The year is X781.

All at once, a few things happened.

Cana was making a delivery to the orphanage with the two older Strauss siblings, but as they crossed the church gates they found themselves not surrounded by stone walls-- but in a large, carpeted hall. The doorway vanishes behind them.

Levy was with Lisanna and Erza. They had just finished a delightful supper of desserts, and were about to stop by a bookstore on their way. Levy walks backwards, excitedly reciting the synopsis of this new book she just had to get-- then suddenly they weren't walking on the street anymore.

Laxus was with his Thunder God Tribe, of course. They weren't even in Magnolia. They were ready to ambush a certain dark guild they've been commissioned to take down. When a huge magic circle spread out beneath them, they initially thought they'd been discovered. Imagine their surprise when they emerge to Erza pointing a sword at them, equally shocked on both ends.

Gray was coming back from a late job, and was ready to just conk out in his house. He finds Loke at the doorway of the guild, and they begin talking. Loke's just recently joined, and Gray wanted to know if he was comfortable here. They enter the guild together-- and find themselves nowhere familiar.

Happy and Natsu... were fishing. Then suddenly the lord of the pond scoops them up, they nearly get eaten, and somehow they're here. Yeah, weird.

"What's going on here?!" Laxus is first to spark out with irritation. Dammit! Did they get tricked or found? He was in the middle of a job, dammit.

"I suspect this is some sort of space magic," Freed observes his surroundings, "but I don't see any magic circles of any sort."

"Aren't you supposed to be all the way north, working in the West Forest? Why are you here?" Gray points out, alarmed.

"Huh? What's everyone doing here?" Natsu gets up, very confused, "Laxus? Laxus, fight me!"

"Wait, Natsu!" Lisanna rushes over, "now's not the time!"

"Aye, Natsu, you're just going to lose in a second so let's save the word count and omit that pointless interaction!" Happy agrees.

"Huh? Lisanna? I thought you were going to the cake shop with EeeeeerzAAA?? What're you doing here? Wait, where am I?!"

"God, get a clue, Natsu," Loke sighs. "We're all confused here."

"I don't know what's going on," Evergreen speaks up, "but it's clear that all of us, all over the country, just suddenly got transported here."

"Don't you think it's Phantom again?" Bickslow asks, and his wooden dolls echo in agreement: "Phantom! Phantom!"

"With this many Fairy Tail members here, it's definite that we're the target of this, whatever this is," Mirajane surmises, turning herself into a Satan Soul, "let's bust out."

Laxus spikes into a fury of electric sparks, and Natsu grins, firing up a fistful of Fire Dragon's Iron Fist. They were going to aim for the nearest wall and--

"No, it's hard to say we're even in Fiore," a new voice interrupts.

Everyone swirls around in alarm, "Gildarts?!"

All at once, everyone quietens, the sudden horror of the situation dawning on them. Gildarts was supposed to be out in his job, a hundred-years quest. He was down in a whole other continent-- why would he be here except for a magical phenomenon?

If this was an enemy, they'd have to be formidable if they caught Gildarts of all people in the mess. But why this crowd?

"Let's all calm down," Cana raises her hands between the two-- three hotheads, being Laxus, Erza, and Mirajane who all had a hand on weapons or magic, pointed at each other. "Let's assess the situation calmly."

And the three turned away, obliging.

"Isn't it amazing how Cana has authority over them?" Lisanna whispers.

"Cana joined first, so she has lots of dirt on their baby days," Levy explains, "they listen to her out of respect for that meager seniority, if not for anything else."

They calm down.

The hall isn't very big. It's a comfortable size for their amount of people, and it's full of chairs, from sofas to loveseats to benches. There are soft rugs and plenty of pillows, all lined up spaciously along a huge white wall.

There's a door in the other direction, but when they split up to search, they found a lot of rooms along a labyrinth of hallways, all comparable to suites in a high-class hotel. There's also a kitchen, a dining hall, and a communal bath.

But no windows, no doors out of here.

There's a stairs upward, but it leads to a big, forest-like training room that restores itself once it's damaged. There's an infirmary and medical supplies all around the place as well, in case anyone gets hurt.

A few of them ran around punching walls to no avail. Even Gildarts couldn't shatter a wall, which meant everything was reinforced with Magic Cancellation. That meant they were out of escape options.

They gathered back in the hall, and only Levy found anything useful.

"There was a Lacrima Vision Crystal under the coffee table," Levy shows them the little device first. She picks out a box beside it, filled with little USB-shaped items-- "and there are a lot of used memory drives. They're even numbered."

"There's a few hundred of them," Loke looks at them, slightly appalled. He sifts through each identical one, trying not to mess up the order.

Levy then shows them the one that's numbered X.

"But this is the only odd one out among them," Levy explains, slotting it into the device and setting it up before the wall so it'd project well. "I'm going to play it."

And Laxus' eyebrow raised. Gildarts' reaction is similar.

"Yuri is the name of Master's father," Gildarts mentions, and a few others gasp at the information, "and a founder of the guild, as well. It could be that they have the same name, but..."

The silence that permeates is deafening.

"What sort of bullshit--" Laxus snaps first, but Natsu is the first to blow.

"Don't be ridiculous!" he shouts, crushing the table under his enraged fist, "that's impossible! Fairy Tail would never--"

"Calm down, Natsu!" Erza commands sharply.

No one in the room looks anything other than utterly furious at this point, so Levy sits around the Lacrima crystal in case anyone tries to destroy it. This was their only lead out of it, so he can't afford for the hotheads to ruin that.

Almost everyone straightens, a few gasping but all eyes were wide with alarm. If a Fairy Tail Wizard is making such a bold claim-- they can't possibly be lying.

That means Fairy Tail will really...?

"Dreyar?" Gray gapes, "then he really is Gramps'..."

"So that's Laxus' great-grandaddy?" Bickslow asks, pointing curiously.

Laxus shrugs. "Never met 'im, so I don't know."

There's silence.

Levy moves down to retrieve the memory drive-- but she squeaks when the screen abruptly flickers on again, showing a few lines of text.

And this time when it flickers out, it stays off.

It's another minute later when anyone says anything. It's Cana, sighing as she makes herself comfortable with a barrel of booze (that she somehow got from the kitchen?)

"Cana?" Lisanna asks.

"There's no sense in thinking about it," Mirajane explains, angrily settling down, "this Yuri person... we don't know what the heck's going on, but we can't get any answers from him if he's apparently a bloody fossil and we can't go rob his grave or get out."

"But, Nee-san, all this sounds so ridiculous!" Elfman argues, "seeing the future? Is that even possible?"

"It's a Lost Magic," Freed says,and everyone turns to him. "Accurate visions of the future... it's definitely possible. Cana's fortune telling is a watered-down version of that ancient skill, that's been lost in time."

There's silence again, and no one really knows what to say.

"Oh god, look at how many there are," Levy mourns, "if these were books we could get through it quickly with the Wind-Reading glasses... but we'll have to watch all these one by one. It might take days, weeks, or even months."

"No, I don't wanna spend a month in this place!" Evergreen whines.

"Yeah, it'll get so stuffy!" Elfman agrees, "I wanna train, too!"

"Don't worry about that, there's a huge forest upstairs to keep us all fit," Erza looks strangely excited by that, I'm looking forward to training with you guys again."

"No!" Gray whines.

"Yes!" Natsu cheers.

"You idiot, do you want to die?"

"It's a fight with Erza!"

One by one, they gave in to the situation. If Gildarts couldn't destroy a building in here, no one could. Let's say Yuri wasn't lying, then they have no demerits to staying here and watching the future.

In fact, it'd help save Fairy Tail, which is something everyone wants right now.

"So it's decided, we'll watch it," Gildarts says. And everyone nods.

-

Everyone settles down after that, taking off their coats and dressing comfortably as they were in for a long ride. So everyone curled around the seats, and Levy rummaged around for the first recording.

"There's a note here!" she announces, picking out a piece of paper under the stack of boxes. "It reads, ."

"Lucy?" Natsu repeats, curious, "who's that?"

"Is she the cause of whatever ruins Fairy Tail?" Gray asks, and a few narrows their eyes at the suggestion.

"It's likely," Erza agrees, "we don't have a girl called Lucy here..."

Laxus tenses. Is that the girl that'll ruin his guild?

"," Levy reads, and everyone's shoulders loosen in relief, "."

Everyone lifts.

"That means she's what we need to save Fairy Tail!" Levy realizes, "guys, keep an eye out for this Lucy, okay?"

And the video plays.

-

"Eh?" Loke says, confused, "is this a documentary? Levy..."

"This is really the right one!" she panics slightly, "this is weird. It should be showing us the future, so what is this?"

"Wait, something's weird," Erza tells them, stopping the chaos of commotion coming from the few, "it's--"

"It's speaking as if Magic isn't commonplace to begin with," Freed says, "it's explaining the concept of magic-- a normal documentary shouldn't need to go into this much detail. And half of those are outdated forms of Holder Magic."

And that causes a wave of realization.

"Isn't it because this was made long ago?" Mirajane asks, "maybe Yuri had some weird hobbies and decided to make an amateur documentary outta our futures, y'know?"

"Yeah he kind looks the type to mess around with weird stuff," Bickslow laughs. His dolls echo with their ominous laughter.

"It's pretty long," Natsu pouts, then complains, "c'mon, c'mon, show us already! It's taking so long!"

"Aye!" Happy agrees.

"Now we know why there's so many," Levy chuckles, "each memory drive can't hold a lot of information, so this must have taken up quite a bit of data."

"It's Happy!" Natsu beams, "look, Happy! Wait, what're you doing flying across the mountain like that, anyways?"

"How would I know?" Happy wonders, "but aye, it's me! I'm the main character!"

"I highly doubt that," Mirajane giggles with an evil denotation, "I mean, you're just a cat."

"What do you mean, just a cat? Say sorry to Happy!" Natsu bolts up angrily, but shrinks like a crumpled tissue when Mirajane glares at him.

Erza turns to them. "Hey, Mira, pick on someone your own size," she sneers.

"What, like you?" Mira taunts, sneering cheekily as she put her hands on her hips, smirking with devilish joy.

Erza boils with anger, drawing a sword out of her space. She stands up, and the tension boils between them.

"Woah woah, they're gonna fight!" Bickslow quickly runs out of attack range.

"Erza, Mira, stop that!" Gray yells, "this place is too small for you to--"

An explosion.

Natsu emerges from the rubble first, and magic circles pop up around the place, fixing the area to its original form. Judging from the hole in the ceiling, Erza and Mirajane have decided to take a shortcut to the forest ground for their inevitable showdown.

Everyone sighs. "Not again..."

Their attention is turned back to the screen, and everyone watches.

"What's this? An opening?"

"Probably Yuri's weird hobbies."

"Dude that sounds kinda wrong."

"Just you mate, just you."

"Aye."

"A fairy!" Cana brightens up, "guys, look!"

"They have tails!" Lisanna gapes, "Natsu, Natsu, look, they have tails! Elf-niichan, are you seeing this? There are so many of them!"

"They look like stars!"

"Wooah!!" the younger ones huddle around the screen in awe, eyes sparkling with excitement. Even the Thunder God Tribe are gathered around to study them closely.

"We need to tell Master about this when we get back! Hey, Laxus! Look!"

Laxus scoffs, but his eyes are open to look.

"Come to think of it, fairies are our guild's namesake, right?" Loke asks.

"You're pretty new, huh?" Gildarts chuckles. He gestures at the kids, "they actually went around looking for fairies for a while when they were younger," he gestures at them. "The whole point of the name is to never find it, but I think they didn't quite understand that part. They just think it's cool."

"An eternal mystery, an eternal adventure," Loke remembers the guild's tagline and vision. He can't help but smile a little at the sight. "It's sort of like Blue Pegasus'."

"Oh, so you know them well?" Gildarts asks him.

"Kinda. It's a long story," Loke chuckles.

"It's Natsu!" Lisanna points excitedly. "Hey, do you think the rest of us will show up?"

"I'm sure we will, it's about our future, after all," Gray says.

"...and there's our guild name," Evergreen says, "I guess it means we're the stars."

Everyone straightens a little. "Who's that?" Natsu asks, trying to sniff the screen before realizing he can't smell pictures, "she doesn't look familiar."