'Where is he?'

Natsu looked around the dark corridor for the ice mage, who had taken another route to get into the dark castle. Its been over three hours since the two split ways, and Natsu already had a sick feeling swirling in his gut as he thought of the worst that could've happened to his rival.

Ah, yes. Rival. All Gray'd been, and will ever be. Natsu had all-too gracefully accepted the offer to do this mission, just so he could get closer the ice mage, who was oblivious to his feelings. Natsu coped with the fact that Gray Fullbuster had no feelings towards him really well; He was usually the one who would walk up to the ice wizard and bicker on about the simple things that people usually paid no mind to. It was his way of sulking, even if it had no apparent form of in which he was doing so.

Natsu kicked open all of the strangely stone-carved doors in the hallway and ravaged every inch of each room in hope to find the ice wizard. But just like the first four stories of the building, he came up empty handed. Natsu was starting to become more and more irate with each passing second. His only objective was to find Gray, and right now, he was failing horridly.

'Where is he? Did he have any run-in's with the bastards who owned this place? Was he taken, captured then beaten by them?

Is he still alive?

Natsu shook the unpleasant thought out of his head and mentally scolded himself for thinking that way.

'Of course he's alive, dumbass. Gray's strong, physically.'

Mentally, not so much. He puts on the I-don't-give-a-fuck front on the outside, but on the inside, everyone knows that Gray probably hurts more than anyone that they'd ever encountered.

Natsu got to the last door of the hallway and was about ready to bash it down, even when the odds of Gray not being in the room were against him. He was cut short when he inhaled deeply and a strange aroma clogged his nostrils. It smelled a little like...salt. His head snapped in the direction in which the scent was wafting from. He turned around and walked back down the corridor and with each passing step, the smell got stronger. The dragonslayer soon found himself running, hoping that he was doing the right thing. He quickly descended the spiraling staircase and reached the the main floor, where he started. He glanced around and noticed something that he hadn't before he went on the rampage on finding Gray. He walked over to one of the large stone bookcases that lined the walls and sniffed around. He came across a certain book on one of the shelves that smelled particularly different from the others. The book itself didn't seem all that interesting. Natsu picked the book up to examine it and immediately heard a loud boom come from behind him. He dropped the book and turned to face this wide opening in the floor.

'I thought that these type of things only happen in movies...'

He looked down into the hole and saw wooden stairs that led into the dark abyss.

Funny, it seemed that everything in this place was made from stone.

He was immediately hit by the acrid stench of blood and covered his nose with Igneel's scarf. What ever was down there, couldn't have been good.

Natsu lit a small flame in the center of his palm and descended the stairs.

Gray had enough of these sick bastards. He was going to let it all go. He didn't have a life worth living anyway. He was abruptly knocked from his thoughts when he felt a metal fist clash with the left side of his jaw. Gray grunted at the pain and spit out a mouth full of blood and a couple of teeth. He felt the same metal hand grab a fist full of his hair and yank his head up to face the assailant.

He stared into the man's grey irises with a graveling look full of disgust.

He man smirked and tightened his grip on Gray's hair.

"That look is cute on you. Real cute."

Gray took the opportunity to spit blood into the man's eyes, and smirked when his assailant reeled back wiping his face.

"I'm not sure about what you mean about me being 'cute', but I do know that you're not going to get away with any of this, you pathetic perverted fuck."

The man recovered quickly and punched Gray square in the jaw again. This time, Gray's whole mouth went slack and was most likely dislocated. He felt the metal fist clamp around his throat and Gray wanted to attempt to pry the fingers from around his neck, but knew it was utterly impossible since his hands were bound by some magic-resisting chains.

"Do you know what position you're in? Whatever, I'm just going to have to show you who's superior in this place."

He signaled for something with his fingers and two men emerged from the shadows.

"Strip him."

The two men nodded and responded in unison.

"Yes, Sir Judias"

'Shit, he uses shadow type of magic, Gray thought. 'I'll remember that, so next time we'll meet, I'll make sure to kill him first- Wait, did he just tell these fuckers to strip me? Like hell they will.'

Natsu finally got to the bottom of the staircase and came upon a door. As he walked to the door, the smell of salt and blood began to intertwine and it honestly made the dragonslayer a little lightheaded. Natsu kicked the door open and came to face something that he was NOT prepared to see. It was a torture chamber; weapons of all kinds hung upon the the walls, clearly not just for display. Most of them looked as if they could cause instant death just by looking at them. But that wasn't even the worst part; There was a large table in the middle of it all, a table that held a naked, broken Gray Fullbuster. His eyes were dull and unblinking, and staring directly into him. Natsu's blood ran cold when he looked past Gray's eyes; His body was covered in the blood that spilled from his fresh wounds, most of it had dripped from the table onto the floor, pooling at another man's feet. Natsu looked up at the man and his face contorted with rage at the manner that the fucker was touching Gray in; One of his hands were buried between the ice wizard's thighs, gripping his manhood tighter than he had thought was ever possible, while the other hand was around Gray's neck with just as much force. Natsu stepped forward, half holding himself back from ripping the bastard's spine straight out from his neck with his teeth.

That sounded like a great idea, judging from this situation.

"Get your bloody fucking hands off of him. Right. Now."

Judias smirked, squeezing Gray harder, making him wince slightly.

"Oh no no, you see, you're friend here was actually enjoying my ministrations. It took from the time he arrived to about an hour ago for him to calm Down, though..."

Judias went on and on about how he tortured Gray -and god, this guy really didn't know when to shut up because the more that he described what he had done to the ice mage, the more apparent his death wish became. Natsu immediately threw himself at Judias when the man propped Gray up on his chest and pulled his legs apart to display the damage that he caused Gray.

Natsu completely lost it when the man grinned at him.

He lurched forward, seeing red and his mind was set.

He was going to kill the bastard.

Gray was almost out of it, just barely hanging onto consciousness when he saw a flash of pink. Even though he wasn't sure what it was, Gray had a feeling that, that was his way out of this place. He suddenly felt himself being pulled and positioned in a way which his thighs were spread in the most undignified manner. He would've at least tried to cover himself, but he had no strength in his arms, and the grip on his legs were firm and bruising, damn. The ice mage had no choice but to just sit there and be handled like he had no meaning, like he was an owned plaything because of how he was treated for the last couple of hours, he sure felt like it.

Gray heard mumbles, meaning that people were most likely talking. Gray felt a certain part of his body going numb and he sincerely wanted to lose consciousness because of the pain inflicted on the sensitive flesh was simply unbearable. Everything suddenly stopped when Gray sensed danger getting thicker and thicker, clogging the atmosphere around him.

A few seconds later, Gray felt himself drop down to the table and heard the faintest sound of someone screaming. The screaming was cut short when he felt something else fall on the table with a thud and some gurgling noises followed soon after.

Natsu smirked at what he'd just done, and he knew that he'll never have any regrets about doing it. That fucker deserved to die, period. The dragonslayer jumped up and ran to where Gray was laying and felt his heart drop down to his feet; The ice mage was staring up at Natsu with countless of emotions swirling around in his deep blue irises, tears staining his pale skin. The dragonslayer reached out and touched Gray's cheek, and Gray immediately flinched.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Gray. I'm taking you home."

But before he could do that, Natsu had to see everything that was done to Gray. He scanned over his torso, stopping over every last cut and bruise that was apparent, and Natsu slowly began to become more and more infuriated. Even though he didn't really want to, Natsu let his eyes travel lower. There was a particularly different looking bruise on Gray's right hip and he couldn't help but brush his fingers over it, much to Gray's discomfort. He silently apologized and went a little further. He felt his cheeks go hot when he saw the damage that was done to Gray's...area. His genitalia were slightly swollen and flushed red. He also had many flesh wounds and cuts in the surrounding area, nothing serious, but Natsu noticed that there was blood so he grabbed the inner part of Gray's thigh and saw a deep gash gushing out dark red liquid. Natsu ripped the sleeve off of his vest and tied it around the wound and and lifted Gray from the table.

They were going home.