Magnolia Town. Southern part of Town
Shizuri Mugino was never one to take much stalk in magic. Science had always been her reality, and that was how she had expected it to stay. But then the Rainbow Gateway was discovered, two gigantic city sized dragons were seen fighting each other in the sky, and she was forced to reconsider...not that she hadn't already been reconsidering everything...magic stuff had been going wacko in Academy City long before Fairy Tail arrived.
But then, she started to see an oppertunity. Who said ITEM only had to operate in the realm of science. Those silly wizard guilds were taking jobs from her world...why couldn't she take jobs from their's? So after finding a new handler and getting more familiar with Fiore...ITEM began taking a new direction.
Other then that, she still had one thing on her agenda. Defeat Laxus Dreyar. She didn't care how she did it..or how long it took, as far as she was concerned, their fight wasn't over, it had been that strange woman who turned all who looked in her eyes to stone that had ended the fight not him...the battle between them was a draw right now...with anyone who could emerge the victor.
Mugino was currently leaning agains the wall outside a magic shop. She didn't use magic. Unless you counted a few exceptions, espers normaly couldn't use magic. In an attempt to get even with Railgun once, Shizuri had actually attempted to learn a bit of magic, only to find herself waking up in the hospital after what seemed like a few seconds later.
The door to the store opened, and out walked a spikey blonde haired guy known as Shiage Hamazura.
"Well.." said Shizuri. "Did our information hold as promised?"
"Yeah.." said Shiage. "As far as we know, that guild Crime Sorciere is somewhere in this town..the reward money for taking them down...it's quite high."
"They're just what we need to put ITEM back on top of the books." said Shizuri. "Our reputation's been faulty lately after our failure against that Laxus freak."
"I think you're taking that too hard." muttered Shiage with a frown. "Those Fairy Tail guys didn't even fight like normal people..much less espers. We couldn't have been prepared for them..."
"Whatever the case...that old lightning scar face is going to get his one day." said Shizuri. "So are they close?"
"Closer then you think.." said Shiage. "They're in a bar not too far from here...right across the street actually."
"Good." said Shizuri. "Saiai..are you ready?"
A younger girl in an orange hoodie walked over next to Shizuri. "Super ready! But..erm..are you sure you and me are enough to take all 9 of them?"
"Their are only 3 members currently in Magnolia Town." said Shizuri. "We'll take care of this quickly."
The bar was one of the typical taverns you found in this world. Not too dim like the bars in Academy City, and also not too populated either. Shizuri supposed that it was the guilds that usually got the large audiences where drinking was concerned. The moment she walked through the door with Saiai however, she could sense trouble. And that was before the crimson haired man shut the door behind her.
Cobra grinned at Shizuri, his one not closed eye gleamed. "No need to rush...we know why you're here."
"No way you could have been warned about us that that quickly!" said Shizuri scowling.
"I could hear you coming...your intentions...everything." said Cobra. "I could hear it all."
"And once again! The resident snake proves that he can hear everything despite the weird fact that reptiles don't have ears!!" said a jovial voice.
The purple and white harlequin known as Twilight Prankster jumped out from behind the counter of the bar. Where his Edolas Hydra Head emblem used to be was now the s like insignia of Crime Sorciere. "So!! Want a drink! Heaven knows I can't taste any of it!"
Twilight Prankster uncorked a bottle and poured the liquid onto his mask like he intended to drink it. However, as the mask presented no mouth opening but instead a painted on smiley mouth, the beer to drizzled off the mask and spattered onto the floor. Twilight Prankster threw the empty bottle over his shoulder and let it shatter on the floor.
"WOW!! That's a rush that I may or may not be feeling! Hey Cobra! Am I drunk yet?"
Cobra rolled his eye. "As far as I know, you're always drunk."
"So you have come.." A figure moved out of the shadows to reveal none other then Jellal Fernandez himself. "I thought you'd find us eventually."
"This may be World War 5 in our world...but that doesn't mean we don't have enough priority to find you." said Shizuri with a dangerous smile. "So you knew we were coming, why haven't you ran away yet?"
"Well probably I was hoping I'd get to talk to you" said Jellal. "That is if you can sit still long enough."
"Sorry..but we're not here to play patty cake with you so called mages." said Shizuri. "You're coming with us, in pieces if necessary."
Cobra grinned dangerously. "I can hear where this is going...and I like it...hey Jellal..you don't mind do you?"
"Looks like we have no choice." said Jellal. "Twilight Prankster, do you have any objections?"
"Well, as any ol' American will do in this situation!" said Twilight Prankster imitating a red neck accent. "I'm going to do the obvious thing!! Git ma GUN!!"1
Twilight Prankster's arms suddenly morphed into an assortment of gigantic artilary weapons...everything from gattling guns to heat seeking missles and bazookas. "It's ESPER SEASON!!! And a little bit of duck season on the side!"4
Shizuri nodded at Saiai. "Now.."
Saiai moved quickly and launched her hand out at Cobra. Cobra , however, was able to quickly dodge Saiai's move and moved right behind her moving up a hand which had turned into purple scaled claws. "Fang Thrust Of The Poison Dragon!"
A large blast of black and red poisonous energy shot out from Cobra's claws and shaped itself into a snake head and blasted itself into Saiai. While Saiai was knocked back however, the invisable shield of Nitrogen around Saiai prevented any damage. Saiai quickly jumped back onto her feet.
"I can hear your intentions!" said Cobra suddenly twitching his head to the left as a blast of greenish photon energy blasted past his head from behind.
He predicted my stealth attack!? Meltdowner thought as she tried to fire several more energy beams at the agile Cobra.
Cobra suddenly moved in close to Meltdowner and attempted to punch her with a poison energy engulfed fist. "Of course I predicted it!! I can HEAR you!"
Cobra's fist rammed straight into a greenish energy disk as Shizuri set a Meltdowner shield in between herself and Cobra.
Cobra jumped back as his fist smoked from the photon energy, several scars now on his scaled fist. "Heh...any further and my entire arm would have been dust."
"You get it now!?" said Shizuri. "Unless you're like that Laxus fellow.."
"Well you'll find me and that Fairy have a little bit in common.." said Cobra. Suddenly Cobra jumped to the side as Saiai thrust her hand at him. "I told you that won't work! I can hear you!"
"And I can hear Fat Albert saying: HEY HEY HEY! OUTA MY WAY!!" Shouted Twilight Prankster as he aimed his weapons and fired. There was a massive explosion and Saiai fell back into a wall as the harlequin walked out of the dust with a large mallet in his hand. "Ever play whack a girl? I'm gonna win a prize!!"1
Twilight Prankster raised his mallet and struck against Saiai's head. But the hammer broke and sizzled against Saiai's offense armor.
"That's not going to work." said Saiai kicking at Twilight Prankster in the chest. Under normal circumstances, the Offense Armor ability should have knocked the harlequin through a wall or something. However, Twilight Prankster wasn't an ordinary fighter. Right before Saiai's foot connected, Twilight Prankster suddenly turned into a baloon animal and popped with a rasberry kiss noise.
Suddenly Twilight Prankster appeared behind Saiai in a burst of smoke and confetti. "No esper! Bad esper!" Twilight Pranster snapped his fingers and suddenly the wall of the bar broke as a huge cartoony looking train ran right into Saiai and rammed her straight into the other wall of the bar with a crash.1
"Now get back up and say you're sorry." said Twilight Prankster. "Esper? Eeeeesper?.....esper?"
Saiai merely groaned and slumped over unconscious.
"Hmmm... maybe that's why daddy never let's me keep a dog..." said Twilight Prankster. "Oh well!"4
"Saiai!" Shizuri shouted as energy spheres formed around her in preperation to blast the harlequin/
"Oh no you don't!" said Cobra . "Roar of The Poison Dragon!!"
Cobra blasted a tremendous beam of black and red poison from his mouth at Shizuri, who only managed to create Meltdowner shield to block just in the nick of time.
As Cobra moved in to fight Shizuri, Twilight Prankster sat at the bar with three identical doppelgangers of himself, each of them had a microphone.1
"Aaaannd we're back with WWB folks!" said the first Prankster. "That stands for World Wrestling Buttheads!! Right now it's Meltdowner vs Cobra!! What are your thoughts on this Chip?"
"It's looking pretty heated here Jim." said Prankster 2. "Meltdowner starts out with several photon beams to the right! But OOOOO!! Cobra dodges them all and throws in a few poison punches!. Meltdowner avoids it with another shield, But Cobra is back on the offensive again! More blows to the left! Right! Oh dear me! Braves win, Braves win! What are we doing again!"
"Full Nelson Cobra!" said Prankster 3. "You have to use a Full Nelson! A Full Nelson solves everything except sexual harrassment charges!"
"Why do you always think a Full Nelson will solve this?" said Prankster 2.
"That's how they do it in Dragon Ball Z! And look at that! I think Meltdowner's temper tantrum has reached well over 9000!" shouted Prankster 2.2
"All interesting thoughts!" said Prankster 1. "Let's see what Flippers the Magic Dolphin has to say on the subject!"
Next to the three Twilight Pranksters, a dolphin clapped it's flippers together and clicked and screeched a bit in it's dolphin language.
"Hahahaha!" The Pranksters laughed. "Who else but Flippers!?"1
As it turned out, Twilight Prankster wasn't that far off where the fight was concerned. Cobra so far had only sustained injuries where he had been blocked by the Meltdowner shield...however, any further injuries weren't forth coming anymore as Cobra was taking a more long range tactic.
"Scales of The Poison Dragon!!" Cobra blasted out an assortment of scale shaped poison projectiles at Meltdowner who let out a rapid fire of energy beams which fried the scales in mid air.
"Just DIE!!" Shizuri shouted angrilly letting several of her beams blast into each other and combine into a super large beam which blasted at Cobra with destructive force.
"I can still hear you!!" Said Cobra as suddenly a blast of sound vibrated out from Cobra and blew away the Shizuri's blast.
Shizuri stumbled back in shock. "You can control sound waves too!?"
Cobra grinned. "Well...well...guess you didn't hear that coming.."
"That's enough." said Jellal walking forward. "I'm sure you can see by now you're outmatched and outnumbered...And as I only wish to talk...all this fighting is quite pointless at the moment."
"You wanted us here.." muttered Shizuri. "How could you possibly known we were coming..? Even that putrid snake's hearing can't have been that good."
"Well...that's quite simple." said Jellal. "We were the ones who hired you..we have had our eye on ITEM for quite a while."
"So what exactly do you wan't then?" Asked Shizuri, anger etched on her face from being played so easily.
"Jellal's eyes took on an extremely serious look. "That map to the Gate of Entry you obtained a week ago..where is it?"
Shizuri's eyes went wide with shock. "H-how did you know...?"
"I won't ask again.." said Jellal as a dangerous magical aura could be felt coming from him. "Where is the map?"
Shizuri gritted her teeth and took out what appeared to be an ancient roll of paper. "What possible use could you have for it?"
"Believe it or not.." said Cobra. "That's not just a stinking roll of paper.. You're looking at the possible fate of the world here."
"And now we need to get this map to Railgun before time runs out." said Jellal.
"WOOOHHOOO!!" whooped Twilight Prankster as he took out several more bottles of alcohol and poured it on his mask. "ROAD TRIP!! I'm driving! And I'm doing it drunk!!"3
SEAMS campsite for Squad 3 of the Fairy Tail division, somewhere near northern Fiore.
Erza sat in the large meeting tent observing a large map of Fiore on the massive round oak table. Sitting around the table were battle scared men and women, all of them wearing high tech armor that had been created by Academy City to counter magic.
While Erza had a particular interest in armor, she preffered not to where any of the armor developed by Academy City, as they tended to be bulky and not allow much flexible movement. Right now though...armor was the furthest thing from her mind.
"We've observed several hoards of hatchlings coming from the north.." said a woman pointing at an area on the map close to where their campsite was marked. "We've also seen similar patterns in the full grown Wyrms."
"That's odd." said another soldier. "I thought they were all hatched inside the Black Flood Marshes. Isn't that where Dravis is hatching all his abominations?"
"His army isn't just hatched in our world...it's hatched in multiple dimensions...Dravis has visited multiple worlds and implanted eggs of his minions in all of them." said Erza. "He probably has a dimensional gate in that direction...In other words, we'll continue north and hopefully we'll be able to close the gate."
Over the past month..ever since the initial attack on both Fiore and the other world....attacks had been mainly focused on Fiore. While random Wyrm attacks and dark mages had been spotted at random points in the other world such as America and Cuba, Fiore had recieved the bulk of the assault so far. The way Erza saw it, Dravis probably wanted to take out the bigger powers first. While the other world contained only a sparse population of magicians, and the population of espers only made up 60 percent of one city in the entire world...it wasn't as much of a threat as Fiore and the surrounding countries that contained a massive amount of mages in varying strength and skill.
Dravis would move in on Academy City and the world surrounding it last...And Erza had a feeling that was ultimately where the final confrontation would take place.
There wasn't much hope for victory, they were outmatched and outnumbered by Dravis's forces...and from what she could tell, while Dravis was slowly regaining his complete strength by feeding off a diet of war and Zeref's magic...he had some of the most powerful Dark Guilds on his side..
But Erza still had one crucial thing that she knew held the one hope for defeating this dark menace.
"So.." said Erza. "Has anyone managed to discover anything on the Gate of Entry?"
"Not much.." said one person. "Intel in both Academy City and The Magic Council can only dig up some old legends and manuscripts from archaelogical finds. Apparently the gate was created by Zeref...but not much else can be said about it. Supposedly it's in the ocean not far from the coast....as for which coast, we are still in the dark..."
Erza sighed. "We have no choice but to keep looking then...in the meantime, what of the other...more discreet intel we have been recieving?"
"Apparently the scouting mission by Gray Fullbuster and Juvia Lockser was indeed a success." said one man. "All the intel say that Hydra Head's main base is on a small peninsula to the north...the same direction from where the wyrms are coming..."
Erza was about to respond to this when the flap to the tent opened up to reveal Gray. "Hey Erza...we''re back...and it looks like they're in pretty bad shape..."
Without waiting any further Erza jumped up and immediately followed Gray outside. Sitting next to a large bonfire were Gajeel, Natsu, Mikoto, Lucy, Nicole, and Wendy.
Wendy was busy fussing over everyone's wounds while the 5 Exceeds, Maverick, Charle, Elli, Happy, and Pantherlilly watched from afar.
"What happened?" said Erza. "Why are they back at the main campsite so early?"
"Some full grown Etherial Wyrms attacked." said Gray. "Plus we ran into a member of Grimoire Heart, Zancrow."
"The God Slayer." said Erza. "I remember."
"We managed to kill all of them...Juvia and I got off easy, only 2 attacked us." said Gray. "Mikoto though..she had to take down 25 all by herself..nearly collapsed from the poison. Then she and Natsu ran into Zancrow.."
"What of Zancrow?" asked Erza. "How did you manage to evade him?"
"I'm not entirely sure what happened myself." said Gray. "From what I hear..Mikoto Railgunned that sucker right in the chest, he's dead now...probably rotting away in the forest where they left him."
"..." Erza looked at Mikoto. From what she could see by the light of the fire, Mikoto had a shocked look on her...as if she wasn't entirely sure about what she did. "That can't have been easy...I'll talk to her later...oh and Gray...one other thing.."
"Yeah?"
"Your clothes..."
Gray looked at himself to find that he had mysteriously stripped down to his black boxers out of nowhere. "Darn it!!"