"Dammit, Lucy! No! No! And just to say it again, NO!" Erza shouted at her long-time friend and comrade from across her desk; slamming an armored fist against the trembling wood, "You cannot, and will not, go! It is beyond too dangerous, I completely forbid this!"

"I can take care of myself, Erza!" Lucy shouted right back at her. Determination, annoyance, and anger all showcased on her features, "It will only take a month and then I'll be back!"

"Absolutely not! Its Pergrande! Do you have any idea? Any at all, just how horribly women are treated in that country?! You will be worth less than dirt to them! They'll rape you, make you a slave, starve you until you're unrecognizable, and just when you think you're dead, they'll make it worse!" Erza screamed at Lucy, having no understanding as to why she absolutely needed to go on a mission to that horrible country. There weren't any jobs requested through the guild she could have picked up since any request involving Pergrande were always refused and she'd known Lucy long enough to be certain she had absolutely no ties to the treacherous place.

Lucy stared down her pseudo-sister and Guildmaster with an unwavering strength.

"Dammit, Erza! For the last time, I'm not asking for your permission or your fucking blessing! I'm going and that's it! I only told you so you'd know where I was!"

She roughly turned around and stormed away, her magic flaring and out of control with her currently foul temperament. When she reached the door of Erza's office, it flew off of its hinges and crashed forcefully against the hallway wall; drawing the attention of all the present guild members.

Erza flipped her desk to the side, not being bothered with walking around it at the moment, and hastily and haughtily followed after Lucy who was already halfway down the stairs.

"If you walk out those doors," Erza screamed in fury, but only to mask what was close to terror at Lucy being alone in such a twisted place, a land she may never return from, "your punishment for disobeying your Guildmaster will be of the utmost severity! I will suspend you from taking jobs for two years and I swear to Mavis, Lucy, I will revoke your S-Class standing permanently!"

The guild was filled with the collective sound of shocked gasps and whispers.

"You don't understand because you won't even listen! I have to do this, I don't have a choice!" Lucy tried again for the umpteenth time, within the last hour, to get through to Erza. She was very aware of the fact that they had a large audience, but it didn't matter because she'd made the Celestial King a promise. She couldn't back out.

"I mean it, Lucy. Don't test me!"

"Erza, please don't make this harder than it has to be…"

"You will not go, even if I have to restrain you myself." She glowered, requipping twin swords.

"Then let me make it easy for you…" Lucy said as tears ripped their way from her eyes and fell to the floor. She tore her gaze away from Erza, from everyone, and stared at the floorboards. She couldn't bare to see their faces and their heartbreak when she did what she did next.

She clenched her teeth in a desperate attempt to keep from sobbing and she waved her left hand over her right, channeling magic into the guild mark she loved so much. When her hand was exposed again for the guild members to see, it was bare and void of their beloved emblem.

"I'm not your problem anymore, so neither is this." and she turned around without another word, opened a celestial gate, stepped through it as it dissipated, and just like that…Lucy, The Light of Fairy Tail, was gone from their ranks; a day the guild had never imagined it would see.

Lucy emerged from the gate she'd summoned at the guild and found herself in Hargeon. Being able to teleport via Celestial Gates was a skill she had developed over the years and it had saved her life in many fights. Natsu also approved of this skill because it meant he didn't have to take transportation nearly as often; as long as she'd been to a place before, she could get there via "gate hopping".

She'd opened the gate without thinking where she'd end up, but now she supposed it was fitting she'd find herself here of all places. The port town was where her journey with Fairy Tail had begun, and now here was where it seemed it would be ending.

Tears refused to stop streaming down her face. All she wanted to do at the moment was break down and cry herself into a stupor, but Hargeon wasn't all that far away from Magnolia, and she had to get farther away from her guild...former guild…

She had no doubt that if Erza hadn't already recovered from shock, she would soon and would be coming to drag her back, or worse, send Laxus.

A tremor struck her body.

The massive dragon slayer had essentially adopted her as a little sister after the Alvarez War was over and they returned home to Magnolia. They had become extremely close over the years and Laxus taking it upon himself to train with her had been a big component in her improvement as a mage.

She was stronger, faster, and more powerful in her magic and attacks than she had ever thought possible for her. She was S-Class ranked and she often sparred with the big blond. He almost always won, because he was a terrifying monster when it came to magic, but he was always helping her improve and she loved him for it.

He was going to be so pissed when he found out what she'd done...but it did have to be done.

The Spirit King had summoned her a month ago and asked her to complete a dangerous task. She might not always see eye-to-eye with the humongous spirit, but she owed him her life and the lives of those she loved. He'd saved them all during the battle against the nine demon gates and now he was asking that his service be returned.

Supposedly, as per what she'd been allowed to know, nearly a year ago there was a large surge of power felt all across the Celestial Realm that had not been present in centuries.

The mages who had, once, been tasked with protecting the Celestial World, as well as it's occupants, were long thought to have been eradicated and extinct.

However, that surge of power apparently revealed that wasn't the case and that meant there was at least one more left.

An Archangel Mage.

A dangerous, ancient, and lost magic type that was more sought after for dark ploys than her own.

When she'd stated her curiosity on what that type of mage could do, she was gifted several ancient texts by The Spirit King to make sure she could properly prepare herself for this journey; for finding this person who had come out of nowhere. The legends described Archangel Mages as near unstoppable forces with unparalleled magical reserves. Deadly weapons of flesh and bone. Just one of them could stop entire companies of soldiers in their tracks. They were said to have beautiful and elegant wings like true angels; that they could be softer than anything know to man or spirit, but could instantly turn hard enough to slice steel into pieces with unbelievable ease. They were warriors, protectors of two bridged worlds, and they sounded absolutely terrifying.

At first, all the spirits had been able to find on The Archangel Mage was that he was somewhere in the northern continents. The power surge had not lasted more than three minutes before it disappeared again and the entire Celestial World was left scrambling for information. Who this person was, where they were, why hadn't they ever felt them before, and why now after centuries of nothing.

It wasn't something that was often discussed, but The Celestial World was apparently falling apart and withering away a little bit at a time and it was becoming a serious and unavoidable issue.

Lucy had learned that, had The Spirit World been under the protection of an Archangel Mage like it should have been, the whole fiasco of her Spirits eclipsing years ago would have never happened.

The barriers between The Worlds were fading, becoming thin, and this mage she was setting out to find would be able to heal the rifts and fight off any darkness attempting to seep through the cracks to corrupt other worlds.

Months and months passed after the initial surge and any spirits adept and proficient in research or tracking were tasked with narrowing down where the surge had come from. All of their tireless efforts had become fruitful a month ago. They knew everything they needed to know. They knew exactly where he was located, who he was, and even how he'd managed to go undetected by the Celestial Realm his entire life.

In a perfect world, a spirit of high rank would have probably gone to greet this saving grace of a mage and bring him before The King.

However, this wasn't a perfect world. They knew everything they needed to, but the problem was occurring with where he was.

Pergrande.

Erza was right. That place was horrible and twisted in ways most couldn't fathom. It's kindest reputations made her want to hide away, out of sight, and pretend it just didn't exist while she tried not to lose her lunch.

The entire country firmly believed that women were worthless creatures not worth malnourished dirt, and their minds were not to be changed. Women were used for breeding and nothing more. Any man who even considered lying with a woman for pleasure was shunned and thought to be repulsive.

So she could completely understand why her beloved Guildmaster and sister-figure wouldn't want her to go. A woman as strong and beautiful as Lucy would stick out more than a vulcan in a bathhouse.

In all honesty, and if everything went as planned, she would spend the next month or two hiding, lurking, and switching off between running and fighting for her life.

Pergrande was a twisted place and there was a very prominent possibility that she wouldn't be returning home to Magnolia. She'd already accepted that possibility, that she would likely die trying to save this man she'd never even met. It had surprised her at how easily she'd made peace with it. When she really thought about it, though, it made sense. If it meant that her spirits and all the others who depended on the Celestial World would get to continue living in peace, she was okay with that fate. Her life, one life, did not outweigh the lives of millions.

Aside from the obvious glaring problem that going to Pergrande presented, there was more, because of course there just had to be.

This man, this already star-born warrior, had apparently been captured as a child and forced to live out his life as an enslaved gladiator. Her spirits estimated he'd spent over 25 years a slave.

She was honestly terrified.

This was a man who had been treated horribly his entire life, knew nothing but fighting and killing to survive, and she had to get him to trust her and then help him to escape "mostly unharmed" as stache-face had so gracefully put it.

Her spirits, her beloved ancient friends, they had pleaded with their king to reconsider, to find someone else to do this. They all loved her so very much, every bit as much as she loved them, but the reality they didn't want to face was that there was no one else.

There weren't many Celestial Mages left now and out of those remaining, there were even fewer strong enough to carry out such a mission. What's more, The King didn't trust anyone else not to take advantage of The Archangel Mage and a compulsion between Celestial and Archangel magic she didn't fully understand.

Eventually they had all accepted that her going was unavoidable and they swore they would do everything they could to keep her alive...everyone but one, that is.

Loke was still fighting against this, pleading with his king to at least allow Lucy to bring one of her guild mates along with her, but he wouldn't allow it. The Spirit King had forbid anyone who was not a spirit or Lucy, know of this.

It was strictly Celestial business and as ridiculous as Lucy thought his rules usually were...she actually agreed with him this time.

This Archangel Mage would have magical reserves overflowing with Celestial Magic and if how often she herself was abducted was any reference, she could only imagine how it would be for him if word somehow managed to get out. Every dark guild and mage would be after them both and then her mission would be impossible.

For once, she agreed with keeping secrets and Loke was angry; at her, his king, the entire situation. He wasn't speaking to her at the moment, wouldn't even answer her summons, and she hoped he would come around soon because aside from missing his company, she knew she might never get to see him again, if this rescue mission went wrong and she died. She knew he would blame himself, like he still did with Karen, and she didn't want that for her loyal lion.

So she sighed, gathered up the pieces of her heavy heart and as she walked down the streets of the port town of Hargeon she was internally at war with a lot of things. Her task at hand, the future, her family at Fairy Tail she couldn't bring herself to properly say goodbye to, and her own mortality were all on her mind.

All she had to do was break Zen Pradesh out of The Sky Reach Gladiator Arena deep within the heart of Pergrande and manage to get him to Bosco, to his family of reputably equally terrifying mages that had every reason to believe he was dead and zero reason to trust her.

What could be hard about that?