Just a fun little thing I'm getting myself into~ I hope that you enjoy it!

This story uses the characters of Fairy Tail but they are placed in the world and situations of Ranma 1/2!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail nor Ranma 1/2. This story is purely fan made.

No one ever said that the life of a martial artist would be easy.

This was a lesson that was learned early on.

"Father," Layla began as she approached the man who had just banished her twin brother from their school of martial arts. Before she could touch him, her longtime friend and companion, Gildarts, reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. The master needed that moment of silence as they watched her brothers receding figure.

Layla wasn't sure what to do. Neither one of her brothers were apart of the Fairy Tail school of martial arts that her father had spent so many years building up anymore. It hurt quite a bit to know that they would hurt their teacher in such a way.

"Ivan and Jerome… they were weak-hearted." Makarov said after a long while of watching the horizon in which his son had just disappeared upon. "They were not strong enough to carry on the name of Fairy Tail." He was smiling sadly as he turned his attention onto his two remaining students. "They did not belong with us."

"Father…" Layla had tears in her eyes when the man placed a hand on her shoulder, only physically capable of doing so because of the large boulder that he'd been standing on.

Makarov was quite short.

"Layla," the aging man said fondly, "My beautiful daughter. You have done much to make me proud. I believe you will do well in raising a very strong successor." He squeezed her shoulder and turned his eyes onto Gildarts who had been standing beside his daughter. Makarov placed his other hand on the shoulder of the fairly large young man.

"Gildarts," The old man laughed heartily, "My adoptive son." he shook his head, "You have done well to make me proud as well, much more so than any of my other two sons." He nodded, "You are my son. My blood may not run in your veins… but that changes nothing." He smiled, "Fairy Tail will one day be the strongest school of Martial Arts. Of that… I am certain."

Layla and Gildarts shared a look before matching grins split across the both of their faces as they nodded in agreement. "Yes, master!" They said in unison as they followed their teacher when he hopped down from the boulder and began to walk in the opposite direction that Ivan had gone.

For many years, they continued their training in various regions of Japan. Until they came across a quaint city called Magnolia, where Layla met a man by the name of Jude Heartfilia and everything gradually began to change.

While she certainly would never give up her life as a martial artist… she did fall head over heels in love with Jude. When he proposed, she couldn't help but say yes. Especially when he promised a place for her father as well as have a dojo custom built beside their home.

It was a promise that appealed to both of the martial artists greatly.

Gildarts, although in love himself, was not ready to settle down. So he left with a promise to one day return with a child so that together… their children would carry on the Heartfilia dojo.

Unfortunately, it was shortly after Layla gave birth to a beautiful baby girl that she began to show signs of chronic illness. She got in a few good years of raising and teaching Lucy the basics. Although, by the time Lucy was old enough to really begin delving into actual techniques… Layla was often too weak to even get out of bed, much less to help train Lucy. No matter how badly the woman had wanted to.

Lucy had to learn all that she could from Makarov, who was too grieved by his daughters all too familiar illness to really throw himself into teaching Lucy. So, Lucy did her best to teach herself for a long time. She wanted her mother to see her grow strong. She wanted to carry on the Heartfilia dojo even though her mother could not.

It was around Lucy's tenth birthday that her cousin Laxus Dreyar came to live with the Heartfilia's. His mother had died and he'd demanded to live with his grandfather. At the time, Laxus was thirteen. He was already a fairly strong martial artist by this point. So on the days that Makarov wasn't feeling up to teaching, he would often help teach Lucy.

Lucy quite enjoyed having another kid around who she could play and train with. Though she did swiftly come to discover that she had a lot more to learn than the young girl initially had thought. Her technique was sloppy and she truly had a long way to go before she'd become the martial artist that she wanted to become. For her mother.

Nonetheless, Lucy was more than happy to learn more.

As the only able bodied woman in the household, Lucy did much of the cooking for her family. While they had maids, Layla had always expressed her distaste in the thought of hiring somebody to cook for all of their meals. It was too impersonal, this was what she would say whenever Jude would give her a hard time about pushing herself too hard when it came to cooking.

So Lucy had begun to learn how to cook quite young, learning from her mother… and then learning from her mother's cookbook when the woman could no longer get out of bed for such things. Over the years, Lucy became a fairly exceptional cook.

With school as well, however, cooking three square meals a day for her family really did cut into her training time.

Sadly, Layla did not live to see Lucy's sixteenth birthday. Everybody in the Heartfilia household had been so grief stricken… nobody even could even look at the dojo for several weeks.

Without the option of going into her mother's room with the intention of simply talking… Lucy truly lost somebody very important in her life. For a long time, even her cousin couldn't get her to step foot in the dojo.

It wasn't until her father told her that she needed to continue to do what she loved, even if it made her feel sad for a little bit longer.

Her mother would have wanted that.

Lucy, knowing that her father was right, did as he suggested. And this time around, Makarov was much more responsive to training sessions than he had been in the past.

Lucy became stronger… although it never felt strong enough.

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