From where Aelius stood, to as far as the mountains that framed the horizon on the other side of what once was Magnolia, there was nothing. Not a blade of grass, not a drop of water, not a hint of color. Just endless, lifeless gray. The ground was bare stone, cracked and dry like it had been wiped clean of existence itself. Even the air felt thin, empty in a way that made his chest tighten with every breath, as if part of the world itself had been eaten away.
And somehow, he was still standing.
He turned slowly, boots scraping against the dead stone, eyes wide and unfocused. Panic itched beneath his skin, not the kind born of fear, but disbelief. He'd seen horrors before, creatures that slipped through the veil between nightmare and waking world, abominations that bled magic and screamed in tongues lost to time. But those things he could fight. He could kill them, destroy them, burn them until nothing was left. This wasn't like that. Whatever this was, it had taken everything he threw at it, his wards, his power, and the storm just ate it. And now, there was only silence.
His pulse thudded in his ears as his gaze swept the wasteland, trying to find something, anything familiar. That was when he saw them, small figures in the distance, barely shapes against the endless gray. He squinted, focusing until faint color bled into view. Pink. The faintest flash of it, the only thing vibrant left in a dead world. Natsu.
Two small shapes floated beside him, wings that barely shimmered, fading against the light. Happy and Carla. And just behind them, a smaller girl, blue hair tangled by the wind, Wendy.
He froze. Why were they here?
If it were just Natsu and Wendy, he could have reasoned it out as their magic. Slayer magic was ancient, primal as whatever beast they were made to slay; it clung to life even when the world didn't. Maybe their power had shielded them from whatever this was. But the Exceeds? They were weak, barely able to maintain flight for an hour on a good day. They shouldn't have survived this. Nothing short of divine interference could have let them stand here now.
Then, another blur cut across the empty plain. Fast, too fast to be anyone ordinary. Vanessa. She was running full speed toward the others, stumbling once in the rough stone but never stopping. Her magic burned bright even from where he stood, a flicker of motion and desperation. If she was here, then his Slayer theory was all but certain. Something about their magic had kept them tethered to this ruined world when everything else had been erased.
Aelius started walking toward them. His steps quickened without thought, half a stride from breaking into a run. The dead land stretched far, every echo of his footsteps carrying unnaturally far across the hollow expanse.
He had time to feel it now. The magic in the air, or rather, the lack of it. His reserves, the power he had drawn from for the storm, were recharging. Slowly, painfully slow, like trying to breathe through a cracked lung. The flow of magic trickled through the air, weak but growing, an ebbing tide trying to reclaim what had been lost.
He stopped for a moment, turning his hand over, feeling the faint hum of power gathering in his palm. The air trembled around it, raw ethernano trying to return to the world. It was rising, steady now, carried by the breeze that whispered faintly across the stone. He could feel it returning, feeding the emptiness, but it wasn't natural.
Whatever the storm was, it had drained the magic straight from the land itself. It had stripped the planet where it struck bare, leaving behind this hollow world and taking everything, living, dead, or otherwise, with it.
And now, the world was bleeding itself back to life.
Aelius looked up at the distant figures again, his brow furrowing. Nothing about this made sense. No spell, no curse, no natural event could wipe out everything across miles of land and still leave them alive. Not even time magic could erase existence itself.
His eyes narrowed as he began moving again, his pace faster now. The silence pressed in on him like a weight, the horizon shimmering faintly as if the air itself was struggling to remember how to exist. Whatever that storm was, it wasn't done. He could feel it. Like a hand still reaching, waiting for what it missed the first time.
And for reasons he still couldn't yet explain, it had missed him.
Aelius reached them quickly, his boots crunching over the brittle stone that had replaced what used to be Magnolia's soft earth. The air felt wrong here, thin, hollow, like breathing through ash. Natsu was the first to notice him.
The Dragon Slayer's head snapped up, the flicker of recognition in his eyes instantly giving way to something else, shock, maybe disbelief. His gaze lingered on Aelius's face longer than most ever did. The absence of the mask always drew attention, but right now it seemed to rattle him for a reason even Aelius couldn't place.
"Aelius…" Natsu started, then stopped himself. The tone in his voice, hesitant, uncertain, was strange coming from him. He actually stared, like he wasn't sure if what he was seeing was real. After a moment, he physically shook his head, snapping himself out of whatever thought had caught him.
But the damage was done. His words had drawn everyone's attention. Wendy turned sharply, eyes wide with something between relief and dread, while the cats hovered just above her, their tiny forms visibly trembling from exhaustion or fear, he couldn't tell which. Vanessa, who had just reached them, spun around too, her hair disheveled. The look she gave him was shocked, like she genuinely didn't understand what happened and expected him to blame her again.
Natsu exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair before pointing upward. "Long story short, some selfish bastards in another world took all our friends."
Aelius followed his gaze. The sky above still burned faintly with ozone where the storm had been, though the whirlpool itself was smaller now, condensed into a single churning wound above them. Lightning still cracked across it, arcs of white and gold that flickered like veins through the clouds. It looked unstable, like the world was trying and failing to close it.
"Another world," Aelius repeated quietly. The words didn't make sense, but nothing about this did. He kept his eyes fixed on the swirling rift, the faint hum of unnatural power rolling down from it like a heartbeat.
"Yeah," Natsu said, his voice rough but steady. "We need to figure out some way up there, and fast. Lucy, Erza, Gray, everyone, they're gone. The light took them before we could even move." His fists clenched, the skin along his knuckles already crackling faintly with embers. "I'm not just standing here while they're stuck somewhere else. We're getting them back."
For a moment, no one said anything. The wind rolled over the dead plain, carrying only dust and silence. Aelius didn't look at them; his focus stayed on the rift, the storm that had erased an entire city, the thing that had taken Levy. His magic stirred beneath his skin, restless, coiling.
"You're talking about going in that," Aelius said finally, voice low but sharp. "You realize what it did to this place? To everything?"
"Yeah," Natsu said again, fire flashing in his eyes. "But that's where they are. And I'm not letting them stay there."
Aelius didn't answer. The weight in the air pressed heavier now, the faint hum of the storm almost calling to him, like it could still feel the trace of his magic, the one thing it hadn't devoured.
He tore his gaze from the rift just long enough to look back at the small group, their faces grim but determined. For once, their recklessness wasn't born from stupidity; it was desperation. And he understood that all too well.
"How?" Aelius asked finally, rubbing at his temple as he stared up at the still-glowing tear in the sky. His voice carried no frustration, no disbelief, just a low, exhausted sigh that barely carried over the hum of static in the air. "How do we even get to this other world?"
"The tomcat and I can take you," came a clear, even voice. Aelius turned, eyes narrowing as they fell on the white Exceed standing beside Wendy. Carla's tone was steady, almost regal, but there was weight behind it, like she already knew what her offer meant. "Only two, though. We aren't strong enough to carry more than one each, and once we get through to Edolas, we may not be able to return."
Aelius blinked at her. The absurdity of the situation might have almost been funny in another life. He stared at the small white cat, her expression deadly serious, then down at the blue tomcat beside Natsu, Happy, if he remembered correctly, whose ears twitched nervously as he avoided Aelius's gaze.
"You seem to know a lot about this world," Aelius said after a moment, crouching slightly so he was closer to her level. His eyes were sharp, studying her like she was an artifact more than a creature. "Edolas, you called it? Anything—"
"As I just finished explaining to these two," Carla cut him off, her tail flicking sharply as she looked up at him without hesitation, "the tomcat and I are from there."
That made him pause. His expression didn't change much, but there was a shift in the air around him, a faint ripple in his magic, small, but noticeable enough that Wendy instinctively stepped a little closer to Carla.
"From there," Aelius repeated, straightening up again, his voice quiet, as if turning the words over in his mind. "You mean to tell me this 'Edolas' isn't just connected to our world. It's where you came from."
"Yes," Carla said simply. "We were born there. It's a reflection of this one, in a sense, a mirror. But different. The rules of magic don't apply the same way. In Edolas, the world itself has magic, not the people, and even then, the magic is fading.*
"If we get around 'the carrying only one person bit', can you bring all of us?" Aelius asked, eyes narrowing as he looked back toward Carla.
Carla met his gaze cleanly. He would give her this much. She did not look away. She did not flinch at the look in his eyes that warned in plain language he would end her without ceremony if she betrayed them. Her little wings twitched, but there was resolve there, a stubbornness like a small animal that refuses to run. He noted it and kept it filed away. Useful, maybe. Dangerous, probably.
Natsu, impatient as ever, shoved forward and grinned like the world was only slightly inconvenienced. "We'll figure it out. If you can make a hole there, we can dive through. Maybe we jump, maybe we climb, maybe we, " He cut himself off when Aelius gave him that look. Natsu's grin faded into a hard set jaw that meant he was serious enough to die for it.
"Unless you plan to climb thin air or feel like jumping a few thousand feet into the sky, then from what I'm gathering, these two's flight capabilities are the only way up," Aelius said, the irritation in his tone cutting through the wind. His eyes flicked toward Carla and Happy, unimpressed but calculating. "I might have a way to increase your strength for a short while. It'll hurt like hell when it fades, but it'll get you high enough to lift all of us. Will that work?"
It wasn't really a question. His voice carried the weight of someone already setting the course, and everyone there could feel it. Carla's wings twitched at the edge of his stare, but she didn't back down. The air between them felt heavier than it should have, silent but charged, like the world itself was waiting for one of them to break it first.
Happy looked between the two, his tail flicking nervously. "Uh… depends on what you mean by 'hurt like hell,'" he muttered, trying for levity that didn't land. Even he knew this wasn't a time for jokes.
Carla straightened, her tone clipped. "If it means reaching Edolas, then yes. We can handle it."
Aelius studied her for a moment longer. The defiance in her eyes wasn't arrogance; it was conviction. He could almost respect that, though he still didn't trust her. The lack of warning for the rift, for the storm, for whatever this was… it lingered like an itch he couldn't scratch. Still, he needed them. For now.
"Good. Let's move, we don't know how long that storm will last," Aelius said, lowering himself to one knee, his gaze sharp and measured. "Come here. I'm going to push magic into your muscles. It'll sting at first, but trust me, it won't hold a candle to what happens when it wears off."
Without waiting for a response, he reached for the two cats, gripping their small, wiry arms with firm precision. He had never used this exact method before, if it could even be called a spell. It wasn't about finesse or control; it was about raw acceleration. First, he forced their muscles to regenerate at impossible speeds, then pushed further, over-healing them, densifying tissue beyond natural limits. The effect would make them temporarily strong enough to lift themselves and the others, without question.
It was a brutal kind of magic, crude in application. He didn't care about the aftermath: when it faded, the cats would feel as though they had run nonstop for weeks, their limbs heavy, stiff, unwilling to respond, every motion agony. The risk of injury, of muscle fibers tearing, of fatigue rendering them immobile afterward, ill existed, but he didn't hesitate. This wasn't about comfort. It was about survival. And truth be told, he didn't care for what happened to the cats.
A low hum built in the air as the magic sank into their bodies, and Aelius's focus narrowed. Every ounce of power he poured was precise, measured for maximum gain and minimum…whatever mercy could be afforded. The cats hissed and tensed, their bodies shivering under the surge, but he held, channeling more, pushing their limits, until he judged it enough.
"Done," he said finally, letting go. Their eyes flickered with a strange light, pupils dilated as the surge left them trembling, muscles coiled like springs ready to snap.
The moment Aelius stepped back, Carla and Happy spread their wings wide, the sudden rush of air carrying the scent of ozone and storm residue. Without hesitation, Happy reached for Natsu and Aelius, his small frame straining but steady, while Carla swept Wendy and Vanessa into her grasp.
Vanessa hadn't said a single word since they'd gathered. Aelius noticed it immediately. The silence wasn't just shock; it was hollow, the kind that came from something inside being ripped out and not replaced. She was young, younger than the rest of them, and unlike him, she didn't have the armor of detachment he had, or the kind of twisted fortitude Nehzhar had. She didn't carry Caius's bloodlust either, that instinctual hunger that dulled fear into something functional. For the most part, she was just human, just a girl who'd felt everything in the world vanish at once. He couldn't blame her for it.
The two small cats took to the air, wings flaring out in bursts of pale light. Carla barked sharp commands to Happy as they climbed, her voice tense and clipped between heavy breaths. Even from where he sat, Aelius could see the strain written across both their faces, the unnatural tension in their movements. He might have misjudged how much force a body that small could handle, but to their credit, they held. Barely.
The wind grew colder as they rose, and the storm above twisted into something violent. Clouds folded over each other like waves, black and gold colliding as if the sky itself were tearing apart. Lightning forked across the dark, each bolt just shy of striking them, the air charged with raw energy that hissed against the barrier of their magic.
A thought formed, sharp and deliberate. A pulse of light shimmered beside him, and a sword materialized into his hand with a faint ring of steel. Not the diseased blade he'd unleashed against Jose, he wouldn't risk it here, not when he couldn't guarantee he could suppress the plague's hunger if the magic around them failed. Nor Alarick's ceremonial sword; that one carried history, but not the kind of strength he'd need.
This weapon was simple. A straight longsword of tempered steel, double-edged, unadorned. Its surface bore no inscriptions, no enchantments, no trace of arcane craftsmanship. Just cold, polished metal. The kind of blade that didn't need a story to be lethal.
Aelius' fist tightened his jaw set. He could feel the atmosphere shifting, thin and unstable, reality blurring at the edges. The sound of thunder warped, echoing like it was being played backward, and then, with one final pulse of lightning, they broke through.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing but light. It poured in from every direction, fractured through streaks of color that didn't belong to any sky he'd ever seen. Then the world reformed around them, and what waited on the other side defied everything he understood.
They emerged into open air, but not the air of Earthland. Below them drifted a massive chain of floating islands, suspended in the air like pieces of a shattered world held together by some unseen force. Rivers ran through the air, bending in impossible arcs, their waters glowing faintly as fish leaped from one suspended current to another. Great trees grew sideways from cliffs that hung upside down, their leaves shimmering in hues that shifted between green and silver.
Creatures moved across the islands, things with too many wings or too many eyes, translucent forms that glided as though swimming through the air itself. The sky stretched endlessly, yet it wasn't truly a sky. Fragments of land, sea, and storm drifted through it like memories that refused to fade, each glowing faintly with a light that didn't seem to come from any sun.
Aelius said nothing at first. His eyes tracked the scene, every detail measured, every sound cataloged. This wasn't magic as he knew it; it was something else. The air here felt empty, not the familiar pulse of ethernano. It was lighter, stranger. He tried to summon his magic, but nothing happened.
He glanced toward the others. Even Natsu had gone still, the constant restless fire in his eyes dimmed by the sight before them. Wendy was staring wide-eyed at a massive crystalline spire that jutted from a nearby island, its surface pulsing with faint veins of gold.
Aelius looked back out at the horizon, the edges of the world curving in impossible directions. Whatever this place was, it wasn't just another continent. It was a realm built from magic itself, a reflection of something that should never have existed outside of theory.
"Edolas," he said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else. The name felt wrong on his tongue, like calling something by the wrong title, as if the place itself would take offense.