Mirajane POV
Waiting outside of the building with the others, I stare at the entrance in hopes that Erza will come bolting out of there at any second.
Come on, Erza...hurry...
I continue staring at the entrance for what feels like hours before the building finally buckles, collapsing like a concertina. It soon becomes nothing more than a substantial pile of rubble and debris on the ground.
"ERZA!" Natsu roars.
The reckless slayer dashes toward the rubble, with some others quickly following after him while the rest of us stay frozen in place. They begin to dig through the rubble, hoping that Erza wasn't crushed and instead only trapped.
"Erza, hang on!" Gray yells. "We're coming!"
"Don't die! Stay away from the light!" My younger sister adds.
They keep dredging through the remains while I stand there in shock, my hand hovering over my mouth.
"Oh my..." I whisper, blinding tears welling in my eyes. Slow, desolate beads of sadness run from my unblinking eyes and drip steadily into my shirt as I start to cry.
I stand there for a few moments watching them scourge, before I glance at the sky, only to quickly look back up when I spy something falling down.
"Guys! It's Erza!"
"What?" Lisanna looks around. "Where?"
"There!" I point up, before running to try and catch her as she is only moments from hitting the ground now.
They stare at where I am pointing and see her as well. They run to help me catch her, but were too late and Erza crashes into me, knocking me to the ground.
"Ugh..."
"Are you two alright?" I hear Juvia's voice ask.
"I'm fine," I answer, before regarding Erza. "Are you okay, Erza?"
She opens up her amber brown eyes and looks around, before her gaze lands on me.
"I'm fine," she replies, before getting up and extending a hand to me. "Thank you for catching me."
"It's no problem. You're my friend, so I would have caught you no matter what," I take her hand and she pulls me to my feet. "But how did you end up falling from the sky?"
"It's a really long story," she sighs. "I'd have to start from the beginning if you were to understand."
"Wait...did you get the power to teleport or something?" Natsu asks her, his voice hopeful.
"I might have, but I'm not entirely sure."
"Sweet! This just got so much easier!" he exclaims, a wide grin spreading over his features. "Erza! Teleport us to Lucy!"
"What about Sting?" Rogue looks at him.
"We'll save him after!" the fire mage waves him off. "Now come on Erza! Let's go!"
"I don't think I'm strong enough to teleport all of you," she shakes her head. "And besides, it might have just been a one time thing."
"Aww..."
"How did you teleport in the first place, though?" the shadow mage questions. "I believe that you would have to know about the ability to utilize it, so how did you do it?"
"That's part of the long story which I honestly don't wanna talk about."
"Why not?" I inquire, my curiosity prickling. "What hap-?"
"Mira-nee, it's a really sensitive topic for her..." Lisanna interrupts me, her voice timid.
"How do you know that?"
"She told us about something that happened earlier," Juvia responds. "Juvia thinks that she will tell you once she's ready."
"Then can't you just tell us?" Laxus asks with a frown.
"I don't think that we should," Levy answers. "It's not our place to give away information like that."
"Listen...can we just get moving already?" Erza breaks up the discussion. "The longer we idle here, the less time that we have to save the other victims."
Without waiting for a response, Erza strides away from us. We quickly follow after her, not wanting to become separated from the S-class wizard again.
We plod through the swamp, taking a different path, but quickly become lost as it is hard to see in the dim light. The smell of damp leaves and fungus on decaying tree stumps irritates my nose as we walk, and I can tell the others smell it too. Every patch of land and wooden bridge that we walk along seems identical, so we don't appear to be making much progress.
"I think we're lost," I finally speak up after a while of wandering.
"We ain't lost," Gajeel claims. "Everything in this damn swamp just looks the same."
"That doesn't mean we aren't lost," I frown. "We need to stop for a minute."
"To do what?" Natsu asks.
"To figure out where we need to go so we can stop being lost."
"I don't think that we can if we don't know where we need to go in the first place," Levy chides in.
"Right, but that doesn't mean that we can't try," I say with a sigh. "Besides, I think that we all need a minute to calm down from the collapse anyways."
"Fine, we'll stop," Laxus concedes.
We stop on a patch of land and begin to talk about what direction we think we should head in, but we can't figure out anything. Everything in the swamp looks kindred, so we're unable tell where we need to go.
"Ugh...this isn't working!" Natsu whines impatiently. "Why can't we just keep walking?"
"Because we're probably just going to end up right back here," Gray glances over at him.
"You don't know that! And besides, even if we did, you wouldn't recognize it because everything in this swamp looks the same!"
"Ahem..."
Someone clears their throat nearby, and we look over to see none other than Bickslow, dressed in his pajamas with an umbrella to shield himself from the rain. His pajamas are veronica purple with dark blue images of his 'babies' on them, and austere black slippers adorn his feet.
"Maybe I could be of some assistance?"
"Who are you?" Erza's hand hovers over the hilt of her sword as she speaks.
"My name is Soul. If you want me to, I can help you out."
"What's the catch?"
"I will lead you through the swamp to the building where the next dreamer is being held, but you will need to answer a riddle first," Soul responds. "Answer correctly and I'll lead you, but get it wrong and I will not help you."
"So you're like that other guy," Gray points out. "Like Rune."
"I suppose you could say that," he nods in acknowledgment to the ice mage. "Rune and I are both led by the same person, so naturally I'm supposed to help you if you can answer a riddle."
"Wait...the other me was in the castle," Laxus realizes. "So who the hell is leading you?"
"His name is Flame. I could ask him to come sooner than he planned if you want to meet him."
"We'll meet him when he's ready," Wendy speaks up, kind as ever. "So, what's the riddle?"
"I was Master's second victim, but I am in no way her second favorite. If Master lost me then she would surely be crushed, but if I remain then I'll find myself among the stars sooner than I should," he recites the riddle. "Who am I?"
"Lucy." Almost all of us know the answer.
"Huh? How did you figure it out so quickly?" Soul appears to be mildly surprised.
"It wasn't too hard to figure out," Levy shrugs. "I mean, Wendy was the first one taken away and then Lu-chan was next."
"And saying stars made it pretty obvious," Gray adds. "There's only two victims who have magic that can be associated with the stars, and one of them already has been saved. So by the process of elimination, it's Lucy."
"Oh, I'll have to remember that for future riddles then," he realizes. "But anyways, fair is fair. Follow me."
Soul swivels around, facing away from us and starts walking down the wooden bridge. We all quickly follow after him.
"How do you even know your way through this place?" Gajeel asks. "Everything looks the same."
"What are you talking about? Everything doesn't look the same."
"Yes, it does," Lisanna argues. "Wherever we went, the landscape was completely identical."
"You didn't notice that you were going in circles?"
"We were going in circles?"
"You must have been," he answers. "That's the only way that I can justify everything in the swamp looking the same."
"Well, that's embarrassing..." Gajeel murmurs.
"I wouldn't be too embarrassed though. It's dark in this area, so winding up going in circles is a common occurrence," Soul explains. "Quite a few of us did that a lot when this place became a swamp."
"So you mean this place wasn't always like this?" Wendy moves to stand beside him, and I notice how Soul shifts his umbrella so that she is shielded from the rain as well.
"Yes, but that's a story Flame should tell you," he replies.
"Why's that?"
"I've actually forgotten a lot about what this place used to look like," he admits. "Same as the other two. But Flame is the one who remembers it the most, so you should ask him when he decides to show himself."
"How do you forget what your own home looks like?" Gray questions.
"Technically, this entire world is my home," Soul responds. "So don't judge me for forgetting what a part of this world looks like. I mean, do you remember what your world looked like when it was first created?"
"No, because I wasn't around to see it when it was first created," the ice wizard answers. "None of us were."
"Well, I'm sure that you don't remember what the world looked like when you first came into it, then?"
"Of course I don't."
"Then don't judge me for not remembering what this part of the world used to look like," Soul scoffs, before turning his attention back to the path ahead. "Oh, would you look at that. Time flies fast when you're talking."
We look to see that we are approaching a church that is partially submerged in murky water. A diversion in the bridge we are on leads to the double doors of the building, which from here appear weathered with age.
"This is where the next dreamer is being kept," Soul tells us.
"Huh. You actually kept your end of the deal," Laxus remarks.
"What do you mean?"
"I thought that you were going to only take us halfway and then ditch us," the lightning mage explains.
"Why would I ever do that?" Soul seems confused, and somewhat hurt. "A deal is a deal, so naturally when you answered my riddle correctly, I upheld my part."
"Because when we answered Rune's riddle, he didn't keep his end of the deal."
"Hmm...I'm going to have to ask Rune about that when I see him...anyways, be on your way. And if you encounter Master, please don't mention that I brought you here, alright?"
"Of course," Levy smiles. "Thank you, Soul."
"Don't mention it."
I watch as Soul moseys off into the distance with his umbrella protecting him from the rain, before my attention is taken off him by Lisanna tapping my arm.
"Come on, let's get out of the rain," my younger sister says, gesturing in the church's direction.
"Right."
We head into the building together, walking side-by-side. However, what is supposed to be a holy place that makes people feel safe and comforted...
Felt like we are instead entering a death trap.
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