Disclaimer: Hey guys! Firestorm40 here with a new chapter for you all. I do not own any of the characters except my own OCs. Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.

Special thanks to the reviewers and to the readers who Fav/Alert this story, I really appreciate it. This is the one year time skip after the fight with Tartaros. So without further ado, Enjoy!

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Crocus, year X92...

Sora rolled onto his stomach and used his pillow to shield his eyes from the sunlight that broke through the window of his bedroom.

"I hate getting up so early in the morning." The dragon slayer mumbled through his pillow.

"Awww don't be such a grump Sora." A sweet voice giggled playfully.

Sora cracked a grin before removing his pillow to reveal a smiling Lucy hovering above his face.

"You know I'd think after living together for almost an entire year you'd realize I'll never be a morning person." Sora pointed out as he gave the girl a good morning kiss.

"Well your free to move back in with Lucas alone when ever you'd like." Lucy said with a small laugh.

Sora scoffed at he idea. "like I'd move back in with him alone, he snores nonstop I almost feel bad for anyone having to deal with him." Sora joked as he and Lucy burst into a giggle fit.

"Yeah, maybe." Lucy said as she made her way out of the bed.

Sora made a desperate grab for the girl, but had no success. "Can't we stay in bed a little longer, Luce?" Sora asked with a pout.

Lucy shook her head. "Sorry Sora, but we can't stay in bed forever Lucas will eventually come in here and get us. Not to mention I have to be at work soon." Lucy said as made her way to their bathroom.

"So we could just lock the door." Sora pointed out already halfway out of bed himself.

Lucy sighed as she looked at her boyfriend. "Will you stop complaining and get in the shower with me." Lucy said as she walked into the bathroom.

"Butttttt Lucccce." Sora groaned until he was struck with realization. '...Shower with Lucy? Hell yeah!' Sora thought as he rushed towards the shower to get ready for his day.

After a streamy shower literally Sora and Lucy both got dressed. 

Sora's hair had grown a into a bit to where his hair looked like a furry mane that reached the back of his neck. He also wore a red vest with a large black collar and a black stripe along the bottom as well as around each arm hole. It is closed with a zipper that is closed just a bit below his collarbone and slightly above his belt, while underneath he wore a black T-shirt. Lastly, he wore black baggy pants held by a leather blue belt with a silver buckle around his waist, and a pair of dark brown, high-calf boots; On his hands he sported thick black, gloves. His golden Fairy Tail guild mark shown proudly on his left shoulder.

Rinsing her face, brushing her teeth, tying her blonde locks into a side ponytail and finally applying lipstick, Lucy gazes at herself in the mirror for one final check. After all, she had an important job to do and she wanted to look her best no matter the occasion. Her pink guild mark and ring where still on her right hand.

"Shall we make our way into the kitchen?" Sora asked as he rubbed his growling stomach. "I could really go for a big meal."

Lucy giggled at Sora's antics before nodding. "Yes let's go get some breakfast and then we can head out" Lucy said as she walked with Sora towards their kitchen.

As Sora walked into the kitchen he noticed Lucas and seated at the table eating a small piece of steak.

"Hey good morning." Naruto said as he waved to his partner. Lucas had not changed, except he now wore brown pants with a pair of goggles on his head, and a blue vest. He also had on his red scarf that he had for years.

Lucas looked over to the dragon slayer and gave him a glare before he took another bite from his meal.

Sora rubbed the back of his head. "Well someone is in a bad mood." Sora said as he walked over to the cupboard. "What's your problem?"

Lucas swallowed the food in his mouth before closing his eyes. "I didn't get much sleep." Lucas said simply in a rather irritated voice.

"Maybe you should lay off the steak before going to bed." Sora said scratching his cheek. "Maybe that would help."

Lucas huffed. "Maybe if you would lay off Lucy, I'd have a more peaceful sleep." Lucas fired back causing Sora and Lucy both to blush.

"Why don't I help you with breakfast Sora." Lucy said very quickly as she ran over to the dragon slayer in embarrassment.

After breakfast was done, Sora and Lucy got up cleaned up their mess.

"Alright!" Lucy exclaimed with a confident head nod, grabbed her bag from where it laid on the chair and raised a fist into the air. "I'm gonna do my best...today too!" Rushing out the door, she made her way to the battle arena where the Grand Magic games were being held. It's been a year since the battle of Tartaros and the disbandment of Fairy Tail and yet she held her head high, a smile on her face.

"Well, we should get a move on too, pal." Sora said as he headed for the door. "Some of these people might need help. After that, we can get some training done."

"Roger that!" Lucas said, as he plopped on Sora's head. Walking out the door, Sora locked it and made his way through town.

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"We're entering the 4th day of the Grand Magic games!" The announcer, Chapati Lola, spoke through his microphone as the crowds roared with approval. "Today's battles are looking hot-hot-hot from here as well!" He hadn't changed after the time skip, still wearing his usual businessman attire and a new wig for his hair.

"You can say that again. Kubo~" Mato, who was secretly Toma E. Fiore in disguise, exclaimed with happiness.

"Alright! Let's get to the constants themselves! The man that has never failed to show us his overwhelming powers, the Dullahan Head, Chrisaac!" Chapati announced.

"Yoohoo~!" Standing in the middle of the arena was a lean man with a bald pate but sported a large bushy ponytail that was standing up in a vertical position. He had a small mustache and a really impressive beard. Attire wise, he donned a light blazer over a collared shirt with a scarf hanging down his chest from the collar.

For bottoms he had on a pair of baggy trousers that was held up at the waist by a belt. His Guild symbol, a knight's helmet with a visor in an incomplete chain ring, is printed on the left leg of the pants which were tucked into a pair of boots that reached up to his calves.

"What will he show us today!? His opponent is none other than the muscles of Dwarf Gear, Berrick!"

"Heehee." Opposite of Chrisaac stood a short, bald and fat, dark skin middle-aged man with a short, stubby nose, large lips, no eyebrows, and small, beady eyes that are very close to each other. On the right side of his face, he sported an intricate blue tribal tattoo. A black tank-top and light-colored briefs were his choice of clothing while finger-less black gloves and light-colored boots acted as his accessories.

"Now this looks like an interesting battle! So what should we be looking at, Mr. Yajima!" Chapati asked as he turned to his fellow commentator.

"Well, Chrissaac's a very strong wizard, you know..." Yajima replied, still donning his infamous chef hat.

"COOL! Cool! Cool! Cool!" From the stands, a relatively short young man with blond hair that stood up in the middle exclaimed with excitement. He donned a pink t-shirt, blue jeans, brown shoes and black sunglasses while carrying a white satchel with him and a black camera as well. He pulled out a notepad and quickly scribbled some notes. "I can feel it, this'll make a ferociously cool article!"

"Boss!" He turned to see Lucy running up to him a little out of breath. "Sorry for being late! The crowd was insanely crazy..."

"Lucy!" Jason exclaimed. "You're looking cool today, as usual!"

"Has the match started soon?" She asked him, placing her bag on the railing before peering out into the filed. Something about watching the matches almost reminded her of when Fairy Tail also participated and won just a year ago.

"Soon, soon!" Jason assured her. "But y'know, Chrisaac's probably gonna wipe the floor with that other guy. He's just that powerful."

"Alright!" Lucy proclaimed as the bell rang for the fight to start. "Time to get some scoop!"

"Cool!" Jason agreed.

'It's been a year since then...' The former Celestial mage thought as she jotted down notes of the fight, glancing up once in awhile to enjoy the fight. 'I'm now working...well more like interning, at the Weekly Sorcerer as an editor. Sora and Lucas are off helping people or training. Natsu and Happy abruptly left for their journey with Lexi and Kiki...and we got word that the guild disbanded the next day...I was feeling so down for quite some time, not being able to accept all of those things at once...But, everyone had their own paths to take, and they did...'

"YAHOO~!" Chrisaac proclaimed his victory as he knocked his opponent to the ground with one hit, raising his arm and pointing a finger into the air as his guild chanted his name.

'For some reason they took it pretty positively without any resistance. Maybe it's because they understood the master's true intentions behind it.Lucy listened to the roaring of the crowd as she continued writing. So I had to move forward too. Sora and Lucas stayed with me, which I'm truly grateful for. Some time after that, we traveled around Fiore for a while before coming to Crocus. And that was when Jason came to me with a job...as an underwear model.

"Cool!" Jason said as he continued taking pictures of her when they first met, giving her lots of thumbs-up to show her how pleased he was. "Lucy, please keep being our model!"

"U...Uh...I actually wanted a job that allowed me to write..." She confessed to him, looking up at him shyly. "Would you hire me?" 'And that was it, he hired me as an editor and that's what I have been doing ever since.' After the matches were finished for the day, the two journalists bid each other farewell.

"Great job there, Lucy. I can't wait to see the finished product."

"I'll get the article and the layout down for you tomorrow, so please leave it to me."

"Thanks!" Jason smiled at her. "Hmm...but y'know, this year's Grand Magic games just doesn't have that...boom to it..." He frowned, almost in a pouting sort of way. "Sabertooth, Lamia Scale, Mermaid Heel, none of them came..."

"Don't forget Blue Pegasus or Quatro Cerberus..." Lucy smiled a bit as she remembered the teams fondly.

"And Fairy Tail too..." Jason gave her a knowing smirk.

"Well, that's cause it doesn't exist anymore..." She told him and he gazed at her curiously.

"But that mark on your hand..." He said before gazing at the pink-colored emblem still etched on the back of her hand and she looked at it herself with a sad expression. Leaving her to her own thoughts, he lumbered off before waving goodbye. "Not to mention, I saw Sora with his too. But it's all over huh...such a shame..."

"Hey Luce!" Lucy heard someone call, she knew it was Sora. Quickly putting up a fake smile, she turned and cleared her throat. "Hey Sora."

"How were the Games?" Sora asked, interested.

"They were pretty good. There was some pretty great matches out there today. " Lucy said with a smile, though Sora could tell it was fake. "What about you and Lucas?"

"Meh, not many people needn't help today, so we just went out and did some training." Sora replied.

"Oh."

"Come on, I'll run you a nice bath when we get home." Sora said as took the blonde's hand and led her back to the apartment.

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'I haven't kept in touch with everyone over the past year.' The blonde thought as she sat down to write her article, her fingers dancing across the paper effortless. When she got home, she immediately sat by her desk and went to work on her assignment. Numerous books lined the desk and shelves in a haphazardly manner but she couldn't help her thoughts from wandering. 'I've been so busy...but I know that's just an excuse...'

Finally finished with the paper, she stretched out her arm to get some feelings back into her fingers before deciding to take a bath; she stripped out of her shirt and tossed it onto the bed followed by everything else. 'It was probably because I didn't...want to meet them now that they've gone their own ways...That's also a lie.' Walking into the restroom, she got the water running and quickly sat in the large tub with a gloomy expression.

"I want to see them." She murmured before sinking lower into the water till it reached her nose. 'I do want to see them but I just don't have the courage to...' Shaking her head to dispel anymore negative thoughts, she got out and grabbed the nearest towel to dry her hair.'That's why I became a reporter. To gather information on everyone that's gone their own way. Sightings...Rumors...anything...'

On the board hanging on the wall she had newspaper clippings, articles, anything she could find of everyone from Fairy Tail and traced them out accordingly on a large map of Fiore that she created. She had been working tirelessly to estimate the positions of her friends with the little information she could gather.

"Nothing on Natsu and Happy again, huh..." She murmured to herself, tapping a location on the map with her hand. " It's like...they disappeared underneath my radar..."

'Even Sora hasn't heard from them. I've been searching for everyone all this time...so that we can all come together again. If only everyone would come back together...' Tapping her forehead against the picture of their big win in last year's Games from a newspaper article, Lucy couldn't help but feel her pent up sadness bubbling once again from within her chest and she held back her tears, sliding to the ground with her back against the wall. 'But what then? There is no Fairy Tail...'

"Poor, Lucy." Lucas said sadly as he and Sora overheard her. "Do you think we should tell her yet?"

"We will..." Sora nodded, before he pulled out a lacrima. "But first...let's make a call to a certain couple."

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The next day...

When the sun rose, Lucy found herself prepping herself for another day down at the arena. She was a little sluggish since she ended up taking awhile after crying the night before. Slapping her cheeks a bit, she put on a grin and rushed out the door before she was late for her job.

"We're entering the last day of the games..." Chapati once again spoke through the microphone as the crowd cheered. "This is it, today will be deciding which guild is the best in Fiore! Surviving the semifinals with his overwhelming power, Chrisaac from...Dullahan Head!"

"Yoohoo!" The man spoke his catchphrase with the solitary finger pointing towards the sky.

"Versus the guild that has shown us miracle upon miracle! Skull Millione! The games this time around will be in tournaments...so the winner will be decided based on this match alone."

"Cool cool cool!" Jason screamed with excitement. "We'll be able to write an interesting article this time, Lucy!" The blonde didn't seem to hear him as she gazed at the two battling guilds without much interest. "Lucy?"

"Ah!" She snapped out of her thoughts to look at him. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"Look...the battle's about to start!"

"Yeah, but it's all an act." She replied in a bored tone. Somehow she didn't feel so enthusiastic this morning.

"Not really, I mean, Skull Millione's had a rocky start!" Jason explained. "Who knows, they might just..."

"That's what I'm saying." The celestial mage said. "Sure, Chrisaac's strong...but from what I see, Skull Millione's members are way stronger. They're probably a lot stronger but they're just hiding it."

"Huh?"

"It's probably because they're doing it for the money." She stated almost unamused by that fact.

"HUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!?" Jason looked at his intern with a shocked expression. Gazing back out he realized that Lucy was right and that the guild, Skull Millione, wiped the floor with the other guild without breaking a sweat.

"Who knew...!" Chapati stammered as the audience erupted into cheers and applause. "Skull Millione! An unexpected win...has them worth 100 times more! Fiore's number 1 guild, Skull Millione!"

"Oh such a surprise..." Yajim-san commented, his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"Huhhh..." Lucy released a sigh, knowing that her predictions were on point. "Sure, they're strong, but to have them as Firoe's number 1..."

"Which they are not." Sora as he suddenly popped up by Lucy's side with Lucas.

"Roger that." The orange exceed nodded.

"Sora! Lucas! What are you two doing here?" Lucy asked, surprised to see her two favorite boys. "Wait...how long have you been here?"

"Pretty much the whole time." Sora replied, looking down at the ring.

"We came to see who won the Games this year..." Lucas said. "Gotta say...not really impressed. But, that's not the real reason we're here."

"What do you mean?" Lucy asked. The only response she got was both boys pointing down at the ring.

"Oh, what's happening over there..." Chapati frowned as a hush came over the crowd as if they were holding their breath. "It's...? What's happening? There's a very fishy character in the ring..." Sure enough, a hooded figure approached the middle of the arena from the opposite end, the body totally shrouded by the large cape and the only thing noticeable were the sandals on the feet.

"Who the hell are you?" The leader of Skull Millione stated arrogantly, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at the newcomer.

"An intruder?!" Lucy sat up as she looked at the mysterious character with wide eyes. Something about the person sent shivers through the blonde's body as she continued to stare. "This feeling..." Sensing an enormous amount of magical power radiating off the person's body, she turned to Jason immediately with panic in her voice. "Jason! Quick, evacuate the people!"

"Huh?!" He glanced at her in confusion just as the mysterious person released an enormous heatwave without warning. The audience members and the mages all cringed as they were engulfed in massive heat and soon their faces and clothes were drenched in sweat.

"Relax, Lucy." Lucas called not moving an inch.

"So you're Fiore's number 1 huh..." The intruder spoke in a bold voice, a voice that sounded familiar to Lucy.

"Heh?"

"Who the hell are you..."

"I'm..." The cape fluttered as the mysterious mage attacked the entire team with a flamed-encase fist, creating a devastating explosion to occur. "...a challenger."

"He attacked them!" Chapati stated the obvious as he gripped the microphone tightly.

"We need to gather the wizards that can fight..." Lucy commented just as the entire arena exploded into flames. The audiences complained that the heat was unbearable, even their clothes were practically melting away. The once proud stones that created the battle arena were reduced to a waxy substance as the flames continued to lick around them.

"Show 'em how it's done, bro!" Sora called down in the ring.

"B-Bro!?" Lucy exclaimed in shock before realization hit her. The only person Sora ever called that was....

"Heheh..." A chuckle floated through the mysterious contender's mouth just as the hood fell away, revealing long strands of pink-colored locks and two flame-coated fists. "I'm all fired up!"

"Natsu!?" Lucy gasped, unable to believe what her eyes were seeing. The dragon slayer still on had his trademark scarf from Igneel but his pants were torn and patched while his limbs were wrapped in bandages. The large, tattered dark cloak almost reminded the celestial mage of Gildarts.

"Coooooool!" Jason squealed.

"Natsu!"

"Natsu!"

"Kaboooooo!" The commentators all exclaimed with delight at the appearance of the long-missing mage.

"Heya, Lucy!" A high-pitched voice spoke up behind the blonde and she turned to see a blue Exceed fluttering behind her with a grin on his face. 

"How've ya been!" Two female voice called out as they landed beside happy.

"Happy!? Lexi! Kiki!" Lucy replied in shock, using her arms to cover herself since her clothes were melting away thanks to a certain dragon slayer. "What's..."

"Oh man, Natsu said...he just had to come here and see the fight..." Happy explained as he shrugged his shoulders. 

"But everyone's out of commission now..." Lexi giggled. She had her purple hair in a ponytail on her left side. She was also wearing a dark blue short shirt that only showed a bit of cleavage, black shorts held up by a brown belt, and black combat boots with white stockings.

(Lexi's guild mark is purple and on her right shoulder.)

"Anyone's fine!" Natsu exclaimed, coating his fists with his burning flame once more and glanced around for more opponents. "Come at me all at once!"

"Someone stop him!" Immediately the arena was soon filled with the participating mages who hoped that their strength would be enough for the challenger however they soon found themselves outmatched.

"I'm burning up!" The fire dragon slayer set the entire coliseum ablaze to the point where everyone was scurrying for cover and most of the audience members had fled the stands to avoid being roasted.

"Wow..." Lucas said in awe.

"You went overboard again, Natsu." Happy admonished his partner with laughter in his voice. "This is the reason why you can't use your full strength. Everyone else already called it quits."

"He never learns, does he?" Kiki shook her head.

"He's a monster!"

"Run!"

"Tch. And I was just starting to warm up as well." Natsu frowned at the retreating foes before looking up into the stands to where Happy, Lexi and Kiki were and his eyes immediately fixing themselves on Sora, Lucy and Lucas. Then his mouth stretched into his trademark grin and he called up to them. "Yo, it's been such a long time, Lucy! Sora! Lucas!"

"Sure has!" Sora grinned.

"Roger that!" Lucas agreed.

 The celestial mage smiled, feeling relieved to meet with her friends once more and she asked him in return, "Hey! How's it going?"

That's a wrap for this chapter! Hope you all enjoyed it. Next chapter will be updated soon, look forward to it. Comment on your favorite parts and don't forget to vote!

Be sure to review. Until then, see ya!!!