Fairy Tail RPG

The Fairy Tail guild hall at midday was less a building and more a continuous source of noise.

Tables rocked under the impact of flying bodies. Somewhere near the bar, Natsu had Gray in a headlock while Gray's shirt was being waved around like a victory banner by a cackling elfman. Cana drank through the chaos with the serenity of a woman who had long ago stopped being impressed by anything. Mira wiped a glass and smiled the smile of someone who could end the brawl in three seconds if she ever felt like it.

Lucy Heartfilia sat at a corner table with {{user}} beside her, protected from the brawl by luck and a strategic selection of seating. Spread across the table before her was a package of heavy brown paper, and atop it, a book so old its leather cover had gone the color of dried blood. The script on its spine was in a language she couldn't read.

"This is what I've been trying to tell everyone," she said, lowering her voice so it wouldn't carry over the din. "My father sent it. No letter, no explanation. Just this—the Drobade's Mysterious Document, supposedly. It showed up at my apartment three days ago, and it's been giving me the creeps ever since."

She turned the book over in her hands, frowning.

"There's writing all through it, but half of it's in cipher, and the other half looks like it was written by someone who was... I don't know. Afraid. And the strangest part—" she flipped to a page near the middle, tapping an inked illustration "—is this. Look at it."

The drawing depicted a great clock, its face ringed in strange runes, its single hand pointing at nothing.

"A clock with one hand. Who ever heard of—?"

"Lucy! Lucy, look what I found!"

Michelle Lobster descended upon the table like a brightly colored storm, her orange pigtails bouncing, her glasses sliding down her nose, her shirt reading LOVE in huge letters. She had attached herself to Lucy two jobs ago, declaring them to be the best of friends, and had proven completely impossible to shake since.

"Michelle—keep it down—"

"There was a delivery truck outside and the driver asked for you and it's HUGE!" Michelle's eyes were enormous behind her glasses. "I signed for it! You're welcome!"

Behind her, Happy drifted down carrying a package wrapped in oilcloth the size of a coffin lid, wobbling under its weight. "Aye... it's heavy..."

The package hit the table with a boom that briefly silenced the nearest brawl. Natsu's head appeared over Lucy's shoulder immediately, nostrils flaring.

"What is it? It smells weird. Old. Like, really old—"

"It's addressed to me, apparently!" Lucy tore at the oilcloth. "Which is ridiculous, because I didn't order anything, and the only person who sends me things is my father and he just sent me the creepy book, so honestly what are the chances of—"

The cloth fell away.

It was a hand. A clock hand—long as a man's arm, forged of dark metal banded with gold, its base shaped like a sunburst of seven points. The moment it caught the light, every hair on Lucy's arms stood on end, and the runes on its surface began to pulse with a faint, sickly glow.

"That matches," Lucy breathed, yanking the book open to the illustration. "The engraving—it's exactly—"

The front windows of the guild hall exploded inward.

Glass rained across the floor as armored figures crashed through in a thunder of splintered wood. At their head came a knight in gleaming silver plate, massive, his helmet visor up to reveal a chiseled face and an insufferably noble sneer, brandishing a lance taller than he was. Behind him vaulted a girl with short dark hair and goggles over her eyes, landing light as a cat atop a ruined table.

"The treasure of the Holy Vault belongs to Zentopia!" the knight boomed, his voice ringing off the rafters. "I am Dan Straight, Knight of the Legion Platoon! Surrender the clock part at once, and your guild may be spared the righteous fury of the church!"

"Uh." Natsu cracked his knuckles, flames already kindling around his fists, his grin sharp with delight. "You've got the wrong guild, pal. Nobody here surrenders anything."

"Fairy Tail," the goggled girl said quietly, eyes sweeping the hall with quick calculation. "Commander said they'd be trouble."

In Lucy's hands, the clock hand blazed brighter—the runes flaring in time with a deep, resonant hum that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Somewhere far above the guild hall, beyond the blown-out windows, something answered the sound. A whine, building, mechanical and wrong.

Lucy clutched the book to her chest, her eyes darting from the knights, to {{user}}, and back.

"Oh no. Oh, I really don't like this."

The transition between worlds felt like drowning in reverse.

One moment, the air had been full of the Anima's pull—a great, screaming vortex of light that had devoured Magnolia whole, swallowing buildings and people and the entire guild hall as if they were nothing. The next, silence. Cold. The sensation of falling without moving, suspended in a space that had no dimensions and no floor.

Then ground.

{{user}} hit the earth alongside the others, tumbling across terrain that was wrong in ways that took a moment to process. The grass beneath their hands was purple. Not shaded, not tinted—genuinely, deeply purple, with the texture of moss and the smell of something faintly metallic. The sky overhead was pale lavender, streaked with clouds that moved against the wind.

Natsu was already on his feet, flames kindling around his fist—then sputtering out. He tried again. Nothing. A third time. A faint curl of smoke, and even that died.

"What the hell?" He stared at his hand as if it had personally betrayed him. "My fire's—where's my fire? Why can't I—"

"Magic doesn't work here. Not like it does at home." Gajeel's voice came from nearby, flat and irritated. He was on one knee, pressing his palm against the ground, and the iron studs along his arm were dull—lifeless. "Can't feel a damn thing. No Ethernano in the air. Nothing to eat. Nothing to burn." He looked up, red eyes scanning the horizon. "This place is dead."

Wendy clutched Carla against her chest, her face pale. Carla's wings had folded tight against her back, and the Exceed's expression carried a weight that suggested she knew far more than she was saying.

"Carla," Wendy whispered, "where are we?"

Carla didn't answer immediately. Her eyes were fixed on something in the distance—something that made her fur stand on end.

"Edolas," she said finally, her voice stripped of its usual composure. "The parallel world. The place magic comes from—or used to." A pause. "The place the Anima leads."

The landscape stretched around them in impossible layers. Floating islands hung in the lavender sky, connected by chains and bridges of crystalline stone. Rivers flowed upward along the sides of mountains, defying gravity in lazy spirals. A castle glittered on the highest landmass, its spires catching light that seemed to come from no particular source.

And spread across the nearest island's slope, unmistakable even from this distance—Magnolia.

Or what had once been Magnolia.

The buildings were intact, the streets preserved, but the town was empty. No people. No movement. No sound except the wind. It sat on the floating landmass like a dollhouse collection, its inhabitants simply... removed. Extracted. The Anima hadn't destroyed the town—it had taken the magic from it, and the people with it.

Natsu's hands clenched at his sides.

"Everyone's here somewhere. The guild. Lucy. Happy—" His voice cracked on the name. "We're getting them back. All of them."

"Natsu—" Carla started.

"All of them!"

Gajeel stood slowly, rolling his shoulders as if testing the weight of his own body without magic to reinforce it.

"We're sitting targets out here. No magic, no weapons, no backup." His eyes narrowed toward the floating castle. "Someone runs this place. Someone sent that Anima. And I guarantee they already know we're here."

A shadow passed overhead. Something large, winged, moving fast between the floating islands. It circled once, banked, and came back—closer this time. Wings caught the light. A tail trailed behind it. And perched on its back, barely visible at this distance, sat a figure in armor.

Wendy pressed closer to the ground, her voice barely audible.

"Something's coming."

Carla's wings finally unfolded—white and small against the vast lavender sky.

"We need to move. Now." She looked at each of them in turn, her gaze lingering longest on {{user}}. "Whatever you could do back home, you can't do it here. Not until we find a way to restore your magic." She turned toward the empty town, toward the silent streets where their friends had vanished. "So if we're doing this—we do it smart."

Crocus had never looked so beautiful, or so wrong.

The capital glittered under a cloudless sky, bunting strung from every balcony in celebration of the Grand Magic Games. Crowds filled the streets chanting for Fairy Tail's victory. Somewhere in the distance, a festival band played. It should have been the happiest day of the year.

Instead, {{user}} and the others were being escorted underground—past smiling guards whose hands never strayed far from their weapons, down through the roots of the palace itself, into a vast chamber that had never appeared on any map of Crocus.

The Eclipse Gate dominated the space.

It was enormous—a towering arch of gold and crystal, its surface carved with celestial script that seemed to shift when looked at directly. At its center hovered a great stained-glass sun, its colors impossibly vivid, radiating warmth and light that cast no shadows. The entire structure hummed with magic so dense the air itself felt thick enough to chew.

"Welcome," said Princess Hisui E. Fiore, standing before the gate in flowing white, her purple hair bound beneath a delicate crown. "Champions of the Grand Magic Games. I apologize for the secrecy, but what I'm about to show you concerns the survival of this kingdom."

She gestured, and the guards brought forward a woman in chains—a woman with blonde hair and a green cape, whose face was Lucy's face. Older. Hardened. With an exhaustion around the eyes that spoke of years no one present had lived.

"She claims to be Lucy Heartfilia," Hisui continued. "From fourteen years in the future."

The chained woman's eyes swept across the group—past Natsu's scowl, past Erza's sharpening gaze—and settled on her younger self. When she spoke, her voice cracked.

"Don't use Eclipse. Whatever the princess has told you—whatever she's planned—Eclipse doesn't destroy the dragons." Her breath shuddered. "It lets them IN. I watched Crocus burn. I watched everyone die. That's why I came back. To stop this. To stop any of you from opening that gate."

Silence. The stained-glass sun pulsed slowly overhead, its light steady and warm, utterly indifferent.

"Your warnings have been heard," Hisui said, her tone measured, careful. "And that is precisely why the ceremony proceeds. Eclipse was built to destroy the dragons that once ravaged this land—before they can ever rise again. The gate opens only briefly. The cannon fires through it into the past. And four hundred years of tragedy end today."

"You're wrong," Future Lucy whispered. "It doesn't fire anything. It opens everything."

Before anyone could respond, a sound split the chamber—a wet, percussive crack, like the world's largest egg splitting open. High above, at the chamber's apex, the ceiling burst inward. Masonry rained down as a massive shape descended through the smoke—vast wings, scaled hide the color of dried blood, and a humanoid figure standing calmly atop its head like a king upon a throne.

The dragon landed with an impact that buckled the floor. Pink wings folded. Its golden eyes swept the room with lazy contempt.

And on its head, the figure dropped down to the stones. Red-scaled armor. A scar over one eye. Hair of near-white silver.

Gray's breath caught audibly. "That's—no. That's impossible. Rogue?"

Future Rogue Cheney looked across the chamber without hurry. His eyes found Natsu first. Then Lucy. Then {{user}}—and lingered, cold and considering, before moving on as if cataloguing each of them for later.

"Well," he said quietly. "Everyone I need is here."

He raised one hand. The Eclipse Gate answered.

The stained-glass sun flared white-hot. The carved script blazed, rotating, screaming light in every direction. The crystalline arch groaned like a living thing in agony—and at its center, the barrier thinned, stretched, and tore.

Beyond the tear was darkness. Then, in the darkness—eyes. Dozens of them. Enormous. Blinking open one after another like lamps being lit down an endless corridor.

Wendy's voice came out very small. "Something's on the other side."

Something on the other side pressed against the opening. Something with wings folded tight and a skull like a cathedral, its snout wedging into the gap as the gate fought—unsuccessfully—to hold it back. The great stained-glass sun began to crack, fracture lines spidering outward from the center.

Future Rogue watched it all without expression.

"Seven dragons," he said. "Enough to burn this world properly this time."

The first fracture line in the stained glass gave way with a sound like a bell dying.

The Sky Labyrinth hung above Crocus like a crown of glass and gold.

Its corridors stretched in impossible directions—stairways spiraling into ceilings that became floors, walls folding and rearranging themselves with a low groan of grinding stone. Light came from everywhere and nowhere, filtering through crystalline arches, and far below, through gaps in the maze's endless latticework, the capital glittered like a spilled jewel box. There was no ceiling to reach, no wall to lean against that stayed where it was put.

And rolling through it all, amplified by the labyrinth's magic, came the announcers' voices—everywhere at once:

"And the first event of this year's Grand Magic Games has begun! The Sky Labyrinth! One hundred and five teams, scattered across its shifting depths—and only the first five teams to reach the exit will advance to today's main events! Battles between teams are fully permitted! Ladies and gentlemen, let the Games begin!"

The voice faded, leaving only the hum of the labyrinth itself.

"Okay, so let me make sure I have this right," Lucy said, walking backward so she could face the group, her key pouch already resting at her hip out of habit. "Five members per team, the whole team has to find the exit together, and the first five teams out move on. Everyone else—" she drew a thumb across her throat "—eliminated. On day one. In front of the entire kingdom."

"That's the shape of it." Erza walked point, her eyes tracking the walls as they moved, cataloguing every shift and pattern with a soldier's precision. Her repliqued armor caught the strange light as she turned. "The labyrinth is enchanted to disorient. Up, down, and direction mean nothing here. Which is why we stay together, and why nobody wanders off."

"I wasn't gonna wander off," *Natsu muttered.

"You're literally drifting toward a hallway that didn't exist ten seconds ago."

"It smells like someone grilled somethin' down that way!"

Gray sighed and pulled his shirt back on—no one had seen him take it off, which meant the labyrinth had claimed it at some point without anyone noticing. "We've been in here for twenty minutes, and we're already down a member to his stomach. That's a new record, even for us."

"My stomach is a strategic asset!"

Lucy opened her mouth to respond—and froze, one hand shooting out to catch Erza's pauldron.

"Did you feel that?"

The floor beneath them shuddered. Not the shifting of walls this time—something heavier. Footfalls. Several sets of them, moving in step, somewhere beyond the corridor ahead. The lanterns nearest to them flickered, dimmed, and swung gently as if disturbed by a passing weight.

Erza's hand went to nothing at all—for requip in a place where her magic still worked, here in the sky above Fiore. The readiness was enough.

"We're not alone in this corridor," *she said quietly.

They turned the corner as one, and there they were.

Five figures, arrayed across the intersection of passages like they owned it. The tall man at their center had orange hair swept back from a cold, handsome face; the woman beside him held herself with the easy confidence of someone who had never once needed to hurry. But it was the two in front who drew the eye—both young, both smiling, one golden-haired with a smirk that came with the express purpose of being disliked, the other dark and quiet, red eyes half-lidded, a small green cat-shaped Exceed perched on his shoulder.

Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney. The Twin Dragon Slayers of Sabertooth. The reigning champions of the entire Grand Magic Games.

Sting's grin widened as he looked them over.

"No way. No way, it actually is you guys." He laughed, genuine delight in it. "Fairy Tail. The guild that disappeared for seven years and came back to absolutely nothing. You know, we were watching the preliminaries just to see if you'd even qualify." He spread his hands. "And here you are, in our labyrinth, on day one. That's adorable."

"Your labyrinth?" Natsu stepped forward, flames flickering to life around his knuckles, his grin gone sharp. "Funny. I was just about to say I like the smell of this place a lot better without Sabertooth in it."

Sting's smile cooled by a single degree. Behind him, Rogue's red eyes slid across the team—past Erza, past Gray, past Lucy—and settled on {{user}}, lingering there with a stillness that felt heavier than the whites' entire guild put together.

"Seven years of missing history," Rogue said, his voice soft and even. "We should see what you're actually made of. It would be a shame to win the Games without ever being tested."

The labyrinth groaned. Walls began to shift around the intersection, corridors closing, the maze preparing to swallow whichever team hesitated too long in one place.

Sting rolled his shoulders, light already gathering faintly around his fists.

"Well? We've got time before the exit opens up for anyone. Don't we?"

The Magic Council headquarters burned.

{{user}} stood with the others on a hilltop overlooking the devastation, the wind carrying ash and the faint copper tang of blood across the distance. The smoke rose in columns so thick they blotted out the stars, and somewhere in the inferno, the wardens and Rune Knights who had served the Council for decades were dying or already dead.

The message had come forty minutes ago. A lacrima broadcast, untraceable, showing a single figure sitting in a throne made of human bone in a cavern that stretched into impossible darkness. The figure had not given a name. It had simply said:

"The Magic Council is dissolved. The age of human governance over magic ends tonight. You may call us Tartaros. We are the demons from Zeref's books, and we have come home."

Then the broadcast cut, and the sky above the Council headquarters had turned red.

Natsu stood at the edge of the hilltop, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His scarf—Igneel's scarf, the one thing he never removed—whipped in the hot wind rising from the destruction below. He hadn't spoken since the broadcast ended.

Erza had requipped into her Clear Heart clothing without anyone noticing—the light armor, the cloth wrappings, the form built for speed and clarity of purpose. Her expression was carved from stone.

"Every dark guild we've ever faced was a symptom," she said, her voice low and measured. "Oración Seis. Grimoire Heart. They were dangerous, but they were human. This is different." She turned to look at the group. "These are demons. From Zeref's books. That means they've existed for centuries—possibly longer. And they just destroyed the single most powerful regulatory body on the continent in a single night."

Gray stood apart from the others, his shirt missing, his arms crossed over his chest. But his eyes weren't on the fire. They were fixed on something else—something only he seemed to have noticed in the lacrima broadcast. His jaw was tight, and his fingers dug into his own arms hard enough to leave marks.

"Demons from Zeref's books," he repeated, almost to himself. His voice sounded wrong. "That's what they said. Demons. From the books."

Lucy pressed her hands together in front of her mouth, staring at the destruction with the particular stillness of someone trying very hard not to fall apart.

"If the Council is gone," she said quietly, "then there's no one left to organize a response. No chain of command. No coordinated defense. Every guild in Fiore just lost its governing authority in—" she checked the time on a nearby lacrima "—under an hour."

Wendy knelt beside Carla, who lay unconscious on the grass—the Exceed had collapsed the moment the broadcast ended, clutching her head, whispering something about a vision before going still.

"Carla said something before she passed out," Wendy murmured. "She said 'Face.' She said they're going to activate Face."

The word dropped into the silence like a stone into deep water.

Erza turned. "Face? The Magic Pulse Weapon?"

"What's Face?" Natsu's voice was rough, the first words he'd spoken since the broadcast.

Erza's pause was brief but heavy.

"It's a weapon developed by the Council in secret. A magic pulse bomb designed to neutralize all magic across an entire continent." Her voice was flat. "If Tartaros activates Face, every mage in Fiore loses their magic. Every spell. Every enchanted weapon. Every defensive ward on every city and guild hall." She looked toward the burning headquarters. "We'd be defenseless. All of us. Against demons who don't rely on magic the way we do."

Gray uncrossed his arms. "Then we stop them before that happens." He looked at Natsu, then at Erza, then at {{user}}. "No waiting for orders. No Council approval. We find Tartaros, we find Face, and we destroy both."

Natsu's flames finally kindled—small, controlled, burning in his palm with an intensity that came from somewhere deeper than magic.

"They said they're demons from Zeref's books." His black eyes reflected the distant fire. "Zeref made them. Zeref made a lot of things." His hand closed, extinguishing the flame. "And I'm gonna find out if one of those things is the one I've been looking for my whole life."

The wind shifted. The ash fell thicker. And somewhere beneath the continent, in caverns no map had ever recorded, something ancient and patient continued its preparations.

The Fairy Tail guild hall had never been this quiet.

Every table was occupied, every face grim. Mages from Lamia Scale, Mermaid Heel, Blue Pegasus, Sabertooth, Crime Sorcière—guilds that had spent decades trading insults and brawling in festival streets now sat shoulder to shoulder in silence, waiting. The request board had been cleared away. In its place, a single massive lacrima screen dominated the wall, currently showing a map of Fiore with red marks blooming along the western coast like a spreading infection.

Master Makarov stood beneath it, and he looked old. Older than anyone had ever seen him look.

"One hour ago," he said, and his voice carried through the hall without effort, which somehow made it worse, "the Alvarez Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Fiore. Their invasion fleet has already crossed the western sea. First estimates put their landing force at over one million soldiers."

Someone in the back laughed—one disbelieving note that died alone in the silence.

"I wish I were joking," Makarov said quietly. "The Alvarez Empire controls the entire western continent. The Spriggan 12—their twelve strongest mages—are each capable of destroying a guild on their own. I have seen what they are, because a year ago, I went to Alvarez myself. To negotiate. To see the emperor with my own eyes."

He closed his eyes.

"I never told any of you what I found. I told myself it was to protect the guild from despair. That was cowardice, and I apologize for it." His hands gripped the railing until the wood creaked. "The Emperor of Alvarez—Emperor Spriggan—is Zeref."

The name hit the hall like a physical blow. Chairs scraped. Someone swore. Jellal, at the back near the door, went very still, his red tattoo stark against skin that had drained of color.

"Zeref has spent centuries building an empire on the western continent," Makarov continued. "And he wants two things. Fairy Tail's most powerful artifact—Lumen Histoire. And he wants Mavis." He looked down at his hands. "He came to Fiore for us. The rest of the kingdom is simply in the way."

Natsu stood up. The scrape of his chair was the loudest sound in the room.

"Then it's simple," he said, and his voice burned hotter than any flame. "Zeref's been hiding behind an army of a million guys because he knows he can't face us fair. So we break the army." His fists were already smoking. "All of it."

"Sit down, you ash-brained—this is exactly the kind of thinking that loses wars!" that came from Sabertooth's table, but there was no real venom in it. Only fear wearing anger's clothes.

Erza rose beside Natsu, her hand resting on his shoulder—steadying, not restraining.

"He's wrong about it being simple," she said clearly, her gaze sweeping the assembled guilds. "But he's right about what we do. There is no negotiating with Zeref. There is no surrender that leaves Fiore standing. The guilds of Ishgar are in this together, whether we planned for it or not."

Gray's arms were crossed, his expression carved from ice. "One million soldiers. Twelve monsters. One dark wizard who can't die." He exhaled slowly. "So we do what Fairy Tail's always done. We fight the impossible fight. It's kind of our whole thing."

"I've got a plan," Lucy said suddenly, stepping forward from the crowd, her voice trembling only slightly. "Lumen Histoire is what he wants. Mavis is what he wants. Magnolia is the guild hall he'll target first because that's where both of them are. So we don't give him a battlefield where he's strong. We make him come to ground of our choosing, and every guild, every mage, every ally we have on this continent is waiting for him when he does."

Mavis appeared beside the map then—silver hair, small and calm, the ghost of the first master settling into place at the heart of the war council. Whatever she was now, whatever she'd become, her eyes held centuries of battles.

"Then we'd best hurry," she said softly. "Their fleet is faster than the Council's reports. Look."

She gestured, and the lacrima map updated—zooming, refining, showing the western coastline in new detail. And there, just off the shore of Fiore itself, countless tiny red markers were coming into range. Armada. A fleet that blotted the sea.

"Scouts in Bosco are reporting aerial units already airborne," Mavis continued. "The Spriggan 12 will not all march with the army. They'll come ahead of it. Individually or in pairs. They are the ones who will decide this war before the armies ever meet." Her gaze moved across the hall—across Natsu, Erza, Gray, Lucy, Wendy, and finally resting on {{user}}. "Which means every one of us will have a monster of our own before this is over."

The lacrima screen flickered. Then, unbidden, it changed—not to a map, but to a face. A young man, black-eyed and calm, his tone almost gentle, his image resolving across every screen in every guild hall on the continent at once.

"People of Fiore," said Emperor Spriggan, and Zeref's voice was terribly quiet, "I have come home to reclaim what was taken from me. Return it, and the bloodshed ends tonight." A pause, soft as snowfall. "Refuse, and I will take them. Along with everything else."

The Phantom Lord guild hall was less a building and more a weapon that had been taught to walk.

{{user}} felt every one of its footsteps. The entire headquarters strode across the countryside on legs of iron and magic, and each step shuddered through the walls, through the floor, through the chains that held {{user}} upright against a cold stone pillar. Somewhere beyond the walls, gears the size of houses groaned and turned. The air tasted like rust and iron.

Across the chamber, Lucy hung from her wrists in the same terrible arrangement, her feet barely scraping the floor. Her hair had come loose from its tie. One eye was swelling shut, and there was blood at the corner of her mouth—Gajeel's work, from earlier, when she'd tried to headbutt him on principle. Her key pouch was gone. Confiscated. Without her spirits, she was just a girl in chains.

She still hadn't stopped glaring.

"You know," Gajeel said, perched atop a steel girder like the world's most predatory gargoyle, his long black hair hanging wild around the iron studs studding his face, "your old man's got a funny way of showing love. Paid Phantom Lord a fortune to drag you home. We took the money. Then Master Jose decided—" he cracked his knuckles, and the sound was like boulders grinding "—why stop at one guild when we can take out Fairy Tail on the way?"

"You're making a mistake," Lucy rasped, her voice raw but steady. "When Fairy Tail finds out what you've done—when they get here—"

"When?" Gajeel dropped from the girder, landing in a crouch that cratered the stone floor. He rose slowly, and his grin was all teeth, red eyes glinting with something that wasn't quite anger and wasn't quite amusement—just hunger, flat and patient. "That's the best part, Princess. Fairy Tail's guild hall is rubble. Their master got blasted off his own front lawn by Jupiter. And nobody—" he strolled closer, dragging one iron-scaled hand along the wall, peeling a groove into the stone "—knows where this building is. It moves. That's kind of the whole point."

He stopped in front of {{user}}, looking them over the way a man appraises cargo.

"You're the extra, huh? Wrong place, wrong guild." A humorless snort. "Jose said to keep you alive for now. Said Fairy Tail might pay for members too. Me?" He leaned in, close enough that his breath carried the smell of iron. "I don't really care what you're worth."

"Leave them alone, you overgrown filing cabinet!" Lucy yanked against her chains, swinging on them toward him—and Gajeel backhanded the air beside her lazily, not even touching her, just reminding her how little it would take.

"Fireworks. Cute."

Lucy hung there, breathing hard, and when she spoke again her voice dropped—quieter, but harder, forged into something Gajeel clearly wasn't expecting.

"You really don't get it, do you? You beat up our guild hall. You hurt our friends. You think that's the same as beating us." Her swollen eye was nearly shut, but the other one burned. "Fairy Tail isn't a building, you idiot. It's the people. And they never—not once in history—leave their people behind."

Gajeel studied her for a long moment.

Then he laughed—a low, grinding sound that rolled through the chamber.

"God, I hope you're right."

And that was when the floor jumped.

Not the rhythm of footsteps. An explosion—deep, somewhere below them, followed by another, and another, and the great walking fortress lurched mid-stride like a titan stubbing its toe. Dust sifted from the ceiling. Somewhere far beneath them, alarms began to shriek, and running boots echoed through the corridors.

A muffled voice carried up through the floors, young and furious and absolutely unmistakable:

"LUCE! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Lucy's whole face changed—the pain falling away, replaced by something incandescent. "Natsu! NATSU, WE'RE UP HERE!"

Gajeel straightened slowly, and the grin that spread across his face was the happiest he'd looked all day. Iron scales rippled up his forearms as he turned toward the door, cracking his neck.

"Well, well." He glanced back at {{user}}, red eyes gleaming. "Guess I don't have to go looking for entertainment after all. This is about to get real fun."

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