The Ones We Left Behind

Luna was walking through the countryside, trying to remain calm and enjoy her day as she was in no rush to rush back to Ace of Spades. She wasn't trying to avoid a situation that she knew would inevitably fall onto her to solve, working on a intense time table, or trying to put off troublesome subjects of thought. Luna genuinely had a moment to herself and chose to enjoy it as she was on her way back from a job. Luna walked at a brisk pace wearing her beige hoodie, red leggings, and her sneakers. This time the job wasn't complex, she simply had to retrieve a sword out of a well, a nice and easy job.

Luna was starting to feel hungry so she took the path that lead to a nearby village, and that was when she was starting to get an ominous feeling. As she was getting close she could hear a commotion, and sensed panic among the various life forces of the citizens and other inhabitants of the village. Luna started to run forward but there was one in particular that gave her cause for panic. Luna sensed one strange life force that was in a state of constant chaotic flux, one that she recognized quite well. Mythica, the 'girlfriend' of Fairy Tail's guildmaster, Luna had met her once before and the girl seemed to be in a state that defies most rules as reading her life force was like looking at a spiraling typhoon of multicolored liquid, and trying to focus on a single clear marble while incredibly drunk and disoriented. At best all Luna got from that first encounter was that Mythica had a pulse, no emtions, no flow patterns, or anything. However this time the life force was incredibly different.

The life force was indeed chaotic but it was more clearer, and significantly easier to read, and something most disturbing was that there was a detail that was clear, the life force came from a young girl. Luna ran forward into the town but kept distant, using her new slayer enhanced senses as she sensed the collapse of the girl and a dark magical feeing nearby up ahead. Luna started to run through the streets, jumping over the crowd, kneeling before the little girl and picked her up in one arm, flipping her over brushing back the stray hairs to look her in the eyes. "Same eye mutation... Is this possibly Mythica junior?" She thought but recalling the danger of the tentacle beast at hand. She jumped back as she held the girl in her left arm tight, and tried to keep her distance from the monster. "I am a Sabertooth mage, I got this in hand, everyone get back!"

Luna's left hand glowed a soft pink as she was healing the girl and trying to restore her health, while at the same time she was trying to heal the girl, while her other hand was reaching out towards the monster, her grip tightening as she was magically reaching out to the cobblestone, dirt, and every other bit of earth she could find as she tried to encase and bury the creature. She had a feeling that Mythica would not want this child in the care of officials or any other stranger, so she needed to mention a plausible excuse to fight while holding the child. "The child is safer in my arms, I'm a world class healer." She said as she was trying to get a grasp on the situation, while multitasking with her magic to keep both problems from getting any worse.

The Nature Fae paid close attention to the relation between the health and wellbeing of the girl and the strength and activity of the monster. She found it either a massive coincidence that once the child calmed down the beast seemingly ran out of energy as Luna was able to encase it in rocks and before vines would sprout thickly wrapping the creature into a tight binding. Luna felt the child escape her arm as she was preoccupied at first as the monster was a larger problem, but she kept tract of the girl's life force. Once she was sure the binding was secure she turned back towards the child as she approached, the wording started to make Luna a little curious and concerned as she was operating under the initial assumption this was the child of Mythica, but not Mythica as a child.

"So you are Mythica? Not Mythica Junior?" Luna asked quietly as she kneeled down close to the girl before recalling that they were in the midst of public. There were too many eyes and ears for her liking. She weighed her options and proceeded to lift up the girl with one arm before turning back to the townsfolk. "This is my friend's kid, I was cheated out of being the godmother but even then I suppose the father's brother is higher on the list. Still, tell the Rune Knights that the beast is pacified and sealed, they can handle the rest." She said pacifying the majority before she started to walk away, keeping careful watch around to make sure no one was following her before she ran towards a wall outlining the village, and carefully jumped to the top, grabbing it with her free hand before climbing over and falling onto her legs, holding onto Mythica carefully to ensure the small child was safe. Living the life of a mage, obtaining a slayer magic, and every other experience in between had given the fae a strong physique, and she had to admit it came in handy when she needed to quickly evade prying eyes.

She slowly walked into the woods as she found a secluded area by a pond. "Alright, that gives us some privacy..." She said as she sat down on a nearby tree stump before seatiing the child form chaotic witch on her lap. "Alright kiddo, I'm here and I ain't leaving you anytime soon. let me get a look at you..." She said in her soft and reassuring tone as she tried to think of immediate causes for this regression. "This isn't mere applied transmogrification as the damage you sustained earlier would have regressed it..." She brushed back some of Mythica's bangs looking into her eyes. That was the one aspect of the chaos witch that intrigued Luna the most the first time the met as it seemed she had a functioning clock for an eye. However when she saw the clock eye halted she had a feeling that something was wrong, something that probably also affected the magic. Recalling that this was a married woman trapped in a girl's body a disturbing question popped through her mind. "Just double checking, are you a grown woman stuck in a child's body, or was your, more mature physique an alternate form generated by magic?" She asked gently as she was trying to figure out where to begin diagnosing such a severe case of rejection.

As Luna listened to Mythica freaking out on her lap she paid careful attention to the tantrum the of the chronomancer or at the very least who used to be a chronomancer, Luna could tell there was still plenty of magic within the small body. Luna remained calm and silent as she let the tantrum happen and Mythica express her fury. However the hard part of the encounter was trying to determine whether it was Mythica's natural mental state or if she was still coming down from shock as she was struggling to piece together what was going on. "Well Luna, you practically raised your siblings and you were the quintessential middle child, you worked in a lot of babysitting and you trained your whole life for just this occasion. While not this exact but close enough."

Luna gently held myhtica's hands in a supportive manner as she looked the child body imprisoned mage in the eyes with compassion. She spoke in a gentle and calm voice, at the very least for the moment using her maternal voice to try and get things settled. "Mythica, I hear you, your thoughts and questions are totally valid. You want to know how you ended up like this and that is completely justified. You have my undivided attention." She said never veering from her tone. She wondered if there was something she had off hand that could help Mythica calm down, until she remembered the unopened bottle of grape juice in her pocket. She reached into her pocket and opened the bottle before gently handing it to Mythica. "Have some juice, take a deep breath, and we'll sort through all this stuff one by one, and get the answers to this situation."

Luna thought quickly about a battle plan before she figured out a way to try and help get some answers without adding a full payload of stress onto Mythica's shoulders, but she needed to know if there was a chance to immediately undo everything. "Alright Mythica, we're going to do a thought exercise, I am going to repeat everything I know so far and give you my theories, I want you to think if anything clicks." She said as she decided to start from the top of the situation from her perspective.

"I found you being chased by that monster in the form you are now, you were covered in scratches and your own blood but you and everyone else was being overwhelmed by the tentacle monster, shock seemingly overwhelmed and still may overwhelm a small bit. I showed up, and imprisoned the tentacle monster, found you were in a vulnerable state in more then one ways, and learned that you seem to have issues with memory recollection." She explained slowly and gently as she prepared to draw towards a few hypothesis's regarding all available knowledge. "While the most immediate explanation is the tentacle thing got the jump on you and that thing made you into a child. However I don't buy that, I believe that thing was more or less just finishing a job as it doesn't make sense for it to be in that town and it would be too big of a coincidence. As for how you got this way, I believe this is either the result of someone with a grudge, whether it be intentional or accidental I can't say since you use a time based magic."


She said as she would loop around to summarize her theory. "So I believe someone tried to do something magic related and you struggled, managing to escape but not before losing about a decade of your physical age, and someone sent an underling to finish the job. Now take your time and try to think, is anything I am saying sounding familiar?

Luna listened to Mythica as she seemed to get more agitated and moody, but was seemingly talking nonsense at first. However with more and more information Luna assumed that more pieces of the puzzle would present itself, however it was not until Mythica confessed the true origins of the creature laid with her work that Luna started to get a dark feeling about the situation and knew that she would need to acquire way more information to be able to cast judgment upon Mythica or even understand the situation. Looking at the withered grass she could tell that Mythica even depowered was still a dangerous threat to deal with. "I am just going to assume you have enough sense that you didn't give a creature the means to kill you or at the very least land you on the opposite side of adulthood. Given what I felt while I fought it and you're still able to speak without a lisp, regression probably isn't in it's skillset." Luna said as she thought long and hard about the potential of who would do something like that to Mythica. She didn't know the chronomancy sorceress all that well but she was struggling to believe that she had a long list of enemies, or at the very least something that could do something like this.


"Alright, so if I am hearing you right, and as inhumane as it is, that thing back there was just one in devil knows how many of your experiments. Assuming for a moment that whoever did this to you is familiar with your work, the most logical choice would have to be the most intelligent being intimately acquainted with your projects, and a detailed knowledge of magical removal or chronomancy, maybe a bit of both. So from those criteria we arrive at either, a sapient subject that gained free reign of a laboratory and notes of yours, a stalker, or a disgruntled assistant, family member, or anyone else with access to your work. Makes sense, why strike you down yourself when you made plenty of predators who can do it? Especially when someone makes you vulnerable." Luna was disgusted by the theory, however at the same time she had a big issue with the tactics of whoever tried to take down Mythica. Turning someone into a child and forcing them to face predators, even if the victim made the predators and probably is a war criminal is cruel and unusual.


"As for why I care, think of it like this, if someone did declare open season on you to all your creations, odds are people might get hurt in the crossfire, while you are most likely guilty of crimes that might earn you a death sentence, you don't deserve to be clawed down as a child. Imprisoned as one is dubious at best but I'm not judge and jury." Luna explained as she tried to be impartial, mostly for the fact that she knew that if she left Mythica right now, she'd be opening a can of demons that she would regret.