Dance of the Fairies, Flight of the Phoenix
Chapter 8:- Lost Together
"What is that symbol?" Tonks repeated as she stepped closer to Juvia warily, her wand outstretched and pointing directly at Juvia's chest. "That symbol on your leg, I've seen it before. Tell me what it is. And who you are. Come on, girl, answer my questions."
Juvia opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, really not sure what to make of this situation - the woman was threatening to arrest her? For what, protecting these people? Did she think that the bird attack was her fault perhaps? But that made no sense - she'd just seen her attacking the birds herself so that couldn't be it surely.
Whatever the case though, this woman seemed like an official so Juvia figured it would be best to just tell the truth and hope that went down well.
"It's… it's the mark of the mage guild known as Fairy Tail," Juvia drew herself up a little, glowing with pride at being part of such a place. "It's considered by most to be the most powerful guild in all of Fiore. Haven't you heard of it?"
"What have fairy tales got to do with any of this?" Tonk frowned in bewilderment. "Aren't fairy tales a Muggle concept? Everyone wizard and witch knows fairies are real."
"They are?" Juvia blinked. "Juvia thought nobody knew for sure whether they existed or not."
"You're just trying to mess with my now, aren't you?" Tonks took another step forward, much more sure footed than she would be under casual circumstances. "Where did you say you were from?"
"Juvia lives in the city of Magnolia, in the country of Fiore," the Water Mage explained quickly.
"Never heard of either one of them," Tonks replied. "Either you're from really far out of town or you're making things up as you go along. I think I might just have to take you in so we can find out the truth about you."
"Take Juvia in!" Juvia took a step backwards. "But wait… surely this is not the time for that. Juvia thinks we should be working together to defend this town from the Clippers."
"Clippers? Are those the name of the birds? Do you have something to do with them?!" Tonks became instantly more alert and narrowed her eyes, a fact which made Juvia curse internally - now she really found her suspicious.
But before the situation could get any uglier they were very promptly reminded of the situation at hand. All throughout their exchange the sounds of cawing and flashes of light from other streets signified the battle was still going on and a harsh squawking drew the attention of both the women to where three Clippers were rounding a corner in pursuit a donkey, which was braying madly as it pounded down the street to try and get away from them. Tonks faltered slightly but she vaguely remembered that Brockenhurst was well known for having no fences letting animals wander through its streets.
But Juvia leapt straight into motion and hurtled down the street to help the poor donkey out. "HEY!" Tonks yelled after her and automatically threw a Stunning spell at her, but Juvia's body was already liquefying and although the spell hit her dead on it just past straight through her and hit a wall behind her instead. Tonks could only ogle in disbelief at this sight as Juvia blasted water from the bottom of her feet to shoot herself into the air, sailing straight at the oncoming Clippers.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" she cried, and whipped her body round in circles to become something like an airborne whirlpool that spread out, swept over the donkey's head and engulfed the three Clippers, which gurgled bubbles and flapped their wings uselessly, tumbling over and over in the currents generated by Juvia's body as she whooshed them down the street to deposit them in a sodden pile of feathers, reforming her body before them.
Despite the fact Tonks had already seen her do things like this, it made it no less gobsmacking this time. But her distraction cost her dearly, because when another Clipper suddenly descended on her from behind and seized her shoulders in its talons, she never had any warning.
"AAGH!" Tonks yelled as she was slammed down onto her front, her wand falling from her nerveless hand to clatter onto the tarmac. Even as she scrabbled to grab it though the Clipper surged back up into the air, heaving her up with it. Tonks kicked and screamed, struggling for all she was worth as her feet left the ground but the Clipper was physically stronger than her and bore her up and away.
"GET OFF OF ME YOU SORRY EXCUSE FOR PILLOW STUFFINGS!" Tonks yelled as she thrashed wildly, but the Clipper just tightened its grip and lanced down slightly with its beak. Tonks yelped as the toothy bill snapped down just a few inches from her face. This was definitely not the best of positions to be in right now. She considered using her Metamorphmagus abilities to shrink her arms a little in the hope she would slip out of the bird's grip… but looking down she realised she was already quite a way up.
Which was the better option? A long fall or a bird's beak. Either one was going to hurt! A lot!
But a shout of, "STRANGER-SAN! HOLD ON!" drew her attention back down and she balked when she saw Juvia was now rocketing up towards her, her legs morphed into a watery blast that carried her upwards like a missile.
"WAIT! WHAT ARE…!?" Tonks started but Juvia twisted her body, reformed her legs in mid-air swept her arm out in front of her with a cry of:-
"HELP ME, LISANNA-SAN! WATER SLICER!"
She deliberately made the attack weaker than it could be as she didn't want to give the Clipper any permanent injuries, but she lashed out a single long blade of water that slashed up the gap between them and cut shallow gashed into the bird's legs, just above its knees. The Clipper screeched and let go of the struggling Auror, and Tonks screamed as she suddenly found herself plummeting towards the ground, tipping over so she was falling head-first, only able to watch as the tarmac seemed to rush up towards her face.
But just as she thought the jig could be up, she was suddenly seized by the ankles and yanked back up into the air again by what felt distinctly like another set of talons. Gasping at the sudden shock she looked up, expecting to see another Clipper… but she was stunned when she saw what was carrying her had the wings, tail and feet of a large bird, but the torso and head of a young-looking girl with short, white hair.
"Sorry about that!" the girl called down to her. "Hope I didn't give you whiplash!"
"What… who…" Tonks blustered as the girl-bird flapped her wings hard to lower Tonks to the ground, settling her down on top of a car. Tonks quickly scrambled down and stared as the girl landed next to her, the bird-like parts of her body shimmering slightly before they suddenly became human.
"Are you okay?" Lisanna asked, stepping forwards with concern evident in her voice.
"How… how did you do that?" Tonks choked out.
"Lisanna-san, good catch!" Juvia hurried over before Lisanna could answer. "Juvia hopes you're okay, Stranger-san. Here's your stick." And she held out her hand, with Tonks' wand firmly nestled in her palm. Tonks quickly snatched it gratefully, but then whirled around from one girl to another, blustering and trying to come up with something to say.
"Who… are you people?" was what she finally managed. "What kind of… magic…?"
She was suddenly interrupted yet again when a voice yelled, "JUVIA! LISANNA!" and Tonks whipped around to see a young man with short black hair and no shirt come darting around the corner of a T-junction up ahead. He spun around and raised his hands up into the air, bringing them crashing down onto the road he'd just run out of and yelling, "ICE-MAKE: FLOOR!"
And Tonks watched in astonishment as suddenly the entire cross-section of the T-junction was coated in an icy carpet and she watched as two men in Auror robes went sliding right past across it, totally out of control and falling onto their backsides to slip away down the street.
Gray turned and thundered towards them, dashing right past the three of them and yelling, "COME ON!" as he went. Juvia and Lisanna immediately followed him as he ducked into a side-street nearby, and after a moment of indecision Tonks followed them, holding her wand at the ready. She didn't have a clue who these people were, or what they were doing here and protocol dictated that she should try and apprehend them all - take them in for questioning.
But… she was not sure she wanted to.
After all, the two girls had just saved her life.
So instead, she followed them into the side street, watching as Gray leaned against a dank wall, panting slightly. "It's become a total madhouse out there," he growled. "The good news is I think that most of the Clippers have stopped attacking. But suddenly while I was fighting them off, all these guys in black robes just popped out of nowhere and started firing flashing lights at the birds."
"Local mages, I guess," Lisanna nodded.
"Yeah, but when I tried to help them out, they suddenly turned on me!" Gray growled angrily. "Started firing those funny lights of theirs at me. It was a good thing I'd already seen those lights knock one of the Clippers unconscious or I might not have reacted in time."
Juvia turned her head to look at Tonks. "Juvia thinks that they must be this place's version of the Rune Knights. Some kind of magical law enforcement. Would Juvia be correct in that assumption?"
Tonks coughed as suddenly Lisanna and Gray were looking at her to. "Um… yes, I suppose. We're Aurors, from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Ministry of Magic. We came to help stop the bird attack when we received word of it but I don't think any of us were expecting to run into… anything like you."
"What do you mean, 'anything like us?'" Lisanna frowned. "We use magic, just like you."
"Believe me," Tonks snorted. "You do not use magic like us. I haven't seen you do a single thing that I can do with my magic."
"But everyone uses different kinds of magic," Lisanna looked no less bemused. "Juvia here can't turn into animals any more than I can control water."
The Water Mage in question coughed and said, "Juvia… is not so sure that Lisanna-san's words will make much sense to her. Juvia thinks Lisanna-san was right to suspect we were no longer in Fiore. This woman has never heard of it."
"Never heard of Fiore?" Gray looked up sharply. "Is that true?"
"Yes, it is," Tonks nodded firmly. "I've never heard of Fiore and I have never seen anyone do anything remotely like what you've been doing. Especially without even using a wand." She held up the piece of wood in her hand. "Virtually all magic in existence that I know of requires a wand. Yet none of you were using one. And… you all have that symbol…" she breathed, when she finally noticed the white mark on Lisanna's leg in the same place as Juvia's and the black one adorning Gray's chest.
Tonks stared at the three of them, as they stared right back, before the Auror lowered her wand slightly. "I've asked you before… but I'm going to ask you again… who are you people?"
"If you want, we'll explain everything to you, but first I want some answers of my own," Gray said as he folded his arms. "Those guys out there with the sticks and the flashy lights your friends are they? Why the heck did they attack me when I was trying to help them out?"
"Juvia wants to know that too," Juvia nodded fiercely. "Stranger-san herself threatened to try and arrest me when Juvia had done nothing wrong."
"Stranger-san?" Gray blinked.
"Look, they probably panicked, okay?" Tonks ran a hand through her hair. "These are strange times and when I saw what you were doing with that water magic of yours, the fact you were helping against the birds didn't really register to me next to the sheer… mind-blowing nature of what you were doing! Honestly I'm still half convinced that I've imagined this whole thing and haven't seen some girl turn herself to water and back or some guy freeze an entire road solid just by touching it or any of that."
"That doesn't really explain why we were attacked," Gray said impatiently.
"Like I said, these are strange times. And when I first saw you guys the first thing that you're wielding a powerful and totally unknown type of magic and that make you all potentially dangerous individuals. And we're Aurors. It's our duty to make sure that the general public is kept safe from people wielding dangerous magic. Standard procedure would dictate that any individual found wielding magic not recognised and approved by the Ministry should be taken in for questioning. Speaking of which where the hell did you learn to do all that?"
"I learned it because my sister gained Take Over magic by accident," Lisanna replied.
"I learned my Ice Magic from a great Mage who… well, that's not important," Gray muttered, a little bitterly.
"Juvia has always had an aptitude for Water Magic," Juvia replied. "She could use it before she could talk. A bit."
All these explanations just flew over Tonks' head for the most part, and she just stared at the three of them, slightly bemused.
"The Ministry you mentioned…" Gray suddenly interjected. "Is that another word for the Magic Council?"
"Magic Council? You mean the Wizard's Council? There hasn't been a Wizard's Council for over three-hundred years!"
"What!?" all three of them yelled at the same time, making Tonks jump backwards slightly, before Lisanna asked, "What year is it?"
"What year…? It's 1995 of course - surely you ought to know that at least…" Tonks trailed off when she saw the looks on the faces of these strangers only get more bewildered.
"1995?" Juvia asked. "But… last Juvia checked it was the Year X684."
"And the day of the S-Class trials took place on December 16th," Lisanna agreed. "What's the date now?"
"September… 9th, I think…" Tonk murmured. "It's a Monday, if that helps."
But the other three were all staring at each other now, with expressions that didn't seem to know whether they should be horrified or just confused."
"Is it possible that… somehow… we could have travelled through time?" Juvia asked.
"I doubt it," Lisanna grimaced, looking out across the street. "The general architecture of this place doesn't look much different from parts of Fiore… but I saw some differences. Like did you see those cars out there? They were incredibly different to the ones back home. In fact, one of the biggest differences between Earthland and Edolas was its cars, and those were different from both."
"What are you saying, Lisanna?" Gray asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
"I'm saying it's entirely possible that we're not on Earthland at all. I think it's extremely possible we could be in another dimension entirely."
Lisanna's words dropped over Gray and Juvia's heads like a proverbial sledgehammer, and even Tonks reeled backwards slightly. These people surely had to be insane - they knew absolutely nothing about anything, their magic was absolutely ludicrous and they seemed to think they came from another universe.
And yet… oddly… that explanation made a whole lot more sense than anything else Tonks had been able to come up with herself.
But the sheer scale of the idea… it was mad. It had to be. There's no way it could be true.
"What's this world called?" Lisanna asked her suddenly. "What's this… this planet called?"
"Um… Earth…" Tonks said slowly.
"Just Earth? Not Earthland?"
"No, just Earth. I've always thought it was a stupid name for a planet but that's what it's called."
"Well, I suppose that might explain why that Jarvey thing told us we actually were still on Earthland. He must have assumed that we meant something more literal… like the land of Earth maybe."
"Assuming he wasn't just saying that to mess with us," Gray ran a hand over his face.
"Well… what do we do now?" Juvia fretted. "What about all our friends?"
But neither Gray nor Lisanna had any answers and Juvia knew they didn't before she even asked.
Tonks watched the three of them seem to draw closer together and her bewildered face softened slightly. Now she was seeing them in an entirely different light. They no longer looked like the tough, skilled fighters that she'd seen them being before they ducked into this alleyway. Now they all just looked like scared children, despair creeping into their faces. And she felt her heart going out to them. A large part of them still thought they were totally out of their tree but… they didn't look it.
They were just so… lost…
Now what the heck was she supposed to do?
Before she could answer that question, Juvia suddenly turned and prompted her. "What's you're name, Stranger-san?"
"My name? It's N… Tonks. Just call me Tonks."
"Tonks-san… please, can you help us?" Juvia asked imploringly. "If what Juvia and her friends believe is true and we are really in a different world to the one we grew up in, then we have nowhere to go. No home to go back to. But we do have friends that could be out there somewhere. Friends that are just as lost and confused as we are… is there anything that Tonks-san can do to help us?"
"Er…" Tonks hesitated, glancing at the others to see Lisanna looking at her almost equally pleadingly and Gray looking slightly dubious, quite clearly indicating he didn't believe she'd grant Juvia's request. "Well, look, I really should take you in for questioning."
"No chance," Gray growled slightly. "I've been to an alternate universe before, and I've seen the kind of things people in power can do when they get hold of people with magic they don't possess themselves. I'm not going anywhere where I could be poked and prodded and magically experimented on."
"Gray-sama… they might try and help us…" Juvia pointed out.
"Forget it," Gray shook his head. "I don't want anything to do with this Ministry place."
"I'm inclined to agree," Lisanna murmured. "At least for now. I want to at least find out more about this place and this Ministry first. Please Miss… can't you just let us go if nothing else?"
Tonks hesitated slightly, knowing that doing just that would violate several rules of being an Auror… but then again, she was already doing that, wasn't she? Her own cousin, Sirius Black, was wanted for horrendous crimes that he hadn't even committed and Tonks knew exactly where he was and was not turning him in. These people had committed no crimes either… and she had to agree with the shirtless man's assessment. What would happen if Ministry officials learned what this lot could do?
Tonks didn't really want to think about it. She wouldn't pretend to understand the mind's of the Ministry officials right now. What if Fudge thought they were too dangerous and ordered them incarcerated in Azkaban? What if they actually were subjected to experimentation to see if their magic could be extracted or duplicated or learned.
Oh, there was no way in heck that Tonks was going to let people who looked only a little older than the maximum Hogwarts school age go through that.
"I'm probably going to get in a lot of trouble for this," Tonks muttered slightly. "But if you want, you can all crash at mine for a while. At least until we figure out what the heck you're going to do next."
"Really?" Lisanna smiled brightly. "Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!"
"Hey, you saved me from being bird chow or a stain on the pavement - it's the least I can do," Tonks smiled.
Gray still looked suspicious but slowly nodded. "We appreciate it. But how do you plan on getting us past those others?"
"I'll take you to my home via Side-Along Apparition," Tonks supplied. "Um… do you know what that is? If you don't, its basically like a kind of magical teleportation, I think the word would be. Instant transfer from one place to another. I'll have to make two trips though - I can only take two people at a time."
"How do we know that you're actually going to take us to your house with this and not dump us in some prison somewhere?" Gray asked.
"Gray-sama…" Juvia rested her arm on his slightly. "Juvia believes we can trust Tonks-san. But also, Juvia doesn't believe we have too many other options."
"We could bust our way out and escape on our own," Gray pointed out.
"Yeah, but that might make us automatic enemies of this Ministry," Lisanna pointed out. "I think it might be best to avoid that happening if we can."
Gray grimaced but acknowledged Lisanna's advice - she'd spent two whole years on the run from the Royal Court of Edolas, after all. She knew as well as anyone that that was no way to live if you could avoid it.
"Alright then, let's do it," he nodded. "Who's going first?"
"Juvia will do," the rain woman volunteered as she stepped closer to Tonks. "How does this work?"
"Just hold my arm tightly," Tonks said as she held it up. "And be warned, most people throw up the first time they Apparate. It really doesn't feel pleasant."
"Juvia has probably experienced worse," Juvia said as she took Tonks' arm, and as Tonks scanned the bandages that were covering Juvia's limbs she realised she might just be telling the truth.
"Wait!" Lisanna suddenly gasped before they could do anything. "What about the Clippers? What's going to become of them?"
"The birds?" Tonks blinked. "They'll be rounded up and held by the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures as they try and work out what they are."
"They won't hurt them will they? There's nothing magical about Clippers - they're just ordinary birds from our world that landed here by mistake like we did."
Tonks floundered, having no answer to that question. She didn't know what the Department would do under circumstances like that. "Well, I'm… sure they'll be fine. If they're really not magical I imagine they'd just try and find an island for them somewhere to set them free on."
"But what if they don't?" Lisanna asked.
"Lisanna…" Gray placed a hand on her shoulder. "I know how much you love animals but we really can't worry too much about those birds right now. We've got bigger problems, like worrying about ourselves and the rest of our friends. There's nothing that we can do about them anyway so the best thing we can do now is get the heck out of here and hope these people have a shred of decency about them."
Lisanna bit her lip, but after a moment's deliberation, she sighed and lowered her head. "I guess you're right. I don't like it, but you're right."
"Alright, let's go," Tonks nodded, and suddenly twisted around and Disapparated with a popping noise.
Juvia gasped as her body felt like it was being condensed and forced through some kind of tube, the whole world around her and Tonks spinning and blurring into a swirling mess until suddenly the two of them were standing in what looked like a living room. And a rather messy one, with a few clothes and empty packets of sweets and stuff littered all over the place.
"You alright?" Tonks asked as Juvia let go.
"Yes, Juvia is fine," Juvia nodded, stepping away, and indeed she was fine. "Juvia's body is water. Water flows."
Tonks raised a brow, but she conceded that Apparition must be nothing compared to morphing your entire body into liquid and swirling around in the air the way that she'd seen this woman do. "Right. Well, be right back," she said, as she vanished again with another pop, leaving Juvia alone to take in her surroundings.
"This looks cosy… Juvia supposes," she murmured as she picked her way over a couple of shirts strewn haphazardly on the floor and peered through a doorway into a nearby kitchen, which all seemed to be normal enough as far as she was concerned, and through another door which seemed to lead to some kind of bathroom. But then when she walked to a window and looked through it, she gasped in amazement.
They appeared to be quite a long way off the ground and immediately stretched out before her was an extremely wide river that curved away around the bend, with several long bridges spanning its width, all extremely different in design. On both sides of the river she could see huge, towering buildings, much large than most of the ones she'd seen in Fiore, many with equally spaced windows running horizontally and vertically across their entire length and no building seemingly the same height as another.
And wow… that had to be the biggest ferris wheel that Juvia had ever seen in her entire life.
Juvia's attention was so riveted that she didn't notice that Tonks had appeared behind her again with Gray and Lisanna in tow, right up until the point where Gray choked and fell to the floor with a crash, gasping for breath.
"Gray-sama! Are you okay?" Juvia immediately rushed to him.
"Looks like the effect of Apparition had more of an effect on him than you," Tonks chuckled, glancing up at Lisanna who had stumbled and looked extremely shaken, but still seemed to be better than Gray, perhaps since her body was used to being changed too. "It usually takes a bit of getting used to. If you're going to throw up, please do it in the bathroom, not…"
A split second later Gray threw up. Juvia reacted immediately and summoned a ball of water that caught the foul projectile and sent it flowing across the room and straight into the toilet before it could make a mess of Tonks' floor.
"Thanks," Gray croaked. "Ugh, that was rough."
Juvia practically levitated with giddiness at being thanked by Gray but she quickly shook her head and said, "Juvia can tell. But as least Gray-sama is safe now."
"Can only hope so," Gray pushed himself to his feet, even as Tonks ogled slightly at what Juvia had just done.
"That's a neat trick," she admitted. "I'll have to remember that one if I can."
"So… where are we?" Lisanna asked, sitting a little heavily down on the messy sofa.
"My apartment building in the city of London. It's the capital city of England in case you didn't know that… and I'm guessing you don't by the looks of your faces. Jeez, you guys are going to be hard to talk to, I reckon. Anyway, it's not that big and I've been thinking of moving but for now its home."
"Whatever the case, thank you for helping us out," Gray replied stiffly. "It is appreciated."
"You realise that if my boss found out that I'd been harbouring you three without taking you in, I'd be in all kinds of trouble, right?" Tonks asked.
"That just makes us appreciate it all the more," Lisanna smiled. "Thank you."
Tonks smiled lightly. "No problem… but I really need to get back now before they notice I'm not out in the field where I should be. I'll be back as soon as I can, but until then please don't go anywhere. But make yourself comfortable - there's milk and other stuff in the kitchen and yeah… hang tight and try not to break anything." She turned around instantly tripped on one of her own stray shirts and came crashing down to the floor, knocking a vase of flowers off a table as she went, which Lisanna was thankfully able to catch with the tips of her fingers before it could smash.
"I was about to say we'll try our hardest but it looks like you might have as much of a penchant for breaking things as we do," Gray smirked.
"Ha. Ha. Ha…" Tonks rolled her eyes as she scrambled up, dusted off her ropes and vanished with another popping noise, leaving the three Fairy Tail mages alone in the apartment.
"Looks like at least something's going right," Lisanna sighed as she placed the flowers back on the table. "We were probably lucky to meet her. She seems like a very nice person."
"We can only hope that's true and that this isn't some… elaborate and overly complicated trap," Gray muttered.
"Juvia doesn't think it is. Tonks-san seems to be genuine to me," Juvia threw in. "But still… Juvia truly does think we may have landed in an alternate world now. If Gray-sama and Lisanna-san look outside, they may see what I mean."
The two of them promptly did that, leaving the three of them staring out in amazement at the view - the London Eye seeming to stare at them a little even though it wasn't facing them. They could see all the cars and the boats down below, none of which looked anything like what they knew from back home and one of the bridges seemed to hold a railway line, giving them quite a clear view of a running train that was also unfamiliar in design.
While many of the things inside the apartment seemed normal, just about everything outside looked so… alien.
"If… if we are in an alternate universe… what are we supposed to do now?" Juvia asked. "We can't hide away in Tonks-san's house forever."
"Damned if I know," Gray huffed as he pulled away from the window and Lisanna trudged heavily back to the sofa and sunk down into the cushions. "Least when I was in Edolas I got given a mission to complete from start to end. I got pulled back into Earthland before I could even start worrying too much about anything in the long term."
Juvia nodded and turned to Lisanna, wondering if she was going to contribute anything, but she faltered when she saw Lisanna sitting with hands together, her face tight and with a tear beginning to roll its way down her cheek.
"Lisanna-san…" she gasped and hurried over, drawing Gray's attention. "Are you okay?"
"No…" Lisanna shook her head, sniffing as she wiped the tear away only for another to trail down the other side of her face. "None of us are. Not right now. But… it's just… not fair. How can this have happened to me again? And so quickly too?"
She placed her face in her hands and began to sob openly, her body wracking with her anguish. Gray stiffened visibly and began searching for something to say to try that didn't sound insensitive but Juvia beat him to it, placing a hand on Lisanna's shoulder.
"Don't cry, Lisanna-san. Please. You might start making Juvia cry too."
"Oh, I'm sorry…" Lisanna hiccuped, looking up slightly with her face already extremely tear-stained. "It's just… after two years stranded in Edolas, two whole years with a totally different Fairy Tail, who all thought that I was a different Lisanna because I didn't have the heart to tell them I wasn't the one they knew, I finally got back to where I belonged. I finally reunited with my
real brother and my real sister and all the friends that I'd grown up with. I was home. But I didn't even get to stay there for three weeks before suddenly I've been whisked away again. Separated from Mira-nee and Elf-niichan again. It's not… it's not fair…!" she choked, her voice strangled, as she sat there and cried her eyes out.
"Um… well… you never know…" Gray grasped for his words. "Maybe Elfman and Mira are somewhere in this universe too."
"Maybe, but that's another thing," Lisanna sniffled. "I both want and don't want them to be in this universe. I want them to be here so that I can find them and stay with them, but I don't want them to be here because this isn't where they belong either. I want them to be back home at Fairy Tail where we all should be. But at the same time I want them to be here with me so bad… is that selfish of me?"
"Not at all, Lisanna-san," Juvia assured her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders slightly. "There's nothing selfish about wanting to be with your family. Juvia… never really had a family until she joined Fairy Tail but in a way that means Juvia knows all the more how precious family is. Juvia wishes that Gajeel-kun was here, or Erza-san or Cana-san or any of the others. But Juvia knows that if Elfman-san and Mira-san are in this world then we will find them, no matter how hard we have to look, right, Gray-sama?"
"Absolutely!" Gray nodded, grateful that Juvia was taking charge of comforting Lisanna because he really didn't have a clue how to go about it. "We wouldn't be Fairy Tail if we didn't, would we?"
"I guess not," Lisanna-san sniffed. "But where are they? Where are we? Where are everyone?"
Juvia went a step further and pulled Lisanna into a consoling hug, which the younger sister gratefully returned, burying her face in Juvia's shoulder.
"Juvia doesn't know. But at least Lisanna-san is with people that she does know this time, right? She is not alone this time. Juvia and Gray-sama will be there with her no matter what comes now, and we can deal with all this together."
Lisanna smiled slightly through her tears and murmured, "Thanks Juvia. I'm… I'm glad you're here, even though I haven't known you - this you, anyway - for very long. You too, Gray."
"No worries," Gray chuckled. "You're right - this isn't fair. To any of us, but especially to you. But Juvia's right too. We'll take on the entire world if we have to until we find them all. It doesn't matter which world it is - that's what Fairy Tail would do. Right?"
"Right!" Lisanna nodded, looking up from Juvia's shoulder. "Thank you. Both of you." And it was right at this point that her stomach growled, and she blinked, giggling slightly sheepishly despite the fact she was still crying slightly.
"Well, I guess that answers the question as to what we do next," Gray remarked, striding into the kitchen. "Let's see what this woman has lying around."
It took some time before Tonks was finally able to get off from work. She'd been right when she'd guessed all of the Clippers would be rounded up and taken in to the Ministry of Magic, though with so many unconscious birds they had had to request permission to set up several Portkeys to transport them all. And of course the Obliviation began shortly afterwards - an enormous number of Muggles had seen not only their own magic, but the strange magic of the three Fairy Tail members, who had been seen by many of the other Aurors too.
Which meant this was likely to be a long stakeout as they wiped all the memories they could, making the people think that there had been a stampede of the cows they let wander through their streets which had caused all the damage and injuries. And it wasn't made easier by the fact a very large number of them had called the police.
Scrimgeour himself had seen Lisanna and Gray both doing a bit of fighting against the birds, and he was adamant that they be found and brought in. He and Tonks had both had a similar thought - could these people be somehow connected to the events in Portree yesterday, with that man they'd seen on the CCTV footage destroying the bank. But of course none of the Aurors found them and Tonks had to put on a show of looking for them for a while even though she knew they were not there.
But although Scrimgeour insisted on staying at the scene until this whole mess was sorted, he did permit Tonks to head home earlier than the others, since she had been on duty all the previous night as well, and could do with some rest. Tonks gratefully excused herself and Apparated back to her apartment, though rest was the last thing on her mind. She intended to start what might be the most interesting conversation of her life.
But when she arrived back in her living room, the first thing she saw was Lisanna and Juvia lying back on the sofa, arms around each other slightly and their chests rising and falling smoothly in their sleep.
It was right at that moment that Tonks was one-hundred percent sure she'd made the right decision not to bring these guys into the Ministry. The two of them looked so peaceful, Lisanna in particular clinging to Juvia as if for comfort and Tonks could see she'd been crying. Whatever the heck was going on with this lot, the last thing they needed was to be treated like interesting specimens or monsters.
"Back, I see," Gray noted from in the chair he was sitting on, swigging a glass of pumpkin juice that Tonks had stored in the fridge. "That way you appear out of nowhere's a bit disconcerting."
Tonks' eyes widened slightly when she saw what Gray was wearing… or rather what he was not wearing. "Er… I know I said to make yourself comfortable but… that might be pushing it a bit."
"What are you… YYAGH!" Gray yelled as he looked down at himself and realised that he'd somehow taken off his trousers without realising it, meaning he was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. He immediately scrambled to grab them from where they were lying on the floor next to him, leaving Tonks blinking in surprise.
"Did you actually not notice that you'd taken those off?" she blinked.
"It happens all the time, okay!?" Gray gritted his teeth, his face reddening as he re-dressed himself.
"Er… right…?" Tonks faltered before she grinned slightly and said, "Well, I have to say the sight wasn't entirely unwelcome. Those are some great abs you've…" but before she could finish she practically felt the malevolence behind her and turned slowly to see Juvia, who had been awoken by Gray's yell, glaring daggers at her, her teeth grinding so hard they ought to be making the sounds of grating metal while Lisanna looked on in amusement.
Tonks got the message. No flirting with this guy - he was off limits. Eh, he was a few years younger than her anyway.
"Er… wotcha, girls," she waved a little nervously, stepping away from Gray. "Are you alright?"
"As well as can be under the circumstances, I think," Lisanna nodded. "What happened back at the town?"
"Oh, usual. They were searching for you, and they rounded up the birds like they said they would but really that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is you lot," she pulled up a chair and sat down on it heavily. "About who you are, where you come from. I wanna know everything, so come. Spill."
"Well… I'm Lisanna Strauss. This is Juvia Lockser, and Gray Fullbuster. You said your name was Tonks, right? What's your last name?"
"Er…" Tonks coughed awkwardly. "That… that is my last name."
"Oh… then what's your first name?"
"I really, really don't want to talk about it."
"Why?" Gray's brow furrowed. "It can't be that bad, can it?"
"Go on, you can tell us," Lisanna nodded. "You should be honest with us if we're going to stay under your roof for a while, right?"
"…Ugh… fine. It's Nymphadora, but if I hear you call me by it I swear I'll hex you until your noses fall off," she shuddered, her hair turning red very briefly before switching back to its usual pink. "God, I hate that name."
"What was that?" Juvia pointed at Tonks' hair, seemingly having gotten past the whole flirting with Gray thing. "Tonks-san's hair just changed colour for a moment there."
"Ah, well… that's because I'm a Metamorphmagus," Tonks grinned proudly. "That's a human who can change their appearance with a thought. It's a pretty neat trick, isn't it? But no, before you ask, I can't teach you how to do it. Metamorphmagi are born with their gifts."
"Oh, that's okay. We don't need to learn it," Lisanna smiled. "If we wanted to change our own appearance like that we'd learn to use Transformation Magic. My sister's an expert at it. She can change herself to look and sound exactly like any one of us in an instant flat."
"…Oh… really?" Tonks visibly deflated. "Damn… and there I thought maybe I could show off some unique talent I had that you guys don't. But I suppose I should have figured since I saw you turn into a half-bird and all."
"I can turn into a full bird when I want," Lisanna smiled. "And a rabbit and a fish and a cat and a mermaid and a penguin…"
"A mermaid? Really?" Juvia blinked. "Juvia didn't know that."
"Well, its not really useful for anything other than swimming and I can be a fish for that," Lisanna pointed out. "Though technically I just turn my lower half only into that of a fish for that - I don't actually have a Mermaid Soul, per se."
"Wait, wait, wait, I'm getting confused again," Tonks shook her head. "Look, how about we just start from the beginning? Tell me about this other universe of yours. And if there's anything whatsoever you have to say that sounds familiar, I'll let you know."
"Where do you even begin to start describing a whole world?" Gray groaned.
"We could do a Q and A session," Tonks snickered. "And I could begin by asking you how the hell you can take your clothes off without noticing. Speaking of which if you want to put a shirt on just pick any one of mine that strikes your fancy."
Gray immediately grabbed a red T-shirt and pulled it on before he avoided the topic and began the explanation with. "You wanted to know what this symbol means right? Well, it's the mark of Fairy Tail - the Mage's Guild we belong to."
"What's a Mage's Guild?"
"…We're going to be here a while…"
"DAMN IT!" Gajeel pounded the rocks before him with a massive club arm, shattering it and causing a miniature rockslide that pounded down into the river below him.
"Gajeel, calm down! We can figure this out," Lily gasped, Gajeel's arm around his body unconsciously tightening and pressing on his burn slightly.
"But we were getting closer - I could smell it!" Gajeel growled. "And now this?"
It had been a long journey up the river after Gajeel had finally caught hold of Wendy's scent. Particularly since they had had to make detours and stops to avoid being seen by several fishermen and people on bridges that crossed the gap on the way up. After what had happened in Portree, Gajeel was not eager to be spotted by any more locals until he knew more about this wacky place. But they had steadily been getting further and further up the river with Wendy's scent growing in Gajeel's nose.
And he could still smell her now.
But it seemed that they had reached the end of the road because they had reached a point where the river was flowing out from underground. A place where neither Gajeel nor the Exceed could go without help, which Gajeel guessed Wendy had had, because as well as her he'd been smelling several other bizarre scents, like a mix between humans, fish and seaweed. Not just the smell of the river though - he could tell that all those smells had come from the same source, whatever that source was.
"What do we do now?" Charla asked. "We need to go down there and find Wendy."
"Well unless Exceed can breathe underwater I don't think we'll be getting through there," Gajeel muttered. "I'm guessing that water runs underground for quite a long way."
"Then how do we follow Wendy now? Are you sure she didn't get out here?"
"Positive. We'd see signs of her clambering out the bank if she had but there ain't none. No, she went down there… Looks like I'll have to resort to tearing up the ground to expose the river or something. Damn, that's going to take time."
"There is another solution," Mavis giggled slightly as she landed on his shoulders weightlessly, leaning over him to look him in the face upside down, her long blonde hair tumbling down like a shower curtain below her. "I think you're forgetting I'm here, Gajeel. I don't have to breathe underwater."
"That's right!" Happy cheered. "Master Mavis can go down there and have a look."
"Indeed. I can find where the river comes out from underground, it if does at all, and then I'll come back and lead you to it. If you can still smell Wendy when we get to the other side, we'll know she's not down there. Assuming I don't find her myself of course."
Gajeel shook his head, grinning almost savagely. "Who'd have thought that ghosts could be so helpful? Better hurry though, First. The current is still taking Wendy's scent away. If we take too long I could lose it."
"Gotcha," Mavis flipped over and dove into the river, creating a splash which few of the others were really expecting from a ghost. But as Mavis had said, ghosts could be rather more solid than you might think. And Mavis was certainly feeling the cold of the river as she was dunked in it. But the current itself had no effect on her so she easily swum up it and underground.
It was pitch dark down here and Mavis couldn't see in front of her, but she could sense her surroundings and thanked her lucky stars that the river seemed to be rather straight and didn't have any tributaries flowing into it down here. It was all just one river, which meant that Wendy could have only gone in one direction - the one that Mavis herself was going now.
It took maybe fifteen minutes for her, going steadily, until she saw light and she burst up and out into the sunshine once more. And that was when Mavis saw it - the castle shining slightly in the light of the late afternoon sun, its tall impossible spires reaching up to brush the sky, bordered by a massive lake and a dark tangled forest.
Mavis gasped in admiration. "Wow… I should have something like that built on Tenroujima… but surely there must be a ninety-eight percent chance that Wendy went there."
She quickly darted back across the landscape, following the path of the river above the ground as she had memorised its course while going through it and shortly she was back in front of Gajeel and the Exceeds, telling them quickly about what she'd found.
"A castle? That must be it! Surely Wendy must be there!" Charla's eyes were shining with hope. "She must be!"
"Can't be sure of that yet," Gajeel reminded her. "But seems like a damn good spot to me. Geehee! Let's get going, Blue Cat. We've got a little girl to find!"
"Aye sir!" Happy called as he spurred them forwards with a flap of his wings, Charla flying ahead as Mavis led the way - the entire group now grinning as it seemed they were nearing the end of their chase.
"There it is!" Mavis pointed when the castle came into sight. "Dead ahead."
"That's got to be the place!" Charla whooshed past her, rushing ahead towards the castle. "I'm coming Wendy! I'm on my way!"
"White cat, wait up!" Gajeel bellowed as Happy shot forwards to try and keep up with her. "We don't know who lives there yet!"
"That doesn't matter! Wendy might be there! That's all the reason we need to go in."
"Yeah, but we should still be prepared to GWAH!" Gajeel and Happy both suddenly yelled at the same time as Gajeel seemed to crash right into what appeared to be a totally invisible wall of some kind, his body flattened against thin air as Happy tried to keep flying, only for Gajeel to not budge an inch further forward.
"Hey! What are you guys playing at!?" Charla cried. "This is no time for games!"
"I don't play games," Gajeel snorted, peeling is face backwards and slamming his fist forwards, only for it to stop suddenly at the same point his body reached. There was no impact - no sound that indicated he'd touched anything. He just seemed to stop here as if his body physically couldn't go any further.
"What's… going on?" Happy yelled as he tried to haul Gajeel forwards to no effect whatsoever. The blue cat flapped backwards slightly to draw Gajeel away and then zoomed forwards again, only for Gajeel to suddenly stop at the same point as if he was being repelled by a giant magnet and couldn't get a single step further.
"Oi, stop that!" Gajeel grunted as he felt his face flatten against something he couldn't see.
"It looks like the castle has some kind of magical defences," Mavis noted as she hovered through whatever it was that was blocking Gajeel's way.
"Runes, maybe?" Charla asked.
"Don't feel like runes to me," Gajeel muttered as he pushed himself back. "Runes felt solid. This just feels like the air itself is trying stopping me from going through."
"No but it may be the same kind of principle," Mavis pointed out. "Some kind of magical barrier that's preventing humans from entering the premises without being invited. I'm guess they don't have a defence against ghosts and flying cats or the rest of us might not be able to get through either."
"Put me down, Blue Cat," Gajeel grunted, and Happy obeyed, lowering him towards the floor as the Iron Dragon Slayer glared at the towering structure before him.
"Think you can keep out Gajeel Redfox, do you?" he murmured. "Bring it on. One way or another I'm busting in there. You can count on it!"