So much destruction. Everything around me, drained of its life essence. And no one left but me to punish those responsible. In the end, I suppose it couldn't end any other way. Even I couldn't fight fate this time. I'll have to take matters into my own hands. Master, forgive me. I couldn't run away this time.

The sounds of the sea wash over the boat as Lucy sits in a small room, away from the main buzz of the party happening on the deck. Across from her is a man wearing a dark purple robe with the chaos symbol on each shoulder. He's got short spiky hair combed to his left and an infinity tattoo over his right eye. He smiles smugly as he pours a glass of wine for himself and Lucy, who's wearing a long dress with her long blond hair tied behind her head. Once he's finished pouring the wine, the man known as Salamander sets the bottle down.

"So, your name is Lucy? What a pretty name."

Lucy politely smiles, but anyone with a decent psychology degree can tell that she's faking it. However either Salamander doesn't notice or he doesn't care, because he doesn't comment on it. Luny tries to relax herself and continue.

"Thank you. I'll be honest, I never thought that I'd get invited to a party by the Salamander."

The smug of Salamander goes up a notch and Lucy has to hold herself back from just trying to leave then and there. Salamander flaps his cap a little bit before continuing.

"It's my pleasure. How about a toast?"

Salamander snaps his fingers and suddenly small drops of the wine start to float into the air, staying mostly spherical. Salamander justures and the droplets start floating towards Lucy.

"Open your mouth and let the peral's of wine stimulate your senses."

Lucy's face goes blank when she hears that. She can't help but think how creepy that sounds. However she steels herself and opens her mouth. A lot is potentially on the line, so she just tries to exercise her patience to grin and bear it. However, just before the droplets enter her mouth, she senses something strange. She can sense a magic in the wine droplets. She immediately reacts by smacking the wine out of the air with a pish and stands at attention.

"What do you think you're doing? You were trying to use sleeping magic."

Salamander's smugness takes a hit when Lucy figures out what he was trying to do. However he keeps smiling, regardless of her assertions. Lucy stands firm in the face of this creepy Salamander and she's not pleased with what he just tried to do to her. She glares at him as she speaks.

"Listen, I really want to join Fairy Tail, but I'm not going to become your girlfriend to do it."

Lucy is about to walk out on the guy when she sees his smile become much more sinister. She reaches around her back, grabbing her celestial spirit key chain and possibly preparing for a fight. Salamander takes a step towards Lucy and glares at her.

"You're quite the naughty girl. You should have just let me put you to sleep. Now we need to do things the hard way."

Lucy is confused by what he's saying. Suddenly a large hand grabs Lucy's arm, causing her to drop her gat keeps. Another hand grabs her other arm as Lucy tries to escape from their grasp. Salamander chuckles darkly as Lucy tries and fails to free herself from the thugs' grip on her arms.

"Welcome aboard our slave ship, girl."

Lucy recoils in horror when Salamander says is a slave ship? How could this happen? He said that he was going to get her into fairy tail. But now he says that she's going to be sold as a slave in Bosco! The revelation shocks Lucy to her core. Salamander sees Lucy's gate keys on the floor and he picks them up and examines them for a moment.

"Oh my, celestial gate keys. That's quite impressive. But only the wizard with the contract can use these, so they're worthless to me."

Salamander tosses her keys out of a window and into the sea. Lucy gasps in horror as her keys are discarded with such little care. She starts shaking in anger and disgust. Tears start to well up in Lucy's eyes as she sees Salamander grab a branding rod and start heating it up with his purple fire magic.

"You. You're the worst mage ever!"

Suddenly there's a large crash as something bursts into the room through the ceiling. Wood chips go flying everywhere and everyone takes a second to try to figure out what just crashed through the wood of the ship. Standing there in the wreckage is boy with pink hair and a scaly looking scarf. He's wearing an open shirt and shorts. Salamander is left in shock while Lucy smiles and wipes away a tear.

"Natsu, it's you!"

Natsu is about to say something when all of a sudden the boat hits a particularly large wave and lurches a bit. Natsu suddenly turns green and has to kneel down. He looks like he's about to puke. Lucy's jaw drops as she gawks out how stupid her looks. She looks up through the hole in the roof and sees a blue cat with a large head, a small green backpack, and wings hovering around the entrance. The Cat's wings flutter as he hovers in place.

"Lucy, what are you doing here?"

Lucy manages to pull her jaw up from the floor as she sees the cat flying there. He certainly couldn't do that when they first met. As Natsu starts to shakily get up, the people around them start coming to their senses. The cat rushes into the room and wraps his tail around Lucy. He lifts her up and starts pulling her into the air, away from the ship.

"Happy, what are you and Natsu doing here?! And why do you have wings?!"

Happy manages to take Lucy a fair distance away from the boat before suddenly a large pillar of purple flames fires at the two of them. Happy manages to dodge but the occupants of the boat keep shooting at them, with happy only barely dodging the spells and bullets fired at them.

"I'll explain later. Right now we have bigger problems."

Lucy looks to Happy, hoping for an explanation. After a few seconds of firing at Lucy and the cat, Salamander and his grew stop so that they can start beating up Natsu. Lucy is relieved that they aren't shooting at her and Happy any more, but she hopes that Natsu will be alright. As they're flying along, Happy's wings suddenly disappear. And in that moment Lucy knows what Happy meant.

"My transformation is over."

As soon as the transformation ends Lucy and Happy start plummeting towards the ocean. They both land with a large splash. Lucy is able to take in a large breath of air right before she's submerged. When she's under the water she senses the magic of her keys nearby and she opens up her eyes to try to find them. Though it stings a little bit, Lucy deals with the pain while she looks for her keys. Eventually she finds them, and starts swimming towards the surface. She surfaces and starts sucking wind, trying to give herself the air she desperately needs to survive. Happy is floating on top of the water, trying to keep himself from falling under. Lucy pulls out a key that has the symbol of aquarius on it. She holds it triumphantly as she glares at Salamander's ship.

"I've got you now! Open, gate of the water bearer: Aquarius!"

Lucy shoves the key into the water. However instead of summoning Aquarius, the key just get stuck in its position and the water becomes perfectly still. Lucy is confused and tries to move the key, but it won't budge. Unbeknownst to Lucy, she'd just changed her universe's entire timeline. She can feel her magic reaching into the void for Aquarius, but instead she finds something else. Her magic latches onto an enormous mass of energy. Greater than anything else she's ever summoned before. The energy suddenly starts channeling its way through Lucy's connection to it. While this is happening the golden key suddenly starts to get very hot. Lucy is forced to let go of it before she seriously hurts herself. The key suddenly starts glowing. Not from magic, but from how hot it's getting. Suddenly the water around the key that was previously still starts carrying Lucy and Happy around in circles. Lucy starts to panic and grabs onto happy for comfort. Happy sees what's happening and it very confused.

"Lucy, what's going on?!"

As the water keeps getting faster and faster, a small indent starts to form and get bigger and bigger. The beginnings of a whirlpool are forming. Lucy sees this and is just as freaked out as Happy.

"I don't know! It's never done this before!"

The whirlpool grows in size and power exponentially until it gets so big that it looks like it could swallow the entire port town that's nearby. It's so big and powerful that the hole goes deep enough that it reaches all the way to the bottom of the sea underneath them. Lucy and Happy are helpless as the swirling vortex of water throws them around like ragdolls. The key in the center starts being surrounded by a massive ball of white energy. The ball glows as bright as the daytime and starts making some of the water closest to it steam and warm up. When Lucy looks at it she could swear that she can almost see what looks like a humanoid figure inside of the massive ball of white energy.

Back on the boat, everyone stumbles a bit when the boat suddenly lurches forwards very hard. The glow from the ball of energy lights up the boat and everyone takes a break from exploiting Natsu's motion sickness to try to see what's going on. Salamander and Natsu both feel a massive amount of energy building up behind the boat. Salamander sees the ball and he also sees the vortex that appears to be pulling the boat backwards, sucking it in. Everyone starts panicking and trying to figure out a way to get away from the whirlpool, but it's already too late. The boat gets pulled into the vortex and starts spinning around uncontrollably, making everyone sick and putting Natsu through a motion sickness nightmare. This goes on for a few seconds before the energy stops growing, and then it explodes. An enormous boom resonates over the landscape as the ship, all of its occupants, Lucy, and Happy are rocketed towards the harbor town. The ship lands on the shore with a resounding crash. Happy manages to regain his senses while in the air and has managed to regina enough magic power to recast his flying spell for just a few seconds. Happy casts the spell and catches Lucy in the air, lowering them to the ground safely before he completely runs dry.

Lucy and Happy look around and see the destruction that whatever caused this did. Fragments of ship are scattered everywhere and everyone who was on board is looking to be in rough shape. Lucy's about to go over there and see if she can help anyone, but then she sees a flash of white light out of the corner of her eyes. She looks in that direction and goes over to see what's causing it. What she sees shocks her. Standing there on the beach is in what she saw in the ball of energy. A small humanoid, only a bit above five feet tall. It has wild hair going all over the place as energy swirls around it, kicking up sand and making it hard to look at. The creature flashes white occasionally and other times it seems to be black. However eventually the energy fades away and the creature stops flashing white. It goes from standing to collapsing onto the beach. Now that the creature isn't throwing sand around, Lucy can get a better look at it. It looks like a human, maybe even a child. He has short black hair in a bowl cut. His skin is pale and he seems to be wearing strange black clothing. Lucy takes a step closer to the unconscious boy, and when he doesn't react she carefully walks over to him. She kneels down next to him and looks him over. He doesn't look hurt, but Lucy's magic sense is telling her something completely different. His body appears to be dangerous low on magic and his breathing is shallow.

Before she can do anything about it there's an explosion from where the ship crashed and Lucy quickly looks over to see what's going on. Natus is standing on top of a large piece of broken ship of broken ship. He's standing over the Salamander. From where she is she can see the Fairy Tail guild mark on his right shoulder. Natsu's fists light of with fire as he glares at the Salamander.

"You say that you're from Fairy Tail? I'm Natsu, of Fairy Tail and I've never seen you before!"

Lucy's eyes widen when she hears his declaration. Lucy gathers up the boy lying unconscious on the sand and starts heading closer to the fight with Happy in tow. Natsu leaps at the Salamander and he punches him hard enough to send him flying. Salamander casts a spell and stands on a purple flame, regaining his balance. He quickly fires a volley of purple fire projectiles at Natsu. However when they hit Natsu, he just shrugs them off. He then opens his mouth and suddenly the fire starts pouring into his open maw. When all of the fire is gone Natsu grins and slams his fists together.

"Now I've got a fire in my belly!"

Natsu reels his head back a little bit and his cheeks puff out. He puts his hands to his mouth in a cone shape, and suddenly he fires a powerful cone of flames out of his mouth. The heat covers the whole area and sends the Salamander flying. Natsu's feet catch fire and he launches after him.

"I'm the real Salamander, and this is the power of a real Fairy Tail wizard!"

Natsu catches up to the fake Salamander and punches him in the head, sending him rocketing to the ground. He lands with a loud crash and is out cold. Happy runs over to him, cheering happily while Lucy walks over to him while carrying the unconscious boy. Natsu takes a breath and gives both of them a wide grin.

Things are quiet for only a for a second before they can hear marching in the distance. Natsu looks around and lets out an "eep" as he sees the military closing in on them. He suddenly picks up Lucy and starts running in the opposite direction. Lucy is surprised that Natsu is carrying her and the strange boy as he runs from the military.

"What are you doing?!"

Natus looks at her again with a large earnest smile.

"You said that you wanted to join Fairy Tail, so come on."

Lucy relaxes a little bit and nods. Natsu nods in response and then picks up the pace. With the military hot on their trail, Natsu, Happy, Lucy, and the mysterious boy make their way out of the port town.

It takes a while, but Natsu manages to carry Lucy and her strange friend away from the military and into the safety of the woods. He sighs in relief and sets both of them down gently. Lucy uses this as a moment to recover her breath and to see if she still had all of her pieces. She does so she walks over to Natsu.

"Thank you so much! I had no idea you were the real Salamander! It's so nice to meet you."

Natsu just waves her off with a blank look as he rests himself against a tree.

"Don't worry about it. Hey, what's up with your friend there?"

Natsu points at the strange boy and Lucy remembers why she was carrying him. She rushes over to his unconscious body.

"That's right! We need to get him to a hospit-"

Lucy places her hand on him and she's so surprised by what she senses that she stops herself mid sentence. Natsu notices and scoots over to them.

"Is something wrong?"

Lucy is in shock for a moment but she manages to snap out of it and face Natsu.

"When I found him on the beach, he looked to be suffering from a severe lack of magic. But now, he seems completely fine. More than fine actually. I've never felt magic this strong."

Natsu ponders what she moans for a moment before sniffing the strange boy. Lucy is a bit weirded out but she doesn't make a fuss about it. Once Natsu is done sniffing the boy he give him a serious look.

"This kid. He smells like that ball of magic that I sensed earlier. I wonder what his deal is."

Lucy is about to reply that she doesn't know, but then she notices a bump in the boy's clothes. She reaches inside and then she pulls out her aquarius key. Lucy stares at it in fear and awe, at least a little bit glad that it's not damaged.

"I'm not sure. I tried to summon Aquarius, but something went wrong and I got him instead."

All three of them look at the unconscious boy in wonder and confusion. Eventually they set out again towards the Fairy Tail guild with the bow on their shoulders. Whoever he is, they plan to find out.

Meanwhile, in the Counsel of Era, the member of the magic counsel are all panicking. Not only has fairy tail destroyed an entire port town, but somehow a strange, powerful source of magic had just sort of appeared in the middle of the harbor. All of the council members are scrambling around, trying to gather their resources to try to research what that explosion of magic might be and to try to search the area for what could have caused that explosion. They start sending out expedition teams with their best magical researchers to the port town. One member with blue hair and red tattoos under and over puts his hand to his chin and starts thinking.

'Well, this is unexpected.'