Well, hi there! And welcome to my second multi-chapter Fairy Tail fic! Hope you guys enjoy it. After all, you did vote for it... Haha.
The timeline is two years after the Grand Magic Games, making it nine years after my last multi-chapter fanfic.
Note to new readers: This takes place in the same universe as Identity, said above fanfic. Nothing blaring that you have to read that in order to understand this, but there will be references and callbacks that you might not understand.
Prologue - Self-Made Mess
A pair of sandals trudged along the cobblestone road, their owner stressed and unusually gloomy.
This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair at all.
"I win, Salamander."
"What!? No way, metal butt! Gimmie' that!"
Natsu growled to himself, scaring some of Magnolia's innocent bystanders away with the noise. At the moment, the Dragonslayer could care less about them. He had enough on his mind without having to worry about frightening the locals.
"Damned magnet face…" he muttered beneath his breath. "One of these days, he's going to find himself six feet underground in a tiny box with only the walls to keep him company."
In case it wasn't obvious by this point, the Salamander was in an uncharacteristically bad mood. Moreover, the fault for his grouchiness fell on the shoulders of a certain metal-eating, stud-faced iron mage.
Well, it wasn't Gajeel's fault entirely. After all, Natsu had been the one to challenge his fellow slayer to that contest in the first place, and it was his own fault that he lost. In spite of any attempts he might make to not be destructive on missions, it was impossible for him not to destroy something while battling adversaries. He didn't expect so many Jewels to come out of his rewards, though!
"You can check the list all you want, ash breath. I still earned more than you."
"… You cheated."
"I didn't cheat. I didn't have to – I had faith you'd be a destructive idiot on these missions like you are normally, and it was obviously well-placed."
Knowing that he had terrible luck with property damage, challenging Gajeel to a contest to see who could come up with the most Jewels from collective jobs had been a pretty idiotic idea on his part. When had he ever thought ahead before going through with a plan? Rarely so, but most of the time he was fine so it didn't matter. If something was a bad idea, he usually only realized it in retrospect. This time, though, his luck had run out. Gajeel had won, and did a damn good job of choosing something utterly embarrassing for him to do to uphold his end of the bet.
Dear Mavis, what had he been thinking?
"Now, about your end of the bargain…"
"You're not going to make me dress up in a Happy suit like Erza and Mira did that one time, are you?"
"Remind me to ask them for pictures later… But no, I have something else for you to do; and there's certain rules you need to comply with…"
"Rrrgh. I hate rules."
It wasn't only the future surefire humiliation that had Natsu annoyed and scowling. The aforementioned magnet face had reached outside their little game for two and gotten Lucy involved as well. He'd been fine up until that point; but really, why did Gajeel find it necessary to drag the blonde into their acts of stupidity?
The Fire Dragonslayer growled again and kicked a nearby rock to the side with his dragging sandal. He wasn't sure how he was even going to go about completing the task at hand! He supposed it was a good thing he was allowed to ask a fellow guild member for help, because otherwise he'd have absolutely no idea how he was supposed to do this right. No one would berate or blame him for the confusion had they known about his predicament, though.
Why, you ask? It was simple.
Natsu Dragneel had to ask Lucy Heartfilia to marry him.
And there it is. Short, SHORT prologue finished. Honestly, I'm not used to short chapters. Check Identity or any of my oneshots, I usually go to at least 2k.
