Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does…


"Lu-chan!" the bluenette called out to her best friend who had been dragging her towards to who-knows where for a while now. As if her best friend just snapped out of her trance, she stopped mid-way and loosened her grip on her best friend. She let out a sigh and massaged her forehead, "Sorry," apologizing softly, she slumped against the wall and shut down her eyes.

"That guy is damn annoying," she complained and scoffed, straightening her posture. "What is wrong with him?!" as a reflex, she glared at her blue-haired bestfriend who flinched before calming herself down and continued with her statement, "Do what I want and I'll go on a date with you"she said, imitating Gray's voice in mockery.

"Tch," she scoffed as she crossed her arms across her chest and huffed. The silence passed by them before Levy cleared her throat and began softly, "Is the sole reason why you hate him so much really just because of him?" she mumbled the words but loud enough for her best friend to hear.

"I…" Lucy spoke when suddenly she kept her head low, her hair creating shadows that covered her face, she stopped for a moment, which Levy did not fail to notice and hesitated before lifting her head once again, "I don't know what you mean, I hate him solely because he's a jerk." She stated regaining her confidence.

"But I guess you'd better start getting used to it," her best friend stated bluntly with a sad smile on her face, "I mean you may not like it but you are classmates with him-" she said before correcting herself, "them."

After another moment of silence, Lucy let out a sigh in defeat and agreed to what her best friend was saying. She did have a point after all, "But this doesn't mean I'll start liking them either," she pointed out and pouted, both of them started walking and headed back to their classroom.

"I never expected you to," Levy said in a teasing manner, "I mean who would even think of Lucy Heartfilia falling over one of the populars…right?"

"Of course, hmph!" the blonde replied in a childish-like manner. She turned around the corner and was about to head up the stairs before stopping and grinned. "Hey! Since we're here anyway, we should book our place in the Cafeteria,"

Apparently, Lucy had dragged Levy far down to reach the Cafeteria and since they expected the Cafeteria to be full on the first days of school, this would be a good opportunity to reserve a sit for their group. Levy nodded in approval and following her best friend, she made a u-turn and headed back to the floor they were on before, opening a door and entered the Cafeteria of the school.

They stepped on the red carpet that covered the entire floor of the room and walked down the path in the center, heading straight to the counter. Lucy noticed the Cafeteria had been repainted and looked a bit more renewed than before. The pillars had gold decorative edge and the border of the room was also painted gold. Not a bad change, she would say.

"Hi, how may I help you today?" a girl standing behind the counter asked as she smiled politely. Her hair was purple and short and she was wearing the uniform for staffs in the school.

"I want to make a reservation for 4 seats for lunch at 12 o'clock today," Lucy replied back with a smile.

The girl in return typed on the computer as she checked for available seats left and gestured towards the seats remaining, handing out a slip of paper in process. Levy took the slip and read it, "32" glancing around the room to search for their seats which turned out to be the one near the center of the room.

Just then, footsteps of shoes were heard, too heavy for a girl, Lucy thought and she turned back, greeted by the sight of one of the populars. She sighed and was about to walk away before a voice stopped her. "That was brave of you,"

Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy could see the faint smile and a glimpse of blue hair with a tattoo underneath his eyes. Just before walking away, she too smiled and muttered softly under her breath, "Thanks." With that, she left the Cafeteria together with her best friend.


Right after Lucy stormed out of the class, Gray had made a declaration that he will make the blonde fall for him. Soon after that, his friends joined in and it became a competition.

"But do you really think someone like her would fall for us?" Gajeel, who had his feet on top of his desk asked as he leaned against his chair.

"The real question is what if she falls for all of us?" the leader, Gray smirked as tapped his index finger on his desk while leaning against the palm of his hands.

Right now, the populars were sitting in a group, chairs and desk arranged in a way that looked like they were in a meeting. Their fan girls had returned to their own classes for fear of being late when the bell rings. So now, the class was still peaceful with only them and a couple of other guys who didn't care about their existence. I mean, Which guy would?

"Gajeel has a point though," the orange-haired playboy, Loke stated thoughtfully, "Think about it, she hates us. It would be hard to make her like us, much less fall for us."

"Didn't you know, there's a thin line between hate and love?" Laxus said as he crossed his arms across his chair and his feet placed on top of a desk, mimicking Gajeel's actions.

"I wonder why she hates us, did we ever do anything to her?" Gray asked as he tried remembering and came to a conclusion, "Nope, we definitely did not."

"Maybe it's because you were being a jerk to her just now." Gajeel replied with a smirk when a mischievous smile played on his lips, "And also got rejected."

Heat rose to the raven-haired's cheek as he placed the back of his hand to cover his face and looked away, "No I did not,"

"Yes you did, you offered her a date and she said no," Loke looked at him with amusement and glanced at his watch, "Where's Jellal? He's taking so long, it's almost bell."

"Maybe the Cafeteria is full and he had to queue up for making the reservations," Gray replied as he got up and placed his sit in the original seating arrangement of the class, the other member of the populars did the same and they sat down.

Students, one by one started to arrive in their class and as expected, the girls who came in squealed in excitement as they were in one class with not one, but all the populars. The guys however, did not bother with them at all and just headed with their seats.

Just then, Lucy and Levy entered the class, who gave Gray one glance and scoffed before heading to her own seat. Shortly afterwards, a familiar redhead entered the classroom, he hair loose and she walked in with her chest high and gave the populars one look, which showed no interest before heading to her seat which she chose, next to Lucy and Levy.

"Hey, who's that?" Loke whispered to Gray, "She's got the looks." He commented with a hint of interest in his voice before Gray stopped him.

"Erza Scarlet. That one's off limits though, she only has her eyes on one guy, as far as I know." Gray replied as both of them observed the redhead's movement.

"And who might that lucky man be?" the orange haired playboy asked playfully, with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

"Our own Jellal Fernandes," Gray responded with a smirk and laughed when Loke slumped back on his chair with a sigh of defeat, "Yeah you're right, that one's definitely off limits."

There was a moment of silence before Loke spoke again, "But if Jellal doesn't like her then-"

"They had a history together," Gray cut him off, knowing what he was about to say. Loke, in response abruptly leaned forward his desk, "They did?! So what's their status now?" he asked, intrigued.

"None, but there are still tensions between them."

"Is that why Jellal doesn't seem interested in the blonde nor other girls? Because of Erza Scarlet?" Loke asked in disbelief, trying to digest the information that he had just received.

"I don't know, Jellal never gave any details but he does react differently with her so I guess he never got over her."

"I wonder what happened,"

Speak of the devil, the door opened revealing the blue-haired they had just been talking about. He walked in with his hands inside his pockets and sat just behind Loke. "Why so long Jellal?" the playboy turned behind him and asked.

"Nothing," the blue-haired replied as he took out some books from his bag and placed it on his desk, arranging them neatly for the subject they're about to have.

"Hmm, if you say so.."


"So guess what Erza?" the bluenette bookworm asked excitedly as she saw the redhead entering the class and sitting next to her and her best friend.

The redhead or Erza, gave her a questioning look before Levy answered, "So this morning, something happened between Lucy and the populars."

"Really Lucy?" Erza asked and turned to Lucy, giving her a disbelief look. "What did you do to them?"

"Hey! Don't just assume I did something to them," the blonde pouted playfully at Erza who in turn, chuckled at her childishness.

Just before Levy could continue with her story, a familiar figure with long white hair approached them with a wave and a smile. "Hey Mira!" Lucy greeted, smiling back. Mira walked to an empty seat behind Erza and placed her bag down as she too, sat on her seat, joining the conversation. "So what's new?"

"Well as I was telling Erza just now…" Levy started, "Lucy did something unbelievable to one of the populars today,"

Mira, immediately turned to Lucy, her eyes literally twinkling as she started to squeal, "Did you kiss them?" Lucy looked at her in disbelief. Yes, this was one of her best friends, Mira, or Mirajane. She was the matchmaker of the group and she had the urge to ship Lucy with anyone, almost everyone.

"What? Of course no," Lucy waved her hand in defense and stated with distaste, "That will never happen in a million years Mira,"

"Hmm…you never know," Mira sang cheerfully as she turned back to Levy, "So what happened?"

"So…" Levy started once again and continued as the bell rang, "Gray asked her to book a place for the populars in the Cafeteria for lunch and Lucy, being herself, stood up to him and refused."

Before anyone could reply, Levy held a hand to stop them, "And that's not even the worse part!" She said, shaking her head in disapproval, "She kinda…mocked him,"

"Woah, you did?" Mira asked in surprised to which Erza responded, "As expected of Lucy," she said patting the said blonde on her shoulder as a sign of approval.

The door opened and the teacher entered, beginning the first class of the day.


"Waaahh, I can't believe school is dismissed early today," Lucy yawned and stretched her hands upward as she, together with Levy, Mira and Erza walked out of the school gates. "We didn't even get our lunch break." She whined.

"Hmmm…" Levy said thoughtfully, "I know! What about we go to this new café that has just opened up?" she suggested. The others took it into consideration before nodding.

"Well I was going to be picked up at the usual school dismissal time anyway," Erza shrugged and continued their conversation as they walked into a neighboring town, which looked like a shopping district. There were shops for stationeries, sports equipment and even the latest fashions on one side, and on the other side were ramen shops and snacking bars, even desert place. Turning around the corner, they reached the café Levy had talked about.

These areas were actually part of Fairy Tail Academy as the principal had bought the land so that students had an option of either eating here or the Cafeteria in school. It was better to keep choices open after all, this was also part of the reason why Fairy Tail Academy was a famous school.

With a push, the glass door opened and inside was designed classically. The floorboard were wooden floorboards and there were chairs as well as sofas and on the walls were clean, sparkling windows. Choosing a seat in the corner of the Café, near the window, all of them walked and sat down and started to look at the menu.

After a while of deciding what to order, Levy called the waiter and as they waited, a question popped.

"Why were we dismissed early anyway?"

There was a moment of silence before one of them spoke up, it was Mira. "There is a rumor going around the school," she whispered as if telling a secret and they leaned closer to hear her out. "Fairy Tail is going to combined with another school."

Erza gave her a confused look and asked, "Which school and why?"

"Well I don't know which school yet but all I know is that it's also as famous as Fairy Tail."

Levy shot a look at Lucy who bit her lips unconsciously and clutched the hem of her skirt tightly. "No…There is no way," the blonde thought to herself comfortingly.

"And why would that be happening again?" Levy asked as she raised her eyebrows.

"Well I can't tell you about that one,"

Levy gave her a puppy-dog's eyes and pouted before Mira finally gave in, "Fine, but shh kay?" she said and held her index finger against her lips.

"So in the meeting between Principals a month ago, there was a rumor that Master Makarov had challenge one of the principals saying that if his students came to Fairy Tail, they wouldn't be able to keep up with the lessons. It was meant to be a joke but the principal of that school took it seriously and decided to transfer their students to Fairy Tail for a short while." Mira finished her explanation with a sigh, "And today, they probably dismissed us because Master Makarov needs to go to that school together with teachers and decide how all of it would go."

There was another moment of silence as all of them tried to register the information being given to them before Erza nodded, "Master Makarov can be childish sometimes, hmm…"

"Well yeah but I mean-" Levy's word was cut off before she could finish it.

"Excuse me, may I take your order?"

All of them looked up to see the person who had interrupted their conversation. Seeing the waiter in front of them, Lucy was the first to react. She stood up and hugged him.

"I've missed you…"


Jleoxx: Well how was it? I'm sorry it took so long and for those of you who have read 'Step by Step' before, you probably know who it is. Not much fluff in this chapter but hey! There was some question that came up right? One of them is who is the person Lucy hugged, second would be which school and which student will transfer? Hehehe~

Replies to Reviews:

rolulove4ever: So, as a reader from the previous 'Step by Step', what do you think? Although, I added more plot and storyline tho… hmm..

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InnocentSorrow: We'll have to see that one for later, no spoiler remember?

Guest: Hahaha, me too! Thank you for reviewing by the way~

VA-fan-G-Girl-25: Well here you go, more of this~ Hahaha

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