Chapter 409: The Fairy Tail of Another World
"I definitely discovered some things, but I'll need to run a few more tests before I can say for sure," Noah smiled at Ultear.
"I see," Lucy chimed in nervously from the side. "So... we made it to Edolas. What exactly are we supposed to do now?"
"No rush. Just give me a second," Noah replied casually.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out one of the magic-stabilizing pills he had given the rest of the team, and swallowed it. He then brought his hands together in front of his chest and lightly tapped the various magical rings, bracelets, necklace, and crown he was wearing.
Everyone could physically feel the intense waves of magical energy radiating from the artifacts, making it abundantly clear that Noah had kicked all of his external gear into maximum overdrive.
Closing his eyes, Noah began hyper-analyzing his own internal magical circuits. The rest of the team fell silent, waiting patiently for him to finish his self-diagnosis.
They didn't have to wait long. A faint pulse of magic began to emanate from Noah's body, steadily growing stronger and stronger.
Suddenly, a massive, suffocating shockwave of pure magical energy exploded from him, forcefully pushing everyone several feet away through the air.
"Ah... there we go. That feels much better," Noah sighed in satisfaction, violently clenching his fist. The sheer physical force of his grip actually crushed the air in his palm, producing a loud sonic crack.
"Alright. First things first: let's track down this world's Fairy Tail," Noah announced to the group.
"You mean we're going to search for the guild that Lisanna has been staying at? The one filled with our alternate selves?" Mirajane asked, slightly surprised.
Hearing this, Lisanna whipped her head around, her eyes sparkling with pure joy. She knew the primary objective of this crusade was to stop the Anima threat, and she naturally assumed her friends would eventually help her track down her alternate siblings. However, she had fully expected that to be a secondary objective—something to handle after saving the world. She never imagined Noah would prioritize her family reunion.
"Yeah. We need intelligence," Noah explained, looking at Lisanna and the rest of the S-Class mages. "Lisanna gave us a lot of valuable intel, but it's two years out of date. The political landscape and military deployments of this world have almost certainly shifted since then. If we want to execute a flawless strike, we need the most up-to-date information possible. And besides... aren't you guys dying to see what the alternate version of our guild looks like?"
Everyone immediately nodded in eager agreement. They were incredibly curious to meet their doppelgängers.
"I wonder what the Edolas version of me is like?" Lucy asked, her imagination running wild.
"Yeah! What do you think your alternate self is like, Natsu?" Happy asked, hovering next to his partner's head.
"No clue! But I really wanna find him and fight him!" Natsu roared excitedly, punching his own palm.
"You're an absolute idiot. Why would you want to beat yourself up?" Gray deadpanned instantly.
"What was that, Ice-Freak?!" Natsu snarled, immediately trying to lunge at Gray.
Unfortunately for him, Noah's anti-gravity magic was still active. With no friction or solid ground to push off of, Natsu's fierce lunge translated into him awkwardly doggy-paddling in mid-air, completely unable to close the distance.
"Damn it!" Natsu growled, flailing his arms and legs helplessly.
"Wow. You look even dumber than usual," Gray mocked mercilessly, laughing at his rival's struggle.
"You bastard!" Natsu was practically steaming with rage. His brain went into overdrive, and a split second later, a spark of genius lit up his eyes. "Fire Dragon's... JET!"
Natsu violently threw both of his hands and feet behind him. Massive jets of concentrated flames exploded from his palms and soles. Using the fiery propulsion, Natsu rocketed through the air like a human missile and slammed headfirst directly into Gray's stomach.
"Gah!" Gray choked, completely caught off guard. The wind was violently knocked out of his lungs, leaving him wheezing in pain.
"Hahaha! How's that?! Cat got your tongue, Popsicle?!" Natsu cackled victoriously, hovering in the air with his fire jets.
Gray took three deep breaths, forcing the air back into his lungs. The second he recovered, he aggressively fired a barrage of ice lances directly at Natsu's face. Natsu immediately countered with fire, and the two idiots began violently brawling in mid-air.
Sighing helplessly, Noah teleported between them and forcefully shoved them apart. Natsu tried to use his fire jets to charge again, but Noah simply locked his spatial coordinates in place, rendering the propulsion completely useless. After struggling for a few seconds and realizing he literally couldn't move an inch, Natsu finally gave up. Gray took the hint and stopped provoking him.
With the chaotic distraction over, everyone turned to look at Lisanna with intense curiosity. Since she had lived with the Edolas Fairy Tail for two years, she obviously knew exactly what everyone's alternate selves were like.
Since Noah had previously forbidden her from talking about the alternate guild back in Earth Land to avoid causing unnecessary psychological drama, she had kept her mouth shut. But now that they were actually here, it didn't seem like a big deal anymore.
Seeing everyone staring at her expectantly, Lisanna hesitated, wondering if she should just spoil the surprise.
"Don't worry about it, Lisanna," Noah intervened with a smirk. "We're already here. We'll be meeting them face-to-face very soon. It's much more fun for everyone to find out the truth for themselves."
"Fair enough. But how exactly are we supposed to find them?" Ultear asked practically. "This world is massive, and it's filled with countless floating islands. Plus, if I remember Lisanna's debriefing correctly, the Edolas Fairy Tail is currently a dark guild being aggressively hunted by the kingdom. They aren't going to be easy to track down."
"Don't worry, I've got a plan," Noah smiled confidently. He gestured for Natsu, Wendy, and Gajeel to come closer. "Memorize Lisanna's scent. Then, I want you to scour the surrounding area for anything that smells even remotely similar."
"Oh! You want them to track down the Edolas versions of Mirajane and Elfman? That's actually a brilliant idea," Sorano realized instantly.
"Dragon Slayers have insanely sharp noses. Since Lisanna, Mira, and Elfman are blood relatives, their scents naturally share similar baseline profiles. Tracking down her siblings' scent is the perfect way to locate the guild," Lucy nodded, having teamed up with Natsu long enough to know exactly how absurd his sense of smell was.
"Leave it to me!" Natsu cheered excitedly. He leaned in, took a deep sniff of Lisanna's scent, and then began aggressively sniffing the air around them. Gajeel and Wendy mirrored his actions, hyper-focusing their senses.
Lisanna blushed fiercely, suddenly incredibly paranoid that she smelled weird, but seeing that the three Dragon Slayers didn't react negatively, she quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
A minute passed. Natsu finally stopped sniffing and slumped his shoulders in defeat. "It's no good. There are way too many weird, alien smells I've never encountered before. I can't filter through the background noise."
"The Salamander is right. The ambient scent of this dimension is completely different. It's messing up my tracking," Gajeel grumbled in frustration.
Wendy raised a finger, lightly dragged it through the air, and then placed it on her tongue to taste the atmospheric magic. "The air itself tastes totally different too."
"Wait, if the air is different, does that mean the fire in this world tastes different too?!" Natsu asked, instantly excited again.
"The iron probably tastes weird too," Gajeel mused, rubbing his chin.
"I wonder what those things actually taste like to them," Sorano pondered curiously.
"I don't wanna know. Eating fire and metal is strictly a Dragon Slayer thing," Lucy shivered in disgust.
"If Natsu and the others can't track the scent, what's our backup plan?" Erza asked, turning to Noah.
"I anticipated this," Noah smiled calmly. "We're still going to use Lisanna to track Mirajane and Elfman, we're just going to use magic instead of scent."
"How does that work?" Ultear asked, intrigued.
Lisanna perked up as well. She was incredibly relieved they were abandoning the "sniffing" strategy; it was way too embarrassing.
"It's a specialized tracking array I picked up from a dusty old grimoire. It uses the magical resonance of bloodlines to locate close relatives," Noah explained. "Since Lisanna shares direct DNA with the Edolas Mirajane and Elfman, this spell will lead us right to them."
"Well, what are we waiting for?! Let's go! I wanna see the alternate me!" Natsu urged impatiently.
The others nodded eagerly. The suspense of discovering their alternate selves was practically eating them alive.
"Alright, here we go," Noah nodded. He clapped his hands together, instantly projecting two brilliant golden magic circles—one directly above Lisanna's head, and one beneath her feet.
Hummmmm.
A series of golden magical ripples pulsed outward from Lisanna's body, expanding into the environment. However, the ripples faded into complete invisibility just a few feet away from the group.
"Shouldn't the pulse keep going to search the area?" Carla asked, confused by the spell's short range.
"The tracking wave is still expanding; I just cloaked its magical signature," Noah explained while maintaining the spell. "If I blasted a massive, highly visible magical sonar pulse across the continent, the Royal Army would instantly detect us. We just got here; it's better to keep a low profile."
Carla nodded in understanding. Avoiding unnecessary attention was definitely the smartest move.
A few seconds later, Noah broke the spell, a confident smile spreading across his face. "Got it. The resonance bounced back. They're located in that direction, and they're actually not too far away. We got lucky." He pointed toward a cluster of floating islands in the distance.
"Awesome! Let's go!" Natsu cheered, immediately trying to sprint forward.
Unfortunately, he had completely forgotten he was still floating in mid-air. He aggressively ran in place for a few seconds before realizing he wasn't moving an inch.
"What an absolute moron," Gray sighed, rubbing his temples.
"What did you say?!" Natsu glared at him furiously.
Before they could start another mid-air brawl, Noah mercifully dropped the anti-gravity spell, allowing the team to land smoothly on the floating island directly beneath them.
"Let's proceed on foot from here. It'll give us a chance to actually explore the environment," Noah suggested.
"Ooh! Good idea! We can take a bunch of pictures to show everyone back home!" Ultear suggested brightly.
"Way ahead of you," Noah chuckled, pulling out over a dozen magical lacrima cameras from his spatial storage and tossing one to every single person on the team.
"Let's move! Let's move!" Natsu cheered, immediately snapping photos of random, bizarre alien trees as he sprinted ahead.
"We should probably keep up with him," Laxus sighed, though a rare, faint smile tugged at his lips.
The rest of the team agreed, following Noah's directional lead as they ventured deeper into the alien wilderness.
"By the way, Happy, Carla. You two need to wear disguises. Exceeds have a highly unique, elevated status in this world," Noah instructed as they walked.
"Yeah. You definitely need to hide your identities," Lisanna agreed with absolute seriousness.
Mystogan remained silent, but he gave a grave nod of confirmation.
"Our race is special?" Happy asked, tilting his head in confusion.
Carla's expression instantly darkened. Her fragmented, inherited memories violently reminded her that her species had a specific "mission."
"It's complicated and would take too long to explain right now. While we aren't afraid of a fight, walking around openly with you two will just attract a massive amount of unnecessary political trouble," Noah explained smoothly.
"Understood," Carla agreed without hesitation. Happy quickly nodded along.
To ensure they blended in, the two Exceeds wrapped thick scarves around their heads, hiding their ears and leaving only their eyes exposed. They then draped heavy cloaks over their bodies to completely conceal their wings and tails.
"Perfect. You can't even tell what you are anymore," Mirajane praised, having helped them adjust the disguises.
"Onward!" Natsu yelled excitedly.
The team followed Noah's guidance, trekking across the bizarre landscape. The journey felt less like a tense military infiltration and far more like a chaotic, incredibly fun guild field trip. Everyone was laughing, chatting, and aggressively snapping photos of the alien flora and fauna. They took countless solo shots, candid photos of each other, and dozens of massive group selfies.
Whenever they reached the edge of a floating island, Noah simply activated his anti-gravity magic and levitated the entire team across the gap to the next landmass.
After crossing several islands, they had yet to encounter a single human being. They did, however, run into several massive, highly aggressive alien monsters. Natsu and Gajeel didn't even give the beasts a chance to roar before violently beating them into submission.
"How much further?" Sorano asked Noah.
"We're practically on top of it," Noah replied. He quickly flashed another localized sonar pulse to confirm the coordinates. "It's right over there."
"Then let's pick up the pace," Erza ordered.
The team quickened their steps, following Noah's lead.
"Whoa! Look! The building is totally different, but that is one hundred percent Fairy Tail! I'd recognize that mark anywhere!" Natsu yelled from the front of the pack.
The rest of the team caught up and peered through the dense alien foliage. Deep within the forest sat a highly bizarre, organic-looking structure. It appeared to be constructed entirely out of massive, interwoven tree roots. Two enormous, spiraling roots jutted out from the roof, reaching toward the sky.
In the very center of the building, the roots naturally curved to form a giant heart shape. Painted perfectly within that heart was the unmistakable Fairy Tail guild mark, colored crisp white against an orange background.
Below the massive crest was a sturdy wooden door, flanked by two large, painted arrows pointing directly at the entrance. Carved directly above the door frame was the word: Fairy Tail.
Seeing the undeniable proof, Natsu grinned wildly and immediately prepared to kick the doors down and charge inside.
Whoosh!
Noah instantaneously teleported directly in front of Natsu, clapping a hand over his mouth and pinning him in place.
"Hold on a second. Don't you guys want to see what your alternate selves are like naturally?" Noah asked, a devious, highly chaotic smile spreading across his face.
"You mean..." Laxus started, catching on immediately.
"We hide our magical signatures, spy on them from the outside, and watch how they act when they think no one is looking," Noah suggested, his grin widening.
"Oh, I am absolutely down for that!" Sorano cheered enthusiastically.
The rest of the team's eyes lit up. Noah was right; kicking the doors down would instantly put the Edolas guild on high alert. Spying on them in secret was the only way to see their true, unfiltered personalities!
"We don't even need to go inside. We can just peak through the windows," Noah instructed.
"Alright! Operation: Spy on Ourselves is a go!" Natsu whispered excitedly.
"Follow me," Noah gestured quietly. The elite strike team flawlessly cloaked their magical presence and silently crept out of the tree line, sneaking right up to the exterior walls of the Edolas Fairy Tail guildhall.
~~~
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