I love Fairy Tail, but I don't own it. Don't take this story seriously. Be safe, stay away from crowds and get a PCR test if you think you've been exposed to coronavirus. Enjoy!
Chapter 1: The Plan
Dark times had befallen Earthland and its many kingdoms. No continent in the world was truly safe. The weak, the strong, the young, the old, the smart, the stupid; all potential victims to the once-regional King Hat Disease. Its elegantly silly name was a name that failed to reflect the severity of the disease. Known for being having a protein coat wearing a microscopic crown, the virus would, in the worst of cases, kill by turning its victims' lungs into cheese so full of holes that even the bees would blush. In other cases, patients would experience fatigue, difficulty breathing, memory malfunction, fever, decreased tolerance for first-world problems, and bouts of observable and unobservable inflammatory reponses.
All facets of life around the world were affected by the virus. Naturally and tragically for the Kingdom of Fiore's greatest finest, this included guild work. The blind ventures of the Magic Council had bottlenecked the flow of jobs going to the guilds in Ishgar. Magnolia Town, once bustling, had packed houses and barren streets. Porlyusica, local medical adviser and human-hating extraordinaire, saw more people in her life than she ever wanted to as positive cases of King Hat Disease rose.
Lucy Heartfilia woke up in her bed, hearing a faint rustling through the floor. That could have only meant one thing. The girl beloved by the stars Lucy Kicked herself out of bed and trapsed down the stairs. Exactly as she suspected, her teammates let themselves in and made themselves at home. They all were in their pajamas. For Happy and Gray, of course, that meant wearing absolutely nothing.
Natsu, with his scarf wrapped tightly around his head, was laying on Lucy's dining room table as Wendy poured pancake batter on his abs. Erza, wearing a mask she'd surely taken from one of her samurai helmets, heartily greeted, "Good morning, Lucy!"
"Morning. So did you all get evicted or is the moratorium on that still on?" asked the groggy blonde, increasingly roused by the delicious smell of pancakes cooking on Natsu.
"Natsu and I own our house, and we marked our territory so the town can't say we don't own the land underneath," Happy announced. Carla's eyes widened as her imagination filled in the gaps unnecessarily.
"We've called this meeting today because Wendy has a plan to get us through this and maybe even give Magnolia's economy a little boost," Erza explained, glancing at Wendy's breakfast endeavors. With her endlessly versatile Requip, the redhead pulled a spatula from her arsenal and passed it to the young Sky Maiden.
Lucy blinked twice before clarifying, "I wasn't called to this meeting."
"Well, of course not. You already live here."
"Okay, the logic is sound. Lay it on me."
"You see, I had this dream," Wendy began as she took the now finished pancake from Natsu's abs, "where we revolutionized the food industry. Ab cake?" With no more than a nod from Lucy, Wendy tossed the pancake like a frisbee. Lucy, having been raised to exude dignity and grace at all times, successfully caught the hotcake in her mouth. "Imagine this. The seven of us coming together to open a burger restaurant. Our skills and talents come together perfectly for it! We'll call it Wendy's!"
"How do you mean; our skills are perfect for it?" Gray asked.
"Erza-san's masterful swordsmanship makes her the perfect fry cook. Happy's knowledge of fish makes him our seafood specialist. Carla's level-headed and sane, so she can be the manager. Yes, we will be listening to her for once. Just now, Natsu-san has more than proved he's a capable grill. Gray-san can be the ice machine and a general employee. I can be the mascot, and Lucy-san can be the owner since she grew up getting trained to inherit the Heartfilia conglomerate," Wendy elaborated, her vision unfolding in her friends' minds.
Lucy inquired, "Wait, if we're naming the restaurant after you, shouldn't you be the owner?"
Wendy looked Lucy dead in the eye and blinked twice before answering, "You want me to be the owner and the mascot? That's mad cringe, bruh."
"…Well, alright, then. I'm the owner of Wendy's," Lucy declared. Wendy was right. The level of cringe for being both the owner and the mascot of a restaurant was as steadily huge as the world itself. Everyone had their role, but now they needed something to make the whole of Wendy's stand out from the crowd. "What's our hook? We should have something quirky that makes customers go 'oh that's fun' and pick our food over the competition."
"Ah, I see. Well, if our main product is burgers, then let's put some pizzazz in the patties," Carla suggested. "Something unorthodox, but also low risk. Let's pick something non-circular and our burgers can take that form!"
"Triangles," Erza called out.
Lucy shook her head. "I don't think that's enough meat."
"Squares?" Gray pitched.
"Squares are for squares," Wendy rejected, making an X-shaped formation above her head with her arms.
Rather than speaking, Happy clawed a pentagon into Lucy's wall and gestured to it. The other members of Team Natsu looked to the pentagon, then to one another. Resounding murmurs of agreement flooded the room. At the cost of Lucy's security deposit, they had their first gimmick. Wendy's was going to be a hit with Magnolia, and maybe even the entire Kingdom of Fiore.
There was a lot of prep work to do, but a dream was something to hold onto in dark times. Wendy returned Erza's spatula to her, which the knight used to practice her fry cook skills by dueling an imaginary enemy. Natsu, cheeky about being the grill, sat up smugly on Lucy's table. Lucy went back up to her room, returning with a quill, several sheets of paper, a map of Magnolia and a storm of ideas swirling in her mind. The first thing they did was look at empty lots and vacant buildings. Time to open a restaurant!