(A/N: I need to stop making new projects without finishing old ones, but this project is relatively short. Before we begin, let me start by saying that I don't have anything against Lucy to put her in these situations she'll face. In fact, I find myself liking the Natsu/Lucy pairing to begin with. This, does not, however, mean that I am a diehard Lucy/Natsu fan. For those of you rabid Natsu/Lisana fans, if the mood struck I could just as easily write a story for that one too, but this idea just happened to come to me in a dream…no seriously. The first chapter I completely dreamed up and the rest of the fic wrote itself. This takes place before the Tendou Island arc, obviously, and after the Orocion Seis arc. It will involve OCs and it will have some very DARK elements to the point where you want to do to me what many would STILL like to do to Raven Tail despite Laxus' actions. Now then, with that said, since I don't think I'm forgetting anything: enjoy).

Disclaimer: Fairy Tail belongs to Mashima

Fairy Tail Guild

Lucy Heartfilia, low on funds yet again to pay the rent, was checking the job board for good paying jobs. She stood in front of the bulletin board with a puzzled look while Mirajane cleaned the bar table and business was business as usual in the guild house. Lucy looked all across the board until her eye landed upon a job that spoke to her. It was a request asking for the submission and escort of a specified individual to be brought to a specific location. The reward was 700,000 jewels. It was just too good to be true considering the class assignment of the job was a D.

"You want it?" Mirajane asked with a smile seeing Lucy holding the flyer in her hand. "Go ahead and take it. Turn it over though, there's a specific request from the client to meet in person before heading out."

"That seems rather redundant," Lucy said, seeing as how most jobs often started with meeting the client.

"It's not required to meet the client of any given job except to collect the reward and not everyone operates with the same moral prowess that we do," Mirajane put in.

"Then I'm officially taking this request," Lucy said.

Mirajane got out a book from under the bar table to make it official. "Are you sure you don't want to wait for Natsu?" she asked as she made an official record.

Natsu was currently out in town for some reason or another. Knowing him, Lucy figured he might be getting lunch or up to his usual antics. Even so, "It seems easy enough that I can handle this myself."

"Right, see you later then," Mirajane said. She closed the record book as Lucy headed off and out the door. She then looked over to where Gray was sitting at a table, stripped down to his boxer shorts as usual. Juvia was out on a mission of her own else she probably would've been keeping a close eye on him, if not trying to sit in his lap. "I'm surprised you didn't pick up that contract yourself Gray. Aren't you low on personal funds?"

"Yeah, yeah," Gray said, scratching the back of his neck. He then put his arm down and continued by saying, "To be honest though that request seemed a little fishy to me." Another truth was that Juvia had promised to split her profits from her current job with Gray no matter how many times he had told her she didn't have to do that and despite her insistence to take her with him. Gray had to fake a stomach ache and only was now in the bar area once he was sure she was gone. It's not that he didn't want to go with her, but he just felt that his presence would add nothing to the mission. A couple of the members teased him about it, Elfman especially, saying how Gray would've had one on one time with a girl with an obvious interest in him, but Gray's response was to tell them to shove it.

"What do you mean by fishy?" Mirajane asked.

Gray shrugged. "That amount of pay for such a low rank? I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid, but something about that just doesn't seem right."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Would it have mattered? How does my funny feeling affect anyone, but me in this case? Besides, Lucy's a big girl. She can handle herself."

However, little did Gray know, that he was right to be suspicious and, had he stopped Lucy and the whole crisis that followed would've been averted, but he didn't, it happened and so the tale unfolds.

Leaving Magnolia for a nearby town to the west, Lucy found a nice looking mansion with the address identical to the one she was supposed to meet her client at. She was reminded of the time she and Natsu broke into mansion of the Duke of Everlue considering there was a gate out front and a large mansion contained within.

If that wasn't creepy enough, Lucy was greeted by a maid at the door. Thankfully this maid had the same type of refined beauty as herself and not the Duke's warped perceptions. She had long green hair and eyes and was wearing the stereotypical maid uniform. "Greetings, madam," the maid bowed, "Are you here for Gant-sama's request?"

"Yes," Lucy said showing the request form.

The maid opened the door fully and gestured for Lucy to enter into the fantabulous looking foyer consisting of a red carpet, crystal chandelier, chess-board themed tile floors, white walls and ceiling and black leather couches with a black marble coffee table. There was a large staircase in the back leading up to the second floor. Whoa. Lucy thought to herself.

"Please have a seat," the maid said as she crossed her arms over each other down at her pelvis and bowed slightly. "I shall fetch the master."

As the maid walked away, and Lucy sat down, she couldn't help but think as to how robotic the woman's voice and tone sounded. She wondered what kind of person this 'Gant' was like and if he was as refined as his mansion and his maid led Lucy to believe him to be.

Unfortunately, fate was not to be so kind to her. From the east wing, came a rotund, slovenly man with large lips, missing as much teeth as a family of inbred, backwater hicks, balding, with black hair on the sides, a big nose, and a swollen left eye. He had very hairy arms with cracks in his nails and his suit seemed two sizes too small as he sat down with the suit not fully covering his body and the sleeves only coming down to his elbows. Two buttons had burst and it looked like a third might soon if he gained any more weight. The couch sagged as he sat down.

"Oh my," he spoke with a slight lisp caused by the lack of teeth and the abundance of saliva sloshing around in his mouth. "You are very lovely…very lovely indeed. How can I help you Miss…"

"Lucy," Lucy answered, doing her best not to be revolted at the sight of her client. That was not the Fairy Tail way. They took requests of all shapes and sizes and did their best to remain professional. That didn't mean it made Lucy comfortable with the situation, as she was currently having a really bad case of déjà vu. Only this time the ugly man with the regal mansion and the maids was her client. "I-I'm here about the request form." She handed the job request form to Gant who took it and smiled as he rubbed his large hand underneath his chin.

"Ah, yes this. I was wondering when I would get someone to answer it. I thought I put up enough of a reward, are guilds really this picky about missions these days, I wonder?"

"About that, it didn't say who I was supposed to subdue and why I'm being asked to subdue them. It also said on the back you wanted to meet with me in person."

"Oh yes, yes indeed, of course." Gant dropped the paper on the ground. He snapped his fingers. "Fetch me a contract, Sasami, would you please darling?"

"Yes sir," the green haired maid responded.

"Contract?" Lucy asked.

"I send out requests to guilds all the time and I always like to get my volunteer helpers written agreement that they'll do the job. That way I can ensure that the job is going to be taken care of. Some may call it an inability to trust those that I hire. I call it: insurance."

Sasami brought a group of papers with her to Gant and handed it to them. "Here you are, Gant-sama."

"Thank you, Sasami. That will be all."

"Yes master, I understand." Sasami bowed and then left the area to tend to her other duties.

Gant handed Lucy the pieces of paper. "Be sure to read everything carefully. You wouldn't want to accidentally sign off on something you didn't mean to now would you?"

Lucy counted the pages first and saw that she was holding a stack of seven. "Are you sure you need a contract this big?"

"I'm a business man," Gant replied, "Such is my way."

"Well, all right." Lucy wanted to do her best to respect the client's wishes. She began to read.

Meanwhile back at the guild, Natsu was walking in with a gigantic fish over his head. It was so big that the tail was outside the guild and Natsu was holding the head by the bar.

"What the hell is this?" Gray exclaimed.

Natsu ignored him and spoke directly to Mirajane. "Tell master that this should solve our fish shortage for the next couple of days."

"Days? This should have us covered for several weeks!" Levy shouted.

Natsu looked around, ignoring the outcries of the gigantic fish he just brought into the guild and found that the guild house was shy a certain blonde. "Where's Lucy?" he asked, side of his hand on his forehead, scanning for her, "I don't see her."

"You just missed her," Mirajane said all bubbly. "She took a job while you were out."

"Oh, which job?" Natsu asked and then looked to the closest person that wasn't busy. "Hey, Elfman, could you help me move this to storage?"

Wordlessly, and still in shock, but happy to get it out of the dining area, Elfman went outside to pick up the tail end. "Yeah, this is a man's job."

Now answering Natsu's question as he slowly guided the big fish towards the backroom, Mirajane said, "Oh she took a rare, really easy high paying job for the submission and escort of the defeated."

Natsu stopped moving. "Wait, not the D-class one for seven hundred thousand?"

"Uh yeah, why? Is there a problem?"

"Hey, if you wanted it Nastu," Gray said in a mocking tone, "You should've taken it this morning."

Abruptly Natsu dropped the big fish, causing the tail to drop on Elfman's foot like a rock. Natsu had a serious look on his face. "When I was in town earlier, I overheard people talking about a scam job that's being used to fool inept mages. I was curious so I asked for details." Natsu pointed to the board and raised his voice. "It turns out it was the exact job that Lucy just set out on!"

Many members of the guild were shocked. "Are you sure?" Gray asked.

"Positive," Natsu said. Remembering all the details of the job from that morning, Natsu headed off out the door nearly knocking Elfman over. "Happy!"

"Aye sir!" Happy lifted Natsu off the ground and took to the air. "Do we really need to be going after Lucy, Natsu?" Happy understood Lucy's strength as a mage. "Is she really in danger?" Natsu wasn't responding and just kept a straight face and his arms outstretched in front of him. "Natsu?"

Lucy finished reading the contract, finding nothing fishy about it. The contract started by saying that she was to apprehend a low ranking mage by the name of Trixie Mescearl, for the crime of theft, and to bring her back to Gant, along with the stolen item. The rest was just details and terms and conditions and other agreements that a lot of people skipped over these days when signing contracts, but Lucy read it all, despite how mind numbing it was.

Looking up from the contract she said, "Do you have a pen that I can sign with?"

"Oh, right, where are my manners?" Gant said, reaching into the folds of his suit and handing Lucy a quill, ink pen. "This should suffice your needs, Lucy-san." However, as Lucy reached for the pen, Gant turned it sideways so that the tip pricked Lucy when she grasped hold of it. She recoiled back her hand only to notice that her palm was bleeding and, in the next instant, blood began to leave her hand and printed her signature on the final page of the contract.

"My apologies, I'll get a bandage for you in a moment. Oh, and of course, the receipt as specified in the contract, should you choose to void our agreement." Gant handed Lucy a business card sized piece of paper, but when Lucy grabbed it the contract she had signed, now floating in midair changed much like the enchanted book owned by the Duke of Everlue. Only it wasn't an enchantment to rearrange the letters, rather it was an illusion enchantment to make the contract appear as a different contract altogether. As the letters rearranged themselves, one statement at the bottom of the last page became perfectly clear:

"I hereby willingly agree to become the unquestionable slave of Mavon Gant:" followed by Lucy's signature written in blood. Promptly, Lucy's instinct response was to rise to her feet, but in the next moment, Lucy's "receipt" stuck itself to her throat and faded from view. Lucy started to feel a combination of light-headedness, slight nausea, and her body was burning up from the inside. "I feel funny," Lucy said weakly and slumped to her feet in a trance.

"That's understandable. The contract you just signed makes you my complete and obedient slave. Right now it's rearranging the magic in your body to create a psionic link between us. When it's finished you will obey my every command and even now your magic is slowly falling under my control."

"Slowly falling?" Lucy asked tersely. "So then I still have some free will?"

"Technically speaking," Gant responded.

"Then," Lucy rose to her feet, grabbed one of her keys and shouted, "Open the gate of the giant crab! Cancer!"

Emerging from the call and the opening of the gate, cancer rushed to attack Gant on Lucy's behalf, but with a simple lifting his hand into the air there was a puff of smoke and suddenly Cancer took the appearance of a Crab dish complete with rice pilaf and a side of vegetables.

"Ebi?"

Lucy's expression had "what the hell" written all over it.

"I told you before, your magic is slowly becoming linked to me, that means I can control your magic and since Celestial Spirits can take the form of their master's wishes I wanted to have a nice crab dinner."

That's disgusting! Lucy shouted in her head at the top of her lungs. She sent Cancer back and grabbed another key. "Open the gate of the Golden Bull! Taurus!" The gigantic bovine spirit charged towards Gant with his mighty axe only for him to take the form of a gigantic ham, despite ham being pork and Taurus being a cow, with his head in place of the bone. This is ridiculous! Obviously summoning any of her animal-akin spirits wouldn't do anything and given Virgo's apparel Lucy didn't even want to think what sort of Ecchi things might happen to her. She always wanted to be punished and Lucy had the feeling that Gant might do just that.

Based on Gant's statements, despite Gemini probably being her best shot at freedom, given that she could have them transform into Gant and revoke the contract, Lucy was afraid that she wouldn't be able to control them. However, she wasn't about to give up. She still had her trump card. "Open the gate of the Lion! Leo!" In a flash, Loke appeared, looking ready to deliver a serious smack down. The look of worry on Gant's face gave Lucy the idea that she was right to suspect that Loke could bail her out: despite being a celestial spirit, Loke had his own sense of free will, and was not bound by the psionic link between Gant and Lucy.

"Wh-why can't I control you?" Gant gasped.

"Lucy and I may share a contract, but I am my own master. Your rules don't apply," Loke said, understanding the situation. He lunged forward and decked Gant right in the face sending him flying towards the east wing. Loke let fly a smirk across his lips only for it to switch to panic when he suddenly found himself unable to move.

From the east side of the foyer, Gant laughed while still sitting down. "Did you really think I wouldn't have created a clause for the unexpected? In fine print, page two, second paragraph, anyone who assaults the client while the contract is being completed," Gant held out his palm over the ground, "turns to stone." He made a fist with his hand and in a puff of smoke Loke disappeared replaced with a dark blue, stone statue.

Gant continued to laugh only for the whole building to shake and for the ceiling to collapse as debris fell from above as Natsu air dropped into the foyer, shattering the coffee table in the process.

"Natsu!" Lucy exclaimed only to notice that Natsu was about to attack. "Wait! Stop! If you attack now you'll end up like Loke!" Natsu stopped dead in his tracks and looked back over his shoulder to see the petrified celestial spirit.

Natsu looked at Gant with incredible ire. "You bastard, what did you do to Loke?"

"It's in the contract Lucy-san, signed. Anyone who assaults me while the contract is taking effect will be petrified on the spot." Gant conjured up the contract for Natsu to read.

Natsu read the fine print and then cracked his knuckles. "Then I'll just pummel you when it's finished, so long as there's no threat to Lucy's life."

"That would be ill advised," Gant flipped to another page of the contract and showed Natsu another clause. "For you see, once the contract is completed there is no way out of it unless by the consent of the contractor, that's me."

"Even if I kill you?" An extreme measure to be sure, but Natsu would use any means to ensure the safety and free will of his friend. It was a bluff for now, but some people tended to cave in. If Natsu had his bluff called or murder was a solution he was more than ready for it given the circumstances.

"Not unless you want your friend to die along with me," Gant said, flipping to another page, "If you kill me she dies too. That's part of the deal. And even if you try to burn up the contract with that flame of yours, mage-san," Gant said rather than refer to Natsu by name, "it will be reformed, text and all, using the blood of your friend there." It took Natsu every bit of restraint he could not to pummel Gant so that he didn't turn into a stone statue. "This is the fifteenth time I've succeeded in this scam and I'll continue to get away with it."

"There's no way you got Lucy to willingly sign herself away to this piece of garbage," Natsu glared.

"Oh, but that's the beauty of illusion magic. She had no idea what she was signing at first. Isn't that the part of every good scam? Now, why don't you run along back to your guild and do a job for its profit, you have no business here, mage."

"You bastard," Natsu said through gritted teeth. In the next moment, Lucy, Gant and the whole place except for Natsu, the statue formerly known as Loke, and the request form Lucy had brought with her, all began to vanish. "Transport magic?"

"I move my mansion from place to place with it. I can move all of my property within the mansion to where I want. Don't even try to take your friend out of the mansion," the pages turned in the contract to show another clause, "unless you feel like disappearing into the void of another dimension."

"Natsu!" Lucy called for him in worry.

"I will make you pay for this," Natsu continued to glare. "I swear it."

"To me, that sounds like the whining of a defeated dog." Gant said and laughed as he, the mansion and Lucy, disappeared, leaving Natsu in the middle of an open field, frustrated as could be. He ground his hands in the dirt and shouted to the sky in anger and frustration for not being able to protect Lucy.

Back at the Guild, Makarov was sitting on the bar counter as Gajeel and Elfman came up from the basement, both of which took up Natsu's job for escorting the giant fish and the former of which took the job of cutting it into little pieces while the latter put it all in the freezer. Makarov was currently deep in thought, wondering when Natsu would be back. Erza and Juvia had since returned from their missions recently and been informed of the situation. A lot of the members were walking on eggshells, some even had crossed fingers that Lucy would be all right and Natsu would come waltzing in triumphant with her slung over his shoulder.

However, what the guild received was not what the expected or even could have expected. Natsu returned all right, empty handed for one, and mad as a hornet for two. Upon leaving a searing dent in the entrance frame to the guild, Natsu flipped the nearest table in frustration.

Erza was quick to discipline and restrain forcing Natsu down and pinning him to the ground. "Hey! Cut it out! Obviously something didn't go right, but you don't need to take it out on the guild's infrastructure."

In a lapse of better judgment and with so much pent up aggression that he didn't care, Natsu lifted his leg and kicked Erza in the chin, sending her off him as he got to his feet and continued to scowl. He took a fighting stance, indicating he was in the mood to take his aggression out on someone.

Erza chortled and smiled devilishly. "You just made a big mistake." In the next instant Erza was standing tall and using her Heaven's Wheel Armor. Natsu meanwhile was imbuing his body with fire and created a gaping hole in the guild roof.

"H-hey you guys if you're going to do that, take it outside!" Jet urged.

Everyone began ducking for cover until Makarov stood between both Erza and Natsu to quell the fighting before it had even begun. "STOP!" Both Natsu and Erza let their guards down and stopped looking like they were ready to kill each other and just stood in fear of Makarov's thunderous voice. He looked at Natsu first. "Taking your anger out on the guild is no way to behave! Have your temper tantrum somewhere else, brat!" He looked at Erza, "And you, adding fuel to the fire by suiting up will only make things worse. Both of you cool off and we'll have a discussion about this later." Both Erza and Natsu, the latter reluctantly, obeyed. Natsu then turned and ran out of the guild and began running as fast as his legs would carry him, smashing up anything he could see once he was sure he was outside civilization. He razed and entire field in the process and replaced it with a canyon. He shouted and screamed in anger and frustration several times, even shooting his fire breath up into the air. All of the brutality he wanted to take out on Gant was now being used on the open air and field.

At the end of it all, Natsu sat down on the ground and cried. He cried while holding a hand to his face until he had no tears left. He could only think about how he had failed a friend and that there was nothing he could do, for once, to help her.

A Few Days Later...

Word spread about the scam job and its details. Scam jobs were prominent all throughout Fiore, this one just happened to be particularly heinous in its results. At Fairy Tail, Gajeel, Wendy, Erza, Gray, Mirajane, and Juvia were all talking with Makarov about a possible solution. Natsu, at the moment, was more than likely moping. He had not been himself since the incident. He hadn't taken on any jobs.

It was quite the serious problem. Natsu wouldn't do anything except eat in the last several days. Despite Gray and Gajeel's insults, Erza's willingness to challenge him to a fight of her own accord and even Happy's attempts to cheer the dragon slayer up, nothing worked. He just sat around and walked around the guild a shadow of his former self. Erza, Gray and Wendy had all spoken to Makarov about it, but the master's words were three words: "Give him time."

So here the seven mages were sitting around the dining hall discussing away about the crude effects of the aptly named "Blood Contract".

"What is a blood contract exactly, master?" Gray asked Makarov.

"A blood contract is a contract that binds the user to by the party being contracted signing their name in blood. Anyone who signs a blood contract is obligated to follow all of its terms and conditions or suffer the consequences. In Lucy-san's case, she was forced to become this man's slave." Natsu had already explained to the others after his temper fit about Lucy's situation. Only now though was everyone able to put the pieces together and have a more in-depth discussion about it.

"Gray-sama, if you made a blood contract I would sign my life away to you," Juvia cooed.

Gray rolled his eyes.

"Why don't we get the council involved?" Erza suggested. "Surely they have the power to void the contract."

"Even if we did go to the council, with our reputation it's unlikely they'd help us out, and, even if we did get them involved it's unlikely they could do anything. Despite the illusion magic, Lucy did sign it without being forced to. Blood Contracts are a tricky sort of magic. They bind the user's will to uphold the contract and all of its clauses."

"But if it's a contract, does that mean that it's not real magic?" Wendy asked.

"Oh, it's definitely real magic, a blood contract, I can safely say, couldn't be rightly created by any member of this guild without practice. Many politicians hire mages capable of it to create binding agreements to prevent the other from breaking it. If the contract is broken, bad things happen to the offending party. In Lucy's case she is contracted to be Mavon Gant's slave and serve him for all eternity. Breaking that contract would cost her her life since her life is what she has signed away."

"And this is legal?" Gajeel asked.

"Unfortunately, it is. Although, nowadays mostly dark guilds use this sort of magic."

"I can't believe this!" Erza stressed, following up her statement with a growl.

"Calm down, Erza," Makarov said calmly, "We'll think of something."

"I still can't believe that something like that could get one of our guild members," Gray mused.

"We get things like this all the time," Mirajane said, "However, this is the first time it's been so well hidden and had such a profound result."

"Yes I'm ashamed to admit that such a scam could slip by me like this. If anyone's going to be blamed it should be me."

"No one's blaming you, master," Erza stated. "If we start playing the blame game, we could throw it onto Natsu for not returning with the news sooner, Gray for not saying anything and Mirajane for not double checking. That won't get us anywhere closer to saving Lucy."

Makarov made a whining grunt indicating he agreed.

"Incidentally, master, what type of magic is a blood contract?" Mirajane wanted to know.

"It's a curse type of magic, a hex if you will."

"Then couldn't Wendy's sky magic do something?" Gajeel questioned.

"I don't know if my magic would work on something like this," Wendy said apologetically, "I'm sorry."

Before Makarov could say anymore a stern voice entered the conversation with, "Then…what about a way to cancel the contract or a mage who has the ability to overwrite it? If it's a curse-type magic, curses can be broken."

Everyone turned their heads to see Natsu standing beside the table with a glare, looking ready for action. "Are you feeling better Natsu?" Makarov asked.

"I've got a lot of pent up anger and need to take it out on someone. If we're finally ready to go save Lucy, then yeah, I'm feeling better." Natsu didn't smile a bit as he spoke.

"Natsu's right; there are mages that specialize in breaking curses," Mirajane piped up, "I hear Blue Pegasus has lots of specialists like that."

"Blue…Pegasus…" Erza said with a hint of dread in her voice.

"Erza-san!"
Ichiya's voice resonated in her head.

"Last resort!" the Queen of the Fairies exclaimed adamantly, banging her fist on the table, without missing a beat.

"You know, there's no need to go knocking on the doors of those guys. I happen to know of a guild that has a mage perfect for this situation," Gajeel stated. Everyone looked at Gajeel who had a wicked smile on his face. "They're called Adventurer's Gauntlet."

Gant's Mansion

Lucy had been settling down to her lifestyle as Gant's servant for the past couple of days. She had to cow to his every whim and desire. Even her celestial spirits were being abused: most notably Aries, Virgo and even Aquarius, the last of which had already taken her anger out on Lucy for her "ineptitude".

Lucy had already thought about trying to run away once, but she simply couldn't leave the celestial spirits in peril like that, Aries especially, for Loke's sake. She talked to some of the other maids who had been here longer than her. As it turned out, Lucy still had a surprisingly high amount of free will compared to the others, who had been with Gant for so long all they could think about was serving him in any way possible. Lucy was told that her free will would eventually succumb to the master's as well too.

At night, Lucy would stay in her own room with three high bookshelves and a twin bed with a window that overlooked the moon rising in the evening. Twice before, and tonight, she would cry herself to sleep, if mostly because of what had become of Loke. Apparently he was trapped in that stone statue, unable to return to the spirit world and it bothered Lucy that he had wound up in that predicament because of her. She missed Natsu. She missed the guild. She wanted to go home. She even missed her dad.

The Next Day

Out at sea

In a boat owned by the guild: Natsu, Wendy, Gray, Erza, Happy, Carla, Gajeel, Juvia and Mirajane were all aboard en route to the island that Adventurer's Gauntlet made as their home. Natsu and Gajeel, though they would normally be sick to their stomachs from the transport, were relieved thanks to Wendy's Troia spell. It was so that Gajeel could explain what they were doing.

Natsu had gotten fired up and was back to normal the moment adventure was on the horizon. The group spent all of yesterday getting supplies for the trip and today, out at sea, they could now ask Gajeel about the guild they were going to visit.

"So how do you know about Adventurer's Gauntlet?" Erza asked, "And how can they help us?" She had heard of Adventurer's Gauntlet before. If her memory was correct, they were a small guild, less than twenty members, but they had some pretty potent mages.

"Back in my Phantom Lord days, couple years before we had our all-out brawl with you all, we had bad blood with another guild, the one we're going to see now. We were picking on them, nothing too serious. We had our fair share of in-fighting between us before things got crazy with Jose trying to rescue Lucy and turn her over to her father, nothing major though."

"How come they didn't come to our aid then if you guys were harassing us too? They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Erza stated.

"Probably because we had long since stopped by then," Gajeel answered her.

"You guys just stopped?" Natsu was in disbelief considering the long running bad blood with Phantom Lord and Fairy Tail.

"More like we were forced to stop. At one point Adventurer's Gauntlet's Guildmaster: Grimaios Eldrom, sometimes called simply The Archmage, had had just about enough of our actions and just waltzed into the guild. No barging in and breaking the door down, he just calmly knocked on the front door, we let him in. Dumb, dumb move," Gajeel laughed the last three words. He was smiling at this point. "So Grimaios walks straight up to Jose and flat out demands he lay off the guild. Jose responded by sicking the Elemental Four on him." Gajeel spread out his palm and swatted it towards the ground. "Whop. Down. All four of them. Blink of an eye. I counted: two point eight seconds."

"Ah, Juvia remembers that!" Juvia exclaimed. "That was the leader of Adventurer's Gauntlet?" Juvia began to remember the incident.

Flashback

The Phantom Lord guild had just let in a young looking man with orange-tan hair and gray eyes, looking to be in his 30s, into the guild. He was wearing a dusty, yellow robe with baggy sleeves that cascaded down towards his ankles where he wore brown leather shoes. The robe was a pull-over and drapped over the man completely. Attached to his back, he had a wooden staff, with a green gem embedded in the tip. His hair was combed back with a cowlick towards the back and his bangs hung over his eyes brushed more towards the right so that his right eye was covered. The man asked, very nicely and very calmly, to speak with Jose, the guildmaster and waited patiently. Everyone in the guild could sense the magic power coming off the man in the room so they were all quick to grant him an audience and let Jose deal with it.

Gajeel stood in the room for intimidation purposes as Jose sat down in a regal looking chair like he was some sort of king. Jose recognized the man as Grimaios, guild master of Adventurer's Gauntlet.

"And what does a piss poor guildmaster like yourself want with me?" Jose chuckled craftily.

"The attacks on my guild, I want them to stop," Grimaios spoke calmly, but the ire in his tone of voice was obvious.

"You think you're in a position to order me around?" Jose asked and with a snap of his fingers all four members of the elemental four showed up out of nowhere and began attacking Grimaios from all sides. Without even blinking Grimaios reached for the staff on his back and with a swift swing of it at his side, as though it were a sword, all four members hit the ground in intense pain, groaning and moaning and with heavy damage to their persona.

Gajeel blinked. He didn't know if he had just witnessed all four members of the elemental four get taken down so quickly. It was unheard of. Even Jose looked like he was ready to ask for a change of trousers.

Grimaios then casually lifted his arm up and aimed at the ceiling and charged magic energy into his fist. "Star Forge." A light shot forth from his hand and blasted a hole straight through the ceiling as debris fell all around Gajeel and Jose. Jose spat out saliva when he saw the asteroid sized hole in his roof. "Consider that a warning of things to come if you touch my guild again." Grimaios then put his staff back on his back. He then gave a very friendly smile to Jose. "I'm glad we could reach this understanding." He then walked away and left the guild.

Present Day

Juvia was trembling by this point with the most shell shocked expression on her face ever. "He…was…a…mon...ster…" she spat out the syllables one by one.

"Oh my, that's quite the accomplishment," Mirajane complimented with a smile.

"So what happened after that? I take it Jose didn't take that lying down," Erza retorted.

"Nope, he sent me to deal with the guild myself," Gajeel jerked a thumb at himself and his smile faded and he trembled for a moment before looking out at the horizon. "Yeah, I think you get the point."

"You got your ass handed to you didn't you?" Natsu teased.

"Shut it, Salamander!"

"By your reaction I take it they were able to beat you together with no effort at all," Erza input.

"Yeah, none. And Jose's expression is clear in my mind when I returned, or rather was escorted back by one of their members."

Flashback

The door to the Phantom Lord guild opened again as a man in a gray cloak, face framed in shadow, with blue eyes piercing through his hood entered into the guild. He was holding Gajeel in the hand of one of his clawed gauntlets. "The guildmaster of Adventurer's Gauntlet believes that this belongs to you," he said in a calm deep voice, "And he asks that you try to keep your members from becoming 'lost' on our home turf."

Present Day

"Man these guys sound really strong," Natsu was all fired up.

"Why are you getting so excited? We're going there to ask for their help, not stir up trouble," Gray reminded him.

"So that's how you learned they were called Adventurer's Gauntlet?" Erza asked.

Gajeel nodded, "Yeah they're something else. After that incident Jose backed off. Adventurer's Gauntlet might be a small guild, but even their 'small fry' are dangerous." He pointed at Wendy. "They have a member on their team just a little younger than you and she's not even their weakest. Girl packs some serious punch. And if you can touch her," Gajeel shuddered, "She's got an older sister who will pound the stuffing out of you." Wendy shrieked at this and began shivering with fear in a whine at the thoughts of a scary older woman beating down on her or anyone else in the guild with a sadistic smile on her face that would make Erza seem Miss Warm and Fuzzy by comparison.

"Stop it Gajeel, you're scaring her!" Carla chastised.

Natsu smiled. "They sound like a really good guild." He was proud of the fact that the guild they were going to be cooperating with was the type that looked out for their members.

"Just how strong are they?" Happy asked.

"This is just my personal opinion, but I'd say that the entire guild would be an even match for that many members of Fairy Tail even if Erza, Natsu, Gray and I were fighting."

"Are you sure you're not exaggerating?" Gray asked, a little off put by the measurement.

"Considering how thoroughly all of them kicked my ass, I daresay we'd make a lot of money selling tickets," Gajeel chuckled, looking back over on the ocean only to see a small island coming up in the distance. "Ah, that'd be it." He looked back to where Mirajane was steering the ship. "Steady as she goes, Mira."

"Aye, aye Gajeel-kun!"

Adventurer's Gauntlet, Natsu thought to himself as he saw the island growing larger and larger on the horizon. They're the guild, that's gonna help us save Lucy.

To be continued…

(A/N: So yeah this is going to be the main team to rescue Lucy. I figured it was plenty. I would've thrown Elfman, Cana, Freed, Evergreen or Bixlow into the group, but I didn't want to get too crazy and I figured this was enough. Makarov's only not going cause that would be overkill. The next couple of chapters will consist a little of getting Adventurer's Gauntlet's cooperation and after that it's just a lot of fighting and awesomeness. Oh and before anyone asks, Power Perversion Potential regarding the whole slave business here. Lucy's ehm…purity is in jeopardy here. Hope you guys are enjoying yourselves).