A/N: This chapter was betaed first by CelestialCircumference, and then re-betaed on the 1/12/2014 by my new Beta as from the posting of Chapter 3, DarkVampireFae. Thanks to them both!

This story is dedicated to authors leoslady4ever, Corpsies and Wild Rhov, who made me absolutely adore this three-stand pairing! REMINDER: THIS STORY WILL BE AN EVENTUAL THREESOME ROMANTIC PAIRING BETWEEN LAXUS, GAJEEL AND LUCY (which means the story will include both M/M and F/M). I don't usually like giving spoilers as to relationships in my fics, but I feel it's necessary here in case some people don't like Laxus and Gajeel together or threesomes at all. : P

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail nor any of its characters: Hiro Mashima does. However, I own this fic, the plot, dialogues and situations the characters find themselves in.

Fanart is welcome. : 3

If you like my work, please go like my page KuraraOkumura's Disciples on Facebook; I update about my fics there and interact directly with my fans if you guyz have any questions. I also have a tumblr, kuraraokumura, where I post mostly Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan related stuff. :3 And please do check my profile for the poll I've left there. You can vote for what fic/fandom you'd prefer me to post from next. : P

~Tenshi

CHAPTER 1: The Darkness

"Shit," Gajeel growled, struggling against the ice that held half his body prisoner against the wall.

Their mission had gone seriously out of control. Not a week ago, Makarov had set up six of the guild's strongest – Laxus, Erza, Gray, Natsu, Lucy and Gajeel – for a mission on a faraway island to neutralize and capture a dark mage who had apparently forced the initial inhabitants of the island out. From what they'd found, the mage was Water and Leech based, and had been here for some months now. The villagers had been driven out in the last couple of weeks by the water creatures invoked by him. Gajeel and the other Fairy Tail mages had come straight here, but the mage's strength was easily ten-fold what they'd first expected.

His element being fire, Natsu had long been 'extinguished' by the Water-based mage, and now lay on the floor of the giant cavern not far from where Gajeel had been trapped by a sudden gush of ice just minutes ago. Gray's energy and ice magic had been sucked right out of him by the dark mage, and he'd fallen to his knees with his eyes rolling back in his head not a minute into the fight. Erza had been blown out of the cave some time ago now, leaving a permanent hole in the roof of the place that let in just about enough light that Gajeel could see most everything that was going on. Laxus, and damn him because his lightning magic would have come in really handy against this water guy, had stayed outside to fight off some shady creatures that had been summoned by the mage. Now the only one of them left to fight the guy was blondie, her body glistening with sweat as she avoided the other mage's attacks while lashing out with her whip and summoning her spirits – but each and every one of the spirits' attacks just went right through the mage as though he were made of smoke. Or water. Loki's attacks seemed to have done some damage, but the girl was running out of energy fast, and the Lion's presence was constantly drawing on that energy. By Gajeel's estimation of the girl's panting and sweating, Loki was going to have to disappear soon, lest he end up sucking out her very life.

Right on cue, and with one last panicked glance at his master, Loki disappeared – without the usual flash of light and flurry. Normally, Gajeel knew that the Lion would have been able to open his own gate without taking up much of Lucy's own magic in the process, but he'd figured out some time ago that the two purple statuettes just outside the entrance of the cavern were probably magic blocks, draining all of their magics as surely as the mage himself had done to Gray. Which meant that the girl was now well and truly alone for this, and try as he might, Gajeel just knew that he'd never break through the ice around him without a little help. It was as thick as his own body was high, and though he liked to think himself invincible, Fairy Tail had long taught him to know his own limits – and his were right here. As he watched the quickly dwindling fight, his chest, legs and arms completely encased in ice, he figured that all of them were probably going to die here. He growled, crimson eyes once more taking in Gray, Natsu and Lucy. They're too young, he thought desperately. Much too young.

And that's when it happened.

Right in front of him, herded back into a corner of the cavern, Lucy's demeanour had started to change. Until now she'd been frantic and obviously frightened, but anger had started to show on her face, the whip in her hand quivering as she refused to back down any more than she already had. Her eyes were trained on the dark mage's uncovered face, and though Gajeel was too far to hear them, it seemed obvious that he was talking to her – taunting her, judging by the look on her face. Gajeel suddenly felt sorry for the dark mage; he had to admit that that look scared even him a little. The guy didn't know what was coming for him; he'd been wrong in dismissing her as weak.

Except that what happened next was very far from what Gajeel had originally thought would happen.

Lucy, refusing to back down as the mage, his hands shimmering a dark, pulsing purple – the same purple as the statuettes outside – stepped towards her, had begun glowing. From the inside out, like a turned up glove with a torch shoved into it, she was glowing. It occurred to Gajeel then that this was the same kind of light that the Lion exuded when she summoned him and when they used his powers. But the fact that the light resembled her spirit's seemed to have no root and only a head; it made no sense when applied to the context. Lucy wasn't a spirit – she was human. So why was she glowing?

As he stared at her, she shouted something at the mage, loud enough that it echoed across the large cavern and he heard most of it; "Eat your shit and go to hell!" To say that he was shocked by what he heard would have been a monumental understatement. Those words were perhaps not much in his own judgment, but coming from her, they were far beyond the worst things he'd ever heard her say. That man had really, really angered her. Whatever he'd been saying to her, she hadn't appreciated it. And Gajeel found himself grinning at her words, more than a little proud of her brutal rebuke, and just a tiny bit turned on by the feral look on her face.

And then she exploded, and the grin on his face was quick to fall off.

A startled yelp escaped him, and he swallowed down the rest of his exclamation, berating himself for his lapse in control even as his eyes took in her still-standing figure in the midst of the cloud of smoke that what looked and sounded much like an explosion had stirred up. The dark mage was down; he saw that too, the body crumpled on the floor, silhouetted against the daylight of the hole that had just been blasted in the wall right behind Lucy.

Damn, he thought to himself, a little overwhelmed. What the fuck just happened?!

Looking down at himself, he realized that the ice had startle to crackle with the fall of the man who'd created it, and with one last violent contortion of his body, the huge block of ice fell apart around him. He tugged his numbed arms and legs free, then half-ran half-limped up to where the girl still stood across from him, her back ram-rod straight and her whip slack in her grip. Her face was down, her hair covering part of it, and though he couldn't see her eyes, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know what was in them. The light he'd seen around her body was gone, and the Iron Dragon Slayer had a fairly good hunch that that light was what had caused the explosion; why she was left unscathed while all around her, in a diameter of a good twenty metres, everything else had been blasted to smithereens.

Gajeel stopped just inside the circle of destruction, hands stuffed into his pockets, and bumped a massive, steel-toed foot into the unmoving carcass of the purple mage. He couldn't see that guy's face either, but would've liked to see the look on his face at being beaten by someone he'd obviously been taunting and teasing and provoking not seconds before he'd died. Gajeel hummed a little, knowing that Erza wouldn't be too happy about that particular thing; part of the mission had been to return the mage alive so that he could be taken care of by the Council, but since he was most certainly dead now, part of the reward had just been ripped from right under their noses. He didn't mind too much; the prize for the Grand Magic Games had been enough that each separate member of the guild could expect to be able to live off of it for at least a year without needing to work. They'd taken this mission because the guy had been causing serious damage around here, and well, they were still mages, for Mavis' sake; if they sat around too long they usually got bored, and either way most of the mages at Fairy Tail were in the trade for the chance to do some good in this world, not just for the money. And that particular activity had no price.

Either way, and if he recalled correctly, the total sum for this mission had been pretty hefty, and even if it was cut in half because of their failure to bring the man back alive, they'd still be left with a substantial amount each. So for all these reasons and a few besides, he wasn't too worried about losing out on half of the reward. On the other hand, what was definitely starting to get to him was blondie's silence.

"Oi, Bunny Girl," he called, just as she started to sway on her feet. He swore, taking an uncertain step forward, and then she was falling, and even running he couldn't make it on time there to stop her from hitting the overblown rocks fully. Her head bounced sharply off them, and Gajeel winced for her as he slid to a stop and fell to his knees in front of her.

He leaned down towards her face, startled when he saw her eyes still open and searching for his own. Their gazes locked. Her lips moved. And even here, now, in the resounding silence echoing around them after that monster of an explosion, when her words would have been too low for any regular human to hear, he heard.

"Don't tell them I did this. Don't tell them it was me. Please."

And then she was gone. Her eyes slipped closed, her lips stopped moving, and she blacked out in a second.

Turning a little frantic despite himself, Gajeel leaned forward, placing an ear between her collarbone and breast. Her heartbeat was there; weak, very weak, but there. He breathed a sigh of relief, then slipped his arms under her, one under legs and the other against her back, standing with her as he quickly made his way across the expanse of blown up rocks. Throwing a kick into the Fire Dragon Slayer's stomach as he walked out, he was rewarded with the satisfying sound of a startled yelp followed by a coughing fit. He carried the girl outside the cavern and into the sunlight, growling a little when he saw Laxus making his way towards him at a trot on a little road surrounded by foliage.

"Where the fuck were you?" he hissed at the Lightning Dragon Slayer, stopping to gently lay the Celestial Mage down on the warm, dry ground.

Laxus sneered at him as he came to a stop. "Saving your sorry asses," he spat at him. "There were a bunch of water Nymphs coming up this way. Disappeared minutes ago. I don't see anyone else still in any fighting state, so I s'pose I've got you to thank?"

Gajeel opened his mouth to answer, then closed it as his gaze fell on the small, immobile blue and white figure of the Celestial Mage at his feet. He stood. He'd been about to say that 'no', Laxus didn't have him to thank, but Lucy – and then her words had struck him for the first time since he'd heard them. She'd asked him not to tell. She'd asked him to keep what he'd seen to himself. And though Gajeel couldn't see why she'd want to keep what had happened in that cave a secret, past the strange light he'd seen emanating from her – and he was by now wondering if he'd somehow hallucinated it –, he also couldn't see the downside of doing what she'd asked him to do. After all, the flame-brain and the popsicle had been the first two to be knocked out; then Erza had been blasted out. He and Lucy had been the last two. Nobody else had seen anything. He could just take credit for the mage's defeat, and though he'd have to face Erza's rage for the guy's death, he could easily wave it off as accidental, or as him getting a little overzealous. And then not only would he have fulfilled Bunny Girl's wish, but he might also get a little more respect from his teammates.

Gajeel grinned at that and corrected his previous train of speech. "Yeah," he said, answering the Lightning Dragon Slayer now standing beside him, facing the inside of the cave while Gajeel faced out from it. "Yeah, you've got me to thank all right."