Chapter Text
Ducking around another corner you expect to see another demon. On your way to this point you'd been ducking in and out of demon infested areas repeatedly and any you hadn't gotten through unspotted Natsu had dispersed the demons within with his magic, but there'd still been no sign of Nick or Monroe. That all changed around this corner; you, Trubel and Natsu stop when you round the corner - Happy doesn't seem to notice and flies straight into the back of Trubel's head. They start to argue and Natsu decides to join in meaning you're the only one to notice what is in front of you. You are now standing in front of an unguarded cell, inside of which Nick and Monroe are sitting. Trubel, Happy and Natsu are still arguing so still haven't spotted the occupants of the cell but the noise attracts their attention.
Monroe's expression immediately becomes a mixture of shock and relief, his mouth moves like he's saying something but no words come out. Nick seems to take longer to register who it is he's seeing - he appears to be in a dazed state - but when he recognises you and Trubel his expression matches Monroe's and he calls out to you, "(Y/N), Trubel! Is it really you?"
The sound of Nick's voice fills your whole body with joy and for a while you forget how to move. Trubel immediately stops arguing when she hears Nick's voice and turns around, seeing her friends in the cell she runs past you and towards the cell. Seeing her run past returns you to reality and you run behind her towards Nick and Monroe, "Nick! Monroe! Thank God we found you! We've been looking everywhere for you!" Trubel exclaims as she attempts to break the lock on their cell.
"How the hell did you guys find this place?" Monroe manages to find the words to asks, in the meantime Happy has found the keys to the cell and flies back towards you dropping the keys in Trubel's lap.
While Trubel fumbles with the keys and the lock on the cell you answer the question. "It's thanks to Natsu and his Fairy Tail friends!" You say with a smile and point towards the pink haired boy behind you. Trubel manages to get the cell open and you continue, "we can explain the rest later, we should get you out of here now!"
The relief on both of their faces is evident as they struggle to stand, "that sure sounds like a good idea!" Monroe replies with a smile on his face, but not long after standing Nick collapses again and Monroe is quick to catch him before he hits the ground.
Your exit from the Cube wasn't quite as fast as your entrance had been, aside from Happy you all take it in turns to support Nick as you make your way out of the demon's hideout, Happy flies ahead to make sure there's no demons lurking ahead of you. As you round the corner just before the area Natsu had blown your entrance into you hear Happy exclaim ahead of you, "I can see Erza, Gray and Lucy!"
As your group round the corner you see the trio had arrived just before you and had just signalled for Christina to return before Happy's call had stopped them. Looking between Monroe and Nick - who's currently supported by Natsu - Erza makes the pretty easy connection, "you managed to find your friends then!"
You smile at her but before you get the chance to reply Trubel beats you to it, "yeah, and we only had to defeat a few demons on our way to them!"
The expressions on their faces makes it evident that they have more question but seeing Christina approaching behind them and hearing more footsteps running down the halls towards you, you decide it's best to leave them for later, "we can explain more later, I'd say it's time to make our exit now." You say signalling towards the approaching airship.
Your escape had been relatively clean, only a few demons had made it to the hole in the wall before Happy had gotten everyone onboard. Gray and Natsu had been the last ones left in the Cube and fought off most the demons that arrived, although a few fell to your (Y/R) as they boys were carried onboard. No demons had followed you back from the Cube. Christina was now on the way back to the place called Sabertooth where you would meet with the heavily pierced guy called Gajeel and the little girl called Wendy, who would apparently be able to heal Nick, before getting a train back to Fairy Tail.
***
Wendy's spell had improved Nick's health a lot; although he still slept for 2 days straight, only waking to eat. But now he was almost entirely recovered and you were enjoying your last meal with your new wizard friends before you left for the strange vortex thing to go back to your own world. You are eating (Y/F), it's your favourite food and always has been, Fairy Tail's chef - a pretty girl called Mira - makes a brilliant (Y/F).
"Hank'll be going crazy after how long we just magically vanished for!" Nick jokes over the table. You've been in this strange world for about a week now and had no way to contact your friends back home.
Monroe laughs at Nick's comment, "at least you're not married to him Nick, Rosalee is going to kill me when we get back!"
"At least we'll have one hell of a story to tell them when we get back! They'll never have heard anything like this before!" Trubel laughs just thinking about your friends reactions to this wild story we'll have for them.
You grin at the thought, "they'll probably think we're high or something! I have no idea how I'm going to explain missing a week of lectures to the university!" The thought crosses your mind, you'll probably get kicked out for this one.
"Oh damn, I didn't think of that. Couldn't you make up some reason or something? If you said there were family troubles I'm sure Nick could back you up!" From across the table Nick nods at the idea, perhaps you could avoid being kicked out of your university after only one week. Although after this one week you'd started to realise, perhaps university life wasn't for you - killing Wesen with Nick did seem like a lot more fun!
"I don't know, going around hunting Wesen seems more like me than sitting in a lecture hall being talked at and trying to ignore the fact that some of the people on my course are Wesen themselves!" It's not long before you've found a way that you could work with Nick, Monroe, Trubel and Hank; and you even have offers to live in Portland from Nick and Monroe!
Your conversation is interrupted by Natsu approaching with Happy on his shoulder, "Erza, Lucy, Gray and I can walk you back to the portal to your world incase any demons decide they want to come after you guys again. We're ready to leave whenever you guys are, just come get us from the bar, Ok?" Natsu cheerily offers and you start to suspect he hopes there'll be demons there to fight.
"Thanks Natsu, will do." You reply to pink haired wizard. You finish off your (Y/F) quickly, you didn't have much left anyway, and then the four of you head to the bar, where Bud is waiting with your wizard escorts. "We're all set guys." You inform them, the mood has turned sombre as the fact you'll be leaving your new friends, probably never to see them again, sinks in.
The portal - as Natsu had called it - wasn't very far from the guild hall, in the middle of a small forest just outside the city. Seeing as the wizards already knew where they were going it didn't take long to find it. "Well, here we are. The way back to your world." Gray says, his words are plain, with little to no emotion although he couldn't hide the emotion from his eyes - he's clearly sad to see all of you go.
"Thanks for saving us doesn't seem to quite cover it, does it?" Monroe says with a small laugh, his attempt to lighten the mood doesn't succeed.
You consider leaving without saying anything - you'd always been bad at goodbyes anyway - but something in your gut tells you that you'd regret it if you did. But nothing you could think of saying seemed good enough to say. Before you can decide on anything Natsu suddenly shouts out for everyone to move back, you all comply just before an inferno engulfs the area you'd previously been standing in. Natsu's quick to eat up the entire inferno, you turn around to see the new intruders. Your wizard escorts are standing between you and five figures, two are very familiar to you but you don't understand how they could be there. Both Jackal and Tempesta are standing on the other side of the wizards - but didn't you kill them? - with them are the female demon with a helmet who you recognise from the projection in the guild hall and two unfamiliar figures - a female with sheep-like horns on her head and a human-like male with long black hair in a ponytail. "But, how can Jackal and Tempesta still be here? Didn't we kill them?"
Glancing towards Trubel you see she's just as confused as you are. "They're demons, when defeated they just regenerate a new body in their lab!" Lucy calls behind her while taking out a key from the small bag on her hip - you'd learnt that she's a celestial spirit mage and the keys are how she summons spirits but hadn't seen her magic fist hand; "Open! Gate of the Lion! Leo!" a bright flash of gold light and the sound of a doorbell ringing lead to a handsome young man with spiked orange hair that sort of points into ears appears in front of Lucy. "Let's hold of the demons so (Y/N) and (her/his) friends can get away Loke!" She calls to the new figure.
He grins brightly at her voice, "I'd do anything for you Lucy!" Lucy sighs at the flirting of her spirit before pulling out a glowing whip and the wizards start to fight the demons.
"Run you guys! Get back to your world!" You can hear the voice of one of your wizard friends but can't tell whose through the fighting. You, Nick, Monroe, Trubel and Bud all turn and run towards the portal, but before reaching it you stop and glance back towards your friends, the fight isn't going their way. You see Natsu fall down with Jackal closing in on him, you know you can't leave him here to die when he saved your life, you turn back and run towards your friend.
Reaching for you (Y/M) as you run, Jackal doesn't appear to notice you closing in on them. You reach Natsu and rap an arm around his torso, with your spare arm you swing out towards Jackal to keep him back - you had no intention of actually hitting the demon. Turning quickly on the spot you charge for the portal - dragging Natsu along behind you - you're relieved to see you weren't the only one wanting to rescue your friends, Nick, Monroe, Trubel and Bud were all dragging/carrying wizards back towards the portal.
Despite being the first to reach the wizards you're somehow the last to reach the portal, just before you enter you hear the short conversation between the demons behind you, "no, leave them Jackal! The Verrat's Hundjägers will be waiting on the other side, they'll deal with them." Then you enter the portal - before entering Natsu had been struggling against you, trying to get back into the fight but upon entering the portal he falls into a unconscious slump, but you hardly notice due to the sight in front of you - your senses are overcome by the bright lights. They change colour as you pass through the portal; passing from red to blue to orange to green to purple to yellow, they're darkest straight ahead of you and get lighter as they radiate out, forming a tunnel-like image. As you get closer the darkest part gets larger until you can see your world through the circle; it opens out into the abandoned car park Natsu dragged you through the portal from.
Exiting the portal you're back in your world, faced with three Hundjägers directly in front of you. You leave Natsu on the floor and reach for your (Y/M), beheading the Wesen in one fell swoop, you see the one on your left fall to the same fate by Trubel's machete, Nick deals with the one on the right with a single gunshot. "Yeah right, Verrat Hundjägers couldn't deal with us if they tried." You mumble to yourself as you turn back to Natsu, he's just returning to consciousness so you help him to his feet. Bud is holding a sleeping Happy, Monroe is supporting Erza as she's coming round, Trubel is helping Lucy back to her feet and Nick is stopping a dizzy-looking Gray from falling over.
When all of the wizards have recovered from their trip through the portal your left with a goodbye again, but even though you're all sad about the wizards leaving the mood is lighter than before. "Guess we should get back and clear up the Tartaros mess back in our world." Natsu says with a smile on his face - clearly thinking of more fighting.
You smile back at him, "you saved my life and now I've saved yours, so now we're even!" You offer a hand out to Natsu, which he accepts with a smile and a nod. "I don't think there's anything to be upset about, I'm sure our paths will cross again before you know it!" And with that, the wizards leave.
***
It's been about a year since you parted ways with Natsu and the other wizards. As planned, you'd gone back to Portland with Nick, Monroe and Trubel - doing Grimm stuff and helping out on some of Nick and Hank's cases. It was fun, catching criminals and dealing with troublesome Wesen, but it still didn't feel like you. So we Trubel left Portland you decided to go as well, and half a year ago you found yourself back in the (city/town) that you met Natsu in. You'd expected the portal to have closed but it was still there - if anything, it looked more stable than before. This had obviously led to lost wizards passing into your world, some trying to escape from the law as well, and some people from your world passing into the wizard's world; so you decided to stay here, and monitor the portal, stopping people passing through and dealing with wizards that found a way across. Over time the portal became more and more stable until it reached a point where you could clearly see the other world on the other side. About three months after deciding to stay, a familiar pink-haired boy came through the portal, chasing a wizard outlaw who'd escaped into your world - he hadn't gotten very far as you'd caught him the moment he passed through but after that you found out that you and Natsu had taken up the same job, monitoring the portal, and quite often meet up for good old chats.
Right now you're sitting in (Y/S) with a glass of (Y/D), Natsu is sitting opposite you with a cup of hot chocolate. "The Tartaros demon's have finally calmed back down! I can't believe how long they were trying to get to the portal for. No way Fairy Tail would ever have let that happen!" Natsu cheerily comments, taking a sip of hot chocolate.
You smile back at Natsu, "yeah, even if they did it's not like I'd be letting them stay!" You take a sip of you (Y/D).
He laughs a little, "you definitely impressed me a year ago when you and Trubel managed to kill Jackal! Lucy still tells every newbie in the guild about it!"
"I can imagine! She does go on about it to me, and I was there so I know what happened!" You smile at the memory.
"I should get back, I promised Lucy I'd go on a mission with her so Gray'll be taking care of the Portal for me." Natsu quickly downs the rest of his drink and puts some money in the middle of the table. "Same time next week?"
You down the remainder of your drink and put your own money on the table, signalling to the closest member of staff that the money's there. You nod at Natsu as you walk out of the building, "Trubel and Nick should be down next week, you should bring Erza, Gray and Lucy, oh and Happy too of course, we can have a big meet up!" You say with a smile as you walk out of the shop.