Sorry for the mixup a couple of days ago - I accidentally uploaded another story's next chapter onto this one by mistake. Hopefully I deleted it soon enough and didn't confuse too many people too badly.

I did decide to make a part 2 to this after all, though. A joke I wanted to make popped into my head, so I just had to extend this. This new chapter features... Lucy being an even bigger dumbass than before.

Enjoy.

"So your phone is broken?" the salesman asked, with a cheery smile on his face. "Not a problem, we can pull all your contacts and photos off of it, and then…"

"I don't think you understand," Lucy interrupted, heaving a heavy sigh, the incriminating evidence contained in a sandwich bag held at her side. "I don't think there's… anything left to salvage."

"Show me the phone and I'll see what I can do, then."

Lucy lifted the bag, and saw the eager light in the salesman's eyes die. Carefully, she upended the bag, the scattered pieces of broken phone clattering across the countertop. She and the salesman alike stared at the remains of her lacrima phone in an apathetic stupor. "Broken" didn't quite seem an adequate term for the jumble of shattered crystal shards and melted pieces of plastic. "Obliterated" was a much more accurate descriptor. If Lucy could travel back in time, show the remains of the phone to her past self, her past self wouldn't even believe that the bits and pieces were once a functioning object, let alone her own lacrima phone.

Finally, the salesman sputtered, "I see what you mean. So what I can do is… um… I'll take these off of your hands, and we'll see about getting you a new lacrima phone. I don't think I'll be able to recover your information, but your phone number can remain the same."

Nodding, Lucy thanked him for his time. As he disappeared into the back, she sighed once more.

Really, how did her team manage to pull stunts like this? She hadn't even fully paid off the previous device. Somehow, she had managed to wrangle a promise out of the dynamic duo most responsible for this that they would pay her back for a new phone, but Lucy doubted that was ever going to actually happen.

Once she had her new phone in hand, and had paid a sizeable down payment on the exorbitant cost of it, Lucy set about adding the few contacts that she knew by heart. Her favorite takeout place being first, along with her teammates. It made her contact list look very sparse, she thought drearily. It had been much fuller before.

Well, she was just going to have to add everyone again one by one.

It was two days after Lucy had gotten her new phone, and five after the initial destruction of the previous one, that Lucy heard the distinct jingle of an incoming text, late at night.

Or rather, it was very, very early in the morning, she decided through a groggy stupor. Groping around for the phone, Lucy pulled it close to her and winced at the bright light emanated from the screen as she turned the volume down to nothing.

"Hey, you okay?" the message read. "Tried calling and texting a couple of days ago and didn't get a response."

Her phone vibrated slightly as another text came through from the same person. "Been on a job, so I wasn't able to ask again until now."

Lucy tapped away at the keypad. "Sorry," she told the unknown texter. "Team destroyed phone. Lost contacts. Who is this?"

She waited for a minute, puzzled when it took the mystery person a while to respond. Maybe they were laughing too hard to. Lucy knew that most people found her team's destructive inclinations downright hilarious, even if it did cause her a number of problems.

Finally, they responded, "Erik."

Before she could process the reply, they texted again. "And why does that not surprise me?" Lucy could practically hear the sarcasm coming through the screen. "So how did it happen?"

"Long story short," she grumbled aloud as she typed, "Natsu melted it and Gray thought he could fix it by freezing it. So it shattered into a million pieces, in addition to still being melted."

"Holy shit that's ducking priceless."

"Ducking?" Lucy questioned, an eyebrow raised.

"Damn autocorrect."

That was fair. "I'm going back to bed now, talk later."

"Night."

Lucy set her phone back down on her nightstand, only just barely remembering to turn the sound back up on the thing so she could wake up in the morning for her team's next job.

Blearily staring up at her dark ceiling, she wracked her brain.

"Who the hell is Erik?"

The light of morning brought no further answers to Lucy. She gazed at the messages from the night before, her confused mind furiously running around and trying to dredge up just who this "Erik" could possibly be and how she knew him.

Pulling on her knowledge gleaned from many years of reading mystery novels, Lucy tried to catalog every clue she could find in the messages.

He clearly knew her on some level, if he had been worried when she didn't text back. By that logic, it had to be someone she was generally pretty good at responding to. He also mentioned a long job, so he was likely either a mage or someone she knew from her reporting days. The fact that he was familiar with her teammates' antics didn't really narrow things down, unfortunately. The entire world knew about Gray and Natsu's sheer talent for causing collateral damage. Even if he had managed to avoid every newspaper for the past twenty years, if he knew her to any degree then Lucy was sure to have complained about them to "Erik" at some point.

A flash of inspiration struck her in the shower, her fist clenching at the brilliance of the thought and accidentally squirting her in the eye with shampoo.

What if she really knew them by a nickname?!

Lucy knew of three people in her guild who had changed their names either once or multiple times. Since Bisca was… well… female, that knocked her out of the running. So that left two people it could possibly be!

Now all Lucy had to do was figure out a way to surreptitiously weasel out of them what their true names were.

Jet and Mest wouldn't know what hit them.

"You were so close," Mest told her. "So close… and yet so very far." He pinched his nose, his expression one of pure agony. "How did you miss the mark that badly?" Wasn't Lucy supposed to be one of the smarter members of the guild?

Her face burned hotter the longer he spoke. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? But it was a reasonable expectation. I mean… how many times have you changed your name, again?"

Mest shook his head at her. "Lucy. I've only changed my name twice. Once to Doranbolt, and then back to Mest."

"That you changed it more than once is reason enough," Lucy defended herself.

"I was a spy, Lucy."

She continued to press her case. "But you forgot that you were a spy, so does it really count?"

The man gestured somewhat helplessly. "Yes. It does. And also, let's leave my past mistakes out of this! Right now we're discussing how you just walked up and started addressing me as Erik."

Lucy let out a groan, frustration and embarrassment eating away at her inside. "I know, not my brightest plan, but can you help me? Do you know who Erik is?" She grabbed him by the shoulders and started to shake him. "Please, Mest! I have no idea who this is! Is it Jet?!"

"For the love of god, stop shaking me!" he protested. "I ain't a tree – the answer you want isn't just going to fall out of me!" Mercifully, Lucy then let go of him. Mest pressed a hand to his mouth, nausea rising in his throat.

"If you know, please tell me," begged Lucy. She raised a hand, but before she could grab hold of his arm, Mest backed away from her as much as his barstool would allow.

"Shake me again and the only thing that will come flying out of me is my lunch," Mest warned her. "Look, I'll tell you who it is. Just give me a second, would you?"

Mest sighed as she backed off and looked at him with expectant eyes. "It's… Cobra's real name. Cobra and Erik are the same person."

Understanding dawned on her, as did horror as her brain finally connected the dots. "No," she breathed out. "Oh god, not again!"

"Again?!" squawked Mest. "This has happened before?"

Lucy grabbed the barstool next to him and sat down in it. She then plunked her face down on the countertop and sobbed.

Well, that answered that, Mest decided. He was going to have to pry the rest of the story out of her once her embarrassment and hysterical crying had subsided.

Sadly, there was no way Mest was going to be able to keep this from Cobra the next time he checked in on Crime Sorciere. Pesky Soul Listening magic. There was a very good chance that – knowing the man – Cobra would then laugh so hard he'd make himself sick. And then Lucy would have to face another bout of painful embarrassment upon Cobra's inevitable confrontation with her about it.

Mest patted her on the back somewhat awkwardly.

He did not envy her in the least.