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.
...
if you want to support me or just to read ahead of the public release, you can join my p@treon :
p atreon/Moonhorse