Shortly after they enter through the portal, the wings of Carla and Happy disappear.
Gravity, sensing an opportunity, took hold.
"WAAAAAHHH!" Natsu and Wendy screamed as they plummeted like stones.
"Help meeeee!" Happy wailed, flailing his paws.
Blake and Cana, however, were relying on physics, not magic.
"Geppo!" Blake kicked the air, the sonic boom stabilizing his descent.
"Geppo!" Cana echoed, her form a bit shakier but holding.
"Grab them!" Blake ordered.
But they were too far apart. The four powerless mages were falling toward a cluster of wooden structures nestled in a valley.
"Brace for impact!" Natsu yelled.
And four of them crash into a storage building.
CRASH!
They smashed through the thatched roof of a large barn, sending hay, crates, and dust billowing into the air.
Blake and Cana descended smoothly, landing on the dirt road outside the building. Blake dusted off his coat, his Observation Haki instantly scanning the wreckage.
"Are they alive?" Cana asked, wincing at the hole in the roof.
"They're Dragon Slayers," Blake shrugged. "They're made of rubber and bad decisions. They're fine."
Blake and Cana go down to check if they are okay. They entered the barn. Natsu was hanging upside down from a rafter, Wendy had landed in a pile of soft hay, and the cats were dazed but unhurt.
"Ouch..." Natsu groaned, dropping to the floor. "My magic... I can't feel it. I tried to use a fire jet to slow down, but nothing happened."
"Me neither," Wendy whimpered, checking her arms. "It feels... empty."
"That's Edolas," Blake explained, helping Wendy up. "No atmospheric Ethernano. Your bodies can't recharge, and you can't project what you don't have."
"What?!" Natsu looked horrified. "That sucks!"
Once the dust had settled and the limbs were checked, they exited the barn.
Then they start roaming around to see the place.
It was a bizarre world. The rivers flowed through the sky. The trees looked like giant mushrooms. And the ground felt... different.
They walked for an hour, keeping to the shadows, until they came upon a dirt road leading to a hidden location under the root system of a massive tree-island.
Soon Natsu sees the Fairy Tail symbol.
"Look!" Natsu pointed. "It's the guild mark! They must be hiding there!"
He pointed toward a structure built into the side of a massive rock face.
"Wait," Blake said, narrowing his eyes.
"Come on! Maybe the others are inside!"
Natsu runs towards it, ignoring Blake's caution.
As they got closer, the details of the building became clear. And that's when Blake stopped, a frown creasing his forehead.
When they reached near the building, it looked futuristic.
In the anime Blake remembered from his past life, the Edolas Fairy Tail was a rundown, wooden bunker hiding in a cave. It was scrappy and desperate.
This... was not that.
This structure was a sprawling complex of metal pipes, rotating gears, and glowing lacrima vents. It looked like a Steampunk fortress. The Fairy Tail emblem was painted on a steel blast door, illuminated by magical neon lights. It looked heavily armored and strangely advanced.
Blake was confused seeing that.
This isn't right, he thought. In the original timeline, they were hiding in a hole. Why is their base so... tech-heavy? Is it because of the timeline changes? Or did my existence ripple out even here?
He thinks this was not how it was shown in anime, but he continues to look around, keeping his guard up. His hand drifted to Tensa Zangetsu. If the timeline was different, the threats might be different too.
Natsu banged on the metal door. "HEY! OPEN UP! IT'S US!"
The heavy steel door hissed and slid open with a hydraulic whine.
"We're going in," Blake said, stepping in front of Wendy and Cana.
When they entered, they saw everyone's behavior was different.
The guild members were there, but they were twisted reflections of the people they knew.
Jet and Droy weren't fat and thin. Elfman wasn't shouting about being a man; he was cowering under a table, trembling.
Gray... Edolas Gray was bundled up in five layers of heavy coats, shivering despite the warmth provided by the heater.
And Juvia... she wasn't fawning. She was sitting coolly at a metal table, looking bored.
Just then, a few guild members near them looked up. Their eyes landed on the tall, dark-haired man standing in the entrance.
"Hey! Look!"
"He's back!"
Then few of the Edolas guild members see Blake and greet him.
But they didn't greet him with suspicion. They greeted him with relief.
"Blake!" Edolas Wakaba shouted, waving a wrench. "You made it back!"
"Why is he so early?" Edolas Macao asked, checking a pocket watch. "Didn't you say it will take two days to return from the smuggling run to the Western Capital? You must have driven like a maniac!"
Hearing that, Blake was confused.
Smuggling run?
He didn't think there would be an Edolas counterpart. He was a reincarnated soul, an anomaly in Earthland. He had assumed his existence wouldn't be mirrored here. But apparently, the universe demanded balance. If there was a Blake in Earthland, there was a Blake in Edolas. And apparently, Edolas Blake was a driver/smuggler for this high-tech resistance guild.
Well, Blake thought, that explains the futuristic base. My counterpart must be good at acquiring tech.
"I... drove fast," Blake improvised, his voice neutral.
While Blake was processing this, Natsu stepped forward, grinning at the leather-clad Lucy.
"Lucy! It's you! Why are you dressed like a mechanic? And why is Gray wearing a parka?"
Lucy, when she sees Natsu, asks where has he been.
"Natsu?!" Lucy Ashley's eyes widened. She marched over to him.
"Where have I been?!" she roared. "You idiot! You were supposed to be the lookout! You're 'Fireball,' the fastest driver we have! Why are you walking? Where's your vehicle? And why are you smiling like a moron? Did you hit your head?"
She grabbed Natsu by the scarf and shook him. "Answer me, Driver Boy!"
"Ack! Lucy! Stop! It's me!" Natsu yelped.
The confusion was spiraling. Blake decided to end it before a fight broke out.
He stepped forward, releasing a pulse of Haki. It wasn't an attack, but a heavy wave of presence that silenced the room instantly. Lucy Ashley froze.
This wasn't the aura of their Blake. Their Blake was cool and detached. This Blake felt like a mountain.
"I'm not the Blake you think I am," he stated, his voice echoing in the metal hall.
"I am Blake Corvus of Earthland. This is Natsu, Wendy, and Cana. We are from the other world."
"Earthland?" Lucy Ashley stepped back, eyeing him suspiciously. "The world of eternal magic?"
"Yes," Blake said. "Our city... our guild... was sucked into your world. We're here to get them back."
The room erupted in whispers.
"Earthlanders..."
"They have magic inside them?"
"Are they dangerous?"
"We aren't enemies," Cana added, stepping up beside Blake. "We're Fairy Tail. Just... a different flavor."
Then, shortly after, someone enters.
It was a young boy, Edolas Romeo, bursting through a side door, panting heavily. He held a glowing communication lacrima in his hand.
"BAD NEWS!" he screamed. "THE SENSORS TRIPPED!"
"What?!" Lucy Ashley spun around.
"Fairy Hunter has located us!" Romeo yelled. "They found the heat signature of the new arrivals! They're coming!"
The guild instantly shifted from confusion to practiced panic.
"BATTLE STATIONS!" Lucy Ashley roared. "PREPARE FOR EVACUATION!"
"The Hunter?" Natsu asked. "Who's that?"
"The Royal Army's executioner," Edolas Gray chattered from inside his coats. "She hunts guilds."
Shortly after, the Royal Army arrives.
The ground shook. From outside, the sound of massive, magical engines roared.
"BY ORDER OF THE KING!" a magically amplified voice boomed through the steel walls. "THIS ILLEGAL GUILD IS UNDER ARREST! SURRENDER YOUR MAGICAL ITEMS AND PREPARE FOR PROCESSING!"
BOOM!
A magic missile slammed into the blast door, denting the steel.
"We can't fight them here!" Lucy Ashley shouted. "Initiate the jump!"
"Jump?" Natsu blinked.
The entire guild hall lurched.
"This isn't a building!" Blake realized, looking at the vibrating floor plates. "It's a vehicle. A massive, underground crawler."
"Hang on!" Edolas Wakaba yelled, pulling a massive lever.
Fairy Tail manages to teleport away to another location.
It wasn't true teleportation magic, but a high-speed, magi-tech spatial shift powered by volatile lacrima fuel. The entire metallic fortress hummed, blurred, and then vanished from the valley, reappearing instantly in a barren, rocky desert miles away.
The sudden shift sent everyone stumbling.
"Ugh..." Natsu held his stomach. "That was... worse than a train..."
"We're safe," Lucy Ashley panted, wiping grease from her forehead. "For now. We burned half our fuel on that jump."
She turned to the Earthlanders. "You guys have a lot of explaining to do. But first, you need to understand where you are."
There, Natsu, Wendy, Happy, and Carla learn that Magic is outlawed.
"Edolas is dying," Lucy Ashley explained, her voice hard. "Magic here is a finite resource. It doesn't regenerate like in your world. The King, Faust, has declared that all magic belongs to the state. Private ownership is treason. Casting a spell is a death sentence."
She gestured to the grim, industrial interior of the guild.
"Fairy Tail is being treated as a Dark Guild. We're the resistance. We refuse to give up our tools. We refuse to dissolve. So we run. We hide. And we fight."
"That's terrible," Wendy whispered. "A world without magic..."
"And the one hunting us," Edolas Gray shivered, "is the worst of them all. The Captain of the 2nd Magic War Division."
"The Fairy Hunter," Blake said. "Who is she?"
Lucy Ashley looked at the Earthlanders. She looked at Natsu, then at Blake.
"You know our faces," she said quietly. "Which means you know hers."
She walked to a monitor and pulled up a grainy image taken by a scout lacrima.
"She is ruthless. She is efficient. And she has killed half the guilds in Edolas."
The image flickered onto the screen.
It was a woman with scarlet hair. She wore armor, but it wasn't the noble armor of Titania. It was sleek, predatory, and revealing. She held a spear that shifted forms, radiating cold malice.
And it is revealed that the Fairy Hunter is none other than Erza Knightwalker.
"Erza..." Natsu whispered, his eyes wide.
"Knightwalker," Lucy Ashley corrected. "Erza Knightwalker. She isn't your friend. She's the King's blade. And she won't stop until Fairy Tail is dust."
Blake stared at the screen. He saw the face of his friend, twisted into a mask of cruel authority.
"So," Blake said, his voice low. "The strongest woman in our guild is the villain of this one."
"Can we fight her?" Cana asked, her hand instinctively reaching for a card that wouldn't work.
"Without magic?" Blake looked at his hands. "It'll be tough for you guys. But for me a piece of cake. We have to get to the Capital to save the others. And she's in the way."
The metallic guild hall hummed with the tension of the escape. The Earthland mages looked at each other, realizing the gravity of their situation. They were powerless, hunted, and facing a dark reflection of their strongest ally. The Battle for Edolas had begun.