"WHAAAAAAT!?"
The yells of Natsu, Gray, Wendy and Happy rang throughout the town Team Natsu was in causing everyone around them too look at the group with questionable expressions. Lucy had brought them to one of the first towns she visited when she first started to look for clues of her past. Luckily, the shopkeeper remembered her since she visited quite a bit on occasion and was glad to provide her with a map of the continent.
However, when Erza analyzed the map in question, it appeared that they might be farther from Fiore than she thought. "No way... we're as far as the Northern Continent right now!?" Gray asked in disbelief.
"How on Earthland did you make it all the way here!?" Natsu added.
"If I had my memories, I would've been able to answer your question Natsu." Lucy replied with a deadpanned look.
"Oh yeah..."
"Dummy."
"Say that again to my face, Happy!"
"Waaaahh! Wendy! Carla! Please help me!"
While the fire dragon slayer and blue exceed ran around the blue haired girl and her exceed, Lucy and Erza decided to focus on trying to figure out which port town to travel to in order to get to Fiore. There were many options, but the shopkeeper did not have enough information on which port would be the best option. None of them had ever been to Guiltina, nor had they ever studied geography past Ishgar.
"At this rate, we might not get home as fast as we hoped." Erza mumbled to herself.
"Guess we should just choose one of the ports and hope they got a ship that can bring us to Ishgar." Gray added while Lucy nodded along.
This made the two dragon slayers' bodies stiffen, Lucy looking at them with a confused look. Both shared the same expression and their skin looked like it was slightly turning green. Natsu immediately hunched over while covering his mouth and squatting to likely hold his lunch in and Wendy went to a nearby bench to sit at to contemplate if life was worth living any longer.
Lucy walked over to Happy and pointed art the two of them. "Uh... are they okay?"
Both exceeds shook their heads. "Sadly, they suffer from motion sickness," Carla simply explained. "So they're not too keen on boarding any sort of vehicle."
"Oh."
As the requip and ice mages tried to coax the dragon slayers to stop moping, Lucy continued to look at the map. She had only visited less than a handful of towns during the last two years and even then those towns were nearby. Probably a one to two day journey. She kind of regretted not joining the travelling merchants that visited the village from time to time when they offered; maybe then she would have a better idea on the geography and travelling routes.
All of a sudden, Team Natsu felt a wave of strong magic power wash over the whole area. It made Natsu and Wendy snap out of their phantom motion sickness and everyone's eyes darted around to find the source of magic power. It was unlike anything they had ever felt and it felt extremely suffocating. What confused the fairies, in addition to the overwhelming magic power, was the fact Lucy was not nearly as affected as they were.
"Well... this is a surprise," a monotoned voice said. "It's been far too long, Lucy."
Following the sound of the voice, the two dragon slayers looked across the street to see a green haired woman lazily eating a very tall parfait dessert while sitting at a patio table. As soon as they locked eyes, the others followed their gazes and looked at the green haired woman with shock. After taking in the fairies one by one, the woman stared at Lucy while the blonde became increasingly uncomfortable with the stare down.
She tilted her head while raising a brow. "Who... actually no, you know me?"
The green haired woman too one more bite of her parfait before placing the half eaten dessert on the table. "You could say that," she said and leaned forward to rest her chin on the palm of her hand. "And it seems to you don't remember me. Which would explain quite a bit."
"Who are you, anyway?" Carla asked.
She sighed. "No one in particular," she said before standing and approaching the group. "But you can call me Brandish, I suppose."
Natsu immediately ran up to stand in between the two women, putting a protective arm to block Brandish from getting any closer to Lucy. The green haired woman scoffed, not really surprised by his actions but feeling quite annoyed. The blonde woman sensed the stranger's annoyance and immediately pushed Natsu aside to stand behind her. Brandish tilted her head before shifting her weight so that she could place her hand on her hip.
"Luce." Natsu said to which she shook her head in return.
"Don't go antagonizing people you don't know, Natsu." she said.
Brandish hummed. "I had heard you've gone missing, so this is where you ended up. No wonder no one was able to find you."
"Missing?" Erza finally spoke up which made Brandish look at them.
"And you lot... did you do go through some time travelling again?"
"Again?" Gray asked.
"Ah, so you don't know yet," Brandish said before sighing. "Figures... You're much too young to be the Fairy Tail mages I saw at the guild seven years ago."
"You were at our guild hall?" Happy asked.
She nodded. "If you knew what she was like whilst pregnant and knew me, you would understand why I was there."
"Pregnant!?" Team Natsu exclaimed.
Even though Lucy had shown them the scar close to her womb and had a whole freak out moment because of it, it was pretty obvious the fairies forgot about that one little detail right after it had happened. Erza was a blushing flustered mess, Gray and Wendy's face turned bright red, Happy had a mischevious grin on his face, Carla facepalmed at everyone's behaviour while Natsu just stared to the distance without a thought in his head.
The blonde woman looked at Team Natsu with a disappointed look while Brandish rolled her eyes. There was no way on Earthland that these were the same group of fairies that traumatized Dimaria to the point of unadultered fear, defeat Zeref and Acnologia, as well as the Five Dragon Gods. She realized, in their defense, that she was unaware of how far from the past they were, but Lucy had once told her that they never really changed all that much and they seemed more intelligent from what she remembered.
"It really does boggle my mind how you managed to fall in love with that dolt," she said before pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Huh?" the fairies asked.
"Fall in love?" Lucy added.
"What? Don't tell me it never crossed your mind that your child has a father?" Brandish said. "Your husband's idiocy must've stuck despite your memory loss."
"Oh my gosh, I'm married to someone too!?"
"Why did I even bother," Brandish complained. It was then that she noticed the map that Lucy was holding. "Are you trying to find a way back to Magnolia?"
Team Natsu nodded. "Yeah, we were hoping that maybe our other selves could help figure out how to bring back Lucy's memory," Wendy said. "And we were also hoping to find our Lucy there too."
"Your Lucy?"
They nodded again. "The only reason we're here is because our Lucy was apparently taken to this world while our guild was disbanded," Gray said. "We want to bring her home so we can be a nakama again."
"Hm." Brandish stayed quite for awhile before nodding to herself. "Well, I don't plan to heading to Ishgar so I can't really show you the way. But... I can tell you which port would be the best one to bring you there. They can also provide you a route to Magnolia if you can pay for it."
"Really!?" Happy asked excitedly.
"That's generous of you." Carla replied.
The green haired woman shrugged. "Think of it as a favour I owe," she said before turning to Lucy. "Even if you don't remember me or what we've been through, I owe you quite a bit. But for you guys, think of it as I will owe your Lucy in the near future."
The fairies stayed pensive but Lucy could not help but feel like the person before her was someone she considered a dear friend. It was similar to the feeling that she felt when she first laid eyes on Team Natsu. They had proved that she could trust that feeling so she will trust it again. "Thank you."
Brandish did not expect her to just agree so easily and blushed lightly and averting eye contact. "N-No problem."
Lucy turned back to face the fairies before looking directly at Natsu. They did not say anything, but the fire dragon slayer could tell that she was not going to change her decision. Realizing her intentions, Natsu's left any doubt he had for Brandish behind and eased up on his posture and nodded. This caused the others to do the same which made Lucy smile gratefully to all of them. Brandish was their only lead, it would be a waste to deny her offer.
With that, Brandish said there was a town a couple of ways away that had better resources for them to prepare for the rest of their journey. She would take them as far as that town so they could get a better map for their travels as well so that she could show them the route she would usually take to travel back and forth between Ishgar and Guiltina. This made the group of seven be even more grateful of her assistance.
Both Lucy and Brandish walked ahead of the group in silence. The blonde woman as fine with it and just continued walking with a smile on her face while the green haired woman kept looking at her from the corner of her eye. She took everything about Lucy in - from the things that stayed the same since she last saw her and the things that had changed. She wondered what the others would say if they saw her now.
She could not sense nearly as much magic power that she remembered Lucy having. She could only surmise that something is blocking her full magic potential. Probably whatever made her disappear in the first place. Brandish then looked down to where her gate keys rested on her hip before turning to look behind her to meet the gazes of Team Natsu. The fire dragon slayer, ice mage and blue exceed immediately feigned ignorance while Erza continued to directly stare.
Brandished hummed before looking at Lucy again. "Tell me," she began to say. "You've lost your memory of me right? So how much to do you remember?"
Lucy looked at her, slightly surprised she bothered to make conversation with her. "Huh? Not much... I've just recently learned that the stories I've made from my dreams were actually memories. But that's about it. I don't even remember them all too well either."
"And, your spirits?"
The blonde woman unclipped the pouch from her belt and looked at the keys inside. "Natsu and the others have filled me in on who they are and what kind of relationship I have with them, but I haven't met them yet. Or I guess re-met them, anyway."
"I see..." Brandish watched as Lucy opened the key pouch and could see the broken Aquarius key. "Would you like me to reteach you how?"
Lucy stopped walking at the sound of that and Team Natsu realized what it was the Brandish implied with that suggestion. If she summoned one of her spirits, maybe she could remember something. "Seriously?" Lucy asked.
"You don't remember, so I don't blame you, but I dabbled back in celestial spirit magic back when I was a kid." she continued to say. "You seem to not have access to all your magic, but just enough to summon one of your silver keys. The golden ones you should tackle once you get used to using magic again."
Team Natsu looked at Lucy at Brandish's words. She doesn't have access to all her magic? They had not even notice, but now that it was vocalized, they could tell. They felt less magic power in this Lucy than what they remembered their Lucy having. They were instantly reminded what Yugo and Elira said before they left the village. Her injuries and the fits. They wondered if all those things were connected to finding herself all the way in the Northern Continent.
"Let's all take a break then." Erza suggested. "We've been walking quite a bit so why not let Lucy try to summon one of her spirits while we relax."
Once they were all settled, Brandish went over the fundamentals of magic and how to channel it. Luckily, even without her memories, Lucy was able to keep up with the summarized lesson and understand the main concepts quickly. Whether it was due to her natural talent in intelligence or not did not really matter. When that was done, Brandish had her choose any of the silver keys so she could try summoning.
Recalling what Team Natsu told her about her spirits, Lucy went with the clock spirit. Apparently, she had summoned him often. She followed Brandish's directions and chanted the words, but it did not work. Wendy suggested trying a different spirit, and so the blonde woman tried summoning Pyxis, but to no avail. Same with Crux and Lyra. The summoning was a bust. She had one more spirit though and if she could not summon this one, then they would continue to the next town.
A small golden aura surrounded her body and Lucy took a deep breath. "Open! Gate of the Little Dog! Nikola!"
The moment she finished her words, the golden aura dispersed itself and nothing happened. Lucy sighed in dejection while everyone else felt bad. Brandish gave no reaction since this was Lucy's first time using magic in two years, and with no memories. They all got up to start walking again, but they stopped when they hard a little buzzing sound from somewhere. Happy looked next to him and he was faced with the small white celestial spirit.
"Puun Punn!"
"Whoa Lucy you did it! You summoned him!" Happy cried.
"Alright! Nice job!" Gray added.
Lucy looked to the celestial spirit and just took in its appearance. The spirit itself looked nervous while staring at the blonde woman and somehow the atmosphere turned tense. She picked up the celestial spirit and took in everything about it; the carrot like nose, how it shivered, the softness of its white fur. It waved at her and Lucy could feel tears building up. She brought him into her embrace and let the tears flow from her eyes.
"Lucy, are you alright!?" Carla asked.
She shook her head while crouching down. "Plue..." she said in between sobs. "I'm sorry... I've kept you waiting for so long..."
The mages gasped hearing her words. "Luce... do you..."
"I don't remember much," she admitted. "But the moment I picked him up and took in his face, the name just came to me. Plue. My precious celestial spirit."
"Puun punn..."
Plue patted her back, as if the comfort her, and it only made the celestial mage sob even more. The fairies could only smile, grateful that Lucy was able to remember something - even if it was just the name of one of her celestial spirits. Brandish, on the other hand, remained indifferent and turned away to let Lucy calm down on her own. She paid a bit of the debt she owed, and it gave Lucy something she had been wishing for for a long time.
Brandish thought of the past Lucy that the younger fairies said was in Fairy Tail. I wonder... how she'll react to meeting her again.