Heyo~! It's Mizu here with one of my special stories I told you guys about in my other story Endurance Test 2. This is one of the later stories I had thought up during my long absence over summer and into the beginning of the school year...yeah.

Well, without further ado...

Almost forgot this: I do not own Fairy Tail. That right has long belonged to Hiro Mashima and I'm all the more happy for it.

Lucy's soul floated out of her body the minute the fatal-looking entrees- compliments of chef Mira who personally went into demon mode to prepare these meals -were laid down in front of her. Beside her, she could have sworn the large bowl of spicy soup bubbled and popped with a poisonous hiss...in fact, she wasn't even sure if the stuff inside that ceramic bowl could even classify as soup. It seemed to be more on the side of molten lava...

Sighing, the blonde celestial mage tried to recall how she even got into this predicament in the first place. It all happened so quickly. One minute she was walking through the guild doors and the next she was being shoved into a chair at the nearest table which just so happened to be the one Natsu was hosting a spicy food competition on.

~ Only Five Minutes Earlier ~

Lucy entered the guild late as usual- according to Natsu standards -after prepping for the day back at her apartment on Strawberry street. Coming in, the guild was livelier than usual- if that was even possible -with Natsu at the center of the chaos- also as usual. Her rambunctious salmon-haired partner was dancing a jig on top of one of the many wooden picnic-style tables that dotted the guild while Gray lay sprawled limp on the bench below, body oddly sweaty and white as a ghost. Milk pooled at his abnormally red cheeks; his eyes rolled to the recesses of his head exposing the bright white of his eyeballs. Juvia was hovering worriedly in the background swearing retribution on Mira for attempting to kill 'her precious Gray-sama'.

Lucy sweat-dropped at that comment.

Practically the entire guild was swarmed around the three mages- Natsu, Juvia, and Gray that is -laughing boisterously and carrying on.

Lucy, who was curious as to what all the fuss was about, approached the crowd of guild members cautiously- she wasn't stupid. The blonde mage knew better than to just run into the action as Natsu had a tendency to do. (we all see where that gets him) -not wanting to get trampled by a bunch of hyperactive party-hards. But alas, fate was not on the side of Lucy today and the celestial mage ended up in the very center of the chaos after tripping over a stray beer mug laying on the floor- CANA! -and landing right in the center of the screaming mob just as Natsu yelled "ALRIGHT PEOPLE! WHO'S NEXT!"

Hoisting herself off the ground, Lucy tried to fall back into the crowd inconspicuously, but her efforts were in vain because Natsu spotted her- or rather smelled her -instantly. Before she could high-tail it into the sea of bodies, Natsu's warm hand latched onto her arm like a blood-deprived leech.

He stared at her with a blank expression for a solid minute before his face morphed into his signature grin and he said with utmost joy: "Just the person I need! Hey Luce compete with me!"

The color literally drained from the blonde's face at those three words. Nothing good came out of competing with Natsu. She remembered that time when Natsu was feeling antsy in the guild one particularly boring day and insisted that Lucy fight with him- "Think of it as training!" he said -to which she instantly rejected.

(back to their current conversation)

"Abs~olutely not!" Lucy yelled back at the salmon-haired pyromaniac crossing her arms to form an 'X' in front of her face for dramatic effect. Apparently, the dragon slayer wasn't taking no for an answer. With a determined expression on his face Natsu completely ignored her protests and dragged her to the very table he'd been dancing on not even two minutes earlier.

~ End of Flashback ~

Staring at the hazardous-looking food now, Lucy silently bemoaned her fate and her partnership with Natsu. Why did she allow herself to be dragged into his team again?

Oh yeah, he needed her blonde hair in order to do a mission.

Pulling out of her thoughts, Lucy noticed that the atmosphere around her guildmates had become more subdued and instead of celebrating like they had been a few seconds earlier, they were now talking low amongst themselves about her.

"Why did he bring Lucy?" whisper-shouted Jet in a doubtful tone. "She'll probably back out on the first platter."

That hit Lucy in the heart. They still thought she was a pampered wimp.

Droy nodded in agreement beside him although, to his credit, he didn't look to certain about it.

On the opposite side of the crowd Gajeel scoffed, not even trying to be subtle about his offending.

"This'll be over quick enough."

Lucy scowled at her lap. What a jerk! But then again, there was never a time when he wasn't being a jerk...

Next was Levy.

"Poor Lu-chan..." Levy sighed noticing Lucy's downcast expression at all her guild-mate's harsh criticism. Okay, maybe that one wasn't a direct offense to the celestial mage, but Lucy doubted Levy had any more faith that she could handle this than the next person.

Steeling her jaw in annoyance, Lucy stuffed the nearest piece of food in her mouth- a spicy ham leg -and nearly cried from the rush of spiciness that accompanied the first swallow. The entire room had went deathly silent at this point waiting for her to show some sign of quitting; spitting the food out, copping out right then and there, anything.

Their anticipation only drove her onward.

Recovering from that first surprise, Lucy tore into the next food item with all she had- the soup -surprising the guild into a statue-like shocked state.

That's what they got for assuming that she was weak-willed.

Little did they know, Lucy had built up a pretty decent tolerance to spicy food overtime because of Natsu. The boy had taken to having her taste test every type of food he put into his mouth and that included the spicy stuff. Especially the spicy stuff. On occasion, he asked- or when Lucy said no begged -her to cook for him. It wasn't like he feasted on spicy foods all the time, in fact, the majority of the time he asked for simple dishes like lasagna- one of his favorites -or tacos, which he ate way too much of in Lucy's opinion.

On the not-so-rare occasions when he did ask for something particularly spicy, he would pester Lucy for hours on end until she gave in and angrily shovled a scoopful of whatever he wanted her to taste into her mouth. And Natsu's meals didn't just stop at spicy. Oh no. He had a entire range of spice levels from mild to super ultimate only-Natsu-could-digest-this-and-live spicy (one she made up because she swore only Natsu could handle that level). The boy was not human! (pause for dramatic irony) The first time he forced her to eat something on his special level, Natsu had to take her to Porlyusica for severe mouth burns.

She never tasted that level or anything close to it again, thank Mavis.

Feeling the burn in her mouth after chucking down a few sips of flaming hot milkshake, a bite of hot sauce coated garlic bread, and a forkful of the spiciest spaghetti she'd ever put in her mouth before, Lucy reveled in the astonished open-mouthed stares she was getting from her guild-mates. Erza sported an approving look, Jet, Droy, and Gajeel looked gobsmacked (teehee), while Levy and Cana were cheering her on from the sidelines.

Unfortunately, from there, things went downhill.

The dishes were sliding by quickly and with each one Lucy was gradually moving up the spice scale. By the taste of things she guessed she was probably somewhere near the 'ultimate spiciness' level.

At a single bite of teriyaki sub, Lucy found she couldn't hold back the tears anymore. She could feel the sweat dripping down the sides of her face making her hair stick to her cheeks; she probably resembled a drowned cat.

Natsu, who was watching her struggle to swallow a bite of peppery pizza, slid a half-eaten bowl of ramen her way- with an utterly evil glint in his eyes. Lucy eyed it with distaste, but she was not about to let the fire dragon slayer intimidate her.

Her pride on the line, Lucy lifted the bowl to her lips and slurped up a large mouthful of broth, immediately regretting the decision. The fiery sensation that spread through her mouth like a wildfire felt like hell; Lucy heard herself internally screaming before she was actually aware that she was doing it.

Somewhere amongst the crowd Mira squealed something about an indirect kiss, which caused Lucy to spit the broth she was holding in her cheeks right into the faces of Laxus and Gajeel, both of whom gave her such menacing glares, Lucy almost peed herself. Natsu wasn't helping her case by cackling like a madman in the background.

Lucy started to apologize, but when the air hit her tongue it was like the entire muscle caught on fire and the blonde screeched to a pain only she could feel. She blindly reached for the milk jar through her mess of tears only to have someone push it into her seconds later. She had already chugged half the contents before realizing that it wasn't milk she'd been guzzling, but the melted remainder of the spicy milkshake from before that only heightened the burning sensation in her mouth.

At this point Lucy was quite literally spewing fire from her mouth in a very Natsu-like fashion. In a panic she abruptly shot out of her chair and tripped on one of the legs sending her crashing to the ground, her guild members bursting into fits of hysterical laughter all around her.

Lucy ignored them as she pulled herself to her feet only to slip back down and make her situation worse by spilling buffalo sauce on her legs on the way down. She clawed at the table desperately on her third try, fire still spewing out of her mouth. Despite how bad it made her mouth hurt, Lucy still found it pretty awesome that she was spewing fire from her mouth like a real dragon. She'd always wanted to do that ever since she met Natsu and now that it was happening it was actually kind of neat.

Willing the blush on her cheeks to go down, she scanned the table once again for the actual milk only to find it in the hands of Gajeel who waved it at her mockingly. The bastard. She was gonna climb over this table and Lucy-kick him into next week. She sent him a glare that made Erza at her worst look like a saint for good measure. Even so, Gajeel didn't flinch. He simply tilted the glass back and drunk every last drop of milk.

Officially defeated, Lucy slumped down on the bench part of the table resigned to her fate- death by mouth fire, when Natsu appeared in front of her, so suddenly that she didn't have time to process the situation before his lips covered her own.

The guild was so shocked they turned into statues of their former selves.

As for Lucy, she still had quite processed what the dragon slayer had done.

After a few seconds, he'd managed to suck the last of the burning fire from Lucy's mouth, his chest expanding slightly with the effort of holding it all in.

He lingered on her lips a few minutes, enjoying their softness before pulling away and swallowing the flames greedily.

The rush of sensations- exploding stars, colliding galaxies, rushing waterfalls, the whole cliche kissing scenario described in her romance novels -faded with the release of his lips, but Lucy still remained glued to the bench shocked dumb.

Natsu, however, decided the competition was over right then and there. He didn't want to ruin the lingering flavor of the best fire that he'd ever consumed in his entire lifespan.

He didn't know if he could go back to his regular meals of fire after this.

There was one thing he knew though.

.

.

He was gonna force Lucy to eat much more spicier foods from here on out.

God. School has been tough. We just finished our semester exams like a week ago and I honestly had no motivation to write more of my next chappie of Endurance Test, and I randomly thought this shorter piece up on a spark of genius so I decided to write this up instead. It took longer to write because I was originally writing it on my brother's laptop, but it was malfunctioning so when I clicked the save button on my first few hundred words (I learned the hard way to save things whenever I get the chance, you never know when a power surge will swipe through), instead of saving everything I wrote, it deleted it all but the author's note at the top.

Like really?!

I was so pissed that I gave up for the day and started again today.

I'm so sick of school... *sigh*

~Ja ne ^_^