching the requip mage'sattention.

"Yeah?"

"You said you spoke to a girl. Who was she?"

Erza shrugged. "She said her name was Lena, but that's all I know. She said the snowstorms were happening all over Earthland, and there's no way of stopping it."

"I may have some other books that can tell us more about Eliftis." Levy said as she closed the book in front of her. "I'll go do some more research on it for you and I'll let you what I find."

"Thanks, Levy." Lucy said as she headed out.

"Yes," Erza agreed. "that would be most helpful. As for us, I think we need to find this girl, Lena. She may be the only one with knowledge of what's going on here."

"Hey, before we go on some crazy search for a random girl Erza spoke to, I have a slight problem that I may need help with." Lucy interrupted. "My rent is due in a couple days and I may or may not be a bit broke right now."

"Again?" Gray said amusingly. "Why do I feel like you're the only one here who has rent issues?"

Erza smiled. "She's not. She's just the only one who publicly announces them."

"Gee, thanks Erza." The celestial wizard muttered.

"How can you think of rent money at a time like this, Lucy?" Natsu asked. "The world's gonna be forever frozen and you're worrying about how you're gonna afford to keep your apartment?"

"Of course I am! If I can't pay my rent then I'll lose my apartment and will have to sleep outside in this freezing weather!"

"Alright, that's enough." Erza said, putting an end to the argument. "Lucy has a fair point, and we could all probably use some more jewels, so I think we can take one more job before all this."

The three of them nodded in agreement to Erza's suggestion and Natsu and Lucy went to go pick out a job for them.

Gray turned to look outside through the window at the blizzard hitting Magnolia. He was still having a hard time believing that someone had actually cast the Eliftis spell. So many questions ran through his head. Who had cast it and why? Who was this Lena and what else did she know? Why was the whole Earthland being subject to it? He had so many questions, yet no answers.

"Gray?"

He turned away from the window as Erza called his name. "Yeah?"

"I wanted to ask you about, you know, your magic." She said as she sat down across from him. "Is it still out of control?"

"I think so." He said, trying not to make eye contact with the requip mage. He had been so caught up in their new find that he'd almost forgotten about his magic predicament.

"Do you think it's related to Eliftis?"

He hadn't thought of that, though it suddenly reminded him of something. "I don't know, but now that you mention it, I remember it happening before. In fact, it had happened just before Ur warned us about Eliftis. She said Eliftis has the power to enhance an ice mage's magic to a point where it's almost uncontrollable. What if this is what she meant?"

"I guess we won't know until we do some more digging." Erza said. "Looks like Natsu and Lucy found a job for us."

Gray looked up to see their fellow teammates holding their next job request. He remained seated as Erza stood up to go check out what they had chosen.

Something about the whole thing bothered him. He couldn't place it, but he had a strange feeling that this was more than just some crazy ice mage freezing the world, and boy, was he right.

Good news, guys, I finally have a posting schedule for this! From now on, I'm going to try to upload the next chapter every Thursday.

Aside from that, I don't really have much to say so I'll get on with the usual.

Thanks for reading this crazy story of mine and let me know what you all think! I love hearing your opinions, and possibly suggestions because I'm still not entirely sure of where I want to take this. I've got a few ideas floating around :D

Oh, and Happy late July 4th, everybody!

-britishsconesahoy