Lucy needed a few moments to get over Mirajane´s ‘betrayal’, and when she did, her mind instantly went back to her encounter with her father.

The emotions that she wasn´t able to fully process, reemerged again, causing her eyes to fill with tears.

Cana, still drinking from her bottle of whisky, noticed the change in Lucy and quickly stood up and ran over to Lucy, while also dropping the bottle.

“Why…? After everything that happened… He… He didn´t change at all. I knew that he didn´t change, that he was still the same… But something inside of me, a small part of me, believed… hoped that he had changed. But no, nothing had changed.”

Lucy covered her eyes with her hands as she could no longer hold back the tears.

“It´s ok Lucy let it out… It´s ok.” Cana said as she hugged Lucy.

Lucy cried out her heart while being held by Cana.

 

On the next day, Lucy sat at one of the tables while stirring her coffee, she done so for the past ten minutes.

After what happened yesterday, she had a really bad mood and didn´t even had any motivation to go on a request.

Natsu, Happy, Gray and Erza had tried to cheer her up and had even prepared a request with a pretty good reward, but Lucy was not interested.

Lisanna and Elfman had tried to talk with her, before they set out to a request as well, but they didn´t had any luck as well.

And before the rest tried would try as well, Cana had told them what happened last night.

Needless to say, everyone wasn´t happy about it, Zeldaris and Aversia regretted the fact that they didn´t had a little talk with Lucy´s father when they had the chance, while Erza had to hold back Natsu, who wanted to chase after Lucy´s father.

Everyone else became quiet as they didn´t know how to help Lucy.

And as they all tried to come up with a way to cheer Lucy up, Max walked into the guild.

“GUYS! Something happened in Acalypha!”

Lucy´s head instantly moved up from the cup of coffee and toward Max.

“What happened in Acalypha?” Lucy asked.

Surprised by Lucy´s actions, Max hesitated for a moment before saying, “The local merchant guild had been taken over by a dark guild called ‘Naked Mummy’.”

Both Lucy and the two half dragons froze up.

Lucy because she was worried about her father, Zeldaris and Aversia about the fact that it was ‘Naked Mummy’ that had taken over the merchant guild, which was out of norm for them.

But Max wasn´t finished, “It seems that they have taken multiple people hostage, including the master of the guild and are demanding a large amount of money.”

Lucy gritted her teeth, she remembered that her father had said that he would start working at the merchant guild in Acalypha.

Although she wasn´t even sure that her father had even arrived at Acalypha yet, but the simple chance that he was currently being held hostage was enough for Lucy to worry.

A small part of her wanted to ignore the situation and let her father be, he would be fine, since Naked Mummy didn´t kill anyone, and because of what happened last night.

But at the same time, there was a part of her that was begging her to rescue her father, he was her last remaining blood relative and even after everything that happened, he was still her father, and she still had this single hope that he could change that the job at the merchant guild could change.

Struggling on what to do, Lucy hoped that Zeldaris and Aversia would act on this, their irritation about Naked Mummy in particular was well known in the guild and many had thought that the two would run out of the guild the second that the name Naked Mummy was muttered.

However, the two half dragons were holding back their desire to go to Acalypha and massacre Naked Mummy, because they had a rough idea why Lucy was interested in Acalypha.

They were willing to leave this for Lucy, both of them thought that this would be much more important for Lucy to do by herself then if they would do it.

Since both Zeldaris and Aversia didn´t move, Lucy finally came to a decision, although she wasn´t fully satisfied with it, she just couldn´t leave her father behind in danger.

“I am going to Acalypha. Even though I hate him, I need to save him.” Lucy said and stood up.

“Lucy, wait.” Mirajane said.

Lucy turned around.

“Please, don´t try to stop me, Mira.” Lucy said.

Mirajane shook her head.

“I know that this is important for you, but please, you don´t have to go alone.”

Lucy smiled and for a moment her face relaxed.

“Thanks…”

 

In Acalypha, a large crowd stood before the merchant guild, yelling for their fellow guild members and their master to be let go, the army had surrounded the building and were holding the crowd back from the merchant guild building.

Natsu, Happy, Gray, Erza and Lucy stood beside a nearby building, watching the scenario before them.

“I don´t get it, why don´t we just storm in and beat those guys? Both Zel and Ave said that they are pushovers.” Natsu said while pouting.

“Too risky, idiot. Don´t forget that they are holding a good part of the guild members hostage, we don´t want to risk them killing them.” Gray said while rolling with his eyes.

“Gray is right, we can´t just move recklessly. Besides, we are only here for support.” Erza said and looked at Lucy.

Lucy had agreed to not go alone, but under the condition that she could try to do it alone first and if that failed together with the others.

She had thought about the things from yesterday and was sure that going in directly was the worst thing that she could o, so instead she had decided that she would send Virgo ahead and make her scout the situation first.

“Princess, I have returned.” Virgo said as her head appeared from the ground right between Lucy´s legs.

Lucy shrieked in surprise and jumped backwards.

Virgo´s body fully emerged from the ground and bowed toward Lucy.

“I have scouted the guild hall as you have asked, there are at least two dozen dark guild members inside and around the same number of hostages. I highly advise for caution, princess.” Virgo said in her monotone tone.

“Thanks Virgo.” Lucy said.

“Do I have to be punished?” Virgo asked.

“OF COURSE NOT!!!” Lucy yelled, every time that Virgo asked this question, Lucy would get a headache.

“I see… But I have to warn you, I am not sure that only the two of us will be able to deal with them.” Virgo said.

“She is right Lucy. Even if it is a small one like Naked Mummy, we are still talking about a dark guild. So be careful.” Erza said.

Lucy nodded and jumped into the hole that Virgo had made.

Virgo bowed to Erza and the others and also jumped back into the hole.

 

Inside the hall, the members of the dark guild were busy putting all of the money into bags.

“HURRY UP THERE! YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE LONG AGO!!!” yelled the leader of the group.

A bald middle-aged man, whose face resembled that of a monkey.

In his hand was a shot gun, which he was currently aiming at the tied-up people.

He was rather tensed because of the situation in which his guild was currently in.

As a guild under one of the members of the alliance, they had to pay a fee to them.

In their case, they were under the wing of Oración Seis and were forced to pay a large amount of money to them.

And the deadline was almost up, but they had been unable to gather the money.

Driven by a mixture of desperation and courage from the fact that the magic council was gone, they had decided to rob this merchant guild.

“WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!” yelled the leader of the group, the pressure was slowly getting to him, and he begun to sweat.

Under the hostages was a young boy, who was trying to hold back his tears as much as possible, so not to draw attention to him.

“YOU WANNA DIE?!” yelled the leader at the child, while pointing the barrel of the gun at the child.

(AN: And once again we have a classic example for censure, in the anime the gun looked more like a toy.)

“Bro, don´t do it. Remember what will happen if we kill someone.” said one of the nearby members, and he was right.

Until now, the magic council had mostly ignored them, because they were not worth the effort and there were simply more important things to handle than them.

Helping them by that was the fact that they never killed someone, however if they would kill even one person than the magic council and the kingdom would actively try to hunt them down, especially the new magic council that wanted to prove itself as stronger and better than the old one.

“DON´T SCREW WITH ME!!!”

However, his warning came to late as the leader could no longer hear what he said broke under the pressure and fired his gun.

The child and the surrounding people closed their eyes.

“TAURUS!” yelled Lucy.

A large silhouette jumped in front of the child, blocking most of the bullets with his body alone, while deflecting the rest with the massive axe that he held in his hand.

He had a large and heavily muscular physic, at least two meters tall, with his skin covered in a black and white pattern, similar to that of a Holstein Frisian cattle.

His head was bovine in shape and had a small, compared to his body, tail.

His body was mostly bare and was only wearing a dark indument, a belt, a pair of dark boots and a cowbell around his neck.

He was Taurus, one of the twelve zodiac spirits, and when it came to physical strength, one of the strongest ones.

“WHAT!?” yelled the leader in surprise, his companions were as shocked as him.

“Thank you, Taurus.” Lucy said as she entered the room, she had watched the situation from the room in which the hole had been.

“MOO! No problem, for you anytime.” Taurus said and Lucy closed the gate.

“WHAT ARE YOU ALL WAITING FOR, GET HER!!!” yelled the leader of the group and the members of the dark guild rushed toward her.

Lucy ran back into the room, avoiding certain parts of it, and leaned against one of the walls.

As the dark guild members entered the room, Lucy had already summoned Sagittarius, who in turn had his bow ready.

Sagittarius´s arrows didn´t miss their target by even a millimeter and fell in quick session.

But even with the barrage of arrows, some members were able to almost reach Lucy, only to fall into one of the many trap holes that Virgo had prepared.

However, this strategy didn´t hold for long, as no more dark guild members rushed into the room and tried to barricade the door.

Not letting herself be outwitted so easily, Lucy summoned Virgo again and had her dig another tunnel to the main hall.

Lucy jumped into the tunnel and summoned Loke, who in turn had no hard time with them.

Lucy also fought with her whip.

In the end only the leader remained, who was so shocked by everything that he hadn´t even moved since Lucy and Loke begun to fight the other dark guild members.

He tried to rush toward one of the hostages, in hopes of using him as a meat shield, but Lucy knocked him out with a well-placed [Lucy kick].

(AN: What? You thought that I would forget about Lucy´s strongest move? Shame on you)

Lucy and Leo then freed the hostages and opened the doors of the guild hall, and everything became hectic from then on.

Every member and their families thanked Lucy for what she had done, while she was trying to find her father.

Natsu, Gray, Happy and Erza were watching everything from besides the building and nodded in approval.

Although Lucy was one of their newest members and the one with the least amount of experience, over the few months that she had been a part of Fairy Tail, she had greatly grown and allowed her to gather a good amount of experience in real combat and in how to use her spirits in combat.

After everyone had thanked them and Lucy managed to free herself from them, she staggered back to the others, she hadn´t seen her father anywhere.

“Lucy?”

Lucy looked up as she heard the voice of her father and saw him just arriving at the village.

“Dad… No way… You just arrived?” Lucy asked in shock and denial.

“I told you that I have no money, so I walked all the way here.” Jude said and removed his hood.

‘I HAVE WORRIED FOR NOTHING!!! WAIT, EVERYTHING THAT I JUST DID WAS FOR NOTHING!!! So, he wanted to have money to pay for the journey here?’

“What brings you here?” Jude asked in confusion.

“I… I heard from someone in the guild about the situation here so I…” Lucy tried to explain the situation.

Jude looked around and saw the crowd and heard what they were shouting.

Putting everything together and finally understanding the situation, Jude´s eyes widened.

“You… You were worried about me, about your father?” Jude asked, shocked.

Lucy turned around, she begun to pout and yelled, “Of course I was! But I won´t say more, you just don´t understand! See ya!!”

“I see…” Jude said and lowered his head.

“Don´t misunderstand. I… I am not ready to forgive you yet, not after everything.” Lucy said.

Jude´s body shook for a moment before he lowered his head.

“Yes, obviously. There is still much that I have to make up for, a long way to go. But I had a long time to think about. I am sorry for yesterday, what I did was not right. I wish that I could… I feel ashamed of what I have done. But I will change. Even without money, I will succeed. Who knows…? Maybe I am not a good for nothing after all…”

Jude turned around and looked at the merchant guild called Love & Luck.

“Did you know, this guild is where I and your mother first met.”

Lucy´s eyes widened as she heard this, both her mother and her father had never talked about their pasts, not that she had gotten many chances to ask them in the first place.

“Back then, I didn´t had much, but I had thought of myself as free. Then shortly after, your mother became pregnant, and we had to leave the guild. When we left the guild, we noticed that the letter k was missing, making the name Love & Lucy. We found it so amusing that we decided to call our child, if it was a girl, Lucy.” Jude said, nostalgic filled his face as he reminisced about those days.

Lucy turned around and said with a smile, “Funny. The name of a baby shouldn´t be decided by something funny.”

“Yeah, you are right.” Jude said and smiled.

Lucy and her father talked a bit more, Natsu and the others didn´t want to interrupt them, so they waited patiently.

When Lucy and the others went back toward Magnolia, Lucy felt a lot better about her father, but there was still much that both of them had to work on.

It would be a long and difficult way, but Lucy was sure that one day, she and her father could get close.

 

Jude on the other hand was standing before the guild, still looking at it, a sad smile on his face and tears falling down.

“Leila… I was a fool.”

 

As Lucy and the others returned to the guild, Lucy was ready to go with the others on the request that they had chosen earlier, it was a bounty with a surprisingly high reward on it, namely two million jewels.

They just wanted to let everyone know that everything went well.

But as they entered the guild, they saw both Mirajane and Zeldaris arguing with one another.

“Zeldaris, no matter what you say, I will accept the request.” Mirajane said while glaring at Zeldaris.

“I am not trying to stop you, but you should wait for Lisanna and Elfman to come back from their request, you shouldn´t go alone, not on this one.” Zeldaris said, trying to convince Mirajane.

Mirajane shook her head.

“I can´t wait on them, I have to do this alone. This will be the only chance that I get to overcome this demon of my past.” Mirajane said.

“Eh, what is going on?” Lucy asked as she saw the scene.

Natsu and the others were just as shocked as her and both Natsu and Gray were unable to say anything.

Erza felt a bit awkward at this scene, it reminded her of the time when she had said something similar at the tower of heaven.

Cana noticed them and walked toward them.

“Cana, what is going on here?” Erza asked.

“Not too long after you guys left, a strange request came in. As soon as Mirajane saw it, she insisted that she would take it. Naturally, some had asked what was wrong, but she didn´t want to answer. Zeldaris was against her going alone and tried to persuade her, and the rest is as you can see.”

“Mira, I can understand that you want to move forward, but that place is not safe for you.”

“Do not tell me about that place, I know better than anyone that I am not welcome at that place, but I have to go.”

Zeldaris sighed and rubbed his temples.

“Then at least let me accompany you!?”

 

How did this chapter become a 3k chapter, i had thought that i would be able to do this in half. How? I don´t understand? 

Also for those that are interrested into what would have happened if Naked Mummy had killed anyone, then it would have been open hunting season for our two half dragons. Poor suckers, well not really.