"Why hello there. Might I ask your name?"
The blonde girl turned away from her friend, surprised to hear someone speak to her. She didn't like parties that much, and the only reason she came to this one is that her best friend dragged her along. She was startled to see a guy with spiky pink hair smiling at her, clearly trying to act suave but overplaying it just enough to be goofy.
Kind of a cute goofy though, she thought to herself.
"I'm Lucy," she told him. "And you are?"
"Lucy, huh?" he affirmed. "I'm Natsu, pleasure to meet you!"
Lucy smiled, Natsu seemed nice enough. Certainly not as creepy as some of the other guys who had hit on her in the past. Her body was certainly well developed, particularly around the parts guys tend to look at when they thought she wasn't looking (umm, her eyes were up here, boys), so she was used to guys hitting on her. Natsu seemed much more genuine though, and he certainly piqued her interest.
"You're quite an attractive young lady. Would you allow me to take you on the hottest of dates?" Natsu smiled, snapping his fingers and creating a small flame.
Lucy gasped in surprise. "You're a fire wizard? Wow that's so cool! I'm a celestial wizard myself. I can't believe I found another wizard at this party! The only other one here that I know of is my friend Juvia over there. Oh, and her boyfriend Gray. Well, soon to be boyfriend," Lucy laughed.
Natsu smiled, happy to see that he might actually have a chance with this girl.
"I see you have a lot of other gentlemen suitors here tonight, Luce," Natsu grinned, looking around the room at the other guys who kept stealing glances at her attractive body. "Allow me to make my case."
Lucy cocked an eyebrow, interested to hear just what he would say to try to convince her to go out with him.
"You see that guy over there?" Natsu asked, pointing to a big guy with muscles bigger than Lucy's head. "He plays football. That may seem impressive but I'm way better at it than he is."
Lucy crossed her arms, feigning disbelief. "Oh really?" she questioned playfully, sparking Natsu to grin widely.
"Really! I'm so good I even once won the whole Super Bowl by myself."
Lucy stifled a laugh. "My, that is impressive." If all his attempts at wooing me are this outlandish, this should be fun, she thought, excited for a chance to have a fun conversation with a guy for the first time in a while.
"If you think that's cool, listen to this. That dude over there? That insanely ripped one? He's a weightlifter. But I'm so strong I can practically bench entire continental shelves," Natsu bragged.
Well he's certainly humble, Lucy thought, giggling. The laughter only seemed to spur the pink-haired guy on, as he got visibly more excited.
"And that one over there, the nerdy looking one? Clearly a scientist. Too bad he'll be out of a job soon."
"What do you mean?" Lucy asked, shocked that Natsu would use another man's misfortune to build himself up. Maybe he wasn't the kind of guy she wanted to go out with after all.
"Well, I already cured all known diseases last week, so there's really no need for him to keep doing his sciencey research stuff," Natsu answered, earning a sigh of relief from his hopefully soon-to-be date.
"And besides, if that wasn't enough to convince you to go out on a date with me, when was the last time one of those losers killed a freaking mythical beast? Get ready for this, I'm about to rock your world. I didn't kill just any mythical beast: it was a dragon! I guess that makes me a dragon slayer, girl."
Lucy laughed as Natsu opened his shirt and flexed, showing off his surprisingly muscular chest.
Natsu did that sort of suave smile again. "Don't act like you're not impressed."
"Oh I'm quite impressed," Lucy replied. "It takes quite a man to slay such a monstrous creature."
"Tell me something," Natsu started, "How hard did I just seal the deal? Can you feel all my sexy appeal?"
Lucy couldn't help it, she laughed hard at that. "Oh I feel it all right."
Natsu frowned. "Hey, I'm not kidding. My story is so very totally real. You would be amazed at the effort I had to go through to defeat the beast."
"I'm listening," Lucy prompted, taking a seat on the nearby couch. She could tell this would be a long story.
"Well to begin with, I had to go super high up to even get to his lair. It was on the top of a mountain. It had to be at least ninety million hundred fifty thousand hundred feet in the air! And I had to fight through his karate fighting kung-fu guards! They kinda looked like bears too, so that just made it scarier! Anyway, this dragon had awful breath, so not only did its fire burn, it also smelled super bad!"
Natsu was really getting into it now, making wide sweeping gestures and jumping around to emphasize the fight between him and the dragon. Lucy had to admit, he was pretty entertaining. Of course, there was no way any of this was true. But still, it made for fun conversation.
"Well that must've been just terrible!" she joked, playing along. "What happened next?"
"Well we fought super hard and it went on for so long that I missed an appointment for brunch with a friend of mine. We'd been planning it for a while, so he was pretty mad at me when I saw him next. Told me 'a real man would've kept his commitments, dragon or no.' He hit me pretty hard after he said that…." Natsu laughed, rubbing his head. "But anyway, when it came down to it I ended up having to swing my horse at the dragon, almost like a makeshift club, in order to bring it down. And when I say down, I mean that figuratively. I actually hit him so hard that he flew through space and exploded the sun. No big deal."
"Oh of course not. Not a big deal at all. I knew when I first saw you that you had to have been the one to destroy the sun. No one else I've met has ever looked tough enough to have been able to do that."
Natsu looked down at his shoes, trying to hide his blushing. He wasn't doing a very good job. "Yeah, well, you know," he mumbled, drawing a circle in the carpet with his feet.
Lucy giggled again. "Well I think you're very brave for going up against that dragon all by yourself," she said as she kissed him on the cheek. If he was awful at hiding his blushing before, he might as well have been holding a neon sign with an arrow on it now.
'You know," he said, "If you need more proof, I actually brought the dragon here for you to see."
Lucy was taken aback. "You did? The one you slayed?"
Natsu nodded. "You never know when you're going to need to impress a pretty girl," he laughed, looking up at her brown eyes and grinning.
"Give me just a second, I'll call him in." Natsu got up and went over to the door. He opened it and cupped his hands around his mouth.
"GAAAAAAAAJJJJEEEEEEEEEEELLL!" he yelled into the night. A minute later a muscular man walked into the party wearing an insanely goofy looking dragon costume. Lucy could barely contain her laughter, it was such a ridiculous sight. The poor man looked less than thrilled about the situation.
"Look Natsu, I'm only doing this because I owe you, so don't get any ideas about this being a long-term thing!" he growled. Natsu laughed.
"Wouldn't dream of it big guy! Now come on; there's someone I want you to meet!"
Lucy watched as Natsu lead Gaj- er, the dragon, over to her and presented him like a trophy.
"So Luce, whatdya think? Told you my story was totally true!"
Gajeel frowned. "Yes, it is I: the great and powerful dragon that was slain by the amazing Natsu. I'm definitely not his friend from the guild in a dragon suit."
Natus elbowed him in the ribs, eliciting an audible grunt of pain.
He must actually be stronger than he seems, Lucy thought. But never mind that, I've got to play along with this little scenario.
"My, my, that is quite impressive Natsu. Just take me home with you now!"
Natsu beamed in excitement. "Well then, let's go back to my place. I think you'll like it. It's nothing fancy, just a huge mansion in space."
Lucy laughed as she and Natsu began walking out the door. "How about we head to that diner down the street instead?"
Natsu's eyes seemed to double in size. "Food?!" he shouted in excitement. "I knew you were my kind of girl! Let's go!" he yelled as he practically dragged her down the street.
Gajeel, still in costume, walked over to a cute young woman with short blue hair, red glasses, and an orange dress. He grabbed a drink from off the counter and leaned up against it.
"So, come here often?"