Lucy awoke in her room. A large, pink room that she'd now woken up many times. Suddenly she realised what she had achieved, for the very first time. A smile on her face, she called for her maid. The maid came in, wondering why her mistress, who was a very deep sleeper and was impossible to wake up early mornings, was awake so early.

"Miss Lucy! For what reason might you be awake so early today?' She questioned.

Lucy smiled and said, "I'm going to run away today."

In the orignial timeline, and her previous few, she had never once informed the staff that she would run away. But she'd seen them die multiple times and that was something she couldn't forget.

"What-" The maid stuttered.

"Shhh." Lucy giggled, "I'm running away!'

The maid wasn't surprised Lucy was running away, many rich children-especially mages-ran away because they weren't happy. She just didn't know Lucy would tell them. Truthfully, she was touched.

"Alright then. You'll need help packing, now, won't you?'

The staff tearfully hugged Lucy goodbye.

Bero stepped forward. "Lucy," He called her attention. He wasn't crying.

"I wish to talk to you in private before you go," He said, seriously. Lucy was puzzled, this had never once happened before, so what was different this time? Lucy was an intelligent girl, however. She figured that perhaps it was the sudden-and extremely large-increase in her power that had set him off.

She'd figured out how this "blessing" thing worked. Anna Heartfilia had been a close friend of Zeref, and Mavis, even. She'd achieved many things, and gone on to be the greatest wizard-although Lucy surpassed her in the future (or current time considering time travel)-and made legends. She was the first wizard after the creator of celestial magic who had ever been able to first collect all thirteen keys and then summon them all coming out unharmed.

But even she wasn't able to access the Star dress. It was known she was not only a close friend of Zeref, but of the Celestial King, too. In fact, as far as Lucy knew, she had been friends of many powerful people. Then again, Anna herself was one of those powerful people.

Anyways, Anna had helped Zeref create the eclipse gate after he'd shown her the idea; she'd been the first to support his idea, the reason they were such good friends. It seemed like fate that both these Heartfilias had befriended the two Dragneels. That was why Anna was given a wish by Ankhseram. Ironic, isn't it? Dragneels, cursed by Ankhseram, and Heartfilias, blessed by him, best friends throughout history.

Anna made the wish that the Heartfilia that would be her descendant, the offspring of the Heartfilia that would open eclipse would never die. Instead, she would go back in time and be able to right her mistakes. Almost as if she knew that Lucy would want to save her friends from what lay ahead.

But, unfortunately there was a catch-there always is-and that was memory seals. Her memory was sealed off by strong seals, and to break them, she'd have to be strong mentally. After all the timelines, the stronger she got, the faster she remembered each time. The first time she remembered was during battle against Tartarus. And she remembered during the during the grand magic games after each time, she failed to save them despite knowing it sooner.

She gathered that only if she knew from the start and was able to assist her guildmates to get stronger faster, could she have any chance of succeeding.

And she'd finally broken those goddamn seals. Not only that, it unlocked her previous strength. After fighting about a thousand enemies over and over had made her way stronger, but she never remembered. That was the other catch. Until she remembered everything, she wouldn't have future Lucy's strength-and all the other Lucy's, in all honesty.

And Bero was her magic teacher, so he would notice the massive increase in her magical aura.

It was now a few minutes before the train that Lucy was going to board; this time her staff wouldn't tell her father, which meant she didn't have to hide in the back of a train, where transportation was carried. She sighed in relief, realising just how many times she'd had to do that.

As the rest of the staff waved her goodbye, Lucy and Bero stepped aside to talk.

Before Bero could say anything, Lucy cut in.

"I know what you're going to say, Bero," Lucy said, "Where did this sudden strength come from?'

Bero merely raised an eyebrow.

"I don't have much time," Lucy glanced back, the train still had about five minutes to arrive. "I've been time travelling. In the future, I join the guild, Fairy Tail. We go through many adventures together, and they become my family, like you all did. But there is a huge war, and I don't make it out "alive", and neither do my guildmates. But my family is blessed, so instead of dying like all the others, I'm sent back in time without my memories. Every time I died, I'd keep going through a time loop. I'm not sure how many times I've been sent back in time, but slowly my mental strength increased. And finally, in this life, I remembered from the start and that's unlocked my future strength, too."

There was a hoot, and the train arrived.

"No matter how many lives I go through, you're always there, teacher." Lucy grinned. She put out her hand, and raised her finger in the unofficial sign of Fairy Tail.

That was the first time Lucy had ever seen Bero cry.

Lucy skipped her way through Hargeon. After all the time loops, she was glad she remembered. She was tired of all the fighting, but all the times she would have with her guildmates were always worth it. They were the best part, and they would never be the same people. But Lucy hoped she'd make them happy. They deserved that, at least. And this was the time when she'd first meet them.

Well, not right then and there, since she'd left a few days early. With the help of her staff, she was done packing and planning far earlier. She had been naive and slightly spoiled the first time and had ignored the consequences of this, and no, not the physical consequences. She'd spent years figuring out all the loopholes.

She'd left her staff lonely and hurt. When she'd come, they'd been brimming with joy. That was the first time she'd seen how she'd hurt them.

And if she had been able to, she would never had repeated the same mistake the next several times. But she hadn't.

Still, she was glad she managed to make everyone, but her father, happy.

Lucy looked happily through her keys. This time, the staff helped her pack, and she'd had enough time to grab enough jewels she was sure she would need to buy all the silver keys there were in the shop. She was certain she'd left the shop keeper the happiest man on earth.

She had managed to collect nine new silver keys, excluding the Canis Major key.

She had the keys of Apus, Canis Venatici, Cassiopeia, Chamaeleon, Perseus, Cetus, Lupus, Musca and Sagitta.

She'd also brought a whip, it wasn't as nice as the one she would receive from Edolas, but it was still pretty sweet, plus Bora, duke everlue and Erigor were easy to defeat. Well, at her current strength, most of the enemies before Edolas would be easy, but she didn't want to get too cocky.

She had about two days to contract the spirits, before she would meet them.

She slowly lay the keys down and pondered. 'Hm, which one should I contract first?'

She then decided on Apus. She took its key and held it out, exuding very little power in opening the gate. That was the funny thing; she could easily open a gate now, not using any more than about two percent of her full power. Opening a gate could be described as ripping open a hole to pull out a being from a whole another world, and that itself was extremely difficult.

"Open, gate of the paradise bird, Apus." And before Lucy stood a...young girl dressed as a bird.

There were two holes protruding from the back of her costume, and coming through them were very real wings.

"What is it with you and sagittarius dressing up as your constellations?' Lucy muttered to herself, but the spirit had enhanced hearing and heard her easily.

"I thought it was funny that uncle Saggy dressed up like a horse, so I did it too!' She said. "But they said there was already a horse, and so I dressed up as a bird, instead. Since I'm meant to be a bird." She pouted.

Lucy thought she was really cute.

"Well," Lucy lowered herself down to the girl's height. "I think you look awesome! Anyways, wanna make a contract with me?'

The girl smiled. They then discussed the details of the contract and she vanished in feathers and wings.

Lucy made a contract with all her new spirits, saving Plue for last. Once she was done, she sighed in relief and opened Plue's gate.

"Hi, little dude," She said gently. She would never take Plue for granted.

She spent the whole day getting to know her spirits. She knew she needed to have a plan of action for when the war came, but there was still about eleven to twelve years, even if it felt like only five or so years had passed. She was wondering if it would be such a big change if she didn't go to tenrou, but then again, some of Fairy Tail's members gained independence and those who were on the island got closer. And that was also where she was planning to meet Zeref. She wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do, but she decided it was worth it. She knew that Zeref had not given in to darkness then, and perhaps she could help him in some way.

She couldn't put too much hope into that plan, but there was always a plan B, she supposed.

The next two days passed by in a blur of meditating, training and strategising.

Lucy gleefully stepped onto the bridge from where she'd seen the girls crowding. She joined the gaggle of girls, and for a second the smile fell. This was the man who'd pretended to be in her Fairy Tail, when he was more pathetic than the lowest criminals.

He flashed her a smile, and she glowered at him. He seemed taken aback by her blatant refusal to his charm, and waved his hand at her, as if that would make it work. She pretended to be wooed by it.

Oh, she couldn't wait to see the look on his face, when she beat him to a pulp.

"Igneel!' A mess of pink hair burst through.

Natsu looked up confusion in his onyx eyes, "Huh? Who the heck are you?'

Lucy burst out laughing, all the attention going from Natsu to her. She blushed, she hadn't meant to do that.

But then she saw Natsu staring at her, a strange look in his eyes. "L…"

Happy, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on. Lucy was shocked but she masked it. After all the times she'd repeated this, not once had he remembered her. Maybe there was a bit of her Natsu in this one.

She winked at him and stepped back letting the crowd of girls swallow her.

Soon enough, Natsu said something stupid, as she expected him to, and got beaten up by the girls.

Natsu lay in the trash, Happy hovering over him, when a pale hand appeared before him. He followed it to the mysterious blonde from before.

When he'd first seen her, she'd been laughing. If he was honest, he wasn't captivated because her laugh was beautiful or because she looked beautiful or anything cheesy even though both of those things were true, but because she'd looked at him with love that he only saw in his guildmate's eyes.

Okay, so maybe he didn't. He couldn't just look at some stranger and say that that stranger loved him when they didn't even know him. But it felt like they did.

And then she'd winked at him and disappeared in the crowd, and his heart had sped up.

He wasn't sure why.

And now she was offering him her hand, helping him get up. He took it, because why not? Before he could say anything, though, she started talking.

"Thanks! That ass had a charm spell on me. It broke when you randomly burst through," She laughed. "Anyways, I'm Lucy. You two want lunch, my treat. As a thank you."

Natsu and Happy then decided that no matter who she was and what she was like, they liked her. Okay if she was some evil villain disguise then they didn't like her, but still, food.

"So, who's this Igneel guy?'

"He's not a guy!' Happy replied, mouth full of fish. Lucy fake-gagged. He poked his tongue out, which made Lucy actually internally gag. "He's a big, fire-breathing dragon. And he's Natsu's dad."

"Oh? But why would a big dragon be in the middle of a town?'

They paused, only just realising the logic of that comment.

"I'm gonna beat that bastard to the ground," Natsu muttered, sulking.

Lucy chuckled, "Hey, hey, you should have known. Anyways, who told you about salamander, anyway?'

"Macao, my guild mate,"

"Ooooh, and what guild might you be from?' She decided to have a little bit of fun with him before she left.

"The best guild of course-"

"You mean Lamia Scale?' Lucy battered her eyelashes. "I'm gonna join them!'

Natsu pretended to puke, "Them? No way, they're trash. I'm in-"

"Phantom Lord, then? They're, like, the second best. That's better than Fairy Tail."

"Hey!' Natsu and Happy squealed together, "what's that supposed to mean?'

Lucy laughed, "Oh god, you guys. I'm joking. Fairy Tail's obviously the best."

"Stupid." Natsu muttered lowly, but Lucy heard it.

"Did you just call me stupid?' Lucy glowered.

"N-no, sir,"

"Good. Now, I have to get going. I'm going to leave the bill here, feel free to eat more. It was nice meeting you."

"You, too," Happy said, chewing on the tail of a fish.

But before she could get out of the door, Natsu called out to her.

She just remembered how they thanked her. "N-no need to thank me!' She exclaimed.

Natsu stared at her weirdly, "I wasn't going to. Wasn't this supposed to be your way of saying thank you, anyways? Dummy."

Lucy just glared at him.

"Anyways, I'm from Fairy Tail! You wanna join?' Natsu grinned, Happy agreeing.

Lucy was shocked to say the least. This wasn't meant to happen yet. Why was it happening so early?

Alright, so, yes this idea had developed into something slightly different from the previous one, thus why I did a rewrite in the first place. The idea of this is a time loop instead of a time travel to the past once, and yes, the Aina Albey character has an important role, which will be revealed later on. Actually as I wrote, I erased quite a few versions and rewrote, and then decided on this. While this may have come as a plot twist, this was what I was planning to eventually make happen.