Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)

New Job & Old Chateau, Part 1

After she had seen Natsu and Lisanna kiss right before her eyes on what was supposed to be a pretty great morning, Lucy had spent the entire night crying about the fact that Natsu had tricked her into believing that their relationship meant something to him. She was planning to leave the guild for the prospect of starting a new life, not wanting to see her cheating boyfriend try and make her happy like he was loyal to her, and Lucy wanted to go far away from him. After all, it would definitely not do her any good to stay in Fairy Tail while people would be trying to hide things from her. Fake friendships certainly were horrible, right?

It would truly be the perfect way to get payback on the people who had the nerve to keep Natsu's affair with Lisanna from reaching the ears of Lucy, and she would definitely not be sad to be leaving them behind. She was still mad at herself for putting so much trust into a guy who she had really liked, only for him to throw it all away because he thought that Lisanna was so much better, and Lucy never wanted to go through that kind of pain ever again. She could even bet that those two were sleeping together right now, happily cuddling together while sharing sweet kisses.

Lucy let out a sad sigh while she stared up at the ceiling, laying in her bed while she wore her cute pink pajamas. She definitely was angry with Natsu, but she was also having doubts about herself as well. If he had also liked Lisanna for being strong, then had Natsu always thought that Lucy was weak? A frown appeared on her face while she also had to wonder if that's what her former friends in the guild had thought as well. Lucy knew very well that she used ten of the Golden Zodiac Gate Keys to be able to get some assistance on jobs, but that did not make her completely weak.

She could only open up two gates at one time, draining most of her magical power and physical strength in the process, and the negative thoughts in her mind were preventing Lucy from going to sleep easily. The blonde mage did not exactly know that anger came with depression sometimes, and she turned on her side to stare out the window at the night sky while wondering about what she could do to improve herself. She did not want to become stronger to impress Natsu, but Lucy wanted to get better to show herself that she could change.

Narrowing her cocoa brown eyes, she kept remembering all of the times that Natsu always had to go somewhere. He was always leaving her in the mornings, or saying that he was going to be busy for a few hours, but he had always been sneaking around behind Lucy's back to be with Lisanna. He had wanted to break up with Lucy, but it wouldn't exactly be a good move for him to say that he was leaving Lucy to be with Lisanna. The celestial wizard felt really idiotic for always believing every single lie that the fire dragon slayer had sent her way, and she knew that the trust between them had now been broken.

As Lucy hated Natsu for deceiving her, she also had to keep thinking about her plan. If she had left without saying a word, that would surely make people get suspicious about her absence in the guild. However, she could always leave a note to someone that she had trusted. The only members who had not been in the guild earlier were Wendy and Carla, most likely having been out on a job at the time, and they also weren't really bent on remembering secrets about a person's love life. Wendy and Carla did not really care for love that much, but they had also stayed neutral to not get on the bad sides of Natsu or Lucy.

While it was good to know that Lucy could still consider those two as her possible friends in Fairy Tail, she also had to wonder if anybody would ever like her later on in the future. Lucy knew that there were decent guys and girls out there, but who was the one for her? She knew that there were many different personalities, since there were many people in Fiore, but what guy would truly be attracted to her? Also, would the person be faithful enough to not cheat or lie like Natsu? Lucy had to think about so many different factors that could affect a relationship, and she groaned in frustration while trying her best to fall asleep.

Lucy's depression had eventually lost out to her feelings of stress and fatigue, causing the blonde girl to pass out while she laid in her comfy bed, and she began sleeping soundly after a few minutes. While Lucy looked depressed as she slept, she did not even hear the sounds of glass breaking in the distance while her former guild seemed to be having a party for Natsu and Lisanna getting their 100th job done. The music had not been loud enough to be blaring in Lucy's ears, but she had been able to hear it before she lost consciousness. The guild had been rowdy, but not to the point where glass had ever been broken.

Resting comfortably in her bed, Lucy's body shivered while she could still feel the cold air that was inside her home. She opened her eyes while truly knowing that sleeping soundly was not possible right now, having an unhappy look on her face, and it was no surprise that Lucy did miss the love she had with Natsu. Being loved was a pretty good feeling that a girl could truly enjoy, and Lucy had really thought that Natsu could make her feel happy. He seemed to be such a great guy with a goofy grin on his face, always being so awesome on jobs, but his recent actions had really shattered Lucy's initial likeness towards the fire dragon slayer.

He had not only been seeing another girl behind Lucy's back, but Natsu had made people exclude her because they did not want to tell her about his secret love affair with Lisanna. More tears fell from Lucy's brown eyes while she felt really bad about her decision to date him. Judging by all of the emotions that were going through her head right now, it seemed like Lucy had really given her heart to Natsu. She had opened up her emotions and desire of love to him, really wanting to be the girl who could make him happy, but Natsu had just set her heart aflame. She had been so loyal and loving to him, and he just scorched her heart to burn her out of his love life while he could cuddle with Lisanna.

Lucy really had to wonder why things had to turn out like this, since she had never done a single thing to make Natsu dislike her, and she could only assume that he just wanted to date a girl who had everything that appealed to him. Well, what qualities would make him turn away from Lucy? It was true that she would've freaked out if he had told her that they should break up because of his feelings for Lisanna, but was that not a natural reaction? Lucy did tend to mess up on jobs sometimes, as well as getting kidnapped, making her sadly sigh while seeing that her flaws were getting in the way of Natsu having love for her.

Seven hours later...

Lucy woke up to the sound of her alarm clock ringing loudly, shaking while it was next to a stack of papers that the blonde girl had been writing for a new novel, and she shut off the alarm clock with her left hand. She sat up in the bed while letting out a loud yawn, and the sunlight shined down on Lucy's face. Daylight had now made her apartment look brighter, and Lucy stretched her body out while feeling her muscles click and pop. She raised her arms high above her head, and Lucy had hoped that today would be a better day than yesterday.

She had dreamed about nothing, really, since she had been so exhausted from the stress that her dense ex-boyfriend had caused her. Lucy even felt like it would be a good idea to go the guild, mainly for the purpose of telling him that she was going to be out of his life for a long time, but even seeing him with Lisanna would just make Lucy feel upset. Just because Lisanna was stronger and faster than Lucy was, that still did not give Natsu the right to cheat on her. Even if Lisanna was kinder, making him feel so happy in every moment that they were together, that did not mean Lucy couldn't have done the same.

She heard her stomach growl louder than normal, most likely because she did not have dinner last night, and Lucy made up for that mistake by quickly going to the kitchen for breakfast to be made. She took four waffles out of the freezer, putting them in the white toaster that was plugged in on the kitchen counter, and Lucy pulled the lever down to let her waffles go down into the toaster to be cooked to perfection. They were blueberry waffles as well, so they would certainly be tasting delicious after they were done.

While the waffles were getting heated up, Lucy smiled a bit as she remembered that a message had to be left to Wendy and Carla. They were still her friends, after all, and Lucy wanted them to know that she was still their friend as well. She had a calm look in her cocoa brown eyes while she went back to her desk to get a pen, and Lucy also got a blank piece of paper to write on. She knew that the members of Team Natsu were most likely expecting her to be at the guild in 55 minutes, so Lucy wrote the letter fast while she also knew that she had to be neat with her penmanship.

Even though she knew perfectly well that the members of Team Natsu would not even really care to see her, since Natsu and Lisanna would probably be making out like a happy couple, Lucy knew that she had another issue on her plate right now. Her rent of 70,000 jewels was due tomorrow, and she had currently saved up a mere 20,000 jewels for the purpose of paying rent. That was certainly not a sufficient amount of money for her to keep living in her cute apartment, and spending money to buy Natsu gifts had also been quite a bad idea. After all, he wasn't exactly a faithful boyfriend.

However, earning 50,000 or more from one job was easier said than done for one person. Jobs that offered high amounts of money were usually S-Class jobs or possibly A-Class jobs with the risk of severe danger, and they normally required the captures or death of outlaws in Fiore because those people had committed heinous crimes. Some outlaws had high bounties on their heads for running illegal guilds or street gangs that loved to beat up people, but some outlaws were merely just thieves who were really good at stealing money or expensive artifacts. Either way, they were people who had to be brought down by mages from legal guilds.

Lucy took a moment to think about asking Gray or Erza for help with whatever job that she had to do, but they would probably just shrug off her request because they wanted to spend time around the cute Lisanna. She did have that habit of using her cute smile and beautiful blue eyes in unison with a pink blush of happiness that would appear on her cheeks to make her friends be happy to be around her, and it had always worked. It worked very well, especially on Natsu, and that made Lucy give up on the idea of asking Team Natsu for help. Besides, weren't they supposed to win a trip to a resort or something?

Deciding that this job would have to be done on her own, as everyone else would probably be busy or think she was crazy to ask them for help with capturing a vicious outlaw, Lucy narrowed her cocoa brown eyes while starting to look determined about taking on this task. She clenched her fists tightly while her eyes began to switch to a more confident look, and a smile formed on her face. She was not going to be weak on this job or struggle at it, even if she could only use her Celestial Spirits, and Lucy was about to walk out the door before the sound of her waffles popping up out of the toaster had reached her ears.

She looked a bit embarrassed to have almost forgotten about the delicious waffles that she had made for breakfast, and Lucy quickly went back to the kitchen to unplug the toaster. She used a silver fork to stab the waffles, before using the fork to pull them up out of the toaster that was cooling down, and Lucy put all the waffles down on to the kitchen counter. She proceeded to pick them up with her left hand, and Lucy put one of the waffles in her mouth while she was running towards the front door. She had picked up her ten Celestial Spirit Keys from the brown coffee table on her way out, and Lucy did not even care that she was still in her pink pajamas.

55 minutes later, at the Fairy Tail guild...

Arriving at her usual time of 8:10 a.m., after eating her waffles, Lucy opened the guild's entrance doors to see that Team Natsu looked like they were ready for that trip to the resort. Gray wasn't wearing a shirt, which made Juvia stare at him with a happy pink blush on her face while she also wanted to come along, and Erza wore a black bikini that showed off the sexy curves of her body. Natsu had been shirtless while wearing only his red shorts, as he seemed to be quite excited to have fun at a luxurious resort, and his girlfriend Lisanna was wearing a pink bikini that showed off most of her cleavage while it made her curves look quite sexy.

Lucy tried her best to ignore her former teammates while she made her way to the request board, as she needed to find a good job that could greatly help her pay the rent for this month, and she let her mind focus on which job would be great for her to take. There were many flyers on the request board, some of them having jobs that involved gardening, and there were other flyers on the board for jobs that required treasures to be found. The jobs that involved capturing or killing outlaws were also on the request board, and some of the bounties on certain people's heads were quite high.

There was a flyer featuring a purple-haired mage who had defected from a guild because he couldn't do any illegal things, and he used Darkness Magic. That type of magic was said to be really destructive, even when it wasn't enhanced, and Lucy did not want to risk getting killed for 450,000 jewels. She spotted another flyer that requested the death of a black-haired woman who had killed many people with Water Magic and Ice Magic for the sake of stealing many vast amounts of great treasure, and she was an S-Class criminal. Even with the strength of Aquarius, Lucy would not risk her life for 780,000 jewels.

Her eyes suddenly caught sight of a flyer with a picture of a green-haired woman on it, and Lucy began to read the flyer to herself. This job involved the capture of a woman named Melissa Venteux, a former mage of a legal guild known as Ivy Kinoyama, and Melissa had a bounty of 300,000 on her head because of the fact that she was said to only destroy whoever got on her nerves. Melissa had been rumored to be seen in the town of Eterna while she had let someone with a big mouth in on the fact that she lived in the Old Chateau that had been at the northern part of the forest that stood quite close to the town, so tracking her down would be quite easy.

Lucy could only smile at the fact that this job was perfect for her to handle, as the flyer itself said that Melissa lived in an Old Chateau, and it wasn't going to be done in some deadly volcano or harsh temple in a desert. Lucy also knew that Aquarius and Loke were strong enough to handle tough opponents, so there would be no need for her to worry. As she unpinned the flyer and took it off of the request board, Lucy turned around quickly to see Natsu right in front of her. He was not sitting at the table with everyone else, and Lucy could see Lisanna smiling at Natsu while the fire dragon slayer had a happy grin on his face. Really, did he seriously think she was still fooled?

"Hey, Luce! Listen, me and the others are going to have fun at a resort. In case any trouble comes up, we have to kick you off of the team now. You're just weak, and I always have to end up saving you. You're a burden." Natsu told her with his happy grin, thinking that she hadn't eavesdropped on him yesterday.

Lisanna added while she walked over to Natsu, before gently kissing his cheek and pressing her body against his, "We hope you're okay with me taking your spot on the team, Lucy. I think our team will be good on jobs as well, since Natsu and I work well together."

Lucy tried her best to not react, as Natsu and his white-haired girlfriend were probably trying to rile her up, and she clenched her fists tightly. She was trying her best not to cry, as Natsu proceeded to let his left hand gently caress Lisanna's rear, and Lucy knew that her ex-boyfriend never did that to her when they had dated for 13 months. She noticed that Natsu and Lisanna even had large sundaes on the table, and she could hear the blue-eyed girl whisper about how Natsu was never cheap with her. Wow, and yet he had never really bought much stuff for Lucy? At least he knew how to treat a woman right, but it seemed like that only mattered when he had been cheating.

She even saw Natsu press his lips against Lisanna's to show the great love in their relationship, and Lucy could only close her eyes in frustration while feeling like Natsu had stomped on her heart once again. Lucy was not someone who had really learned how to harden her emotions or be cold enough to do things without feeling anything at all, and she really did not want to start crying in front of everyone. She was in shock right now while she had trembled from now seeing Lisanna put her tongue in Natsu's mouth while his hands were starting to rub her back, and Lucy just couldn't handle seeing how Natsu and Lisanna were in love.

The blonde-haired girl attempted to avert her eyes to another part of the guild while Natsu accidentally fell on top of Lisanna, and she asked Erza about the situation. The scarlet-haired mage told her friend that she hit Natsu on the head for accidentally blurting out his intentions earlier, but she did think about the fact that Lucy was not as strong as Lisanna. The white-haired girl's claws in her Tigress Take-Over could slice through hard metal with ease, as Lisanna had been training quite a lot for the sake of impressing Natsu, and Erza thought that Lucy was just not on par with Lisanna.

With three responses that were against having her on the team, Lucy let out a saddened sigh and simply walked out of the guild with the flyer that she had gotten off of the request board. She chose not to ask Gray for his opinion, as he was too busy being surprised by Juvia saying she wanted to marry him soon, and even the blue-haired woman may have thought that Lucy was weak. Lucy could now officially confirm that she wasn't suited to be on Team Natsu, and her blonde hair covered her brown eyes while she simply ran all the way to the town of Eterna to handle the job she had picked out. Getting two-hundred thousand jewels could probably make anyone feel better, right?

20 minutes later...

The forest of Eterna had not been quite far from Magnolia, as some people would go out of the Fairy Tail guild to collect some honey from golden-colored trees that were slathered with it, and some people from Magnolia would end up running back to town quite quickly because the bees were quite possessive of their honey. Even Natsu's Fire Dragon's Roar would be dangerous to use against the bees, since some mages wielding Honey Magic would put explosive paper on the trees, and the honey trees would explode in large gushes of honey. Even if the bees would get stuck in it, flames or explosions could certainly cause a great amount of damage to the forest.

Lucy had cut through the nearby city of Eterna to reach the Old Chateau in Eterna Forest, seeing it to be an abandoned manor house that had fallen into a state of disrepair, and she could only stand still in a state of nervousness while her bare feet gently touched the green grass. The brown-eyed mage was quite surprised to see that the house had four broken front windows, the glass nowhere in sight, and that helped Lucy see that the damage was not recent. This place had most likely been abandoned for a few years, so it didn't seem like there would be any wild gangs inside the chateau.

She pulled out the Celestial Spirit Keys of Aquarius and Loke from the left pocket of her pink pajama pants, since they would probably be the most useful spirits to summon in this situation, and Lucy walked towards the Old Chateau while trying to put a brave look on her face. She was off of Team Natsu now, so why would Erza or Gray even want to help her out on this mission? It's not like she would need their help to take out an enemy that only got irritated by people who got on her nerves, so what would Lucy even have to worry about? This job was possibly going to be quite easy, based on how the amount of reward money made the job seem to be at a low difficulty.

Lucy kept walking towards the chateau's brown wooden entrance doors, preparing to open the old-looking doors that seemed to squeak from the slightest breeze of wind, and she prepared to simply knock. However, she was surprised to see the doors quickly open up to let an abnormal gust of wind pull her into the chateau! Lucy was caught off guard by this, before being thrown into a creepy-looking foyer that had large broken paintings on the second floor, and the wooden floor creaked quite loudly when she landed on it. She quickly got up to try and leave, but a gust of wind appeared above her head to slam the brown doors shut.

This was obviously not natural, as wind couldn't suddenly appear from two different directions to open and close a door, but Lucy slowly stood up to see that the wind obviously belonged to someone. She saw a woman walk through the dark doorway of what appeared to be a dark dining room behind her, and this woman had short green hair with fringes framing her face. Her skin was fair, and her eyes were emerald green. She wore a simple green shirt with a black miniskirt, and this woman wore some dark green flat shoes as well. She looked straight at Lucy, before smirking a bit, and she began to giggle.

"Well, hello! Bonjour, stupide magicien! I am Melissa Venteux, a high-level criminal who loves to use the Wind Magic at great levels, and I must assume that you are the one who has come to stop me. You must be warned, fille mignonne. I am quite strong, and I can blow you away. Enfin, I can now show off new techniques!" Melissa told Lucy in quite a delighted tone while speaking in a lovely French accent.

Lucy replied in a confident tone while pulling out two of her Celestial Spirit Keys, her brown eyes starting to be filled with determination, "I don't understand some of the things you said, but I'm here to stop you from hurting anyone! After all, the flyer says you defected from Ivy Kinoyama! Prepare to lose!"

Lucy opened the Gate of the Lion, which summoned Loke, and the orange-haired man appeared in front of Lucy while he wore his fancy black suit with black pants to match. He wore some dark shoes as well, and the man wearing glasses happily smiled at Lucy while winking at her in a flirty manner. Lucy was not exactly liking his flirting, and she confidently told him to start off the Regulus Impact spell that was affiliated with his Regulus Magic. Loke smiled at this idea, before glaring at Melissa with the intent to defeat her in one hit, and he proceeded to use the Regulus Impact attack.

Loke adjusted his glasses, before creating a large lion's head out of golden light that had engulfed his hand, and he sent it straight towards Melissa. She scoffed a bit, before simply exhaling a gust of wind that headed straight for Loke's attack, and the two spells collided quickly to make an average-sized smokescreen appear in midair. They created a weak gale of wind, before the smoke quickly cleared up, and the green-haired antagonist decided to strike Lucy with some moves that weren't going to be easy to analyze. In fact, Lucy had no idea about what would come next.

Melissa put her hands together, before using a spell known as Windy Reign, and this move caused three mint green rings of wind to float in front of her in midair. She exhaled air to blow them all straight towards Lucy, but Loke was quick enough to try and punch two of the rings away from their intended target. While it was a good move, however, punching those wind rings resulted in two large mint green blasts of Wind Magic surrounding Loke! The orange-haired man screamed in pain from this attack, as he could feel that its power level was higher than what it normally should've been, and Melissa was no ordinary mage. The last ring ended up striking Lucy in a large green blast of Wind Magic, and she screamed in pain from how it really hurt.

She quickly followed up with a spell known as Garu Elwind, and this spell allowed Melissa to shoot out a mint green arrow of wind from her mouth. It began to spin at high speeds while it flew through the air, purposely dodging Loke for the sake of gaining more momentum, and it did this five more times before it struck him right in the stomach! A large mint green blast of energy transpired around Loke, causing him to scream in pain once more, and Lucy could only look stunned from how Melissa evilly told her that she had been using magic from green tomes that had been enhanced in power by a man who worked in an armory. (Nice reference to Fire Emblem, huh?)

Loke groaned in pain from the arrow that had struck him, as it had spun its way into his stomach to create a serious injury, and the man wearing the fancy black suit could only give Lucy an apologetic look while he was sent back to the Celestial Spirit World. Lucy could only start to shake in fear, her shoulders shivering while Melissa's emerald green eyes were filled with an intent to kill, and the blonde-haired mage decided to try running up the stairs to the chateau's second floor to figure out some kind of strategy for taking Melissa down. Having some time to think would be helpful, after all.

Before Lucy could reach the top of the left staircase, however, Melissa appeared in front of her with a disappointed look on her face. She was hoping that Lucy would be more of a challenge, but that as not the case. Melissa decided to use a new move known as Aerial Drill Kick, and this spell simply caused two mint green drills to engulf her feet. They were made out of wind, and Melissa simply kicked Lucy in the chin with her left foot while sending her high up into the air! The drill that surrounded her left foot had now left her foot, before it headed straight towards Lucy, and a huge mint green blast of wind energy transpired when it hit the Celestial Spirit Wizard in her abdomen!

She could be heard screaming in intense pain, as this attack seemed to be at a higher power level than Melissa's attacks in the Elwind stage, and Lucy could only groan in frustration while remembering how Erza once spoke of how there were higher levels beyond regular types of magic. She never thought that she'd experience it firsthand, though, and the bounty on that flyer was way too low for someone like Melissa. The Wind Magic that she recently switched to was most likely Arcwind, which was two stages higher than standard Wind Magic, and this was bad news for Lucy.

To make matters worse, Melissa kept moving at high speeds. As Lucy fell to the ground, she looked a bit worried while she attempted to summon a Celestial Spirit to aid her in this battle. She could hear Melissa dashing around at rapid speeds to confound her foe, and Lucy coughed up some blood when she had hit the ground hard. She could feel some of her bones crack from hitting the wooden floor so hard, and she struggled to stand up because of how she was in so much pain. Lucy tried to stand up, only to be horrified from seeing Melissa quickly appear in front of her to deliver a wind-infused punch to her stomach.

Lucy was sent flying backwards, landing next to the right side of the doorway to the chateau's dining room, and she found it very difficult to move. She was not weak, but Melissa was far too strong. The green-haired girl was also too fast, and Lucy did not have the stamina to run at extremely high speeds. To put it simply, she was dealing with a foe who was way out of her league. Lucy could only feign unconsciousness while Melissa walked towards her, falling forward while pretending to be dead, and she had hoped this tough fight would not end in her death. After all, a merciless person like Melissa had to be an A-Class outlaw.

The woman with emerald green eyes told Lucy in a calm tone while standing over her, taking notice of the pink guild mark on the blonde-haired girl's right hand, "Well, it looks like my plan of sending Fairy Tail a fake flyer with fake info on me has worked. Poor little girl. It must really suck to be such a weakling, and I only have Elwind-level and Arcwind-level spells of Wind Magic at my disposal. The higher levels would've instantly killed you and your little spirits, but at least you're dead now. Now, no one can stop me from becoming a rebellious mage who is très magnifique!"

Before Melissa could really even celebrate this one victory as her possible stepping stone to greatness, the brown front doors of the Old Chateau were kicked down by a certain blond-haired male with spiky hair. He stood next to a male who had messy black hair, and these two mages had stern looks on their faces while they had caused a large amount of daylight to enter the chateau. Melissa had no idea who these people even were, as she widened her emerald green eyes in shock, but Lucy opened her eyes to see two people who she recognized. She could only let her lips form a happy smile on her face, before she passed out from exhaustion.

How was Chapter 2? Did you like it? Just for the record, I made Lucy only use one Celestial Spirit to show how she'll rise from being weak to being strong. Also, some characters in this story will stay because of their praise from many people who messaged me about the story. It may seem like nothing has changed, but the next few chapters will have some rewrites. Some story lines may even be fully rewritten. Anyway, standby for the update!