Change of Fate

Lady Countryrose

Ch. 2

The next day; Grace found her way back to the guild, where she found that the placed had been somewhat destroyed. Every angle she looked, was metal poles poking out of somewhere. It was enough that she had to wander, 'Did someone have an artistic itch that they wanted to try?' She followed the smell of people that she had spoken to the day before, mainly Loke and Mira. Finding her way into the building and down the basement.

Grace glanced around and saw many downed faces. She could understand why someone had come in from the dead of night to destroy the place. From the smell of the metal, it was iron and not just plain iron, it was dragon iron. Because of the remnants of something that was close to a lizard but not in a bad and turnoff sort of smell. She could also smell a maleness musk with forest flare to it.

The scent was driving her to the point that she wanted to find out where it came from. At least the male behind the iron. She hated mysteries. She always seems to have answers before the punchline of the story, but for some reason. She was enjoying this kind of mystery, all because she could not solve it in minutes.

She found Makarov and walked over to him. When he had made eye contact with her, she spoke. "Why does this place smell like an iron dragon?"

"Iron dragon," the small man spoke with wonder in his voice. "That can only mean that Phantom Lord has itself an Iron Dragon Slayer on their payroll." Causing many within the guild the pale. "If I have to put everything together and knowing Natsu, this isn't good."

"If Natsu can destroy cities because of his wildfire attitude. We don't have a chance against a focus attack of an iron one," spoke up a man. Who had a small boy next to him that had the same black hair.

It was at time that Grace heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She turned in time to see Lucy and three others, with a flying blue cat behind her. When Lucy was out of the way of the others to get into the basement, her eyes panned to where her eyes stopped on her. Causing the blond to have tears in her eyes and ran towards Grace with speed that none have ever seen from Lucy. Tackling the new girl upon the ground with tears and giggles.

It was enough to bring the guild into a better mood. Those that witnessed Grace's power were happy to see the happy girls' in each other's arms. But caused her three teammates to growl at the new girl in Lucy's arms.

"Who is she," hissed the scarlet haired woman.

"Now Erza," Makarov raised his hands for the group to see. "This is Grace, Lucy's elder sister."

"Sister," cried out the three that had just come in.

A dark haired man came over; since he was able to see Grace's eyes from the massive limbs of the girls. "Can you explain why it took you months to find, Lucy?"

Grace tapped Lucy's back to get her to move, who was dragged off by a pink haired of the group. Grace sat up, knowing it would be better to show that she was not a threat by staying down. "That is one of the reasons of why I'm here." She glanced over towards Lucy. "Father has put up a manhunt for you, calling for any thug of guilds to catch you and bring you home." She glanced down to her hands. "Even me."

"No," Lucy cried out. "I will never go back and I will never allow you to go back, either."

Grace nodded, "I wasn't planning on that."

"Then how did you find out," Lucy gasped as she saw the pain in her sister.

"I got jump by a few thugs in the forest, near here." Grace gave her sister a wicked thin smile. "They didn't know what hit them."

Lucy gave a teary eye laugh before something else came to her mind. "But why did it take you three months to get here?"

Grace gave Lucy an intense look; not out of anger or hate, but trying to get the blonde to remember something. "Lucy," she calmly spoke to the girl, like any family member would have. "Don't you remember I gave you everything, before pushing you away. Even the last bit of money that we had." When she saw the light of relation came into the girl's eyes, she spoke again. "I walked all the way from there to here, surviving by hunting anything that I could get my hands on."

"Oh Grace," cried out Lucy as she got out of Natsu's arms and threw herself into the other woman's arms. "I didn't realize that it would take that long to get here." Her arms holding onto Grace, making Grace turn a bit blue. "Please forgive me for thinking ill of you!"

Grace glanced over to Natsu. "Please," she gasped. "I... can't...breathe."

The pink haired man smiled but took Lucy away from Grace. Making Lucy look at him. "If you want your sister to live, you got to stop holding her in your death hugs." He gave a cheeky grin. "Save those for the bad guys, who need their windpipes broken."

Lucy gave a glare towards the man. "Natsu Dragneel . . ."

"That's my name . . ." He turned and walked towards the bar to talk to Mira.

The dark haired man of Lucy's group came over and helped Grace onto her feet. Causing the said girl to be a bit dizzy. "When did you show up?"

"Yesterday," Grace smiled softly, then started to chuckle. "Even though I'm not part of the guild yet, I had to duke it out with a walking spark plug."

The scarlet woman gasped, "Laxus! You battled with him and lived?"

Makarov grumbled, "She did and hopefully he learned his lesson."

"Grace, please tell me you're joking," cried out Lucy; who was being held back by the dark haired man. When he saw that she was going to charge at her again.

"I can't lie, Lucy, you know that I can't." It was enough to make Lucy looked wounded.

"That means that the guild knows . . ."

The pink haired man did not seem to notice what Lucy was saying. He had a smile on his face, pointing his finger towards her. "Then I declare a FIGHT with YOU."

"NATSU," Lucy looked broken as she looked towards one of her friends. "Please don't do this," her eyes leaked out of her eyes. "SHE'S MY SISTER. I don't want you to hurt her!"

Grace sighed; closing her eyes, she knew that Lucy was protective when it came to her. It all started after mother died and losing the love a father, had done this to her. Grace was even protective of Lucy, but seeing how the guild acted and stories that she heard. She did not feel as overprotective as Lucy felt.

What Grace did not expect after her ordeal with the guild from the day before. Those that were in the basement before Lucy and her team showed up. Had gotten up and blocked her from the man known as Natsu. Each man had a glare and growl across their features, while the women was near as deadly as the men.

This caused Natsu to blink; it seemed to her that this had never occurred before. He glanced around looking lost. "What's going on, all I ask was for a fight?"

A tall man, full of nothing but muscle and white hair had spoken. "After what we had seen and heard yesterday. We don't want you to fight this girl." Grace had never heard anything from anyone like that before. Sticking up for someone that you hardly know. "She's more MAN that you are at times Natsu."

'Man?' She glanced down at herself, seeing that she still had her womanly parts in the right places. 'What is this guy's deal? Unless he's talking about how I took down that blonde, yesterday?'

A small girl with curly blue locks came up to Lucy. "You should have seen it Lu, your sister was amazing!" She grabbed Lucy's hands into her own, smiling at her. "She is every bit of a warrior woman that I have pictured from books that I've read!"

"Levy," Lucy spoke with a voice that was unlike her. Too much care and trying to get someone to understand. "Grace is different that I can believe, but please understand that she would be in great danger if . . ."

Grace glanced towards the floor. Not liking the confidence that Lucy had for her, which sounds every lacking to her ears. Tears wanted to find their way out, but it took Loke to come and wrap his arms around her to get her to calm down. She had not lied yesterday, Loke was more of a brother to her than she had ever hoped of anyone to be one.

Loke glared towards Lucy. "You know for a Celestial Wizard, I'm surprised that you're not very supporting of you own sister." Causing everyone to step out of the view of the two to allow Lucy to see them. "After from what I've seen and heard from Grace. She holds a great love and respect towards you."

"Loke," Grace growled, trying to get out of his arms. "You don't know why she's like this." Loke allowed her to step out of his arm. "It's not because she doesn't believe in my abilities, it's because of the lack of trust that we've grown up having. Nearly most of our teachers had tried to get me thrown into Fiore's dungeons because of what I was born into. What stopped them was the amount of money thrown into their banks for them to keep their lips from moving!"

Natsu gave a glare of his own; which Grace did not know if it was towards her or the kind of life that they had. "Is it true . . ." His voice build with volume that she could hear while making his way towards her. ". . . that people tried to lock you up because of what you were born of magic?"

Grace saw his onyx eyes into her own blue-green. "Druid magic . . ." That was all she said and it was enough for the poor guy to take a step back and gave her a once over. She could see that he was puzzled but understood what was going on.

Natsu glanced towards the elder man of the guild. "Couldn't we say that she was a child from an unlawful experiment?"

Makarov glanced towards a wall, looking like he was thinking hard about something. "It would explain why Grace doesn't look anything like Lucy. But it's a hard stretch to even hope for the council to believe in something like this."

Grace sighed, "I knew that it was too much to ask to even join any guild." She turned towards Loke, given the poor guy a smile. "Thanks for the help, though."

She moved passed many people, wanting to get out of the place. It was getting to be a bit much for her. Since she was used to living in the wild more than being around people. Life seemed to have pulled another wrench into her life, once again.

"Grace..." Lucy's voice called out.

"Don't worry sis, I'm heading to your place." Grace turned to see her, while she was close to the stairs. "I just need some quiet time."

"O...k..."

Grace turned and made it up the stairs. It was then that she heard Loke's, Natsu', and the dark haired man's voices. She did not understand what they were saying, expect to try to get Lucy to talk to them. Grace had to laugh, Lucy was never good under pressure.

Once back in Lucy's apartment, she found a book and sat down on the couch and started reading. She really didn't care what kind of book, she just wanted an escape from everything. Grace ended up reading about a princess and prince on a white horse.

'Sure, set up a girl with poor expectations for what love should be like.' Even in her mind, she knew it sounded sadistic. Close to sounding like her father. 'Poor standards of romance. If this is what people view it, no wonder people don't marry by massive amounts of numbers.'

She kept reading the book, she had a bad habit of reading. Once you start on it, might as well read it to the end. It was something that she shared with Lucy. Even the love of wanting to be an author. Once she had reached the end, it was when Lucy came home and sadly with unwanted guests. Each one of them came before Lucy had come home. 'They're just lucky, I had finished the book before they came.'

Lucy gasped at her group of friends. "Not that I'm angry or anything, but what are you doing in my house? I wanted a night with Grace."

Erza; from what Grace could detect. "Master wants everyone to sleep at each other's houses until we figure out what Phantom Lord wants. So we came here."

Natsu leaned back into the couch that Grace was on. Causing the two to intertwine their legs with one another. Making Grace feel a bit uncomfortable. Sure she found him a good looking man, but not someone she would ever picture for herself. He was more on the scale for Lucy, he was the type of guy that she would not mind for her sister.

Lucy saw the exchange of legs and saw the uncomfortable look from Grace and hissed at Natsu. "Hey, get your legs away from her. Can't you see she's not liking it?"

Natsu glanced up with sorrow in his eyes. "Grace; you don't find me scary, do you?"

This caused many within the apartment to look towards the girl. "Please don't take this wrong, even though Lucy has known you for a while but I don't. After my run in with many thugs, I find myself hard to trust people." It was enough for them to realize what kind of life she had for three months.

The other male that Grace believed to be Gray; spoke up, "Then how did you allow Loke to be close to you? On second thought, how is he not hitting on you?"

Grace blushed, "He did yesterday until I broke his wrist and then healed it." She glanced down after seeing Natsu had let her legs go, bring them closer to her own body for him to stretch out. "I think it was after me taking out Laxus that he showed a different side of him. The kind of man, I would call a brother."

"Funny," Lucy gave a sad looking smile. "He would run from me but comfort you."

Erza smiled, "You got to remember, he had a bad history with Celestial Wizards."

"Oh yeah, a bad breakup."

"Well that settles it," stated Natsu, giving Grace a cheeky smile. "Welcome to the family, Grace and I wouldn't mind being your brother too."

Grace smiled, she felt it warming up her heart. She can see why Lucy would spend most of her time with him. "I would like that... brother."

Gray chuckled, "Don't get too ahead of yourself there hot head. She hasn't joined the guild yet."

Grace sighed, closing her eyes. "You know I can't do that, I would cause a nightmare of a mess for your master." When she opened her eyes, they became blue as she glanced around Lucy's team. "Would just be better that I don't get involved."

Natsu pushed himself from the end of the couch and jumped onto Grace. She had no warning or knew what to expect. She felt his arms around her, bringing her closer to him. Feeling his body heat, which was much hotter than any other that she had ever known. 'Yep, definitely a fire dragon.'

"You're not going anywhere," he growled out, stopping Grace from wanting to struggle. "Lucy has gotten her sister back and I had declared you to be my sister as well." His hold became tighter, making Grace believe that he may have well been raised by a snake. "You're staying and that's it, or I'll go out and hunt you down and bring you back."

Grace had managed to laugh, she really did see the upside of knowing Natsu. Lucy may be blonde but she found a great friend in him. She was shocked that he would consider Grace to be his sister and not Lucy. 'Is it because he has feelings for Lucy that he was not ready to say. If that is so? Lucy needs some kind of cute romantic in her life.' Once she was let go and Natsu pushed himself way. 'Or on a second thought, a very dense dork.'

Natsu had said something that pissed her off, causing the two to run across the apartment. Grace smiled, seeing the two interact the way she had dreamed that father and mother were. Whenever she had heard stories about the two of them.

Grace spoke loud enough for Gray and Erza to hear her. "They have no clue, do they?"

"Not one bit," growled Gray.

Erza chuckled, "I wouldn't break it to them. This world has enough darkness and issues for them to focus on." Her smile seemed distant for the two who she was talking to. "Allow them to get there on their own."

Grace sighed as she places her hand on her cheek, leaning into the back of the couch. "Must be the hero complex."

Gray and Erza glanced towards her, when Gray asked, "What do you mean?"

"Was it not how they met, Natsu saving Lucy from a slave trader?"

Gray yelled, "I didn't know that!"

Erza sighed, "I might have. I was in the same town as the two of them. Hearing a pink haired man and blonde running out of town because of slave trader being washed to shore."

"Aquarius," stated Grace. She saw the mixed looks. "She's a spirit that Lucy has, who controls water. She was also mother's spirit and has a temper."

This caused Lucy to stop chasing after Natsu, glancing towards Grace. "What about Aquarius?"

"Did she crash a ship onto the shore," Grace gave her a look for her tell the truth.

"Yeah," she gulped. "Only because a slave trader was trying to take me and a bunch of women to Bosco. And Natsu, without knowing he has motion sickness wasn't much help once the boat moved. So I had to do something."

Gray gave a dark look, "If only I was there to help. I would have been a walk in the park."

Grace covered her eyes with her hand. "Ever since Lucy was young, many tried to kidnap the daughter of the railroad tycoon." She heard Lucy hissing at her to stop, but Grace didn't. "She was their number one target."

Natsu sighed, "Aren't you a target too?"

"Not for the same reasons, most circles know to avoid me." She saw the hurt in Lucy's eyes. From looking into her brown eyes, Lucy had not told her friends who she was. Grace was smart enough to not say much, just enough to stir their minds to know to protect her. "I might not be around to save your sorry ass, Lucy. They need to know what they're dealing with."

"I'm not ready for them to know everything."

Natsu spoke up, seeing a fight of the sisters to bring about. "Hey; whatever it is Lucy, we will listen. But only when you're ready."

"Thanks, Natsu."

And with that, it brought an end to the night. Bringing everyone to fall asleep in odd places around the room. Lucy and Erza had the bed; while the guys had the couch, by having them at each end with their feet up on the coffee table. While Grace had her head in Natsu's lap and her legs over Gray's. It was acquired for most but it was durable for the group.