122 Eclipse Gate

Mercurius, Crocus

Kingdom of Fiore

X777

Crocus, also known as the Flower Blooming Capital, is the capital of the Kingdom of Fiore. Crocus resides in a vast valley surrounded by rocky mountains of small-to-mid height. The valley houses mostly mildly prominent hills, and has a small river not far from it, with some isles in its largest part, flowing in a similarly small gorge, which has woodland on both of its sides, occupying the western zone of the valley.

Being the capital of the Kingdom, Crocus is by far the largest town of Fiore, with a vast amount of buildings in a circular formation as far as the eye can see, with the right part of the town being placed on the edge of a small crag; such part seems to be surrounded by walls topping the crag itself.

The most distinctive trait of the town, giving it its epithet of Flower Blooming Capital, is the limitless amount of flowers adorning the streets, with flowerbeds being placed everywhere, and garlands of flowers appearing as one of the town's most prominent souvenirs. The buildings, possessing bright facades and towers with extremely pointed tiled roof jutting upwards, are lined up the stone street's sides, some of which are pretty basic, while other, more elaborated ones consist of very large, circular mosaics made of wide, flat stones, which bear floral and natural motifs in their center; chess-like pattern are also used, flanking simpler, stone sections of the streets.

In the central part of the town lies a large, round lake; in its center, linked to the surroundings by a pair of bridges, sits Mercurius, the King of Fiore's palace.

Mercurius is an extremely large and tall building, appearing as one of the most visible elements in the valley where Crocus is located, and towering over all of the city's other buildings. As evident of its role as the King's residence, Mercurius is a very intricately decorated and designed castle. The place appears to consist of a number of different, yet uniform buildings fused together, with some sections protruding outwards and assuming particular forms, and the walls being mainly adorned by orders of large, rectangular windows lined up and flanked by protruding pillars.

Its main entrance seems to be a mildly small door topped by a very high decorative arc, which gets pointed near its top, and has its central part adorned by a large, round flower window. To its left is a section keeping its height, topped by another going up high, which possesses a pitched roof, and behind which appears to be a structure reminiscent of ancient Greek and Roman temples, being highly similar to the real Parthenon, near which, to its upper right, sits a part ending in a small dome, topped by a prominent spire; two towers, possessing approximately the same height as the spire, are located on the back and right parts of the building.

To the entrance's right, several meters away from it, the building takes on an arched form, with such part being reminiscent of a cylinder partially fused with the structure, soared above by a mildly small spire, almost placed in the back part of the building. Topping the entire castle is a high, round tower, with its lower part, much more massive than the one above it, being adorned by elongated windows and ending in a dome, from which the thinner, top part appears and goes up several meters before ending in a pointed tiled roof.

Mercurius is surrounded by a lush garden, which, much like the rest of the city, is adorned by a large amount of flowers, possessing flowerbeds and, in addition, artistically arranged plants and small, tidy hedges, which have square, hollow spaces on their edges, housing ornately decorated streetlamps, with wavy poles ending in large orbs, with circular objects surrounding them, seemingly floating. The streets there are adorned by mosaics, which consist of a variety of small, flat rectangular stones arranged to resemble semicircles. In front of the palace sits a fountain, surrounded by a ground-level, round and shallow pool; water jets jut upwards from both the fountain and the pool, with the former also housing some plants, or possibly statues of plants, on its base.

Inside a cavern in Mercurius, a magic item called the Eclipse Gate can be found. The Eclipse Gate has a large door with an elaborate design. At the center of the door is a sun with a darkened moon below it. The lower section of the door from the sun past the moon is dark blue with golden lines, the upper section is green and split into twelve segments. Around the sun are several circles, the innermost one connecting the moon and twelve holes, one in each segment. A set of steps leads up to the door and two pillars stand on either side of the door with an arch connecting them. Atop the arch is an emblem consisting of an eclipsed sun. On either side of the Gate is an additional support, fashioned in the shape of a leg. It is made from a super strong, Magic-resistant metal known as Maginium.

The Gate is a magical time that allows whoever activates it to travel to any point in time in which the Gate exists, as such it requires a large amount of Magic to use and will absorb any Magic used within its immediate vicinity. However, the Magic-draining feature of the Gate ceases to function when it is open and it can store levels of Magic rivaling those of Etherion, the Magic Council's most powerful weapon. To open the Gater, it must either be a lunar or solar eclipse, and the twelve Zodiac Keys are required. If a key is missing, the life force of a Celestial Spirit Mage, a user of Zodiac Keys, can be used as a substitute.

Standing in front of the door of the Eclipse Gate are two figures that seem to be waiting for something. The first figure is none other than the King of Fiore, Toma E. Fiore. He is a short man with gray hair who wears striped overalls, held up by a belt at the waist, under a burgundy cape.

The second figure is quite different from King Fiore in multiple aspects. She is a beautiful young woman with soft brown eyes along with long blonde hair, which she wears in a bun along with a lacy baby pink band with ruffles on its edges which rests on her hair with her flicks and strands of hair framing her face. She possesses a voluptuous figure that is further accented by her beautiful pink and white dress, and in her hands she holds a set of eleven golden keys, the twelve Zodiac Keys. Her name is Layla Heartfilia, a powerful celestial spirit mage, a wealthy merchant, and the mother of one of the main characters in the original story, Lucy Heartfilia.

After waiting for a few more minutes in silence, Layla closes her eyes and focuses her magic power. In response, the eleven Zodiac Keys in her hands slowly float into the air before shooting into eleven of the twelve holes that can be found in the segments. Following this a burst of white light emerges from the Gate as it slowly opens, causing Layla and Toma to avert their eyes. As the doors continue to open, the while light diminishes enough for the two to see what is happening, and five bright lights shoot out from the Gate and fly out of the cavern through its ceiling. When the doors finally open as wide as they possibly can, a figure can be seen walking out of it.

For generations my royal family has watched this gate. Finally someone arrives to open it, and now someone else has come through the gate!" exclaims Toma even as an exhausted Layla breathes a sigh of relief at her success.

As the figure fully walks out of the gate, her features can finally be seen completely. She is a young woman with a shapely hourglass figure with her lengthy blond hair tied back in a ponytail and has side-swept bangs in front, with two strands of hair draped down the sides of her head. She is dressed in an elegant blue and white keyhole blouse and a long dress. Other than clothing and hair style, she looks identical to Layla, enough that one may confuse her for Layla's twin sister.

"Wh-What year is it?" asks the young woman as she approaches Layla.

"777." answers Layla.

"Four hundred years in the future… it worked." happily mutters the woman before she alarmingly looks behind her. "The children! Five children should've come through with me!" exclaims the time traveler.

"I'm not sure if they were children, but several lights flew outside when the gate opened." replies Toma. "See? They shot through the ceiling." he comments as he points to the ceiling of the cavern where five holes can be found.

With horror in her eyes the young woman follows Toma's line of sight and sees that he is in fact telling the truth, causing her to begin to despair. Before her feelings of dread can fully envelop her, the gate slams shut while the keys fly from the compartments towards the cavern's entrance, and a pair of red beams collide with the Gate and completely incenerrates it.

"Tch. Eclipse Gate, I forgot that this thing existed." says an annoyed masculine voice.

Alarmed by the intruder, Toma, the young woman, and Layla turn to the cavern's entrance where the owner of the voice approaches them. When the man is finally close enough for the trio to properly make out his feature, Toma and Layla easily recognise him as none other than Ambrosius, also known as Mars, Fairy Tail's God of War.

"Ambrosius! What are you doing here?!" questions Toma.

"I came here to see who was messing with time travel. Imagine my surprise when I stumble upon a magic item I forgot existed, and five kids blasting their way out of the capital." answers Ambrosius as he points to the five sleeping children levitating in the air behind them.

"The children!" happily exclaims the time traveler as she rushes towards them. "Thank you so much for saving them!" gratefully says the young woman as she takes them all in her embrace.

"How did you know about the Gate's opening?" asks Layla.

"Time is my domain. I know when someone is messing around with it." he simply answers.

"But did you have to destroy the Gate?" wonders Toma as he mournfully looks at the ashes, the only remain of the Eclipse Gate.

"Time travel is a dangerous thing after all. Should someone nefariously use it the results could be catastrophic, and that's without even mentioning the possible paradoxes." explains Ambrosius. Had this been anyone else, Toma would have had them arrested at the least for not only trespassing, but also for the destruction of the Gate. However, the past year has cemented Ambrosius and his family's position as one of the wisest and most powerful mages to ever exist on Earthland. It had simply started with his and his family's fame being spread by Sorcerer Magazine, then he had become a valuable asset to the country when a report from the Rune Knights had reached Toma informing him of Ambrosius' findings in his mission to Freesia Town. Afterwards the Malphas family had further spread their name by having a one hundred percent success rate no matter the mission.

However, none of these are truly what cemented his position as a more respected figure than most of the Ten Wizard Saints, the ten most powerful mages in all of Ishgar. What truly cemented his position is none other than his daughter Mordred, the new Knight King, leader of the Rune Knights and also known as the Knight Commandant. Despite only being a Rune Knight for two years, Mordred has accomplished more in those two years than any other Rune Knights in history. Not only has she almost captured every single Dark Guild, never failed a mission, but she has also stopped all of the Alvarez Empire's attempts at sabotaging Fiore so far, and even now is in the process of turning the Rune Knights into a respectable military and law enforcement organisation with the help of her second in command, Arturia.

Yet even with all of those accomplishments Mordred holds a certain amount of respect for Ambrosius that goes far beyond the respect that the Magic Council or even Toma receive from her. In fact, as far as the Magic Council and Toma can tell, the only people who even come close to being respected that much by her are Arturia and her mother, Morgan. It makes Toma wonder what puts those three above him, a literal King, and the Magic Council in Mordred's eyes.

"Toma, you're spacing out." calls out Ambrosius, shaking Toma free from his thoughts.

"My apologies. What were we discussing?" asks the King of Fiore.

"I believe that our time traveler is about to explain herself." says Ambrosius as he looks at the young woman who is slowly putting the children down on the floor.

"My name is Anna Heartfilia, and I come from four hundred years in the past." introduces the young woman.

"So the Gate really did 'connect time' after all." whispers Layla loud enough for everyone to hear her in the quiet cavern.

"Thank you for opening it. You have my gratitude." says Anna with a smile on her face.

"'To the one of a grand era, rich in magic. When the sun and moon cross, use the twelve keys to open the gate'" quotes Layla as she summons a book from her requip space. "I was a bit skeptical, but this book has been passed down by my mother, her mother, and many generations before them." she tells them as she shows them a green book filled with bookmarks.

"I'm the one who wrote it." proudly responds Anna.

"You wrote it, but she failed to follow your instructions. At least not to the letter." says Ambrosius as he shows them the eleven Zodiac Keys as opposed to twelve. "Opening the Gate without all twelve keys would normally result in the user's death." claims Ambrosius.

"Normally?" questions Toma.

"Yes, normally." answers Ambrosius as he points the palm of his free hand towards her she is enveloped in a silver light that quickly disappears.

"Wh-What did you do?" wonders Layla as she feels her body return to its healthy state prior to opening the Gate.

"I reversed your body's condition to before you opened the Gate." answers Ambrosius.

"So Anna, why did you write the book to come to this era?" asks Toma.

"To defeat humanity's greatest threat, Acnologia." answer Anna with a fire of determination in her eyes.

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AN: I think I finally understand what you guys meant by the pacing can be a bit too fast. While writing this chapter I realised that there were some parts I could have made into chapters as opposed to just mentioning them (like Mordred and Arturia in the Rune Knights for example).