Dear Readers,

I'm just gonna leave this here... and go work on posting the next one...

Disclaimer: Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail, Desna owns the Pradesh Characters, and my beta (GoddessxNyte2) is the greatest person ever.

Enjoy!

"I'm sorry, Kaleb, but she's smart. There are differences in her magic and her spirits' magic, but with it all over the place it is proving extremely challenging to pick it out. If I just had a few days to really track it, on the ground, I might be able to find her, but with the Steel Council pulling me away for missions so much lately..."

The mage didn't need to finish his thought. Kaleb was well aware of how demanding the Steel Council had been as of late, as his own brother Vander hadn't been free enough even to make it to Palerno to see Bickslow, who'd been in Bosco for months after having been banned for years. Bloodhunters were normally busy, pulled in on missions more frequently than other commissioned mages, but lately it had been… excessive.

That was another of the many problems on his list of things to deal with, but not his current focus. Nor the most frustrating.

Sighing, he spoke his response into the com, "I understand, Presca. Thanks for trying. Let me know when you get back to White Sea, and keep Van out of trouble."

"I make no promises," the energy mage advised, "but I'll do what I can."

Kaleb nodded and signed off, placing the com down and studying the map of Ishgar he kept on the far wall of his office. Normally he used it as a reference, but over the course of the last month it had gradually been turned into some kind of "Celestial Mage Tracker", yellow pins in it for every sighting of the mage herself or one of her spirits. At the end of the first week they had started actively searching, the sightings had been concentrated mainly along the southern border of Fiore. Now? The map had more yellow pins than there were cities in Ishgar.

With no discernable pattern.

He'd figured out quickly that she had somehow managed to be sending her spirits to random locations to help throw her trail. It was incredibly impressive, especially as according to the Academe Cellestine, celestial spirits generally could only be summoned in the same location as their mage.

Based on the sightings they had seen, Lucy Heartfilia had proved that theory incorrect.

Once he had figured out what she was doing, Kaleb decided the best way to figure out where she really was to find any areas where sightings hadn't been reported. Thinking that perhaps, she'd have been avoiding having her spirits sighted wherever she actually was.

A close review of the map had revealed that the only places where she hadn't been spotted were in unpopulated areas - mountainous valleys, forests, places where no one was likely to spot anyone.

Sure, that's probably where she was. In one of those unpopulated places. But which one? Ishgar was a very geologically diverse continent. Several countries had unpopulated mountainous regions. All had lush forests that were not meant for human habitation. Iceberg in and of itself was hardly populated at all. They had six major cities where ninety percent of their population resided, and the rest was rather deserted. Desierto was much the same, though they had a few more rural communities centered around the occasional water source. Joya was so tight-lipped about what happened in their borders that a lack of sightings there meant next to nothing. There wasn't a single sighting in Peregrande, but Kaleb wasn't exactly surprised by that. Lucy was a woman, she'd be stupid to hide in a country that thought she was essentially livestock to be bought and sold. He'd send Van there to do a cursory look around when the man managed to come home for more than three days at a time, but he didn't believe the shadowquip would find anything.

Kaleb had told the guildmaster of Sabretooth that White Sea would expend whatever resources they had to bring the girl to justice. The young man had been livid, and understandably so, as it was his pregnant dragon mate that had been wronged, and Kaleb felt compelled to assist.

Especially as, at one point, the culprit had belonged to his brother's Fiorian guild.

He'd had a personal interest in finding her anyway, as Bickslow - who had been staying with him in his guildmaster suite in White Sea for the last month - spent nearly every waking moment of his time brooding over the girl. His confused thoughts concerning Ms. Heartfilia were causing real discomfort to Kaleb in the form of frequent headaches, as Bix was thinking through everything so loudly, and in such close proximity, that the mindbender found himself struggling to tune them out.

He circled around to sit heavily down on his desk chair, rested his elbows on the desk, and continued staring at the map as if it would magically provide him answers. Stats. Some minor percentage differences between the rates of appearance in each location that would crack the case, solve the mystery. He rolled his eyes, as if that could happen.

Or… could it?

Kaleb Pradesh spent the rest of his day designing and developing a new program for his lacrima system.

Hours later, when he went to save his notes regarding said project on his lacrima, he named the note file "Celestial Mage Tracker", before logging off and heading back to his quarters.

"Erik, what is even the point of all this training if I can't beat you?!"

The poison mage in question flicked her forehead, glaring at her, "Don't you ever use that brilliant fucking brain of yours, Polyphemus?"

She rubbed at her forehead angrily, then proceeded to punch him in the shoulder. Hard.

He tried not to wince, cursing himself for not dodging. He knew better.

"Tink, I've been training my whole life with this shit. You're good. A natural, and you're picking this shit up faster than I expected, but it's not like you're just gonna fucking wake up one day and be able to beat me."

Lucy sighed. He was right. She was just getting antsy. Her magic had been on edge for the last two weeks or so, and it made her nervous. And every time she lost to a heavily bundled Erik, she felt that much less prepared for whatever was coming next.

"Right, right," Lucy conceded. Though she didn't like it.

"Besides, I haven't been letting you use those monster legs for a reason. I value my life."

Lucy rolled her eyes. She knew he was just placating her, but it was working a little anyway. He did have a point after all, her Lucy Kicks had gotten more powerful than she'd imagined they ever could. It's just that she couldn't land a hit on Erik. Or Capricorn, when she sparred with him instead. Or Loke. Or even Aries. Though, her spirits got stronger as she did, so that they could keep up with her shouldn't have been a surprise.

Erik pinched her cheek to get her attention, "did you hear me?"

"Huh?" Lucy responded intelligently.

"I said, we need to figure out the plan. We've been in Iceberg for too long - don't look at me like that, Bright Eye, I'm not saying that because I'm cold," he was cold, but he wasn't lying. He brought it up because they'd been in the same country for two months, and since she'd started her magical training on top of the combat and strength training, they were more visible than ever.

And Erik had to admit, Gildarts had been correct when he told Lucy that being around her for her magical training was a bad idea. The first time she'd released and manipulated her full magic power during a meditation, he'd been over a hundred yards away and still felt like he couldn't move. Since then, they'd been travelling constantly to stay hidden, but they were running out of new places in Iceberg to camp out.

"I know, you're right. But I've been putting it off. Laxus says White Sea is still working hard to find me - which, by the way, don't let me forget to test my new abilities on Sting when this is all over - and I really wanted to get more information on my magic by going to Stella next. But it's just… too close to Bosco. Bellum might be the only option, but there are far less open spots to hide there. We will have to move on from there quickly."

"So we will do that, problem solved. Besides, Cotton Candy says she's closer to finding out information on that dumbass guild you're after. By the time we need to leave, we might be regrouping with your moronic Fairies and finishing this shit once and for all."

Lucy felt both excited and apprehensive about that, but didn't have any better plan, so conceded.

"Okay, fine. Bellum it is. We'll make our way there starting tomorrow. There is just one problem with that…"

Lucy took the poison slayer's simple stare as a request to continue.

"We are kind of on the other side of the country. It'll take us a month by foot to get to the border. At least."

"Oh, damn it! Is it gonna be this fucking cold the whole time?" Cobra asked, instinctively tucking himself back into his numerous layers (this time, giving up on visibility totally as he covered his whole head with a scarf Aries had made him out of pity).

Erik heard her giggle, she knew he did, but he seemed reluctant to tell her off at the expense of the warmth he'd found himself in.

"Ow, fuck!"

"Oh, stop whining, Polyphemus! Get your shit together and hit me."

Shaking out her hand, Lucy winced, "What the fuck are you wearing that just broke my hand?"

Erik pulled off two layers, which were - oddly enough - the only layers he'd decided to wear that day, despite the fact that they'd been delayed by several weeks and were still stuck in Iceberg.

Sting was going to die at the end of all this. She'd heard that Laxus had threatened him so severely that he had stopped his idiotic attempts at 'helping', but now that White Sea was involved, they'd been sending out random patrols throughout several countries to find her. She had no idea why they'd seemingly taken a personal interest in her capture, but it was getting seriously challenging to do any form of travel.

She decided focusing on her travel problems wasn't the most pressing need, though, as Erik's Gray Fullbuster-esque stripping session had revealed a fucking suit of armor. In gold.

One that she (unfortunately) recognized.

"Where the hell did you get that? And why didn't you warn me before I fucking punched you, Flower Power?!"

"Loke gave it to me, 'Phemus. It's got some kind of enchantment that keeps me warm. And I didn't warn you because this was more fun. What the fuck is with 'Flower Power'?

Lucy kicked him, and much to Erik's disappointment, the armor was less effective when up against her foot rather than her fist. He frowned down at the dented metal compressing his ribs as if he were a five year old who just dropped his freshly-bought ice-cream cone.

"You're favorite poisons are from these really pretty flowers - yes, I noticed, don't try and deny your flower fetish, Erik - and you get power from poison. Ergo - Flower Power. Actually… I like that one. It might stick. Besides, you keep calling me Polyphemus and I have no fucking clue what that is," Lucy said, trying really hard not to feel bad about how sad Erik looked at having lost the warmth of Regulus.

'Loke. You have some other kind of Regulus-Charged clothing?' Lucy questioned through the bond. She and her spirits had gotten better at separating themselves a bit, so they only invaded each other's mental space when they did so on purpose.

'What happened to my armor…?'

'A-about that…'

Loke's disappointment was felt through the bond once he'd paid more attention to her thoughts and figured out what was wrong.

'Sorry, Loke,' Lucy apologized.

"Polyphemus is character from Old Minstrellan Mythology. He was a sheep-hoarding cyclops," Erik spoke casually.

"LUCY KICK!"

Loke cut off his access to the bond, trying not to be upset at the literal million-year-old armor set he'd kept in mint condition for as long as he could remember, and the dents and scrapes that now littered it.

"Ow, fuck, what's you're problem, psycho?!"

"Stop whining, it's a spar!"

"But you hit me! How could you?!"

Lucy scoffed, "That's exactly the point, poison breath!"

"Yeah, but it's cold. Everything hurts more when it's cold, you're not supposed to hit me when I'm shivering."

"A year, huh?"

"Yeah," Lucy said, sitting next to her kin around the campfire Loke had lit earlier that night. They were approaching the border of Iceberg and Bellum, after having spent an exhausting four months splitting their time between training intensely, hiding, and running from patrols. They'd gotten into a few scuffles, but thankfully, not with any of the Boscan teams that had been frequenting the area. That would have likely resulted in the swift deployment of the entire four-thousand member guild to track her down.

She'd never met the man, but she knew of the guild's master Kaleb Pradesh. He was known for his ability to capture mages no other guilds could. White Sea was the most well known light guild in the world, and had a reputation for shutting down dark guilds and tracking down dark mages without difficulty.

Lucy couldn't help but feel like she'd been locked in some kind of invisible battle with the Boscan wizard saint. The more time passed, the more mages she saw everywhere. From the information she'd gotten from Makarov and Laxus in her weekly check ins, the guild was out in full force, with mages in each major country in Ishgar.

While it was certainly challenging, and inconvenient, Lucy felt secretly thrilled at having bested the man for so long. She couldn't help it, she was competitive, and so far she was victorious. Against the youngest, most powerful wizard saint in Bosco. Probably in all of Ishgar.

Erik noticed her extremely smug smirk, and picked up on just enough from her soul to understand why she was sporting it. He couldn't help but mirror her sentiment. Winning was satisfying as fuck.

Lucy took a deep breath, "I wonder how everyone is doing… A year later, you think they've forgotten about me?"

Erik looked at her closely, "Nah. You're unforgettable, Polyphemus," he teased.

She punched him in the ribs, and he felt a small amount of relief that none of them cracked. She was starting to act like that lunatic, hammer-wielding red head with how often she forgot her own strength.

At the risk of his safety, because he could hear a small echo of the sadness in her soul that she used to carry constantly, he threw his arm over her shoulders and pulled her roughly into an awkward side-embrace type thing, "We're not far off now, Bright Eyes, chin up."

"I've only got-"

"I swear to fuck, Lucy, if you ruin this very rare, sparkly unicorn shit sentimental moment by telling me, for the eightieth time, that you only have one eye, I will poison your food for the rest of your damn life."

Lucy's giggle was music to his ears, chasing away that lingering sadness in her soul.