After a chaotic and flustered commotion, the members finally settled down and gathered around a table.
Now, everyone was staring at a set of clothes positioned floating above a wooden chair.
After learning Lucy wasn't wearing any clothes because she was invisible, Mira had kindly lent her a spare uniform from the back room.
The current scene was a bit eerie: a set of empty clothes sitting crossed-legged on a chair.
"Honestly, the more I look at you like this, the creepier it gets," Gray muttered.
"Don't all stare at me like that! It's really embarrassing!" Lucy yelled, the collar of the shirt moving.
This was the first time Lucy had experienced such a bizarre, awkward situation.
If her invisible toes had the strength, she would have dug herself a luxurious mansion beneath the floorboards by now to hide.
"So gross!" Wakaba shuddered.
The response from the members was a synchronized, tactical lean backward.
"What's gross about it?!" Lucy demanded.
"I'd say everything about a floating, headless shirt is gross..." Raizel nodded seriously, his chin in his hand.
"This is really troublesome. Even though we've let you wear clothes for now, still..." Mira rested her cheek on one hand, looking at the floating outfit with concern.
"Can't you return to normal?" Wendy looked up and asked.
Raizel and the others could only see the red hairband dip slightly, likely Lucy nodding sadly.
"That's why I came to the guild! I was hoping everyone could help me think of a magical solution!"
"It's fine, really, you don't need to worry. I think it's fun! Why not just go out on jobs like this together!" Natsu stood beside Lucy's chair, laughing mockingly.
"There's no way I can work like this! I'd scare the clients to death!" Lucy retorted.
Lucy quickly looked at the other core members, especially in the direction of Raizel, Ultear, and Levy, and asked nervously.
"Is there any way to undo this transparent magic?"
"Even if you say that..."
"Hmm..."
The response was silence and deep thought from the mages.
"This is my first time encountering an invisibility potion gone wrong too. Let me think," Raizel scratched his cheek.
Unfortunately, Mavis had returned to Tenrou Island, otherwise, asking the first master would have been a great option.
"I'll look it up in the archives!" Levy put on her Gale-force Glasses and began frantically searching through stacks of thick material.
Ultear lightly held her chin, pondering the magical theory without answering.
"I've got a great idea!" Natsu, who had his eyes closed in thought, suddenly opened them and declared loudly.
Raizel and the others cast sidelong glances—Natsu actually had an idea?
"What idea?!" Lucy frantically ran to Natsu's side, her clothes floating over.
"I think we just need to roast the invisibility out of you with fire!" Natsu raised bright flames in his right palm, eager to try.
"Right. My mistake for thinking you actually had a solution," Raizel facepalmed with a heavy sigh.
"Is there any magical basis for your method at all?!" Lucy broke out in a cold sweat.
"Since we can't think of other solutions, we might as well try it, right?" Max nodded from the crowd.
"If you were a real man, you wouldn't hesitate so much."
"But I'm a girl!" Lucy shrieked.
"Get ready! I'm starting to burn you, Lucy!" Natsu cheered.
"When it comes to flames, how could I be left out?" Macao grinned, lighting a purple fireball.
Completely ignoring Lucy's frantic opinion, Natsu and Macao prepared to unleash their flames.
"Wait... I'm not ready yet!"
After getting her invisible head scorched by the sudden flames, Lucy ran screaming around the guild hall.
But unfortunately, when the smoke cleared, she remained transparent.
"Seems ineffective," Natsu and Macao turned around, crossing their arms and nodding seriously at their failure.
"Of course it's ineffective! How could being burned alive possibly work?!"
Overwhelmed with sorrow and soot, Lucy sat on a chair wailing loudly.
Happy and Carla each held a small wooden bucket to catch her torrential, invisible tears.
"Cheer up, Lu-chan! I'll definitely find a solution in these books!" Levy looked up from her research to cheer Lucy on.
"That's why I can count on you, Levy! Adversity reveals true friendship!" Lucy grabbed Levy's hands and began wailing even louder.
"This is when I should make my artistic entrance." Reedus stood with one hand on his hip, twirling a large paintbrush with the other, looking like a hidden master.
"Oh? Reedus? Do you have a good solution?" Raizel asked.
"Leave it to me! I'll just paint Lucy's face and body back on!"
With no better options temporarily available, Lucy could only accept this bizarre choice.
She sat perfectly still as Reedus quickly went to work with his magical paints.
"This looks somewhat similar, yet somewhat not quite..." Gray looked at the finished work, offering useless commentary.
"I think it's much prettier than the real Lucy," Happy snickered.
Reedus's painting was decent, but there was one glaring problem—this dignified, painted face was completely static and expressionless.
Lucy couldn't make facial expressions beneath the thick paint.
"My feelings are so complicated right now," Lucy felt conflicted looking at her unmoving face in a hand mirror while hearing Happy's evaluation.
"Don't like it?" Reedus waved his hand grandly.
"I can give you a different expression!" He quickly painted over her face, giving her a bizarre, cross-eyed grimace.
This expression made Raizel unable to look without laughing, so he turned to help Levy with the research materials instead.
"I don't want this kind of face!" Lucy muffled through the paint
"I think I can paint better than you, Reedus!" Happy snatched Reedus's brush and began violently creating on Lucy's face.
"Done! It's identical, right?" Lucy looked at her face in the mirror, now covered in blue paint and whiskers.
"I'm not you! I'm not a cat!"
"No, Lucy's face should be like this!" Natsu yelled.
"This is the right way!" Gray argued.
Natsu and Gray snatched the brushes from the table and began painting freely on her face.
"I say, you guys..." Lucy groaned.
"Hmm..." Erza nodded seriously, walking over with her chin propped on one hand.
"What do you mean 'hmm'?!" Lucy watched as more spectators gathered around her chair, suddenly having a terrible premonition.
The response to Lucy was more and more paintbrushes descending upon her.
"The nose and mouth should be like this, right?" Erza picked up a brush, moving so fast it left afterimages.
"Better to draw it like this! I think this looks more powerful!" Elfman argued, adding thick, manly eyebrows.
"Your drawing is even worse than mine! Move aside!" Gray yelled.
"No, let me handle it! I've actually studied fine art painting!" Macao pushed his way in.
"If it were me, I'd draw it this way, because I believe personality is what matters most," Ultear smiled, adding a dramatic villain mustache.
Lucy sat frozen, watching as the crowd of onlookers and painters grew larger.
She felt, for the first time, that these guild members had such strong, creative cohesion when they worked together on a project.
Too bad the canvas was her face.
This kind of cohesion, she'd rather not have it!
"ENOUGH!"
An enraged Lucy threw a paint bucket in frustration, terrifying the crowd!
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