Mercury was entirely unsure what he should be feeling.

On one hand, he was in an entirely new world – one that actively felt as though it might be killing him. It looked a lot like his own, but the feel of it was off. Nothing was familiar. At least in his world, wherever he went, he could recognize trees and birds and animals from his travels. In this one, however, he recognized nothing. Not any of the trees surrounding Marissa's house. Not any of the little animals that had scurried away from Ivan's wagon. Not any of the blissful bird calls that met him in the morning.

Absolutely nothing.

It should have been somewhat exciting. It was adventure. The unknown!

On the other hand, he was quite terrified.

Well, he had every right to be.

The guild had quite literally disappeared in front of him, and he was, at that moment, stuck in the unfamiliar world. If he was here, the odds that someone else from his world was also here were quite high, but not necessarily one-hundred-percent. Perhaps he was transported because he wasn't human. He'd thought of it dozens of times before – Mercury was not human, and magic aimed towards humans usually didn't work on him. Anxiety thrummed in his bones like a second layer of veins.

What if something had happened to Fairy Tail? What if he couldn't return? What if he was stuck here? The promise he'd made to Laxus would have all been for naught, and little Magnolia would remain as though he'd never been there in the first place.

On a third, entirely unrelated hand, he was stuck with a woman who looked like a combination of himself and his wife, and that had him emotionally reeling.

Mercury had wholly thought her to be his wife when he first woke up. They were the splitting image of each other – high, raised eyebrows, thin lips, startling brown eyes. The only difference was Marissa's hair color, the exact shade matched to his own, a blue he'd never seen exactly on anyone other than those of them who lived in the ocean.

But Marissa and his wife were both dead; there was no changing that, even if he traveled to a parallel world where they were still alive.

And Mother, he was so glad that this Marissa's mother was out when he'd woken up. If not to save himself from an equally awkward conversation as the one he'd had with this version of his daughter, then to prevent his resolve to return home from being shaken more than it already had been.

If he saw her, it was unlikely he would ever be able to return home.

He reminded himself over and over again that this woman he was traveling with was not his daughter – she was simply a stranger who had threatened with blackmail to get him to let her go with him, and in any other world, he would have said no.

Should have said no.

But it was too late to regret the decisions he'd made. They were already in Traia, and the search for information started when Mercury woke up earlier than the sunrise the next day.

(As though he'd ever really fallen asleep in the first place.)

He stared at Marissa's sleeping face for a moment longer than he should have, watching the casual rise and fall of her chest. It was a sight he was sure he would never see again. He probably shouldn't have been able to see it in the first place, because she had been less than a year old when she died, and that was several decades ago.

This world was not good for him… in more ways than one.

Mercury left her a note, scribbled on the end of the notepad in the hotel room's desk with a pen that hardly had any ink left. Hopefully, she could read it, and if she couldn't, he had told the front-desk lady to pass on a message if Marissa came down before he got back.

It wasn't like he was intentionally… flirty with the women he came across in this world. In fact, just the thought of it gave him the ick, like there was grease was in his veins rather than blood. It would be a betrayal to his own wife, dead or not, to talk with that to another woman like that, especially when the only one Mercury thought he could love would be her – another reason he was terrified to meet this world's version of her.

But it was true that they hardly had any money.

And Mercury was fairly conventionally attractive.

So he just went along with it; such occurrences weren't very common in his own world, either because ninety-percent of the time he was in the guild, and all of the women there were either taken, uninterested, or thought of him as a pest, or because he used to travel with Laxus and Fried, who were very conventionally attractive.

At the very least, he could make use of the discounts and help that were given to him, even if he felt rather guilty about it.

To go about his information gathering, Mercury's first goal was to find some sort of marketplace. He still had the coins that Ivan had given them – meeting a man with the same name as Laxus's shithead father had given him the chills – so he simply asked the front desk woman for her recommendation for local coffee shops, playing the part of a drowsy young man who had a full day of traveling ahead of him.

The one that she had suggested was quite large. It was filled with people, despite the fact that the sun hadn't even fully risen yet.

There weren't many times where Mercury had gone to a coffee shop in his life, yet even he could tell that the vibes of this one were much different than the ones in Magnolia At home, the goal was more often socialization than anything truly productive. Many people went into one as a group to sit and chat about whatever the latest gossip was. Cafes and coffee shops were particularly useful when trying to gather information; Mercury himself had only really gone into a few for such a task while on jobs with Laxus, trying to track down missing people or get a lead on where dark guilds were located.

It was rather ironic, then, that Mercury was in a coffee shop looking for information on a dark guild in another world – except said "dark guild" was actually his own.

He had mixed feelings about it. Fairy Tail in his own world was not like the typical "light guilds" in that they didn't actually particularly care about following the law – in fact, they broke it rather often, both as individuals and as a whole. People like Natsu and Gildarts were prone to property damage and people like Gray were prone to being public nuisances.

Despite that, they were arguably one of Fiore's most important guilds for two reasons: first, they essentially took most of the oddball mages (as though there was such a thing as a mage who wasn't weird) and kept them in one place. It wasn't a "controllable" place, but it was a place that the Magic Council could somewhat keep an eye on.

The second reason was that they somehow managed to get involved in almost every single national event, and came out defeating whoever had caused it.

In this world, however, Fairy Tail was likely the opposite. Though Mercury doubted that they'd actually done anything wrong – as usual, the people in charge of this world were simply labeling anything inconvenient to them as "evil" – it was obvious from what he heard in the cafe that they weren't exactly as unified as the Fairy Tail in Magnolia was. It seemed that this Fairy Tail stayed together because they had the same goal, rather than staying together because they saw each other as family.

And that goal, of course, was using magic despite it being outlawed.

The only rumor of importance that Mercury heard was that Erza Knightwalker had come through his city two days ago and had yet to return.

He had absolutely no doubt that she had been tracking down Fairy Tail. Her epithet was, of course, the "Fairy Hunter," despite how much his Erza loved the guild (perhaps her role in this world was representative of that fact, because this world appeared to be the opposite of his own). That meant that Fairy Tail was either located in or headed to the west.

But… Mercury wasn't sure that was a lead he could follow.

For one, he had no idea who – if anyone – had come to this world with him. He just had a gut feeling that meeting with the Fairy Tail of this world would do him some good, even if his own counterpart hadn't been associated with them. Maybe there were some traits that were shared between counterparts. If Master Makarov was here, it was possible he was still as wise as he was in Mercury's Fairy Tail, and maybe he would know something to get back.

If that was a dead end, Mercury had no idea what to do.

It would probably become a question of why he had even been brought here in the first place, and to answer that, he would need to figure out how he had been transported to a parallel world.

And that would likely not be a very easy question to answer.

He was more likely to come up with an answer if he was able to talk to someone who had come to this world with him, which meant finding those people. There wasn't really anyone in the guild that was very close to himself physiologically.

Actually, wait, had they even noticed he was gone?

Surely they would have – he was in the guild in the first place, and had been able to take a tumble down the stairs. They thought Mercury was weird, but probably would take notice of him disappearing mid-step. Two days or so had already passed in this world. They wouldn't just not notice.

… Right?

That was assuming that the sight of them "fading away" was actually just Mercury fading, though. Who knew what had happened in the hall?

In all likelihood, Mercury wouldn't be able to rely on anyone who had been in the guild hall at the time. That left those who were outside – Mira and Elfman, perhaps, though they weren't in the best spirits, nor would they be able to notice anything amiss immediately. Mystogan was gone too, but, again, no one knew where he was or when he would be returning. A couple of other people were out on jobs. They weren't really anyone that Mercury had interacted with often enough, though.

Well, shit.

He would have to rely on someone who had also been transported here, then. Which, of course, left him at the same spot he'd started at – whether he should go search for this world's Fairy Tail, or look for any signs of uncharacteristic chaos and destruction.

In an incredible stroke of luck, someone chose that very moment to walk into the coffee shop.

Really, Mercury's luck was shocking. Perhaps whatever god of luck that he had offended while young had finally forgiven him, or maybe it was the fact that there probably wasn't a Mother of this world that had any sort of grasp on him. Mercury, however, was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth…

Because the person who walked through the door was absolutely Lucy Heartfilia.

Or, well, it was a person who looked shockingly similar to the Lucy he knew; her hair, while the same color, was much shorter, barely reaching the back of her neck. Her style of dress was much different than usual, too – her blue and white clothes had been exchanged for a black… leotard, if you could even call it that. Really, the only thing it was covering was her hips, sides, and shoulders; other than that, the front was left open, revealing her bra underneath.

It was entirely un-Lucy-like. Her Edolas counterpart, Mercury decided.

She seemed to be tired, because she immediately asked for whatever their strongest beverage was (as though she was asking for alcohol), then requested an additional three shots added to it.

The baristas were all absolutely terrified of the woman, immediately pushing her drink request to the very front of the line. Even the other customers didn't protest as their own orders were hastily pushed to the side. They were so aggravated and nervous by the blonde's aggressive foot-tapping that several of them abandoned the line entirely, leaving several cups along the counter.

Definitely Edolas-Lucy.

Edolas-Lucy took her drink and stomped out as soon as it was ready, and Mercury, of course, followed her.

The woman clearly noticed him tailing her immediately. It wasn't like he was trying to be very sneaky; he didn't want her to think he was up to something more nefarious than he really was – all Mercury wanted was a little information.

His attempts clearly failed. Edolas-Lucy immediately ducked into an alleyway as soon as one appeared, and the water mage had no choice but to follow her.

Mercury was met with a roundhouse kick to the gut and the handle of a whip placed right into his jugular. He swallowed tightly.

Edolas-Lucy pressed him against the brick wall of the alleyway with more force than he'd ever seen come out of his own version of the woman, her face about an inch away from his own. Her glare was intense. It probably would have put shivers into any of their guildmember's faces.

Fortunately for Mercury, Laxus's face was a lot worse. He was used to it.

"Who the hell are you, and why are you following me?" Edolas-Lucy snapped. Despite him not doing anything, she pressed further down on the whip cutting into his throat.

Needless to say, it was incredibly uncomfortable.

Mercury raised his hands above his head as a show of surrender. It didn't make Lucy back off, but at least she didn't press any harder than she already was.

(Fortunately, she was pressing at the top of his throat, about half an inch above his gills; he could still breathe without much added difficulty, though that didn't mean he was okay with her pressing down more.)

"My name is Mercury," he introduced. It didn't do anything – Lucy's face remained stony – though he hadn't expected it to.

Her scowl did get a little deeper though.

Mercury knew he had to be careful. One wrong word, and this Lucy in front of him would likely run off – if she didn't try to maim him first – and he wouldn't be able to catch up, not without leaving Marissa behind.

But even the stupidest of his guildmates would seek out their own guild if they found themselves in an unfamiliar world, just as he had planned to; if Lucy had met anyone, it wouldn't hurt to ask. At worst, she'd think him insane, and at best… maybe there were people quicker on the uptake than Mercury, people who hadn't been knocked out for half a day after arriving.

"Sorry, I'll make this quick. I'm from Magnolia, if that rings a bell to you."

Mercury had searched both the map that the woman in the previous town had lent him and one that Ivan had in his cart, and neither contained the name. Nobody in this world would know the name Magnolia unless, of course, they were from it.

Thankfully, Edolas-Lucy's eyes softened a fraction, full of recognition. "That's…" She mumbled, then took the whip off Mercury's throat before taking a step back. "Are you with those freaks?"

The water mage could have cried. So, someone from his world was here – and had already met with this world's Fairy Tail.

"Not sure which freaks you're referring to, but likely yes," he said, rubbing out his side where her kick had been located. It hurt. This Lucy had a lot more strength than his own did, but that made sense; a world without magic meant that this young lady couldn't rely on celestial spirit magic, and would only be able to rely on her own body.

Lucy sighed. "I should have known there'd be more of you. Listen, I've split from them already, got my own things to do. Not sure where they're headed, and I don't care."

Mercury cocked an eyebrow. There was no way she wouldn't know where they were going – she had already practically admitted that she had traveled with them, which meant that she at least had some reason for helping them. And Mercury was absolutely certain that, regardless of which version she was, Lucy was kind.

"God, I hate you already. Fine, they went towards the Royal Capital. Happy?"

Okay, maybe not that kind.

"Yes, I'm happy. Thank you," Mercury said, taking a step back towards the mouth of the alleyway. Then, he added, "Who was it?"

Lucy looked away, staring at the ground. "Uh, some kid with pink hair, some kid with blue hair, and me."

She was lying. Even a parallel version of Lucy had the same tells as the original, but Mercury didn't push it – 'some kid with pink hair,' was obviously Natsu, and 'some kid with blue hair' was Juvia, Levy, or Wendy, and Mercury was betting on Wendy if only because she was a dragon slayer, and there was always something weird going on with the ones who used that magic.

Perhaps Gajeel was here, too.

"I think you should probably hurry… I'm not sure exactly what was wrong, but there was something in the capital that they needed to do. Something about a lacrima. They should already be over there, 'cuz I had my friend take them the rest of the way."

It didn't take a genius to know that her "friend" was probably this world's Natsu.

"Okay. Thank you for the information. If something doesn't go as planned, I'll find a way to return the favor," Mercury said, turning to leave the alley without a glance back.

Needless to say, he sprinted back to the hotel room.

Lacrima were, in both worlds, a crystallized form of magic. Mercury had learned this from Marissa. In Edolas, magic wasn't stored in people, but in objects, and the actual source that powered these objects were the lacrima. Larima were incredibly fragile to the point that even attempting to remove them from whatever item they had built up in usually caused them to break. That was one of the reasons why they were so special in Edolas; there were hardly any people who could make items with access to magic, and even before that, there was so little magic in the atmosphere that any magic items drained it faster than it could recover.

Then, where had the large lacrima in the Royal Capital come from?

Mercury had not paid any attention to it when Ivan had mentioned it on their short little cart ride. Why should he? For all he knew, it was normal in this world; if it had no magic, surely the magic that was present in his own world had to manifest in its own way here.

But he was wrong.

It wasn't normal.

And because the lacrima's arrival so coincidentally happened right around the time that he had arrived in Edolas, Mercury had a sneaking suspicion that the two events were connected in some way.

He would love to be wrong, of course. Nothing good ever came of coincidences, especially when Fairy Tail was involved.

Natsu, Lucy, and whoever their third party member was were heading towards the capital though, and that meant that there was something there. If it turned out to be nothing, that would be fine, because at least then he'd have met up with people from Fairy Tail. Natsu would be a pain, though Lucy was at least smart enough to get a grasp on what was going on.

Mercury just hoped that they could get out of this without causing another national incident – an Edolas national incident.

(And that he could get through all of this without passing out.)

After quickly discussing it, Mercury and Marissa decided it would be the best course of action to spend some of their very limited funds on train tickets to the capital. The train ride would be only a couple of hours, but if they had tried to make the journey on foot, it would have likely taken multiple days, especially if they ran into any sort of trouble.

It was only after the train had already left that the water mage realized the likelihood of Marissa making it back in time for the one-week deadline was slim.

He groaned.

"Why didn't you remind me?" Mercury's mind had been caught on figuring out what was going on with the Fairy Tail members in Edolas that he'd forgotten his original stipulations for her joining him in the first place. As it was, the trip to the capital was going to take five hours. After accounting for any time they would spend in the Royal Capital, as well as the night they'd spent in Traia, it was going to be close to four or five days before he was free in the slightest to make sure she got back – Marissa's mom would kill him if he didn't – let alone free himself up enough to give her a farewell.

Marissa merely shrugged.

It was clear that this was her intent from the start – to go with Mercury until the end, whether he wanted her to or not.

While Mercury understood her reasoning, he couldn't condone her coming along with him. From what he could gather from her house, it was unlikely that she had been allowed to leave frequently. It was incredibly ironic; their situations were so similar, yet so different. Marissa had two parents (or, at least, had had two parents) who clearly loved her a lot, while he had a "parent" who "loved" him. Both of them were kept confined to the small area of their homes, not allowed to leave without permission.

Mercury had to wonder what exactly his counterpart had been so worried about that he kept his own daughter practically confined to said home. He might have been able to understand it in his own world because that had been his exact worry for so long – how would he protect the people around him from the threat of his brothers, should they decide to repeat the past — except for the fact that it didn't feel like Mother could have existed at all in this place. There was no magic to feed her, and she was undoubtedly a being of magic. It was also unlikely that the brothers that Mercury feared were even in this world, or, at least, in any sort of position to want to track him down.

But what was done was done. Marissa was a naive young girl because of his counterpart's actions, but she was curious about what she had missed… which was what was stopping Mercury from pulling the emergency brake and dragging her off the train before it got too far away.

Then again, by Merc's estimates, the woman was well over forty years old, despite appearing around his own age. Apparently, that was a trait that was passed down quite strongly, given that it was the only one that she had obviously inherited from her father. Being significantly older than the entirety of Mercury's Fairy Tail meant that she had every right to make her own decisions about what she wanted to do, and he wasn't really in any place to stop her.

The only thing from openly letting her travel with him was that her mother was still alive, and was sure to return soon.

Mercury was terrified of that woman, more so than he was terrified of being in a completely foreign world. She alone had the power to entirely unravel him — even if she wasn't the same woman that he had pledged his life to.

His thoughts on the matter were too complex to be untangled by himself, but the only person there to listen was Marissa.

Merc sighed heavily. He was probably better off just letting the girl come with him, because she was probably going to follow him regardless. At least that way he could somewhat account for her actions.

"Keep in mind," he said, sitting across from the woman in a cramped train car, "that there's a non-zero chance that whatever brought us here won't be so willing to let us go back."

Whether that was someone in the kingdom, as Mercury expected, or some other force.

Marissa nodded. She looked way too excited at the very prospect.

"Don't worry! I can take down even elephant leopards no problem," she exclaimed, garnering several curious looks from the people sitting nearby.

Mercury had no idea what the hell those were, so the statement hardly held any meaning to him. He settled back into the booth seat and tried his best to relax for the remainder of the train ride.

(It didn't work.)

Mercury had never been to Fiore's capital, Crocus. Even if he reasonably could these days, why would he? He gave very few shits about things like architecture and history, and even fewer about Fiore itself. Fiore's capital was nothing more than another city among the many, many cities that made up the country.

But… it wasn't exactly that.

If Fiore's capital was anything like Edolas's capital… Mercury might have been the slightest bit interested in visiting one of these days.

It was massive; easily the biggest gathering of buildings he'd ever seen, though that was an obvious feature of the country's capital. Everyone wanted to live there, apparently. When the train had started to pull into the station, Mercury fought to keep his eyes off the skyline because he didn't want to seem like a country bumpkin, but he found it incredibly difficult. Even this world's natives were drawn into the sight – a line of buildings that were taller than the sky itself, a massive wall to encase the whole city.

Yeah. The Royal Capital was beautiful.

Even more pretty to look at were the myriad of islands that lay against the horizon, floating off in the distance. It was a technical wonder. Mercury couldn't even fathom how they were floating in the air so assuredly with nothing but a large chain bolting them down to the main island that he was currently on. If not for the chain, would they fly away? Would they remain in place? Would they get higher?

Mercury was curious in a way that he had not been curious in a long time. Perhaps that was the appeal of a new world – new worldly laws that seemed to contradict the ones that he was familiar with.

Still, he forced his eyes away as soon as he and Marissa left the train station. There were things to do – things to look for.

It was immediately made difficult by a guard at the station's exit. A random check, entirely unlucky, but neither Marissa nor Mercury had a passport, or any sort of identification at all, really.

"I'll have to take you two down to the station, sir," the guard said as he stepped forward. "They'll help you get through all the paperwork. It'll be a hassle, but you'll be free to go after that."

Absolutely fucking not. Not when he was already in the capital, and there was already the distinct feeling of something wrong.

"Are you sure you can't look the other way, just this once? My sister and I have an appointment that we're already running late to, and we can't afford to reschedule."

"I'm sorry, sir, but there's been a lot of dark guild activity lately, and I would hate for you to get caught up in it because you forgot your ID."

Damn it. Of course the Fairy Tail of this world was causing him issues, too; they were absolutely the same guild as his own.

And then, fortunately, this world's Fairy Tail – or perhaps even his own, though the thought was harrowing – forced him to eat his own words. There was an explosion somewhere off in the distance, a lot of yelling within the station, and someone shouted that there were terrorists in the capital. In the ensuing chaos, Marissa and Mercury managed to slip away from the guard.

There was absolutely no way that Fairy Tail was being labeled as terrorists here. It was just too funny, too apt – they'd been called the same back home, though, usually in regards to small-time destruction, like when Natsu had destroyed whatever cathedral in whatever small town back when Lucy first joined the guild.

Mercury couldn't remember, and didn't care to. He was too busy running from the train station to the source of the explosion to think about it.

The Royal Capital… was dirty. Confusing. Not in the same way that, say, Magnolia was, with sheltered ghettos increasingly more prevalent the further you went from the guild hall, but in a loud sort of way. It was rowdy.

And, more importantly, it was loud. At least, to Mercury it was.

For someone who hadn't come in contact with really any external magic power in the last two days, when his ears filled with the crack of ethernano in the air courtesy of his unique body structure, it was like a gun had been fired directly into his ear. He stumbled. Then he heard another, and another, and he had to force his feet to keep moving.

For a place with no magic, it was rather startling.

Each of the sounds, though, were muted, like they were echoing on glass. He felt similar when he'd stepped on the train – things were being powered by magic, but it wasn't exactly magic?

Lacrima, he decided. It had to be. He was sure of it, even though he hardly had enough experience with them to be certain; in his own world, they were usually covered up quite assuredly by the "sound" of the ambient magic and ethernano in the air. Even the one lacrima he had been close to – the one inside Laxus – had become a sound so normal that he couldn't individually pick it out anymore.

Now that he was in the city, the buildings were tall, cluttered, and squished together to the point that it was hard to walk off the main roads, unlike Magnolia, where the underworld hid in shady alleyways. People hurried this way and that way despite the chaos that was happening somewhere in the sky off to the east; explosions lit up the sky. The citizens were so calm that Mercury could almost believe that this was an everyday experience, and it was only the way that only the way that their eyes cautiously flicked to the sky every once in a while that cued him into the fact that it may not be normal.

Fiore's capital was probably similar; all hustle and bustle, even in chaos.

Mercury was frustrated by the fact that he had to slow his pace for Marissa, who, despite being able to crawl through the jungle like she had been doing it her whole life (she had), was rather slow when it came to running on cement. It was like her feet were unused to the sensation of something hard beneath them; each step hardly took her anywhere, and they didn't have the time for that.

It was almost to the point that he was going to scoop her up and run to their location with her in his arms. Or perhaps over his back. It might have been faster simply because he could push through the crowds of people casually making their way in the opposite direction like there weren't explosions in the air, and she was just a little bit too small to be able to do so – but all of that was foiled when Mercury heard the distant ringing of something all too familiar.

That was what was wrong, what he'd sensed at the station.

Because there was so little magic in the air, even with the small pings of the lacrima on his senses, the sensation of magic being used stood out incredibly well. He felt it all – Natsu was fighting someone, somewhere, his as gong loud and abrasive as usual. Lucy was here too… and maybe… Gajeel, though he felt less loud than usual; perhaps he was here, but not using magic.

But Mercury still felt the others; there was just something off about them. He sensed their magic somewhere distantly, resounding much just like the lacrima he had been hearing as he ran.

That didn't make sense, though. They'd never sounded like that before, so he couldn't fathom why they would now.

No sooner did they arrive in a small plaza did the skies light up once more. The fighting was getting more intense, and Mercury just wished he knew who was causing it.

The plaza was empty, though it revealed an entire castle that Mercury had not spotted before, much to his shock and amazement. It was huge, towering over everything on the horizon. If he hadn't been blocked by the concrete jungle before, he was sure that it would have been visible for miles in any direction. He couldn't even imagine how it may have been painstakingly built, the way it reached into the sky making it seem larger than life itself. The water mage got a sense of vertigo just from staring at it.

Above the spire that reached the sky, there were two more islands; one was so large that it looked like it could be a city on its own, while the other had a massive, hulking crystal loaded on it. He couldn't tell exactly how big either island was – the bright contrast of the sky made it hard to stare for long – just that they were huge. Maybe even larger than Magnolia itself.

They were too far away to make out any of the finer details, but Mercury thought that he faintly saw the characteristics of buildings, and wondered just who could be living up there.

Royalty? Gods? Whoever they were, they definitely thought they were higher in status than the peons of the ground.

The other one, thrumming with magic power, felt like the more important of the two. Someone was living on the first island; that, Mercury could tell quite easily. What he couldn't fathom was the enormous amount of power he felt radiating off of the lacrima housed by the second island. He could feel it from where he stood, at least a mile underneath both islands – magic power that was slowly dissipating into the air.

The mere feeling of it left goosebumps on his skin. Anything that had that much magic power concentrated was definitely going to be volatile – who knew what small disruption could cause it to explode?

Mercury did not have a good feeling about this.

"I don't suppose you would know what those two floating islands are, would you?" Mercury murmured quietly enough that people pressing past him didn't hear. Nobody seemed to bat an eye at the two massive, floating pieces of earth in the sky, and the water mage didn't want to out he and Marissa out as foreigners by exclaiming that it's abnormal to them.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Marissa replied easily, staring up in wonder. "It's a lacrima, right? I didn't think they got that big anymore. I feel like that's gotta be large enough to power the whole world."

Mercury's stomach sank. If they had that kind of lacrima readily available, they would have used it already to save their dying country – their dying world. They wouldn't have a magic depletion issue. So the question was, why would they have it there, and not in use?

(Unless it was a new development and they haven't figured out how to make use of it yet.)

He could tell by the way that magic was coming off the thing in waves that it was decaying rather quickly; unless it was incredibly, mind-bogglingly large beforehand and this was the smaller version of that it had been, there was no sense in holding onto it for longer than they had to.

At some instinctual urging, or perhaps just the pieces falling into place in his head, Mercury reached out with those special senses of his. For once, it was quite easy. There was nothing in the air to block it, no excess magic to overwhelm him as he deeply inhaled as much ethernano from the atmosphere as he could.

Oh.

Mercury's ears filled with the intense, nearly overwhelming crash of a full band and orchestra; he heard all sorts of sounds that shouldn't have been there, the tide of unified yet crystalline magic crashing over him like a wave.

(Holy shit.)

He said as much aloud. Actually, he said worse – words he hadn't used in decades, the kind that had no Fiorean translation, flung themselves from his mouth. He pressed a hand to his temple as though to save off the residual ethernano rushing through his body.

Marissa put a hand on his shoulder, clearly concerned.

Mercury would have pushed her away if not for coming to terms with the fact that the lacrima had somehow taken on the individual attributes of his guildmates.

He had no time to explain that to her, though. Almost immediately after coming to the conclusion that somehow the lacrima in the sky did, in fact, contain his guild, a fight broke out nearby, with armored guards pouring from the castle gates to surround a single man who is trying his best to fight them off.

A familiar looking man.

"What the fuck, Gajeel!" Mercury couldn't help but shout – because what else did you say when it looked like your guildmate was taking on a whole royal battalion unarmed? Granted, Gajeel was skilled in unarmed combat, but the sheer numbers he was facing would have been overwhelming to anyone. In one fluid motion, before even thinking, Mercury found himself streaking towards the iron dragon slayer while brandishing the sword Marissa loaned him – not as an actual sharp weapon, but as a baton of sorts.

Mercury had no idea what was going on, but if Gajeel was fighting someone, it likely meant that they were an enemy to the guild.

"Huh?" The iron dragon slayer said, low timber somehow louder than the din of the crowd around him. Gajeel didn't even seem like he had to give any of his focus away to the soldiers surrounding him, expertly slamming an iron fist into their armor, denting it so they couldn't move. The fact that he could use magic meant something, but Mercury didn't know what. "The hell are you doing here, Salty?"

Well, if Gajeel had time to be making jokes and calling Mercury names, clearly he was fine.

"I could ask you the same, Rusty. What the hell is going on?"

Mercury threw himself into the battle alongside the iron dragon slayer, slamming the sword around to class against metal armor with reckless abandon. Exposed gaps of skin? Bang. The back of someone's neck or head? Bang. Right through someone's metal chestplate?

Believe it or not, bang. Mercury left a thick dent in that one.

The water mage could have been gentler, but he chose not to. These men were attacking his guildmate, and even if Mercury actually had hated the guy (for now, it was still a sense of distaste), he'd still feel obligated to step in.

"You want the long version or the short version?"

"Short, please!" The hell did Gajeel think he wanted? It wasn't like they had time to sit and chat.

Mercury's voice strained as he focused on kicking soldiers away. He was able to clumsily block attacks with the hilt of the sword, knocking away axes, lances, and spears that came for both he and Gajeel; he distantly saw that Marissa had joined in, too, slashing where she could with that ridiculously oversized knife.

As much as he'd rather she stay out of the fighting, he was rather grateful for it. Though unskilled, there were still a lot of enemies to take out.

"They're gonna launch that lacrima into the other island, which is gonna cause a big-" Gajeel slammed a fist into someone's helmet, grunting with the effort, "- ass explosion."

"And that lacrima is our guild, right?"

Gajeel didn't look surprised that Mercury knew. In fact, he looked rather miffed that he hadn't gotten to explain it.

"You guys have a plan?" He hoped Gajeel had one, or that whoever else he was with had one, because the situation felt a lot more complicated than he'd initially thought.

The water mage shoved another soldier into the one angling towards Marissa. Oh, how he wished she hadn't gotten involved, real daughter or not - she was clearly struggling, knife clumsier in her hands than the sword in his, but she managed to swing her whole body and put the momentum into a kick that shattered the man's breastplate.

Again, Mercury was struck with the distinct feeling that he should have been surprised, yet it didn't come.

"Dragon slayers can destroy it, so I'm gonna go up there and beat the shit out of it until everyone comes out," Gajeel grunted as the soldiers all pushed towards him, clearly realizing that he was the bigger threat.

If the dragon slayers really could destroy the lacrima, then that was an easy way to get out of this with minimal casualties (though Mercury still didn't really understand what was going on; why was the guild here in the first place?). The issues came with the fact that Gajeel had no way to reach said crystal. It was at least a mile in the sky, and they didn't have Erza's monstrous strength to help them out right now.

Ah, the cat thing would be so helpful right now.

As if on command, the coincidences of the world aligning perfectly to give the guild the push they needed, a dark blue streak expertly dodged around raised swords and spears, twirling under an ax and throwing wings into the face of a guard who was incredibly confused. The streak – a cat, Mercury realized, seeing the distinct outline of Happy's ears and face – managed to reach Gajeel, calling out to the dragon slayer before realizing that Mercury was also there.

"Mercury?" He shouted in surprise, perched on Gajeel's shoulder. "What are you here for?"

"Is that an Exceed?" Marissa commented loudly, turning everyone's attention to the blue-haired newcomer who just happened to look incredibly alike to their resident water mage.

(How the hell had she seen something like Happy before if she'd been living alone all these years?)

Before anyone could comment on her presence, Mercury huffed loudly, deciding that the current situation was a little too overwhelming for him. Despite the piles of unconscious or otherwise incapacitated bodies littering the ground, there were still plenty more soldiers swarming the group, attempting to swallow them whole and surround them on every side. The situation could easily turn poor if they weren't careful.

"Let's get out of here!" Mercury told – no, commanded the group, ignoring Gajeel's grunt of defiance. Although he had no doubt that these foot soldiers were no match for the iron dragon slayer, he was not going to take the chance that someone stronger would show up once they realize that their pawns aren't enough.

Mercury grabbed onto Gajeel's collar, hefting him and the cat – the Exceed, he supposed – out of the group of soldiers and towards the onlookers who couldn't help but watch the commotion with surprising strength. The two went tumbling away, Gajeel rolling into a heap and Happy having to take to the sky to avoid being squashed, while Mercury and Marissa similarly attempted to exit.

Mercury took steps backwards, front still facing the swords aimed towards him. As soon as there were no more people behind him, he grabbed Marissa's wrist and hustled in the opposite direction.

Again, she was slower than him. Her weight dragged him back, and he was almost willing to pull the girl into his arms to get away faster, but it turned out that wasn't necessary. All it took was a couple of streets to get the soldiers off their tails, their clunky armor hindering them from entering the narrow alleyways that the four runners (three runners, one flier?) took refuge in.

Behind Merc, Marissa huffed, out of breath from the short sprint.

"What the hell are ya doin'?" Gajeel shouted as soon as they're out of sight, tucked behind some garbage dumpsters in a dreary little alley. He was lucky that he was quiet-ish, because just after, a horde of soldiers ran past the mouth of the alleyway, shouting for their comrades to 'find the perpetrators.'

Mercury grunted. "They were just going to keep coming. No point in tiring yourself out."

As soon as they started to catch their breaths, the little blue cat started swirling around his head, pawing at his hair. "Merc! You're here," he astutely pointed out, before pausing, thinking. "Wait, Gajeel's here too! I found you!"

Gajeel batted at the cat with a metal-embedded palm. "Don't make me an afterthought!"

"Wahh!"

Mercury turned to Marissa, who had only just then caught her breath fully. He hadn't expected her to be so tired from a short sprint, but then again, she'd been living in that house her whole life. She hadn't needed to sprint or really fight before that.

(Did he really just let a parallel universe version of his daughter fight without any sort of experience?)

"Are you okay?"

She nodded, wiping the faint line of sweat off of her brow.

"Okay, wait, who is this?" Gajeel interrupted gruffly, staring straight into Marissa's eyes. She met them unabashedly, but did seem to hesitate briefly after noticing the metal studded into his face.

While Mercury knew that showing up with a stranger that looked incredibly similar to him might have seemed weird, they were in a parallel world, and had expected Gajeel to at least be a little bit smarter. Or maybe just more tactful. Because who else could this be if not someone who had a relation to Mercury?

"Edolas's version of my daughter. We traveled here to figure out what the hell is going on. Do I even want to know why the guild got turned into a giant bomb, or why they're planning to blow them up? I guess I should first be asking who else is here, actually."

Happy rambled the list of people he's seen. The other dragon slayers were a given – Mercury knew there was something up with them, though the inquiry would have to wait for later – and were accompanied by Lucy, Erza, and Gray, who had regained the use of their magic, as well as the cats. Exceeds, he mentally corrected himself.

"So, to summarize, the guild is a lacrima, Natsu and Wendy got their magic sucked out and they're going to fire that to make a giant bomb and use that energy to release magic back into the world?"

"Aye, sir!"

Marissa said exactly what Mercury was thinking: "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Yeah, and they're going to do it if we don't get up there!" Gajeel exclaimed. "Why are we hanging around?"

Good point. Mercury was too much of a planner at the worst of times – they didn't have time to dawdle.

"Happy, can you–" he asked, but was cut off by the 'Aye, Sir!' that followed. This is why the blue feline had been looking for Gajeel in the first place, and Mercury's addition had been a welcome surprise, even though he was basically useless right now, not even able to use magic and stuck with a weapon he was no good at using.

A realization dawns on him. "Gajeel, you can use magic?"

He grunted, then his eyes widened. The iron dragon slayer ran a hand through his hair as though regretting something, letting the black locks fall back into place. "Yeah, that bastard – Mystogan gave me some pills. I gave 'em all to Erza and the ice bastard though, 'cuz I didn't expect to find anyone else."

Gajeel needed to find some new insults. 'Bastard' was much too frequently coming from his mouth.

Mercury sighed. So, he was still in the same position he was in earlier, but at least this time, there was a plan. He let Gajeel head off towards the island in the sky, Happy's little paws gripping the back of his tunic with a small, "Wow, you're heavy."

Mercury turned back to Marissa, who had been watching the conversation with obvious interest. He has to wonder if she'd even interacted with anyone else other than this world's version of her family. Probably not.

"Are they all like that?"

It took Mercury a second to realize that she was talking about his guild. "No," he said, "the rest are worse."

Wasn't that the truth?

Both turned towards the castle as an ominous rumbling noise echoed through the streets from that direction. To Mercury, that could only mean that Natsu was there; no one that he knew would be able to cause a noise that sent such a scary shiver down his spine – not even Erza, because at least she was cognizant of how much she wrecked the battlefiel.

At least here, they wouldn't have to worry about property damage.

"I need to go find the others," he said, unable to put aside the worry that now seemed to permanently take up residence in his gut. Gajeel had said that the dragon slayers, along with Erza and Gray, were there already, and while they were all incredibly powerful, Mercury was not sure they could take on an entire kingdom and come out unscathed.

"You think they're in the castle?"

"Definitely. Natsu would see a castle and immediately go to destroy it."

Marissa cocked her head at the mention of yet another unfamiliar mage, though she didn't question it out loud, then says, "Best we get going then."

"Absolutely not."

(How many times had he said that now, just to give in?)

Still, he was determined to not do that this time; traveling with him was one thing – breaking into a castle was another; at least Mercury had the benefit of hopefully going home after this. If, for some reason, he and Marissa got caught, she'd have no way to escape with him.

"Why?"

For fuck's sake.

(If it were him, he'd question everything, too.)

"Listen, Marissa," he said. "I'm entirely sure you know why. If that's a castle, there's a king, and I'm sure he wouldn't take kindly to someone breaking into his castle while terrorists are roaming free."

Her cheeks puffed into a pout. "If that happens, Mom will come find me."

"Marissa, your mother can't get you out of everything." She was surprisingly naive about it all; her mother was not above the king, even if she probably felt like the woman might be. While Mercury already knew she thought her mom was something special, hearing it was…

What the hell had her version of him been teaching her?

"I mean, she's probably here right now –"

"What?" That, Mercury had not known. That terrified him – the thought that she could be anywhere, lurking around the corner just to pop out and give him a heart attack –

"Yeah, she comes to the capital to get supplies sometimes. Did I not mention that?"

"No."

It was probably intentional, too. Marissa knew Mercury wouldn't come to the capital if Chloe was going to be there, even if it wasn't in his best interest.

He forced himself to be calm and rational. It was a lot harder than he thought it would have been. "You're not coming with me, and that's final."

Mercury felt like a father who was forbidding his daughter from meeting with a boy; he'd rather face that than this. Marissa scowled at him in return, cheeks puffing once more.

"I held my own out there just fine, thank you."

"If forcing me to drag you out from three big guys in heavy armor was 'doing fine,' I'm scared to see what your version of 'doing poorly' would be."

The two stared at each other, neither willing to break down.

For Marissa, it was a matter of adventure, just as this whole trip had been. A journey stood in front of her and behind her like something out of a story book; there was a castle just a few streets away, with actual guards, and probably a king and a prince or princess. Just a few more steps, and she'd reach it.

Gone was the small world of her home. Marissa was breaking out of the walls of her bubble, and Mercury got to see it happen in real time – an experience he'd never gotten, and after this, never would.

But for Mercury, it was terror that held him back; what would happen to this girl if she followed him? That had been his worry this whole time, and it had been fine back when the only thing they were searching for was information. At least the water mage was essentially impervious to any lasting harm. Even if he was fatally wounded here, he'd regenerate (it had been one of the first things he checked when he was alone) so long as there was magic in his body. Even with the state of the magic in this world, he held enough within himself to not be worried.

Marissa, on the other hand, had struggled against a man who likely wasn't even that much older than her – at least, not that much older than she looked. A frail man, maybe even just a boy, cloaked in armor had been enough to nearly overpower her.

And Mercury was certain that this kingdom had more than that to share with them; otherwise, why would there be such a shaking within the castle's walls?

"Fine," said Marissa finally. Maybe it was the look in Mercury's eyes. While it pained him to part with her – the stern reminders from himself that she wasn't his real daughter had entirely failed – it would pain him even more to see her injured.

He'd never forgive himself if it came to that.

Mercury let out a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He handed her the remaining bag of their money – of her money. Somehow, there was still more in it than when they'd left. It wasn't enough to be a parting gift, wasn't enough to show exactly how appreciative to have gotten to meet this version of his daughter he was, but it was all he had.

When the man tried to offer her her father's sword back, though, she declined.

"You'll use it more than me. You've still got a castle to break into, anyway, and don't tell me you're operating at one-hundred-percent or anything. I can tell you don't feel great."

She was right, but that was mostly the pit of worry churning away in his stomach, or so he thought.

"Thanks. I'll –" What did he want to say? There was so much to say, but the words on his tongue were things he would have said to his own daughter. Not her. She wasn't…

If they left his tongue, he wasn't sure she'd let him go.

"Don't worry about it, Mercury. Good luck. I'll see if I can find my mother here for a bit, then head home."

Marissa turned without saying anything else to him; parting was as hard for her as it was for him. They split at the mouth of the alleyway, one going towards the castle, and one away.

Mercury, quietly, oh so quietly, murmured to himself, "Goodbye, Marissa," and before she had a chance to respond, he sprinted off in the direction of the looming castle. Man, he was such a coward.