I apologize for my year-long absence; I had to use the bathroom. As always I claim not to own Fairy Tail, and present you the decachapter.

Previously on Earth: Levy's still in Colorado and has gotten quite buddy-buddy with the members of the Blood Waves gang, they even helped her retrieve Lucy's secret message and send one back! Meanwhile, Gray is tagging along with yet another member of Blood Waves, Spike, in a small plane across the cornfields of Illinois. Natsu found himself hijacking a family's minivan at the well-loved Disney Land, and makes a hasty escape, causing quite the stir. Meanwhile, in Ashbury, California (nonexistent in real life) Lucy discovers superhuman strength after Queen Bee Leslie's petty actions, and is drawn to a familiar Cait Shelter—an orphanage Wendy Marvell has found herself at, deep in Montana.

Oh, and Juvia's in the Sahara Desert.

.:Somewhere in Kansas:.

A blinding flash of light followed by the unmistakable crack of lightning jolted a dozing Gray, turbulence shuddered all around the small plane flown by the buff pilot Spike. The ice-mage held the armrests in a death-grip and took a gulp.

"You're flying us into a storm." He tried his best to stay calm, tried, but there was no fooling anyone.

"I'm flyin' us to Colorado." Spike responded as if he was completely unaware of the increasing wind mileage and precipitation around them.

"This isn't safe." Gray made sure his seatbelt was secure. "I think we should find somewhere to land, stay for the night."

"Mr. Naked, there ain't gon be no place for us to stay out 'ere. Nothin' but acres and acres of farmland."

"And a storm."

"When you runnin' from the fuzz, you don't let lil' thangs like weather get in the way." Spike shrugged as an onslaught of rainwater poured onto the windshield.

"Can you even see where you're flying? Where are we? What time is it?"

"Yeees. Kansas. 'Bout three in the mornin', if I had to guess." Spike responded without hesitation. "You're in luck, pal. Got in touch with a few of my buds down in Denver, say they can pick us up at the lake."

"What lake?"

"Our secret lake."

Gray stared blankly at his fellow criminal for several moments, expecting an elaboration, but getting none. "What secret la-" Unfortunately, he was unable to finish as another bolt of lightning flashed in front of them. A bolt of lightning that conveniently lit up the landscape around them, revealing not one, not two, but no less than a dozen funnel clouds. Quite a few of them were dangerously close to making ground impact.

Gray paled, Spike had the sanity to break out into a cold sweat, and the relentless storm raged on.

In a smaller voice, Gray spoke, "How far is this 'secret lake'?"

"Not too far that I'll have to refill the tank," Spike's drawl disappeared. "But I'm not sure if there'll be a tank to refill if we don't get through this motherfu-"

"Are storms like these normal?" Gray interrupted. "It could easily be magic-"

"None of that hoodoo voodoo nonsense," he shook his head. "Tornadoes here ain't uncommon. But somethin' like this. Well, there goes a whole season's worth of crops and quite a few farm animers." Spike jerked the controls to the right to avoid a cone-shaped cloud formation, and the whole plane made a sharp turn. "Ho, Mother Earth, how we've wronged you."

Gray didn't question what Spike meant. He didn't really care about the farmlands down below, either. He was too busy preventing his ice cream from coming back up, and wondered how he'd managed to get stuck in this situation.

"Hold on tight, baby," Spike stroked the controls. "We'll make it in one piece."

Another lightning bolt flashed dangerously closer than all of the others and Gray tried his best not to flinch. "I hope so."

.:Ashbury, CA:.

.:Lucy's POV:.

I woke up at 7:42am with glee, it was Saturday. Saturday meant no more school, no more teachers, and more importantly, no more Leslie. At least, for now. I frowned slightly at myself; even though it's finally the weekend and I'm up horridly early.

I'll just go back to sleep then.

And I planned on doing just that, closing my bleary eyes with a smile and tugging a blanket over myself, I was about to doze off when a thought jumped into my mind. Did he respond yet? After the mention of Cait Shelter being the orphanage where I'd supposedly come from, I decided information like that was too coincidental to pass up. I'd texted Dylan to look into it right before crashing for the night.

But why would he have responded? It's not even eight in the morning yet; what kind of person would— oh. He did respond. I unlocked my phone and blinked away my sleepiness before reading his response. The first thing I noticed was the timestamp, 4:35am. Does this kid even sleep?

The internet says it's an all-girls orphanage.

Another text came in at 4:41am.

Oh, look, my research also says it's in Montana if that counts for anything…you don't sound like you're from Montana. Do you happen to be a secret popstar, by any chance?

The last text was sent two minutes later.

Nevermind, you wouldn't get the joke…alien

So it was purely coincidental? If I recall correctly, Cait Shelter was the imaginary guild that had taken Wendy in after Mystogan left her. That was a while ago, but it still bothered me a little bit.

You sure that's it? Nothing with SISI?

I wasn't expecting an immediate response; it was still unbearably early, but soon enough, those three little typing dots appeared and not long after…a reply.

Looks like their mascot is a cat.

Right, I remembered seeing the guild's same insignia on the envelope. It was one thing to have the same name, but to share the same mark, too? I couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something more. Of all the places Earth Me could have come from, an orphanage in Montana? With my limited knowledge, I knew that Montana was quite a ways from California.

Are you SURE

Questioning my impeccable skills?

Yes.

Alright, fine then. You come over to my place later and I'll show you that there isn't anything ominous about this Cat Pound

Cait Shelter

Yeah, yeah…don't tell me that you aspire to become a crazy old cat lady?

You want me to come over?

Oh, eager are we? ;) I can assure you that it'll be just the two of us

Shut up, Adelaide wouldn't let me come over to a stranger's house

Adelaide LOVES me

She's only known you for like three days

What can I say? It's not easy to resist these charms

Why can't you just come here?

It's a lot easier to do what I do when I'm in my domain

You mean your man cave?

If you call thousands of dollars' worth of tech to be 'man cave' worthy, then yeah, it's my man cave

How did you get thousands of dollars

Doin stuff

Illegal stuff I bet

You ARE illegal stuff

At this point, I decided going back to sleep wasn't an option and taking care of my morning breath was priority number one. I slipped out of bed and quickly took care of dental hygiene before hopping back into bed and switching on my laptop, time for more research.

It seems that Gray and Natsu were still on the run, and Evergreen and Elfman were being detained. Something called the UN is supposed to be holding this big conference about their appearances, but I can't tell if that'd be a good or bad thing…probably bad.

Concentrated on the screen in front of me, I anxiously gripped and fiddled with a pencil I had found on my desk, only for it to snap in half unexpectedly. Surprised, I looked down at the splintered stick of wood and lead.

"Cheap." I muttered and tossed it into the trash, but as I turned away I stopped and looked back. "Or…maybe not cheap."

I looked down at my hands and recalled the super strength I had exhibited when I kicked down the bathroom stall's door. It had to have been more than just adrenaline that fueled that move. Maybe on Earth I'm wildly strong. Like the moon! I had learned in my dreaded physics class about gravity, and how we'd weigh less on the moon than on Earth because of its gravitational pull.

"Maybe on Earth I have more physical strength than I would on Earthland!" I exclaimed to myself. "I'd rather have my keys, though. I'm just gonna hope and assume they got stuck back on Earthland and didn't get lost in this world…otherwise Aquarius'll…" I shuddered at her possible anger.

"Lucy!" Adelaide voice carried to my room upstairs. "Breakfast!"

My stomach growled at the thought of food, I hadn't even realized I was hungry. Bounding down the stairs I caught Ada as she was walking out the door.

"Ahh, turns out I forgot to do some grocery shopping earlier," She grinned sheepishly, "I'm gonna go grab some eggs and maybe get distracted in the gift card section before Mark comes down. Feel free to fix yourself some cereal."

"Bye!" I called out after her and looked at the grand selection of Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes. "Spoons…I need a spoon…" Shuffling through the many drawers, I finally found where the utensils were stashed and swiped up a spoon.

Halfway through munching through my cereal and watching news on yet another tropical storm creeping up on the Gulf of Mexico, I kept thinking back to my super strength theory. I mean, sure, anyone can snap a pencil, but what's something that a normal human wouldn't be able to break so easily?

Spoon.

"Hm, let's try this out," I cracked my knuckles and took my metal victim within my two hands. "One…two…and…woah. I'm a beast."

It hardly took effort at all, bending the spoon so that both metal ends touched was about as easy as breaking a toothpick in half—maybe with just a tad bit more resistance.

"This is wild!" I murmured, "I gotta tell someone!"

"Tell who what?" Mark asked as he walked into the kitchen.

"Nothing!" I nearly dropped my bent spoon as I fumbled to keep it hidden behind my back.

Scooting out of my seat and putting my empty bowl away, I thought of a quick excuse to reduce the odds of exposing my super strengthened self. "Uhh, I'm supposed to meet with a friend I made—y'know to show me around the neighborhood!"

He turned his back to open the fridge. "Oh, you mean Dylan? Also, are we out of eggs?"

"Yeah, that, Dylan kid. Ada said she'd go grocery shopping really quick too! Gotta go soon, bye!" I dashed out of there before he could ask anything else.

"Uh alright I guess!" I heard him say after I had gone back upstairs. "We shouldn't be expecting her back for a while though, Ada tends to get lost looking at the punny birthday cards."

DYLAN

I had whipped out my phone to tell him about what had just happened. Finally, I had some actual proof that I wasn't just a human. I mean, sure it wasn't the magic I had on Earthland, but it was something.

Did something happen?

I was just about to respond when I stopped myself. Should I be telling him this? He's the only one who knows about my situation so there really isn't a reason not to, but then again, I don't know much about him so why do I give him my full trust?

I have to show you something

Me too

Yeah but my thing is way cooler

Doubt

I scoffed because that was ridiculous. I can't see anything being cooler than this phenomenon.

I'm hurt

You'll see

Should I come over?

Actually I don't want Mark to get too suspicious of anything, how about I see your lair for once?

This would be a good chance to see what his life is like outside of English and history class, oh and hacking Google's mainframe. I waited for the OK but all I saw was his typing bubble for a few seconds before going away, and then repeat three more times.

Well?

I was getting impatient.

You're not having second thoughts about not ratting me out to the government, are you?

No, of course not.

Ooh, is it bc Leslie lives next door?

A pause.

Yeah she might go AWOL

I can handle her

I smirked to myself, I have superpowers. Not that I'd beat her up or anything.

I have to make sure my dad is okay with it

His dad? The one that's always away on business trips?

You're being weird

Forget it, I have stuff to do today

"Hmph," I muttered to myself. "Whatever, I don't need to tell you everything anyways. I can do my research and reaching out all on my own."

And I did. Looking up Cait Shelter I saw that it was an orphanage, like Adelaide had told me. It was all girls, and the website said it not only provided care, but also prepared the girls with extraordinary life skills like no other.

"Huh, interesting." I peered at the tabs that ran along the top and clicked on the Meet Our Girls section. There were five pages with a hundred orphans on each one, starting from infanthood to seventeen years old. When I went to the fifth page, however; nothing happened. "Weird."

I kept trying to click to see more, even refreshing the page, but nothing would work. After several attempts, a box popped up that read.

You are not authorized to view this information. Please enter the passcode to continue.

A little white box with a blinking cursor was at the bottom, but I had no clue what the password would be for. I closed the browser and didn't think much else of it.

"Makes sense," I shrugged. "Wouldn't want old creeps looking at all their information."

That's be the only logical explanation, it's not like an orphanage would have anything important to hide.

.:Blackleaf, MT - - Cait Shelter:.

"Please, welcome our newest sister, Wendy!" Caroline, the leader that Wendy had met on the bus ride to Cait Shelter after she was found on the mountainside, announced to a room of twenty girls of similar age. "Don't be shy, we're all like family here until everyone finds a good home."

"O-okay." Wendy smiled nervously. "But really, I don't need a new home, I'm just sort of lost and Fairy Tail—"

"Nope, none of that." Caroline hushed her. "Listen, what we've brought you to here is something very special. You'll be able to bond with others while bettering yourself like you've never before!"

"But—"

"It's alright, it just takes time." Caroline smiled. "You'll see after your first class. Kendall!"

"Yes, Caroline?" A petite figure with platinum blonde straight hair and striking blue eyes stepped forward.

"Please, assist Wendy to get comfortable. She'll need someone to help her with the black ops stimulations for when our buyers make their pick."

"Of course, miss Caroline." Kendall cocked her head to one side, looking at Wendy, and reached out a hand. "Come on! Have you ever held a gun before?"

Thanks for reading the chapter! I'll try my best to be more consistent with updates! If you have any questions or confusion about the storyline feel free to review/PM me

8XxAnimexX8, out!