Starting the Journey to the Royal Capital

Edolas, Edolas Continent, Royal Capital.

November, x784.

*Crack!*

In the middle of the night, while most people were asleep, a loud cracking sound could be heard in the Royal Capital of the Edolas Kingdom. Although most people could not hear it, those who were awake all came outside or looked out their windows to see what caused such a loud noise.

Among the people who were curious to see what could cause such a loud noise were the two Gajeels, who were discussing all they knew about what was going on with the giant lacrima on the floating landmass.

*Bang!*

*Crack!*

"Those bastards!" Gajeel growled as he punched the wall of the building he just came out of while staring at the floating landmass.

Though the Edolas Gajeel was also surprised at what he saw, he was more cornered about the crack his angry counterpart just left in his house's wall. Then, after shaking off the thought of the repair cost, he looked up to the floating landmass as well.

"So, they broke off a part of the giant lacrima, huh?" The Edolas Gajeel asked rhetorically. "*Sigh* The king probably only wants to show it off to the citizens. He's probably trying to show them how powerful the royal family is."

"I don't give a damn about that." Gajeel said angrily. "But if anyone from my guild was hurt because he wanted to show off, he might not live to regret it."

Hearing that, the Edolas Gajeel opened his eyes wide in surprise. Then, he quickly lunged at Gajeel to cover his mouth.

"You have to be careful about what you say." The Edolas Gajeel said in a hushed tone. "You never know who's listening. Even the people you trust might end up reporting you to the Royal Army."

Flinging the Edolas Gajeel's arm away, Gajeel looked at him angrily. But he knew his counterpart was right. So, after taking a deep breath to calm himself down, he looked at the Edolas Gajeel with a smirk.

"Oh, Although that made me angry, I'm not talking about what I would do to the people responsible.." Gajeel explained. "But when Alfonzo gets here, I can only pray for them. Especially if they happened to hurt one of his girlfriends."

While Gajeel spoke, the Edolas Gajeel was doing his best to drag him back inside the house. But when he heard the last thing his Earth land counterpart had to say, he paused to look back at him.

"Alfonzo?" The Edolas Gajeel asked. "Are you talking about Alfonzo Dentis, the former guild master of the Dark Guild, Fairy Tail? But he died more than two years ago. No… I guess you're talking about the Alfonzo from your world?"

"Wait, seriously?" Gajeel asked in disbelief. "This world's Alfonzo is dead? But how is that possible? Actually, now that I think about it, we never discussed anything about this world's Fairy Tail. Yeah, let's goi inside. I want to know as much as I can about the counterparts from Fairy Tail in this world."

"Good." The Edolas Gajeel said with a grin. "I always look forward to gathering more information."

Earth Land, Ishgar, Era.

"Hahahahaha!" Org, who had been summoned to the Magic Council's meeting room, laughed uproariously after hearing the report that was just presented about the Town of Magnolia. "Finally, that scourge of the continent is gone."

Like Org, the rest of the Magic Council were also seated in their designated seats in the Magic Council's meeting room. Unlike Org, however, they were horrified by the news they just heard. And when they heard Org's loud laughter, they could not help but look at him reproachfully.

"After hearing about the disappearance of an entire town, the only thing you can think of is Fairy Tail's destruction?" Belno asked in a tone of disbelief. "Do you even care what happened to the people of that town?"

Hearing Belno's question, Org rained in his laughter quickly. As he did, he looked around the meeting room. And when he saw the reproachful glares of all his colleagues, he only snorted. Though, he did not say anything to refute.

"We'll discuss your behavior at a later date, Org." Gran Doma said in an authoritative, no-nonsense tone. "for now, we need to figure out what happened to Magnolia."

Hearing the chairman speak, everyone stopped glaring at Org and started paying closer attention to Gran Doma's instructions. At the same time, Org breathed a sigh of relief now that his colleagues' gazes were no longer on him.

"Send lahar and Doranbolt to investigate Magnolia and its surroundings." Gran Doma ordered. "Also, tell them to take as many wizards who use [Retrocognition Magic] as possible. We need to know what happened in that town."

"Yes!" All the members of the Magic Council replied in unison as they went off to follow Gran Doma's orders.

'Hmph!' Org snorted internally while leaving the meeting room. 'I don't have any way to prove it, but I know that Fairy Tail is responsible for this. And even if they aren't, they'll make a good scapegoat if we are unable to find what caused this incident.'

As those thoughts ran through his head, Org could not help but put on a crooked smile that made those who noticed it feel uncomfortable.

Edolas, Edolas Continent, Unnamed Plains.

The next morning, all the members of the Edolas Fairy Tail, along with Alfonzo, Elicia, Natsu, Happy, Wendy, Carla, and Lucy, were ready to make their way towards Louen. And although the members of Edolas Fairy Tail had no intention of getting close to the Royal Capital, they had no issue helping the Earth Land wizards by making their trip a little shorter.

So, as soon as the sun peaked its head over the horizon, the entire building-shaped plant that served as the Fairy Tail guild hall was pulled into the ground, like a plant growing in reverse, before it disappeared from the plains.

Edolas, Edolas Continent, Louen.

About an hour later, the building-shaped plant grew out from the ground once again. This time, however, it was in the vicinity of Louen. Though, it was far enough away that no one would be able to see it from the town.

"Ugh… No one told me this thing was a vehicle." Natsu complained from the guild hall's floor with a nauseated expression on his face.

"Sorry, I guess we forgot." Levy replied with a sadistic smile on her face. "But you really weren't joking about this Natsu getting motion sickness on a vehicle, huh?"

"You could have just taken my word for it." Alfonzo replied with a shrug.

"Wait, you knew about this, Alfonzo?" Natsu asked in as angry a tone as he could muster.

"Sure did." Alfonzo replied with a nod. "I mean, I was the one that refilled their rechargeable lacrima, after all. Otherwise, if they didn't have enough energy to jump away again after dropping us off, they wouldn't have taken us this close to the Royal Capital. And we would have had to make the trip on foot."

"I would have rather gone on foot!" Natsu shouted. A moment later, however, he covered his mouth as his cheeks bulged. "Ugh!"

"Eww!" Both Lucy's said in unison as they backed away.

A moment later, the two Lucy's turned towards each other and made eye contact. As they maintained eye contact for a while, the Earth Land Lucy began to feel uncomfortable. Especially with how intensely the Edolas Lucy was staring at her.

Before long, the Edolas Lucy pulled a dagger out of her clothing. Considering she was only wearing a leotard, however, Alfonzo, Elicia, Wendy, and Carla wondered where she was keeping it. Natsu, on the other hand, was too busy feeling sick to care while Happy was patting him on the back to make him feel better.

"Ahh~~~~!" Lucy shouted in fear when she saw the dagger. "Don't stab me! I'm too pretty to die!"

Ignoring Lucy's screaming, the Edolas Lucy grabbed her long hair with her free hand. Then, using the dagger, she cut the majority of her hair off.

"Huh?" Lucy exclaimed in confusion after seeing the Edolas Lucy's actions. "Why did you do that?"

"Seeing us look so alike while being so different just pissed me off." The Edolas Lucy replied. Then, she closed the distance between herself and the Earth Land Lucy to whisper in her ear. "And it will piss me off even more if we end up being more alike than I thought."

Naturally, this confused Lucy even more. Before she could ask any questions, however, her Edolas counterpart continued.

"If I ever find out that you missed the chance to be with the one that you like because of pride or something stupid like that…" Lucy whispered while glancing at the Edolas Natsu's timid expression. "… I'll find a way over to Earth Land myself to kick your ass."

Immediately after hearing the Edolas Lucy's continuation, Lucy's confusion disappeared. And after seeing her counterpart glance at the Edolas Natsu, she understood that her counterpart was only looking out for her, even if her method was a bit on the violent side.

"Don't worry." Lucy replied in a whisper as she put on a bashful smile. "He asked me out on a date after we get back to Earth Land. And I accepted already."

The Edolas Lucy was slightly taken aback by that news. Still, she nodded in satisfaction. At the same time, Lucy erased her bashful smile and put on a stern expression.

"But you have to take your own advice." Lucy said solemnly. "Yeah, your Natsu may not be as assertive as Alfonzo, but that doesn't mean you should let the opportunity to be with him go. Just because he won't confess to you, doesn't mean you can't tell him how you feel, right?"

Once again, the Edolas Lucy was taken aback. Before she could respond, however, Elicia had skipped over to the two and wrapped her arms around the shorter women's shoulders.

"Hey, what are you two over hear whispering about?" Elicia asked in a curious tone with a smile on her face.

"Oh… Um… You don't have to worry about it, Lici." Lucy said with an awkward smile on her face. "Just a little chat between Lucys."

"Yeah, it's a secret between the two of us." The Edolas Lucy said, looking uncomfortable to be so close to someone with the same face as the person that killed her guild master.

"If you say so." Elicia replied. "Anyway, we're about to leave. We gotta get to the Royal Capital before the royal family starts converting the lacrima into magic power."

"Right." Lucy replied with a nod as she turned around and headed towards the guild hall's front door with Elicia. Then, just as she reached the rest of the group, she looked back at her Edolas counterpart and spoke once again. "You don't have to do it now, but think about it."

And with that, the Earth Land Fairy Tail wizards left the guild hall and made their way in the direction they were pointed towards to reach Louen.

Meanwhile, the Edolas Lucy could only watch them leave while Lucy's advice echoed around in her head.

"Alright, you bastards!" Levy shouted, pulling the Edolas Lucy out of her thoughts. "Get ready to jump again. We can't stay this close to a town. Especially one that has an airship route that leads directly to the Royal Capital."

Hearing that, the rest of the members of the Edolas Fairy Tail nodded their heads and prepared for the guild hall's movement once again. Meanwhile, Lucy stared at the guild hall's entrance with a hint of concern on her face.

"Be careful you guys." Lucy muttered as she felt the entire building being sucked underground and moving away from its current location at high speed.

About an hour later, the seven Earth land wizards entered the town of Louen. All of them could tell that in the past, this town would have been considered beautiful. With its cylindrical brick houses and blue-leaved trees, it was clear to see how important this place was for Edolas' economy.

But ever since the trading of magic was outlawed, it seems that this town had fallen into disrepair, with many of the buildings' walls on the verge of crumbling apart.

"Well, this place has certainly seen better days." Alfonzo said as he glanced at the surrounding buildings.

"Yeah, it's kind of sad." Lucy said with a melancholic expression on her face. "Just because this place traded in magic, the kingdom abandoned it when they decided that only a select few people deserved to use magic."

"None of that matters, right now!" Natsu said loudly. "Right now, the only thing we should be thinking about is getting to the Royal Capital to save our friends!"

*Smack!*

"Damn, Natsu." Alfonzo said as he slapped Natsu upside the head. "Are you trying to tell everyone within earshot that we're headed to the capital to do something illegal? Seriously, just play it cool. We'll get there before anything happens to them."

Although Natsu was impulsive, he knew it was not a good idea to draw attention to themselves.. At least until they had rescued their friends. After that, however, all bets would probably be off as he would want to make them pay for what they had done.

"Look." Elicia said, pointing towards the airship dock. "There's a Royal Army ship docked here."

"But why are they here?" Wendy asked in a worried tone. "Did they find out why we were here already?"

"Maybe if someone wasn't shouting about it, they wouldn't have." Carla said while glaring at Natsu.

"It's not Natsu's fault." Happy said, defending his best friend. "They were already there before we got here."

"Happy's right." Elicia said with a nod. "It looks like they came here for something else."

"It's probably for that underground black market." Alfonzo suggested. "Having people selling magic illegally can't be good for the royal family's prestige, after all."

Hearing Alfonzo's suggestion, the rest of his companions nodded in agreement after thinking about it for a moment.

"Anyway, that looks like the perfect place to catch a ride to the capital, don't you think?" Alfonzo asked with a smile. "We'll just need to make sure they're actually going to the capital after this."

Hearing that, everyone, other than Elicia, looked at Alfonzo as if he were out of his mind. But after hearing his plan, they thought it sounded good. The only thing they were worried about was Natsu, who had the ability to make all plans useless when the mood struck him.