A/N: So, it's been awhile since I put anything up on here..

Anyway, this story is kind of different than anything I've uploaded on here before. I do want to clear a couple things up before reading this. One, this is a Modern AU setting, but magic is still going to be prevalent in this story. This chapter is the prologue obviously; next chapter will get into a lot of the world building and exposition, as well as introducing most of the main characters and what the hell is actually happening.

I actually have most of this story already planned out plot-wise, but as far as ships go, I only have one really set in stone, and that's because it's directly tied to the plot. Maybe I'll put a poll up on my profile later if there is a major demand for ships and the story goes in that direction, but as of right now there aren't any major ships planned.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this. Fave, follow, and leave a review telling me what you think.


The blonde girl slammed the door to her car as she frantically sprinted toward the back door of the restaurant that she parked behind. It was her third day on the job and she was running late already. Maybe if she snuck in the back door the boss wouldn't notice that she was late. After all, she was only running behind by like ten minutes. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, right?
"Heartfillia!" a voice boomed across the room as she entered the building. Crap, she had been caught. "Your shift started at 4. Why are you just now entering the building at 4:10?"
Lucy really had no good explanation, but she figured that she'd at least try. "Traffic was really bad. I misjudged what time I should've left my apartment by. It won't happen again sir" she tried sheepishly.
"It better not, or else someone else will have your job. This is your one free pass. Now get to work" the mmanager threatened.
"Aye sir!" Lucy was almost shouting at this point as she frantically tied her apron around her waist. She had just moved to this town two weeks ago and this was the only place that would hire her given that she had never had a job before, and she had already almost screwed it up. 'Maybe it was a stupid decision to try and make it on my own like this' she thought to herself as she stroked the keys hanging from her necklace, the only memento from her mother that she was able to grab from her mansion before sneaking off.
"Hey, don't worry too much about him" a voice called out from behind her. It was one of the cooks, a dark haired man that she had yet to be introduced to. "He's actually a really nice guy, he just doesn't want people to walk all over him. He'll warm up to you once you prove you have a good work ethic" the man told her.
"That makes me feel a little better" Lucy laughed nervously as she continued to make her way out to the floor. "Thank you, um- sorry, what was your name? I don't think that we've been introduced yet?"
"No problem. You're Lucy right?" he asked, and Lucy nodded. "I'm Gray. Nice to officially meet you."
"Nice to meet you too. Anyway, I better actually get to work since I'm already late." With that, she hustled out to the bar area and started preparing her station to ensure that the night went smoothly. After all, Friday nights are typically very busy, and she wanted to be on her A-game since she was already late. No more mess-ups today.


Her shift actually went smoothly after she got to work. The manager even complemented her on her skill handling the busy rushes of the night. It was now approaching one in the morning and it was just her, the manager (she thought her name was Tom but she wasn't sure and she didn't want to ask at this point because it would just be awkward,) and the cook named Gray left. They were open for another hour still, but business had been slow after midnight so everyone else went home and left it up to the three of them to worry about closing the place up.
Since it was only the three of them left, she was naturally a little on edge when a group of four shady looking guys walked in and sat down at the bar. Of course, she still greeted them with enthusiasm. "Good evening guys, what can I get for you?" she asked. She only received a grunt in reply from one of the men, a guy in a white coat with a black ponytail tied up on top of his head. She took this to mean that they still needed a minute to decide, so she went back to cleaning her bar up. Meanwhile, the one man, a tall guy with white hair and a face tattoo had gotten his phone out and started looking over something on it intently.
"Kageyama, are you sure this is where the signal was coming from?" a man with a yellow headgarb asked his companion.
"Given the location of the signal" the white haired man said, not looking up from his phone "it looks like whatever magical artifacts we're looking for are directly in front of us." This piqued Lucy's attention. Magical artifacts? What the heck were they talking about? She subconsciously stroked her keys again, something she did when she found herself praying for her mother's protection. Unfortunately for her, her patrons saw this action.
"Those are Celestial Spirit keys, aren't they?" the black haired man asked, catching her by shock.
"Well well, it appears that we found what we were looking for" the white haired man smirked. "Hand them over blondie."
"Excuse me?" Lucy asked. "You must be mistaken. These were my mother's. I'd never give them to anyone."
Kageyama looked at his companion, who Lucy figured at this point must be the boss. "So, Erigor, are we taking them by force then?"
"Well, if she doesn't want to give them up, we could just take her too. I'm sure that she'd fetch a pretty price on the market as well as those keys" the white haired man, now identified as Erigor, said as he reached for his hip, and pulled out a gun.
Lucy went from being slightly on edge to downright terrified now as she stared down the barrel of a .44 Magnum. The rest of the men got up from the bar and began to surround her. "Come quietly and we won't have to hurt you. Much" one of them said with a quiet, sick laugh.
Thankfully for her, Gray and the manager had left from the back (she was going to start calling him Tom, regardless if she was wrong or not. Though this probably wasn't the time to debate what her boss's name was.) Though she wasn't sure how much help they'd be against four armed thugs.
"What the hell is going on out here?" Tom shouted, and the next events unfolded in a blur. Erigor had turned his gun on Tom, a loud bang was heard, Lucy hit the floor out of instinct, and then something hard and cold hit her in the cheek. She picked it up and looked at it. 'Ice?'
She stood up and saw Tom cowering behind Gray, who was now missing his top. "Heh, looks like we have another mage here in the fold" Erigor laughed. Immediately, she felt ice flying by her and watched it take out the two nameless thugs that were trying to hold her captive. She darted out from behind the bar and heard more bullets flying behind her as she sprinted, keys clutched in her hand as she ran. As soon as she made it behind Gray he turned and followed her and Tom, who had already been making his way out the door, to the parking lot.
Once outside, Gray had proceeded to fire more ice lances at the pursuing thugs, but they were ripped apart by an unnatural gust of wind before they reached their target. "What the hell is going on?" Lucy shrieked from behind Gray as he faced off against the two remaining attackers.
"Well, it looks like they're after you" Gray said casually.
"No shit, but why?" Lucy asked him. He didn't have a chance to respond to her though as fists in the form of shadows made their way at him. He jumped to
them and shot more ice lances at them to disspell the shadows.
"Ice-make Floor!" he shouted as he covered the ground in between him and the thugs with ice, causing the attackers to lose their balance. Kageyama dove into the shadows as Erigor flew up into the air on a gust of wind. Gray began to prepare a counter attack for the flying wind mage.
"Defend the assault from above" Erigor shouted cockily as he flew toward Gray.
"And you'll be hit from below!" Kageyama shouted as shadow knuckles hit Gray underneath the chin. Gray stumbled back from the strike and threw up an ice shield to defend himself from any sort of incoming attack.
"Lucy" Gray whispered as he wiped the blood from his chin. "I might need your help with this."
"And just how do you expect me to help you with this?"
"Summon one of your spirits to take out the black haired punk. I'll handle the white haired guy" Gray said. "Just grab one of your keys and focus your mental energy into it" he said, seemingly anticipating her question.
"I'll try" Lucy said as she ripped one of her keys off her necklace and held it out in front of her. For what felt like an eternity, nothing seemed to happen, but suddenly, a bright golden light started to emanate from the key in her hand. Before she knew it, there was a giant, axe-wielding bull standing in front of her.
"Mooo! Are yooou the new summoner?" he asked. "That is utterly fantastic."
"Uhh" Lucy blanked for a moment. "I-yes?" she asked more than affirmed.
"How moooving. Now, what would you like me to doooo?" the bull asked.
"Uh, take out the black haired guy I guess" Lucy said, still stunned by the situation.
"Absoluuutely" the bull said as he charged at Kageyama. The bull swung his axe at the mage as he retreated into the shadows. Kageyama tried to get the jump on the spirit by emerging from behind the spirit, but the bull was ready for the attack and blocked it.
"So this is a Celestial Spirit?" Kageyama asked. "Kind of an ugly thing, don't you think?"
Meanwhile, Gray had gone back to his fight with Erigor, who was now wielding a giant scythe. As Erigor swung at him, Gray had formed an ice sword and parried the blow. Gray wasn't having a difficult time deflecting his attacks, but he was having an issue getting close enough for a strike. He formed a shield in his right hand and held the sword in his left hand and charged at him.
Erigor swung the scythe at him again, vertically this time, and connected directly with the shield. Gray sank his right arm back, letting the shield absorb the blow before throwing it to the right and reaching out with his sword ready to strike. Erigor jumped to the right at the last second and swung horizontally at him again, forcing Gray to jump back. Gray smacked his hands into the ground, sending a row of ice stalagmites shooting right at Erigor, who jumped in the air on the wind to dodge the attack. The ice kept going and shot right into Kageyama's back, which left the bull spirit an opening to hit him with the axe, connecting right into his rib cage. Blood spilled out from the wound, staining his coat and dripping onto the ground.
Kageyama sank into the shadows again and, instead of going for the bull, went right after Lucy. However, his wound slowed him down enough that he emerged very slowly, allowing Lucy to deliver a well timed roundhouse kick right to the man's face, knocking him out.
"Alright, I guess it's time to stop fucking around" Erigor growled as wind began to swirl around him. It continued to swirl until nothing but his eyes were visible underneath the wind. "Try to break through my Storm Armor!"
Erigor charged at Gray with lightning speed, lashing out with his scythe. Gray managed to avoid the blow, but the wind lashed out as an aftershock and spread cuts all over his body, some of them drawing blood. Gray coughed as Erigor came after him again, smashing the shield that Gray had threw up out of desperation and sent him flying across the parking lot. He stood up again to the sound of Erigor laughing.
"No one has even been able to touch me in this form. If you surrender quietly I can make your death painless for you" he laughed. Gray smirked right back at him.
Lucy looked on, her Summon disappearing shortly after taking Kageyama out. She was shaking as she noticed that the air temperature had dropped down to zero. Gray continued to smirk as Erigor marched toward him, snow beginning to circulate around his armour due to the temperature change. 'Was Gray the cause of the temperature drop?'
Erigor stopped in his tracks as he noticed the temperature change, as Gray began to cast another spell. "Ice Vortex!" he shouted as he spun his hands, creating a blizzard around him.
"What the hell are you doing? Aaaah" he shouted as his armour began to collapse in on him.
"Ice Make Spear Pillar" Gray shouted as he slammed his hands into the ground, a tower of ice rising up from the ground underneath Erigor. The wind mage was shot into the air as the ice raced up around him before stabbing through his gut. Once Gray saw the blood running down the peak of the tower, he dispelled his magic and the temperature returned to normal as Erigor's body crashed into the ground.
Lucy collapsed onto the ground too as she saw the threat was finally over. The events that just unfolded took a massive amount of energy out of her. Just then, a black sports car pulled up into the parking lot. The driver, another man with white hair and a blue coat stepped out and walked over to Gray. "I got your text. What the hell happened here?" the guy asked Gray.
"These people just came up and attacked the girl sitting over there" Gray motioned to Lucy. "This job was a bust, there was nothing shady going on here. However, that girl has Celestial Keys."
"A Celestial wizard, huh" the man said.
"I don't think that she knew she was a wizard though" Gray said. "Anyway, we should get back to the hideout, don't you think Lyon?"
Lyon gave him a sideways glance. "Once you get some clothes on. There's no way I'm letting you into my car like that you dirty stripper."
"You're one to talk" Gray spat as Lyon threw him an extra shirt from the backseat of his car. "Hey, I think we should take her with us" Gray said before he got into the car. Lyon thought about it for a second.
"That might not be a bad idea" Lyon said. "Besides, if these people were after her, I doubt they're the only ones. It would give us a good way to flush them out."
"Excuse me!" Lucy shouted. "I still have no idea what the hell is going on. First I'm getting assaulted by some creeps at the bar for my mom's keys, then he starts shooting ice everywhere, and now it sounds like you, who I've never met before, want to use me as bait. Hell no! Not until I get some answers at least."
Gray sighed as he opened the passenger door. "Get in the car Lucy. It's not safe to stay here given everything that's just happened. I can explain some things on the way back to our hideout, where we will actually be safe."
"You obviously don't have to come" Lyon told her in a calm voice as he began to get back in the car too "but given the fact that you were just attacked, coming with us would probably be your safest option."
Begrudgingly, Lucy agreed and climbed into the back seat. Today sucked, and she had a feeling it was far from over.