This is part two out of the three-part story arc finale. The final story arc chapter will be out in at 8PM GMT 10th Jan (tomorrow), so you won't have to wait long. After that, I made need at least another week to write the next chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 12

"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it."

― Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

Thursday, April 10th, x795 [One Week Before Meeting Natsu]

Lucy was on fire.

Her cheeks were blazing, embarrassment making them go the color of intense flames.

She'd just walked in on her best friend and her best friend's boyfriend fucking in the kitchen. On her kitchen counter.

She ate her breakfast on that counter!

When Lucy had arrived home from work, she hadn't been paying attention to what she'd walked in on. Her mind was absorbed by the mountain of paperwork in her hand that she had to complete by the next morning. Not only that, but her entire day had been shit. Her legs were weak and shaky from a severe lack of caffeine, and the new pantsuit she'd worn had caused a rash on her inner thigh that she did not want to think about. Her sight had also been blurry for hours- her contacts having dried up spontaneously during the day. Unfortunately for Gajeel and Levy, but more importantly for Lucy, she was long-sighted, meaning the entire scene beyond the files in her hands was very, very clear.

If only she'd actually looked up.

It had taken Lucy a trip to her bedroom to dump her files, a sidetrack to the bathroom to take off her makeup, and then for her to open the fridge before she noticed the couple on the breakfast bar next to her. Her eyes went wide at the sight, her overworked brain in utter shock. It was all she could to slam the fridge door, dropping a carton of OJ on the floor, before she sped out of the apartment as fast as her aching legs would take her.

It would be reasonable to wonder why this night -April 10th, x795- was, in contrast to any other night, significant. Well, the night in question didn't hold a special place in Lucy Ashley's memory, but it did change the contents of Lucy's pockets.

She'd lived in Magnolia since she was sixteen, fresh to the world after several years confined to the Heartfilia estate. In this time, Lucy had grown to trust the town. After all, it was her safe haven. It had protected her from a life of forced marriage and business meetings populated mainly by the opposite sex. So Lucy knew nights Magnolia to be relatively safe.

But April 10th was an anomaly amongst other nights.

Walking out of the apartment in such a state as Lucy was in- No jacket to fight off the mid-spring chill, shoes that had been a menace to her feet all day, and no phone on her person should she need to call for help. Any other person, upon realizing this, would've gone back into their apartment to grab the missing items or just not have walked out in the first place. However, it would be insensible to think that Lucy, after a week straight of eleven-hour workdays, was in the right mind to make such decisions.

So she'd walked. Bitter and angry at her roommate. Levy, after all, knew that Lucy would be home around that time. And the thing Lucy wanted most after one blazing inferno of a week at MagMa was to slouch on the couch with a good horror movie and a glass of red wine. She needed her Friday spill sesh with her best friend more than anything.

Stupid Gajeel, stealing her best friend.

It was caught up in these thoughts that Lucy hadn't noticed the scene up ahead. She was only a block away from her apartment. She could still hear the music that the neighbors in the apartment next to her's blasted every night. She hadn't realized she was walking right into a mugging.

Three men stood in the alleyway in front of her: Two with Glocks in their hands and the remaining one against the wall, shaking violently. The victim wasn't coherent in the slightest, making irregular disturbed wails as one of his assailants patted him down for his wallet. Neither of the criminals had expected a young, defenseless looking woman to come stumbling into their scene.

Lucy had stopped the second she'd regarded her circumstance. She made eye contact with both the men, her mind frozen like a computer with not enough RAM to run the scenario. She didn't even process that one of the men, the one that hadn't molested their male victim, had turned his gun on her. She could recognize the fucking make of the gun before she could think of a solution.

"Hands in the air, Girly."The man had commanded. He sounded like he smoked sixty packs of cigarettes daily. "Turn around and face the wall."

She did as she was told, a little disgruntled at being ordered about but nonetheless compliant. She placed her smooth, unmarked palms on the rough bricks of the wall. It was now that she was thinking about how impossibly stuck she was... And she'd walked right into it!

Lucy hadn't noticed, but the other victim had been let go, running with his tail between his legs and not a care for how the young woman faired. She felt a mugger frisk her pantsuit, his hands paying extra attention to the curves of her waist and ass.

"Seems we've got a pretty one here, Francis." She didn't bother to listen to the men beyond that point. She just wanted to be at home, snuggled up on the sofa watching 'Saw' for the fiftieth time. Instead, she was stood in the alley outside her apartment, doing nothing to stop the fingers groping her ass eagerly. Her mind was blurred with stress. Too blurred to gain any sense of reality.

She felt a wetness down her cheeks.

If Lucy was completely honest with herself -and she often wasn't-, she didn't feel like she'd achieved much. Not in a career sense. Lucy was very proud of her accomplishments with MagMa. But she felt like she hadn't achieved much in the social aspect of things.

She had Levy, Gajeel... And that was it.

These men had the power to do anything to her, but it wasn't that she cared about. Her frozen mind, her malfunctioning thoughts: they could only lead her to think of the minute, insignificant details of her life.

Not the fact that there was a gun to her head. Not the fact that the governors at MagMa were slowly draining her will to live. Just the fact that she hadn't made a new friend since before she'd started MagMa.

Lucy felt one of the men press his shape to hers, invading hands stroking every inch of her waist.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't notice the small tug on the magic she kept buried deep inside her. She didn't feel the gun that was pressed against her ahead moments prior suddenly get ripped from its resting point on her skull. And she didn't hear the oofs and ahs of her attackers getting pummelled single-handedly. Lucy didn't feel it when her savior caught her fainting body, finally over exhausted and spent. She couldn't recognize the body she was held against as she was lifted up the stairs to her apartment, or the shocked faces of Levy and Gajeel rushing to help.

She only felt warmth.

It was only when she awoke, several hours later, that Lucy understood what was going on. Leo, one of her celestial spirits, was angry. He'd been the one to save her from undoubtedly what would've been the worst imaginable situation.

The cogs in her brain were finally turning, and she was now able to distinguish the facts.

"Lucy!" He'd scolded the second she'd walked into the kitchen after waking up, a little unsteady on her legs. "What the fuck were you doing out there all alone at this time of night? Especially without your keys?!"

He'd whispered that last part, but it was no less angry. No matter how furious he was at his mistress, he still had no right to out the secret about her magic... Well, the fact that she had magic in the first place.

"Loke told us he's a friend,"Levy spoke, using the alias that Lucy was sure he didn't have to use. She wasn't even sure her friends had heard of celestial spirit magic, let alone have extensive enough knowledge to be able to name every spirit. Her roommate looked perturbed, clearly unsure of the stranger in their apartment berating her best friend. "He rescued you when some men tried to accost you outside."

Lucy stared at her celestial spirit. She hadn't seen him in a good few years as a result of her own stubbornness to ignore her unwanted magic. It was her mindset that her magic only caused pain. It was unfair that her magic had been the thing to save her.

"I didn't need your help." She spat at him. "I had it-"

"Don't you dare say you had that handled, Ashley." Loke was quick to bite her obstinacy in the ass. "You were lucky you were close enough to the apartment for your keys to still- You were lucky I was passing by."

Lucy shot him a glare for the slip-up. She didn't need one stupid mistake to expose her to her best friends. And she didn't need him!

She ended up shoving him out of the apartment, making a show of slamming the door. As she marched frustrated into her bedroom, she proceeded to dig out the celestial gate keys at the bottom of her wardrobe. Lucy made sure to lock the door, despite Levy's quiet protests on the other side, before closing her eyes. A warm sensation arose in her chest, familiar energy swirling around her heart. She hadn't summoned her magic in almost eighteen years.

Lucy let her magic build until she had enough to force close Leo's gate. She didn't want to, but seeing her spirits just hurt too much, even now that she had her mother back. Her mother was still stuck in full-time care, thanks to Lucy. She wasn't taking any more chances with those cursed keys.

The mage let out a breath as she felt her magic fail her. Leo had come out of his own volition, on his own magic, so she couldn't close his gate. She groaned quietly as she sat on the bed, swearing into the silence of her room. She didn't have to wait long before she saw Leo's magic appear in front of her as he materialized.

"Lucy." He whispered, cautious of the couple in the kitchen unaware of his presence still in the apartment.

She gave him a pointed look. "I'm not in the mood, Leo."

"I'm not here to tell you off, again."

"Then you can go. I don't need saving again."

"Yeah? Well, you might." He took the key pouch from her, waving it around to emphasize its importance. "You need to keep these on you at all times. It's not safe-"

"I'm perfectly safe, Leo." She cut him off, snatching the keys.

He snatched them back. "That show tonight kinda proved otherwise, Lucy."

"I'm not keeping some dumb old keys around with me. Where the hell would I hide them?"

Leo dragged a hand down his face in dismay. He knew his mistress respected the keys more than she respected herself, despite the fact that she'd kept them neglected in a shoebox for seventeen years. She hadn't thrown them away. She loved them too much. "Fine. Let's compromise." He held the keys away when she reached for them, wanting the unreasonable girl to hear him out. "You keep one key on you at all times. While I'd rather it be me, I know you'll probably be mad at me for a while. So, I don't care who it is. Just keep a golden key on you. Please, Lucy."

His eyes said it all. She couldn't protest. "Fine."

Loke handed the keys back, smiling warmly at her, his voice lowering. "Thank you." Before he left, he spoke again. "Y'know, Lucy? You're as stubborn as your mother."

Leo sighed to himself as he returned to the spirit world. Lucy Heartfilia had had a habit of getting in trouble; Lucy Ashley got into even more.

Friday, June 13th [The Night of the Fire]

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't even move.

Her limbs felt frozen, her chest burned as if a fire was alert inside her lungs, and her throat felt heavy with mucus.

It wasn't a pretty sight if you were to see her. On the floor of a cramped broom cupboard, with several of those brooms stacked on top of her along with the panel of wood that divided the cupboard from the attic.

The attic which was now on fire.

Lucy forced her eyes open, pushing aside the immediate urge to close them again, protecting them from the air that stung so hotly. She couldn't have been out for more than a couple minutes, and she could hear the children still in their dorms.

But they weren't safe.

Of the little Lucy knew about fires, she knew with certainty that an attic fire could take the whole building out very quickly. She had no idea how much time she had, but with the amount of smoke that had greedily escaped through the small opening Lucy had given, she couldn't imagine she had long to get the children out.

Lucy scrambled to get on her feet, the heat from the loft already getting close to overwhelming her. Pushing the useless cleaning utensils out of the way, she found the knob of the door through the smoke and made it into the hallway. Lucy spluttered into her hand, her clothes already stained head to toe with back soot.

Apparently, none of the children had heard the commotion of their headmistress in the storage closet. Either they were heavy sleepers (and fast sleepers at that!), or they were too scared of the 'ghost' to come and investigate. The latter was more likely, but Lucy really needed them out of their rooms quickly.

She tried to shout, but her voice was too hoarse to let much sound escape. When that failed, she barged into the girls' dorm, fully expecting the screams she was met with. She looked and felt wrecked, after all.

"Girls." She managed to croak after a moment of catching her breath. "Girls, I need you to stay calm."

"Lucy. What's going on?" The girl closest to her asked.

"The building is on fire. But!" Lucy held her hands up, pausing the girls from freaking out. "We can get you all out safely if you stay calm. I need you all to file into the hallway and wait by the stairs while I get the boys up. Take your blankets with you, wet them in the bathroom, and put them over your heads to stop the smoke getting into your lungs." She looked to the oldest girl in the room. "Delilah, can you be in charge of everyone till I get back?"

Delilah nodded, immediately taking her role as the oldest, and therefore the most responsible, girl in the dorm. Lucy trusted her, and she wouldn't let her headmistress and [second] favorite English teacher down.

Lucy grabbed a spare blanket from the only unoccupied bed in the room- the bed usually reserved for if a girl was poorly and needed a teacher on call during the night. Lucy followed the girls to wet the fabric and did as she'd instructed them, pulling the soaked blanket over her head. Water congealed with the soot on her face, marking anywhere where the blanket met her filthy skin.

She eased open the door to the landing, slamming it shut when a mountain of smoke tumbled into the girls' room. Lucy knew she had to brave it, though, so she opened it again, ignoring the heat that had built up even more since she'd last been in the hallway. She tried to open the boys' dorm room but was met with an unusual resistance. The headmistress panicked slightly, screaming as loud as she could.

"Boys! You need to get up!" Her lungs protested every syllable.

"Miss Ashley!" She heard a muffled response from the other side.

She pressed her head to the door frame, the smoke making her head heavy. What if something had already happened to the boys? Had the ceiling caved in, and that was why the door was stuck?

Lucy let her mind wander, ignoring the antsy group of girls collecting on the stairwell. It was only when she heard shuffling on the other side of the wood, and the door was finally open did Lucy take her first full breath since she'd discovered the fire.

"Boys! Thank the Gods, you're okay!"

The boys were fine. Their room was untouched, if only slightly smoky. They'd placed blankets at the bottom of the doorway when the smoke had started seeping through.

Lucy gave the boys the same instructions as she had the girls, chasing them out of the room to meet the other in the hall. She followed the back of the line as the boys exited the ensuite, not bothering the re-wet her blanket as there was little to no point.

Oh, but there was every point.

She soon regretted not having the extra moisture when all of a sudden the temperature in the bedroom shot up. Bits of the ceiling were crackling and floating to the ground, a victim of the fire devastating its plaster.

All the boys were barely out by the time holes had started opening up, the attic fire leeching through the new entrances. The ceiling sizzled and broke even more, tearing away at lightning speed. Lucy couldn't even make a noise as she felt spitfire meet her exposed tights, not covered by the thin blanket.

She winced, feeling the fabric fuse to her skin with blinding pain. Her senses were bewildered. She couldn't even feel the arms of the boys that had taken to helping their struggling teacher out of the room.

They dragged her into the hallway, letting her recover for only a second, watching as she scrambled to stand using the banister for support.

"Thanks, Nathan, Sully."

From the top of the stairs, Lucy had a good view out of the top floor window. She couldn't see much, the glass dirtied and the sight obscured by the smoke billowing from the roof of the cathedral, but there was enough clean to see the flashing blue lights surrounding the building.

Help was here. This was good.

But they still weren't in the clear.

One by one the children fled down the staircase, their teacher limping down the steps behind them. The fire had now spread to consume the entirety of the top floor dorms, common room, and had burnt out the closet where Lucy had originally discovered the fire. It was slowly chasing down the stairs too, but at a slower rate than before. Lucy didn't care to think why. She was just thankful for the opportunity to get the children to safety.

The line suddenly stopped, however, when they reached the bottom of the staircase. Lucy didn't need to enquire about the sudden stop. The sight in front of her was answer enough.

Pillars scorched. Walls crumbling under the stress of flames. The entire corridor was swamped, leaving no apparent exit for the students and teacher to escape through.

A big thank you to FairyTailxFanGirl, valerioux, and Copperreign12 for your reviews! I hope this chapter answered a few questions you were asking. You all definitely had your detective hats on, haha! The flashback was something that I hadn't initially planned, but I'm very happy to have included it. Let me know what you think!

Don't forget that the next chapter will be up at 8PM GMT tomorrow!