3 years later

Lucy's POV

BANG

I woke with a start, it took me a second to gauge my surroundings. I was in my bed, I could tell because although the room was dark, it smelled of me, or rather Layla. Strange how accustomed i had become to assuming a whole different life.

I felt a rustle at my hip and saw a figure turn, one who's sleep was no doubt disturbed by whatever ruckus those idiots downstairs were making. The person next to me was my salvation, the reason i hadn't let myself succom to death years ago. We both had no one, we both could have no one, so it made sence that that we found each other and became each others everything. I was perfectly aware how doomed this was, but i could never stop myself from loving ever second of our time together.

I leaned over to place a kiss on the cheek beside me, once again marveling at my luck, and cursing my stupidity.

I slowly crawled out of the bed, trying not to wake the one I shared it with. A groan told me I had not succeeded.

"Where are you going?" I could hear the sleep in the voice, as well as the whine.

"Downstairs, to stop those morons before they bring the building down."

"Well, I'm going back to sleep," the indignancy in that statement made me smile.

"Sweet dreams," I murmured before I slipped out the door.

I made my way down the hall to the stairs of the my inn to the bar, seeing some idiot trying to prove how strong her was by trying to drink my liquor suppy. It appeared as though they had been at it awhile, considering the fact that I remember this lot from the shift last night.

"You know, boys, that even if you can't keep that liquor down, you'll still have to pay for it, right?" I asked, an eyebrow raised at the antics below.

"Yes, Mother." they coursed.

I smiled at that, ignoring that stupid nickname, and scanned the room before my eyes rested on a familiar face. I ambled over to him, too tired still to assume an intimidating stride.

He turned and smiled at me, "What do you want mother?"

I groaned, "Not you too"

He just smiled, "Well you can hardly blame us, you fit the role perfectly, even when your trying to avoid it."

I rolled my eyes, choosing to ignore that statement, "Listen you do me a favor and check in on-"

"The love of your life? Always, you going to go check on the vault?" He smiled indulgently.

"Yes, and I wish everyone would stop calling it that."

"Well, it has enough security to rival any bank vault in Fiore." He reasoned.

I ignored that too, mostly because it was true, "Thanks Jellal.

"Anything for you, Lucy."

I scowled at the name, he never would call me Layla. That was the strange thing about him, he'd lay his life down for me in an instant, but calling me by a false name was too much. I suppose he didn't approve of my deceit, whether to my old life or my new one was anyone's guess.

I moved past him, braiding my hip long black hair as i went, making my way to 'the vault', as everyone so affectionately called it. It had more security, civilian or magical, than anything else in probably the whole of Fiore, even without the mages that lived in the building around it. For inside held the most precious cargo.

We worked hard to keep the exact contents a secret, never mentioning it directly, but with code words, even amongst each other. We all were afraid to find out what would happen if they fell into the wrong hands. Only those who had earned my trust were allowed to know the exact nature of it's contents.

I stared around the room adoringly before my bask was cut short by a bone-chilling sound- the alarm.

I flung the door closed as I ran out, strengthening the enchantments to maximum before I made my way to the bar.

"Whats going on?" I screamed. Desperate to know why my peaceful morning was so quickly turning bad.

Bella, a green Exceed came up to me, "Dark guild attacking," she panted, looking as scared as I'd ever seen her.

"Which one?"

"All of them," her eyes were haunted.

"Call the council," I ordered her. I turned to the room seeing many mages turning to me for orders, "Emergency measures, two groups, one holds off the guilds, the other gets civilians to safety. When the second group is done reinforce that first!" They burst into action, as i did as well I couldn't help but contemplate the people i was now surrounded with. They were all guildless, freelance mages that either chose to work alone or had histories so terrible that no guild would take them. They all found their way here, eventually, and although some might say I shouldn't i trusted them with the lives of every single person in this forgotten village.

We all roared as we entered the fray, none of us flinching at their superior numbers, after all we couldn't afford to not, not with something so precious to protect.

Damn it all if we weren't going down without on hell of a fight.

Natsu's POV

I stared into the mug of whiskey in front of me, not even acknowledging it was barely 6 in the morning. It seemed lately i was drinking more and more, soon I might even give Cana some competition. I couldn't help it, being without her everyday made everything unbearable. Alcohol helped.

Everyone knew I had changed sence Lucy left, hell even I knew. I had stopped picking fights with Gray for god's sake. Erza no longer scared me, I wasn't nearly so loud, I did the job and used the money to slowly drink myself to death.

I could tell they were worried about me, but I had grown so numb to everything that it no longer mattered.

I could still see her, she haunted me. I saw her everywhere, I smelled her sent and then it hurt so bad when i realized it was all in my head. I had stopped searching for her, but no matter how hard i tried I couldn't forget her.

I heard a bang as Master Marakov rushed out of his office, looking more worried than I had ever seen him.

"Everyone! Get ready for battle, the council is using a teleport to transfer all available mages into the fight."

Everyone jumped into action, Erza came forward and asked, "Where and who are we fighting?"

"A little town in the middle of a forest and the dark guilds."

"Which dark guilds?" Erza asked, almost looking worried.

"All of them." Before we had time to even process those three words we were all suddenly bathed in light, when the light faded we found ourselves in a war zone.

I grinned, feeling the rush of adrenaline burn through my veins as I jumped into the fray.