Prologue

A/N : Hi there ! So, this is my first Fairy Tail fanfiction!

I'm doing here an alternative version of the end of GMG arc, with as main event the dragon battle. I'm going to use lots of canon quotes from the manga but I also want to explore the future especially Lucy's, Levy's and Yukino's.

This is the story of how Lucy and Yukino, instead of Lucy alone, went back in time and try to save the future.

The main pairings for this story are Natsu/Lucy and Sting/Yukino. You will also have Rogue/Kagura, Lyon/Meredy, Mirajane/Laxus, Gajeel/Levy, Gray/Juvia, Erza/Jellal as other pairings (some of them will simply be background pairings/implied pairings).

Even if you don't like one or some of these pairings, you could read this story. Shipping content is not the main point of the story (although it has an important place for the main pairings). The main focus of this story is Lucy and Yukino trying to save the future, and how they are trying to do so. I'm going to take time to develop the story like I want, and consider and two futures after the dragons' invasion (the first one with future!Lucy, future!Yukino and future!Levy with a few additions and the second one seven years later with Acnologia entirely ruling the world, the other alternative futurwhere future!Rogue comes from).

Protect the future by VoieLactee

Prologue: Write another story

Lucy woke up with her whole body aching and covered in blood and dirt, with dried tears down her cheeks but she had made it.

She struggled to open her eyes but the lack of blinding lights was more than welcome. Lucy looked next to her and saw Yukino in the same state as her, although she was still unconscious.

They had truly made it. And in that moment, she felt something she thought she would never feel again: a glint of hope.

"Yukino, wake up. Please!" she burbled in a croaky voice as she gently shook her friend's shoulder. Her throat still hurt from last night after... No, it wasn't the moment to think about it.

"Lucy-sama..." Yukino began as she slowly opened her eyes. The palace was there once again and the city looked peaceful. Astonished, she stared at the blond mage, eyes now wide open. "We're... alive?"

"We made it, Yukino! We went back in time," she answered. "We still have a chance to... to change our future, to prevent all these horrible events and-"

She couldn't finish her sentence though. It was too hard...

They stood up and looked around: the street was empty. It made sense after all, it was night.

Yukino pointed out the sky with her finger: the moon was glowing. Before going somewhere else, Lucy summoned Virgo to change their dirty clothes with the energy she had left.

"Open! Gate of the Virgin. Virgo!"

The Celestial Spirit appeared and bowed. "You called me, Princess. What can I do for you?" she asked.

"Can you give us new clothes please? And a cape, we must not be seen for now."

"As you wish, Princess," she replied while changing their clothes. They were now both wearing full-body hooded cloaks hiding them, with outfits from the celestial spirit world.

"Thank you, Virgo," Lucy started, unsure how to convey how grateful she was. "For everything," she insisted before she spirit left with a small smile on her face.

Opening the Eclipse Gate had been a desperate last act to try to live on, so they hadn't thought much of a plan. It meant they had to save the future without knowing how.

According to Horlogium, it was 4th of July since merely two hours ago. Lucy wistfully noted it was also the birthday of the day she had joined Fairy Tail... It was also only three days before the arrival of the ten thousands dragons and Yukino and she were were the only ones who knew their pending doom.

The slight feeling of hope she just felt was now replaced with helplessness.

"What kind we even do..." Lucy whispered for herself. She thought they would travel further in the past, at least before the start of the Grand Magic Games, not near its end.

Yukino gasped, as if she remembered something. "We have to find Jellal-sama and tell him!"

"But how-" before Lucy realized why she said that. At that moment, she hadn't know why his last words to them were that or why he gave her his necklace, that Lucy now wore around her neck but now... It all made sense. "He knew," she said with a shadow of a smile. He trusted them.

Even though Yukino and she weren't sure themselves they could manage to truly go back to the past, he knew they would succeed.

"Do you know where is it, Yukino?" Lucy asked, referring to Crime Sorcière's current location.

"It's almost at the exit of Crocus, near of the ruins of an old construction."

"Let's go!"

The wind was as fast as a train, but they kept walking through the city. It felt refreshing compared to the hellish flames of the dragons.

At one point, they even walked past Bar Sun, the place where Fairy Tail spent their nights celebrating during the Grand Magic Games. Lucy stopped as she felt tears prickling her eyes but chose to quickly turn her head away as she began to walk again thanks to Yukino's support. The hand of her friend placed around her shoulder was her only solace.

They finally reached the place where Jellal was. Yukino and she were standing there, waiting for him to show up with his comrades. There was no need to look out for them. They were behind them, in a stance indicating they were ready to fight.

"We'll show you who we are. Show me your faces too," Jellal said, still dressed up as Mystogan.

He looked at the uncovered parts by the capes and questioned, slightly bewildered.

"Women?"

The two women in question turned to face them.

"It's us," they said before removing their hoods.

That revelation was followed by a long moment of speechless silence before Jellal started speaking again.

"Lucy! And the Sabertooth mage! There's no way that's possible... How could you two be here? And you look..." he stated, eyes wide open by seeing the two Celestial Spirit mages. Yukino was grateful Jellal didn't finis his sentence.

"We... We both come from the future. In exactly three days, ten thousands dragons will return and we'll lost to destiny. We used the Eclipse Gate to travel back in time and try to prevent these events," Lucy anwsered.

"What you just said is just non-sense... How could you even come from the future, if all of this is true?" Jellal asked, perplexed by their story.

Lucy seemed to clean into the marrow of the young man's thoughts and showed the necklace around her neck. His necklace.

Speechless, he reached for his own necklace in her possession and automatically touched his neck. The same necklace was there as well.

"We knew you would say that. You knew it yourself. That's why you gave it to me."

"But... How? I would never take it away from me except if-"

The young women' faces said it all. He died.

Jellal felt all his strengh running out. At that rate, he would die in the next few minutes after three months of intense battle against these creatures they couldn't even beat. He had carried on for Erza, for everyone's sake. But now he was going to join the rest of Crime Sorcière... He was sad to leave Meredy alone, but at least, she now had Lyon.

With his eyesight now blurry and his body feeling so numb, his legs gave up on him and he slowly fell, before someone caught him.

It was Yukino, along with Lucy and Kagura. He could barely recognize them thanks to their haircuts as his sight somehow worsened. They made him lie down on the ground as gently as they could but the pain was so intense Jellal blacked out for a few seconds or a few minutes, he wasn't sure.

"Jellal!"

He could recognize Kagura's voice as she kept tapping on his cheek.

"Jellal-sama... Jellal-sama, can you hear us? Please say something," Yukino shouted, panicked at the sight of so much blood. The dragon had left massive scratches on his chest and his legs.

Yukino applied pressure on the big wound on his chest with her bare hands, in an attempt to lower the bleeding. She desperately looked around for a piece of cloth to use before Lucy took off her jacket.

He was able to slowly nod as an answer. To his relief, the pain lowered and his body started to feel numb. He smiled.

It probably wasn't a good thing given how Kagura of all people was worried about him.

"Wh-Where is Erza?" he asked in a croaky voice.

"She's w-with Gray, they're battling against two of them," Lucy replied

"I have... I have to see her."

"And you will but you have to stay awake..." Kagura insisted in a firm tone despite her wavering voice.

"Kagkura..."

"Please stop talking, you're losing more blood," Lucy said, practically begging.

"You know, I remember the... the time where I watched the sky and the moutains on the edge of Crocus... It wasn't a long time ago." Feelingwet tears falling on his cheeks, he smiled at them, his pain now completely gone. They didn't know why he was talking about that but they let him, knowing that they was nothing else to do. "If only... If only we knew, back at the Daimatou Enbu. Maybe-"

"But we can't rewrite history, can we?" Lucy continued sadly.

There was sadly no healer left.

If only Wendy was still there...

"Take it."

"What do you mean- why?"

Jellal reached Lucy's hand and gave her his necklace. "I trust you... You can write another story."

"If we could, we would do it in a heart-beat, Jellal-sama."

"Forgive me for being selfish, especially after what I did to you, Kagura but but pro-" The blood kept coming out from his mouth, making it harder to speak and breathe. "Just promise me."

"What are you saying? Please Jellal, don't die yet. You have to hold on for Erza, for us! We're friends, right?" Lucy yelled, crying. It didn't make any sense since they all knew he had lost too much blood but she couldn't bear losing another person. She felt helpless there, she could do nothing but slow down the bleeding and tell him lies.

"We promise," Yukino replied for the both of them.

"We will," Kagura said before whispering in his ear, "I forgive you."

Jellal felt his eyes getting heavier and heavier but couldn't help crying of happiness. "I'm glad..." He almost felt in peace. Only one thing was missing. "Erza... I wanted to see her for one last time."

The sound of footsteps mixed with sounds of desperate cries were heard. It was her.

"JELLAL!"

Erza, followed by Gray, arrived just in time before Jellal said, his breathing ragged but his voice now peaceful.

"I wanted to see your scarlet hair one last time."

Lucy muffled her sobbing as Erza let an inhuman scream full of pain and agony before rushing over his body. She stayed that way for a while as Lucy held tightly the necklace tainted with Jellal's blood.

No one knew if it had lasted minutes or hours but she refused to move until Kagura and Gray put gently a hand on her shoulder to tell her to slowly unwrap her arms from Jellal.

After minutes of intense reflection, he concluded they were telling the truth. To his displeasure, there seemed to have no lies beneath their words although he felt something was missing.

"Tell us more about it. How... did I die?" he asked with a morbid curiousity although he was unsure whether he truly wanted to know or not.

"We... We can't say it outloud, Jellal-sama. It was just too horrible," Yukino affirmed with a grave face.

It must be really bad... and really painful. Maybe it's better if I don't know, thought the young man.

But he wanted at least to know who managed to survive. The flash of a red-haired girl went across his mind. "Did Er- anyone else survive?"

Lucy's heart broke at the thought of Erza openly sobbing over him. And she couldn't stand Crime Sorciere's horrified looks. Neither did Yukino. They looked away, feeling a mix of sadness, shame and guilt.

"I had to let Levy-chan there alone because..." she paused, her voice breaking. "I had no choice."

Meredy, who hadn't say a word the whole time as well as Ultear, was internally getting desperate because of that dreadful future. But Lucy's last sentence particularly striked her attention.

"Alone? You mean... Are you saying no one survived except the two of you and her?"

Once again, the silence said it all.

"We need you to help us."

"But how?" Meredy asked.

"Lucy-sama and I don't know... But we have to do something, so many lives were lost from the moment the dragons arrived."

The images of lifeless bodies as they entered in the battle late haunted them. All these innocent people they couldn't save beause they had been trapped in the castle when the invasion started...

"We'll evacuate the population as soon as the Grand Magic Games will end," Jellal proposed.

"We didn't really come up with a plan," Lucy admitted. "We used Eclipse as a last resort and it worked somehow. But even with that, it seems we couldn't go further in the past because a portion of Eclipse was broken. But as I said, I think we can prevent some events. I wrote them down in my diary. Here." She showed some of the pages depicting all the battles and deaths written in a rush on pages full of drops of tears and the day of it.

Days after days, the entries got shorter until it only become names of people who died or was presumably dead due to the lack of body with the cause of death. Wendy, Sherry, Gajeel, Erza, Gray, Lyon, Juvia, Kagura... Natsu.

So many names, all way too familiar to their taste.

They didn't know what was worse: seeing their beloved ones' names or their own names. They had to stop reading at one point, too horrified by everything described there. Ultear cut out the heavy silence with a horrified gasp at one particular page.

"No... This is impossible," she whispered.

Yukino and Lucy knew why she said that while Jellal and Meredy were puzzled.

"Ultear, we're so sorry. It did save us for a moment but... It wasn't enough."

"One minute... My life was worth one minute," she said to herself, her voice hollow.

Meredy, panicked by her statement asked, "What is it Ul, what did you do?"

Ultear didn't speak immediatly, too shocked. "It seems that... I've used a magic to steal time but it didn't much help much," she added in a self-deprecating tone.

Lucy vehemently shook her head in disagreement. "Gray... He had told us you had saved his life that time. Somehow, he knew it was you. There are other mages who survived thanks to that deja vu too!"

So it hadn't been entierely in vain.

She did save Gray's life, the man who gave her a chance to live her life as a person, along with other mages battling at least for that time...

Cutting Ultear thoughts, Lucy affirmed, "We can save Gray again. Meredy, you were there with Lyon and Juvia. You can save him on the first day of the battle on July 7th."

The both of them, especially Lucy, knew their arrival could create ripples, especially concerning events situated further in the future, but they believed the start of the battle would be similar to what they had lived.

They would have to use their knowledge on the near future events to make the start of the battle more in their favor... That theory would prove to be true if everything in the Grand Magic Games happened the same way.

Meredy's eyes widened before she nodded, determination clear on her face.

"Jellal, you'll be the one to save Erza. You know how stubborn she can be... You'll have to find her." At the sound of the requiped mage's name, Jellal sharply turned his head. "She had been isolated during the beginning of the battle but she had told us you had saved her," Lucy added.

"One of the things that led to our loss was the fact that we didn't have enough healers because they were the first to... perish." Lucy tried to remain analytical without getting too emotional. "Sometimes, all our magic strenghs were gone for a whole day. Maybe you could do something to help it."

After hours of discussion to explain them what was Eclipse Gate among other things, Lucy and Yukino finally left the members of Crime Sorciere. That was a start, but they didn't really know what to do next.

All they wanted to to was writing another story. For Jellal, for everyone who died, and for Levy who was still suffering.

Still watching them leaving, the three Crime Sorciere mages wondered if they could erase the future which was drawn up to all of them. Despite all the things they had been through and all the crimes they had committed, fear overbeared them. They couldn't even have imagine that gruesome future awaited from them a few hours ago.

Despite that, a hint of hope represented by the future Yukino and Lucy was there, with the determination to help them as much as they could.

AN : So this is the end of my first chapter. It is more of a prologue but I feel like it was important for the purpose of my story.

It's the beginning of the explanation on why and how Yukino and Lucy went back at that moment (in the past) that's why the flashback (or rather flashforward?) of Jellal's death was really important. And as you could guess, Yukino and Lucy cared about Jellal. After all, these months of battle together created bonds, you'll see that later. I'll "introduce" some of the pairings in the next chapter.

Don't be shy, comment this chapter, I won't bite!