Origins

Author: Celirian

Series: Fairy Tail

Summary: In Fiore, magic has always been and always will be and the members of Fairy Tail never questioned that. At least, not until Natsu and the gang get tied up in a mystery that could unravel everything they know about magic and its origins.

Disclaimer: The world of Fairy Tail and all its characters belong to Hiiro Mashima. I own nothing and am only borrowing said characters for some amusement and fun.

Most of the ideas and concepts for this story however are original and are very AU with the current story line. In terms of timeline assume this is ancient and takes place right after Laxus and Raijin Tribe try to take over Fairy Tail. There will also be a few original characters introduced later on- please do not use them without prior permission (not that I think that will be an issue). I have no idea how long this story will end up being, but I will try to post at regular intervals. (No promises though).

Any kind of productive feedback is appreciated- flaming and immature comments will be ignored and probably made fun of. So without any further ado...enjoy.

Chapter 1: The Job Board

Lucy Heartfelia sat at the bar. Her chin rested lazily in the palm of her hand which was propped up at a slight angle, causing her to slouch over. Half lidded, tired eyes gazed past Mirajane who was busy making drinks for the many occupants of the guild's oversized bar lobby. It was noisy today— noisier than usual. More guild members were home and around than had been in the past couple of months. There was nothing special about that day; no celebrations or birthdays or holidays, just a strange coincidence that almost every guild member seemed to be between jobs at the moment.

Granted, to any normal person outside of the guild the building was always noisy. Fairy Tail was infamous for being loud… among other things that may or may not have included being rambunctious, unpredictable, easily riled up, and downright destructive. All these things to Lucy were as normal as the sunrise in the morning. It took a flexible and patient person to be in Fairy Tail— a lesson she learned very quickly when she had first arrived. Within thirty- no maybe even fifteen seconds- of walking through the front door her partner Natsu had started an all out brawl with his ultimate rival Gray. This ultimately lead to an all-out guild beat down that included anyone and everyone underneath Fairy Tail's roof whether they wanted to be involved or not.

Still, today was even more noisy than usual.

Taking her half full cup of ice water, Lucy put the bottom of the cold glass to her forehead. It helped the pounding headache that she had woken up with for a brief second, but not for long. She peered up through the bottom of the glass and watched the light dance through the water's surface until a drop of condensation made a great leap from the side of the glass to her nose. Lucy went cross-eyed and focused in on the drop as it rested on the tip of her small nose.

"Careful Lucy, you wouldn't want your eyes to get stuck that way."

The playful joke was followed by a light giggle and Lucy looked up at Mirajane who was now leaning over the bar on her elbows to meet Lucy face to face.

Mira cocked her head to the side and smiled brilliantly as some of her white hair fell over and obscured her face. She pointed a long, delicate finger up at the glass. "Want me to put more ice in that?"

Lucy looked up at the drink on her forehead again and then sat up, replacing the water to its rightful spot on the bar. She wiped the water droplet off her nose and shook her head. "No thanks. It wasn't really helping anyway."

"Okay." Mira frowned and straightened herself up to put her hands on her hips. "I haven't seen you this gloomy in a while. Is something the matter?"

Lucy stared at the water glass again. "Just a headache."

Mira didn't respond for a moment. She studied the young blonde with a serious gaze for a solid minute before her normal smile cracked her lips and she let out an airy laugh. "I think someone might have a good case of cabin fever."

"What?" Lucy looked up at her friend, eyebrows furrowed. Sometimes Mira made no sense. At least not until you thought about what she said and then you could find the hidden meaning that she always seems to slip into her random statements, but today Lucy's aching mind wasn't in the riddle-solving mood.

"You've been cooped up in here for the past three weeks!" Mira pointed to a window on the side of the bar. "The only times you've been outside were when you're coming here from your home or going home."

Lucy blinked a couple of times and then gazed outside as if seeing it for the first time. Mira was right, as usual, but she still felt a jolt of disbelief at the statement. "Three weeks?"

Mira just nodded and slowly wandered to the opposite end of the bar where Cana was perched with her usual kegs of ale and began talking.

"Huh…" Lucy looked back out the window, slowly realizing she had wasted over a month doing… pretty much nothing. Aside from getting a few chapters finished in her novel she had quite literally thrown out most of her time for the past number of weeks.

Well, she had to defend herself in some ways—all three weeks being wasted wasn't entirely her fault. When she had returned from a mission with Natsu and Gray that had required trekking through unimaginable amounts of snow and being wet for 80% of the mission, while it had paid her rent for the next two months, she had come down with a rather nasty case of the flu. A week in bed easily cured that, but the other two weeks she had no one to blame but herself. Neither Natsu nor Gray had asked her to go on any jobs recently. Erza had been away on a mission alone and was still one of the few members not back at the Guild, but Lucy knew she could have easily walked the fifteen feet to the billboard and taken a look at what was available or asked anyone if she could join them on a job.

But no one was on a job, which was why it was so noisy.

Lucy spun around on her bar stool and looked out at her fellow guild members. Natsu and Gray were in the back corner involved in a rather intense staring contest. Their audience had grown significantly larger since a half hour ago when their familiar banter announced the competition's initiation. The rowdy crowd was now choosing sides rooting for the wizard they thought were going to win and Macao had started taking bets.

Lucy smiled as she stood from her stool and meandered over to the job board. The little square had filled up in the past week to the point where barely any wood was showing between the different posts. It quickly became clear as for why it was so full; most of the jobs posted were either low paying for the amount of work it required, really far away (and with the Harvest Festival over and the Winter Festival right around the corner who would want to risk missing that?), or the job was outright boring. No monsters to hunt down, no mysteries to solve—a few lost articles that needed finding, a call for a babysitter for way too little money (seriously 10,000 jewels to babysit four three year olds?), a search and rescue call that was as far south as you could go before finding endless ocean, and…

A gust of wind fluttered the papers on the board from an open window and something grabbed Lucy's attention. Well, the reward grabbed her attention. Reaching out a hand, she moved a request for that crazy acting troupe aside (because her acting days were over no matter how much the insane director was willing to pay) to see a small piece of paper hidden underneath it.

Mages Needed, Preferably with Guild Knowledge- 700,000 Jewels

Information and tracking investigation.

Requirements: Must be from a registered guild and have diverse skills. Groups preferred.

For details contact Professor Rosche, Kizern University History Department, Ancient Magics Division

Lucy frowned; the post wasn't very explicit about what the job entailed. Information and tracking? Did they need to already have the information or would they be gathering the information? What would they be investigating? Could they hear what this professor day to say before accepting the job?

It was sketchy to say the least. Then again, it was for a professor at a university so he couldn't be too creepy… right?

"What're you looking at, Lucy?"

The blonde jumped as a high pitched voice rang out in her right ear; startled, she turned and tore the job advertisement that was still clutched in her hand off the board. Lucy frowned at Happy who was hovering in the air just at her ear's height and staring at the paper that was now in Lucy's hand. He swooped down and snatched the listing from her hand. "Did you find us a job? I hope so, I've been really bored."

Lucy reached out to grab the paper back, but Happy zipped backwards just out of her reach, reading the paper all the while. "Happy! I was just looking at—"

"Natsu! Lucy found us a job!" Happy dashed across the hall, paper fluttering in his paws.

"—it. Here we go…" Lucy trailed off as she found herself talking to air. Well, that was that. If the past was any indication there was no getting out of this now; Natsu never said no to anything.

At least she hadn't torn down the performance bill; she was pretty sure that Natsu would jump at the chance to dress up as a dragon again any day.

Slowly, Lucy followed Happy's trail to the table where Natsu sat looking at the bill. He looked up as she approached, his face twisted in confusion. "I don't get it. What's the job?"

Gray rolled his eyes and he bent down over Natsu's shoulder to read the paper. "Looks like you gotta talk to this teacher guy to find out. That sounds a little…sketchy." he raised an eyebrow at Lucy.

Thank you! Lucy nodded. "That's what I was thinking, but then again if he teaches at a school as big as Kizern, it can't be too bad. Right? We've done other jobs like this before. Maybe he doesn't want just anyone finding out about his research."

Gray looked skeptical. "I wonder why he doesn't just ask someone he knows at the school or students to help him. You'd think they'd be more qualified to help than someone from outside his field."

"Not everyone who goes to school can do magic." Lucy crossed her arms and bit her bottom lip. She remembered Levi talking about the college in Magnolia. There were a ton of students who weren't mages, but still studied magic. "They can study things like history and magi-tech and besides, he said he wanted people with guild knowledge. I bet students who can do magic are too busy to join guilds. Maybe they don't know a lot about them."

Natsu frowned a little and then bounced up from his chair and pointed to himself with his thumb. "Well I can track anything and Lucy's real smart so she can do the research! Besides, I've never been to a school before."

"That's obvious." Gray mumbled and Natsu immediately rounded on him putting himself inches from his friend's nose. Gray narrowed his eyes in response. "What? You heard me."

"You've never been to one either! So you're just as dumb as I am."

"What did you just call me?"

Lucy turned just as Natsu was winding up for his first hit in the inevitable beat down that was about to take place and waved to Happy. The cat grabbed the job bill out of Natsu's hand and expertly evaded getting hit as he floated through the air after Lucy. He fluttered down to the bar and turned as Mira came up behind him.

The cat held the paper up. "We're going to take this job."

Mira looked at the bill curiously as she took it and read it over. "That's odd, I don't recognize this one. Where did you find it?"

Lucy sat down on a stool and looked up at her friend. "It was under one of the other postings. You mean you haven't seen it?"

Mira shook her head.

Happy's ears drooped. "Oh… maybe it's a joke then?"

"Hm, let me go ask Master about it. Maybe he put it up there and forgot to tell me about it."

As Mira walked off, Lucy poked Happy in the side. "Don't sound so sad. We can always find something else."

"Yeah, but Natsu and I were looking at the board this morning. Nothing else looks like much fun and who wants to do a boring job?"

Lucy couldn't deny that but she had to do something at this point. Once Mira pointed out that she wasted a good portion of the month sitting around, she felt… kind of icky. She never thought of herself as someone to sit around and do nothing. Although, with the Harvest Festival recently passed and that whole debacle with Laxus still hanging in the air no one had been themselves recently. Things were changing in Fairy Tail and in the magic world around the guild and it was weighing on many of them.

It was a couple of minutes later that Mira came back with the job posting in hand. She laughed as she put it down next to Happy. "Just as I thought. You're good to go."

Happy jumped up into the air with an excited whoop and took off for the brawl that was quickly expanding at the back of the guild. "Natsu! We've gotta go pack!"

Lucy shook her head and let out a small sigh as she exchanged a knowing glance with Mira. "And so it begins."

Mira laughed and leaned over putting her chin in her hand. "Is that how your book starts out?"

Huh? Where did that come from?

"N…no, but…" Lucy grinned as she thought about it. "It does sound like a great chapter title."