A bit of a short chapter, sorry.

 

Later after the sun went down and most members had already gone home.

Mirajane and Zeldaris were cleaning the bar and the kitchen.

The staff members were cleaning the free tables, and some even started to clean the floor.

“Well, I will go and look for a tavern to drink a bit more.” Cana said, stood up and put on a short jacked.

“See you all tomorrow.” Cana said after putting the jacked on and left the guild.

“Man, how in the world has Cana enough money to continue like that.” Lucy said in frustration.

As far as she could tell none of the other members had financial problems like her, or at least not nearly as bad as her.

“It may not seem like it, but Cana is quite diligent when comes to taking on requests. The only problems that she has is the amount of alcohol she can take with her.” Erza said, eating one last slice of cake before heading home as well.

“Also, you would be surprised how cheap alcohol around here really is.” Aversia added, she was sitting with the two, Natsu, Happy and Lisanna at one of the tables.

Elfman was helping at the storage room with something.

“I guess so, that is probably thanks to getting so close to one of the biggest trading centers of the kingdom.” Lucy said in sighed.

“Have you ever considered on taking requests alone, it might be not as bad as you think.” Lisanna said, trying to help Lucy.

“I don´t know, I mean, I feel like that I am still too weak to take on requests alone. I am no where near any of you when it comes to strength.”

“And that´s where you are mistaken. Lucy, you are a celestial spirit mage, you don´t focus on strength, but on versatility. If you are still not convinced, then talk with Cana and Levi about it. The magic of both of them are also not focusing on strength but on versatility and adaptability.” Aversia said.

Lucy had to admit that Aversia had a point, there were a few members that didn´t really solely on pure strength.

“Maybe I should, but that has to wait until tomorrow. I am going a head and head home. See you all tomorrow. Oh, and Natsu.”

“Yeah?”

“NO MORE BREAKING INTO MY PLACE, YOU HEAR!” Lucy yelled, stood up and left.

The others waited until Lucy left the guild hall.

“I don´t get her problem.” Natsu said.

“That´s because you are a moron, Natsu.” Aversia answered.

“WHAT WAS THAT!” Natsu yelled, only to be sent flying by fist made out of grey flames.

“Should we be worried?” asked Lisanna.

“I don´t believe so. I believe that she is still trying to find her own way.” Erza said.

 

Outside the guild, Lucy sighed one more time before summoning one of her favorite spirits.

“Open gate of the Canis Minor! [Nikola]”

What appeared was a small creature that looked like the combination of a small dog and a snowman, who was constantly shaking nervously.

“Hello there Plue.” Lucy said and picked up the small spirit.

Her mood instantly recovered as she started to pet him.

Plue was the spirit of a silver key.

Unlike the golden keys, there were dozens of various kinds of keys and had multiple versions of them.

It was common to see these silver keys being sold in stores and their prices ranged depending on their popularity.

Plue´s key for example, Lucy bought in Hargeon, right before meeting Natsu and the fake Salamander.

“How about going back home, so that we can enjoy a good bath?” Lucy asked and Plue happily replied.

The path home was always something that Lucy enjoyed.

Her apartment was right before one of the river streams that went through the town, which is why she often walked back home on the railing.

The river was often used to transport goods and stuff, especially the local trading guild was using it quite a lot, so even at a late hour like this, there were still some boats transporting goods.

And through Lucy´s rather repeated walking on the railing, to which the crews of the boats yelled to her to be careful, she slowly got to know them and even became friends with a few of them.

“Hey there Lucy, you seem to be in a good mood tonight. Even so, please be careful, the water is pretty cold today.” yelled one of the crew members of a boat that was floating on the river.

“I will, thank you.” Lucy said and thought about maybe asking both Cana and Levi to go together on a request.

She had gone a few requests together with Levi before and she wasn´t really on bad terms with Cana, nor were Cana and Levi on bad terms with each other.

It sounded like it would be a lot of fun, not that she didn´t had fun taking on requests with Natsu and the others.

It was decided, she would ask the two tomorrow, not only about taking a request together but also about asking them to help her with her fighting style.

However, Lucy noticed something strange, it seemed as if someone was following her, or so at least her gut told her.

She looked around and indeed, there was a hooded figure that was watching her.

‘Creepy, there really is someone following me.’

Lucy jumped down from the railing and walked much faster toward her home.

The figure followed her suite, making Lucy panic even more.

‘What should I do? What should I do?’ Lucy thought while panicking.

Should she try to face him?

She really didn´t want to, but there was simply no other option.

So, Lucy quickly gathered all her courage and put both Plue´s key and one of her golden keys into her hand, so that she can quickly close Plue´s gate and open another one.

However, she didn´t noticed that in her panicked state she accidentally picked Aquarius´s key.

“Who… Who are you? Sh… Show yourself!” Lucy yelled while turning around, facing her stalker.

The figure raised his hands and said, “Sorry, Lucy I… I didn´t want to scare you. It´s just that id didn´t know how to face you.”

Lucy´s eyes widened in shock, because she knew that voice verry well and not in a good way.

 The figure removed their hood and said, “It´s me, your father.”

Revealing itself to be Lucy´s father, however, he looked different, his hair was long and unkempt.

He also had a beard, and his clothes were torn in many places.

His skin was covered in cuts and bruises.

Overall, he looked completely different than Lucy had ever seen him.

“Father… How… Your clothes… What are you doing here? I mean…” Lucy wasn´t able to understand anything.

“Heartfilia Rail has been bought out… I have lost my company… My home… My fortune… Everything.” Jude said, not able to fully believe it yet.

“No way…” Lucy couldn´t believe what she heard.

“What about mama´s grave?” she quickly asked as she remembered that her mother´s grave had been on the property of the Heartfilia family.

Jude smiled and gave Lucy a small piece of paper.

“Don´t worry about it. I had the grave move to the one here in Magnolia.”

Lucy looked at the paper and indeed, on it was the confirmation of the move of her mother’s grave.

“I should be sad about everything that happened, and yet I feel like laughing. All of my fortune, gone in an instant. The fruits of my hard labors for so many years, reduced to ashes in mere seconds. Everything that I had worked so hard for, for all these years, sacrificing my family in the proses, gone!!! And here I am, laughing about it… It really is just too funny, that I can´t stop laughing!!! AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!”

Lucy felt rather weird as she heard her father talking like that, as if he had lost his mind.

“Why are you here?” Lucy asked, knowing that her father didn´t come here without a reason.

“Because I wanted to see my daughter.” Jude said with a smile.

Lucy didn´t buy it one bit, she knew that her father didn´t decide to just come here to see her.

No, there was another reason behind it, she knew it.

“So, now you decide to come and see me. I can already guess that you no longer have any political power anymore. But I will say it one more time, stay away from Fairy Tail.” Lucy said with hostility.

Jude sighed and his shoulders dropped.

“You are right, I no longer have that kind of power anymore. I admit that I was in the wrong all along. But you also don´t have to worry that I will stick around. I am going to work at a merchant’s guild in Acalypha. Trying to start over.”

Lucy tilted her head; she had never heard of that place.

Seeing his daughter’s confusion, Jude said, “It is not too far away from here. It lays west of Magnolia, in walking distance actually.”

“I see…” Lucy said, actually happy for her father.

“Well then… Lucy. The truth is that I need a bit of money to get me going, could you lend me some?”

(AN: Really? REALLY!? YOU RUINED THIS PERFECT MOMENT FOR THAT?! REALLY?!)

Lucy was shocked.

She knew that her father wanted something, but even then, this was beyond what she had expect, especially after everything that happened.

“One hundred thousand, that is all that I need. You should be able to lend me this small amount of money easily, right?”

(AN: ONE HUNDREAD THOUSAND?! That is an absurd amount of money. For example, some of the bounties for wanted criminals don´t even reach ten thousand jewels. Only the most dangerous requests have rewards that are more than one hundred thousand jewels, excluding S-Class requests.)

“I don´t have that amount of money.” Lucy said, still in shock.

“HOW CAN THAT BE?! YOU ARE MY DAUGHTER! IT IS ONLY A HUNDRED THOUSAND, YOU SHOULD EASILY BE ABLE TO EARN THAT SMALL AMOUNT OF MONEY!!!” Jude yelled while grabbing Lucy´s shoulders.

“Stop it, you are hurting me.” Lucy said, Plue was just about to go back and inform Loki, when suddenly.

“That is enough, can´t you see that you are hurting her.” Cana appeared behind Jude and pulled him away from Lucy.

“ARGH!” Jude yelled out as he fell onto the ground.

“CANA?!” Lucy yelled in surprise.

“Hey there Lucy, thought that I would visit by for a moment.” Cana said with a smirk and took out a small pouch with money.

“Here, that is ten thousand jewels, take it and leave.”

Cana threw the pouch toward Jude and walked away, while pulling Lucy with her.

Jude looked at the money, before picking it up and leaving as well, not looking at his daughter one last time.

Cana pulled Lucy with her all the way to Lucy´s apartment.

“How… How do you know where I live?” Lucy asked, not able to think clearly at the moment.

Cana looked at Lucy and raised an eyebrow.

She then took out a key and opened the door.

“WAIT IS THAT THE SPARE KEY THAT I GAVE MIRA?” Lucy yelled, her mind instantly becoming clear the second she saw the key in Cana´s hand.

“Yup. You would be surprised how easily she gives it out.” Cana said and pulled Lucy inside.

“But… But… I give it to her for emergencies.” Lucy said.

“You gave it to Mira… Honestly, what did you expect? We are talking about Mira, the same person that has problems saying the word ‘no’.” Cana said while looking at Lucy with a look that was clearly saying, ‘what did you expect, idiot’.

Lucy held her head as she realized that almost every invasion of Natsu and co. into her apartment was mostly thanks for Mira giving them her spare key.

Cana sat down on Lucy´s bed and pulled out a bottle of whisky.

Tonight would be more fun than expected.

 

Hello there, thank you verry much for reading and i hope you enjoyed it.

I thought that i could finish this whole incident and the fight against Naked Mummy in one chapter, but that was wishful thinking on my part. Next chapter. So, let´s talk about how Jude lost everythig.... We never got any info on that. Let´s analyse. The Heartfilia Railrod Company consists not only out of the Railroad Company but also many smaller buisnesses in different branches. Jude had bought these out over the years, to further grow the company. But even so, the railroad buisness was by far the most important and provitable one. My personal guess was that Jude had made a few bad calls in form of aquiring acces to another noble families land at the wrong time, when he didn´t had enough money to handle everything and the other buinesses didn´t do good either. Or, he tried to grow the company way to fast, not letting it stabalize, and then one bad call and everything went to ruins. But none the less, one thing is clear, his attempt at making Lucy marry that noble was his last chance for the company. WHICH MAKES THE WHOLE SITUATION EVEN WORSE!!! He brought her back, so that she can bail him out from the bad sitatuion and nothing more. What a parent ladies and gentalments, what a parent. The only funny thing about that is the face that Jose would have made if he realised that the Heartfilia Company was broke. After everything he had done, nope no money, sorry.

Also, i will do one or two original things after that event and then go into Oraicion seis, the arc i am most afraid of...