Prologue:

Makarov looked at the letter in his hand, already knowing what he was going to do. While the request was certainly unusual, it was a godsend. His mind had been made up for the last few days; only his difficulties explaining the matter to his brats had stopped him from making the announcement. This request was perfect.

Calling out to Mira, who was cheerfully reading to his grandson, he said: "Get me Team Natsu, Cana, Gajeel, Levy, Juvia, and Mest. Tell them to meet me here as soon as they can. I have a job for them."

As Mira hurried off, Laxus shifted on the narrow hospital bed. "You do remember that we just finished fighting a war against a dark guild, right?" His grandson asked, voice raspy. It was a constant reminder of how close Makarov had come to losing his only worthwhile family.

"It's a time sensitive job," he replied shortly. "And it's one I'd rather not pass up on."

The lightning dragon slayer snorted. "If it's so sensitive, why are you sending the most destructive squad we have? And after what we just went through, I think they're going to be worse than usual."

"Are you volunteering to chaperone?" He hadn't thought to send Laxus as well, since the rest of the Raijinshu were in no condition for a mission, but if Laxus wanted to ride herd on Natsu…

A shrug. "You need that big of a squad? What are we up to, eleven, if you count me?"

His grandson raised his eyebrow, stretching the scar that was the mark of his power. There was nothing Makarov regretted more than that scar. If he had been a better father, a better grandfather, could he have saved Laxus from Ivan's obsession with power? He knew Laxus has accepted the lacrima, but those early days, where nobody was sure what might happen...Makarov still felt the helpless rage that had nearly boiled over that day.

"It's a long job, potential infiltrate and protect mission. They want as many as four groups of three and a coordinator."

Another eyebrow raise. "Infiltrate and protect? And you're choosing Team Natsu? Heaven help the protectees."

They need the job, Makarov wanted to say, but held his tongue, not wanting to explain himself, even to Laxus who might understand. Because when they hear what I'm going to do, they're going to hate me. And the least I can do is give them this one last chance.

"So," Laxus said, shifting to sit up further. "When do we leave? And who are you going to get to fill the empty places? They want thirteen, and you only have eleven."

"I don't know," Makarov admitted, taking Mira's empty chair. He had thought about sending the Strauss siblings, but now that Laxus was going, he couldn't send all of them. And...

Laxus had lived outside of the guild. He knew how to exist without the family that all of his brats had grown to rely on. His grandson had come back to them, a better man, because of it. Having such an example...it could help. If Laxus wanted to go, he should go.

"I'll see if the others have any suggestions," Makarov answered after a long pause. "After all, you're going to be away for a year. From what I understand, travelling between the client's location and Magnolia is difficult, so you won't be able to visit."

"Look after the Raijinshu for me?" Laxus asked slowly as the familiar sounds of Team Natsu and the rest of the team Makarov had chosen for this job began to be audible. "And if we have to bring in backup, I want them to have right of first refusal. If they're healthy enough."

I'm sorry, Makarov thought as he turned away, watching his brats tumble through the door. I'm going to fail you again.

The spinning wasn't stopping.

Lying on her side, one cheek pressed into what could only be plush carpet, Lucy knew that whatever hellish travel that had been had concluded. The floor wasn't moving. It couldn't be moving. Therefore, it was all in her head.

She understood what the dragon slayers felt like now. Whatever it had been was now her least favorite way to travel, since she felt like emptying the contents of her stomach all over the floor. Someone, likely Natsu, was retching nearby.

Maybe if she opened her eyes, it would stop the spinning?

Tentatively, she cracked one eye open. And flinched back at the sight of bright purple robes. Garishly bright purple robes. They rustled, and then she was looking into a pair of bright blue eyes set into a grandfatherly face. "First time travelling by portkey?"

Lucy considered how she was feeling, and decided that while her nausea was indeed abating, the color was giving her a headache. She could probably open her mouth without vomiting. "Was that what you call it?"

The eyes twinkled. "What you used was an interdimensional portkey of my own invention. Useful, when attempting to bring large groups between dimensions. They do seem to be a bit more violent than regular portkeys though, judging by the state your companions are in.

More retching noises from somewhere behind Lucy. "If that's from a guy with pink hair," she began dryly, "that has nothing to do with the more intense method of travel, and more to do with him being overly prone to motion sickness."

"Lu-cy," a familiar voice whined between bouts of retching. "Natsu's sick."

She debated sitting up, and decided to go for it. Carefully, she looked around, spying Natsu retching into what looked like an expensive vase, with a teary Happy hovering anxiously next to him. Gajeel was being hovered over by Levy and Pantherlily, the iron dragon slayer looking exceedingly green and refusing to move an inch or open his mouth. Wendy seemed to be in much the same state, but it was Mest hovering like an twittering nurse with Carla alternately soothing Wendy and scolding him. Though she was surprisingly gentle, compared to some of what Lucy had seen the exceed dish out.

Grey seemed to be reorienting himself well enough, fussed over by Juvia, who looked perfectly fine. Must have something to do with how she's made completely of water, Lucy theorized. She nearly snorted as she saw Cana poking Laxus, her ever-present bottle in her hand as the brunette pestered the lightning dragon slayer, who was sitting up, but still looked nauseous. Next to him, Erza and Jellal were helping each other to sit up, murmuring quietly to each other. And beyond them, Cobra of the Oracion Seis sat, propped up against an ornate desk, his glare promising death for anyone who dared ask him how he was feeling.

Natsu retched again, but his color seemed to be getting better. That, and there was probably nothing else for him to bring back up. Lucy pulled together her scattered thoughts and focused on the man in front of her.

"So, you're the one who hired us?" she asked, trying to remember if the abnormally quick briefing the master had done covered more than you're supposed to be protecting a school by posing as students.

The twinkle in the man's eyes brightened. "I'm Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And I have indeed hired you to protect this school and its students. It is my understanding that you are mages of great skill."

"We do what we can," Erza said as she stood carefully, Jellal scrambling to his feet by her side. "Now, what threatens this school?"

"Let me begin in October of 1981," the headmaster began, the twinkle in his eye dimming.

Later that night, Lucy lay awake in the narrow bed she had been given. All of the members of Fairy Tail, and the two members of Crime Sorciere that accompanied them, had been put up in the infirmary for the night, likely because they all looked a little worse for wear. Wendy had gotten into a bit of a scrap with the nurse, who had attempted to heal them. She couldn't blame the woman though; all of the mages that had been brought to this...Earth had just been through a war, and it showed. All of them sported bandages here and there, and the marks of freshly healed wounds. But Lucy couldn't help but laugh a little as tiny little Wendy, her hair still uneven from when she cut it herself, faced down a woman who had to be at least four times her age. And won.

A faint tingling sensation from her hand distracted Lucy from counting stones in the wall, and she shifted so that the moonlight fell on her right hand. She almost choked as she saw her guild mark slowly fade away.

She watched it, paralyzed by shock for a long moment, and then she scrambled out of bed, kicking the blankets off so hard that her still-healing knee protested, but she didn't care. Stumbling over to Cana, who was in the bed next to her, she roughly shook the brunette awake, waving her hand with the disappearing mark in the other girl's face.

The noise roused Wendy, who was in the next bed over, followed by Levy, and not long after, all of the members of Fairy Tail were huddled on the floor in the middle of the infirmary, panicking over the fading guild marks. When a tall, stern witch came to find them in the morning, she was startled to find ten out of the thirteen mages in the infirmary sleeping in a massive pile on the cold stone floor, dried tear tracks on several faces. The letter she brought with her only made the despair worse.

Brats-

I've disbanded the guild. Finish your job well like my brats should. And then go live your lives. You don't need a guild holding you back.

Makarov Dreyar

Third & Sixth Master of Fairy Tail

Magnolia, Fiore