Creature POV


I was pacing around in front of the telescope tree, biting my knuckles nervously with my sharp teeth as I took the form of Lisanna.

"Dammit! Where could she of run off to?!" I hissed, ignoring the wound my teeth had caused. "She should be right here!"

I had left Lucy alone while she was napping underneath the branches of the telescope tree to go make sure that Mirajane was being well taken care of, but when I got back, she had vanished.

"I don't see the scarf anywhere, so she couldn't have taken it off," I continued my frantic pacing. "But if she didn't take it off, then where could she have gone!?"

"Lisanna?"

I quickly made my sharp teeth disappear, healed the bite on my hand, and dimmed my turquoise eyes so they wouldn't be noticed before turning around to see Lucy approaching me.

"Lucy! There you are!" I felt so relieved to see her. Especially with the scarf still wrapped safely around her neck. "Where did you go?"

"I just went on a short walk around the island," the blonde explained, before frowning. "Where were you?"

"I had to check up on something real quick," I answered. "I'm so happy to see that you didn't leave me!"

"Well, why would I leave you?" she asked. "I did promise I'd never leave, after all."

"Right, you did. And you also said that we'll be friends forever," a smiled graced my face as I spoke.

"Yup, I did say that," Lucy confirmed with a nod.

"Which I'm so very happy about!"

We stood there for a while speaking with each other, before I began to feel other presences appear one by one in the realm of dreams.

So they learned about the spell, huh? I thought to myself, the corners of my mouth tugging downwards. Well, they won't take her from me...they won't take any of them away from me.

"Lisanna? Are you okay?" Lucy asked me in a concerned tone.

"Hm?"

"You look like something's bothering you," she said, her eyes crinkling in a worried manner. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine! Don't worry!" I reassured her, pasting a happy smile back on my face. "Listen...how about we go hang out with Gray? We'll build snowmen and make snow angels together!"

"Gray's here?" her chestnut shaded eyes widened slightly in surprise.

"Of course he is! This is your dream after all, and anyone you want can be here!" I told her cheerfully, before extending my hand out to her. "Now come on! We shouldn't keep him waiting, shall we?"

"We shouldn't," Lucy said with a smile, taking her hand in mine.

"Right, we shouldn't! Now let's go!"

I gripped Lucy's hand tightly as I began to lead her away from the telescope tree, going to hang out with 'Gray'.


Erza POV


When I opened my eyes I was in shock, and I was falling. My perception of time distorted, everything slowing down until there was nothing, only me and the sky above; the sky that seemed to swallow me whole. My hand reached out, kissing the sky, grasping the endless crevasse of blue desperately. Everything was a blur, a blur that swirled out of existence. And then fear took hold of my heart.

"OH SHIT!" I swore, panicking; toppling from this height would surely kill me. I started to take deep breaths, attempting to calm myself down as my scarlet hair whipped around my face.

"Okay, okay, stay calm...this is a dream," I reminded myself. "I won't die. I can't die in a dream."

I continued trying to calm down until I was distracted when my body collided with the branches of a tree.

"Ack! Ow! What the- Why does this- Ah!" My voice came out pained as I hit branch after branch, which actually slowed down my descent.

I ended up falling into a large pile of autumn leaves. The leaves managed to cushion my fall enough to make it so that I wasn't killed or seriously injured, thankfully.

"Oof!" I exclaimed as I made contact. I sat up slowly after a few seconds, getting on my knees rather than sitting on my belly. A few dried leaves were tangled in my hair, giving off a crinkling sound when I turned my head.

Looking down, I scooped up some leaves into my palm, examining them. The leaves in my hand are more dry than my mouth. I close my fist over them and feel them shatter; I don't need to open it again to know that the once whole forms are now only fragments of what they once were. On the tree they were first buds, then the soft green of spring before maturing to a splendid dark foliage. But alone on the ground they are brittle, weak and the brown that comes before decay. I open my hand and watch them fall with the same motion as spring petals but without the beauty.

Gathering myself back up, I began to analyze my situation.

Why did that hurt? I asked myself, a frown forming on my face. This is a dream...things shouldn't be able to hurt me in a dream.

I glanced myself over to assess my injuries, finding that I had quite a few bruises and a couple of small cuts. But other than that, I was unharmed.

Well, this is the creature's world, so it probably has complete control over what happens here. I assumed. It is kind of a weird choice to make things feel pain, though. Perhaps for torture purposes?

The thought of that made me regain my composure, lifting myself from the floor of grass and leaves blanketing the ground.

Never mind that. I shrugged it off, and dislodged the leaves ensnared in my hair with my fingers. I have to go find everyone else.

I began to walk through the strange forest, passing by all sorts of trees until something crashed down right in front of me, sending the leaves to go flying and some branches to come falling with it. Down they come like multicolored rain; Golds, reds and browns. They are a myriad of shapes and sizes, these leaves that clothed the trees. Now, they are discarded like last season's fashions and left to become part of the soil.

"OOF!"

Whoever they were, they had obviously hit the ground harder than me.

I couldn't see who it was due to the leaves, but it sounded like they weren't hurt too severely. Once that thought was out of the way, my mind drifted back to the question of whom the person was.

"Why the hell did I fall out of the sky?" the mystery person grumbled as they laid amongst the leaves. "Couldn't I have just appeared on the ground or something?"

"Natsu?" I asked, recognizing the voice.

A well-timed breeze blew the leaves off of the person, allowing me to see it was indeed Natsu that had crashed down. Eyes the color of deep forest pools flickered up to me, while he still lay flat on the ground.

"Oh hey Erza," the fire dragon slayer greeted me, shifting to a sitting position. "Where are we?"

"I don't know, but my guess is we're in the dream world," I responded to him, not being too surprised about the fact he wasn't much more hurt than I.

"What's with all of the different trees?" he inquired, standing up off the ground. He started dusting off the leaves clinging to his body.

"Remember, Natsu? This is a dream, and anything is possible here," I reminded him. "Anyways, come on...we have to find the others."

"Wait! Did you say that anything is possible here?" Natsu asked hopefully, and I nodded. "Then I wish that I was a dragon!"

A few seconds passed with nothing happening.

"Aww..." he pouted, looking disappointed. "Why didn't it work?"

"Seeing as we can feel pain here, we must exist as normal people in this place. Which means you don't have the powers that you would normally have in dreams," I explained to him. "Now come on already..."

"Alright," he grumbled, sounding upset about not having cool dream powers.

Natsu and I began to walk through the forest in search of the others, the woodland seeming ominously quiet. We paused, now that even the sound of our own footfalls was silent, all that could be heard was the susurration of the leaves in the gusty wind. Looking up, I was transfixed by the fluttering leaves that danced in the high boughs, making a living roof above me. I was calmed, almost hypnotized, but the longer I stared the more the leaves looked like eyes staring back down at me, and the boughs seemed to draw closer, blocking the sunlight as if they were forming a cage around us. We quickly continued on our path after that.

Eventually, we stumbled across a small pond where a girl with wavy blue hair was facing away from us, appearing to be staring at her reflection in the water. Immediately, I recognized that it was Juvia.

"Hey Juvia!" Natsu called out to the water mage.

She didn't respond to his voice.

"Juvia?"

"..."

We walked closer to her, unease beginning to form.

"Juvia? Can you hear us?" I asked her hesitantly, but didn't get a reply from her either.

"Ahem!" I cleared my throat loudly to get her attention. "Juvia!"

"Huh?" she was snapped out of her trance and turned around to face us. "How long have you been there?"

"We've been here for a little while," Natsu told her, frowning at her. "Didn't you hear us calling to you?"

"No, Juvia was distracted by all of the fish in the pond," she explained, pointing toward the water.

We looked into the pond, and saw that there were numerous kinds of amphibious life in there.

So there's all kinds of trees everywhere, and now there's all sorts of fish in this pond? Strange. I thought to myself. Did the creature just go wild with putting things in this part of the world or something?

"Juvia is sorry," she apologized, bowing her head at us.

"Don't worry about it, Juvia," Natsu waved her off. "Now, let's go find the others."

Juvia joined us, and we continued walking through the forest looking for the rest of the group. Eventually, we came across Gray, who was lying on the ground next to a pile of rocks.

"Gray-sama!" Juvia exclaimed, rushing over to him immediately. She dropped to her knees beside him, pulling the unmoving devil slayer into her arms.

"Gray-sama! Speak to Juvia!" she pleaded, shaking his shoulders.

"Calm down, Juvia...he's not dead," Natsu said with a frown.

"Natsu's right," I agreed. I could see Gray's chest moving up and down at a regular pace. "He's still breathing."

"Then what happened to Gray-sama?!" Juvia demanded.

Gray groaned, his arctic blue eyes cracking open.

"It looks like we're about to find out," Natsu replied, crossing his tanned arms.

"Huh...? Juvia?" Gray groaned, blinking his eyes. "Where'd you come from?"

"Juvia found Gray-sama like this with Erza and Natsu!" Juvia told him, before embracing him tightly. "But Juvia is so very happy that her beloved isn't hurt!"

"Urk! J-Juvia! L-let me go!" the ice mage exclaimed, as she seemed to be hugging him way too hard for his liking. Or his health.

"Oh! Sorry, Gray-sama!" she apologized quickly, letting go of him.

"So what happened, Gray?" I asked him as Natsu and I walked over to the two of them.

"I was chasing some brown haired girl in her pajamas, might have been Cana, when I tripped over these rocks and smacked my head on the ground," he answered. "Don't ask what she looked like, because I never saw her face."

"Alright, I won't," I frowned.

Juvia got up off of the ground and pulled Gray to his feet. The ice wizard looked at Natsu, piercing blue eyes meeting warm olive ones.

"Asshole," he greeted the dragon slayer.

"Douchebag," Natsu said back.

"Stop it," I snapped, somewhat disturbed by their 'greeting'. As we began to walk off, we failed to notice that one of the rocks the ice mage had gotten up from was splattered with a small amount of blood.

After that, we walked through the forest with Gray and Natsu sending each other death glares and mumbling insults underneath their breath as we looked for the others.

A horrible smell began to assault our noses as we walked, which only got worse as we got closer, eventually finding the source of the smell to be ginkgo trees. And with Gajeel being smack-dab at the middle of them, using his hand to cover his nose.

"Ugh...this stuff smells awful," his voice came out muffled by his hand. "I think I'm gonna puke."

His crimson eyes darted up, noticing our presence there.

"Where the hell have you guys been?" the iron dragon slayer demanded. "I've been looking for ya since I fell out of the freaking sky!"

"We've been looking for everyone else, just like you have," I answered calmly.

"Also, why didn't you just leave if those trees smell so bad?" Natsu butted in.

"I didn't know if you guys were over here," he grumbled. "So like it or not, I had to search."

"And why didn't you just yell?" Natsu asked again.

"You really think it's a good idea to yell in a place like this?" Gajeel scoffed. "Geez, you're stupider than I thought."

"Hey!" Natsu sounded offended.

"You two can argue later, but for now let's get out of here," Gray interrupted the conversation, rubbing the back of his head. "The smell is starting to get to me."

"It already got to me..." Gajeel mumbled.

The iron mage joined us after that, and we continued walking through the forest, trying to steer clear from any ginkgo trees as they smelled retched.

After a while of walking we came across Lisanna, who was standing in the middle of a large pile of leaves from all of the trees that I had seen. She was digging through the pile, appearing to be looking for something.

"Uhhh...Lisanna? What are you doing?" Gray asked her tentatively.

She halted and looked up at us.

"Oh, hey guys," she greeted us. "Sorry that I didn't come looking for you, but I lost Lucy's hair ribbon."

"What? Bunny girl's hair ribbon?" Gajeel asked, only to receive a nod in response. "How do you have that?"

"It was lying in a puddle and it was how I found Lucy when she was kidnapped by Juvia," the Strauss girl answered. "After Juvia knocked me out, I assumed that she had taken it, but I realized that I still had it when it fell out of my pocket while I was falling."

"Wait...what? Juvia kidnapped you and Luce?" Natsu asked, looking over at Juvia who had a guilty expression on her face.

"Yes, she did, but can we forget about that for now?" Lisanna said with a sigh. "We have bigger things to worry about at the moment."

"Lisanna's right," I agreed. "We'll talk about this once we save everyone and get out of the dream world, Juvia."

"Anyways...can you guys help me find her hair ribbon? It's blue," Lisanna requested, and she went back to searching for it.

We nodded, and began to aid her search for Lucy's hair ribbon in the large pile of leaves.

"Found it," Gajeel said finally, holding up the topaz colored ribbon in his large hand.

"Thanks, Gajeel," Lisanna thanked him, and she went over and took it from him.

"No problem," he responded causally.

Lisanna tied Lucy's hair ribbon around her wrist instead of putting it in her pocket, and joined us as we went looking for the last member of our group. It didn't take long for us to find her, as she actually found us. There was a odd white dove perched on her shoulder, but it flew away as soon as Levy noticed us, so we didn't pay too much attention to it.

"Oh, there you guys are," she didn't seem to notice that the dove had flown away, "I've been looking all over for you."

"Hey, shrimp," Gajeel greeted her. "What was with that bird and why'd it fly away?"

"It flew away?" she looked at her shoulder to find it gone. "Aww..."

"Why do you look sad?" he asked her. "You know that bird isn't real, right?"

"Of course I know that! But it brought some of my pages to me a few minutes after I hit the ground, and it also helped me look for you all," Levy huffed.

"Well that was nice of it," Lisanna smiled.

"You're right, it was," Levy responded. "But anyways, now that we're all together...does anyone have any questions that they want to ask?"

"Are there any bathrooms?"

"Natsu, you can use a bush," I hissed, and he grumbled something indistinguishable.

"I have one," Gray spoke up, and Levy looked at him.

"Ask away."

"How big is this place?"

"Well, seeing as the creature most likely has complete control over this place, then I'd guess that it created areas to act as paradises for their victims," she answered. "And to avoid them from figuring out that this place isn't just a normal dream, it probably made those areas very large so the victim wouldn't wander off and reach the edge of their area."

"If that's the case, then this place is most likely gigantic," I pointed out.

"If it's so big then how are we gonna find them?" Gajeel asked.

"We'll just have to wander around an area until we either find them or the creature, or something else," Levy responded. "I know that it isn't the most solid plan, but what other choice do we have?"

"Good point...should we split up?" Juvia asked.

"No, we definitely shouldn't. If we come across the creature alone, then we're as good as dead. It's an ancient creature after all, so it has to be powerful."

"Alright, now if no one has anymore questions we should get going," I said.

"But which way should we go?"

I felt a light push on my shoulder that moved me slightly. Glancing over to see who pushed me, I didn't see anything, but I did hear the faint flapping of wings. I brushed this off as nothing.

"What's the matter, Erza?" Lisanna asked.

"I felt something push me toward that way," I replied, pointing in the direction. "It was really light, but I swear that someone pushed me."

"Huh...that's weird..." Gray frowned. "Maybe it was just the wind?"

"Or maybe someone's trying to give us a push in the right direction?" Juvia guessed.

"I wouldn't say that it's impossible," Levy reasoned.

"Then it's settled!" Natsu decided. "We're heading that way, which my nose is telling me is north!"

Without waiting for a response, Natsu began to run in the direction I pointed out without waiting for us.

"H-hey! Natsu! Don't run off on your own!" Lisanna called to him, chasing after her childhood crush.

We followed after Natsu, yelling at him to slow down and come back, but of course he didn't listen to us as he sprinted away.


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