"This is stupid. Why did we all have to go on this mission? I could have done this myself." Gajeel huffed as he swung his iron fists at another oncoming gang member.

"Master's orders." Gray shrugged before shooting ice-spears at a group trying to escape. "He said we needed to learn to work together better."

"Screw that. I always take solo missions anyway."

"Yeah. Besides I didn't think we had problems."

Gajeel grabbed the back of one of the gang member's jackets as he was trying to escape and threw him into the wall of the alleyway building. The wall cracked loudly from the force of the hit.

"Hey watch it! The reason we left Natsu behind was because I need this reward and don't want to pay for property damages." Gray snapped. Maybe Dragon Slayers just can't contain themselves...

Gajeel chuckled thinking of how they had ditched Natsu. Out of irritation to something the Fire Dragon Slayer had said Gray had created a cage of thick ice around him. But to further anger his rival Gajeel had layered the ice with a thicker layer of iron. Inside they could hear Natsu shouting challenges and calling them cowards. They had quickly left for the mission of ridding the town of the gang members.

"Its a little odd he hasn't joined us yet." Gray said as an after thought.

"Probably got distracted by some food." Gajeel shrugged slamming the last guy's face into the dirt.

Gray looked at the scene before them. They had kept it relatively neat. Gajeel made cuffs for each of them then chained them to the wall to be picked up later.

"I don't know..." Gray said. "That Flame-Brain isn't one to miss a fight."

"He is more easily distracted then that blue cat of his when it sees a fish." Gajeel grunted.

"True. But something feels off. We better go back and see what he's done."

If there was one word to describe Natsu, it was NOT 'predictable', but one thing Gray could count on was that the idiot would never miss a fight. The more he thought about it the more concerned he grew for the part of town they had left him in. The cage had not been that large, but depending on how much they had angered the Dragon Slayer the town around it could have just a bit of debris where the cage was or he could have taken out all the buildings for miles around. When they approached the makeshift cage they were both equally surprised to find it exactly the way they left it. They quickly released Natsu to find him passed out in the center.

"He was taking a damn nap?" Gajeel growled. "Not like we needed him of course."

Gray walked over and shoved him with his boot. "Hey ash-for-brains. Get up."

Natsu wasn't moving.

"Shit." Gray muttered.

"Heavy sleeper." Gajeel grunted.

"He's a fire wizard."

"No shit."

"Seriously. Basic science. What does fire need to live? Besides that, what do humans need to live?" Gray was mumbling as he dropped to his knees to check his teammate's pulse.

"Food?" Gajeel guessed. "We weren't gone that long."

"Oxygen idiot."

"Damn." The Iron Dragon Slayer realized what they had unknowingly done. Natsu had probably yelled at them continuously not knowing they had left and not realizing that he was using up the small supply of oxygen he had.

"But he's got air now." Gajeel pointed out. "He'll be fine."

"Except he's not breathing."

I absolutely love Fairy Tail. Today one of my students asked me why sometimes fire grows when air blows on it rather than dying like when someone blows out birthday candles. Naturally at the mention of fire my mind jumped to the Fire Dragon Slayer.

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