This is a rewritten version of the original. Though the story is a slight bit different from the original, this has better writing and things make more sense. Choose as you please.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail nor stories this fanfiction references, which belong to their respective owners.

"Lucy!" Jude called from downstairs. "Get your things! You leave in fifteen minutes."

I sighed as I grabbed my backpack. I didn't want to go to the Academy. It was like high school all over again but with fancier rooms and people who actually know a thing or two.

I hurried down the stairs while pulling up a downloaded version of my favorite manga, Fairy Tail, a rather mainstream, but gorgeous manga with characters you hold close to your heart, epic battle scenes, and some of the most entertaining arcs I've ever read or watched. I was a little obsessed. But, then again, why shouldn't I be? It was my first-ever franchise I got into.

"Reading that meaningless crap again, are you Lucy?" Asked Jude, my father, writing on some pieces of paper on the dinner table.

I squirmed uncomfortably in my new blazer while Jude kept talking. A blazer was an "absolute" for the dress code.

"What was it called again?" He continued. "'Fairy Stories?'"

I scoffed. "Why do you think it's crap?" I asked as I grabbed a piece of bread from the kitchen pantry.

"I've read a chapter. It's absolutely nothing in my eyes. You should read something a bit more sophisticated."

"I've read everything from the center shelf, if you haven't noticed, sir. I've read a lot more than just sophisticated."

He ignored me. "And something with less... how do I say? Nudity?" He asked, scratching his cheek.

Fanservice, I thought with a smirk, but answered formally, "I don't mind that, sir."

I scarfed down the piece of bread while reading the rest of the chapter with a smile on my face.

"I told you not to read that!" Jude commanded, raising his voice.

"How did you know I was reading Fairy Tail in the first place?" I said in the same tone. "And continuing to read it now?"

Jude glared in my eye with a stern look. "You have a certain expression when you read it. I also get a feeling if you're doing something I don't like."

I sighed and turned off my phone. "Yeah, fine. Remember that your medicine is in the cabinet and you have an appointment on Friday for your 'sickness.'"

Jude grumbled. "Virgo has the car ready."

Virgo, my favorite of the many servants, was a maid that I personally requested to drive me to the Academy every morning. She was my favorite because she reminded me of a certain, very odd character in Fairy Tail. Despite how much I love the franchise, I know I'm not just comparing, but she is exactly like her. She even looks like her; short, bright magenta hair and a petite stature. Her personality, emotionless and aloof, but caring when it really mattered, was the same as- did I mention? The character with the exact same name, Virgo, the Celestial Spirit whose key belonged to Akiko, the main heroine of the show.

I headed out the door with this strange but lovable maid who opened the door of the car with her face blank.

We headed out. I watched the mansion, definitely to big to house two people, even with a staff with their own homes, disappear behind a mass of other large houses.

We finally arrived that the dreaded place where Virgo gave me her usual goodbye, "Farewell, Princess," which was a nickname she gave to me after me rejecting several formal uses of both my first and last name.

The dreaded place that stood before me was the one and only Magnolia Academy, a rather prestigious school for, prodigies children of celebrities, or rich douchebags. I belonged to category number three: rich douchebags. I acted different here than home alone. I definitely wasn't the kindest person in the world at my home, but here I was entirely a different person. Cold and realistic, but strangely attractive to a large amount of people who wanted to be friends with me, people like the girl name Milianna, for example, who clung to my back in a big hug.

"Heartfilia-san!" She chimed, hurting my ears with her shrill voice. "I'm sooo~~ happy to see you! Me and the gals are having a study session in classroom C-2. We really need you to be there, if that's okay with you."

I sighed while walking up the clean-cut stairs. I stared at the clean, pristine school with a heavy heart. Younger students, high schoolers, let's call them, were skipping along into the school happily in their sailor-like uniforms, chatting along like there was nothing wrong with the literal definition of "separation of class." I was bored of it, along with the fact that I was bored of going to the same school, year after year, in the never-ending cycle since I was 14.

"Yeah, sure," I said, almost whispered, to the eccentric girl who was now skipping along with a simple wave.

All she would ever ask me to was study sessions. Her and the "gals" would talk behind my back, I heard, passing the students in the flawless halls, though I didn't care. They don't know *me* and they don't know how much of what I am isn't what it seems to be, so there's no reason to complain if they don't like a whole different person; someone who hasn't read countless light novel and manga series, someone who hasn't watched over 90 series of anime, someone who hasn't cared enough to count them; someone who wasn't me.

l l l

Traveling to the classroom all the way on the second floor across the school was a hassle in itself, but I knew that what lay ahead was an even bigger problem. Five girls- I didn't even bother to remember their names-, annoying, loud, and rude were now sitting around a small table in the middle of the tiny robotics room, talking about makeup and boyfriends, things that "normal" girls talk about, things I didn't care about. I was only there for them to copy my notes.

I sighed. Of course they'd ask the highest ranked female student in the Academy (not to brag) and exclude her because of her boring, covered personality. That's what all students were like these days.

In the midst of my depressing conversation with myself, I zoned out and instead of turning left to the classroom of C-2, I turned right and opened the door of C-3: Law and Order, to a decent amount of students, gathered around rectangular tables with benches. There were probably fifteen, maybe twenty, with younger students and collage-level students, but what caught my eye was not the students, but the gym and self-defense teachers, a couple, holding a preschooler in their laps, laughing along with the students.

"Mr. and Mrs. Connell?" I exclaimed, unintentionally.

A green-haired woman of 27 years of age, looked up at me and smiled. "Oh, Heartfilia-san?" She asked in her country-like dialect. "What'cha doin' here?"

I poked my head outside to see the sign of the classroom, which read,

"C-3: Law and Order"

And written below it:

"Anime Club: Mon-Sat 17:00-18:30"

Sweat beaded on my brow. "Um... I guess- I guess I got the wrong classroom.. If you excu-"

Someone bumped into me from behind, making me start to fall over, but he caught my forearm and held it close to him, stopping my fall.

"I'm sorry about that, my princess, but I didn't see you due to the blinding light of your beauty you give off," the man said in a flirtatious manner.

"Umm.." I murmured to the man of... maybe 20? He had orange hair, intentionally messy, with a black suit and lightly tinted sunglasses to give off a playboy look.

"I'm sorry for setting off such a bright light that it shown through your sunglasses.. that you're wearing inside..." I trailed off in an awkward way.

The man, still holding my forearm, tilted his head to look at my wrist, which wrapped around it was a bracelet that had a charm of the symbol of Fairy Tail. I totally forgot I put it on this morning, thinking that my blazer would cover it.

"So you've come to join the club?" He asked, still holding my forearm.

I yanked my arm away, making him wobble, but he quickly recovered, pushing up his sunglasses and flipping his hair.

"I apologize for holding you for too long, young lady," he said. "I hate being rude to beautiful ladies. My name is Loke. I'm a member of this club."

Never knew a playboy could be part of an anime club, I thought.

"So we have a new member joining? Or perhaps a visitor?" Asked a nearby older student about of 19 years of age. She was tall and had flowing red hair tat reached down to her waist. She pushed up her frameless glasses and smiled. "We are always happy to accept potential members."

I stared at the girl. "I'm sorry, but I'm offended that you would expect me to join such a ridiculous club with no proof that I might be visiting."

"You have a bracelet with the Fairy Tail symbol on it. It's pretty uncommon to have a young girl to have that symbol without having read or watched part of the series," said Loke.

"She didn't see it," I argued, gesturing to the woman. "She could of asked me why I was here and could have helped me."

"It must be pretty disappointing to find that not most people think differently and might have not figured that idea," said a girl my age, 17, with her blue hair wrapped in a bandana, sitting in the benches below.

A boy with pink hair that stood at the stage of the large room ran up to the commotion in a nick of time. "May I help you, miss?" He asked with a grin.

I scoffed. "You can help me by answering why you would open such an embarrassment to the school and to the students that go here. An anime club? Don't make me laugh. I do enjoy my bit of shows, but this is just overboard."

Stop, Lucy said a voice in my head, the one who always argued with my dominant, bitchy side that never seemed to leave me alone. I'm sure they have their reasons to have a club like this. Since there's so many members, I'm sure it might be fun-

"I don't get why you can't just enjoy the shows in private like normal people, not irritating those who don't enjoy the things you do. Honestly, you'll just get criticized in the end, causing damage to friendships and disbandment to the club itself."

The boy frowned. "I never thought about that.. but if the person has the common sense to be kind and not criticize the club, we get to hang out and talk about the thing we all have in common."

I bent my eyebrow, realizing what I just said. "People aren't that merciful. You should know this, if you'd payed enough attention to the world around you instead of being sucked up in something so.. trivial... such as a type of entertainment." I looked around. "Well, I'm sorry to reign on your nerd parade, but I have to get to another classroom where me and my friends actually do something useful to society, instead of just slacking off." I whipped my hair and turned. "Farewell."

The voice in my head exhaled as I closed the doors. Nice going, Lucy. You just insulted your own people.

~ Natsu's POV ~

"Farewell," said the strange girl, walking out of the room. There was something off about her, and not the fact that she came in the room just to judge the club with unpleasant comments, but something like that.

"Who the hell was that?" Asked my friend... or enemy. Rival- if you will. The black-haired dweeb with a stripping habit named Gray.

Mr. and Mrs. Connell, our club supervisors frowned at the same time. "That there was Lucy Heartfilia," said Mrs. Connell. "She's the top of her class, from what I know. She's always skippin' club requests and considered a 'cold person.' The fact're that she's smart makes her pop'lar."

I raised my eyebrow. "There's something wrong with her."

Cake Icing (Gray) shot his head towards me, eyes wide and shocked. "Oh no..." he turned his head back and shouted, "Lisanna! Natsu's doing it again!"

Lisanna, the girl who knew everything about me, playfully skipped towards us, but kept her face serious. "Natsu, how many times do I have to tell you? You do not say those words, or you'll get hooked." She hit me on my pink-haired head to show punishment.

I rubbed my head and frowned once more. "No, she actually wants to join."

Ezra, the second in command, interrupted Gray who was whining. "How?" She asked.

"Oh... Erza's in," said Lisanna.

"Answer the question, Natsu," said Loke, the "cool" member of the group who hit on almost all the girls who wanted to join the club. "I would like to know this Lucy-tan as well."

"I'm surprised you remember her name for longer than a minute," sarcastically remarked Levy, a petite teenage girl in the engineering department with blue hair tied in her signature bandana.

"It would be rude of me to forget such a lovely maiden's name in such a short time as a day," Loke said. "It breaks one of my rules, as well."

"You said she had a Fairy Tail bracelet on, right? She's a..." I paused for dramatic effect- "Closet otaku."

Levy and Lisanna joined the charade by expressing an even more dramatic gasp.

"So?" Said Gray. "They're not that rare. Hell, you can find an entire group of them in a large room in a specific building." He gestured around the room. "She probably just doesn't want to join the club for a different reason than you t—"

"Gray," I interrupted. "Your clothes."

Gray jumped up and looked about him, and realizing I just said that to make him stop talking, and he, in fact, had clothes on, he left his seat to clutch me by the polo and glare in my face.

"You damn slanty-eyes," he grumbled.

"Sick pervert," I shot back, raising my fist.

Lisanna squeezed in between us and pushed us apart, "As much as my big sister would like to watch you do.. whatever she thought you were doing," she said, gesturing to the older student, Mirajane, who was currently staring at us with sparkly stars surrounding her nose-bleeding-self.

"The blood they will spill will not compare to the amount that she's producing," said Levy, helping Mira tip her face forward into a wad of tissues.

"So... Lucy?" Said Erza in a stern tone.

Cana, the member who was slacking off and drinking- let's just say- what was not allowed on school grounds, broke in the conversation. "Are we talking about the hot blondie who walked in just to bring us down? I agree with Natsu on this one. There's a sto~ory behind this!" She murmured, "all for drama..."

Levy snuck behind her to take the whiskey bottle away from her.

"We need to get her to join the club!" I announced, putting my fists on my hips.

"How do you suppose we do that?" Asked Erza, pushing up her fake, frameless glasses (for show).

"We could try blackmail," said Cana. "Let me remind you that last time we used blackmail, we got Gray to join."

"I'll have you know, that was the worst day of my life so far," said Gray.

I grinned. "But it worked." I turned to the quietest girl in the room, Juvia, who was staring intently at the blob of useless matter that was Gray.

"Juvia, can you help us?"

She turned to get her deep blue eyes to meet mine. "To add another love rival to Juvia's love triangle?" She whipped her head away and dramatically exclaimed, "Oh how the walls of love are so thick and unbreakable! Shall my dear Gray-sama and Juvia ever be together?"

Gray, who was "innocently" huddled on a bench in the corner, perked up his stupid head and and shouted, "Don't drag me into this!"

Juvia turned back to me. "Gray-sama agrees! Juvia shall make Lucy-san suffer and join the club she ever-so hates, but Juvia will not let her get in between Gray-sama and Juvia!"

She cheerfully bounced her wavy blue hair in excitement and smiled. She got like this whenever she manipulated someone into doing her bidding. She turned to me. "Juvia has a plan."

~ Lucy's POV : The Next Day : Mid-day Class ~

Idly scrolling through my phone, I finally heard the words of freedom.

"That's all for today, class," said Professor Gildarts.

The class bowed, but before we could gather our items, a certain boy with pink hair entered the classroom in a disruptive manner.

"GILDARTS," he yelled, smashing into the teacher, hardly budging the tall, bulky man that was Professor Gildarts.

I immediately recognized him as the boy that ran up to me while I was arguing with the club members. I slapped my hands to the desk and was about to shout out, "IT'S YOU!" but I refrained.

The boy turned to me and grinned. "I hate to interrupt whatever boring lecture you had going on, but I have an announcement for little ol' Luigi, here, and I could tell the entire class, but I need your special permission, first."

He raised his right hand were his orange flip phone lay. He pressed a button without effort, and immediately I felt my phone vibrating in my skirt pocket. I took it out to read:

"Dear Miss Luigi, I could tell the entire class that you are not who they think you are, a.k.a, a CLOSET OTAKU. hehehehehehe. If you come with me, your secret will be safe with me and my friends, and if you decide to come with no resistance whatsoever, I could even get you a present. Play it off as some sort of club emergency to the rest of the students, or whatever."

-Natsu Dragneel

I glared and texted back, "How did you get my number?"

"What was that, Miss Heartfilia? A typo? Should I tell the entire class or not?"

"There is no need, Dragneel-kun, because club activities are nothing to get worked up about in front of students," I said in complete monotone. I wasn't exactly known for my acting ability.

"Is that your choice?" He yelled.

"Natsu, if you're gonna yell, at least yell outside where students aren't trying to pound their brains out learning," said Professor Gildarts.

Natsu- apparently- grumbled. "I don't like you when you're at school." He perked up, and turned to me. "Let's go, Luigi!"

l l l

"How many times do I have to tell you, it's not Luigi, but Lucy, and in any way you're not to call me by my first name?" I told Natsu, after he dragged me out of another classroom for the second time.

"You have waaaaay too many classes," he said, ignoring me.

"The problem is that you have not enough classes."

He scoffed, and stopped in front of the familiar- though dreaded- room of C-3.

"It just started, so why did you intend to bring me earlier?" I asked him, glancing at my phone to double check, and as I predicted, it was 17:10.

"About that..." he hung his head and opened the double doors to an exhausted group of students, sitting all around chaotically-placed benches and chairs with sad party hats only half on their heads. The only one who was standing was a younger student, a first year, who was standing in front of the door with a serious look on her face, which did not match her expected demeanor, though the look of long, blue pigtails and innocent brown eyes and petite stature. As we entered, she pulled a party-popper, and even though it made her wince, she announced, "Welcome to OFTOC!"

I stared at the short girl, not noticing the other club members of about 15 standing up to repeat the welcome. She bowed in a formal manner.

"Hello! My name is Wendy Marvell, but you can call me Wendy, like how you can call anybody in the club anything you'd like!" She looked up and smiled, but stopped as quickly as she had started, changing her smile to a shocked expression. "Oh! But... you don't need to call me Wendy, you can really call me anything like the club says- I said that already, right?"

Natsu, behind me, clasped his arm around my shoulders, making me trip slightly. "Yup! You'll understand once we explain the rules of this joint, but for reference, I call Gray here 'Ice Face,' 'Slanty Eyes,' 'Snow Boxers,' whatever I want, basically, because we're all family here at OFTOC!"

I ducked under his grasp, clutching my bag in front of me. "Family? Why am I here, and why are you welcoming me to what sounds like... an ancient Russian civilization? 'Off-talk?' What is that?"

Natsu ran up to the lecture area, passing a circle of practical fold-up chairs, and shouted, "Ready everyone?!"

All of the club members, plus the- what I could only guess were the supervisors- Mr. and Mrs. Connell, inhaled and shouted, "The Official Fairy Tail Otaku Club!"

I stared as the silence slowly fell over the room like a picnic basket slowly falling on a field. I guessed they were all waiting for me to say something, so I said the first thing that came to my head,

"Did you all rehearse this?..."

l l l

"Na~atsu! You're late!" Cried a girl my age with short white-ish, pink-ish hair clinging to Natsu's arm.

The boy sat down on a selected chair in the circle, making the girl sit next to him. I looked around and saw the all other members sat down and waited for someone to start what they came for.

"Sorry for dragging you out early for nothing, Lisanna," Natsu looked up and around. "Everyone, I know I asked you to come out of classes early, but I guess Mr. Connell got Luigi's class schedule wrong, because she had extra classes."

I perked up from the bored slouch I had on the cold, hard metal chair and exclaimed, "You gathered information on me? Is that how you got my number?"

"Yup," said an older student with brown hair, carrying what I hoped was soda. "That's what supervisors are for! Helping out with blackmail."

"Blackmail?" I asked. "Wait..." I realized I was participating in the club instead of attempting to escape to a safe place. I got up, but a girl my age grabbed my arm. I recognized her from yesterday, the one who gave me a remark that was similar to what I would say.

"Can you just sit down and hear us out?" She said.

"If you haven't yet noticed, Lovely," said Loke, on the other side of me. "We have information on you we can use against you."

I whipped my head to Natsu, who was innocently sitting on the fold-up chair with his arms behind his head.

"You're gonna leak that information?" I yanked my arm from the girl's grasp. "When did I ever give you a chance for blackmail? A hint, if you allow me to say? that I would want to be in the club?"

"How many questions does this person ask?" Asked the person drinking what I now knew was not soda.

"You mentioned it yourself," said Natsu, matter-of-factly, ignoring the woman.

"And your bracelet," joined in Loke, gesturing to his forearm for emphasis.

"And what is the reason for blackmailing me?" I asked, starting to get annoyed.

Natsu removed his arms from the back of his head to put his head on his enlaced hands, attached to his sinisterly-placed arms on his knees.

"To get you to join the club," he simply said.

I, still staring, whipped my head to the side. "Why would you want me to? This whole thing's ridiculous."

"This one's a toughie," remarked the drinker.

"Because you don't have any friends," bluntly stated the red-head from earlier, whom I guessed was the leader. "The club is to bring shut-ins together socially by bonding them through what most of them love. And that is..." she gestured to me, smiling, wanting me to guess.

"...Anime?" I guessed.

A woman with the same hair color as "Lisanna," next to the red-head made the "ding-ding-ding" noise.

"What if the person doesn't want to join?" I asked.

Natsu evilly smiled. "We blackmail them."

Lisanna pushed Natsu's head. "Don't scare the poor girl." She then sighed. "Natsu's our judge of what to do with people who stumble upon our club," she explained. "He can just... tell."

"You don't have any friends," added Natsu. "A human is incapable of living a happy, normal life without the support of other humans. It's in our blood. Other people who stumble across us seem just fine."

"So that's why this is called the 'otaku' club?" I asked, knowing that 'otaku' meant an introverted, obsessive fan with a different way of thinking.

Natsu nodded. "Lots of schools do it, so I took the liberty of starting one. The 'official' is just for the acronym. FTOC (Fuh-talk) is just lame."

"Why is it 'Fairy Tail?'"

"Stop asking questions!" Whined the drinker, waving her bottle in the air.

"That's enough, Cana," said the co-leader. "Lucy's confused and needs information." She turned to me. "It's our main fandom. It's what Natsu, Lisanna, Gray, and I all had in common when we first started the club."

"Don't forget me," murmured the woman next to her.

"Gray took a little persuading," broke in Lisanna, while jerking her head to the man I knew mostly as "Ice Boxers," a tall, young man with black hair, who never seemed to wear clothes. The "Ice" part in his nickname didn't make much sense, but I definitely knew what "Boxers" meant.

"Anime clubs around here," said the woman who was left out. "Usually have very popular franchises for their main fandom, so that all the members have something in common. It has to be popular, accessible to even the cheapest viewer, and has enough characters and subjects to..." she looked around. "Argue about..."

A mysterious silence fell over the room, and I guessed immediately that the arguing wasn't a rare occurrence, nor something that was treated insignificantly.

Suddenly, Lisanna stood up, pushing her chair behind her in a dramatic way, and pointed directly at the blue-headed girl next to me. "LEVY, LUCANA IS REAL," she shouted at the small girl.

"Levy," apparently, stood up as quickly as Lisanna did, and pointed in a similar manner after her chair finished sliding back. "Childhood friends are so done, so there is no way that Mashima-sensei would have maDE THEM CANON," she said, gradually raising her voice.

I was immediately uncomfortable, but knowing that this was going to be entertaining, I sat back and stayed silent.

Loke joined in and stepped in between the girls pointing at each other. "As much as I would enjoy to see a cat fight, we all know that the manga remains unfinished, and we can set our differences aside until Mashima-sensei completes it and dubs the LuKiko the winner, or LucAna."

"We need lives," murmured Cana, taking a swig of her beverage.

"Silence, you AkiLeo shipper," Lisanna angrily commanded Loke, ignoring Cana.

"This is the most intense debate about pairing I have experienced since my middle school days," said a graduate with her golden hair in a bun.

"Everybody knows that LuKiko takes the variety of the fandom," said Levy.

I knew what they were arguing about, of course, since I had way too much experience arguing on social media of what ship was the best. Trivial, yes; geeky, yes; but fun was the most of it.

"Pavana and Lucas grew up together!" Lisanna yelled.

"This is going to go on for years if we don't break them up," said the woman with white hair, to the red-head, who glanced at Natsu, signaling him to get up and push the women apart.

"Go back to your seats," he said. "You're scaring the newcomer."

"I'm good," I said. Nothing else exciting ever happened in my life, anyway.

Lisanna sat down with Natsu and clung to his arm once more. "I pair Pavana and Lucas because they resemble us, Natsu and I. We're to be married, you know."

I glanced at the now-embarrassed teenager, whose face was now matching his salmon-colored hair.

"Lis! I told you I never agreed to that, plus we were, like, eight when we made that 'promise.'"

Lisanna glared, retracted her arms to fold them, and looked away from Natsu.

"You have no romanticism," she said.

Next, we did names, and I remembered most of the members, at least, first initials. The red-head co-leader was Erza, the woman, who was apparently Lisanna's sister, was Mirajane, and her brother, a big, bulky man who stood out on the tiny chairs was Elfman. The woman with golden hair in a bun was Evergreen, and a man who wore a mask went by the name... Bixlawn?

"A~nd this is Juvia, Gajeel, and Freed," said Natsu, pointing out various members. "You can expect a certain member to never attend meetings, and that is the insignificant-" he pointed to Mirajane to complete the sentance.

"-Laxus-kun," she finished, blushing. "My bo~oyfriend," she added, rolling her tongue.

"He joined just because she made him," explained Natsu.

"You already know Levy and Loke, I hope," said Erza. "And have heard the names of Cana, Wendy, and Gray."

"Fifteen members, I'm guessing?" I asked.

Natsu, twisting his face, counting, said, "Roughly, but you joined! Sixteen-"

"I never said I have joined," I said, getting up. "This seems fun, but a total waste of time. If you excuse me, I'm leaving."

I got up, but as one would expect, I hesitated. Instead of the bitchy side that never seemed to leave the lead of my brain, the softer, sentimental side of me decided to make me stop in my tracks in the middle of the room, an equal distance between the group and the door.

I inhaled, preparing to say something emotional, what I was really feeling, but what came out was, "You still have blackmail on me, right?"

END