Disclaimer: The following story is a fan made work of fiction. Fairy Tail and Mahou Sensei Negima! are owned and written by Hiro Mashima and Ken Akamatsu respectively. Please support their official releases.

Chapter 6

Hello Dolly

The magic users made their way to Eva's cabin in short order. Natsu and Negi had caught up with Takamichi soon after their encounter with Chao had come to an end and had proceeded at a quick pace. Much to their consternation, Natsu had happily munched on the hot coal he had palmed from the brazier outside of Chao's restaurant during the walk. It was only after he had finished savoring the coal's earthy flavor that Natsu joined the other two males in eating the food they had purchased from the interesting girl's restaurant.

Unfortunately for Natsu, that had been the most interesting part of the trip so far. Things had become exceedingly dull once they had reached their destination. Negi and Takamichi had pulled out some strange magical devices which beeped and blooped as the two mages walked around the cabin. Seemingly engrossed by this activity, the two of them hadn't said so much as a word to Natsu while they discussed ridiculous sounding mumbo jumbo in hushed tones with one another.

What they were doing was probably important. Natsu had heard that support type mages back in Fiore did similar things when trying to investigate some new or different natural phenomenon. And if it got the dragon-slayer one step closer to getting home or finding his friends, then he would try to find a way to bear with it.

He just wished that they had not told him to stay outside. Why had they done that? It was not like he was a menace to society like Gray or Gajeel. Or even Lucy with her oddly Graylike stripping habit. Besides, Natsu had had enough of woods for the near future. He could run around them later if he felt like it. All he wanted out of this situation was to be inside the cabin, checking things out and seeing if he could get into a brawl with the vampire while the two brainy mages worked on their own things.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Natsu muttered as he kicked a rock with his foot. The rock shot into impacted a nearby tree, embedding itself deep within the bark. "I've blown down plenty of doors before and it hasn't really bothered anyone. Heck, it's even gotten some pretty good results! Like when I had to face that insane gorilla woman back on my first mission with Lucy. Even if the girl that lives here is supposed to be an ancient vampire mage or something, a good fist-fight won't cause any serious damage. It'd be over well before they finished out here."

The dragon-slayer wasn't really certain what a vampire was. They were supposed to be really scary to normal people but Natsu was not worried. Lucy had told him that they were nearly invulnerable to physical damage but incredibly weak to fire based magical attacks. And if what Lucy had told him was true then Natsu should be pretty safe from them. After all, fire magic was in his blood. Anything or anyone weak against fire had the absolute worst match up in the world when going against him. If the fist-fight started to get out of control then he could just light up a fist and end things quickly.

Natsu scratched an itch on his head and then looked towards his two companions. Both of their faces were still glued to these weird things they had taken out from within their suits upon arriving at Eva's home twenty minutes ago. Though the devices were now beeping instead of blooping.

He felt a twitch begin to develop over his right eye. There was only so much patience in him, and Natsu could feel every shred of it being tested.

Ten minutes after that saw Natsu reach the end of his patience. His natural dislike of standing still was starting to manifest in an itch under his skin. It was time to move things along before he started blowing things up and got himself in trouble.

"Oi, you guys done over there yet?" Natsu called out grumpily. "I'd like to go inside and meet this Eva girl again, and maybe have a good fight or two with her while we're there."

The two native mages exchanged looks. After a quick nonverbal exchange Takamichi gave Negi a quick nod. The little guy then put his device down as Takamichi pulled out yet another blinking device. This new one made a piercing wail which tore at Natsu's ears as Negi walked towards the dragon-slayer's position. Natsu had to plug two fingers into his ears to deaden the sound, and it did nothing to help his already fraying temper.

"Ah, Natsu, you don't really understand. It's difficult to explain why we shouldn't enter Eva's house. But, um, basically she would be very mad at us, and if that were to happen then we might not be able to finish gathering our readings. We need to try and learn more about the magical anomaly out here before we try to take readings from inside her house."

"Argh!Nope. We're done here." The dragon-slayer yelled in frustration. He started walking towards the cabin as soon as he finished speaking. For all he knew, one of his friends was somewhere inside. Waiting for him, and possibly just as worried about their fellow guild-mates, while Natsu just stood outside and did nothing.

He was done waiting around and doing nothing. It was time to do things the Fairy Tail way. " You've already had enough time to do your thing, so screw it. I'm just gonna blow the door down, enter, and look to see if one of my friends is nearby while the two of you keep on doing whatever out here."

A lick of flame popped into existence around one of Natsu's curled fists as he spoke. It would take only a tiny amount of effort on his part to turn the small flame into a roaring bonfire. A bonfire which could be hurled from his fist and shatter the door currently blocking him from progressing any further.

Negi shook his head in disagreement as he moved himself to block Natsu's path. "Stop Natsu! Please wait. You don't understand."

"What don't I understand?"

"That thanks to a spell my father cast on her long ago Eva is stuck in the body of a little kid and is limited to the powers and abilities of a little kid as well."

That brought Natsu up short. Dangit! Did the kid really have to go and say that? Fairy Tail mages hated bullies just as much as they loved a good fight, and if what the kid had said was true then Natsu would just be bullying her if he fought her right now.

Still, something just did not add up about the situation.

"She didn't seem all that weak to me back in that Kyoto place," Natsu pointed out as he lit one of his fists on fire, "And if she's as weak as you say, all the time, then how did she seem so tough a short time ago?"

"Um, that was a, uh, a special case." Negi replied. The little kid's brow furrowed in thought as he spoke, as if the kid was thinking of something other than the matters at hand.

Natsu was not in a mood to entertain him. He pushed Negi to one side and kept walking towards the door. "Well, whatever it was, it can happen again right? I'm still going in."

"Ack! No Natsu, it's not that simple at all. Wait, stop!"

"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"

The place Gray had found himself in was hell. Pain coursed through his entire body as he wrenched himself away from the maniacal doll pursuing him. The thing was no bigger than Happy or Carla, but the giant meat cleaver it wielded had just carved into his left side with murderous intent.

The tiny monstrosity gave him no quarter as he tried to back away, a tattered white sheet flaring around his waist as he moved. "Weeee, look at it bleed." The doll screamed joyfully in a high pitched, female voice. Each word was punctuated with a slash of its cleaver. "I cut you, I skewer you, I make you into mincemeat. Then I take your bleeding parts and turn you into a stew. So die you ugly little cockroach. Die for the pleasure of my mistress!"

Gray scrambled to the side as the insane doll taunted him, dodging the thing's cleaver and gritting his teeth as blood dripped down his side. He had to find some way to deal with the wound before loss of blood affected him further, but the blasted creature was keeping the pressure on him.

With a quick feint to his right, Gray made a rolling leap to his left and was finally able to place some distance between them. Slamming his hands together to form his magic, Gray forced another spell out of his dwindling supply of magical energy. "Ice Make: Floor!"

A thick coating of ice came into being, covering the surrounding floor for as far as Gray's eyes could see. He gave a grunt of exertion as the magic left him, and holding a hand to his side as he wobbled on his feet. The cut was shallow but long. It seemed to have missed all of his vital areas. Still, Gray could feel his side grow slick as blood poured from the wound.

Gray put an emergency coating of ice over the cut to slow down the bleeding. Doing so stung like hell and would cause the wound to leave quite the scar upon healing, but Gray preferred both over dying.

As he placed the ice on his side the blasted doll found a way to continue its attack. The thing rose into the air as if it were on invisible strings. The doll's maid-like dress fluttered through the air as it floated towards him, slashing its blade as it continued to laugh maniacally.

Gray stared at it blankly for a moment before cursing and covering one of his arms with a blade of ice. It was always something new with the dolls. Every time he came up with a tactic to beat them the damn dolls always pulled out some new trick from their collective hat which completely negated his latest tactic. He had lost count of just how many he had broken or left trapped in ice. For the first time since this fight began, Gray let the frustration he felt bubble to the surface.

"Dammit, what does it take to end you all?" Gray shouted. The doll tried to stab him again as he spoke, but Gray blocked its cleaver with his own icy blade. "Why won't you just leave me alone? And why can't you just go back to shouting in that stupid language of yours? I liked it more when I couldn't understand a thing you said."

The dolls reply came in the form of a stilted laugh and a series of cleaver strikes aimed at his genitals. The thing was crazy but determined, launching attack after attack as it crowed in victory.

"Haha! Look at all the delicious red stuff you put on my blade, silly human." The doll's tiny lips curled into a sadistic rictus as it spoke, matching the blood-crazed look in its lifeless eyes. "Your life is mine, black-haired pervert. No one enters the master's bed uninvited and leaves without paying the price. Not you, not 'Reo, not even a goddamn dragon. Any and all comers must either pay or feel the wrath of Chachazero!"

This had to be the most confusing fight of his life as Gray honestly did not know what on Earthland the creature was even talking about. He had never wanted to be in this place, let alone stuck in someone's bed. Still, the doll's intentions were clear and Gray did not intend to give the crazed being a single chance to make good on its threats.

He locked his icy armblade with the thing's cleaver. Then, with a quick twist of his arm Gray bashed the backside of the doll's own blade into its face and slammed the demented creature into the floor. Its body slid along the ice coated rubble which surrounded them, ricocheting off of frozen blocks of stone like a pinball gone mad.

Alas the strike was not enough to put the thing down. The doll popped back up and flew at him through the air an instant after it hit the ground, screaming bloody vengeance at the top of its lungs.

Looking at the thing and blocking its flurry of swipes, Gray felt that this fight was getting him nowhere. His chances of beating the thing using guerrilla tactics might work, but doing so would force him to expel more energy than he could afford to waste. By this point it was clear that he was in a battle of attrition, and when in such a battle the smart decision was to be as fast and efficient as possible.

Dispelling his icy blade, Gray punched it in the face and sent it flying once again. He then slammed both hands together and took the stance his master Ur had taught him. Both legs were spread apart as he extended each arm in front of his body to summon and ground the magic within his body.

Gray brought his right fist crashing down into the open palm of his left hand as he yelled out the spell's activating words, "Ice Make: Geyser!"

The magic left Gray's body as it activated, rushing forward in a torrent of power. A pillar of frozen magic burst forth from the ground, shooting towards the sky with blinding speed. The screams of the doll cut off the instant the ice reached the thing, trapping its tiny form within a tomb of ice.

Its maniacal assault finally ended, silence fell on the area.

Gray looked around his position, checking to see if another one of the dolls was lurking in the shadows. But although that had happened to him numerous times in his battle against the blasted things, it seemed that Gray had finally managed to purchase some breathing room.

Wearily, he brought one hand to his face and sighed into it. Then he sank to his rear with a groan as his body began to pay the price for casting such a powerful spell while it was running on fumes. He had put his body through the wringer since he had first woken up and it was starting to give out on him.

Stars burst behind his eyes and his vision started to swim. Gray's breaths came in heaving gasps as the pain from this battle joined with the wounds he had received in the earlier skirmishes. His body fell back against the frozen pillar, his body unable to stand on its own.

The pain came in waves, battering his skull and aching muscles. It flared from the wound in his side and every cut and bruise on his skin. Every inch of his body hurt. Every part felt like it was either bruised or on fire, forming a crescendo of aching torment.

It was tough to see or think through its haze, and it wasn't long before black began to nibble at the edge of his sight. The icy chill of the pillar began to recede as Gray felt his mind begin to lose consciousness.

"C'mon body. Hang in there." Gray told himself as he blinked his eyes to clear away the stars and blackness. He was behind enemy lines and, unless his missing comrades suddenly made an appearance, completely alone. He tried to control his breath and take deep, focused breaths. After what felt like an eternity to the dark-haired ice user, his vision began to clear.

"That's how you do it, Gray," he coughed out as another wave of pain hit. Talking to himself was helping nearly as much as the breathing. "Don't let some punkass doll beat you. Those things aren't worth crap. And heck, Natsu'd never let me hear the end of it if I was done in by a bunch of shitty ass toys that look like they were made for a little girl."

Gray could picture it as clear as the ice his head rested against. As the rest of the guild cried over his dead body with an appropriate amount of sadness there would be one person who was different. Natsu would be standing over it with a clear look of annoyance. His stupid face would be scrunched up as smoke came out of his ears, all while he mumbled something stupid and unintelligible beneath his breath. Then the dragon-slayer would probably shout out some inane thing about Gray being a pansy who couldn't even handle a bunch of dolls, that Natsu would show him how a real man did things, and then light his corpse on fire just to prove a point about something.

Well, maybe not the part of being a man. That was more an Elfman thing. Regardless though, once Natsu also kicked the bucket the pink-haired idiot would find a way to show up in Gray's afterlife just so he could boast that it had taken some ancient demon god or a hundred thousand super soldiers to put the dragon-slayer down. All while Natsu gloated over how much more awesome that made him.

An eternal hell like that could not be allowed to happen.

Gray pushed himself off of the frozen pillar of ice with an effort of pure willpower. He tottered forward on unsteady feet, fighting gravity's pull with every ounce of strength he could summon. For a moment, Gray feared that he had bitten off more than he could chew as his left side began to buckle. But the thought of Natsu's boasting face laughing at him for all of eternity sent a surge of adrenaline through Gray's body, shoring up his weakened muscles and finally beating gravity for the time being. The first thing he did was to stare up at the frozen pillar of ice and curse its frozen denizen for the misery it had given to him.

"Fuck you, you damn psychopath," Gray wheezed painfully at the frozen figure. "And don't come back with any of your friends either. I've killed over a thousand of you bastards, and enough is enough. I'm sick of this place. I'm sick of you. And I am done fighting you all. Alright?"

With his body back under his control, and his anger vented, Gray braced himself with an arm against the pillar while he contemplated what to do next. He hissed in pain as he felt the skin around the cut in his side tighten from the movement.

Feeling the length of the cut with one of his fingers, the ice mage winced and counted his blessings. "Damn thing almost gutted me with a friggin meat cleaver," he muttered incredulously. The cut ran clear across his ribs for a good six inches. If he had been an instant slower in dodging the doll's blade, then there was good chance that attack might have done him in for good.

"Note to self," Gray muttered under his breath as he started to tear apart what little remained of the bed sheet he had wrapped around his lower body. He began to twist them into rough bandages with practiced familiarity. "Never allow kids to own dolls with blades. It is not a good idea, unless its Erza's future kids, which would then make it a horrible idea."

The blanket had been the only thing Gray had managed to grab while the little girl he had woken beside had proceeded to shriek like a banshee. Still dozy, Gray had slapped both of his hands against his ears and kicked the girl in her chest to shut her up.

Kicking her had been a big mistake. Because the instant the girl had stopped shrieking as she tumbled off of the bed and onto the floor a horde of dolls had come pouring out of thin air to attack him. Gray had barely managed to scramble off of the bed and dodge their attacks before the girl had then chanted some sort of spell which, upon completion, nearly ended Gray's life in one fell swoop. Having a block of ice the size of a small hill slam into his body tested even his durability and resistance to ice magic.

Gray's eyes tightened in fear from just remembering the small girl's spell. He had never seen ice magic on such a large scale cast so quickly. He himself could not do it. His fellow disciple Lyon sure as hell could not do it. Heck, not even Ur had ever displayed anything of the sort except when she had cast the spell to seal Deliora!

Any thought of possibly explaining why he had been in the girl's bed in the first place had been shut down as Gray cast the strongest defensive shield he could summon before the girl's spell hit. The shield managed to block enough of the massive spell that his body could handle the rest, but the sheer impact of it hitting him had sent Gray rocketing through the air like a cannonball.

The difference in power between their two spells had been blatantly obvious. Gray could only thank his lucky stars that he had not bumped into her while fighting against the angry horde of dolls.

The demented mannequins were bad, but what they possessed in terms of numbers they lacked in terms of power. If the little girl's powerful ice magic had been added to the equation... well, Gray knew he would have been strung up faster than a fish in Happy's knapsack, and likely with just as ghastly of an end.

The pain in his side worsened as Gray applied the crude bandages he had just made. Undoing the coating of ice on the wound made his skin feel like it was covered in a swarm of poisonous red ants. It also allowed the blood beneath his skin to flow freely through the tear in his side.

Gray's breath hissed between tight teeth as he held the makeshift bandage tightly to his bloody side. The cloth was soon stained with red as it adhered to the skin beneath. With that accomplished Gray then placed another, longer bandage on top of the first and wrapped it around his side. He knotted it to apply pressure and hopefully stop it from continuing to bleed.

Standing up gingerly, Gray moved his body around to test the strength of his makeshift bandage. It tightened ever so slightly, and ached horribly, but it held firm. As long as it was on Gray would not be pulling any acrobatic feats anytime soon but would be able to retain some degree of mobility.

It should keep him alive long enough to escape this hellhole. Staying as a sitting duck while his wound healed would be the death of him for certain. What had seemed to be a beautiful but isolated resort when Gray had first arrived had been turned into broken rubble after two days of near constant fighting.

Gray was running on fumes by this point. After the first few hours of full out battle with the dolls, with hordes of the things streaming at him while he cast spell after spell to stop them, the situation had settled into guerrilla warfare. Every time he had found a place to hide the dolls had flushed him out. The things had refused to allow him any prolonged period to rest or recuperate. And whenever Gray had tried to take the offensive they had swarmed to his location in an endless horde, forcing him to retreat.

The only strategy which seemed to be somewhat effective was one of constant movement, but it was not without its own drawbacks. Constant movement required energy and opened him to ambushes. Ambushes like the one he had just fought off from the cleaver wielding doll, and fighting through them without any rest had taken its toll.

Gray would have to use what magic power he had left wisely. He could cast two or three more big spells, or maybe a dozen small ones, before he passed out from sheer magic exhaustion. He was already close to the edge. Psycho doll's attack had only made things worse by causing him to lose a lot of blood on top of things.

His hands were trembled as he rested them on his thighs as he looked around. Gray needed to find a way out of this place and it needed to happen soon. But he had precious few clues to follow.

In the entire time Gray had spent fighting the dolls he had discovered the area in which he had been dumped was oddly limited. The main complex itself was quite large, and it was perched upon what appeared to be a massive tower next to the ocean, but beyond that there existed little of anything else.

Other than an exposed staircase winding down towards the ocean, Gray had been unable to find a single way to leave what he had taken to calling the resort from hell. It was seemingly devoid of life or inhabitants. The only other living creature Gray having encountered being the little girl who had chucked the massive block of ice at his head.

Thinking back to her caused Gray's chest to tighten. It wasn't much to go on but it seemed that she was the only lead he had. He would need to try and find her again in the slim hope that she could be persuaded to help him escape. But knowing his luck with these sorts of things, it was going to involve a lot of pain and even more fighting before that could happen.

As he looked from side to side, trying to decide where he should begin his search, Gray growled aloud to himself. Making his way through the ruins of the place was going to be a nerve wracking experience. "Now, if I were a supercharged little girl living in an isolated resort inhabited by crazy dolls, where would I be located?"

"You would probably be close by," a cold, feminine voice said from behind Gray's right ear. "Getting ready to put your newest toy back into its bin."

Adrenaline surged within his veins. Gray whipped his body around and slammed his hands together to cast a defensive spell.

She had snuck up on him. To make matters worse, the girl's presence now blazed with a power the likes of which Gray had never before encountered in a human. Laxus and Hades paled in comparison to it. The closest thing he could compare it to were those scary massive dragons future Rogue had brought through Zeref's gate, or possibly the inhuman Zeref himself. Gray knew that he was finished if she was able to land even a single blow on his battered body.

But he was too late.

"Tempestatem Congelata Vincula!"

The girl spat the strange words out faster than he could move his hands, conjuring a storm of wind and ice which slammed into his body like a sledgehammer. Gray felt the spell's impact deep within his bones as the spell flung him through the air. He smashed through a giant pillar of stone at the apex of his trajectory, causing him to cough up blood as the impact broke who knew how many bones. The ice mage crashed through it and into the open courtyard beyond. His body slammed face down into the courtyard's flagstones, and a burst of light to flashed behind his eyes as he came to a halt.

Then a massive force gripped Gray's body, picking him up and slamming him into the ground once again. Heavy chains wrapped around him, binding him fast to the stone floor. Gray could taste the cloyingly sweet taste of blood in his mouth. Something had popped in his chest after the final impact and he could feel his upper body beginning to turn numb.

"You must be the first assassin sent to take my head in nearly half a century," the girl spoke sweetly. He could hear her nearby, likely floating in the air as she prepared to deal the final blow. "It's a pity that you won't able to grow into your full strength; you have great skill for someone so young, and I can't remember the last time someone was daring enough to attack me on my own home turf. With a few more years you may have been able to provide me with some true sport."

Gray tried to lift his head, only to have a bare foot slam his face back into the flagstones. He cried out as his teeth bit into his tongue. Blood welled from the fresh wound, dripping from his mouth as the girl slowly ground his face into the stone with her slim heel.

"Why must the young always be in such a hurry?" The girl said with a sigh. "To think that you could defeat the Dark Evangel with this level of power was beyond stupid. You are a hundred years too early, boy, and your master is a fool for wasting your talent in such an endeavor."

Gray felt every broken shard in the ground try to knife its way into his skin as she continued to apply pressure with her tiny foot. For such a little thing the girl was deceptively strong. Too strong for him to resist in his injured state. Probably too strong for him to resist even were he uninjured.

He tried to keep his mouth shut, but bits and pieces worked their way in. Soon his mouth was filled with chips of rock and a cement-like mixtures of dust, saliva, and blood. It spilled out of his mouth in bloody heaves as he gagged on it.

Her foot let off the pressure, allowing him to shift his head to the side and spit out everything that had entered his mouth. Some of it had gone down his throat, entering his stomach and lungs.

Gray's body was wracked with a sudden spasm of heaves as his body emptied itself of the mixture of rock, dust and blood.

The soft patter of feet came as she moved away. Hearing it ticked him off; he had wanted to get some of the vomit on her feet.

"Speak, assassin, and end your suffering before it has yet to truly begin. You are beaten, and your life hangs upon the slimmest of threads. The tiniest sliver of mercy which yet dwells within me. Speak, or be prepared to receive a taste of what my dolls can do really when I am truly motivated."

Silence fell as the girl's words hung in the air. The only sound came from their breathing.

Gray worked his tongue around his teeth, dislodging what material he could and working moisture back into his mouth. More bloody spit fell to the ground as he continued to cough and spit out the crap which had found its way down his throat.

He felt terrible. Worse than when he had fought Ultear, and worse than when he fought those walking dragonmen with Juvia and the rest.

But he would not be bowed. It took every ounce of strength in his body, but Gray managed to raise his head. He could feel it in his body the moment his dark-eyed gaze made contact with her blazing red eyes.

The girl stood before him in a skimpy black dress whose red highlights could have been taken from the blood covering Gray's body. Golden hair framed green irises tinged with red in a startlingly pale face. A face that wore an expression of bloody glee that no child should ever wear.

Everything about her dug under his skin. After all of the pain he had endured, after the sacrifices of both Ur and Ultear, this is would be how he met his end? At the hands of an insane child who couldn't be older than ten? It was insulting to everything he had ever done and to everyone he had ever known.

Lyon would probably disown him if he ever found out. Natsu would laugh himself silly. Yet there was nothing Gray could do to win or to run. There was only so much damage body could take before it broke, and that point had been reached long ago.

However, he would be damned if he went down without so much as a squeak. He refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing him cower. With a hacking cough he could feel in every fiber of his body, Gray met the girl's eyes and forced himself to speak.

"You know kid, I've got no idea what you're talking about," he rasped. "I woke up in your bed, with no idea how or why I had even gotten there. My friends are missing, maybe dead, and if I'd known that you and your crazy dolls were around to beat the living shit out of me for two days, well, I would've tried a damn bit harder to break out of this place when I first woke up."

A fit of coughing hit him, wracking his entire body and forcing Gray to drop his head to the ground. He bit out his next words into the dust and stone.

"So while I know nothing about you, your dolls, or this hellish place you seem to call home, I do know this; that when you kill me, you will be making an enemy of the worst guild of wizards you could possibly anger." He manged to raise his head one final time. "So you had better hide my death, 'cause if you don't... then Fairy Tail's gonna come knocking. And they will blow you away."

Gray spat out a wad of bloody dust at her feet to punctuate his words. The next and last thing he saw was the girl's pale foot racing towards his face.

END

A/N: Well, this chapter had a bit of a delay. Suffice to say that I will be making up the other chapter that I owe on Wednesday. I did not plan to be delayed this long, but life sometimes throws us a curve ball, and sometimes that cure ball whacks you right in the face.

Important: I've gotten a good number of PMs, and a few reviews, asking about pairings in this series. My original plan was to stay mum on the subject but reader interest seems to be going in the other direction. I've made a poll to address this issue. Go vote in it if you want me to stay the course or if you would prefer that I list pairings.

For those of you who read this chapter back in the day (or looked it up in the old fic as you waited for me to get back to this point in the story), it will be obvious how much I truly changed the layout of things. I took out some scenes, added some new bits into the mix and changed the flow of things entirely.

This chapter also sees the entrance of the second FT member. Forewarning, it will be quite some time until another Fairy makes an entrance beyond a cameo appearance. Probably not until around the time of the Mahora Magic Festival.

On to the comments!

Evangeline: For anyone who has ready Negima you would know that we never saw the limits of her power. Heck we barely even saw her full power unleashed. It was frustrating and annoying, but if UQ Holder is anything to go by then the author must have been keeping her in reserve for some future arc before he got into a fight with his publisher (Google it. It makes for an interesting/depressing read).

For the purposes of my fic Evangeline is absolutely in the top tier of combatants. She has skill in spades, power to spare, as well as both life and combat experience in excess. She would have few equals at this point (characters such as Jack Rakan and Albireo), and even fewer would be placed above her (such as Zeref or Nagi Springfield). I'll be using her to pound Gray and Natsu into the ground while demonstrating that they have a long way to go before they can reach the top.

I'm not sure if I will use UQ Holder's whole 'she's not a real vampire but was taught by one' plot (I definitely won't be bringing Touta into things as I despise his character), but I will be hitting up her vampire heritage. As someone who once lived in Romania (a wonderful and amazing country!) I love the whole vampire mythos. And I'm talking about the old school Nosferatu stuff, not the Twighlight era 'vampires are cute boys/girls who just want love' idiocy.

I won't have Eva become the next Alucard (although now that I think of it, there is definitely some possible crossover material there), but she will definitely not be as soft as she was in canon. She will be out for blood, dominance, and freedom. Just not necessarily in that order. I really like the idea of Eva actually being a reformed villain as she was in Negima instead of being a misunderstood hero (goddamn you yet again UQ Holder).

Gray Fullbuster: All I can say is poor Gray. Not only has he been flung to a new universe but he was nearly killed by an irate vampire the moment he arrived.

He's going to struggle with adapting to the new world longer than Natsu because of differences in how I view their characters.

I view Natsu as being highly willing and able to adapt to new circumstances whereas Gray does not like change and tries to hold on to how things used to be. This is not to say that Natsu will give up on getting home to FT (that would be destroying a fundamental part of his character), nor that Gray will go to Sasuke levels of emo-ness (flame me over a bed of hot coals if that ever starts to happen). Gray is just more intellectual than Natsu. The ice user trends more towards self-reflection and self-doubt than the dragon-slayer, which will allow me to explore the more complex aspects of being stuck in a new world than I could with Natsu alone.

I am currently on the fence about Gray's romantic pairing. I'm considering getting him into a polyamorous relationship (note the differences between a polyamorous relationship, a polygamous relationship and that of a harem), but have not made up my mind at this time. His is pretty much the only unresolved relationship situation that I have left (other than a continual annoyance with part of Negi's harem that I am considering fixing by borrowing from UQ Holder thanks to Raiyoukai's guidance).

I also view Gray and Natsu as having a tsundere bromance going on. So whenever you see me have the two insult one another, just know that it is usually somewhat tongue in cheek.

Other: Just as a forewarning so that no one can say that I did not warn them, there will be a monogamous guyxguy relationship in this fic much later on (a few readers already know this as they have left reviews/PMs on this to which I have replied). Neither Natsu, Negi, nor Gray will be in it. Think of the new Voltron's Shiro as an example (also, watch that show on Netflix if you haven't already. It is a GREAT show and is just about to send out its final season).

The pairing will not be a major focus of the story, and it won't be explicitly stated for quite some time, but it will be there in the background as I a) always thought that it was a likely canon ship, and b) feel that I need to include it because life is a kaleidoscope of differences. Some of us like the opposite sex. Some of us like the same sex. And others can like both sexes, neither of them, or something completely different.

It's a crazy and interesting world out there.

Recommended Reading: This time I would like to recommend Legal Matter by Llybian Minamino. It's a cool multi-chapter Slayers fic featuring Xelloss and Filia who have to deal the fact that they are unexpectedly married to one another.

Until next time,

Elsil