A/N: I know it's a bit late for an "After-GMG" story but I just had to write this. This idea just popped in my mind last night when I was about to sleep. I hope you all like it. :) Enjoy! Happy reading! Gihee.
"Normal"
'Thoughts'
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. :(
Three weeks have passed since the Grand Magic Games ended and everything was as normal as it could be in our favorite guild, Fairy Tail.
The guild doors suddenly burst open and two figures entered.
"We're back!"
"Aye sir!"
Everyone in the guild didn't need to look to know who entered.
"Natsu-nii! Happy! Welcome back! How was the mission?"
Natsu turned to Romeo and grinned at him. "It went great, Romeo!"
"I bet flame-brain destroyed half the town this time."
"Aye sir!"
There was a collective sigh after Happy's response to Gray while Gray just laughed.
"Hey! Happy! Whose side are you on?" Natsu just grunted when Happy ignored him and went to the bar to ask Mirajane for fish.
Gray just kept on laughing and said, "See, ash-brains. Even Happy agrees with me."
"Shut up, stripper!"
"What did you say, hot-head?"
"Wanna go, ice princess?"
"You're on!"
And that started the usually brawl in the guild hall.
Lucy just sighed at the scene. "They never change. They're still as childish as ever."
Levy just giggled at her bestffriend. "It wouldn't be the same if they don't start a fight."
"Yeah. You're right, Levy. I just hope Erza would stop them before the guild is destroyed though."
The two girls looked behind to see Erza on the bar eating her cake as if there wasn't a brawl happening behind her.
"She's not even aware that the guys are fighting already." Lucy just sighed in defeat.
Levy laughed and said, "That's Erza for you. Nothing could disturb her when she's eating her cake. Well, that is until someone messes with her cake."
The two girls laughed nervously at the thought of Erza going on a rampage because of someone messing with her cake. The girls decided to change their topic to books as they exchanged comments and recommendations about the books that they have already read.
Soon almost all the guys were involved in the brawl and different things were being thrown around.
Happy together with Wendy and the other exceeds, Carla and Lily were at the bar just watching the brawl when suddenly something caught Happy's attention and he started to panic as he shouted for his partners' names.
"NATSU!"
This caught the attention of the people in the bar around Happy as they noticed how distraught the blue exceed was. Natsu still occupied with the brawl but because of his sensitive hearing looked back to see his partner's horror-struck face.
He wondered why his friend looked like this and why he called him with such desperation in his voice as he threw a punch at whoever was currently in front of him.
Soon his unsaid inquiries were answered when Happy pointed at a flying broken bottle of beer and shouted, "LUCY!"
Natsu snapped his head at the flying bottle fully alert this time and saw that it was heading towards his blonde partner. His blood ran cold as he ran desperately to the bottle.
This caught the attention of everyone in the guild except the two girls who were busy chatting about books.
Natsu caught the bottle in his hand. He then threw the bottle shattering it into million pieces.
This now caught the attention of the two girls as everyone in the guild except Happy stared at Natsu who was now seething in anger.
Happy seeing the bottle disappear in the air instantly dropped his fish and flew towards Lucy.
"LUSHIIII!" Although surprised, Lucy still caught Happy who crashed on her chest.
She looked down and saw Happy looking up to her and crying.
"Are you okay, Lucy? The bottle didn't reach you, right? You're not hurt, right?"
Lucy patted Happy's head and said, "Don't cry, Happy. I'm alright. And what bottle? Do you mean that bottle?" Lucy pointed at now shattered pieces of the bottle as Happy nodded.
Lucy then looked at Natsu who had flames erupting from his whole body and scales were slowly forming in his skin.
Everyone stared at Natsu and had only one thing in their minds, 'Dragon Force but why?'
Natsu just stood there quietly at first while listening to Happy and Lucy's conversation and when he confirmed that Lucy was really fine he snapped his attention to the guys who stopped from fighting to look at him.
Natsu glared at them then growled. "Who threw that broken bottle?"
Everyone in the guild shuddered at the menacing growl from the dragon slayer.
Natsu not happy with the lack of response from the guys growled louder and asked again, "I said, who threw the damn bottle at Lucy? WHO!"
The guys who were now definitely scared stepped away from the culprit and it were revealed to be Gajeel.
"What the heck, Salamander? I didn't intend for it to be thrown to bunny-girl. It just went that way."
"Apologize. Now." Natsu growled.
Gajeel not being intimidated by Natsu just said, "I don't want to. It's not like I intentionally threw it at her. And you caught it anyways. No harm done."
Natsu just growled louder and glared at him, "What if I didn't? That could've hit her head!"
Gajeel just shrugged and said, "It's not my fault that she's not paying attention to her surroundings."
And that was the last straw for Natsu. He roared loudly causing everyone the guild to cover their ears.
When the roar stopped everyone looked at the place where Natsu previously stood but he was not there anymore. Suddenly Gajeel flew across the hall and everyone saw Natsu stomping his way towards the shocked Gajeel.
"I will beat you to pulp, metal-head!"
Erza who thought that everything was going too far already approached Natsu and said, "Stop it, Natsu. Enough is enough. Lucy is safe."
Natsu didn't listen to her and kept stomping towards Gajeel. This irked Erza so she held on Natsu's shoulder to stop him but Natsu just shrugged her hand and continued to walk towards Gajeel.
Soon Erza, Gray, Laxus, and Elfman were trying to stop Natsu but he just ignored them as if he wasn't hearing their voices or feeling their presence.
Lucy just watched the scene unfold and then everything clicked in her head.
'The bottle was flying towards me and Happy saw it then calling Natsu's attention to stop it from hurting me. And now, Natsu's angry at Gajeel because of me. I have to stop him.'
Natsu was about to punch Gajeel for the second time when Lucy ran towards him while carrying a still crying Happy in her arms as everyone else tried to stop her fearing that she might get hurt by the rampaging Natsu but what happened next surprised everyone.
"Natsu! Stop it! It's alright."
For the first time since Natsu went into rampage mode, the guild saw signs that he heard someone else's voice and it was Lucy's voice.
Natsu turned back to see Lucy and said, "Lucy?"
Lucy smiled at him and said, "I'm okay, Natsu. Why don't you calm down and let's go to my apartment? You can stay over at my house while we try to calm you down and stop Happy from crying."
Natsu turned back to normal and grinned at Lucy. "Okay. Let's go."
Natsu went towards the door as Lucy turned to her awestruck guildmates and said, "I'm really sorry for Natsu. I'll try to calm him down and we'll come back later. Bye!"
Lucy followed her pink-haired best friend and left the guild quiet and in shock.
"What the heck just happened?" Gajeel stood up and rubbed the bump on his head that was caused by Natsu.
"I don't know. He was just normal before and then he got so angry that no one was able to stop him. But when Lucy told him to stop, he stopped and turned back to normal like nothing happened." Gray stared at the guild doors.
"I noticed that since the Grand Magic Games ended Natsu had been more protective of Lucy. I wonder why." Erza was now thinking of possible reasons for Natsu to be overprotective of Lucy.
"Maybe they're still not over it." Wendy whispered to Carla as the exceed nodded at her friend knowing fully well what Wendy was talking about.
No one heard this except Gajeel who shouted, "What do you mean, Wendy? Do you know something about this?"
Wendy's eyes widened as she remembered that there were currently other dragon slayers in the guild aside from her that had sensitive hearing. Wendy was debating in her head if she will deny saying anything when she saw that Laxus was also looking at her telling her that he also heard what she said.
By now, everyone's attention was on Wendy. Wendy didn't know if she should tell them after all it was not her story to tell but suddenly Carla talked.
"Wendy, I guess we need to tell them."
"B-but…"
Carla smiled at the stuttering child and said, "They are family after all. They have the right to know."
Wendy sighed and smiled, "You're right, Carla." Wendy then faced Gajeel and soon everyone in the guild who were dying to hear what she had to say.
Wendy took a deep breath and started her story. "When the Grand Magic Games ended, Lucy-san died."
There was a collective gasps from the ladies and shock, confusion, worry and curiosity were in the eyes of most of the men.
"Lu-chan died? But she's here? How can that be?" Levy was in the brink of tears with just hearing her friend had died.
Wendy smiled sadly, "Lucy-san is alive. The one who died was Future Lucy-san. As you all know, the Eclipse is a time machine. The Lucy from seven years after this year came back using that to change the future that she was leaving in. That future was ruled by dragons and many people have already died. We met her at the castle as we were trying to escape after rescuing our current Lucy-san."
Everyone was trying to absorb the information that was being told by Wendy but Master Makarov was still unsatisfied with what he heard so he asked, "So how did Future Lucy die?"
Everyone's breathing hitched at the sudden question. Carla sensing that Wendy couldn't tell them about this part decided that she'll take over in telling them.
"After we parted from Mirajane and Yukino, we met Future Rogue. He defeated the soldiers who were following us so we asked him if he was an ally. He said that Eclipse had two functions. One, it was a canon and two, it was a time machine. That part was a lie. It wasn't a canon. It was only a time machine. He said that the future was ruled by dragons because there was a person who closed the eclipse gate before it could defeat the dragons. He said that he will eliminate that person to save the future. Obviously that is also a lie since his main goal was to rule the world with the dragons and the reason he wanted to kill the person who will close the gate is because that person would interfere with his plans."
Carla stopped for a moment to let the information sink in. After a few moments of silence she continued with her story.
"As you might have guessed, the person who closed the gate was Lucy. She knew when she saw the Eclipse that it was a time machine that would transport dragons to our time so she closed it but at that time she didn't know that. And so was Future Lucy. She wasn't aware that she would close the gate. When we asked Rogue who he was pertaining to, he suddenly launched his attack and told us that he was pertaining to Lucy. This caught everyone off guard and Natsu was a second late from stopping the attack towards our current Lucy. The only thing we could do was watch but suddenly Future Lucy jumped in front of our Lucy and she was the one who received the blow. The shadow sword pierced through her body and she fell on the floor."
There was a collective gasp and Wendy was now crying. She remembered that she just stood there useless while watching future Lucy die. Carla was stopping herself from crying and continued.
"Happy ran towards her, devastated in seeing Future Lucy hurt. Natsu was shaking and the horror of seeing Future Lucy get hurt was evident in his face. Rogue too was shocked to see two Lucy in front of him. Future Lucy said that she didn't close the Eclipse gate and that it was weird for her to die beside herself. Lucy said that it was weird for her too and that future Lucy shouldn't die. Future Lucy then turned to Happy and said that he shouldn't cry because she wasn't the Lucy of this time but Happy kept on crying telling her that she is still our Lucy whatever other people says. Future Lucy turned her attention back to our Lucy and asked if she could see her guild mark and when Lucy showed it to her she cried. And that's when we discovered that Future Lucy's right hand or arm was chopped off sometime in the future. This must have triggered something in Natsu's memories because as that thought dawned on us, he was clearly shaking in anger and gritting his teeth."
"I think Natsu remembered how happy Lucy was when she showed him that she already got her guild mark when he brought her to Fairy Tail." Mirajane said this as she was now crying.
All the girls in the guild were now crying because of the sorrow that they felt in not being able to protect Future Lucy.
"Maybe that's it but we don't really know. Future Lucy then said that she wanted to have more adventures and with her last breath told us to protect the future. Future Rogue then snapped out of his shock and tried to attack Lucy again. He told us that no matter what happens Lucy will still close the gate because that is her fate. Angered by this, Natsu punched Rogue and told him that no one will steal Lucy's future. Natsu then told us to run away because Lucy was being targeted. We don't know what happened next because we fled the scene to keep Lucy safe from Rogue."
Carla was now crying and everyone in the guild felt bad for what happened to their friend even though it wasn't really their Lucy, she was still their Lucy but in the future.
The only thing being heard was the sobbing of the crying ladies in the guild but Gajeel decided to break it.
"I understand why Salamander is overprotective of her but what happened a while ago was too much. He even went into Dragon Force. He acted as if bunny-girl was…" Gajeel didn't know if he should continue but Wendy was looking at him with curiosity in her eyes.
Laxus decided to continue was Gajeel started knowing what the guy was implying. "He acted as if Lucy was his mate."
Wendy's eyes widened and looked away from the two male dragon slayers. She knew what they were talking about. She is after all a dragon slayer too.
"Our current Lucy-san isn't his mate but Future Lucy-san scent was mixed with Natsu-san's scent. I know it isn't right for me to tell you this but it's not my fault that I accidentally caught a whiff of Future Lucy-san's scent." Wendy blushed at what she just said and the two male dragon slayers looked at each other.
"She was covered in Salamander's scent meaning that she was her mate. I never knew that he got it in him. Gihee." Gajeel grinned.
"I thought he was really dense but maybe he did mature in the future. I wonder if our current Natsu knows." Laxus also grinned at the thought.
The crying now ceased and everyone was paying attention to the three dragon slayers.
"I think Natsu-san knows. If I caught a whiff of it, he must have smelled it too. I think he figured it out on his own because of Future Lucy-san's scent."
Laxus nodded at what Wendy said and Gajeel laughed. "Salamander must see bunny-girl as his mate now. And the only solution to his dense brain was the scent of Future Bunny-girl. Gihee."
"I wonder when ash-brains will make his move."
"Mira! Let's bet on it!" Mira squealed and said, "Okay, Cana! I bet 2000J that Natsu will confess next month."
Cana grinned and said, "I bet 4000J that Natsu will confess next week."
"Everyone! Although we have changed what happened during the Grand Magic Games we are still not sure if Rogue will still attack Lucy in the future so we must protect our nakama at all costs!"
Everyone cheered and agreed on what Erza said. They were all going to protect Lucy.
Erza smiled at the response that she got and then faced Mirajane, "Mira, I bet 10000J that Natsu will confess today."
After hearing that, everyone in the guild including Master Makarov decided to place their bets.
'This is going to be a long day. I wonder who will win. Although, now all that matters is all my brats are safe. It wouldn't be the same Fairy Tail if one were to be gone.' Master Makarov smiled as he watched everyone laugh.
A/N: DONE! So how was it? Was it good? I'm planning to make it a two shot. Should I? Review please! :)
~Lala-chan