( Six years )
That was how long it had now been since that fateful day in the year X784. The one where the entire island of Tenroujima had been seemingly obliterated in one fell blast from the Black Dragon of the Apocalypse, Acnologia.
That was how long it had been since the Black Wizard Zeref had made his return to the world.
That was how long it had been since twenty-one members of the guild known as Fairy Tail had been presumed utterly and completely dead.
…But of course that wasn't true, and currently the only person in existence who actually knew this for a fact was someone that wasn't even still alive, but who's consciousness lingered on in the form of an astral body she'd made for herself. To all intents and purposes… a ghost.
And that ghost was currently sitting on the calm surface of the pristine ocean as if it was as solid as a dining room table, one elbow resting on her knee while her hand supported her head. She stared out across the empty horizon with dull eyes.
Her name was Mavis Vermilion. The first ever Master of the Fairy Tail guild, whose grave resided on the missing island.
And she groaned, rolling onto her back and lying with limbs splayed, staring up at the sky, her incredibly long blond hair trailing down beneath her small body and the wing-like projections on either side of her head twitching slightly as she mulled over recent events.
Gods, this was boring. It had been nothing short of boring for the last six years. After the island had disappeared there had been some excitement with ships going all around the area searching for the missing Fairy Tail members, but gradually they'd begun to disperse until everyone had completely stopped looking.
And that was their mistake. But even if they had known that the Fairy Tail Tenrou Team was still alive, there was nothing that they could have done about it.
In the final moments before Acnologia's breath attack struck, the members of Fairy Tail had attempted to cast some kind of protective enchantment, pooling all of their trust and faith into one another to try and pull off the impossible and survive the dragon's attack. But it wouldn't have been enough alone. Not without Mavis adding her own help in. Despite the fact she was no longer capable of using her own magic, she was able to convert the power of those incredible bonds between the guild members into a different kind of Magic and cast the Fairy Sphere, a massive protective shield that nothing whatsoever could penetrate.
The only thing was, it was now currently impossible for her to remove the spell. She would have done had she still be alive, but now she was deceased she had to wait for the spell to dispel itself on its own. And for something so large as the entire island of Tenroujima, that was taking a while. How long would be left? Another year? Two? Mavis guessed at least one more year.
But at least the members of the guild were still safe, for the Fairy Sphere had frozen them all in time and they were all lying in suspended animation in the exact same place they'd landed after the blast from Acnologia had pushed the island down beneath the waves.
She'd go down there and visit them sometimes, wondering around the still forests and standing over the still bodies of the various members. She was beginning to wish that she'd paid attention to what was going on with her beloved guild when they'd been awake. But when she'd passed the leadership of the guild on to the second Master, she had decided that staying out of the way would give the guild its best chance to grow on its own. It would allow new ideas, new customs, new everything. After all, if the guild didn't change with the times it wouldn't get anywhere. And from the looks of it, the Third Master had turned it into a true guild to be proud of.
But just because Mavis was no longer in charge didn't mean she couldn't have visited, got to know people, been a part of things. She enjoyed the peace and quiet that came with having her own island, but she'd had a chance to observe some of the fighting from a distance when she'd been woken from her slumber and she greatly admired the youths of today. They were great people, every one of them, and she couldn't wait until they unfroze so she could some to know them better.
For now though, it seemed all she could do was sit and watch the sky, sensing the magic of the island slowly weakening as it was brought closer and closer to the material world once again. Eventually it would do so enough that her limited magical power as a ghost could remove it completely.
Mavis sighed. That was all well and good but she wished something interesting would happen. Six years since she had been disturbed from her rest, which she did not intend to go back into anytime soon and this… when would the fun start?
And naturally, it was at this point that the sky above her practically exploded!
Mavis jumped so violently that she probably would have leapt right out of her physical body if she still had one. She almost vanished beneath the surface of the water and when she looked up it was to see the a rush of blasting energy streaking across the sky out of a large swirling hole in existence and towards a creature that had definitely not been there before. Some kind of huge grey draconic animal with six legs, a broad head that was armoured with what looked like platinum and shadowy tendrils coming out of its shoulders tipped with three red claws each.
The creature swooped underneath the energy blast, which cannoned downwards to blow up the surface of the ocean several miles away and turned around to hiss at the swirling portal, out of which emerged two more dragon-like creatures of equal size - one four legged and blue with a long neck and crests jutting from its back and head and something that resembled a glowing diamond on its chest, and the other bipedal with shield-like shoulders with giant pearls embedded into them, a comparatively small head and a huge tail sweeping out behind it.
Mavis gaped as the two dragons rushed towards their third opponent at high speed that belied their great size. Just what was going on here? Even when she'd been alive, she'd never seen a dragon. The only one she'd ever seen was Acnologia and now suddenly in the same place that he'd tried to blow up her guild members, suddenly there were three.
Pearl closed in on Platinum and launched a purplish-glowing claw right his head, but Platinum brought up his shadow claws to catch the strike, though it was pushed backwards under the brute force of the attack. Hissing, Platinum summoned some kind of orange glowing orb in front of its mouth which it fired at Pearl but Pearl formed an orb of exactly the same nature and flung it right back, the two orbs crashing into each other and detonating in mid-air, sending smoke in all directions for half a kilometre.
Platinum thundered straight into the smoke but came shooting out again moments later under a forceful ramming from Diamond who's roar shook the water far below and as it raised what looked like a steel-plated glowing tail and pushed away from Platinum to ram the tail around. But suddenly Platinum disappeared right into thin air, the tail swinging uselessly through the space where he had been. Mavis gasped as suddenly Platinum re-appeared next to Peal and slammed him with some kind of Shadow Force. Pearl let off a high pitched, ululating squeal as he was tossed from the sky and slammed down into the water with a tumultuous splash.
Platinum hissed in triumph and turned around, another swirling portal opening up in front of it as it prepared to dive through, only for Diamond to send a bright burst of white light energy from its mouth to ram right into the side of the escaping Platinum and send him rolling upwards, the portal slamming shut behind him. Platinum let loose a strangled squawk, turning to see Diamond coming rushing up at him and fired a golden bolt of light into the air the split into around a dozen and came crashing down towards Diamond like falling meteors.
Except suddenly the water of the ocean churned up in a giant whirlpool and several geysers erupted upwards past Diamond to slam into each of the meteors and vaporise them with a burst of steam. Pearl exploded up from the water with something akin to a smirk on its draconic face and watched as Diamond fired another several rays of light that sparkled like gemstones from the diamond on his chest, each zeroing in on Platinum's stomach.
But Platinum suddenly turned itself into a shadow and streaked down past Diamond before the attack could hit and aimed itself right at Pearl, who raised a kind of sphere of water around him to pulse the attack away. Mavis frowned. It seemed that for whatever reason the Platinum dragon was more focused on taking out the Pearl rather than the Diamond one. She had no idea why that would be but there must have been a reason.
But the Diamond one wasn't having any of that and was gathering up a huge amount of energy between his jaws. Mavis gasped as a huge purplish blast of energy cannoned out of his jaws and fired straight down straight towards both Pearl and Platinum.
Was it mad? Wasn't Pearl it's ally?
But Pearl just smirked and suddenly a pink portal opened behind it and it backed itself in, reappearing right next to Diamond out of another portal to leave Platinum in the firing line alone. The attack struck him dead on, blasting him down deep into the ocean with such force that a huge tidal wave seemed to erupt in all directions around him and wash outwards, forcing Mavis to rise high into the air before she was caught up in it.
Was it over?
Pearl and Diamond hung in the air for a moment, seemingly waiting for something to happen… right before there was a Distortion right between them and suddenly a heavily battered Platinum appeared out of nowhere, slashing them both with his Shadow Claws and knocking them out to the side. A furious roar curdled out of Platinum as it fired another glowing orb at Diamond, who took the attack with a grunting roar and staggered in the air. Platinum then whirled around and seized Pearl in some kind of Psychic hold, dragging him back towards him and charging some kind of Dragon Pulse attack of his own between his beaked jaws.
But Pearl beat him to it and fired one heck of a huge water blast out of his own jaws, sending Platinum backwards head over heels under the force of it and right towards Diamond, who seized Platinum by the tail in his jaws and swung him bodily around, heaving him down towards the waves. Platinum struggled to right himself, flailing his claws wildly until he was back upright but Diamond had already flung what looked like a bunch of glowing rocks down towards him. Platinum growled and swept and dodged from side to side to avoid them but suddenly found itself face to face with Pearl, who had dropped down to the water's surface and its armoured arm was glowing bright pink.
Mavis watched in shock as Pearl slashed his arm downwards and generated some kind of massive pink energy slash that seemed to make the very air around it ripple. The attack smashed into Platinum and seemed to both hit him and keep on going past him without cutting him in half at the same time. Platinum roared as it was apparently bombarded with pain…
But Mavis only gasped as the tumultuous attack ripped a line across the sky right on past her.
And that was when the suction began.
While with Diamond's attack everything had seemed to slow down to an absolute crawl, with this one everything around it seemed to rise up and head straight for it, the water of the ocean arcing up into the air as it was sucked into the attack which Mavis suddenly recognised to be a tear in the fabric of reality.
And right now, Pearl's space was influencing more than just the sea. It was influencing what was underneath it.
As an astral body, the suction of space had no effect on Mavis herself but she gasped when she saw the glowing, golden orb of the Fairy Sphere beginning to rise up from beneath the waves until it breached the surface and was hauled up and out of the waves, the Fairy Tail symbol glowing proudly on the side and the massive Tenrou Tree visible on the inside. The entire thing was being hauled upwards and tipped sideways, moving towards the portal.
Mavis immediately dove towards the sphere and passed through it, looking around wildly to see if everything was alright and trying to find some way of stopping it. But a tremendous roar took her attention and she turned to see Platinum had burst his way up and out of the attack, staggering in the air and heavily damaged but a leer on its face as it dove straight towards the glowing tear in space, trying to dive into it and away… but then suddenly it was moving so slowly that it might as well have been a snail. Mavis blinked and looked around for an explanation… and found one, in the form of Diamond not far away sending out a truly MASSIVE blue blast from his jaws that skimmed right past the Fairy Sphere and zoned in towards Platinum at high speed.
Mavis was beginning to think she understood a little more. Pearl could control space and that was why Platinum was targeting him more than Diamond because he was trying to escape and Pearl was stopping him from doing so or something like that. But if Pearl could control space…
Mavis suddenly gasped as she felt something happening to the Fairy Sphere. It was designed as ultimate protection for those within, shielding them even from the passage of time… but for some reason the rate at which the magic was wearing off had suddenly accelerated!
That Dragon Roar… it was distorting time, slowing down Platinum but speeding up other surroundings, including her protective sphere! Diamond could control time just as well as Pearl could control space.
But Mavis had other things to worry about now because it was also speeding up the rate at which the Sphere was being drawn out of the water and thrown into the spacial rip.
Mavis gritted her teeth. She couldn't stop it! She didn't know how! It was unavoidable - all she could do was grab onto the Tenrou Tree and hitch a ride as the entire island was sent rolling forwards. She extended her limited power over the Sphere to try and stabilise it but it was… inexorably… pulled through the tear in space, leaving their dimension and the three battling Dragons behind.
Everything became a helter-skelter from there, Mavis holding both her arms wide to try and keep the Fairy Sphere together. The time had accelerated it up to its zenith and it felt like it would now be mere minutes before the spell broke, and if that happened while they were tumbling through the gap between dimensions, who knew what would happen to everyone on the island, blissfully unaware of their current predicament as they were.
Outside the sphere it was utter madness, swirling nonsensical colours ripping left, right and centre and the swirling winds of the vortex sending the entire sphere spinning over and over, tumbling like a marble down a plastic obstacle course round and round. Mavis was getting dizzy just trying to keep sense of everything and she screwed her eyes up, flexing her fingers to exert her power still further. No… not yet… she couldn't… let this…
But it seemed to be unavoidable - the Fairy Sphere was fading, its magic finally depleting as a whole year's worth of magical time was accelerated and stolen away. Mavis couldn't stop it now. She could barely keep her focus on keeping her bearings as it was now and trying to stay with the Sphere itself, gripping the tree branch hard with her legs.
"Must… keep… together…" she panted to herself. "Come on… Fairy Tail… stay… with me…"
But it was too much, and Mavis eyes opened wide when she felt the Sphere breaking up. It wouldn't stay up much longer no matter how much power she put left into it. Not with so much to preserve in it like this.
And then she felt it… the Fairy Sphere finally beginning to fracture and break apart.
Mavis cursed and did the only thing she could. She narrowed her focus down around the island, locating the life forces of everything she could down there and zeroing the magic of the Fairy Sphere down around them specifically… strengthening the magic around them as much as they could… and then suddenly the giant Sphere burst entirely, leaving Tenrou Island whipping through the vortex unprotected, along with about a dozen smaller Fairy Spheres that went shooting off ahead into the vortex.
Mavis yelled and managed to use her magic to grab hold of one and keep it close but the others went off into the distance and out of sight.
"Everyone…" the First Master grimaced. "Please… be safe…"