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Lucy

"Would that be the usual, Lucy?" Mira asked the blonde as she took a seat at the Guildhall's bar. She nodded. It was never too early to have Fairytail's signature strawberry smoothies.

"So, how are you and Natsu?" The white haired mage teased as she began to prepare the beverage, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Lucy rolled her eyes. "We're fine," she hesitated before continuing—"it's weird...he didn't invite me on the job he took with Gray today." She frowned.

It was very odd for just the two of them to take a request—why not bring the rest of the team?

"Yes, I suppose that is unusual," she places the drink on the counter. "He got here early before anyone else could take the job. Might have something to do with Igneel."

Igneel, Natsu's long lost adoptive father who just so happened to be a dragon. The majority of the dragon slayer's missions were motivated him, that's how he met Lucy after all. That mystery was yet to be solved.

"But why bring Gray?" The celestial mage questioned aloud. "I thought they couldn't stand each other."

"It could have something to do with Happy, heard he was sick earlier and couldn't tag along." Lisanna commented, appearing next to Lucy with a glass of coke in her hand.

"I guess," the blonde pouted. "Why not tell me though? I thought that's what people in relationships do."

Mira sighed, leaning against the bar counter. "The roads of a relationship are long and bumpy... I'm sure you and a Natsu will be just fine!" She cheered. "NaLu for the win!" Her sister joined in on the subsequent squealing.

"I can't with you two..." shipping demons I tell you.

"Hey, where's Erza?" Lucy asked in hopes of hanging out with someone who wasn't hellbent on commenting about her love life.

Mira stopped her fan-girl-ing for a moment. "Hm, I think she's on a job request too!"

"Ugh," Lucy leaned back in her seat. "Is everyone here on a job?" She complained.

My rent is due in a couple weeks and it sure would be great to have someone to do a request with! It's no better that Shadow Gear has Wendy and left for a mission a day prior.

"Maybe you can check up on Happy!" The younger Strauss sister suggests. "Bring him fish to make him feel better!"

"Yeah, I guess could do that...." not the most adventurous way to start her day but it'll do. Happy is still apart of the tram after all, and without his pink haired best friend he must be lonely.

  Lucy got out of her seat, finishing her drink. "Thanks Mira, Lisanna!" Time to check up on a sick blue cat.

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Lucy found the exceed curled up in a ball at the foot of Natsu's bed, shivering like a mess. The blonde quickly makes her way to the cat, when he noticed her presence.

"Lushee!" Happy greeted, using his wings to fly over and envelop her in a gracious hug.

"Are you sure you should be flying when your sick?"

"Sick?—oh! Mira must've told you! I couldn't go on that job with Natzu today..." he makes his way back to the comfort of the blankets.

"So how are you feeling?" She took a seat next to Happy, petting his smooth blue fur.

"I would feel so much better with a steaming hot bowl of fish soup!"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Gross."

The sick exceed suddenly gave the celestial mage puppy dog eyes. "Fine."

"Yay! You're the best Lushee~!"

"I know. Now rest up while I make your meal." She left the bedroom to search through the kitchen. It was no surprise that her boyfriend had dishes stacked upon dishes and fish bones everywhere.

Lucy sighed. Sometimes she wondered how she fell in love with unhygienic pyro. Then she remembered he saved her ass from her father last year.

Eventually the blonde went digging through their cabinets and fridge, finding an unopened can of "fish soup" as Happy called it. The food itself sounded disgusting, the fact that it was premade and canned made it worse.

Lucy practically gagged upon opening the tin, the aroma of fish hitting her nose hard. I'm doing this for Happy. She chastised. He's sick and he needs me.

It wasn't long before the blonde entered the room again, a bowl in hand. Happy looked...happy upon seeing her with the soup and immediately thanked her.

  Lucy couldn't help but look in awe as the cat finished the meal in seconds.

"You feeling better now?"

  The exceeds eyes lit up, setting the now empty dish aside. "Much!"

"Now do you wanna tell me what's up with that mission Natsu took?"

"Oh he didn't tell me much about it." Happy's eyes looked saddened before looking over at the bedside table. "But he did leave the request paper here."

"Really?"

Her hands reached for the paper, "why would he leave something like this?"

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Gray

"Ugh! This is the absolute worst!" The dragonslayer complained as him and his partner approached their destination. The harsh sun beat down on them, causing Natsu to squint his eyes. "This heat is absolutely terrible!"

"That's rich coming from someone who eats fire." Gray retorted, unbuttoning his shirt for some fresh air.

"Shut it ice-ass! Not to mention I forgot the job paper!" Natsu added ruffling through his empty pockets to no avail.

"You what?" The ravenette hissed. "How are you that dense?" Was it a mistake bringing him with me?

"Yeah yeah yeah, I remember the gist of it." The pinkette assures. "Help defeat some demons running rampant, collect the reward, go home, easy."

Gray rolled his eyes. "Well, finding that bastard shouldn't be too hard." He motioned towards the town they were headed to. There was an obvious commotion and the outline of a demonic creature terrorizing the citizens.

"Well I'm all fired up!" Natsu ran straight first into the action.

The ice make mage took a closer look at the demon. This doesn't look like END.

He soon followed after the dragon layer into the heat of battle.

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Lucy

Lucy frowned at the paper, visibly upset. Natsu was her boyfriend and he didn't even tell her about the job. They usually went on them together. A demon from the book of Zeref sounded dangerous...too dangerous for a regular mage of Fairytail...

The blonde took a closer look at the object in her hands, noticing an oddity. "There's a pale patch on the top corner...." she remarked, Happy looked over.

Who intentionally set up Natsu and Gray?

"Happy, we have to get the Guild."

"Aye sir!"

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The celestial mage quickly burst open the doors, revealing the Guildhall. Her and Happy made their way inside, holding the request paper in the air.

"What's the meaning of this?" Lucy demanded, waving it around in the air.

"Whatever do you mean Lucy?" Mira asked confused.

"Someone set up Natzu to take an S-class mission!" Happy answered, flying around anxiously.

Lisanna gasped. "Who would do such a thing?"

"Juvia's dear Gray is on that mission as well!" The water mage cried out.

"Well isn't it obvious?" A harsh voice spoke up from above.

Lucy glances up to see Laxus relaxingly leaning against the second floor's railing, a smug look on his face.

"It was me." The electric user claimed earning a bunch of hard stares. "I pulled a prank on the runt, it was only a bonus the stripper went along." He laughed.

Erza had to step in and hold back both Juvia and Lucy from kicking his ass. The scarlet mage had just gotten back from a job herself and wasn't in the best mood.

Lucy's blood boiled—the job was S-class! Natsu has no idea and he could get himself killed. Demons were something that shouldn't be messed with. They were lucky the people on Galuna were nice but for Zeref demons that wasn't the case.

"Laxus," Erza's voice boomed. "How dare you trick your own comrades. This is serious and unacceptable. I would expect better behaviour from a senior member."

Laxus could only offer an eye roll in response to the requip mage's stern lecture. He had no remorse.

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Natsu

The fight with the demon began almost instantly. The creature was tall and large, two gigantic horns sprouting from its angular head. Their eyes void of pupils entirely. It seemed to have been crushing the area with its massive spiked feet and blasting some short of magical energy from its slack mouth.

Wow this thing is ugly. Natsu briskly thought to himself as he lit his fists ablaze. The only nice thing he could say about the monster was that it was a pretty shade of blue.

"Fire Dragon's iron fists!" Natsu launched an attack at the feet of the beast, who howled in pain from being caught off guard.

The demon made eye contact with the Dragon slayer and snarled, but the pinkette could notice a glint of recognition in his glazed over eyes.

"Ice make: lance!" Gray changed, a spear of ice forming from his finger tips, headed straight towards the demon.

It ignored the ice mage and continued its focused on Natsu. It's mouth opened, and unlike an attack which Natsu expected, he spoke.

"You've grown." The demon simply spoke, an alarmingly smooth voice coming from the beast. The statement took the pinkette off guard for a second.

"Bullshit!"

This guy doesn't know me! Natsu reminded himself. What a weirdo!

"If only I had Happy to fly me to get a higher vantage point..." he mumbled mid battle, noticing the bottom of the demon was much more guarded than the top. It seemed like long range moves were the only option.

"I'm gonna have to depend on my demon slaying magic alone for this." Gray shouted, his form changing as he activated his secondary power.

"Ice Devil's Zeroth Destruction Bow!" He created a bow of ice and quickly fired an arrow aimed straight for the rampaging demon, it made impact and caused minor damage.

"It's not enough!" He yelled.

"Fire Dragon's roar!" Flames erupted from Natsu's mouth. The fire engulfed the demon who only shrugged them off and continued terrorizing.

Natsu wiped his mouth, panting. It seemed like the ice mage had no luck on his end as well.

"We can't defeat him single-handedly at this rate! Everything's barley effecting it!" Gray called out.

What the hell—?!

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Lucy's POV

"We can't just let them get killed!" The blonde protested, at this point Master had entered the Guildhall and sat on the bar's counter earnestly. "We should send someone to check up on the boys and bring them back, like last time.

She looked at Makorov for approval. He simply nodded and tapped the floor with the end of his long cane. "Lucy is right. Natsu and Gray are in big trouble if they went on that S-class mission alone."

"I agree," Erza buts in. "Which is why I volunteer to retrieve them."

Lucy wanted to protest, or asked to be brought along but the requip mage was an S-class wizard. She had the qualifications to go after Natsu and Gray. If Lucy were to tag along she'd just get in the way.

"Then it's settled then," Gramps looked over at the scarlet haired woman. "Erza, I expect you to bring those boys back in one piece."

"Understood. I shall leave immediately."

The celestial mage was saddened when Erza left the Guild. She understood the need for Erza alone but it almost felt like the girl was being left out. Her and Happy were the only ones of the team unable to anything about the situation but worry. She just hoped her friends were safe. Lucy could almost feel sorry for the two of them, and could only imagine the stern talking to they'd get from Erza herself once she'd catch them. The thought sent shudders down her spine.

Don't worry, Natsu, Gray. Lucy chided herself. Help is on the way.

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Hello! Thanks for reading the first chapter! I'm very excited to start publishing my chapters for this series! It's been a work in progress for a long long long time. My original plan was to start posting the chapters once I had the first arc written out, but as my life got busy and my creative juices got low I figured the writing process was way too slow and I didn't want anyone waiting ten years for a sequel. So here I am posting a few chapters prematurely :) I actually intended to start posting in June but totally forgot..

It's been several years since I've written the first instalment and I can only promise better plot and writing as I'm not thirteen anymore lmao

Once again thank you for reading to the end and feel free to comment, vote etc <3 hope you enjoyed the chapter

-NaLu4Lyfe03