The Celestial Sailor Scout

A Whole New World

Lucy Heartfilia let out a loud yawn and a stretch as she awoke from her slumber in bed. She glanced around her room and smiled to herself, feeling content with the way her life had been lately. Going out on bounties with her team, Natsu, Happy, Erza and Grey. Joining Fairy Tale had been the best thing to have ever happened to her.

Lucy swung her legs over her bedside and jumped up, ready to get her day started. She went to her closet, dawning her typical blue and white ensemble, clipped on her rusty brown belt with her celestial gate keys attached, tied the ribbon in her hair, and headed out the door of her bedroom...

"Hey Happy! Hurry up will ya!?" Lucy could hear the familiar sound of Natsu yelling coming from off toward the dining area. She turned towards the sound and let out a sigh. Of course Natsu and Happy were making themselves at home and eating up all of her food.

"What do you two idiots think you're doing!? You can't just come in here and eat me out of house and home every day!" She hollered at the two, who had not expected for Lucy to be awake quite yet. "You have your own home! Why are you always in mine!?" Though she loved her team, she definitely could grow old of waking up to these two hooligans every morning.

"Awe, come on Lucy... we had to give Gramps everything from the last mission in order to pay to rebuild the town we destroyed." Natsu complained with a mouth full of toast. He quickly swallowed down the bite before speaking again. "We had nothing left to get our own food... you wouldn't want us to starve would ya?"

"Yeah, come on Lucy. I'm starving." Whimpered the talking, flying blue cat, also known as Happy. "I haven't had anything to eat since diner last night." He pouted as he looked over at Lucy.

Lucy let out a low grumble at the two and shook her head. "Alright fine but this is the last time!" She grabbed herself a slice of toast off the table and headed for the door. "I have a solo mission today, you two behave yourselves while I'm gone." She stated and walked outside, closing the door behind her.

The sun was shining particularly bright today, which wasn't all that unusual for the town of magnolia. Lucy smiled as she felt the warm rays hit her face. Today was the perfect day, she had an easy mission, and once she was finished she would finally have enough to purchase that new celestial key she had seen in one of the town shops the other day.  It really wasn't anything all that special, more of just a friend and companion like Plue was to her. 

Lucy reached into her pocket and pulled out the bounty paper she had pulled from the board back at the guild hall. A small farm just a few hours north of her apartment needed help with a dried up well creating a drought for their crops. Once she had the location set in her mind, she folded up the paper, slipped it back into her pocket and began her journey north. 

After the first hour of travel, Lucy stopped for a moment to keep herself hydrated. As she pulled out her water and began to take a drink, she heard a few rustling footsteps ear by. She frowned and put her water back away, taking a glance around the area as she did so. She was on a decent sized dirt trail that looked like it had seen a fairly normal amount of traffic, though not many had been out on it today. Along the sides of the trail were all kinds of bushes and shrubbery. 

Once she had taken a look around, and found nothing suspicious, Lucy shrugged off the sound she had heard and began walking again. After a few moments she began to hear the sound of footfalls behind her. They were fairly quiet, like those of a person trying to sneak around. She quickly spun around to see Happy and Natsu sneaking along behind her. 

"What are you two doing!?" Lucy yelled at them. "Don't you know it's never a good idea to sneak up on a wizard." She crossed her arms as she waited for an explanation from the two.

Happy was the first to step forward. "Well, Natsu thought you could use some help, so we decided to follow you... but he didn't want to tell you because he thought you'd yell at him, like you just did." 

"That is not what happened!" Natsu reached out and pulled Happy back. "I just figured maybe we could get two missions done today if we worked together instead and get twice the money. That's all."

Lucy sighed as she listened to the two come up with excuses, and then proceed to argue with each other over which of their stories was accurate. "Guys! I didn't need either of you to come, but seeing as you're already here there is no sense in sending you back." She stated, trying to stay in a rational state of mind. "Just don't break anything or get in the way." On that note, she turned and began her trek once again, this time with the two following along with her.

It wasn't long into their journey that Lucy began to grow annoyed with the two boys who had invited themselves on her quest. So much so that her focus was no longer on the trail ahead and instead she was in her own head, debating on whether or not she would snap and murder Happy before they got to the northern farm. 

As she was thinking of the different ways she could "get rid" of the boys, she heard Happy yell out, "Lucy watch out!" Right as the words were said she could feel the ground disappear out from under her. As she began to fall, Lucy reached out to grab a hold of anything to keep her from falling, and with her luck it happened to be Happy himself, whom then lost his own balance and toppled right through the hole with her.