Notes: I, for one, cannot wait to see Gray's reaction when he finds out about this.

King of Kings

Gray's shock seemed to have inflicted terminal malfunction.

"You?!" he repeated in a stunned sort of horror, "You took him out?!"

Lucy preened, "Pretty awesome, I know." She flipped her hair and otherwise strutted her stuff. Erza smiled sagely, think that it was good for Lucy to have a fight now and then.

"She was so cool!" Happy squealed, bouncing on Gray's broken leg. Gray tried, for the sake of honor and dignity and other people present, to not burst into tears.

But more than anything, he was keenly aware of Natsu; perched at his bedside and smirking wickedly. Smug satisfaction practically oozed from his every pore. "You wimp!" he mouthed, so Gray was left with no other choice but to freeze the bastard to his chair.

"It wasn't that hard, really," Lucy boasted of the catfight.

"I'm glad you won," Erza smiled at her, before whipping around and snarling, "You two! PLAY NICE!"

Natsu's raging inferno quietly fizzled out. Gray hid behind Happy.

"Save me!" Happy wailed, treated to the full wrath of Erza's glare. No one noticed.

"Pa-pathetic," Gray choked out, sneering at Natsu, who attempted a strangled laugh.

"I-I-I'm not the one getting showed up by a girl!" he stammered out. Erza sighed. Really, what was this? Some kind of girl's-school-drama?

"Erza half kills you every other day," Lucy pointed out.

Natsu pretended not to hear her.

Gray set his teeth. Fine. It was clearly the only option left to him. "Lucy," he glared at her, and the poor thing actually squeaked, "Fight me."

Total silence descended on the room.

Lucy's eyes abruptly became very large and very shiny, "B-But…"

Gray could physically feel his resolve drain away, "Or we could, uh, play cards or something?"

Natsu snickered. Gray abruptly remembered that his honor was at stake, and then realized that he'd pretty much flushed it down the toilet. Damn Lucy and her cute, fiendish ways!

"I take it back!" he hastened to say, and Erza rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, because you suck at cards," she muttered traitorously.

Natsu cackled, "I love playing him at strip poker."

"SHUT UP!" Gray exploded, and rounded on poor Lucy. It felt a bit like he was bullying some small, cute animal. Like a bunny. "You and me. One week. Be there."

"You witch!" Lluvia screeched, dropping from the ceiling with a bang. Gray jumped about a foot.

"He's trying to kill her, not date her," Erza droned, and Lluvia notably lost interest.

"Oh. Well, then."

"Thanks so much," Lucy grumbled, whilst Gray struggled to disentangle himself from the water mage's adoring embrace.

"Hey," Natsu glared around his bowl of extra-spicy fire, "You better not hurt Lucy. If you do, I'll never forgive you."

There was another pause. Gray felt a chill go down his spine—though that was probably just a side-effect of being and ice mage.

Lucy was staring at Natsu like she'd never seen him before, "Natsu…"

"Well!" the hothead laughed suddenly, "I need to borrow some money, actually, and I was kind of hoping you'd water my plants for me next week, so…"

The adoring look Lucy had been sending him abruptly cut off.

Happy discreetly handed him a note card. Natsu took it, and read, "And…you're…our…precious…teammate." He raised and eyebrow at Happy, "Well, duh."

Erza whacked him.

"So, are we fighting or not?" Gray asked loudly. This time, it was Lluvia who hit him.

"Read the mood!" she hissed. Gray frowned.

"I don't think you should be hurting an injured person and OH MY GOD LUCY, MY FINGERS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BEND LIKE THAT!"

Lucy released him, "I win," she reported tonelessly. Erza clapped. Natsu cackled approvingly.