Natsu took the lead as Team A descended into the underground tunnel. Fire danced over his left hand, acting as a makeshift torch. He couldn't help but be amused at the idea of over two hundred teams scurrying around this dark labyrinth like rats.
Being able to see didn't make solving puzzle an easier task, but it certainly gave them an advantage. At the very least they would be able to mark the path they took so they'd recognize it later.
The walls were a burnished orange color. Tentatively, Natsu reached out and tapped one of the bricks. His entire body was wound tight, anticipating some kind of trap.
"Good idea, Natsu," Erza acknowledged. "We have no idea what these tasks are like, but I can't imagine our only challenge is to find our way out. Be prepared for surprises."
"But Erza," Lucy said nervously, edging away from the wall, "we can't test every stone for a hidden trap! That would slow us down and then we definitely won't be one of the eight teams that make it to the end. They're probably all pressure triggered."
Gray, who thankfully hadn't removed any part of his uniform yet, stepped around the females so he was next to Natsu. He slapped a palm to each wall and a thick sheet of ice spread from his hand until both walls were covered from floor to ceiling. The temperature immediately dropped a couple of degrees.
He cocked his head. "There. Nothing's breaking through that ice. Now let's get going."
"We can't just leave all this ice behind," Lucy exclaimed as they started running. "Another team would be able to follow our progress."
"I don't think it matters here. I mean, we're the only team that enters in this tunnel," Wendy pointed out.
"But that won't be the case once we leave this one. I just think it is a terrible idea to leave behind an obvious trail."
Gray grunted. "I'm not the only Ice-Make wizard in this competition. Lyon's participating too."
"I could melt it," the pinkette suggested. "A bit of water on the floor would probably go unnoticed." No one raised any objections, so Natsu took that as agreement.
Roughly three minutes later they came to a three way intersection. "Well guys? Which way to Domus Flau?"
Natsu directed just a smidgeon more magic to his left hand. The flames grew until all three tunnels were illuminated. Standing in the center, he couldn't see any difference between them. No distinguishing marks that indicated one of them was the correct path to take.
"We should take the right hand hall," Erza said firmly. "The stadium is northeast of the Dancing Sun, so we should take this right and a left at the next cross section."
"Or we could keep going straight and take a right later," Gray argued.
"Or," the blonde Celestial wizard said, "I could summon Pyxis and he can point us in the right direction." Gray and Erza paused their argument, which was all the consent Lucy needed. "Right, then. "Open! Gate of the Compass! Pyxis!"
A tubby bird like Celestial Spirit appeared at Lucy's feet, wrapping his wings around her legs. Lucy knelt. "Can you tell us which way is Domus Flau?"
The compass atop Pyxis's head spun, settling on east. Pyxis pointed to the tunnel Erza had selected with both his wings.
"Thanks, Pyxis." The Celestial Spirit returned to his world in a burst of light.
"Ano, I think we should go left," Wendy said before Gray could move to ice the walls, pointing to said tunnel. "The air that way smells the freshest," she explained when the four older wizards turned to stare at her."
Erza, who was nominally in charge because the Re-Quip mage was the leader on their jobs, glanced at Wendy, then at Natsu. She knew her mate's sense of smell was strong, but Erza had only known him to use it when searching for a person.
Natsu inclined his head, silently saying that he trusted Wendy's nose in this matter. "Then it is your job to make sure we stay on the path to the stadium."
The blunette nodded firmly at her directions, pleased that her abilities would be of use in this challenge.
Natsu took a second to melt the ice behind them and used a dragon's claw to scratch a small scar in the rock so that, on the off chance they wound up at this intersection again, they wouldn't take the tunnel that led to their starting point. He did the same to the left tunnel before Gray worked his magic on it.
"Wait," Lucy said. "Do you think we should ice over another tunnel? Lay a false trail?"
The question was directed at Gray, who considered it before shaking his head. "No. It would only be the one tunnel. If someone was trying to follow us, they'd wonder why there weren't any more iced tunnels after that one."
The blonde deflated. "Still, maybe just one tunnel is enough. It means they'll go the wrong way at first," she insisted.
Not wanting to waste any more time than they already had, Gray frosted over the right tunnel. It lead in the opposite direction of where they were head and it did actually lead east towards the stadium.
The team set off down their chosen tunnel, Natsu in the lead with his fist still encircled with fire to light the way, followed by Erza. Lucy, whose Golden Gate Keys were very useful in such small confinement, except for maybe Loke, Virgo, and Capricorn, ran in the middle. Gray was behind her which left Wendy at the end of the line. But it was the best position for her because she could blow away a team that sprung up behind them with her Sky Dragon's Roar.
Natsu wondered how many other teams would be hindered by the layout. All five members of Team A were known for destructive attacks and a fighting style that generally utilized a lot of space. Cana, Juvia, and Mirajane on the other team would probably be alright. Laxus was worse off because of his sheer size. Plus, as a Dragon Slayer, both he and Gajeel were in the same boat as Wendy and himself.
It made him hope, as they followed the tunnel as it curved to the left, that they didn't come across any other team. Trying to incapacitate another team in such small quarters would be difficult and there was no way they'd meet up at intersections where there was actually space to fight.
It happened randomly. A stone sank beneath his foot. Automatically, he tensed. When nothing shot out of the floors, Natsu decided it was just a loose stone and kept moving.
He regretted that immediately when the tunnel began to shake and a thundering sound of hundreds of things running echoed behind them.
"Run!" he yelled. Unnecessarily since all five of them took off as soon as the tunnel shook. "Wendy!" he snapped. "Get up here! You're going to have to lead us."
The younger Dragon Slayer moved to the front of the line and Natsu increased the intensity of his flames so that they would illuminate further. At the same time Erza dropped back, Re-Quiping into her samurai armor. With a katana in each hand, the red headed mage dealt with the frontline rats when they tried to dash forward.
"This is your fault!" he shouted at Gray when he caught sight of the St. Bernard sized rats chasing them.
"You set off the trap, you flaming numbskull!"
"And you didn't think to cover the floors, too, you walking popsicle!"
"Don't blame this on me! You didn't think of it either!"
"Sagittarius!" A tall, black haired, lanky man in a horse costume appeared, arm already raised in solute.
"Moshi moshi."
"No time for that, Sagittarius. Can you do something about those disgusting rats?" Lucy asked.
"Of course. What do you wish me to do with them, my lady?"
"Kill them!" she shrieked hysterically.
"These vermin will be no match for my arrows." The spirit knocked three arrows, pulled back the string, and launched them at the rats with incredible speed. Three rats dropped with an arrow protruding from their eye.
Sagittarius repeated the process until he ran out of arrows, by which point the carcasses of twenty-four rats littered the ground. "I have done all I can, my lady," he announced and closed his own gate.
Natsu quickly lost track of all the turns they made. He had hoped the rats would tire eventually, but that didn't seem to be the case. He wished he could stop for just a minute and roast the beasts, but time was off the essence and the group wouldn't be able to run anywhere without his fire to light the way.
"There are still hundreds of them!" Gray yelled after a quick look over his shoulder.
"Throw up a wall!" Erza barked back at him.
"What happened to not leaving behind a trail?"
"Escaping from those rats is more important."
The dark haired man couldn't argue with that, especially since he would be the first one ripped to shreds if they were caught. "Ice-Make: Wall."
A solid layer of ice grew between the wizards and the rats. The horde of creatures didn't seem to care that they were now blocked off from their targets. They just piled against the ice, thrashing and scratching.
"Let's keep moving," Erza said definitively, and as much as the other four didn't want to, they agreed. It would be nice to catch their breath for a minute, but they wanted to be far away from the rats when they did so.
A cracked reverberated down the tunnel. As one, the five wizards turned to Gray's wall of ice and the wriggling mass of rodents on the other side. A thin crack had formed right in the center, and the more the rats writhed against it the larger it became.
They took off again at a sprint, determined to put as much space between them and the rats as possible before they broke through.
The path Wendy followed wound right, up a flight of stairs, and she entered the right hand tunnel right at the top. Team A only met one team, from a minor guild that Natsu didn't recognize, who they easily defeated.
He started to question the design of this labyrinth when the tunnel they were in started to descend in a corkscrew spiral. How on Earthland was this going to lead to Domus Flau?
The tunnel leveled off after a long while. Wendy then led them down a long hall, ignoring all the tunnels that bisected it. The tunnel ended in the largest space they had encountered thus far. A high ceiling, circular chamber.
Gray, taking precautions, put up another ice wall to block the door. It was doubtful that the dog sized rats would chase them this far, but it was better safe than sorry.
"There are nine other doors," Lucy remarked. "How many teams do you think made it here already? We're probably close to the stadium. I bet they included this room so they could have some teams fight."
"A lot of teams will probably get lost here. There's only a one in ten chance of picking the right door," said Wendy.
"This would be a really could place to make competitors go the wrong way," Lucy continued."
"Are you still on that?" Gray asked.
"All we have to do is ice one doorway and anyone else who makes it this far will think we went that way."
Seeing that the blonde wasn't going to give the idea up, Gray asked which door she wanted blocked, which cause her, Wendy, and himself to start a debate over which door could be used as bait without looking like an obvious trap.
"Natsu, come have a look at this."
The Dragon Slayer walked over to his mate, who was examining stone pictures carved into the walls. "Not the time to be admiring art, Erza," he nudged her gently. "Kind of on a time crunch still."
"There are dragons. The wall is practically covered in dragons."
That garnered Natsu's attention. Black eyes scanned the etchings, widening in surprise and then narrowing in recognition. A disturbing feeling of unease settled in his stomach. "These pictures shouldn't be here."
"Why?" Erza asked in response to his murmur.
"This," he said, waving his hand at the etchings as a whole, "shows the Dragon Civil War. The one where Dragon Slayers were created to aid the dragons that wanted to coexist with humans. But the story's not that well known. After four hundred years, only the few dragons left know about it."
He pressed closer to the wall, fingertips running over a length that depicted a man's head on a dragon's body. They even had the truth about Acnologia. That meant the wizard with a raised book next to him had to be Zeref.
"Do you think this is a coincidence?"
"No," Natsu denied. "Definitely not. This is connected."
Erza laced their fingers together. Seven years she had waited for a sign of the Black Wizard, because such a symbol would mean Natsu's return. And now that she had it, it was cropping up everywhere. Even the Games, if rumors were to be believed, were based on something called the Festival of the Dragon King.
And seeing the scene before her, it wasn't difficult for Erza to guess what happened at that festival.
"Wendy, which door leads to the stadium?" The girl dutifully scented the air and pointed to the door behind Lucy.
"That one. The fresh air is really strong. I don't think we have much further to go," she surmised.
"Let's go, then, Fairy Tail. We've got a tournament to win."
Grinning, the team of five exploded into action. Natsu challenged Gray to a race and the two men ran ahead, plastered against each other in attempts of shoving the other out of the way and being the first one to exit the labyrinth.
As it turned out, Team A was the third team to make it to Domus Flau. The first two being Sabertooth and Fairy Tail's Team B. They didn't have long to wait for the other five teams, which included Mermaid, Blue Pegasus, Lamia Scale, Quatro Cerberus, and one called Raven's Tail.
"Congratulations to the teams that made it out of the Labyrinth of Lies, kabo!" Mato's voice rang above the roar of the crowd gathered at the stadium that was their end goal. "And welcome, to Domus Flau!"
At this the cheering grew impossibly louder.
"Allow me to explain the rules for the rest of the Grand Magic Games. It will be a five day tournament with two events per day, kabo. One surprise event, in which one member from each team will participate and each member can only participate in one surprise event. Team's will receive points based on their position at the end of it. First place receives ten points, second gets eight, then six, four, three, two, one, and last place earns no points, kabo.
"The second event is the battle event, where a member of each team is pitted against another, kabo. The winner gains ten points for his or her team and the loser receives none. In the event of a tie, both competitors are given five points. The fighters will be chosen by fan vote, kabo."
The pumpkin wearing announcer clapped his hands excitedly. "Now that you all know the rules, let's start with the first event, kabo! Who will be first to participate from each team, kabo?"
From the preliminary straight to the first event. It was an interesting strategy. Natsu could tell just by observing the other teams that some of them had to fight to get her and place top eight. It was sort of dirty, starting the main competition when everyone involved didn't have all their magic available.
"I think Erza or I should go first. We have the most versatile magic," Lucy reasoned.
Natsu didn't want to sound rude, but he didn't considered Celestial mages very versatile. Lucy had fifteen keys she could summon, albeit, and each one had a very unique skill set (although he wasn't certain what Plu could do).
On the other hand, Erza had over one hundred armors she could Re-Quip into, twice as many swords, and a natural ability for telekinesis that she hardly ever used. But Natsu didn't want to use Erza right out of the gate.
"I think Wendy should go first. She can fight, heal, and support herself with her magic."
Wendy looked stunned at Gray's nomination. "Me? You want me to go first? But you four have been part of Fairy Tail longer than I have."
"The amount of time you've been a member doesn't matter. You are part of Fairy Tail," Erza said firmly. "Gray's right. Since we don't know what the first event will be, you're best suited for it. You're abilities are well rounded."
"Not to mention," Lucy piped up, "with how young you are, the others will probably underestimate you." She meant for it to encourage Wendy but it seemed to do the opposite.
"You'll be fine, Wendy, just do your best." The Sky Dragon Slayer nodded at Natsu, repeating his words under her breath as she stepped forward.
The remaining four members retreated to the viewing balcony they were directed to, which contained the rest of the guild, from where they could watch the first event unfold.