Chapter 8

Disorder

~Fiore | Dungeons~~~

The old man had just finished a meeting with the Magic Council. It was the usual, "Stop making a mess! Here's a bill!" sort of meeting.

Makarov sighed when he read the bill on the sheet of paper they had given him. He would scold his children when he got back. Wanting to cool off from the frustrating meeting, he decided to do some exploring. He hadn't explored in a long time due to him being the third guild master of Fairy Tail.

He took a stroll in a forest when he heard crying.

"Where are you?!" the voice of an innocent child cried. "Igneel!"

Makarov couldn't ignore this distress. He headed toward the source of the crying when suddenly, what appeared to be a black haired teen suddenly appeared in front of him. Dark magic radiated off of the young man.

"I'm sorry Makarov. But I can't allow you to get further into this forest."

The old man took a defensive stance. "Who are you? How do you know me?"

Black magic started to swirl around the young man.

'Good Bye,' were the last words Makarov heard before the darkness attacked him and engulfed him.

He was sure that he was dead.

Until his eyes opened. And his lungs breathed air.

He was in the same forest. However, he heard no more crying. And the presence of that young man was gone. Makarov did appear to have nature grow over his body. Removing himself from the forest, the old man went to travel to the nearest town.

The town looked different from the night before, but Makarov took no heed to the differences.

Until a newsboy yelled 'Extra Extra' and threw many newspapers to the sky. Makarov picked up a newspaper and was only an inch from having a heart attack.

First of all, the year that was printed in the newspaper was near x785. He was pretty sure the year was x777, as according to the last time he was conscious.

He then saw the headline. Good Bye Fairies

The first page was detailed with a horrible accident involving Fairy Tail. The guild was said to be on their S-Class Promotion Exam on Tenrou Island, when suddenly, the Island suddenly disappeared. There had been no trace of it last. The last thing that was seen of it was a large light engulfing the whole island before it had disappeared.

Makarov dropped to his knees. He had no idea of what to make of this news, or of why he was suddenly several years into the future.

They were all so innocent. Sure, many of them caused him to receive massive amounts of debt, but none of them deserved this cruel fate.

He thought this was all a dream, as what he was experiencing felt impossible. But when he woke up the next day, he was still stuck in this nightmare.

He didn't know what to do anymore.

He thought he should just die right then and there.

But then he heard a voice. Surely he was hallucinating if he was starting to hear voices in his mind. But he listened as any other distressed old man would. It told him of the existence of the Eclipse Gate. That he could turn back time and change this fate.

It told him this was the only thing he could do to save the lives of his children. He knew messing with time was a bad idea. But this was the only thing he could do.

"I'm so sorry," he closed his eyes and let tears stream down his face. "I shouldn't have let this happen to you all!"

"There was nothing you could have done," Gray growled, not even trying to hide any feelings of resentment toward the old man. "But you could've done something for the rest of the guild! Sure, we were gone, but there were still other members left. You should've came back for them and not continue this door project!"

"Gray," Erza muttered. She would have glared at him for treating the former master with such disrespect, but she too held the angry feelings at the master for abandoning the others. Makarov glanced at Erza, then looked away, knowing how she truly felt.

Macao, the current guildmaster, shivered in the tense atmosphere between Makarov and Gray. "Well, if it makes you feel better, everyone who stayed in the guild felt better since Ivan could no longer assume his role as guild master."

"Until he messed everything up at the Grand Magic Games."

"The old dude's in jail now, along with his lackeys, thanks to Laxus."

"Wish I could have have my share of beating him up, what, especially with how he treated the guild."

"But now, we're all in jail, and we did nothing wrong… except for Makarov, that is."

The rest of the guildmates chimed in, sharing their thoughts about Ivan. The chattering, however, did quickly get out of hand. Makarov yelled, "Quiet!" Everyone was silenced, they still remembered the days when Makarov would silence the whole guild after a huge fight.

Gray sighed, and turned his eyes to the wall. He felt that Makarov had no right to silence everyone like the old days. He wasn't even guild master.

Makarov was saddened by Gray's behavior. He knew it was partly because of Ivan's influence that made Gray act this way.

Erza walked and stood in front of Gray, giving him a look of sympathy. Then she slapped him straight across the face, much to a certain rain woman's displeasure.

"You should give him a second chance," the redhead said.

The ice mage restrained himself from scowling, he didn't want to get beat up by Erza… again.

Makarov silently chuckled at the sight of Gray and Erza. At least some things never changed.

Meanwhile, in the other corner of the cell, Wendy was trying to calm Lucy down. The blonde was about to have a panic attack, but almost no one noticed since everyone was too busy with their 'reunion' with the third guild master.

Lucy hugged her knees, trying to calm down. However, the magic sealing cuffs around her wrist could not stop her from remembering her slave days. Wendy could barely do anything about it. She always relied on her magic to fix things, now that she currently couldn't use her magic… she felt useless.

Suddenly, a voice rose above all voices.

"Hey, Everyone!"

All eyes turned to look at their resident iron dragon slayer.

"I ate the iron bars holding us in here," Gajeel said, while still munching on the leftover scraps of the cell bars. "We should get out of here before the guards come back."

Everyone stood for a second, looking around. Surprisingly, there were no guards around. Never before were they so glad to have Gajeel in their guild.


~Fiore | Palace~~~

He was assigned to infiltrate Alvarez because he had the magic that allowed him to easily blend in. Not blend in like shapeshift. No, he had the ability to add his existence to the memories of the strangers around him. He could also erase memories, in case of emergency. Like now, with the Prince's unintentional visit to the kingdom of Fiore.

Now, he had finally caught the Prince of Alvarez.

It was incredibly hard to manipulate the memories of those significantly stronger than he was, but the job was possible if they let their guard down and were considerably weakened.

Despite the fact that the prince was unconscious, Mest had to concentrate hard in order to flawlessly erase the memories of this 'kidnapping'. He needed to be calm, completely focused, and have no interruptions.

Clearly, this was a hard job.

Mest flinched, his next obstacle had presented itself to him. The Prince of Alvarez was concerningly pale, and there was blood leaking through the cloth that covered his body. He also realized there was something missing… The prince's scarf was missing. From his days of spying in Alvarez, he quickly learned that that scaly, white scarf was one of the Prince's most prized possession. He clearly couldn't return the Prince in this condition.

As he tried to prevent himself from panicking, an intense shiver was sent through his whole body. He could feel extreme magical presences surrounding the Capital, a total of six presences powerful enough to destroy this whole city if they wanted to. He recognized three of the magical presences belonged to three of the Wizard Saints.

He gulped, and bullets of sweat trickled down his neck. The other three powerful presences belonged to three of the Shields of Alvarez.

It was too late. He couldn't just bring the prince home now. The Shields probably knew that Ishgar, specifically Fiore, had 'taken' the prince.

He then heard a shrilling scream.

"AAAAAAAAH! WHO ARE YOU? WHY IS THERE A GUY DYING ON THE FLOOR? WHAT'S HAPPENING?" it seemed like the princess had awoken.

The guards thrust the doors open, quickly pointing their spears at Mest.

Knowing he had no time to dawdle, he decided the best thing to do was dump the prince in some random bar and hope the Shields don't make a connection with the royal capital with the kidnapping, so he quickly grabbed Natsu as he teleported the hell out of there.

Hisui heavily panted, when suddenly her memories quickly flooded back to her.

"What..?" she lightly touched her wrist. The last thing she remembered was being chased in the Capital of Death. She had no recollection of how she was safely back in the palace, it was as if her imprisonment there had never happened.

A thought suddenly struck her.

"Where's my father?" she demanded of the guards who entered the room.

The guards looked at each other confusedly, then looked at the princess to tell her that they had no recollection of what happened the past few days.

"What's the date today?" she asked.


~Fiore | Palace~~~

Ever since Happy left the dining room, he had decided to take matters into his own hands. Since Natsu didn't think he could get the princess to release Fairy Tail legally, then all Happy had to do was release Fairy Tail illegally.

He had never done anything illegal in his life, he was curious how it felt like to break the rules.

Every room he entered, he saw guards completely frozen in place. It looked as if they were all just staring into nothingness. It didn't really bother Happy. In fact, he used this as an advantage to freely roam around the palace to find the prison. He actually found it a bit odd that this kingdom put a dungeon inside their own palace.

After much searching, Happy finally found the entrance to the dungeon. Living in a palace with its own types of prisons built within, Happy was somewhat sure that he found the dungeon entrance.

There was a long flight of stairs leading down with small torches dimly lighting the tunnel. Happy didn't mind the darkness, there were sounds coming from below that could help him tell where he should step. Plus, he had wings. Even if he did fall, he could just fall graciously.

The blue exceed eventually did end up slipping on one of the steps, and he very ungraciously fell down the stairs, to the very bottom.

"Ow…" he muttered, while thinking, at least Carla didn't see that.

As he picked himself up, he suddenly heard a burst of sobs.

"D- don't cry master! If you cry, the- then we'll start crying too!"

These sobs were followed by angry statements, about how they all had to get out of here.

Clearly mistaking those sobs as Carla's cry for help, Happy flew to the source of the sounds. Once he arrived to his destination, he saw a large group of people crying, huddled in the cell area, while there were others outside of the cell, looking for something. He also noticed how there were magic sealing cuffs restraining each of the mages wrists.

The mages all looked stupefied at Happy, while Happy stared dumbly at them. He looked for the white exceed that had captured his heart, but he was interrupted as the group of mages started screaming at him.

Happy screamed too, he didn't know if he was in the middle of a huge prison outbreak, and if all these people were all dangerous mages.

The screams must have snapped the kingdom's guards out of their daze, as a multitude of footsteps running down the stairs to the dungeon room was heard.

One of the prisoners screamed for a key, and the rest of the prisoners scrambled around, desperately looking for a key. Meanwhile, Happy tried to look for Carla.

He found his beloved snow white Exceed standing next to a girl, who he remembered to be Wendy. He leaped toward the female exceed, only to slam into nothing and faceplant the floor when Carla stepped out of his way.

Carla rolled her eyes as Wendy asked, "Happy? What are you doing here?"

Happy didn't respond, he just laughed to himself while drowning in embarrassment. He then noticed the crying blonde who was curled up in the corner of the cell.

As to answer Happy's confusion, Wendy vaguely explained, "She can't handle being imprisoned."

Happy looked around at the hole in the iron bars of the cell and at the panicking mages who looked for a key before the guards arrived. They clearly broke out of prison, meaning that they weren't imprisoned anymore.

"I want to help her…" Wendy cried. "This whole guild has been helping me… Miss Lucy has always been taking care of me. Why can I still do nothing?"

"Wendy…" Carla patted her partner's back.

Happy watched Wendy fidget in her magic sealing cuffs. It was then that he realized that perhaps everyone was just uncomfortable wearing these magic sealing cuffs. He pounded his paws as he just made that realization.

As the screaming of the desperate mages and the dutiful guards started to intensify, Happy reached out to grab Wendy's cuffs. At an instant, his wings vanished.

"What are you—"

"Where I come from, escaping from these little toys is common knowledge," Happy said as he got Wendy out of her handcuffs.

Wendy and Carla gaped at him. Happy quickly realized that he just acted cool in front of his love. His cheeks quickly turned red.

As soon as Happy got the magic sealing cuffs off of Carla, the guards finally arrived to the dungeon floor.

As all the mages thought that they would be forced to a more secure cell, all the guards were all blasted back by a large burst of wind. Everyone turned to Wendy, who somehow got the cuffs off.

Wendy glanced at the blue exceed, indicating that she got out of the cuffs thanks to him.

In a split second, Happy was surrounded by mages, all wanting to get the magic sealing cuffs off of them.


~Fiore | Palace Entrance~~~

A woman, clad in dark blue and black clothing, stood, without breaking a sweat, before the menacing figures of August, Brandish, and Dimaria.

"Well, this is a surprise," she said, not really showing any surprise or any emotion. "Instead of finding Acnologia, I find three generals from a rival kingdom… Interesting…"

The area surrounding the palace was like a ghost town. It was dead silent. Either, all the citizens were coincedently avoiding this area, or everyone in the area had collapsed due to the extreme levels of Magic emanating from the six mages.

They were all concealing their magic, clearly, or else the entire city would have shut up.

Behind the woman stood two of the Wizard Saints, Hyberion and Wolfheim. Like August, they were old, but not to be underestimated.

"Oh, if only I could just strip this bitch right here and now…" Dimaria muttered, receiving two death glares from her comrades.

"We're not here to fight," August said.

"Really? That's not what it looks like to me," the woman smirked, glancing at Dimaria who was doing everything in her power to not let her emotions get the better of her. "Long time no see, Dimaria."

Brandish stepped in front of said mage, blocking Dimaria's view of the woman, hoping that Dimaria wouldn't make any reckless decisions. She could not help but feel a glare burn at her back.

"Then why are you here?" Wolfheim demanded an answer.

August was not going to discus the matter of their 'kidnapped' prince, at least, not to these people. They would only get the wrong idea about the security of the Alvarez Empire. Plus, to ensure that Zeref would not learn about this little incident, the mission to retrieve the prince would have to be kept a secret, that is, unless this kingdom intended to kidnap the prince in order to instigate war. August didn't see any signs indicating that this kingdom or country wanted to bring war to Alvarez, August decided that the prince's absence from the kingdom was just that of the prince wanting to escape from his princely duties.

"We have business here," he said, without giving any clues as to what their business was.

"Which is?" Hyberion raised an eyebrow.

"That's none of your business," Brandish deadpanned, while noticing how the prince's presence inside the palace had disappeared, and reappeared somewhere else within the city. "We should go now," she said to August.

August nodded, looking at the three Wizard Saints to see if they would allow them to move now.

The woman nodded first, while getting uneasy glances from her companions. The two old men later nodded in approval.

As the Shields walked away, August heard Hyberion say, "What if they're responsible for the burst of Acnologia's magical presence here?"

"Don't worry," the woman said. "They want to kill Acnologia as much as we do, they wouldn't just summon him here to bring destruction."

August shook his head as he wanted to deal with the more pressing matters at the moment. He didn't want to think about their seemingly inevitable clash with the Gods of Ishgar in the future.

"I can't believe it!" Dimaria whispered in a rage. "That's the person who took Serena's spot in the Wizard Saints? How is that even possible?!"

"Calm down," Brandish sighed.

"It's like she's asking for a war between Ishgar and Alvarez!" Dimaria grit her teeth. "I'll have her head next time I see her…"

"I said calm down before I shrink you and put you into an icebox!" Brandish snapped.

August pondered, perhaps that since God Serena's defection, that stupid magic council were too desperate and got her to fill in Serena's spot.

"I just want some star mango gelato when we're done here…" Brandish muttered, cautiously looking back, to look at the woman that made Dimaria so frustrated.

The woman caught her glance and smirked back at her.


~Fiore | Some Random Tavern in Crocus~~~

"Ughh…" Natsu groaned as his head and body felt like crap. It took minutes for his vision to clear up. He found himself sprawled across the floor, surrounded by some glass and alcohol bottles. He noticed how practically everyone else in the building was unconscious.

He sat up and rubbed his temples with his fingers to help ease what felt like the worst migraine ever. He looked at his surroundings again to make sure he was not just imagining things. Nope, he was still in what seemed like a tavern.

Judging by how he found himself and where he found himself, Natsu guessed that he was involved in some huge drinking party that he had no recollection of going to or even hearing of. But it could only explain how horrible he felt at the current moment.

Natsu sighed, the last thing he could remember was… What was the last thing he could remember?

He suddenly heard voices trying to reach out to him.

"Natsu? Prince Natsu? Can you hear me? Did you drink too much?"

He turned around to find a blonde woman trying to tease him. Behind her stood a green haired woman, roughly the same age as the woman, and a tall old man.

He squinted at the blonde's face. He felt like his headache was getting in his way of recognizing these people. He clutched his head in pain.

"You know we have a lot of taverns in Alvarez, you didn't have to sneak out just to go to a tavern in some other kingdom," the green haired woman sighed.

"Now that you have had your fun," the old man started to talk. "Shall we escort you back home?"

Natsu closed his eyes, trying to reach his deepest thoughts.

"That would be great and all, but…"

The three people glared at him. They were going to bring him home, there was no buts.

"...Who are you people?" Natsu finally got himself to say through the pain.

The trio looked at each other in confusion and concern.

Well, they weren't expecting this.


No 'mini' chapter this time. (I didn't really have any ideas for one)

Hope you enjoyed reading this chapter :D

Cool, it's been a year since I released the first chapter of this story. Only on chapter 8 now... Well, that's progress :3

To be'ith continued'th