AN: Procrastination is a powerful art, and I seem to be a master of it. To all those reading this, I would like to apologise for the late update. I write oneshots and all simply to avoid updates… but that shall be no longer! This is the penultimate chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail. What do I own? I'll get back to you on that one.

Chapter 4: Her Defeat

And so the days went by. The days went by, and Lucy's worlds began to merge. Reality wasn't hostile anymore, nor was Fairy Tail childish. They were one and the same, and she was in eternal bliss. She went about her day as though in a dream, gliding joyously from event to event.

When she was hanging out with Natsu (often) it was even better. They weren't poised on the brink of adulthood, she wasn't in therapy, he wasn't a pyromaniac- they were just two teenagers messing around and doing whatever the hell they wanted. This ranged from climbing trees to performing the menthos and coke experiment… on a bus. And Lucy had lost count of the amount of times they had re-watched Detective Stripes. Sure, it didn't do wonders for their reputations, but did they care? No. Not at all. They were free, free from the bonds of 'being polite'. They were just teenagers, and nobody expected anything else of them.

And boy, the look on the bus driver's face had been hilarious.

She didn't dream of Fairy Tail anymore, for some odd reason- when she did, it was only flashbacks of past events, nothing that was happening presently. This both pleased and worried Lucy. She liked the fact that she could live normally, that she was living in the real world. But, at the same time, she felt uneasy. Fairy Tail had been her loyal friend and companion all throughout her childhood; now, it had abandoned her. A sense of foreboding came over, desperation to have the comfort of her imaginary world back, a sanctuary to hide in.

Lucy didn't tell anyone though; just let this sickening feeling grow. That had always been her problem- she was too reluctant to open up and let her emotions free. And so, like a caged animal, these emotions paced back and forth, growing more and more dangerous as time went by.

Her defeat had been inevitable.

One nice and grey afternoon, Lucy sat at the bus stop on her way to the Pixie Café for yet another afternoon of havoc. Currently, she was sending a text informing Natsu that she had missed the previous bus.

Sent.

As she got up the get on the approaching bus, somebody brushed past her, knocking the phone out of her hand. Dropping to the ground and scrabbling around to find it, she turned to see who had knocked her- and froze.

Scarlett hair. Heart Kreuz armour. A sword.

And then Lucy blinked- Erza was gone, and so was her bus.

So she sat down as the rain began, waiting for the next one, unable to text because her phone was out of credit. Not that she would have been texting anyway- Lucy was staring at the people passing by.

A man with no shirt casually sauntered along. Next, a silver haired woman. A cloud of blue haired skipped past her, using a book as an umbrella. On and on they came, the crowd becoming more and more dense until Lucy couldn't see past the solid mass of her nakama.

And then they started talking and their voices – nothing but an unintelligible babble – filled her ears and her mind, growing louder and louder, more and more aggressive, more savage. Lucy clutched her head, shaking it, waiting for her hallucinations to just go away. She felt as though the voices were beating her into submission, snapping her fragile tether to normality. And then they reached their crescendo and the poor girl finally snapped.

"STOP!"

When she looked up, she saw a scene of carnage. They had stopped; stopped living, that is. She was staring at the dead bodies of her friends. And one person was standing in the middle of them, grinning manically.

Lucy stared at herself, her beautiful Fairy Tail self, stared at her blood stained clothes, face, hair.

With a whimper of fear, she ran away from the bus stop, down the street, away from her guilt.

Natsu stared at his phone (fondly nicknamed "lameass piece of junk"). He stared at Lucy's perfectly worded text that had been cut off halfway.

Instead a question lay at the bottom.

Do fairies have tails?

The boy stared, open mouthed, at the message. His brain went into overload, remembering.

He remembered.

He remembered it all.

"Natsu!" his fellow employee yelled. "Stop slacking! Table 3 wants banana bread!"

Shoving lameass piece of junk in his pocket, Natsu went back to work.

But he remembered, and that was all that mattered.

Lucy continued to sprint until her sides split in pain and she bent over, breathing heavily. Panting, she leaned on a nearby wall and brushed her hair out of her face, feeling how sodden with sweat it was.

It was a hallucination. Just a temporary moment of insanity, that was all.

With a moan, she sank down until she was sitting on the –sodden- pavement. Lucy didn't care, as she had more important matters at hand.

Why now? She had been doing so well. For a while, Lucy had thought that she was normal; or at least not batshit crazy. Believe it or not, the girl had actually thought that Fairy Tail had settled, that she was forgetting about it and could carry on. But no, her made up guild was out to get her.

She was under siege from her own imagination, and it wasn't letting her go easily. Lucy realised that she was being stretched on a rack of her own making.

Hugging her knees, she closed her eyes as the images flitted across her mind.

No…not this. Where were the others? One minute, they were surrounded by the enemy guild, ready for battle- now, Lucy was alone with a man who was, quite frankly terrifying. Her keys and whip had mysteriously disappeared and he was taking great pleasure in torturing her.

She bit back a scream as he twisted her arm further; she was a mage of Fairy Tail, and would not back down so easily. Not even when her arm felt as though it was burning, not even when her lip was bleeding due to her strong bite. She was not going to give in, no matter what.

He released her arm, and she sighed in relief- a mistake. This time she had become complacent, trying to reorder her thoughts, and could not restrain herself when he grabbed a clump of her hair and yanked it. Lucy gasped, then clenched her jaw shut and returned to silence.

But that had been enough. Her captor chuckled slightly.

"So we can react, can we princess? Good. They're more fun when they crack."

And then he used his magic and Lucy had to use every inch of her being to stop herself from crying out. It was as though there was something inside her trying desperately to scratch its way out.

All it took was a hard kick in the back for her to finally scream out.

"Hey! Weirdo lady!"

Lucy opened her eyes to see a girl, probably ten or so, holding out an umbrella with an incredulous look on her face. "What, do you want a cold?"

The blonde teen could only shake her head dumbly, causing the girl to snort with irritation. "Dummie." She muttered before striding away.

Taking the girl's advice, Lucy got up and staggered along, feeling as though an anvil had just been dropped on her. This didn't make sense-she was happier now, so why was Fairy Tail intent on hindering her progress?

No, she wasn't going to think about that. She needed to calm down and think. Think think think…

Oddly enough, 'rent' was the first word to pop into her head. Thinking fast (and trying not to let her thoughts stray towards Fairy Tail) she formulated a plan: Go home. Talk to father about rent. Yes, that seemed like a good plan. Her father was real, her father was not imaginary. Allowing herself a few moments to gather her bearings, she headed off to her old home.

Would she have done so if she'd known that such an action would crush her remains?

The customer, a teenager of around sixteen, smiled at Natsu as he served her, twiddling her hair flirtatiously.

If the girl was hoping for a reaction, she was disappointed- he just dumped her pineapple upside down cake on the very edge of the table and knocked it off as he walked away.

His co-worker, a feisty, no nonsense girl stormed up to him. "Natsu, what's up with you today? I can't keep on cleaning up after you."

Natsu stared at her, then blinked and returned to his usual self. "Jeez, you're always such a sourpuss. Just relax, I'll get the girl another cake."

Five minutes later, he brought the girl carrot cake. His co-worker snapped and told his boss and he was sent away for the day.

Normally, the boy would just take this as an opportunity to hang out with Lucy. But today, he didn't feel like he could confront her, not yet. He needed time to gather his bearings, so he sat in the park, staring at the pond as he tried to keep his thoughts where they should have been, where they had been for the last seven years.

But they kept on coming, and Natsu finally had to accept the fact that he was a Fairy Tail mage.

Lucy let herself in with the keys that she had kept (fortunately.)

"Father? Can I talk to you?"

She heard moving in the direction of his study- good, it seemed like he was going to talk to her. The door opened and she turned to address him.

"Father? I'm here to talk about-"

"-Lucinda, be quiet. "

She obeyed.

Her father strode up and down the hallway, arms behind his back in a businesslike manner. Almost instinctively, Lucy began to creep back inside herself, to force her face blank in order to cut him off from her emotions.

He fixed her with an icy stare to which she remained neutral, refusing to back down.

"Lucinda," he repeated. "Ms Ann Eastwood has contacted me. It has now come to my attention that you have been missing your counselling sessions. Am I right?"

"Yes, father."

"Care to tell me why, Lucinda?"

"Yes, father." She droned once again.

"That wasn't a yes or no question. Now, explain loudly and clearly."

Her voice had a sharp edge to it. "I don't believe that I require Ms Eastwood's services anymore, father. I believe that I do not need therapy."

At this he turned around fully. "So we've abandoned our imaginary friends, have we?"

Now Lucy found herself in the corner. Because what was the answer? 'No, but I hallucinate about killing them now, so it's fine?'

And so she lied through her teeth. "Yes, father."

He nodded before turning around and returning to his study, only to come out again five seconds later with a sheaf of paper. He stood in front of her and held one out- Juvia looked upon her with the subtle trace of a smile, which Lucy returned out of habit.

Her smile soon faded when the water mage's image was torn in half.

At that moment, she lost it- all spindly threads of sanity that had held her together snapped, and she fell prey to madness.

"NO!" the girl shrieked, trying to snatch the rest of them away from her father, only tearing those up to. With fresh sobs racking her throat, she threw herself to the floor, trying desperately to piece the drawings back together. Time and time again she failed, until, in one more primitive act, she got back up and confronted her father crazily.

"No no no, why? You can't tear them, they're my friends, they're my nakama, they're they're they're the strongest in Fiore, why did you kill-"

She shut up when he backhanded her across the face. Stumbling back, she grasped her cheek.

And smiled softly, very, very subtly.

So, father isn't just a robot with human skin. Good to know.

He regarded her coldly. "Evidently, you are not yet sane. Now, if I hear about you missing counselling once again, I am afraid that I will not be able to pay for your University course. Understood?"

She nodded dumbly.

"Good. Now begone."

Lucy scurried out of the door. When out in the street, she looked around, expecting mauled corpses or at least something of Fairy Tail to be in her hallucinations.

No, just empty.

Fairy Tail had abandoned its creator.

The dark mage stepped back from the body of his victim, grinning sadistically at her bloodstained blonde hair. Whether or not she was dead, he didn't care. She had cracked, and that was good enough.

AN: …I'll edit this later, but I felt that this was in dire need of an update. Sorry if this chapter doesn't live up to expectations. I have to say, this is a change from previous chapters- my idea was that, through the course of the story, Lucy's hallucinations change. Anyway, since the next chapter (should) be the last, would you be a darling and drop in with a review? It would be nice for everyone to hop onto the ship before it leaves… or something like that.

Hasta luego, mi amigos!

~Meg