I do not own Fairy Tail or the Pradesh Family

"The…. the guild… who's still alive?"

Makarov, who had just stumbled to her side and kneeled across from Laxus after casting Fairy Law, paled. He'd gotten them all out of the hall but he really had no idea if they'd lost anyone. He left before he knew the answer, running after his missing child since he'd made all the others stay back.

He didn't answer her, instead turning his worried gaze to his grandson, raising an eyebrow in question.

Laxus looked at the both of them and quickly answered, "Everyone's fine. Seriously, as far as I could tell there were no casualties."

Lucy let go of a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, tears gathering in her eye as she was overcome with relief… Only to wince a second later as her relieved sigh aggravated her injured ribs and the wound where she'd been impaled. Fuck, she was not doing well.

'Loke…?'

'I'm here, Princess!' her mental thought was answered immediately, and she could hear the relief in his tone. For some reason, despite not being locked in her subconscious this time, she couldn't stop picturing his little chibi-form that her dying brain had come up with. It almost made her giggle, except that would have hurt worse and she knew it.

'Thank you, Loke. Thank everyone for me. Especially Stache Face, for setting this up and powering it for us. I'll call you when… if I get better.'

She didn't wait for his response, and she honestly assumed that Stache Face had stopped powering the connection. His interference in the human world, even in that small action, was blatant favoritism and he couldn't risk doing it often, and that was something she understood.

Lucy coughed, and cringed when the pain in her torso flared. The blood escaping her mouth wasn't such a good sign, either.

"Fuck…" she said to no one in particular.

"Yeah, Blondie, you're looking pretty fucking rough. We need to get back to the guild, now."

"Wait!" Lucy shouted, before Laxus had the chance to lift her from the ground.

"What could possibly be important enough to delay saving your goddamn life?" Laxus questioned, reaching to lift her off the ground anyway.

"I need to leave the guild."

That stopped him in his tracks, and Makarov paled considerably. "Why?"

Lucy cringed, but faced Master Makarov to answer his question, "Those assholes were after me. Not Fairy Tail. And until they are gone, I need to go into hiding. And I need to train," she gestured to her battered body, "clearly I'm not prepared to take them out on my own. You saw what happened at the guild! They are more than capable of hurting or killing mages I'm associated with to get to me, and I won't allow that to happen."

Laxus chimed in, "What's to stop them from going after us to find you, genius? Gods, this is a waste of time. Shut up so we can go-"

"LAXUS ANTONY DREYER, shut the hell up and listen to me!"

Laxus sealed his lips closed and scowled at his kin. Ever since the Grand Magic Games, they'd gotten closer. After Tartaros, his dragon demanded he claim her as kin, and he did, but more than that he and Gramps had both kind of… adopted her into the Dreyer family. None of them were really sure how it happened, but Christmas two years ago had found them all as the only people in the guild hall on the actual date of the holiday: Makarov and Laxus both using the much needed quiet time to do paperwork, and Lucy showing up because she honestly didn't have anywhere else to go. She's spent exactly ten minutes wallowing in the loneliness she felt before she marched into both of their offices and dragged them out by the hand to 'do something less fucking depressing on Christmas Day'. Ever since then, they'd been a little family inside the family that was Fairy Tail, much like the Strauss's. Little Dreyer had been added to Lucy's long list of nicknames.

And unfortunately, since about a month after that incident, Lucy had learned of his middle name. And she used it shamelessly like a fucking weapon.

"If you didn't notice, Antony," Why did he come to save her again?, "this dumbass guild had more information than should have been possible. There's got to be a spy or something in Fairy Tail - shut the fuck up, I know that sounds crazy but it's the only thing that makes sense! - and, Greasy fucking shouted my name out at the guild before Alec poisoned everyone. Probably trying to turn everyone against me so you all wouldn't come storming after me or some shit."

"I'm still not seeing your point, child," Makarov spoke gently.

"So, what I'm saying is, I shouldn't leave the guild. I should be kicked out. Let them think their little mind game worked, and use it against them. They'd have no reason to go after Fairy Tail."

Laxus only scowled further, "You don't know what it's like living as an outcast of the guild, Lucy. Don't sign yourself up for that. We can figure something else out."

Lucy coughed again, blood splattering on the remains of her dark shirt, and whimpered at the pain, "Fuck - No Laxus, Gramps, this-"

"Look, we can talk about this later. You need to get to Wendy or Chelia. Now."

"No. Listen. We have to set this in motion now. We can't have holes in our story, I need you both to convince everyone I'm a traitor. Please. I couldn't live with myself if Fairy Tail was attacked again. That guild member that died in the hall? Alec killed her. He fucking planned on it - part of his attack strategy. He made her a fucking bomb just to keep people from following him. This is the only way I can think of to - Fuck I hate coughing - the only way to keep everyone safe."

Laxus and Makarov both looked at her sadly, "No. It's not going to happen." It was Laxus who said it, but they both seemed to be in agreement.

"DAMN IT! I promise on my honor as a celestial mage, if you don't help me do this I will give you a real fucking reason to have me expelled, I swear."

Both looked at her in horror. If she didn't keep that promise she'd lose all her magic. Laxus, while he normally would just tell her she deserved it for trying to force them into doing something they disapproved of, couldn't bear to let that happen to her. Not only because he knew first-hand what it takes to get expelled. If she did that she'd never forgive herself, just like he still hadn't forgiven himself for Fantasia. He also couldn't let it happen because of this asshole guild. They were targeting her. If she didn't go through with it, she'd be a sitting duck. She'd likely die at their hands, and he couldn't allow that to happen. She was kin, she was his baby sister.

"Oh, fuck you, Blondie," Laxus said, venom lacing his tone. Putting them both in this position was cruel. And judging by the guilty look on her face, she knew it was.

Softly, she spoke, "I'm… I'm sorry for doing it this way. But this is the only way I'll get strong enough to defeat them, the only way I can keep the others safe. I already thought I'd lost them once, I couldn't bear doing it again…"

Makarov spoke up then, "Child," he said, then cleared his throat, "I am sorry you feel this is the only way. I will allow you to do this, but please, consider my conditions?"

Lucy was running out of energy, and fast. She needed to resolve this or they wouldn't have anything to talk about, she'd just be dead.

"What conditions, Gramps?"

"One - we will heal you at the guild. Not only that, but you must stay a minimum of three days."

"Three days. Okay, I can work with that," she stated weakly.

"Two - You'll keep a communication lacrima on you, and you will report to me each week on your progress."

Lucy sighed, "I guess that's fine, but I'll need to be able to report to you or Laxus. One of you is off on council business all the time, it's the only way I'll be able to keep my promise of weekly calls."

Makarov waived dismissively, "Yes, yes, of course. And we will be discreet when taking calls from you, not to worry".

Blinking slowly, Lucy called out weakly, "Anything else, Master?"

"Ah, yes. Three and Four. You will call us for backup when you are ready to move in on Fallen Star, and you will meet Gildarts after you depart for training. If you want to get stronger, you'll need his help, and I won't have you out there alone."

She wanted to protest, but was fading fast. Gildarts was practically away from the guild on a constant basis anyway, so it's unlikely anyone would be suspicious of his not being around.

"Fine… Lax?"

Laxus, who'd been grumbling and whining about the prospect of her leaving on her own, glared down at her, "Yeah?".

"I… I-uhh… I think we waited too long. Tele...port…?"

"FUCK! Stupid fucking blonde, damnit!" he shouted, picking her up as quickly and gently as he could, directing his grandfather to hold on to him before teleporting back to the guild hall despite his worry that his lightning may hurt her in her injured state.

"If you guys have the rest handled, I think we have to get home," A sad voice called out to the members of Fairy Tail who were up and moving and finishing up the last of repairs. They'd all been working all afternoon to restock the bar, restock the infirmary (Mira had doubled every supply they had in there in her worry for the master and Lucy), clean every surface, and fix the parts of the floor that had been torn up by the intruder's magic.

"We can take it from here, take Asuka home," Jellal replied to Bisca, the wizard who'd spoken earlier. She looked upset that she couldn't stay until Lucy returned, but when she looked at the exhausted form of her 10-year-old, she knew she couldn't delay any more. She gestured to her husband and he grabbed his daughter by the hand and pulled her toward the door and away from the group of exceeds she was quietly huddling with.

"Thank you, Jellal. Wendy, will you let us know when Lucy returns?"

The young blue-haired teen shook her head, much to Bisca's surprise. She smiled almost embarrassed, "You need your sleep. Knowing if she okay won't change anything. Just get some rest and come back in the morning!"

Leave it to the young healer to use logic, Bisca thought, but nodded. She wasn't wrong. Turning on her heel, she walked out of the guild hall and joined hands with her husband. She called back, "One of us will be here bright and early!" as they both took off at a sluggish pace towards their home, walking towards the rapidly setting sun.

Jellal looked to their day's handiwork, thinking they'd made great progress, but worrying nonetheless. It had been far too long since Laxus had chased after Master and Lucy. A full day had passed and containing Natsu, Erza, and Gray now that they'd woken up was a nightmare. Thank goodness for Freed and his runes.

After a day of hard work from mostly the entire guild, plus Chelia, the only evidence that there had been a fight in here at all was the charred spots in the ceiling that wouldn't go away with a good scrub. Those would, unfortunately, need to be replaced entirely. Every other surface had been wiped clean with a powerful cleansing herbal potion that Porlyusica had made, removing any slight hint of poison from the hall. The process left the building basically spotless (something that only happened once every few years when they had to rebuild the structure from the ground up), and the entire area smelled of fresh herbs. They'd been able to fix a lot of the broken furniture, Laki's wood-maker magic coming in handy as always.

Wendy, Porlyusica, Chelia, and Gajeel were "discharging" patients from the cots along the entrance. Most people were fully healed but needed adequate rest to recover, so they were being sent home with a few words of instruction from the older healer on how long they were required to stay in bed, what they should be eating, and how they'd meet an unfortunate end if she caught them sneaking into the guild to drink before she told them they could. Wendy was passing out bags of dried herbs to the patients as they left that would help their recovery while Chelia checked them over with magic once more (since Wendy's magic was dangerously low), and Gajeel seemed to be in charge of helping each person stand (though he really could have been more gentle).

Levy, Jet, Droy, Bickslow and Mest were picking up the cots, blankets, and food trays and toting them to a storage area under the guild, certain they'd come in handy in the future. Romeo was helping his father from his cot and dragging him away slowly toward their house as the dark haired older man stumbled along with his arm slung over his son's shoulders. Wakaba and Nab had already left, as had most of the rest of the injured members. The only person who Porlyusica had insisted stay at the guild for observation was Mira, who had still yet to wake after receiving treatment. Elfman, Lisanna, and Evergreen had carefully taken her up to the infirmary just a few minutes before and they'd been sitting with her, as they'd not reappeared after taking her up.

Cana had decided to actually tend the bar for once, instead of just drinking it. She was working on filling the newly-cleaned shelves with new liquor to replace the broken bottles that had littered the place when they'd first entered. Though, with every bottle she placed on the shelf, she could be seen opening it, taking a swig and mumbling "Gotta test it. Can't serve bad booze," before actually putting the spirits away. Even with the alcohol, her brows were knit in concern and she kept glancing at the door. Jellal was sure she was drinking as much out of habit as she was just trying to relax her nerves while she waited for her friend to return. As the sun fell farther past the horizon and the outdoors became increasingly dark, she became increasingly agitated.

The exceeds were all huddled in a corner, Carla and Pantherlily trying to console a sobbing Happy, who despite having been crying all day long still managed to let tears escape. Carla found herself wondering if eventually his whole body would just run out of water. Natsu would normally be able to comfort him, but the pink haired dragon slayer was so agitated that he was throwing himself against Freed's runes repeatedly trying to escape their confines. He was clearly too busy to comfort his feline friend at the moment.

Poor Freed was looking exhausted as he sat nearby, maintaining the enchantment as he continually threw power at it.

Porlyusica was about to step up to the runes to lecture the still-recovering man, but found there was no need as they all heard a loud clap of thunder hit the ground right outside the guild hall doors (well - where the doors would normally be - they hadn't gotten around to fixing them yet). Natsu stilled completely, and Gray and Erza both stood from their seated positions to stand next to him, eyes fixated at the entrance to the guild hall, fists clenched at their sides.

Makarov was the first in the door, followed quickly by Laxus' as he followed clutching something close to his chest as liquid dripped off of it.

No, wait.

Not something. Someone. Lucy…

"We need a healer, now!"