Way Back Home

A/N: This is actually two chapters, but I always hate it when the Prologue is chapter 1 and it makes the Chapter count for all following chapters look weird, so I decided to stick these two together.

Prologue

She wasn't quite sure where the realization had come from, to be honest, but in that one moment things couldn't have been more clear to Lucy.

All her friends had had it at one point or another. Their hero moment. Where they rose above and beyond what had previously been their limits and saved everything with the power they gained from their determination that stemmed from the bonds with their nakama.

This was hers.

She'd had one before, when she'd managed to summon the spirit king and save Loke, but she hadn't really been aware of how big it was at the time, too focused on trying to save her friend.

Now, as she stepped onto the platform that housed the portal device that was shaking so violently that the entire cave trembled with it, she knew exactly what she was doing. She had to solve this problem, or else it would mean destruction not only for her friends but possibly so many more innocent people. Failure was not an option.

The fighting was still going on around her, but as she plunged her hand into the well of unstable magical power it felt as though all the sounds stilled themselves, leaving only her and the device that was about to blow.

Closing a gate to another world that was so unstable it could very well rip both of their worlds to pieces, it was practically part of her job description. The glistening power danced its way up her arm as she concentrated all her power on pushing away the foreign world that was lying just beyond her fingertips. Just as if she was performing a forced gate closure she did her best to use her power to seal shut the gap between the worlds.

And it was working. A breathless laugh escaped her lips as she felt the other world distancing itself from her, growing ever further to the point that she could hardly tell it was still there.

But just as people had their hero moments, there was also the much less pleasant concept of 'oh shit' moments. One of which was occurring when Lucy realized that while she had succeeded in saving both her world and the other from colliding, the magic she was connected to was still violently unstable, and was fusing into her with a speed that barely left her time to fully realize what was happening.

From somewhere behind her, someone was shouting "Get away from there!" but it wasn't the most helpful suggestion, because even it she wasn't scared that letting go could make all her previous efforts go to waste, she probably wouldn't have been able to remove herself from the device anymore, anyway.

She really hadn't meant for this to be a moment of heroic self sacrifice. If she had it probably wouldn't have worked out that way, because Natsu had a knack for stopping people from doing that, but here she was, unable to get away from the device that was about to blow.

Lucy turned around, maybe to say something, maybe to say something, maybe to look at her friends one last time, she didn't even know herself, but before she could do either, there was a blinding flash of light, and everything went black around her.

Chapter 1 - No Magic in the Air

When Lucy came to an undefined amount of time later, she twitched her fingers and was delighted to find that she still had fingers. And an arm. Two, even! Things were looking much better than she'd expected them to, to be honest. A wriggling of her toes confirmed that her legs were also still present and in working order, and if she took to the whole Cogito ergo sum philosophy, the fact that she could check all these things was proof that she was still alive.

Maybe she should be taking notes about this feeling right now. Knowing the feeling of certain death and having miraculously escaped it would be great material for her novel. Not that this was the first time that feeling had happened to her, but she hadn't been able to write that down at those points in time, either.

She finally opened her eyes, and was a little confused to see that she was surrounded by green walls that looked like they were grown out of a tree. Not that she'd really had any expectations as to where she was, but this somehow didn't fit.

After looking at her hands for a moment, happy that they were still there, she used them to push herself up from the soft bed with white sheets she was laying on.

"Oh hey!", a cheerful voice greeted her. "Lucy! She's awake!", he yelled, and Lucy saw a very familiar looking head of rose hair. "Not you", he told her. "I mean, yes, you're the one that's awake, but not the one I was talking to. I was telling the other Lucy, cause you probably know you're awake, but she doesn't."

At the half confused half irritated look Lucy shot him, he threw up his hands and whimpered. "I'm sorry!"

It was then she noticed his flame lined black pants and the goggles on his forehead, paired with a noticeable lack of scarf. Lucy blinked several times at the realization,her mind a little slow to catch up with what she was seeing.

Just then the door opened and the sight of herself in a tight leather outfit with slightly shorter hair (though it had grown since they'd last met) let the doubts dissipate from her mind. She was, without a doubt, back in Edolas. "How did this happen?", she asked aloud.

"Beats me", Lucy Ashley said with a shrug. "Jet and Droy found you lying somewhere in the wasteland on their last mission, decided to take you here"

"We sort of thought you would be able to tell us how you got here", Natsu Dragion said with a timid smile, half hiding behind Edo-Lucy even though Lucy was reasonably sure that her counterpart was the more dangerous of the two.

"Uh…" Lucy said dumbly and tried to recall what had happened before she'd woken up here. Oh right, the fight with that cult, the transdimensional portal thing and her brilliant scheme to fix that. And the explosion. "There was a big explosion."

"Isn't that what your Fairy Tail always does? Make stuff explode?", Lucy Ashley asked, even though she didn't seem all that interested.

"Yeah… not really sure how that made me end up here. How long was I out?"

"You've been sleeping here for about a day, but we don't know how long you were out before Jet and Droy found you, Earthland-Lucy-san", Edo Natsu said.

"Huh. Well I have to go back", Lucy said. "Can you help me?"

"And how are we supposed to do that? Not sure if you know, but we don't have any magic in this world anymore", Edo Lucy said. "You're gonna have to find a way on your own." Edolas Fairy Tail. Eager to help a friend in need as always. How they managed to pull off any missions really was beyond her.

"How helpful", Lucy said sarcastically.

"Oh don't whine, we took you in, nursed you back to health and what do we get for our trouble? This attitude?" Edo Lucy said with a scowl on her face.

"Actually we just waited…", Edo Natsu said, but at Edo Lucy's glare he threw his hands up again and apologized profusely.

Lucy sighed. "Sorry, I just really wasn't expecting ever to be here again." They had helped her, she had to admit that. She could still be lying around somewhere being eaten by a giant toad or whatever was hopping around in this crazy world.

"Yeah, well we weren't expecting to see you again, either. This time nobody got turned into Lacrima, right?", Edo Lucy asked.

"Not that I know of", Lucy replied. "But now that I am here, I do want to know, how have you guys been doing without magic?"

"Okay, I guess. A lot of stuff isn't as comfortable as before, but we came up with some creative solutions for some everyday problems, meaning the guild's business is dong better than ever. And we're not a dark guild anymore, since guilds are allowed again, that's a plus", Lucy Ashley explained.

"And I'm rich!", Edo Natsu supplied with a grin on his face. When Lucy Ashley shot him another glare he quickly amended, "But only because Lucy realized the business opportunity and took over regulating the business, and as my business partner she's rich, now, too."

"That's better."

"How did you get rich?", Lucy asked, choosing this over the other question that had occurred to her which was if he was rich, how come he was still wearing exactly the same clothes he'd been wearing before. Couldn't he afford something nicer, now.

"Well, without magic my car wouldn't run, and you know, without it I'm kinda…"

"The biggest wuss in the universe", Lucy Ashley said helpfully.

"Yeah that", Edo Natsu admitted with a slight blush. "So I really needed my car to get going again, and I managed to find a way, and I thought I could just do transportation missions again, like I used to, but Lucy came up with the idea that we could build more non magical cars and sell them. And that's doing really well."

"Really? You managed to make your car go without magic?", Lucy asked, intrigued.

"Yeah. With refined oil, and a system that makes a small explosion in a…", he started with a proud grin on his face, but Edo Lucy interrupted him. "Blabla, nobody cares as long as it makes money." She completely ignored the dejected look Natsu had on his face as he let out a sigh at not being able to explain his genius invention and turned to face Lucy.

"So anyway, now that you're here, there was a question I'd been meaning to ask you, but I didn't get to when you were here. How's the sex?"

Lucy felt her cheeks growing very warm "Wha… What sex?", she asked, confused.

"You know, with your Natsu. I mean he's a lot more badass than mine, but if you guys are so different, I bet it's all vanilla", Lucy Ashley said with a mischievous grin.

"I don't have sex with Natsu!", Lucy practically shrieked.

"No? Oh right, the Gray from your world is the one that doesn't wear any clothes, right? How's he?"

"I don't have sex with Gray, either. Or anybody for that matter!" It occurred to Lucy just a moment too late that this wasn't information she'd want for Edo Lucy to have, but it was too late, now.

"No? Then what do you have the whip for?" The way Edo Natsu said it, in his sweet tone, with a completely innocent look on his face made Lucy need a moment before she realized it was probably the perviest thing anybody had ever said to her. It took her significantly less time to decide that he needed to be beaten up for it. As she chased him around the room, him doing his best to shield himself with his arms and apologizing over and over, Lucy Ashley was laughing so hard that she had to clutch her stomach and her face went red from lack of oxygen.

After Lucy was done beating Edo Natsu into a whimpering mess (which really wasn't much of a difference, to be honest) she'd went with him and Edo Lucy to get some food in the guild hall. She had never been there herself, and had met most of the guild members only briefly during their final fight against the royal army, so she enjoyed seeing them and noticing the differences between them and her friends.

She ended up having tea with Cana who spouted endless speeches about how a proper lady should not drink alcohol (Lucy was planning on teasing her Cana with those, as soon as she was back home), and then joined Levy (who was nice enough, if you didn't mind her incredibly short fuse) in a scheme to steal Gray's jacket, which was a success, and led to him clinging to Juvia because he was so cold. That didn't end well for him.

But as much as she enjoyed spending the afternoon with Edolas' Fairy Tail it was equally clear to her that she wouldn't be like Lisanna and simply accept the fact that she was stuck here. Fortunately she had a suspicion on who could help her.

"So, how do I find Mystogan?", she asked her Edolas counterpart.

"Who?", Lucy Ashley asked, confused. "Wait… you don't mean King Gérard, do you?"

"Well, I think I do, why?"

"You can't just walk into the castle and go talk to the King!", Edo Natsu said, looking slightly scandalized at the idea.

"Why not?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Because he's the King!"

"So? He knows me, and with all the travelling he did in Earthland he probably knows how to get back", Lucy reasoned. Not that she knew him particularly well, but she didn't have to tell them that. One conversation in which he'd stayed infuriatingly enigmatic wasn't really knowing him, but it was close enough. He was a (former) Fairy Tail mage, after all.

"You Earthland people really have no respect for the way things are going, do you?", Edo Lucy asked, sounding sort of annoyed, but maybe, if Lucy wasn't imagining it, also a little fond.

"It's not an Earthland thing in general, mostly just us Fairy Tail mages", Lucy explained.

"Well, if you want to barge into the royal castle, who are we to stop you? Natsu, take her there and then let her figure out the rest for herself", Edo Lucy instructed, to which Edo Natsu reacted by going significantly paler.

"M…Me?", he stuttered.

"Well I don't see anyone else here who recently invented a revolutionary way of powering a car and is specialized on transportation, do you?", she snapped at him, making him, once again, apologize while shielding himself.

Once they'd made it to the Royal Castle, which really wasn't that far since the Guild had relocated to be on the outskirts of the Capital, Lucy was really glad to be leaving the car. It mostly looked the way it had before, but now it was incredibly loud, so that it really didn't make much of a difference that Natsu transformed into his confident self, because she couldn't hear a word he said, anyway.

And it also filled the air around it with stinky smoke. All in all Lucy wasn't sure if this was really so much better than simply walking, but she didn't want to hurt the timid Natsu's feelings. Who knew if she might need his assistance again. Then again, she was reasonably sure that Edo Natsu wasn't capable of holding a grudge, anyway.

She said goodbye to him as he dropped her off and pointed out where she needed to go (or he could've been pointing out his favorite bakery, who knew, since his words were lost in all the noise the car was making even as it wasn't moving.

But the huge door she was standing in front of did look rather important, with several scowling members of the royal army standing in front of it, eyeing her suspiciously. Their clothes had different colors and a different logo on them than before, but all in all they didn't look too different from when she'd been fighting them, which honestly didn't give her a very good feeling.

Still, she had to get past them, so she drew up her shoulders and walked towards them with all the confidence she could muster.

"Hi. I'm here to speak to the king", she said.

"And why should we let you talk to him?", one of the guards asked grumpily. "He's the king, sure, but he can't take care of everybody's little problems."

"He knows me. Tell him Lucy Heartfilia from Magnolia is here, and I'm sure he'll want to speak to me", Lucy announced. She wasn't quite sure if he knew the different last names from Earthland's and Edolas's Fairy Tail members, so she mentioned the name of the town. It seemed safer to her than telling them she was from Earthland, because she had no idea how they'd react to that.

The guard she was talking to grumbled something to one of his colleagues, who left grumbling. None of them seemed particularly eager to help her, but it seemed as if they weren't ignoring her, at least. "Wait here", he told Lucy and went back from scowling at her to scowling at the world at large.

Lucy was left to stand around awkwardly, looking around at the puzzlingly green sky and the town that still didn't seem quite recovered from the havoc that had been caused by the Dragonslayers when the magic had gone away.

Suddenly she heard the quick pitter patter of feet coming from the castle, and saw Coco running towards her, who seemed to have grown a lot. Right. Seven years would've passed in Edolas as well. So why weren't they done repairing the town yet.

"Kind Gérard wants to see you at once", Coco said, panting. "Follow me, please." The guard at the door looked extremely surprised at that statement, and Lucy couldn't shooting him a smug grin.

"Why are you back?", Coco said with trepidation as soon as they were out of the guard's earshot. "Is something wrong?"

"I didn't mean to come here, and I'm hoping Mystogan will be able to help me get back home", Lucy explained. Coco looked doubtful at that, but apparently decided not to comment.

After just a few corridors Lucy was completely lost and knew that if she didn't follow Coco she might never see the light of day again, and did her best to keep up the girl's pace. She was walking, but apparently Coco's normal speed wasn't what most people would consider walking.

At one of turns a small, creepy looking figure emerged, and Lucy had to suppress a shiver when she realized it was Byro, the guy she had fought before, who had turned into a giant squid. Without meaning to, her fingers found their way to grip her keys, just in case.

"Well well well, what do we have here?", he said in that sly tone of his. "An Earthland mage, I believe. Are the dark ages of lost magic finally over?"

"I'm supposed to take her to the king", Coco said.

"Why so hasty? With her at our disposal maybe we can find a way to undo the damage the demon king Dragneel did…"

"Oh shut up, Squid dude", Lucy said. "You can't turn into a giant monster anymore, so don't expect me to be afraid of you. By the way, was it you who came up with that stupid plan of letting the Lacrima collide with the Exceed so it rains down eternal magic?"

"That plan wasn't stupid!", the guy defended.

"Yes it was. Did no one realize that the only reason the Exceed and Earthland, too have unlimited magic is that they can produce it in their bodies, by being alive? If you'd killed them, you'd have had all their power for a while, but no one capable of regenerating, and a few years down the line you'd have had the same problem you had before." Byro looked at her for a moment, dumbfounded. "And now get out of the way, I need to talk to your king."

Really, she'd had an impulse to summon Taurus to beat that guy up, because frankly, she was still pissed at him, but when she'd reached for her keys she'd realized that she couldn't feel any magic power emanating from them, just as it had felt when she'd been bound with that strange jelly substance. Not good at all.

Byro didn't have a chance to answer before Coco set off again and Lucy followed her.

"He still works here?", Lucy asked.

"Not in such an important position anymore, but he's not allowed to leave the city, so we can't really get rid of him. It was his punishment for his involvement in the events back when you guys were here", Coco explained. That punishment didn't make a lot of sense to Lucy, but before she had a chance to inquire about it, Coco stopped and gestured towards a door.

"The king is in here." For a moment Lucy expected her to open the door and lead the way, but apparently that wasn't going to happen. So Lucy pushed the door open herself, and found herself in a huge room with a throne at the end and several tables with chairs around them close to the door. It was at one of those she found Mystogan. He still wore those strange pants, and looked pretty much the same, except that all of his clothes looked to be much better cared for than before.

He looked up as soon as she entered, and he didn't look at all happy to see her. He was standing next to a few maps and at his table Lucy could see Erza Knightwalker, who also didn't look too happy to see Lucy.

The feeling was mutual, really. After Erza Knightwalker had tried to execute Lucy, the celestial mage had gotten rid of her idea that if she was Erza she must be nice, and she was still a little miffed at that incident.

"Lucy", Mystogan said urgently. "You're not supposed to be here!" he hissed, dragging her to a corner of the room as if to hide her presence, even though she was reasonably sure that Knightwalker was the only person in the room aside from them, and she had already seen her.

"Nice to see you, too", Lucy said sarcastically.

"That's not what I mean. There's not supposed to be any magic in Edolas, so how did you even get here?"

"I'm not really sure, actually", Lucy said. "I was trying to stop some sort of magical portal thing from exploding, and next thing I know, he sky is green. I was actually hoping you'd know how I can get home."

"No, I don't. I always used Anima to cross between the worlds, and seeing how that used magic itself it can't be done anymore", he explained.

"So you mean I'm stuck here?" While her friends back home possibly thought she was dead… what was up with copying Lisanna? She really didn't want that.

"No, you can't stay here. If people find out we have someone with magic here, you could become a target. There's still plenty of people who aren't happy with the situation."

"It looked like you guys were doing pretty well without magic", Lucy observed.

"Some people are. Those that come up with creative solutions for things that we used to use magic for before are having a lot of success, but there's still a lot of people who used to have magic and basically lost their former livelihood. If they know there's magic here, there could be a riot."

"Do you still have those weird pills that make use of magic possible here? If I can at least use some magic, maybe we'll find a way to get me home with that", Lucy said. Maybe one of her spirits could come up with an idea, too, because she wasn't sure how getting back using her type of magic would really work.

"I have them, but I'm not sure they still work. It's worth a try though, I'll go get them." And with that he left her standing there.

She noticed Knightwalker looking at her oddly, but as soon as Lucy caught her, she looked away. The celestial mage wasn't sure if she should try to start a conversation, but she didn't really have anything to say to her. So she looked away, too, and both were left for a few minutes basking in the atmosphere of supreme awkward that pervaded the room.

They both breathed an audible sigh of relief when Mystogan returned, but both decided not to comment on it.

"Here. I don't know if this'll work, but let's hope for it", he said and handed her one of the tiny red balls. Lucy swallowed it, and touched her keys to see if there was any change in how they felt to her.

There wasn't any change with the keys. But there was a rather dramatic one with her hand. It suddenly started glowing the way it had just before the explosion, and Lucy could feel the same type of magic that she'd tried to contain fill her.

"Your majesty", Knightwalker yelled and pulled Mystogan away, as Lucy's glowing hand drew a large arch in the air, seemingly of its own account. The air in front of her started to glow, and before she had any chance to react to that, her hand stopped glowing and she was forcibly pulled into the light.

Leaving Erza and Mystogan staring at the spot in the air where she'd disappeared.

"Well, Problem solved", Erza announced. And it was.

For them at least.

Lucy got up groaning and looked at her hand. It wasn't glowing anymore, but she could feel a slight tingling sensation, a sort of afterimage of the power she had just used. Grabbing her keys she still couldn't feel any magic emanating from them, but the weird magic that had made her open the portal, or whatever it was, was still inside her, just not nearly enough to be usable right now.

She looked around and found that despite her hopes, she wasn't home.

She was in the middle of what looked like a desert, next to a dirt road, with absolutely nothing and nobody as far as the eye could see.

Where the hell am I now?

A/N: This is the third multi chapter story for Fairy Tail I've started in the last two weeks, and it's probably going to be the largest of them. Don't know what it is about this fandom, but I just keep getting ideas.

I'd really love to hear what you think of it. I know you shouldn't write just for the reviews, but it is a bit depressing that my brother's been the only one who reviewed the last two chapters I've posted (though thanks to him for that). I appreciate favs and alerts, too, but if you have a bit of time to write a review, I'd be really grateful. Also, if you have ideas for some cracky worlds Lucy could visit, tell me. I have plenty of angsty ones planned, but some humor in between would be nice :)