There's a time in life where you hit rock bottom and getting up seems impossible.

She'd been there before, multiple times - after every bad breakup, after getting fired, etc etc- but she's absolutely sure this time was different. After all, you only die once. Then again, she's pretty sure you're not supposed to wake up after.

She woke up with rain dropping in her face, her body so cold she could feel her bones freezing. She opened her eyes and found herself leaning against a stone tablet in the middle of the night. She used her hands to push herself up and that's when she noticed the size of her hands. They were so tiny, she had always been small for her age but she was twenty years old, and these were the hands of a child.

She frowned and looked around to make sense of what the fuck was happening. If this day wasn't creepy enough, then it was getting worse because from the look of it she was in a freaking cemetery. She was pretty sure she had died, hit by a taxi no less, but waking up in a cemetery was giving her the walking dead vibes. Hopefully, she wasn't a walker.

She finally looked at the grave she had been leaning on, it was dark but she could still read the inscription written on the stone. 'In loving memory of Layla Heartfillia, beloved wife and mother X748-X777'

She stared at it for a few long minutes, wondering if this was a dream. Unfortunately for her, she had never been one to ignore what was right in front of her eyes. She pinched herself, touched and smelt the grass beneath her feet and took a large breath.

Everything was telling her that this was real, even if she knew the name Layla Heartfillia belonged to an anime character. There was the possibility that the taxi put her in a coma and that this was a very realistic dream, but something told her that wasn't an option. She didn't know the year Layla was born, sure her mind could come up with a date but it seemed so real.

If it looks real, feels real, smells real ... she was pretty sure it was freaking real.

After much hesitation, she pulled her small hand up and pulled her hair to the corners of her face. She looked down and found blonde sparkly hair. She let out a shaky breath and looked down to see she was wearing a black ruffly dress, and from the size of it, she was a small child. If everything was pointing towards something, the metal ring with three gold keys and two silver keys said it all.

For some impossible, completely mind-blowing reason she was in the body of freaking Lucy Heartfillia.

Finding out you basically body-snatched the body of an innocent nine-year-old child can be more traumatic than finding yourself in a fictional world. At least that was her opinion. If she had woken in her body it would have been scary but still ok. If she had been reborn as a newborn she would have had time to deal with it. But basically killing a child, who would grow up to be one of her favorite characters, was not ok.

She didn't want to die, but she sure as hell didn't want to kill somebody off to live- especially not a child. As the days passed by she realized something, Lucy was amazing.

Apparently, Layla had just died and nobody really cared if she hid in her apparent room crying her eyeballs out. Any child who managed to grow up in this sort of environment and managed to be as kind and good as Lucy had been was a freaking miracle.

Before she died, she had been a twenty-year-old university student studying psychology who liked her solitude. But living in this mansion for less than a month actually showed her what loneliness felt like.

The mansion was huge, it had about a hundred servants plus her new 'dad'. Her 'mother' had just died and, for a whole month, she hadn't received an ounce of affection or comfort. The maids came in the morning, dressed her and feed her with little to no words and came back during lunch and dinner time, before preparing her to sleep.

She had seen Jude for a few seconds before he sneered at her shooed her out of the room. Lucy Heartiffilia had been an angel because any other child with such a treatment would have turned into a psychopath. If what she remembered was right Lucy actually lasted until 15 before leaving this hellhole, she's pretty sure she couldn't put up with it for so long.

In a way she was glad she was the one suffering through this lack of empathy and not Lucy, she had a mind of an adult and no child should suffer through negligence, especially not one who had just lost her mother.

It was then she came to a new understanding. Everything pointed out that this was real, her mind couldn't have created such an elaborated scheme. How it happened, she didn't know but she couldn't take it back. She didn't know how to leave and bring Lucy back. There was only one viable option in front of her, from now on she had to be Lucy Heartfillia.

She owed the original Lucy too much, she took her body and life after all. If the story she had seen in her past life proved anything was that Lucy cared the most about her spirits and her Nakama. To repay her debt she would love and protect them as much as the original Lucy had, or she would die trying.

Lucy was her name now, even if it felt strange to bear a new name she wore it like a badge of honor, she wanted to live up to it. After she had accepted who she was now, small memories came to her in the form of dreams.

She now remembered most of the original Lucy's childhood, she remembered Layla and her magic training, as well as the celestial spirits - Aquarius, Cancer, and Taurus. Aquarius and Cancer had belonged to Layla, and before she died she had given her Taurus. She also had two silver keys, Crux and Lyra.

This was the part were she finally remembered that magic was real. It didn't make her guilt about body-snatching a child any better but it did put her mind into other things -like summoning her spirits. Lucy wasn't sure how that would go. What if they felt she was different? How the hell should she act? What was she supposed to say?

She was sarcastic, blunt and, most of the time, rude. The memories she got showed that the original Lucy was a happy-go-lucky child. They were complete opposites, and she didn't want to spend the rest of her life pretending to be someone she wasn't.

In the end, Lucy summoned Aquarius first, out of a cup of water. The mermaid was pissed about being summoned from a cup and the first thing she didn't send a gigantic wave in Lucy's direction.

"Tch, you ruined my date brat." The blue-haired mermaid ranted as Lucy coughed out the water from her lungs. "You haven't summoned me in a month and now you do it from a glass?"

"Sorry, Aquarius." Lucy replied with a hint of sarcasm, getting up from the wet floor. She didn't show it but she was secretly happy the Celestial Spirit didn't seem to know who she really was. It felt like a weight had finally got off her chest, she could truly live on without fear.

"How are you brat?" Aquarius asked with a sour expression on her face, but Lucy could see that the spirit was worried. It had actually been the first time somebody had asked her that. No wonder the original had loved her spirits so much- they were the only decent people around her.

"I'm... not ok yet. I'll be." Lucy replied quietly, even if she wasn't talking that much about Layla but of becoming someone else. She did feel sad she never actually got to meet Layla, from the memories she got she was an amazing and loving mother but she didn't feel that crushing sadness one would feel about the death of a mother.

Aquarius nodded quietly, before going back to her sassy personality. "Whatever, don't interrupt my dates." Then she puffed out, going back to the Celestial Spirit World.

Lucy let out a sigh of relief, the mermaid was cool but such a tsundere. She called the rest of her spirits, and after talking with each of them and seeing their concern for her she knew that she would keep her promise. She would love and protect them, not just because of the original but because they were the first to show any care for her in this foreign universe.

Lucy decided to draw out a plan for her life. She wanted to protect her spirits and Fairy Tail, she needed a game plan. She didn't particularly remember every single detail of the anime or the manga.

She remembered Lucy meet Natsu a year after running away from her home when she was sixteen. Some evil song demon or something, and an island full of demon people. She remembered Jude, 'dad', sent some guild of assholes after Lucy and they destroyed Fairy Tail. She remembered Loke, aka Leo the Lion. She remembered the tower full of slaves where Erza had escaped from. Fantasia and Laxus's Hunger Games. Wendy and her cat joining after kicking some evil guild's ass. Another world with more flying cats. A 7-year time skip, and then some magic games and dragons. She also remembered another Lucy and her dying, it was confusing.

She hadn't actually seen the anime in years, and she pretty much stopped watching around the time after the time skip. That is to say, she had a rough image and little to no details. What she did know was that Lucy was magically strong, but she could have been better had she trained more.

With that in mind, a plan was mentally drawn. Lucy needed to toughen up, but right now she was only nine years old with nobody to teach her. Since she had no way to learn combat she needed more power, and control over and magic.

She had already read through the library, but the only thing she could find was about how to increase magical capacity. It was important of course, but she always thought that while more magic was important shouldn't control also be taught?

Layla had only told her to meditate, which was the most basic way to increase one's magic but nothing about control. Maybe it was because she had watched many other animes and movies with magic, but to her, it made sense to have control over her magic. Like in Naruto, sure you could have power but if you had control even someone with less power could be strong- just look at Sakura Haruno.

From all looks and purposes, magic seemed very much alike chakra. They both could throw Elemental attacks all over the place, although Magic was wilder. I mean If I remember correctly from the anime there was a bunch of different types of magic, not to mention forgotten magic.

That got her thinking. Each Mage controlled their powers differently but from the looks of it, nobody actually learned control over the Ethernano in their bodies. If it worked like chakra could it mean she could learn to use less of it to open her keys? Maybe she could possibly open more or keep the gates open for more time?

Well, Lucy guessed she'll have to test that. She should probably go find a leaf to stick to her head with magic. If it works ... she's going to walk on walls like a freaking ninja.

Lucy got up every morning, had breakfast and got dressed, and ran to the library where she normally spent her whole morning. The Heartfillia konzern was rich, very rich, so as all rich people they had a huge library to show off their wealth.

The books on magic weren't that many, less than fifty, because Jude 'dad' had some kind of grudge against magic. Which is kind of stupid since Lucy knew the guy had been in a magic guild before. After she got her hands on the magic books, who most of the time just had generic information on various types of magic, she started to read the rest.

She was from another universe and the original Lucy never really studied anything other than etiquette and magic. Lucy wanted to get out of this mansion, and as such, she needed knowledge about the world. Geography, history, fauna and flora, types of magical monsters, etc. Every morning was spend reading, and she had even managed to get a pair of gale-force reading glasses from the maid that takes care of the library.

After having lunch, Lucy returned to her room and summoned her spirits. Well, not Aquarius since it would have to be done through a cup of water and that was just asking to be drowned. Taurus was funny, and since she was still a child he kept quiet about his more pervy thoughts. He liked to play cards, and she won every time.

Cancer was interesting, he liked to change her hair all the time and it almost felt like playing dress up. It actually gave her a brilliant idea. She was going to leave the konzern before 15 and if the anime was to be believed Jude would send some assholes after her unless she was smart about it. After she left, Lucy was planning on changing her appearance with the help of Cancer and possibly change her last name. It would still be somewhat suspicious- a girl named Lucy with Celestial magic, but still better than nothing.

Lyra was actually the girl company she needed, she taught her how to play the lyre and it was actually great fun. They would play dress up and have tea parties, it helped get her mind of other troublesome thoughts.

Papa Crux was like an all-knowing grandpa, he was the one that she went to went she had questions about her studies. Lucy had also questioned him about controlling the ethernano in one's body, and according to him, such a thing was never done. A mage would try to increase the levels of ethernano in their body through meditation or physical activity, and then they would learn control over their magic but never control over the ethernano itself.

After spending time with her spirits, Lucy would train her body. She was a pampered heiress, she couldn't go out and run around the mansion. Instead, she did push-ups, squats, and yoga in her bedroom. After that she meditated for two hours, increasing her magic potency.

She had dinner and dressed up for bed, and before going to sleep she put a leaf to her forehead and tried to stick it there for two hours. It would fall, and she would try again. Again, again and again.

Any other person might have given up, but she was confident. If Fairy Tail was real, so was Naruto. To her, Naruto was the only anime she ever watched from the beginning to the end. She was kind of glad she hadn't woken up in Naruto since it was about ninjas, who could be said to be thieves and assassins, but it was still her most beloved anime.

After two months of the same routine, Lucy finally managed to stick a leaf into her forehead. She was so happy, all she thought about was walking on walls and on water like a boss.

What she didn't remember at the time was Layla telling her that the one magic was created out of love, and her love for anime had guided her into creating a whole different branch of magic on a whim.

A/N: So I went and decided to write a Fairy Tail fanfiction. Yes I know I should be finishing my other fics, but you know how it is. Sometimes you have an idea and it's impossible to actually stop yourself from writing it down.

What did you think? Good start? Please tell me your thoughts in the comment section down below.

xx, Ritz