Wow. Just wow. What the hell is the matter with me. I must seriously have a fever or something. I JUST UPDATED 3 TIMES IN A MATTER OF WHAT HAS IT EVEN BEEN ONLY FIVE DAYS I DON'T EVEN KNOW I MUST BE ILL BUT I SURE AS HELL AIN'T LOOKING A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH.

It's a normal hour of the evening. whaaaaaaaat?

Wow though, these chapters keep managing to get shorter and shorter for some reason. I'm afraid the quality suffered a little on this chapter as well because it was kinda hard to write and get across the message I wanted to get across, but I can't place the problem so yeah I posted it anyway.

This chapter totally continues with plot and just keeps on trucking.

I'm two days away from fat tuesday. *excitement intensifies*

I hope I scared you guys a bit last chapter and I hope I explain a thing or two in this one. Not a whole lot happens though. We're kinda setting up the next portion of the story. Only 2 arcs to go, how many chapters per arc will change though. We'll see how it goes.

So I'm listening to a cover/parody of Demons by Imagine Dragons and it's by NateWantsToBattle on YouTube. It's called Dragons and let me tell you it's the fucking cutest/coolest thing I've had on repeat for like a hundred years. Check it out it's totally worth it and totally Fairy Tail related.

Who else is having a really hard time waiting patiently for the next chapter to come out? MEEEEEEEeeEeeEeEeEee.

Disclaimer: I am not capable of portraying 11 different emotions in one manga panel like fucking darn it Mashima. HoW?A

Enjoy.

Arc 5

Chapter 20: Recovery and Memory

If you've said it once, well I'm not really sure how many times you've said it.

Her fingers ghosted over the raised skin on his chest. She traced the whitened line from one side of his torso to the other and paused somewhere in the middle. She heard his breath hitch in his throat, but that only managed to keep her attention for a moment before her fingers crawled from his new scar to his shoulder and finally tangled into the scarf around his neck. He swallowed with an unusual amount of difficulty. "Lucy?"

Her eyes flicked up to his momentarily before returning to trailing her delicate fingers. "How did you get that scar?"

He watched her attention shift from his scarf to adjusting her white infirmary gown that the wind from the open window had lifted. She was sitting in the same bed he put her in when they arrived, but now she was sitting up and leaning dangerously towards him. From his bedside chair he managed to choke out. "Be careful Lucy. You're gonna fall out of the bed and hit your head. It's already pretty messed up you don't want to hurt it some more, do you?"

She looked at him with confusion tinting her features. "Why aren't you answering me? Did you not hear me?" She raised her voice. "Should I talk louder!?"

Natsu's eyes glazed over and he leaned as far back as his chair allowed. He clapped his hands over his ears. "No, Luce, I'm right here you don't have to yell. Besides, I've got dragon hearing, I can even hear you whisper, remember?"

"Oh." She chirped with a slight jump. "Sorry, that's something I should know?"

He frowned and looked to the side avoiding eye contact. "Yeah."

"Don't be so hard on her, dragon breath." Gray said from his spot by the window. "You know this has been really tough for her."

"He's right, Natsu." Erza stood in the doorway with her perfect posture, but slight concern tracing her frown. "The fits of pain from her memory coming back have been extremely taxing. She's trying the best she can."

Happy lifted his head from it's spot resting on Lucy's thigh. "Don't worry, though. She's remembered a lot already. I bet if we take her on a job to Hargeon or Mt. Hawkobe she'll remember everything!"

Carla tsked from beside Wendy who sat in a chair opposite the side of Lucy's bed Natsu was on. "Don't be foolish. Lucy is in no condition to go on a job! She only just sat up an hour ago."

Happy deflated and looked down to the suddenly interesting bedspread. "Sorry, I was just hoping that everything would go back to normal."

Wendy gave Carla a look of disapproval to which she replied with a shocked look of her own. "Don't mind her Happy. I'm sure we'll get Lucy back to normal in no time. She already feels almost completely healthy."

"Why do you guys keep talking about her like she's not right here?" Natsu grumbled feeling more than just a little disgruntled. He looked at Lucy as though expecting her to say something.

"Huh? Oh sorry, I guess I wasn't listening." She looked around the room at everyone and her eyes rested back on Natsu. "Will you tell me how you got that scar now or not?"

He looked at her dumbfounded by her one track mind, ironically enough. "Um, I was fighting Rex. You remember Rex right?"

Lucy closed her eyes and grimaced. "You told me he was behind the death of my mom and the reason I'm part spirit. Is that him?" She opened her eyes to see Natsu nodding slowly. "That makes me angry. He hurt you, too?"

"Uh yeah, we were fighting when he landed a lucky shot with his mechanical sword arm thing. That's when you came in and saved me." He smiled widely at her. "Not that I couldn't have taken the oversized lug nut myself, but it was cool that you came to help me."

"I came to help you…" Lucy looked out the window and then grabbed her head. "Ugh, I- I remember now. We were in the forest after dropping off the passenger from the mission."

Natsu bounced in his seat for a second and crossed his legs. "You got it Lucy. He attacked right after we left the princess and her castle."

"Right sorry, the princess." She lowered her hands into her lap. She looked over to the doorway. "Erza?"

Erza was a little surprised to be addressed, but remained stoic on the exterior. "Yes, Lucy?"

"Can I go home to my apartment now?" Lucy asked scratching the back of her head. "I feel like I haven't showered in years. I still have an apartment, right?"

Erza hesitated for a moment. "Um, I don't think it's the best idea for you to go back to your apartment right now, but if Wendy gives you a clean bill of health then I suppose with the proper supervision you could go."

Everybodies gazes shifted to Wendy and her cheeks flamed up with the attention. "Well, there's nothing more I can do for her now. She seems fine to me, but we should probably try to get Porlyusica to come, again."

"If that woman didn't want to show up the first time what makes you think she'll show up now?" Carla huffed crossing her arms. "She shoved her responsibilities to this guild onto you and then said she couldn't do anything about the bigger issue at hand here. If you had to heal her I think you're more than qualified to say if Lucy's okay to go home."

"Levy is working on figuring out how to get her back to normal with Freed so until they know something I guess there's no reason to lock Lucy up here." Happy agreed.

"Alright Lucy, I guess we're headed back to your apartment." Natsu stood up from his chair with his arms stretched behind his head. "You went food shopping before we left for the mission, right?"

Gray stood from his spot at the window sill and crossed his arms. "We're sending Natsu to babysit. Like that's a good idea. The pyromaniac can't stay out of trouble long enough to get her home."

"What's that supposed to mean, ice block?" Natsu spit venomously. Without fail they always managed to get back into their signature head to head stand off position. "You think I can't keep a teammate safe?"

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying you can keep a teammate safe, especially from the trouble you cause!" Gray and Natsu didn't hear the footsteps approaching. "I'm saying that maybe someone who wouldn't have to protect her from something they caused should go with her!"

Of course the source of the footsteps was Erza. "Would you two knock it off! You have a teammate who is need of assistance!" She continued to scold them as anger lit her eyes and she took both of their heads by the hair and knocked them together. "And all the two of you can think of doing is arguing between yourselves like a pair of bickering children!"

Of course while she was scolding them the boys were defending themselves.

"It was totally that slanty eyed idiot's fault. He's always so ready to make a mess I have to clean up!"

"I was just gonna show this prancy jerk a thing or two about protecting his friends by example!"

"I told you two a hundred times to GET ALONG and if you don't start to listen-"

"SHUT UP!" Mirajane was seen heaving with the breath it took to shout above everyone one and her hands braced the doorframe. Despite her twitching eyebrow she folded her arms in front of her calmly and continued. "Thank you. Now if you guys wouldn't mind, someone just ran into the guild screaming about a robbery," she relayed calmly. "and the Master wants all of us out across the street right now to help!" she finished off a little more urgently before turning to run outside to offer her own assistance as well.

Everybody exchanged looks some sheepish, some peeved, and some amused and started to file out of the room. Natsu and Happy were the last ones there when on their way out they turned to Lucy still sitting in the bed. "You should probably sit this one out Lucy."

Happy nodded. "Yeah, ya know since you just remembered everything and who knows if you're going to pass out again. You've been doing that a lot lately!"

"I agree."

Natsu's shoulders drooped. "Come on Lucy. Don't argue I really want to get out there and fight and if you go out there you're gonna get hurt…"

Happy put up his finger to make a point. "You don't even know if your powers are different and…"

They both stopped dead and their jaws dropped to the ground. "Whaaaat?"

Lucy giggled lightly with her hand covering her mouth. "I said I agree with you, weirdos. I know I'm not fit for battle and besides, it's not a job or anything and no one I care about is being attacked. I'll let you guys handle this one. Just don't let 'em get away okay?" She smiled and waved them away.

As odd as that seemed and as many questions the pair had for her, especially Natsu, he and Happy ran out to help their guildmates. "'Bout time you showed up Salamander. You get scared?" Gajeel was pushed back by a particularly strong hit from a ray gone and ended up lined up with Natsu as he exited the guild.

"Yeah right, what's the story on these guys?" Natsu asked throwing out a couple fireballs already.

Gajeel swiped his iron pipe arm across several enemies. "Take 'em down. You really need to know more than that?"

Natsu smiled and crouched. "Nope. That's it." He smiled and the two high fived looking out at the sea of baddies they get to smash.

"Gihi, then let's get to it." The two dragon slayers dove into the ocean of attackers and started to let loose. It wasn't until a lot further into the fight that the small portion of Fairy Tail that were at the guild at the time of the attack started to realize that this battle was going to take forever. They were so vastly outnumbered that despite the fact that they vastly overpowered their enemy it would take some time to mow them all down.

Natsu had somehow gotten surrounded by a particularly rowdy group when something he didn't expect to happen just, happened. "Impero Stellarum!" What looked like planets and stars just started raining down on every person around him and pretty effectively knocking them out. When Natsu looked past all his downed opponents he saw her standing there.

At the edge of the battlefield Lucy stood, her untied golden hair and loose white hospital gown were tossed around her by the wind and she looked out over the attack without interest. She noticed Natsu and waved at him before he shouted out. "Lucy get out of here. There's too many of them. You're going to get hurt."

Lucy cupped her hand around her ear indicating that she couldn't hear Natsu over the fighting crowd. He started to run over to her but got cut off by a line of enemies all armed to the teeth. He started some fire powered melee while keeping his eyes on Lucy.

Lucy on the other hand let him fight his own battle and closed her eyes while putting out her own hands. "Celestial Magic: Impetum Astrum!" She let her eyes open up and started to take a few steps up. Stars started to form under her feet and connected to make a constellation that started to form a jagged ascending line. She stepped on each star as they got higher off the ground and only stopped when she was in the center of the battlefield. She closed her eyes again and started to draw power to her hands until they were glowing with a brilliant light yellow color. She raised them above her head and when she opened her eyes both of them were blank. Lucy's voice resonated. "Celestial Magic: Noctis Caelum!"

The atmosphere started to get dark and the sky clear. Everyone looked up to see what was going on and many noticed Lucy standing in the center of the chaos. The light from her hands suddenly entirely encased her body. With a sudden movement her arms swung from above her head down to her sides. Mimicking the movement, what looked like shooting stars, and a lot of them, started to fall from the heavens and landed on everyone of their enemies. The man about to shoot Juvia, the woman swinging a bat at Erza, and the doofus trying to punch Elfman all struck down in front of them.

Despite how abrupt it was the attack marked the end of the battle. Everybody stopped to stare at Lucy. The sky lightened again and the aura around her disappeared. The constellation below her feet started to flicker. Lucy swayed from side to side and when her eyes fell closed the constellation disappeared and she fell to the earth, just like the stars she controlled.

"Lucy!" Without fail Natsu was below her when she fell and without hesitation he jumped to catch her.

Lucy's eyes flickered open and one eye had returned to normal. She looked up at her savior and laughed. It turned into a cough, but that didn't stop her smile. "Gosh, just an hour ago I couldn't remember anything and now it's deja vu." She looked around and with Natsu's help stood up. She was shaking, but she was standing. She rubbed her forehead. "These new powers are pretty crazy, huh? Guess I seriously overdid it. No power left."

Happy, Wendy, Mirajane, Gray, and everyone else that had participated in the fight had made their way around the pair and were doing a combination of staring at Lucy in awe and singing her praises. Natsu held her by the forearms and smiled largely at her. "That was super powerful and cool!" He let go of her arms propping his on his hips and dropped the smile for the scolding portion. "But as crazy cool as that was you shouldn't have come out to help. I told you we could handle it. Guess you couldn't help wanting to save those people that were being attacked, but still Lucy."

Lucy tilted her head to one side. "I don't really care about the attack it just bugged you guys so much so I came to take care of it." Lucy walked back inside the guild without so much as a glance backward.

That was a thing that happened. Did I get a point across? I don't know man I just don't know.

So tell me what your brain is churning and the gears that be turning and all the other good things that come with that concerning that story.

If you have a tradition or plan for Fat Tuesday lemme know I'd be happy to be excited with you. If you don't tell me what you plan to do on that totally normal tuesday anyway. Why not we're all friends here and apparently this is freakin story time. I don't know lol why not?

I can't wait for the manga chapter.

Wow sorry I went italic for a minute there. Promise not to do that again. The secret is I'm always italic. lol sorry I couldn't resist.

Have a great day guys.

I'm out.

-Ink

OH! and for everyone who is angry that Natsu's hair is back to normal DON'T it was fucking hard enough to draw in the first place! gah