Guess what? I decided to be a total moron and start another story. Yayyyyy for inevitable stress and confusion. Oh well, I'll survive. (I hope)

Sorry this is such a short chapter. I just really wanted to get something posted.

As always, I do not, nor will I ever, own Fairy Tail.

Onwards!

"Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me." Lucy wanted to scream. It was hot, humid, and the forest she was currently trying (and failing) to navigate through was so dense she didn't even know if she was going the right way. If she didn't have her spirits she was positive she would die here, and no one would find the body.

With a loud groan, she picked herself up and brushed the moss and dirt from her knees.

'Just walk straight through, he says. It will be so much faster, he says. He's just lucky I never want to look at this godforsaken place ever again or his ass would be grass.' She grumbled internally.

It had been a year since the guild reformed. It was almost as if it never disbanded. Almost. A lot of the guild still walked around on eggshells, like at any moment we could lose our home once again.

The last two years had changed Lucy. She was still her happy self, but she was also cautious, a little sassier, and guarded. She had lost too much in her twenty-two years on Earthland. Her mother, her father (emotionally), her childhood, Michelle, seven years of her life, her father (physically), Aquarius, the guild, and then her best friend in the whole world left her behind.

There's only so much a girl could take, even if you were as resilient as Lucy Heartfilia apparently was.

Levy, Gajeel, and Panther Lily stuck with her for a while. They were the only people that knew about Aquarius besides her spirits. A few weeks after the guild disbanded, they had taken a job together from the mission board that the mayor set up in the center of town. It was supposed to be a simple escort job for some prissy fat man, but they were ambushed. A few of the bandits were mages and somehow Lucy was cornered by a small stream. Out of habit, she reached for Aquarius's key, only to find it no longer there. She had a total meltdown, right there in the heat of the battle, confusing the crap out of the mage she had been fighting. Gajeel took the mage out, and a very confused and concerned Levy held her while she sobbed. She demanded to know what was wrong, and Lucy just couldn't find it within herself to hold back. She told them everything. When she told them about how Aquarius's mark never went away, Levy said she would have to do some research, but she had an idea why it stayed.

After scouring away in library after library, Levy finally found the answer. Well, kind of. All she found was a book in Crocus that said that a spirit is allowed to empower only one mage in their entire immortal existence. That was literally all it said.

Lucy then had an epiphany, and not one that made her feel all that intelligent. She forgot about Crux. Levy just about bashed her scull in, frustrated with her friend, but she didn't say much else. After all, she forgot too.

Lucy summoned him that afternoon back in their hotel room. He explained that Aquarius had given Lucy a gift, but the spirit had insisted that she figured it out on her own. A Zodiac spirit is allowed to empower a Celestial Spirit mage with their power only once. After they choose a mage, they can't take it back, and they can never do it again. He explained that she now had water magic capabilities, although they may differ from Aquarius's. Magic differed between every mage, or being. It conformed to their strength and personality to make it unique.

It took two months for Lucy to figure out how to activate it, and it was amazing. The minute the magic poured through her system, she felt Aquarius's presence for the first time since Tartaros and she finally understood what her gift meant. Even though she could no longer be there physically, she would always be there in spirit.

Not long after, Levy received an offer to work for the reforming Magic Council. She put up a bit of a fight, but Lucy knew her friend. She could see it in the little bluenette's eyes how badly she wanted to do this, to go and open up a new chapter in her life.

So, after lots of yelling, crying, laughing, more crying, and promises to never lose touch, Lucy convinced her friend to go. She helped them pack, and a few days later, after a very tearful goodbye, they left.

Lucy didn't know what to do with herself for a while after that. After a few weeks of numbness, she broke. Loke opened his own Gate and held her. She cried all day. Then she got pissed. Why? Why did the Gods decide she had to have everything she ever came to love ripped away from her? After ranting and raving in front of a very patient lion for well over an hour, she decided she was done. She was done loving so freely. Opening her heart to anyone who showed her a little kindness. She had her spirits and she had Levy. Surprisingly she also had Gajeel, who had started treating her as if she was his little sister. And of course Panther Lily, who she had bonded with over cooking together for their ragtag little group.

Lucy would always love Natsu, but he left. He just left her behind, and didn't even have the common decency to tell her he was leaving in person. He left her a note to find on her own and took off.

So she was done. She locked up her damaged, aching heart and refused to let anyone else in.

The rest of the year was spent taking solo jobs, and writing the occasional article for Sorcerer Weekly. She got herself a new little apartment in Magnolia, since hers just held too many memories, and continued on with life. Levy never failed to write to her every week, and Lucy returned the favor. Even Lily sent her one from time to time.

Then came the rumors that Makarov had been spotted in Magnolia. At first she tried to ignore them. She wouldn't let herself get her hopes up.

But then they kept coming, and she couldn't ignore them any longer. One night she found herself standing in front of the empty lot that used to be the destroyed guild hall. Only it wasn't empty. There wasn't much, but floors and walls were in the process of being rebuilt. For the first time in well over a year, hope flooded Lucy's body.

The next day, she went back and found Makarov, Erza, the Raijinshu, and a handful of her old guild mates working hard to rebuild the place she once called home.

Erza was the first one to see her, and in a flash, she was tackled to the ground, her face crushed into a metal breastplate. Master approached her next, confirming that the guild was getting back together and that he would love nothing more than for her to come back as well. Lucy agreed immediately and set to work helping to rebuild her home.

The guild hall was finished within a month, and after many calls via lacrima, the whole guild was back together, sans Natsu. He came around almost four months later. Waltzing in to the place with his usual "We made it back alive!" There were cheers, and tears, and the guild partied for a week straight. After an awkward hug and a chaste 'welcome back' Lucy retreated back to her apartment. It was too much, seeing him. And for the first time in almost a year, she cried.

After that, things slowly returned to the way things were before Tartaros ruined everything. However, everyone was still afraid it was too good to be true. Including Lucy. While she still went on some missions with Team Natsu, she mostly stuck to her solo jobs. Being around Natsu was somewhat strained, but they never talked about it. They talked and joked, but that was it. She missed how things were, but he had broken her trust, and her heart. Other than quick greetings at the guild, and being together on jobs, that was all the two ever really interacted.

If people noticed, they didn't say anything.

Looking down at herself to inspect the new scratches on her legs, Lucy was grateful that she stopped wearing skirts on jobs. Now she stuck to shorts and her favorite pair of black combat boots that reached mid-calf. It didn't take long for her to give up on only wearing shirts that hid Aquarius's mark. She got a lot of compliments and people were surprised, but no one ever questioned her too much about her new "ink."

Lucy brushed her fingers over one of the keys at her hip.

'Pyxis, am I still going the right way?' She asked through their connection.

After hearing his confirmation, she continued on through the thick foliage.

She was making her way to the nearest train station after a mission. It was a simple job. All she had to do was wait around a quaint little sweet shop for the group of teens that kept breaking in and eating large amounts of their merchandise. The owners of the shop were a nice elderly couple. They didn't want to get the police involved, they only wanted a mage to come by and scare them just enough so they'd learn their lesson. One giant bull with a huge axe was all it took for them to run crying for their parents.

On the way back, Lucy decided she wanted to check the local magic shops for any new keys. Not only could she not find a single magic shop, but she also got hopelessly lost. Finally she gave up and asked the nearest stranger for directions. He said he could 'do her one better' and show her a shortcut. He took her to the edge of the forest she was currently trying not to have an aneurism in, and told her to walk straight through keeping east. What he did not tell her was how dense it was and how there were no paths!

For the fiftieth time that day, her foot caught on a tree root and she went flying face first into the mossy forest floor.

Before she could yell at the offending root, another sound burst through the previously silent area.

"God dammit will you shut up!" The deep masculine voice, followed by a threatening growl, echoed off of the trees.

Lucy slowly rose to her feet and silently made her way to where the voice came from.

'That sounds like-'

"Laxus! Stop pissing the guy off when we can't do a damn thing to defend ourselves. If the guy wants to give his big evil master plan speech, then fucking let him. I don't want to die today!"

'Bickslow.'

She followed their voices until she reached an odd clearing in the middle of the forest.

There, on the side farthest away from where she was crouching behind a tree, was Laxus and the Raijinshu on the ground in front of an extremely tall and thin man, and a short incredibly obese woman. They had what looked like magic cancelling cuffs binding their wrists and ankles. Other than their mouths, their bodies were unnaturally stiff looking.

Evergreen had a burlap sack over her head, as did Bickslow. Freed was sprawled out on his stomach, glowering at the odd couple standing before them. Laxus however, looked furious.

If the menacing growls reverberating from his broad chest were any indication, he was not a happy camper.

The tall, boney man just laughed at the group in front of him and waved a hand at the woman standing next to him. "You're free to go Sam. Regroup with the others and inform them that I'll be there shortly."

Sam bowed to the man, handed him what looked like a key, and uttered something before disappearing into an inky black puff of smoke.

The moment she was gone, the captive mage's bodies slumped.

"Now then, where were we? Oh yes." The man rambled on and on, making his unwilling audience listen to whatever it was he was saying.

Lucy wasn't listening, however. She was running through her options and possible strategies until finally she found one that just might work.

She'd probably get her ass handed to her, but it could work.

Grabbing two of her keys, she silently summoned them and told them the game plan through their connection.

When she was finished, Lucy took a deep breath, and stepped out into the clearing, silently begging whatever deity out there that she could pull this off.