Time skip seven years

Hoshi and Loki were an unbeatable team. It had taken all of two months for him to figure out how to help Loki stick around longer. The drain on his magic from Loki tipped him off that the Spirit wasn't doing as well as he pretended.

It had taken several experiments, a helpful Aries and Hiro and a lot of patience, but eventually Hoshi found a way to share his magic with Loki. Because he was able to summon the Yin Zodiac he was able to share his magic with the Yang Zodiac to help them last longer in the human world.

The Yin Spirits were used to the human world, and could last for at least three hours before they ran out of magic and had to return. They could last days with a strong enough summoner.

(Hoshi's current record was almost 48 hours on easy assignments, and 23 during battles.)

When asked about that, Hoshi learned a rather surprising fact.

The Yin spirits used to be human before they died and turned into summon spirits. And unlike the Yang Zodiac, they were geared more towards offense, which was part of the reason why they lasted so long outside.

Once he figured the trick to sending energy to the Yang spirits, Loki found breathing a lot easier. As a side effect, the other Yang spirits were able to last a lot longer outside their home.

Hoshi was eating his lunch when Natsu returned. He grinned, because the boy had once again caused widespread devastation and outright mayhem in a town. And this time he brought back a new member.

But his eyes weren't drawn to her face, or her outfit. They were drawn to the ring of keys on her waist.

He finished his lunch and hopped off the stool. Surprising the girl, he held out his hand.

"Hi! I'm Hoshi!"

"I'm Lucy."

"So which Gold keys do you own?"

Startled by that question, she answered without thinking.

"Aquarius, Cancer, Taurus, and a few minor spirits. Why?"

"I have Aries, Scorpio and Gemini, as well as the full Yin set."

That caught her off guard.

"What is the Yin set?"

Hoshi grinned.

"Yin, as in dark. They are the opposite side of the Yang set, which is the celestial spirits like Leo. While Yang is set towards Defense, Yin is better at offense."

Once Lucy got situated, she got into an in depth discussion with Hoshi. He had never come across a friendly celestial mage who didn't take offense at someone who asked what type of keys they had. Lucy clearly had the same problem, and was happily chatting with the thirteen year old. She had the guild mark placed on her hand, and watched in shock how Markov handled the rowdy guild.

She was pleasantly surprised that the old man was laid back, understanding that some mages simply didn't work well in structured guilds. People like Natsu or Gray.

"So how long have you been a mage here?"

"About eight years. Took me forever to be allowed on the second floor."

"What's on the second floor?"

"S-class missions. You have to be really good and really strong in order to survive those. I generally avoid them but I do take a few. Just not that often."

Lucy's jaw dropped. This kid was younger than her and he was already an S-class.

"How did you earn that rank? You're younger than I am!"

Hoshi looked a bit sheepishly.

"In Fairy Tail, we do a bit of a buddy system for reaching S-class rank. I teamed up with Laxus when he took it and we won that year. He may be a bit of a jerk and look down on everyone because he a higher rank, but I like taking the easier jobs."

Natsu went to look at the mission board while Lucy chatted with Hoshi. She decided to change the subject.

"So who gave you the name Hoshi?"

"Natsu and Gray did actually. It took them all of a week to come up with a name that didn't sound ridiculous. They called me Hoshi because of the keys I carry."

"Did they ever give you a last name?"

"Raion. Because I like cats."

Lucy stared, but dropped the subject.

"So, what other magic can you do? I can use a rare form of Archive, a little bit of animal transformation (though I can't make it last longer than an hour) and some Ice Make."

"Um...just standard spells and the Celestial Gate magic."

"You do know that Aquarius isn't too fond of weaklings, right?"

"How do you know that?"

"Scorpio is her boyfriend. She complains about how weak you are magic wise all the time. I never knew who she was talking about until you showed up."

Lucy debated what to do, then made up her mind. While she loved her spirits, it would be nice not to have to worry about Aquarius blasting HER away for a change.

"Can you help me?"

Hoshi grinned, and suddenly she had an image of pain sent her way. This would not end well.

Natsu, when he learned of the agreement between his surrogate younger brother (though it was very, very hard to tell that, considering Hoshi was as tall as Gray was and was more mature to boot) and the newcomer Lucy, he had to get in on the action as well.

Hoshi had a feeling it would end up like this, which was why he was prepared for it.

"Open, Gate of the Dragon, Hatori!"

A long flowing body came out of the silvery gate, and there stood a man with black hair, some of it obscuring his right eye partially and sensible clothes. His eyes were what drew the most attention though. They were slitted like Natsu's got when he used his Dragonslayer magic.

"What do you need little Star?" asked Hatori.

"Since I'm going to be helping Lucy get stronger, I was thinking that perhaps you could help Natsu with his magic. As far as I can tell, he's been half-assing it this whole time," said Hoshi.

Hatori looked at Natsu, and then at Hoshi.

"He's barely three quarters trained. From his scent, he must be Igneel's brat."

"You know Igneel? Can you tell me where he is?" asked Natsu excitedly.

Lucy stared. From what Natsu told her from their first meeting, Igneel was a dragon. So why had it never occurred to him to ask Hoshi to summon the Dragon spirit earlier for info? Sensing that question, Hoshi spoke up.

"Hatori is my most powerful spirit out of the set. It takes a lot out of me to summon him, and that's if he deigns to answer. Apparently he's the healer of the Yin Celestial set."

"Only because none of them have ever bothered to learn more than basic first aid," said Hatori coolly.

Once, Hoshi had summoned him to meet the resident healer of Fairy Tail when their basic doctors wouldn't cut it. The two had hit it off, and Hatori had shared a few tricks the woman had used to cut the healing time in half.

He was easily the most popular spirit of the set on the battlefield.

"I'll train him, but he had better make it worth my time," said Hatori.

"Thank you Hatori!" chirped Hoshi.

They moved farther away, because every time Natsu used his magic a lot of property damage occurred.

"Right, so what I'm going to do is download some star based magic into your mind and we'll work from there. Hopefully we'll get your dependance on the spirits in a fight down to a minimum so you can hold your own without them."

Lucy gulped. And felt something press on her mind. Like a bubble bursting, knowledge seemed to pour into her memory before something took control and reorganized her mind to handle it.

When it finally let up, Hoshi had her sit.

"Now comes the easy part. Your mind isn't used to those pathways being open, so we are going to meditate and I'll help you reorganize things to the point where you can access them easily."

Lucy sat down, and listened to his voice. Idly she wondered if Hoshi knew his voice was that soothing, before he brought her back to task. He had to work fast before her brain rejected the new information and paths.

After an hour, Hoshi let up, knowing that if she hadn't gotten a ruptured blood vessel from the new info, then she was out of the danger zone. He liked working with younger mages, because once he got to work rerouting their magic it adapted within days. Soon Lucy would be able to work alongside Gray without holding him down, and later Natsu. She just had to build up her magic levels at this point.

She tried to stand up, but her legs weren't working. Hoshi went to work showing her how to kneed her limbs so that they wouldn't feel asleep once she stood up.

He had summoned Hatori once for that very task, and he had been more than happy to show him how.

Lucy was on her first official mission with Natsu and Hoshi. Hoshi, to insure that she could use the new magic properly, and Natsu, because the whole thing was his idea.

She was still getting her revenge by enjoying Natsu's inability to handle motion sickness. Hoshi had asked about that, and Hatori had given him an amusing answer for WHY Natsu felt sick every time.

Apparently Dragons, in their infinite power, had never traveled anywhere without either walking or using their wings. So in an effort to keep them from completely seeming all powerful and impossible to beat, the Creator made it so that they would never be able to transport themselves unless it was under their own power.

Which had Hoshi laughing, cause it sounded far too much like an add on to keep dragons from turning into the ultimate Mary-Sue/Gary Stu. He had no clue what it meant, only that the term had been bandied about on something called the internet in response to what was called fanfictions.

Needless to say Hoshi cheerfully abused his unique Archive technique to sate his fanfiction addiction.

Hoshi noted the discrepancy between the people and the house. Something didn't add up, and he couldn't figure out what. So he asked Natsu.

"Smell doesn't match."

Hoshi snapped his fingers. Now he knew what wasn't adding up.

"They were renting it weren't they?"

Natsu nodded. It was the most logical reason for the strange scent.

"Well, it's a good learning experience for Lucy either way," shrugged Hoshi. Plus it gave Lucy a chance to try her new magic outside of practice.

Lucy found herself in a bind. The creepy duke had her hands bound behind her, and he used the same type of magic.

It took her a good minute to remember Hoshi's magic lessons. He always held back during practice because he knew his magic was stronger.

The fact he could go up against an S-class and only have a few scratches was testament to that.

So Lucy did exactly what Hoshi taught her to do. Find her center, then fire.

Only problem was, when she came to the point of firing her magic, she literally went on fire. Because it was her magic, and it wasn't stronger than a basic campfire spell, her clothes stayed the same.

But the effect was immediate.

Her punches, which she had sparred with Hoshi to produce, caused massive damage to the duke. For once she wasn't relying on her spirits to fight.

The flaming arrow did what it was supposed to do, though she did wonder why most of the new magic Hoshi gave her was planetary based in names...

"Yet another mission down the hatch! Always fun to work with you Natsu!" chirped Hoshi, as they left the mansion almost empty handed.

Hoshi had raided the library while the others were busy fighting, and Happy had the Virgo key from the creepy duke. Apparently the contracts never covered getting arrested, and the spirits weren't eager to work with a criminal who abused their powers.

Once they were back, Hoshi went to work helping Lucy bring her magic levels up to handle some of the 'Outer' magic spells he gave her.

Lucy had become like a surrogate sister to Hoshi outside of training, often helping him when it came to reading books. Strangely enough, while he could read any foreign or dead language with ease, he had real difficulty reading the language that was currently used.

It had gotten to the point where Hoshi called her Lucy-nee-chan out of habit, to the delight of Mirajane.

When asked why the transformation specialist acted like it was a good thing he took to her so quickly, Mira explained to the confused girl about Hoshi's problems with trusting adults. Lucy was the first person (aside from Loki) that Hoshi really took to without three weeks of getting used to them. Even the Master had to wait two weeks before Hoshi could handle a gentle hand on his shoulder, or a pat on the back without flinching.

Though it did worry her that he had a habit of pretending to be a young girl whenever he was bored. At least he didn't have habit of stripping without warning like Gray did...

"So one of the Dark Guilds is being a bit too active of late?" asked Hoshi.

"Rumor has it that Eisenwald is after a relic made by the Infamous Dark Mage Zeref," said his contact.

"Which one?"

"Lullaby."

"You mean the death sound one?"

"The very same."

"Be interesting to go up against that," mused Hoshi. He paid his contact and left.

Hoshi was the unofficial expert on all things related to Zeref. It had worried the old man at the time, but once he found out that Hoshi had no interest in duplicating the man's magic he let it go.

As he was having lunch the next day, he heard the most amusing news.

"Erza-nee is back?" he asked Mirajane.

The result was instantaneous. Natsu and Gray totally freaked the hell out. They both glared at Hoshi when he started laughing his ass off at their reactions.

Hoshi was one of the rare people Erza approved of, let alone listened to without trying to hit. The Master believed it was because they came from a similar enough background that she emphasized with him. In exchange Hoshi trusted her completely and allowed her to get near him without flinching once.

"Welcome back Erza-nee!" Hoshi called out cheerfully.

"Hoshi. I have a mission that might interest you. Natsu and Gray will be coming as well, so pack accordingly."

"You got it!" chirped Hoshi. He had a feeling this was going to be one of those really fun and bizarre missions. As such, he packed his special kit geared towards times he knew the chances all hell were going to break loose.

This was going to be one wild ride.