Lucy always wonders, when she is in a particular situation, the choices she made in life to get to this point. These thoughts occur to her when she is desperately trying to get rent money, dealing with her crazy friends and their very peculiar habits, or when she is in particularly dangerous situation, usually fighting off a monster with the rest of Team Natsu.

In this case, She was currently fighting off a monster. A very large intimidating monster being controlled by very intimidating dark mages with impressive magic ability, and she was loosing badly.

She wasn't alone mind you, she was also fighting alongside the very capable water mage, Juvia Lockser, and she knew that very close by, the rest of team Natsu were fighting very similar monsters and mages. The problem though, was that Lucy was very close to having no magic left, for she had used the bulk of her power to summon four of her spirits earlier in the fight, plus using her power to form a unison raid with Juvia.

Juvia herself was also at her limits, and very quickly would be of little use in a battle situation. Then the mages and their monster could freely kill these two mages and continue on to fight and destroy their friends.

So, how exactly did Lucy end up in such a dire situation? Well it all began five days ago at the Fairy Tail Guild.

"Luce!" came a shout from said mage's bedroom, "We got a mission, and it's a good one!" and suddenly the man shouting this burst forth from one Lucy Hertfillia's bedroom into her bathroom.

Said woman was currently trying to enjoy a bath when her uninvited guest had burst in on her, most likely coming in from her bedroom window.

"Natsu. OUT!" Lucy shouted as she sent a bottle of shampoo hurling towards a tall pink haired man standing in her bathroom's doorway. The bottle hit him straight between his onyx colored eyes, and sent him falling back out of the bathroom.

"How many times have I told you to use the door, and to knock first before entering?" Lucy now stood in her living room, completely dry from her bath. Her blonde hair was pulled into two tails on both sides of her head. She was wearing a white short sleeved shirt with a large blue heart on it a short blue skirt. Both articles of clothing accented her very well endowed body.

"But Luce, I did use the door!" Replied Natsu, his hand rubbing the back of his pink hair, onyx eyes closed in a wide grin. He was tall, muscled and tan. Wearing a black Jacket of sorts, with one sleeve missing to show off his Fairy Tail Mark on his Shoulder. He also wore white loose pants and a white-scaled scarf.

"I meant when coming into my house, which you came in through the window. Then you came into my bathroom without knocking!" Lucy said, having already told the man what seemed like a thousand times before.

"Well whatever," Natsu stood suddenly, "Erza's taking us on an S-class Mission!" he grabbed Lucy's hand, and pulled her out of her house. Lucy barely managed to grab her keys and whip before being dragged down to Fairy Tail.

Lucy didn't like taking tough missions, which is really a contradiction to all the dangerous and life threatening situations she had been through before. But, Lucy was a tough mage, and was a part of the number one guild in all of Fiore.

Yes, after seven years of being last, and after having its core members triumphantly return, Fairy Tail had regained its status as strongest guild by winning the annual Grand Magic Games. It had been tough, and it almost seemed like they wouldn't pull off coming in first, but leave it to Fairy Tail to pull off one of the most spectacular wins in the GMG's history.

After finally regaining its status, the guild had once again flourished. The old Guildhall was back under Fairy Tail's ownership, and missions were pouring in from all over Fiore.

It had been three months since the GMG ended, and Lucy had been on many missions since then, and actually for the first time in a long time had felt financially stable. Now she took missions she wanted to go on, not missions she had to go on to get rent money. However, if Erza Scarlet says you are going on mission with her, you do not refuse.

The mission hadn't seemed too terrible, but it was an S-class mission, which were considerably tougher than the missions she had been going on. The task was too wipe out a small dark guild in a costal town not to far from Fiore's Capital. Erza herself could have taken the mission by herself, but she had heard rumors that this dark guild was working under Tartaros, one of the strongest dark guilds in all of Fiore. She wanted to go with Team Natsu incase anyone from Tartaros was at the guild.

So, Erza Scarlet, the Scarlet haired Titania; Gray Fulbuster, the Ice Alchemy Mage; Juvia Lockser, the Water body mage; Natsu, the fire dragon slayer; and Lucy Heartfillia, Celestial Spirit Mage with all Twelve Golden Gate Keys, set off to defeat the dark guild Black Mast.

Erza had been right to fear that the guild Black Mast would be difficult to eliminate. It would seem, that Tartaros had sent some members over to bulk up the guild. Team Natsu, upon entering the forest near the base of Dark Mast had been ambushed by fifty or so mages. While said Mages had been more or less easy to dispatch, Team Natsu was then faced with the 5 S-Class mages of Black Mast. Team Natsu had been separated, with each member having to fight one on one. But luckily for Lucy, she and Juvia were not split apart, and they took on their opponents two on two.

But even with their powers combined, Juvia and Lucy were not fairing well, and now they were close to being killed by these dark mages. Lucy was on the ground utterly exhausted as Juvia fought off two opponents at once. There was very little Lucy could do until an idea popped into her head.

Lucy commanded Celestial Spirits, and she was a summoning type mage, so it was only logical that if one was in a pinch, instead of using copious amounts of magic, one could sacrifice something else to open a spirit's gate. Seeing how she was wounded, the only logical answer would be a blood sacrifice.

Lucy wouldn't use much, just enough to draw the circle and dab the key. The rest she would supplement with her remaining magic. Lucy drew the circle on the ground, large enough to hold a key and not much more. She grabbed for her golden keys, but suddenly was hit by an attack.

Lucy fell to her side, dust flew up all around her. She could hear Juvia yelling something, probably Juvia's concern for Lucy's well being. Lucy knew she would be fine from this attack, but her consciousness was fading rapidly. She placed the key into the center of the circle she drew, and said.

"I summon thee," But there was one major flaw in this plan, Lucy had grabbed her house key as opposed to her golden gate keys. It sat in the center of the blood circle with a dab of Lucy's blood on the end.

Of course, Lucy didn't notice this in her state of near unconsciousness, and the last thing she said before succumbing to the darkness was the name of the one man she knew could save her.

"Natsu."

Hello all! This is a story idea that came to me when re-watching the Duke of Everloo episode.

Any who, I'm sorry if this first chapter seemed rushed; I'm just trying to get all the important info in. After this, things shouldn't be so compact.

Leave reviews please, I'd love to hear your feed back.