Chapter 2

As Lucy and Plue walked towards Magnolia, Lucy made a mental note to change her now-oversized clothes, which also screamed out LUCY loud and clear, she also remembered that she would have to get or make some very strong perfume in order to get past Gajeel, Wendy, and of course Natsu.

"Natsu… what're you doing now?" she wondered aloud but her thoughts were interrupted by Plue.

"Puuu! PUU! PUU!" Magnolia was just ahead.

At Fairy Tail

"Natsu, let's go on a job. We haven't done one since Lucy died and that was three months ago," said Lisanna.

Everyone was upset when they had heard the news of Lucy's death but they weren't as broken as Natsu. Although, Levy and Lisanna was pretty messed up to, Levy, Lucy and Lisanna became best friends in the guild! But Levy had Gajeel and Lilly, and Lisanna had Elfman and Mirajane. Even though Natsu had Happy, it still meant he had lost his one and only -would be- mate, also Happy hung out with Carla sometimes.

"Aye, you're a wreck. A simple job won't do any harm; we found one just outside of Magnolia, just picking a few magic herbs, only mages can see them when they're still in the ground and only dragon or god slayers can pick them." Happy persuaded.

"B-but we can only do jobs with the whole team; me, Lucy, you, Lisanna, Gray and Erza. But Lucy can't go."

"Natsuuu," Lisanna exclaimed, "just because Lucy isn't here physically it doesn't mean she's not here. Remember what Lucy said? She said that as long as we don't forget her, she'll always be with us in our hearts."

Flashback

Natsu held Lucy in his arms. "L-lucy? Don't die, it's gonna be fine. You'll be okay right?" tears rolled down his face then falling on to hers.

"It's okay, I'll be fine in here," she pointed to his chest, where his heart was, "as long as you don't forget me I'll be fine in here. So, smile Natsu, smile for me and Fairy Tail, our home!"

"B-but I love you,"

"Y-yeah," although Lucy was dying she could still blush, "I love you to but a-as lover, you know, romantically."

"Yeah, me to, I love you!"

Lucy giggled weakly, "Smile, I'll go first!" Lucy smiled Natsu's favourite smile.

"Fine, for you then."

End flashback

"Fine." Natsu sighed, "For her then."

Lucy and Plue

Lucy finally found the shop she was looking for; 'Gothic X1025'. Rummaging through all the clothes she settled on a black laced mini dress, a pair of gorgeous, black, mid-thigh, leather boots, a plain black cloak and a pair of black leather, fingerless gloves. Then she paid the cashier 3,000 jewels. Her next stop was the perfume shop, where she bought a heavily scented 'Roses 'n' Violets' perfume for 600 jewels, she had changed her clothes and scent back at ' Gothic X1025' .

Then with a sudden jolt she realized that she and Plue didn't have an apartment to stay in as the land lady must have rented it to someone else also taking it into account that she wouldn't fully be able to conceal her scent, it would be even more suspicious if she lived in Lucy's old apartment. Oh well, she thought, Fairy Tail comes first.

When Lucy finally arrived it was already dark, cautiously, using her one 'normal' eye, she peaked through the door, then -knowing from experience that if she didn't she wouldn't be heard- banged roughly on the door, she sensed that the riot had calmed due to her banging. Then Mirajane peeped her head out the door. "Would you like to join Fairy Tail?"

"Y-yes please, and this is my familiar." Lucy gestured to Plue, trying to act as calm as possible.

"Please, come in," Mira opened the door and took Lucy's cloak. " what's your name?"

"Ah-ah-aria wwwwih-Willows."(ah-ree-ah)

"And your familiar?"

"Oh, you mean Pl-aa, plaa?" (pl-aah)

"Well, let's go and see Master okay?"

"Right." The short distance from the door to Master's office seemed painstakingly slow, whilst stares bore into her back she had the sudden urge to greet everyone and hug their life out of them as well.

When they had finally reached Master's office Mira knocked on the door and let herself in, "Master, this is Willow-san, she would like to join Fairy Tail.

"Hello," she greeted, "my name is Aria Willows, pleased to meet you."

"Hello! I'm Master Makarov, welcome to Fairy Tail, this guild will be your family." He stated. " where would you like your guild insignia?"

"The back of my neck please." Mira stamped the back of her neck, Aria's insignia was a dull bluey-green.

"so aria-chan, what magic do you have?"

"cel- I mean soul plane magic," She confirmed.

"Oh, I've never heard of it!" Mira exclaimed.

"well… it's kind of hard to explain."

"Aria," Aria turned round, only to reveal master at the doorway, "Before, I show you to the rest of the guild I need to speak to in private." Master said, the stern look on his face said it all. "Mira you may go back now."

Oh no! he's probably found out, I'm done for!

… … …

Meanwhile Natsu and the others were walking back, "that was surprisingly refreshing, I haven't done a mission for ages, right Natsu!" (Lisanna loves Natsu like a sister.)

"Yeah, you're right, Lisanna."

"Aye, the most surprising thing is that Natsu didn't burn anything."

Everyone nodded.

Together they burst open the doors. "We're ba-" a very familiar and almost fully undetectable scent hit Natsu, cutting off whatever he was about to say. Gajeel eyes locked with his for a second, as did Wendy's, Natsu slowly made his way over to them.

Gajeel was the first to speak up, "A girl came in with the same scent as Lucy, but she looked completely different."

"We think she tried to mask her scent from us as she had a really strong perfume on." Wendy added. "She's joining the guild, we think."

Just then they heard- with their incredibly strong, dragon slayer hearing- master stepping up onto the stage.

"Everyone, we have a new member for Fiore's number one guild; FAIRY TAIL!"

"Hello everyone nice to meet you, my name is Aria Willows and my magic is called Soul Plane. This is my familiar, Plah." She cursed herself for speaking so fast and coldly. Great, she thought, now I have to act coldly to my friends. Well, she corrected herself, my former and, hopefully, friends to be.

"pu-ah, pah!" 'Plah' quickly corrected himself.

"He says nice to meet you." Aria added, her voice still in monotone.

Natsu gazed at the girl, the only thing Aria and Lucy had in common aside from being a mage and a girl was their scent.

Everyone went up to greet her and surprisingly the first person to welcome her was Cana, "not really people are you 'eh? S'okay, Erza here's got plenty experience in that ca'egory. Oh yeah, I'm Cana by the way."

Aria fought off the temtation to say 'I know' but instead the only other thing she came up with was an, "oh," it was barely audible.

Cana unwillingly shivered at the coldness of her voice bit recovered quickly as if nothing happened.

"Hello I am Erza, how do you like Fairy Tail so far?"Erza's voice rang with authority and confidence, by now a group had gathered around her, Erza acting as the 'representative'.

"Noisy."

"I'm not surprised, by the way, I'm curious about your magic, I've never heard of 'Soul plane' before. Can you please explain it?"

Aria waved hand dismissively, "I'm not surprised. The only other person I know of who has the same magic as me is the Celestial Spirit King." She answered truthfully then she went on to explain, using almost exactly the same words as the Spirit King, "Soul Plane allows me to see a person's soul and do whatever I like with it, such as; control someone's soul, break it, see if it's about to die and use it to identify what or who the souls belong to. To see the souls I must enter an alternate dimension, if the soul is red it belongs to a monster or yokai , a blue soul belongs to someone who is about to die, yellow for a mage, green for animals, pink for a non-magic person and multi-coloured for a spirit- celestial or not." She then paused to take a breath. "To crush someone's soul I must simply slice my hand through it, to control it I only need to touch it. Although unlike his majesty, the spirit king, I cannot will the soul to come to me, I must go to it, and whilst I am moving in the alternate dimension I am also moving in this dimension. If I get hurt in this alternate dimension, I get hurt in this dimension as well and vice versa."

"Whoa!"

"I'm not finished explaining yet," she said in a somewhat annoyed and cold tone. "Anyways, to get to the dimension I have something called The Soul Eye, the spirit king can change to Soul Eye whenever he wants but I always have it. As soon as I remove the eye patch I go to 'Soul plane mode' –as I call it." She said, making air quotations above her head. " Would you like a demonstration?" she asked innocently.

"That'd be good!" said Cana, she and Erza were the only ones fully recovered from the shock that such magic existed.

Aria smirked, finally showing some sort of emotion, then she asked, "so, who's gonna be my glamorous assistant?"

Nobody razed their hand, nobody but Natsu.

"I didn't think that you counted as glamorous."