"Where's the food!?"
A pink haired youth ran down the streets of the high tech futuristic town known as Academy City, flying behind him, was a blue cat with a green pack on his back who had dove like wings spread out in magical flight.
"Aye!" said the cat. "Where's the food, where's the food!?"1
The twosome known as Natsu and Happy made a sudden left into a large park area, bypassing some children who were drawing pictures in the dirt and playing with action figures as they made their way towards another gathering of youths where a nice smell could noticed in the air.
A sandy haired girl. One who looked extroardinarily like Mikaris Misaka, except she bore no eyepatch and wore a middle school uniform, looked up from the meat she was watching over on the grill. Mikoto Misaka brandished her tongs warningly. "Oh no Natsu!! Stop right there or-!!"
Too late.
Natsu and Happy did a full body tackle into Mikoto, and they rolled over like tumbleweeds in a violent hurricane.
Mikoto swatted her metal tongs onto Natsu and Happy's heads, causing them to yelp with pain.
"I thought I told you two before we planned this thing!" said Mikoto, a vein throbbing on her head. "You have to be patient and wait or you'll get sick to your stomach!!"
"Aw come on Mikoto!" cried Natsu. "We haven't eaten all day!"
"Then you should have bought something to hold you off!!"
"But me and Happy are broke see!?"
Natsu took out a frog shaped wallet and opened it up to reveal it was empty.1
"Wait..." said Mikoto. "Gekota? THAT'S MY WALLET!!!"1
"Oh..." said Happy. "So that's why it looked so different from our wallet."
"You spent all my money...!?" Mikoto growled dangerously as a spark jumped off her bangs.
"Uh..oh.." said Natsu as sweat began to pour down his face.
One of the youths, a spikey black haired guym, who was busy laying down picnic blankets for what was apparently a barbeque called out. "Hey! Biribiri, It's okay, I'm still keeping that extra money you earned from that last job here with me."
Thanking the lord almighty and everything in heaven for the boy Touma Kamijou, Mikoto sighed. "At least I'm not completely broke."
"So..." said Happy. "You're not angry?"
Mikoto's eyes flashed angrilly and the park was momentarily lit by a powerful electrical spark.
"She's still angry.." muttered Natsu weakly as he and Happy lay on the ground looking as charred as the meat on the grill Mikoto was tending to.
"Next time you need money from me." said Mikoto. "Ask."
Mikoto went back to watching over what appeared to be some delicious looking beef and pork sizzling on the grill. In truth, Mikoto was not very much of cook. Everytime she wanted to make cookies (and usually for a very special spikey haired sombody), she would have to ask her friend Saten to help her.
She had been a bit sad about the fact that she wasn't much of anything when it came to cooking food, but that was when her friend Lucy made a suggestion. They, and some assorted friends would hold a barbeque, and Lucy would teach her how to handle a grill. Which according to Lucy, was actually one of the easier of cooking arts, just provided you didn't leave the meat on the grill too long or too short of a time.
So Mikoto and Lucy had gathered Natsu, Erza, Gray, Touma, Index, and a few other members of Fairy Tail for a last second barbeque before the second semester started up again. It had been a good thing she had this to look forward to...Mikoto was on her final semester of middle school and was struggling with whether she should apply for Touma's high school ( just thinking about it made her blush.) On the other hand, after people had started getting used to the Rainbow Gate, Academy City had done some expanding into Magnolia Town, and there was a High School that was starting up there that would allow her to be closer to her work as a guild mage in Fairy Tail.
Mikoto had debated on asking Erza or Master Markarov about this, two people who had always given her spectacular mature advice. But then she trashed that idea as she remembered that Erza and Markarov hadn't exactly had her kind of trouble before as they grew up in a world without Academics and Esper studies.
So for the past week, she lay in bed just talking it out with her pink flying cat Elli and her best friend Kuroko...but of course niether of them could give any experienced advice. Making your own decisions was tough, even if you were already used to it.
"Er...hey Lucy...is this right?" Mikoto called out nervously as she turned over a brisket.
Lucy ran over and looked at the meat herself. "Not bad Mikoto! If I didn't know better, I'd say you'd done this before! Though you might want to set those ones on plates before they burn."
"Oh-er right! plates! Where are the plates?"
"Here!" said a pink cat wearing a light blue blouse. Elli activated her wings and flew over carrying a stack of paper plates.
"Okay! Everybody form a line!" Lucy called out. "And Levy goes first since she paid for the grill!"
Levy, a blue haired girl who looked around Lucy's age came up with a plate, her face alit with a cheerful smile. "Pile me high!"
Mikoto put some meat in Levy's plate while her two admirers, Jet and Droy fauned over her.
"That's our Levy! Being so generous that she actually bought the grill!" said Jet.
"Our spectacular generous Levy! That's her!!" said Droy.
Gajeel, who was standing right behind Jet and Droy with the black cat Pantherlilly on his shoulder rolled his eyes. "Come on, give her some space, your hero worship is going to give her a migrain."
Right behind Gajeel, the small nun wearing a white habit pushed eagerly. "Food food! Come on! Where's my food already!?"
Mikoto shivered as she considered how Index had once beaten both Natsu and Happy in a super spicy food eating contest. "Ermm...yeah just be patient, we'll get to each of you, there's plenty for everyone..."2
After a few minutes, Mikoto finally got to the final two people, which were Markarov and Mirajane.
"Quite a turnout I must say." said the elderly guild master cheerfully as Mikoto put some pork in his plate."
"Yeah, well you know what they say." said Mikoto. "Wherever you are, food is a magnet." (That saying is actually from the far north of Fiore.)
"Hey Mikoto!!" shouted Natsu as he munched on his food. "Did ya invite any more people!?"
"Erm...actually, I invited Saten and Uiharu, but they're taking midterms." said Mikoto. "Why? Did they come anyways?"
"No...but they'res the weird blonde girl who says she knows you..."
Had Mikoto been drinking something at the time, she might have spat it out in shock. There was a girl in a Tokwadai uniform much like hers walking towards her, only she had long blonde hair, sparkly mischievious eyes, and somewhat of a larger chest area.
"Misaki!!!"
"Hello Misaka!" said the 5th level 5 Mental Out cheerfully. "Hows tricks?!"3
"What's the deal!?" whispered Mikoto leaning close to Misaki Shokuhou's ear. "You hate being seen out in the open like this!"
"Oh I thought I'd just come by and say hello...plus..." Misaki's expression suddenly turned serious. "There's something I found which I really think you should look at right now...before the rest of your friends see..especially that Natsu kid."
"N-now? I'm kinda learning how to cook..."
Misaki reached into her large bag and took out a remote which she clicked. Immediately a random stranger who was walking by came over and took the tongs from Mikoto. He began watching over the meat like he had nothing better to do.
Lucy, who was standing next to Mikoto and watching all of this, looked surprised. "That's a little extreme if you just want a private conversation."
"I guess you should come too.." said Misaki. "Anyways...hurry up, he's just behind these trees."
Mikoto and Lucy looked at each other for a moment then walked quietly after Misaki who pushed aside some bushes in the more thickly forrested area of the park. They pushed through the trees until they came to a small grassy clearing.
And lying in the clearing was none other then...
"Natsu!?" Mikoto and Lucy exclaimed.
"But Natsu's out there eating with Happy!" said Mikoto. "Who!? What!?"
It was Natsu alright. Only this Natsu wasn't wearing a scarf and he was wearing goggles on his head along with a red shirt that had flame designs on the sleeves. He was lying on his back with a moaning expression as he weakly moaned out. "Food....need...food..."
"I didn't want too many people seeing." said Misaki. "I thought that since Academy City has had a renewed interest in magic lately, they might have started some sort of Dragon Slayer cloning program....now I see they've succeeded."
"That can't be it." said Mikoto. "Nelliel Cerulean from Lamia Scale was the only attempt, and she was declared a failure because she ran away and joined a guild."
"And that's no clone..." said Lucy. "I know that guy. It's Natsu Dragion..."
"Wait..." said Mikoto trying to remember all the stories that her friends had told her about their adventures. "Erm..wait, that's like the Natsu look-a-like from Edolas right?"
"Edolas?" said Misaki. "What's that?"
"It's a world parallel to our Earthland where magic was dissapearing." said Lucy. "Supposedly there's an alternate version of everyone from Earthland there. I even met my own Edolas counterpart."
Natsu Dragion opened his eyes slightly. "L-Lucy? Wait...no..you're Earthland Lucy right? Please, you have to..." Edo-Natsu suddenly noticed Mikoto. "AAAAAGGGGGHHH!!!! IT'S ONE OF THE DIVINE GENERALS MIKARIS MISAKA!!!"
Natsu jumped up and hid behind Lucy shivering. "Stay away...stay away..."
Mikoto felt surprised and slightly hurt. Sure her Natsu was afraid of her, but it was more in the sense that he was afraid of Erza. This Natsu seemed to fear her as some heartless monster. Plus he had even gotten her name wrong.
"My name is Mikoto, not Mikaris." said Mikoto. "And I'm not some sort of Divine General or whatever..."
"Oh..." said Edo Natsu with a look of dawning on his face. "Wait...am I in THAT Earthland?"
Natsu put a hand on his chin. "But that doesn't make sense. If I'm in the other Edolas, then what is Lucy doing in this Edolas? Unless..."
Natsu pounded his fist on his hand like he just came to a realization. "This world has become dimensionally connected with the other Earthland just like our two Edolas!!"
"Eh?" said Mikoto trying to put what Edo Natsu was saying together. "What?"
"It's hard to explain...but..." Natsu began, then he started crying and grabbed Misaki's shirt collar in desperation. "Please!! I have to find the Earthland Fairy Tail!! Edolas is in trouble!! Big trouble!! I have no idea what to do!! And I can't find Lucy!!"
"Lucy's right here." said Mikoto pointing at her friend.
"I meant my Lucy!!!" Cried out Natsu.
"Edo me is here as well!?" exclaimed Lucy
"Jeez," said Misaki as she patted the sobbing Natsu on the head who was hugging her like a baby. "Makes me wonder what it's like to have my own weird double...eh Misaka?"
"Are you kidding me?" said Mikoto. "I have over 10,000 doubles."3
"Oh yeah..."
"What should we do?" said Lucy. "If Edolas is in trouble....hey Natsu...could you calm down a second and tell us what happened?"
"O-okay.." said Natsu letting go of Mental Out much to the esper's relief. "It all started a month ago, we were all very hard at work building stuff and running jobs...Fairy Tail I mean..."
"That's right!" said Mikoto. "Edolas has it's own Fairy Tail...only since all the magic is gone, I guess you just do some odd jobs around the place huh?"
"Yeah...actually we mainly specialize in construction now." said Edo-Natsu. "Anyways, it had been very peaceful for the past 7 years since the whole Faust and Exceed thing....The return of the Prince really helped speed things along in getting back on our feet....but then, about a month ago, some sort of...rift opened up in the sky above our city."1
"Rift?" said Misaki. "You mean like a dimensional doorway of some sort?"
Edo Natsu nodded. "Yeah, people couldn't exactly go exploring, since without magic we didn't have a way to fly...but me, Lucy and Levy managed to find a alternate fuel source to run our planes 3 years ago...we dug it out of the ground and it was black and oily.."
"I'm guessing gasoline." said Mikoto.
"Well when me and Lucy flew up to look, we found, something amazing!" Natsu's eyes widened as he remembered. "It had buildings taller then the sky itself. There was so much high tech stuff...and nothing ran on magic...somehow they managed to make stuff that could run without magic and opperated so efficiently!! And there vehicles!! I wanted one of those cars so bad!"
"I'm guessing this Natsu doesn't get motion sick." Mikoto said with a smile.
"But then things got sour." said Natsu. "We...were captured by some weird security guys...when they found out we came through the rift, they captured us...and then things got even crazier."
"What?" said Mikoto now feeling a little suspenseful. "What did they do?"
"War!" Natsu burst out into tears again. "They declared war on our Edolas...that Edolas, decided to go to war with our Edolas! We were defenseless! They brought weapons we had never seen before!! So...so we had no choice but to use a device that Byro had developed."
"Oh yeah...the squid guy.." said Lucy. "Well what did the device do?"
"I don't know exactly how it works, but it made Edolas like Earthland...we were able to sustain our own magical regenerating force in the land...meaning unlimited magical energy...we didn't try it because we were afraid it might start up wars in Edolas again...but we didn't have a choice, their forces had some weird powers. They called themselves espers and they even had several magic users with them!
Natsu put his hands on his face as he remembered the horror. "Even with our magic restored they were ruthlessly powerful. Their Seven Generals were unlike anything we had ever seen! The number 1 general Domus Accelerator...We don't know why they called him a general, he was like a mindless animal...the number 2, they called her The Slicer Kanzaki...she was one of their magic users, she left blood stains wherever she went....then their was the number 3...the most ruthless out of all the generals besides Domus Accelerator. They say she was only 3rd strongest...but I think that was a misnomer...she fought like such a demon, I think people fear more then the others. They say her strategical brilliance alone left the prince speechless!"
Natsu looked at Mikoto. "They called her many things...the Thundering Queen...the Blitzkrieg Supreme...(Blitzkrieg means lightning in German)....but because of her signature move, the people from her world called her the Railgun..."
"W-Wait a second!" said Mikoto. "Accelerator? Kanzaki? Railgun? These sound like..."
"Our world." said Misaki. "Do you know what this means? It means that for every Earth...there must be an Edolas version...And just like our world was parallel to Fiore, this Edolas was parallel to their Edolas...incredible...Every dimension has it's own mirror world."
Mikoto suddenly froze up. The word mirror world sparked a memory she had from a dream. "The answer lies in a mirrored world."
"Three gates.." Mikoto murmured as she took a key that was attatched to a neclace around her neck and looked at it. "Could it be...?"
"Mikoto?" said Lucy. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I'd be pretty shocked if I knew there was an Edolas at our very doorstep." said Misaki. "Tell me Natsu..is there a version of me in that place?"
"I-I don't know..." said Natsu. "I only ever met their soldiers and three of the divine generals that came and captured the rest of my guild when we attempted to fight back. The prince...he used Anima to send me and Lucy here to find help...but I guess our trajectory overshot to that world's Earthland."
"Well either way, you found us.." said Lucy. "Come on, some of our guild is over here..plus we can get you some food."
"Food..." said Natsu suddenly smiling happily. "That would be nice."
"Yeah..in the meantime though, I guess I'll go look for the other Lucy who came with you." said Mikoto. "She won't be hard to miss will she?"
"Just look for a girl who looks exactly like me, except more violent." said Lucy.
"Hmmm..." said Misaki. "I wonder what Edolas me is like..."
Mikoto grabbed Misaki's arm and walked off. "Come on, you can wonder while we search.."
"Neh? i didn't agree to help you search."
"Yeah, well I didn't ask you to but in to my barbeque did I?"
Misaki harrumphed. "Fine, but you had better share some of the food when we find her..."
20 minutes later, Mikoto and Misaki were walking through the high tech district 7 as Misaki continuosly began to wonder about her Edolas counterpart.
"Maybe she's like a warrior with a sadistic side....or maybe she's exactly like me only more pretty! Like that's even possible..."
"Seriously Shokuhou!" said Mikoto putting her hands over her ears irritably. "You don't see me wondering about my Edolas counterpart in such an annoying way!"
"Well you're used to having multiple versions of yourself running around everywhere aren't you?" said Misaki. "There's MISAKA Imouto...MISAKA Worst... Last Order...that Sister of yours who was stationed in Russia during WW4...That Nelliel girl from Lamia Scale...that Hope Ellendiel..."
"First of all, Nelliel only had a pinch of my DNA, so she's not even a proper clone." said Mikoto. "Plus Hope isn't a version of me, she's my great great times a thousand Niece on my dragon mom's side...and third of all, how do you know all of this?"
"Oh.." said Misaki with a smile. "I get around. My original point is though, you're used to running around with multiple versions of yourself all over the place. One more like your Edolas self shouldn't surprise you too much."
Mikoto kept silent. In truth, she was really riled up about this...An Edolas version didn't sound like just somebody who shared your DNA. Erza had told her about the time she had went toe to toe with her Edolas version, Erza Knightwalker. Though the two were opposites in many ways, the way they fought each other, it helped them each understand that in many ways they were the same. This wasn't cloning..this wasn't a Sister...this was a mirror. And from what Edo Natsu had told Mikoto, her Edolas self wasn't an aspiring role model.
"Anyways." continued Misaki. "I actually want to find out what I'm like in that world..."
Mikoto stopped dead in her tracks. "Well, wait no further, because I think you're about to find out now.."
Several meters away from where they stood were what appeared to be a regiment of military troops dressed in high tech black armor. At there head was Lucy, only she wore what appeared to be black clothes as opposed to Earthland Lucy's more colorful day wear. And leading the military troops, wearing a form fitting black jumpsuit with white armaments on the shoulder arm and leg areas was none other then...
"Hello..." said Edo Mental Out with a smile. "Looking for this? Well so were we...I am Meribeth Shokuhou...the 5th of the Divine Generals...and if you wouldn't mind...we are supposed to capture you as well."
Divine Generals, other troops and Earthland Counterparts.
Divine Generals
1. Domus Accelerator/ Accelerator
2. 'The Slicer' Kanzaki/ Kaori Kanzaki
3. Mikaris Misaka/ Mikoto Misaka (The Railgun)
4. Shin Muginas/ Shizuri Mugino (Meltdowner)
5. Meribeth Shokuhou/ Misaki Shokuhou (Mental Out)
6. 'Death Shadow' Musujime/ Awaki Musujime
7. 'Mega Punch' Sogin/ Gunha Sogiita (Attack Crash)
Second in command Commanders to the Divine Generals
Mikaris Misaka's commander: Erza Knightwalker/ Erza Scarlet
'The Slicer' Kanzaki's commander: Stiyl Regulus/ Stiyl Magnus
Shin Muginas's commander: Frenda Woods/ Frenda
Seivulan Lieutenants to the the Divine Generals
Mikaris Misaka's Liutenants: Cronus Shirai, Railgun Weapon #37 / Kuroko Shirai, MISAKA Imouto
Shin Muginas's Liutenants: Sharess Kinuhata, Rikou Revanto / Saiai Kinuhata, Rikuo Takitsubo
Major leaders and two advisors
Psychic Supreme/ Unknown
Leivess Love/ Leivinia Birdway
Arnold Baptis/ Aleister Crowley