Year: X791, midnight
Location: Crocus
Preliminary round of Grand Magic Games.

Natsu:

"Let the Grand Magic Games preliminary round, sky labrynth, begin!"

Natsu stared at the giant pumpkin headed man. The stairs that had formed in front of their balcony were levitating over 200 feet above ground. He was ready to get this over with.

"Well if it's a race then we better get moving," Gray determined.

"Let's go!" Natsu cheered.

"No wait," Erza countered. Everyone turned to face the Titania who was still in her pj's. "The rules state that all five members must reach the goal, so we can't leave without Wendy,"

Everyone gasped at this realization. If they were going to regain their title of strongest guild, they couldn't get knocked out on the prelims. They needed a fifth member, fast!

Just then, the floor started shaking again. Was the building moving again? Gray looked over the edge of the balcony.

"We're not moving," he concluded.

"So what's with the rumbling?" Happy questioned.

"There," Erza pointed back at their room. In the center, on the ceiling was a magic circle that they knew all too well.

Nashi:

A small Yelp escaped my lips as I fell through the portal once again. I wasn't falling for too long before I slammed into hardwood floors.

"Ow," I groaned, trying to get up on my hands and knees. I heard three more yelps from above me as Gale, Reiki and Storm landed on top of me. A loud oof escaped my lungs as I was crushed by the weight of my teammates. Playing cards scattered across the floor as the portal closed above us.

My eyes were spinning in swirls, which was disorienting. When the dizziness finally cleared, I was able to get a good look at the room. It was a hotel room with six beds and white walls.

I could hear my teammates groaning in pain on top of me. Apperantly their injuries from Tenrou island still hadn't fully healed yet. The only injury I had was the crushing weight on top of me.

"Get off," I barked. One by one, my teammates climbed off allowing me to breathe once again. Gale helped me to my feet, but I was only there for a few seconds.

"NASHI!!!!!"

I turned and was tackled by a fellow pink haired dragon slayer. He was wearing a black coat with only one sleeve, white pants, and of course his favorite scarf.

I had to admit, I wasn't expecting this kind of reunion.

"It's so good to see you," Natsu cried.

"Y-yeah, you too." I stuttered.

"While it is good to see you four, we don't have time for a reunion." Erza stated, requipping into her usual armor.

"Why? What's going on?" Reiki asked. "What year is it?"

"X791, the preliminary round of the Grand Magic Games is starting now. We have to go,"

"We can't leave without a fifth member though," Lucy pointed out.

"Not a problem," Natsu cocked. "I got our fifth member right here," He scooped me into his arm and started for the stairs into the maze. Despite my protests, he kept going. Erza, Gray and Lucy fell in step behind us.

"Put me down!" I screeched.

"Not till we get up there, can't have you falling off."

I let out a sigh of frustration and looked back at my friends who were standing on the balcony in shock.

"Go find Wendy and Carla!" Erza ordered. Reiki nodded in acknowledgement.

"What happened to them?" I asked.

"We can't worry about that now," Erza stated. "Focus on getting through the preliminary round,"

As I looked at their faces, I saw the determination of all Fairy Tail. This was serious business to them. I also noticed that they had hardly aged since I last saw them. It had been 7 years for them right?

I was about to ask about it when we reached the entrance to the labrynth. It was more than "just a maze," it was the most confusing, most bizarre maze I had ever seen. The place was just plain crazy with upside down staircases, doors that led to nowhere, there was even a slide that fell up.

Now that we were finally up there, Natsu put me down on the white landing. Everyone stared in awe at the labrynth.

"This is incredible," I marveled.

"Now that we have a minute," Lucy started. She walked up to me and gave me a tender hug. I hugged her back, she smelled so good. "It's good to see you,"

I let her go and flashed her my fanged smile. I felt a hand on my head as Natsu ruffled my hair. "Glad to have you on the team kiddo,"

"Save the rest of the reunion for later," Gray warned. "We can't afford to lose in the prelims,"

"Right," Natsu cheered.

"REMEMBER," the pumpkin's voice announced. "The Grand Magic Games planning committee is not responsible for any loss of life inside the sky labrynth."

"So what are we supposed to do?" I asked.

"Our goal is to be one of the first eight teams to make it to the colosseum. If we do that, we'll be sure to make it into the actual games."

"Yeah, we gotta get through this is we wanna get the chance to kick Sabertooth's butt."

"When we were on the ground, the colleseum was to the East. I think we should head in that direction." Erza determined.

"I've got just the thing to help us out." Lucy declared. "Open gate of the compass, Pyxis!" Just as she turned the key, a giant red duck with a compass on his head appeared out of thin air. He screeched his name proudly for his master.

"We need your help Pyxis, can you tell us which way is East?" The bird quacked in delight and the compass started spinning. The arrow finally stopped and determined which way was East. "East is that way!" Lucy announced.

"Yes I'm well aware," Erza stated. "because I brought along a regular compass. In a puff of smoke, Pyxis disappeared back to the Celestial world. Lucy seemed disappointed that she couldn't help, but she got over it. We were finally on our way to being the top guild in Fiore again.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

"I think it would be prudent for us to take notes as we move along," Erza determined. We had been wandering the labrynth for at least twenty minutes. Natsu had almost fallen off the damn thing three times already. "We should write down the path we've taken from our starting point and point out what landmarks we've passed. We need to know exactly where we are in order to make progress."

After many debates as to why we needed to do this, we were finally starting to get a clear picture of the map... sort of.

"This maze is harder to map out than I thought it'd be," Lucy complained.

"Well what'd you expect when everything looks the same," Gray pointed out.

"Hey Erza," Natsu said, he had a serious tone.

"Yes, I heard it too." The Titania acknowledged.

"So did I," I offered. It was the sound of heavy footsteps and continuous arguing.

"You're the one who told us to go this way ya little runt!"

"Don't try to blame this on me."

"I don't care who's fault it is, all I'm saying is that we've been here before."

"That's what I'm saying, we're going around in circles."

"Just shut up and keep moving, we're running out of time."

"I almost forgot that there were other guilds in here." I said.

"Man you've got to be kidding me." We all turned to face the voice, everyone except for me seemed to recognize the scum who called us out.

"You again," the short one sneered. I couldn't call him the ugly one because they were all ugly.

"It's the Fairy Tail guild,"

"This some kind of joke?"

Everyone from Fairy Tail seemed to sigh in frustration. "Ah not those clowns," Natsu growled.

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Twilight Ogre," Erza answered. "They made Fairy Tail miserable while we were frozen on Tenrou island,"

"Twilight Ogre?" The name sounded familiar. "Oh I know, you're that disgusting guild on the outskirts of Magnolia."

"What?"

"Yeah, Twilight Ogre was voted nastiest guild a couple years ago by sorcerer weekly. They barely even qualified for the preliminary round of the Grand Magic Games last year." I explained.

"What the hell is she talking about?" One of the thugs questioned. Natsu burst into a fit of laughter.

"Pfft, whatever" the guy with a hammer said. "Looks like your guild is still full of idiots and losers."

"Yeah you guys are lame," the short one added.

"I'm surprised to see you losers in the tournament," Gray seethed.

"You got no right to call us losers," the guy with the hammer said. "You're the guild that always comes in last place,"

"Fairy Tail's taking first place this year, just you watch!" Natsu countered.

"We'll see about that," he started to pull out his hammer, ready to fight.

"Whoa hold on a sec," Lucy warned. "You wanna fight us right here?"

"Why not?" I mocked, lighting a ball of sunshine on my first. "We're gonna have to take em down sooner or later," Natsu smirked and lit his fist on fire.

"Bring it on," he taunted. "I'm fired up now,"

Twilight Ogre moved first, they advanced toward us weapons drawn.

"We don't have time to mess with you," Natsu devishly grinned.

"Cus we gotta take down Sabretooth," Gray added, he got into his fighting stance and the temperature around him dropped.

"You all don't know this, but this is Fairy Tail's comeback," I grinned. My fangs were just like my dad's and we both had the same look. Determined to win.

We hit hard and we hit fast, with our combined power we sent them all falling through the labrynth. Just then an alarm sounded. It blared loudly which confused us all. After the third ring, the floor shook. I stumbled to regain my balance, then the entire maze seemed to shift and shake.

"What now?" Erza questioned.

"Oh man, I don't like this," Natsu  fretted.

"What the heck is going on," Lucy cried.

"The ground's moving," Gray deduced.

"Ya don't say!" I barked. I grabbed onto the ledge of the platform I was standing on.

"It seems the labrynth itself is starting to rotate,"

"SERIOUSLY!!" Everyone cried in unison.

"No way," Natsu called. He slipped on the slanted platform we were on and he and Lucy both started to fall. "Nobody warned us about this!"

"Natsu," I yelled. The platform I was once standing on was now vertical and I was barely holding on. I could hear the screams of other wizards as they fell through the maze.

"Requip! Black wing armor," Erza soared through the maze and was able to catch my parents mid air. "It's turning on it's Z axis," she called. "Everyone move to the sides,"

Erza dropped Natsu and Lucy on a nearby platform. She took to the skies again, picking up Gray and I. She dropped us with Natsu and Lucy allowing us to gather our bearings.

"It stopped moving," I pointed out.

"I don't know who came up with this contraption, but they're pretty messed up in the head," Gray said.

I looked over the edge and saw several guild teams floating on magic circles below. Falling meant disqualification so they were all pretty mad. I suppose this thing was designed to narrow down 113 teams into 8. So far, it was doing its job pretty well.

"On the bright side, now we have less teams to compete for the top eight." I offered.

I heard a cluttering sound and turned to see the short guy from twilight ogre. He had dropped a stack of papers down a set of stairs. I picked it up and saw a series of lines, circles, and x's drawn onto it.

"What's that," Lucy asked. "Did those jerks make a map too?"

"I guess so,"

"Talk about a lucky break," Gray pointed out. "If we combine their maps with ours, we're sure to have an even better idea of what this place looks like."

I looked up at Erza who had a gleam in her eye and devilish grin. The Titania had a plan, but her face scared me. A few meters away from us the leader of Twilight Ogre was hanging on a ledge, trying to hold on. He saw that we had his map.

"Hey what do you think you're doing," He grunted.

"Oh, does this belong to you?"

"Yeah, now give it back,"

In the blink of an eye, Erza was on top of him. "Not gonna happen," She announced. In one swift kick, she sent the thug falling and screaming out of the labrynth.

"And another one bites the dust," I taunted.

"How about that," Erza said mischeviously. We all had a devishly scary look in our eyes and a scary smile. "I just figured out how we're going to get ahead in the preliminaries."

"What's with the creepy looks" Lucy stammered. It wasn't nice, but it's what we had to do to get ahead. We fought every guild we came across and took every map we could find. I hated to admit it, but I was enjoying myself. The fact that I could kick people off a cliff and not having them die was just so satisfying.

We ended up giving all the maps to Lucy to decipher. Unfortunately, the maps were so different that we just ended up moving to the middle to get away from the rotating outer shell of the labrynth. The inside of the labrynth was slightly more normal, it had a quaint little town. There was only one issue... it was upside down.

"It would appear there is no East or West anymore," Erza stated, she held out her compass, which continued to keep spinning non-stop.

"Geez, even our compass is dizzy." Gray said. Lucy giggled hautly.

"Yes, I've been waiting for this moment,"

"What's gotten into you?" Natsu scratched the back of his head.

"Open, Gate of the compass! Pyxis," In a flash of light, the duck from earlier appeared. It seemed scared however...

"Why does it look so scared?"

"Erza's compass must've traumatized it," Lucy concluded.

"I didn't mean to upset him,"

"Okay pal don't be scared this is your time to shine," Lucy said supportively. "Her compass is completely useless." The duck perked up at that. Erza held out her compass for the walking navigator to see. She and Lucy continued to support the duck and give him words of praise. After a minute, the duck seemed cheerful and ready to help.

"Man that's one simple-minded spirit," Gray whispered.

"Yeah, but I bet it's still smarter than Erza," Natsu added.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY,"

"NOTHING! NOTHING AT ALL MA'AM," 

After a while, we were on the move again. We managed to fall into the fake town when the maze rotated and made our way from there. Now we were running on a path that was placed over an ocean. When I looked up, I could tell that the sky was painted on. We were close.

"Okay team! It's time for one final sprint," Natsu cheered. We could see the goal from here. I ran as fast as my legs would allow me, the end was so close! To be honest, I was just excited to get out of this stupid maze. We were 100 meters away from the exit. 50 meters, 20 meters, There!

"Woohoo!" The pumpkin head cheered. Trumpets sounded and confetti fell. "Congratulations Fairy Tail! Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster, Lucy Heartfilia, Natsu Dragneel, and..."

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"Pardon my rudeness, my dear," Mato apologized. "but who are you?"

I was taken back by his question. Stunned even. Natsu grabbed my shoulder with my yellow guild mark and shoved it forward.

"This is Nashi Lockflame, bonafide​ member of the Fairy Tail guild,"

"Oh, I see," Mato said. "I'm sorry my dear, I was not aware that Fairy Tail had to substitute a member,"

"I-It's fine," I stuttered.

"Well congratulations team Fairy Tail, you've cleared the preliminary round." Everyone cheered.

"I'm dying to know, what place did we come in? I bet it was first,"

"Actually, you came in eighth. You just barely qualified."

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"EIGHTH PLACE!!!"