Replaced

Lisanna's back and Lucy feels left out. Natsu wants Lisanna back on his team. What about Lucy?


Sorry that It's late. I got back from two party's yesterday and went swimming, so I completely forgot and fell asleep. Thank you ShiningStellar for reminding me. This chapter has a little action, but the next is where it really starts. Thanks for being patient with me. Please review!


Chapter 4- Reaching The New Home

"How much longer are we going to travel?" Lucy almost whined. They'd been on the road for almost five weeks now and he was sure that they were no longer in the same country. "We've been traveling for so long already. How far away did you live?" She asked. They were in a desert like place. It had no living trees and no grass. She had yet to see any animals.

"We still have about two more days Lucy. Quit complaining. You'll learn patience that way." Uma said calmly. Even Hisoka hadn't complained yet, she was the only one whining really. Hisoka had barely spoken a word to her throughout this whole trip. Lucy wasn't very thrilled about the way they were traveling because they only stopped at inns to get water, they never stayed the night at them. They slept in the wild and bathed in the river that was quite cold by the way.

They even hunted for food. The day before they'd entered this desert, they had spent the whole day gathering game and plants. The only thing she'd learned this whole trip was how to shoot a bow, and the bow she'd used was too big and heavy for her. Even so, she managed to get a deer. She had to have Uma slit its throat because she was queasy about killing animals. Even when she'd been with her old team, she always plugged her ears and turned away when they killed an animal, which was on rare occasions.

Hisoka had found different herbs and berries while Lucy had devoted herself to catching fish. Uma ended up doing all the gutting of the animals they'd caught. Lucy also learned how to smoke a fish. All the food was on top of the carriage now and the water barrels were in the back compartment of the carriage, out of the sun. This desert was hell a hot and she felt like her skin was going to melt at any moment.

Despite the heat of the day, the nights were freezing cold, and because of this, they normally traveled at dawn and continued on until the sky was dark again. This desert made Lucy glad that she had brought her bathing suit because if she was going to get burned, she'd rather get burned everywhere and have it turn into a tan, or just tan period. Despite all the crazy things she'd done so far, Uma was sensible enough to have brought sun screen.

"Lucy, don't let your guard down. We're entering bandit territory." Uma warned.

"Oh joy." Her voice sounded pleasantly, sarcastically, thrilled as she sat up and turned around so that she could watch their tail. When they stopped for the night, they had yet to run into any thugs. They took turns with the watch and by the time the morning came, Lucy was half asleep. Having so little sleep before this didn't help either.

They had just started off when Hisoka yelled something incoherent to her. Lucy managed to look and see that there was something coming towards them. She groaned and slapped at her face. It didn't work. Even pinching herself didn't work to wake her up anymore. The pounding of the horses feet was now heard clearly and the noise seemed to help with waking her up. Lucy was now able to function to the point where she could fight.

She had a hand on her key pouch and was ready to call out one of her spirits. There were about five people coming towards them on horseback. Lucy glanced over at Uma and Hisoka. Uma had her cane and the reins in her hands and Hisoka had, what looked like, a short sword in his hands. Uma was trying to outrun the bandits. Lucy watched the bandits follow them and get closer to their carriage. They were yelling in some other language that she couldn't understand.

Either that or she was just too tired to be able to translate it into proper Japanese. She was able to snap out of it when she hit her head on the carriage railing. Out of fright, she grasped the railing and clung to the side of the fast moving carriage.

"Haha! Pretty little girl." One of the bandits riding alongside her said. Her eye twitched.

"Virgo, I summon thee!" she shouted, pulling out the key. Virgo appeared on top of the carriage. "Take care of these guys please." she said.

"Yes princess." Virgo was then gone.

"You could at least help me up!" Lucy shouted.

"Looks like your friend abandoned you." the guy laughed and reached for her.

Lucy then grinned and pointed behind the guy. "I don't think so." Virgo then hit the guy from behind and he fell off his horse. Lucy grabbed the reins and the horse kept following the carriage. With a little help from Virgo, she was able to get on top of the horse and ride it. "Thanks Virgo." she said dismissing her. "Cancer!" The crab guy then came out. "Will you help Uma and Hisoka-kun? I'll take care of the guys in the back."

"Yes-ebi." He said. Lucy maneuvered the horse so that it was running behind the carriage. There were three bandits back here and one was about to get on the carriage. "No you don't." Lucy said, using her whip to yank the guy from the carriage. He got run over by one of the horses and the guy's horse just kept running along with the carriage. Lucy grabbed for the reins of the free horse, but at the same time, one of the other bandits reached for them as well. They both reached the reins at the same time.

Lucy looked at the guy over the horse's neck and smiled. "Could you let go please?" She asked him.

"Who do you think I am?" The guy asked laughing.

"An idiot." She said, pointing in front of him. Uma had lead the carriage into a canyon where there were lots of twists and turns. Currently, an overhanging rock just took out the guy and she got the horse. "Thanks." She called after him. Just then, the third bandit grabbed her from behind by the hair. She hadn't anticipated this so she was caught completely off guard.

"Gotcha little girl." The man sneered.

"Ew. You need to brush." She said to the guy. His breath stank and she could see his rotting teeth. "Here goes nothing. Leo!" She knew that it was a big risk to call out two golden keys at once, but it was the only thing she could do in a situation like this.

"Here at your service princess- what are you doing!" Loki punched the thug and sent him flying.

"Thanks Loki." Lucy said. She could feel the strain the summoning was putting on her. Before Loki could say anything more, he disappeared and she expected that Cancer was gone too. She was drained of magic. Lucy tied the three horses to the carriage and made sure to leave enough room for them to slow down. Then she crawled on top of the carriage to see how Uma and Hisoka were fairing. There were no more bandits in sight.

"Uma, they're gone." She had to shout for Uma to hear her and Uma instantly brought the two horses pulling the carriage to a halt. The horses that were tied to the back almost ran into the carriage and protested by whinnying really loudly.

"I thought you said that they were gone?" Uma said.

"They are. Those are their horses that I caught." Lucy reassured.

Hisoka looked back and then nodded at Uma to confirm it. "Alright then." Uma said, calming down a little. Lucy say that Hisoka had a pair of reins in his hands that connected to the fifth horse. "Well, now that we have more horses, they can carry some of the weight and we can get out of here faster, but before we do so, we need to let them cool down." Uma said, looking around for some cover. Since the canyons were so tall, they provided a nice shady spot everywhere, but they needed to find a place where they were out of sight from other bandits that may be passing by.

They probably weren't going to find one. Lucy saw the dilemma as well. Despite her low magic supply, she called out Virgo. "Virgo, I summon thee." She said in a weak voice.

"Do you wish to punish me princess?" was the first thing out of her mouth.

"No. Could you please make a hidden cavern in the canyon so that we can all rest and be out of sight?" Lucy asked. She thought she was going to pass out soon.

"Yes princess." Virgo got right to work on the cave. Things started to disproportion themselves and before long, she saw the canyon ground coming up to meet her.


Things were terribly out of order. Everyone was standing on the ceiling, drinking their food and eating their drinks. Natsu was crying, Erza was cowering, Wendy and Mira were creating havoc ans starting fights. Master was wearing a nun's robe. "What's going on?" Lucy asked. Every head turned to her and they frowned.

"Why are you here? Didn't you leave the guild?" Lisanna asked, coming up and putting an arm around her shoulders.

"I didn't leave, I'm going to come back after I get stronger." Lucy defended.

"Then where's your sign?" Erza asked, also coming up and putting an arm around her shoulders.

"Master hid it so that I could have access to other places that members of a guild aren't allowed." Where did that answer come from?

"We don't need people who give up their sign of Fairy Tail. We don't need you Lucy." Natsu said. Lucy stared at him as he walked up to her. Why did Natsu have to be the one to say something like that? Natsu's hand was then engulfed in fire and was shoved through her body. "We don't need you. You're useless to us and only hold us back. You just need to disappear Lucy." Natsu's voice was a twisted evil sound. Erza and Lisanna were choking her and stabbing her with swords and knives.

Lucy sat bolt right up. She was sweating bullets and breathing hard. Looking at her trembling hands, she brought one to her face and slapped herself. It was just a dream. A bad dream. It wasn't real. Fairy Tail didn't hate her and Master wasn't wearing a nun's robe.

"Lucy, you okay?" Uma's voice sounded behind her. Turning around, Lucy saw Uma and Hisoka eating some of the deer jerky they had made before entering the desert. "Lucy?"

"Y-yeah. Just had a bad dream, that's all." Lucy assured, getting to her feet and joining their little circle. "How long was I asleep?" Hisoka handed her a piece of the dried meat.

"About an hour, give or take a few minutes." Uma said. "You depleted your magic didn't you?"

What happened to beating around the bush? "Yeah. I can't summon more than one golden key at a time or else my magic drains almost instantly and I can't help myself very much either. When I was on a team, I always did the guarding, not the fighting. I would avoid fighting as much as possible because I suck at it."

"Don't do it again." Uma said. "You could kill yourself doing that."

"I'm sorry." Lucy lowered the piece of meat and hung her head.

"Don't you get all mopey on me. We still need to load the other horses with supplies and get out of here." Uma said, getting to her feet.

Lucy shoved the rest of the jerky into her mouth and followed Uma. It took some time to load things onto the horses, but they got it done within an hour. Lucy and Hisoka got to have their own horses to ride, thought they still carried something. They left right after noon. The ride was mostly silent because they didn't want to attract unnecessary attention, but Lucy sighted a thick, jungle-like forest before the sun starting setting.

"Yay, vegetation." Lucy cheered. Uma laughed and Hisoka smiled at her reaction. It was cooling down by the time they reached the forest edge. "It's so thick. How are we supposed to get through?" She asked, looking at the thickness of the trees and vines. The ground vegetation was thick too.

"Just watch." Uma said. "Open the way to my grandmother's cave and allow a humble traveler to be saved." Uma's voice echoed through the jungle and at first nothing happened, but then the trees began to creak and groan as they cleared a path and the plants on the ground crept out of the way to allow for the carriage to pass. Uma clicked and urged the horse forward onto the path. Hisoka followed after, looking around in excitement. Lucy followed behind the others and looked back when she heard the groaning of the trees again. They were closing up and returning to their original positions.

It was like a giant air bubble as they traveled through the forest. It would clear a path up front and close when they had all passed. Uma seemed to be used to the way the jungle was parting while Hisoka and Lucy looked all around in awe and astonishment. Then the forest stopped parting and before them stood an immense, tall, mossy tree. The roots look liked they had pushed the trunk of the tree from the soil into the sky. Through the roots, it looked like a maze without an end.

"This way." Uma said and went through the widest opening in the roots, then she stopped the carriage and got down form the driver's seat. "Here we are." She said, looking around and holding her arms out. "This is where I learned to use magic and this is where you will learn to use it the right way, both of you."

"Wow. It's huge." Lucy commented as she dismounted from her horse.

Uma held out her hand. Lucy looked at it blankly. "Give me your keys. You're not allowed to use them until you master the basics of magic. Hisoka, your staff too."

"Why?" They asked in unison.

"Because you'll never be able to use them properly anyway unless you learn the right way to use magic, as I said earlier." Uma said. "Now give." Lucy undid her belt and sild her key pouch off of it. Setting it in Uma's outstretched hand, she redid her belt and watched as Hisoka gave Uma his staff that I hadn't seen until now.

"We start first thing tomorrow morning. Right now, we unpack everything and let the horses rest. Hisoka, I'll show you where to put them later. Let's unload them first." Lucy began to undo the straps on her horse's pack and take everything off. When she had gotten it down to the leather, she was blank. What now? She'd never touched a horse in her life.

"Um, Uma, what do I do now?" She asked, looking over the horse's back at Uma who was setting the saddle of the horse she had unloaded on a root. She looked up at Lucy and frowned.

"You have to take off the saddle and reins girl. You're not done with the horse." Uma told her.

"But how do I do that?" Lucy asked, emphasizing the second 'do'.

Uma stared at the blonde and blinked. "You don't know how to unsaddle a horse?" Her voice had a tone of disbelief.

"Uh, no. I've never touched a horse before." Uma sighed and hobbled over with her cane at her side. Lucy still noticed how she never used it for a support like most old people did.

"Like this." Uma showed Lucy how to take off the saddle and reins and showed her how to hang them up.

By the time they finished unloading the carriage and put he horses away, it was nearly eleven. They finally laid down in real beds for the first time in a long month. Lucy was asleep within seconds and everybody else followed soon after.


Just a random fact, my dictionary didn't know mage was a word. Thanks again for your patience and sorry that it's late. Please review~ Thanks! ^/ . \^