Hey guys. I know this isn't the best chapter in the world but it's just a little something to let you know I am alive and producing more exciting stuff to come. I will also will consider changes based on feedback so don't forget to review!

Disclaimer: All of the cannon creations are not mine, could never be mine, and will never be mine.

Gourry peered down at the old man. "Hey, He's shorter than you are Lina. I didn't know they made them that small!" A tick mark appeared on the heads of Makarov and Lina. Miraculously Lina choose not to pound the blond swordsman, instead turning her attention to the diminutive guild master.

"So what can I do for you folks?" Makarov asked, a smile back in place on his wizened face.

Lina opened her mouth to respond but was beaten to the punch by Amelia, tears forming in her eyes.

"Please Mister Makarov, we're lost and we don't know where we are and we asked them for help and they were so mean and then there was an explosion and a naked guy…" Her hysteria trailed off into incoherent gibberish as the toll of the past day made itself know. Lina began patting Amelia on the head as Filia rubbed the crying girl's back.

"Come on, things aren't THAT bad Amelia," the red could be heard saying cheerfully.

Zelgadis sighed and unfolded his arms, walking over to the guild master. "I apologize on behalf of my teammate but it has been a rather trying day." The chimera eyed the wizened man, briefly considering how much information was safe to tell.

Makarov noticed the masked man's hesitation. He smiled in a friendly way. "Don't worry young man, I realize you have no reason to trust me but I really am merely interested in helping you young folks." He began to lead the group to a long wooden table with a bench along either side, Filia supporting a still sniffling Amelia.

Zelgadis gave a small smile in return. "Forgive my caution but as you may have caught earlier we are not familiar with our current location, as we were accidentally teleported here by a magical object. This leaves us in a bit of a vulnerable position."

"I understand," the guild master nodded in agreement. "Mirajane would you please bring us a map?"

"Of course, Master." The white haired girl from before walked away.

Zelgadis watched the guild master as he carefully choose his words. "I appreciate your willingness to help but please know we have no way to repay you-"

Makarov waved his hand, brushing off the comment. "Please don't think I'm doing this for money. I admit that I am curious about you people but as I said before, I do this out of a desire to help."

Amelia had to blink back fresh tears as she heard the man's words of kindness. The others blew out a sigh of relief. Slowly, a group of people began to form around the new comers, including the two boys from before. The pink haired one ran up to Makarov.

"Gramps, I need your help! I saw a dragon!"

Excitement broke out among the people gathered as they reacted to the news. Lina and the others nervously tried to act natural.

A man with long black hair and metal piercings ran up and got in the guy's face. "What?! Are you sure!?"

The pink haired boy thumped a hand flat on the table, the other hand held up in a fist in front of him. "Of course I'm sure! Don't you think I know a dragon when I see one?! Just see if you can sense it before it gets away!" He turned back, addressing the last to Makarov.

The old man was already ahead of the boy, as he had closed his eyes in order to sense the magic energy. Several other people did the same. Filia nervously hoped that the disguise field she had hastily put around her power would hold up. She didn't know whether the pink haired boy's desire for catching her was benign but she did not want to have to hurt humans in order to escape if his intentions were more malevolent in nature.

Slowly, eyes began reopening as the guild members abandoned their search for the magic power. Makarov and a few others continued their search for longer: they knew the distinctive signature of a dragon's power. At last the guild master too gave up, though he made a mental note to keep an eye on the group before him. Their magic power was unlike anything he had ever encountered before.

He looked over at the pink haired boy with a sad look on his face. "I'm sorry Natsu but the dragon you saw appears to be long gone." He stopped Natsu before the boy could again run out the door. "Natsu. They fly far faster than you could ever hope to catch."

Natsu turned back and looked down, his bangs shadowing his face. His body trembled for a moment before he slammed his fists on the table, tears of frustration running down his cheeks. His guild mates regarded him sorrowfully. Lina, Zelgadis, Amelia, and Gourry solemnly watched, despite being intrigued by his strange reaction.

Filia was torn between her sympathetic reaction to people's suffering and her relief that her disguise field had to all appearances worked. She was about to ask what his interest in 'the dragon' was when at that moment the white haired girl, Mirajane, returned.

She placed a map on the table in front of the group before staring at Natsu curiously.

Makarov, glad for a chance to change the topic, quickly pushed the map towards the strangers. The group, after watching Natsu for a moment longer, leaned forward to look down at the parchment.

"This is a map of the kingdom of Fiore. And here," he pointed at a dot in the southeastern part of the map, "is Magnolia. The city we are in."

Lina sighed and sat back, disappointed. Filia bit her lip as she spoke. "I've never even heard of Fiore, in all my time in the Outer World."

Mirajane cocked her head to one side. "Outer World?"

Lina over at the man and blinked. "Ya you know, the portion of the world outside of the Mazoku barrier. Or rather, that WAS outside of the barrier till it dissolved two years ago."

Seeing the confused looks she was receiving, Lina pushed on in exasperation. "The barrier that the monster race created a thousand years ago that completely cut off a section of the world, so they could kill Aqualord Ragradia there without interference from the other shinzoku? THAT barrier?"

Makarov and Mirajane exchanged a glance. The people around them began quietly talking among themselves. Snippets of the conversations could be heard.

"Have you ever heard about…?"

"No, have you?"

After shaking his head at whatever Mirajane said to him, Makarov looked back at Lina. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with any of those things you mentioned."

Lina leaned forward, shocked. "You've never even heard of the barrier? Are you like, secluded from the rest of the world or something?"

Mirajane put a hand to the side of her face. "Not really, no. Fiore is one of the most prominent kingdoms."

Lina rubbed her head in frustration. Amelia looked up at the group confused.

"And I'm sure I know why now. As well as where we are." Everyone in the room turned to look at Zelgadis. He folded his arms and looked Lina straight in the eye. "I am positive now that we are in another world. I've had my suspicions ever since we were first brought here. First of all, the fact that the jewel that teleported us here bares a mix between Chaotic Blue and the Blue Dragon's symbols and power. Why not Shabranigdo and Ceifeed's? Then there's the confusion between us and the locals," he gestured at Makarov and the rest of the gathered guild members, who looked more confused than ever. "And the fact none of us have heard of this city, much less this kingdom."

Amelia scrambled for a way to dispute his claim, "But there was hardly any power at all in the jewel! When a portal was created between our world and Darkstar's, it took massive amounts of energy and months of preparation!"

Lina looked thoughtful. "Ya but that was in an attempt to transport a being with the combined power of the mazoku and shinzoku leaders of that plane. To teleport a few humans and a dra…" she caught herself and coughed. "Well, it wouldn't take nearly as much magical energy."

No one seemed to notice her blunder. She noted in relief that the pink haired boy, Natsu she thought his name was, did not seem to notice her slip. He appeared to be in another fight with the stripper about delaying him and letting the dragon get away. However, she didn't notice Makarov's eyes narrow slightly for a moment as he guessed what she had been about to say.

Zelgadis inconspicuously kicked her under the table before continuing. "There's that. And then there's this map."

Filia spoke up at that moment, "What does this tell us other than the fact that none of us recognize the country?"

The chimera smiled again, pleased to be the one with the information. "That's not the only thing it tells us. Look here, at the latitude and longitude lines. This city, Magnolia, is in almost the exact same location as the temple of the Fire Dragon King."

Everyone jumped up at that point, staring down at the map. Lina cursed. "Well damn, I never even glanced at that."

Amelia and Filia slumped back down on the bench. Gourry had a pained look on his face as he tried to remember why the name of that temple sounded so familiar.

Makarov and the rest of the guild regarded the group in various degrees of shock. Again conversations began breaking out.

"THAT'S SO COOL!" Natsu shouted, momentarily forgetting his fight with Gray.

"Another world?"

"You mean there are others besides Edolas?"

"Or are they from Edolas?"

"Naw it's impossible to travel there any more isn't it?"

Hesitantly a young girl with short blue hair held back by a bandana stepped forward. She was wearing a short orange dress with a white bow on the front.

"Excuse me Mister…um, well I never caught your name." She smiled at Zelgadis.

"My name…is Zelgadis Graywords."

"Ah, I'm Levy McGarden. Pleased to meet you Mister Zelgadis. But you aren't from Edolas are you? It's the world parallel to this one, where magic can only be use through magic objects, no one has magic power within themselves."

It was the newcomers' turns to be confused. Zelgadis hesitantly answered. "I wasn't aware there were any worlds where humans don't have an innate magical ability."

"You mean you've heard of other worlds?" Levy questioned.

Lina leaned forward on the table, propping her chin up on one hand as she responded. "Any sorcerer worth his salt has at least heard about the four worlds. It's part of the basic history taught to aspiring magic users, at least in our world."

Makarov looked at Lina thoughtfully as she spoke. She and that Zelgadis fellow seem to be taking their discovery rather calmly. He sweat dropped as he glanced at the other three. Though the same could not be said of their companions.

Amelia and Filia had sunk into a state of depression while Gourry had given up on following the conversation and was sitting with his eyes closed, a dopey looking open mouthed smile on his face.

Levy's eyes sparkled at the thought of new information. "There are four worlds? Please, tell me about them!"

Lina looked at the girl curiously. "You sure? It might take a while..." she glanced over at Makarov.

He nodded at her. "Please continue. If there are other worlds its best we know about them. And please tell us about your world as well."

"Well okay. I'll try to give you simple version. Though that's really not that easy." Glancing around at the expectant faces of the guild members, Lina cleared her throat.

(A/N: Please don't hate me for actually writing down her explanation to the guild. It's for you guys too, as it'll be important for you to know later on in case you never saw Slayers or you just don't remember.)

"Millennia ago a single being known as the Lord of Nightmares accidentally created the four worlds out of the sea of chaos, though we don't know how that accident happened. She essentially is chaos and is the source of all magic, the one magic out of which everything else was created," Lina saw a blond girl's breath catch for some reason, "and is neither god nor demon. But anyway. On each of these worlds many different beings come into existence: humans, elves, beastmen, trolls, dragons," it was Natsu's turn for his breath to catch, "animals….you get the picture. And then there were the most powerful beings short of the Lord of Nightmares herself: the shinzoku, or gods, and the mazoku. Otherwise known as demons or the 'monster race'. The two races began battles on each of the four worlds, the mazoku trying to destroy their respective world and return it to the sea of chaos and the shinzoku trying to protect it.

At first, there were only four shinzoku and four mazoku, one of each on every world. These four mazoku are also known as ma-ō, demon kings. The names of the four ma-ō are Death Fog, Dark Star Dugradigdu, Ruby Eye Shabranigdo, and finally Chaotic Blue. Their shinzoku counter parts are the White Dragon, the Night Dragon Vorfeed, the Flare Dragon Ceifeed, and the Blue Dragon respectively. I should say that some of those names are really just their titles; we only know the names Dugradigdu, Shabranigdo for two of the ma-ō and that Vorfeed and Ceifeed were their shinzoku opponents."

Levy interrupted at that point. "You say 'were'. Does that mean they are no longer opponents? Or that they were killed?"

Lina sighed. "I mean that Vorfeed and Ceifeed were killed. Vorfeed, tired of the fear and hate engulfing her world, allowed Dark Star to absorb her so they could destroy the world together in order to recreate it in a form where the shinzoku and mazoku conflict would no longer exist. The three underlings she created before her absorption still wanted to save the world from destruction so they worked to summon Dark Star from their world and into our world, which would be destroyed when they destroyed Dark Star there. We and some other beings of our world managed to stop them and show two of the shinzoku that it was wrong to save their world at the expense of ours. I'm not familiar with much else about their world, other than stuff involving that fight. But anyway."

"Hardly anything is known about either the world of Death Fog and the White Dragon, nor the world of Chaotic Blue and the Blue Dragon, other than their titles and symbols. However I am almost positive now that this world, YOUR world, is the latter. You said you wanted to know about our world though right?"

Makarov nodded for her to continue.

"Well our world is the world of Ruby Eye Shabranigdo and the Flare Dragon Ceifeed. Now something you have to understand is that shinzoku and mazoku are spiritual beings: they exist on the astral planes and are immortal. They have the power to exist in the physical world, well at least a few do, and destroying their physical body can force them back to the astral plane for a time. The only way to kill them though is to destroy their astral body or to force them to use up all their energy, in battle for example. They have no gender beyond what they choose and they reproduce by tearing off a portion of their body, or power, in the astral realm. The new shinzoku or mazoku is as strong as however much power was put into their creation. However, unlike power used in battle the power used in the creation of underlings does not come back as time passes."

"Shabranigdo and Ceifeed battled for thousands of years till finally, five thousand years ago, Ceifeed managed to separate Shabranigdo into seven pieces and seal those pieces in the souls of humans. His theory was that since humans have such short lives, the human's souls would slowly work away at Shabranigdo's 'soul' each time the human died and that fragment was reborn sealed in another human. This was a good plan except that if the human container develops a great hatred for the world, then that fragment can reawake into a mini Shabranigdo. This has happened several times but someone has always managed to either reseal the fragment or even destroy it. Currently there are five fragments left, though one of those is sealed in ice far to the north."

"Ceifeed himself used his remaining power to create four subordinates, who could combat the five subordinates Shabranigdo left behind, before Ceifeed died from using up all his power. Traces of his power, however, have been known to appear in a few humans throughout the centuries. These people are known as Knights of Ceifeed and possess enormous amount of magic power."

"The battle continued to rage between the new shinzoku and mazoku. The mazoku chose to create about a thousand underlings of various degrees of strength. The lesser demons can only appear in the physical world through the possession of objects or creatures, become a sort of half breed for the duration of their possession. Despite being the least powerful mazoku, they are able to fully utilize their power this way without fear of damaging their ego. As spiritual beings, mazoku have to be careful not to do anything to indicate weakness or risk truly becoming weaker. Even if they think themselves weak they can loose power. Calling on the power of another mazoku is suicidal, in that they are not only being 'too weak to rely on their own power' but they are also denying their individuality and therefore their very existence. Shinzoku do not seem to share this weakness and neither do lesser demons for the duration of their possession. However, despite being able to utilize their full power, they are more vulnerable this way as they can be killed by spells that only attack from the physical plane and not from the astral plane."

"Then there are low-ranked mazoku who are able to create a humanoid body. These mazoku frequently change loyalties from their creators to other mazoku lords depending on their desires. However, it is risky for them to have no loyalties to a mazoku lord, because then they frequently get reabsorbed by higher up mazoku, as they have no master to get angry at their death. Mid-ranked mazoku can appear fully human in the physical world if they desire and use this to hide within a human population and feed off negative emotions. A mid-ranking mazoku is about highest level mazoku that even the most powerful humans can hope defeat. Except under very VERY special circumstances."

"Finally there are the mazoku lords and their high-ranking underlings. These underlings are expected to be completely loyal to their creator, as too much of the creator's power went into their creation to allow disloyalty. In our world Hellmaster Fibrizo, the Deep Sea Dolphin, and the Demon Dragon King Gaav each choose to create two underlings. Dynast Grausherra tried creating four underlings, each with less power than the other mazoku lords put into their respective underlings. Greater Beast Zelas Metallium did the opposite and created a single underling, Xellos, who is more powerful than any of the other high ranking mazoku underlings."

"The shinzoku choose not to create any underlings in order to conserve their power. They instead act through their servants the ryūzoku: the dragon race. Most of the battles since Ceifeed's destruction have actually been fought between the ryūzoku and the mazoku."

Natsu cut in, confused. "Wait a minute, I thought you said these shinzoku or whatever were dragons. And then you said that one guy was a demon dragon. Now you're saying the dragons were the servants of the other shinzoku dragon guys, but they aren't the same thing." He folded his arms a confused expression on his face.

Zelgadis started explaining at that point, allowing Lina a chance to catch her breath. "They ARE different. You see, 'dragon' is a relatively loose term used to describe a large creature with reptilian features that frequently has wings and a powerful breath attack. There are multiple races that fall in this category such as the shinzoku, the ryūzoku who could be considered the 'true' dragons, a few non intelligent yet powerful creatures, and some mazoku like Gaav whose true form is the shape of a dragon. I don't know which of these beings you would see in your world. All we know for sure is that you have, or had, at least one shinzoku and one mazoku."

Levy nodded to herself as she finished jotting down notes. The majority of the guild seemed to at least somewhat understand the information Lina noted, pleased that her explanation didn't fall on deaf ears.

"This Chaotic Blue and the Blue Dragon, you mentioned them before when you were discussing the object which brought you here didn't you", Makarov asked, surprising the group with his good memory.

Lina spoke up. "Ya, their symbols are what are on this crystal." She withdrew the box from within an inside pocket of her cloak. The pocket appeared to be magical, as no bulge could be seen while the box was still within the fabric. Laying the box on top of the table she cautioned people to not touch the crystal (better to be on the safe side) before she opened the lid.

Levy carefully began examining the crystal before shaking her head. "Hmm, I'm afraid I've never come across this symbol, or anything like it, before. I'd be more than willing to do some research on it though, as this type of stuff always intrigues me and it might help you out." She carefully began to draw a startlingly accurate sketch of the symbol.

"We appreciate any information on it that you can give us," Zelgadis said earnestly. A head of blue hair appeared in his peripheral vision as someone tried to peer underneath his hood. She blushed as she realized she'd been caught staring and quailed a bit under his harsh glance. Zelgadis tried to soften his glare a bit when he realized how young she was. She was in a cute knee length pink trimmed white dress with matching hair pieces holding her hair up in twin ponytails.

"S-sorry. It's just, I mean, well…" Her stammering trailed off.

"Hey don't worry about sour-puss over there," Lina said jovially. "He's just a bit sensitive about his appearance is all." She leaned over to and put a hand up to whisper to the girl conspiratorially. "Honestly it's no wonder. I've seen rocks that look better and were smarter too".

"I heard that."

Lina grinned cockily at Zelgadis as the girl tried to stiffly a giggle.

As their visitors got into a small spat much to the joy of the guild members, Makarov covertly pulled Mirajane and Macao aside.

"What is it master?" Mira asked.

"I need you two to keep an eye on our guests while I go and do some digging. Try not to let them leave the city while I'm gone. They seem to be nice enough but be prepared in any case. Their magic is not like ours and we don't know what they can do."

"If you think it's that important we'll do as you ask". Macao replied as Mirajane nodded seriously.

Oh I think it is dreadfully important Macao. If that girl is what I think she is then there's no telling what she is capable of. The First won't be always be around to save us.

Yay chapter 4 is done with more interesting stuff to come now we got a lot of the less interesting stuff over with! As always, I love it when you guys review. Even if it's a flame, at least I know I'm worth your time.