Hello guys. This is going to be a Nalu story with possible other pairings like Gruvia, Jellal x Erza, Levy and Gajeel and others. For now, it's simply Natsu and Lucy. LEMONS WILL BE INCLUDED. WARNING. M-Rated for a reason here people. But this chapter is safe for now! :) Enjoy!
"Call me that again, ice cube," Natsu gritted through his teeth.
"What's wrong microwave oven, didn't hear me the first time?" Gray clashed foreheads with the pink haired dragon slayer.
"Bring it!"
"Why are those two fighting again?" Lucy asked Happy.
"I lost track already..." the blue cat mumbled in response.
"Stop getting distracted Lucy!" Levy squealed from across the table. "Who was your date with last night?" she demanded, no... she was begging to find out who the mystery man truly was.
"Eh, why do you care so much?" Lucy leaned in with a sheepish smile.
"Just tell us!" Levy banged the table, desperately needing to know what Lucy was up to. Lucy leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms.
"No way," she stated. "I can't tell anyone who he is."
"Is it because we know him?" Wendy wondered. Instantly, Lucy froze as a flash of panic covered her face.
"It's someone we know!" Mirajane and Cana screamed in perfect sync.
"Shut up!" Lucy hissed back.
"Is it a mage?" Lisanna asked. Lucy was like an open book. A flash of red covered her cheeks.
"Oh oh oh this is fun," Levy clapped her hands and leaned closer to her best friend. "Is he from this guild?"
Lucy pursed her lips shut, forcing herself not to react in any way.
"That's a no," Erza stated after studying her face.
"Eh? How do you know?" Lucy demanded to know.
"I've known you for a long time Lucy," Erza simple shrugged. "Think you can hide these things from me?" she grinned as a dark aura surrounded her.
Scary... both Charle and Wendy thought at the same time.
"I can play this too!" drunk Cana bellowed. "Did we see him at the Grand Magic games?" she asked, approaching Lucy closer.
Panic took over Lucy momentarily. She stood up and ran for the door.
"I can't do this no more!" she screamed as she ran away from her friends.
"Huh? Where did Lucy go?" Natsu suddenly became distracted during Gray's fist fight with him. The moment he turned around, the ice mage took advantage of him.
"Gotcha!" Gray shouted as he threw a punch into the dragon slayer's face.
"What the hell was that for?" Natsu screamed.
"How dense are you?" Gray cocked his head to the side. "We were just fighting," he stated in a simple-minded tone. Natsu scuffed and brushed himself off the ground. Gray watched as he ignored him completely and approached the booth with all the ladies.
"Where did Lucy go?" he asked.
"She went home I think," Lisanna explained.
"Something about being too embarrassed to share details of last nights date," Cana sniggered.
"Date?" Natsu raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Lucy had a mystery date with a mage last night," Happy continued.
"And apparently we all know him from the Grand Magic Games," Mirajane added. Natsu stared at the door straight ahead, the door from where the celestial mage had run out from.
Lucy had arrived at the guild early that morning. She didn't want to confront any of the girls and have them figure out who her date was. She sighed in relief when she didn't notice many female bodies in the tavern. She did however spot a pink haired boy at the bar eating breakfast with his beloved flying cat.
"Morning Natsu!" Lucy exclaimed, walking up to them.
"Lucy!" Happy waved in response.
"Hey Luce!" Natsu replied, munching down a chicken leg.
"That's breakfast?" Lucy raised her eyebrow at her partner.
"Aye sir!" Happy replied for Natsu, even though he was eating fish and not the big plate of chicken legs.
"What are you doing here so early?" Natsu asked Lucy.
"Oh, just couldn't sleep," Lucy said, shyly scraping the floor with her toe.
"Couldn't sleep huh?" Happy sniggered.
"Shut up!" Lucy screamed at the cat. "Anyways, shouldn't we do a job today? We haven't done one in a while," Lucy began talking calmly to Natsu.
"Sure, sounds like a plan!" Natsu happily agreed. He left his meal and followed the blonde girl to the bulletin board filled with new jobs. Happy flew over and looked at the ones on top that were difficult to reach.
"Oh this looks fun!" Natsu grabbed a random sheet.
Kill giant slug infested within our home! 15,000 Jewels
"Gross," Lucy stuck her tongue out. "Not going to deal with something gooey when you have the potential to explode it... and get it all over me," Lucy pointed out.
"Here's one with a good reward," Happy flew down and handed a sheet to Natsu and Lucy.
"The jewel reward is high!" Lucy commented.
"It's not too far so we can totally walk!" Natsu added in an enthusiastic tone. He was so relived he didn't need to travel by transport.
"Aye sir!"
The travel wasn't far from the guild, but the walk seemed long to Lucy. It was a hot day in Fiore and she was beginning to break a sweat.
"Remind me the reward amount every now and then, Happy," Lucy instructed. "That way I'll remember the reason why I'm doing this."
Natsu hung back a little, watching as she Lucy walked in front of him the whole time. Natsu had a horrible pain in chest for a few months now. Every since the dragons walked through the gate... that moment when future Lucy died... his heart was torn to pieces. At first, all he felt was anger, and the anger drove him to beat future Rogue. However, after the war was over and they had returned back home, a feeling from that night had never left him. A dark, horrible feeling that manifested it's way to his core, his heart and his mind. Every time he looked at Lucy he was happy to see her, but sometimes he would get the flashback. A flashback of future Lucy's horrible death. That feeling would take over him and he'd have to fight the urge to punch someone. He wanted the feeling to go away but it never did. He would hide away in the corner of the guild, trying to think of other things for it to pass, or pick a fight with Gray or Gajeel.
"Natsu! Why are you so far behind?" Lucy yelled from quiet a large distance.
"Aye Natsu, you're walking so slowly," Happy agreed. "No fun teasing Lucy here if you're not here to laugh at it," he added.
"Ah, coming!" Natsu placed a fake smile on his face and picked up his pace to catch up with his partner.
"Jeez Natsu, it's not like you to walk so slowly," Lucy pointed out.
"Aye," Happy agreed. "Are you ill perhaps?"
"Nah, just got distracted," Natsu explained nonchalantly.
"Typical," Lucy hissed under her voice.
"While you were behind, I was teasing Lucy about her date last night," Happy began explaining.
"Oh, the date?" Natsu had forgotten all about that, or tried to play it off like he did.
"I was saying how Lucy wasn't going to get a second date because she screwed it up so bad," Happy shrugged.
"Shut it, hairball," Lucy yelled at the flying cat.
"Lucy's so mean, Natsu," Happy flew over beside his friend, streams of tears coming from his eyes.
"Double standards!" Lucy exclaimed in awe.
The walk wasn't as long as Lucy had expected. Finally, they had arrived at the entrance of the farm. The request was to get rid of a beast that was stealing cows at night from the near by forest.
"Look Happy," Natsu pointed out to the cottage.
"Aye, looks like we're here," he agreed. An elderly man approached the trio, using a walking stick as support.
"You must be the Fairy Tail wizards," he spoke as soon as they came.
"That's us," Natsu grinned.
"My name is Lucy, and this is Natsu and Happy."
"Greetings sir!" the flying cat cheered.
"Good to see you here. My name is Mr. Queso, and I own Queso farm," he stated, showing his acres of land and animals.
"Wow, you own Queso cheese?" Natsu wondered.
"That's right," he nodded.
"I love that cheese," Lucy squealed happily in surprise. Natsu laughed at her response.
"But my cheese is at risk. There's a beast of a monster living in the woods that has been killing and eating my cows at night," he explained in a painful tone. "My animals, they mean everything to me," he began to sob a little. "I need you to rid of him at once."
"Alright, I'm all fired up!" Natsu happily agreed to the challenge.
Lucy and Natsu had walked into the forest for the night. Mr. Queso had given camp gear to them and some cheese and bread for the night, waiting for the beast to arrive. They didn't travel too deeply into the forest so that they could run to the farm if the beast had sneaked past them. The sun was only beginning to set as Lucy found a nice area to sit down in the forest.
Natsu and Happy were in charge of the camp fire whilst Lucy sat and prepared their snacks.
"This cheese is so good," Lucy murmured as she munched on it. She saw that Happy and Natsu were huffing it down, swallowing them whole.
"Don't eat all of it!" Lucy screamed at the boys.
It wasn't long till the darkness began to take over. Natsu had snored himself into deep slumber, muttering to Lucy to keep an eye out for the monster. Lucy was poking the fire with a stick, keeping herself entertained.
"Lucy..." Natsu mumbled.
Alert, Lucy looked up over the flames and watched Natsu. He was still fast asleep, mumbling unintelligible words. Lucy smiled to herself, watching as her pink-haired friend shifted and moved in his sleep.
"Oh Natsu," she sighed, leaning back. Lucy stared in the flames of the crackling fire, her mind loosing in thought. The flames reminded her of Natsu's fire magic, and all the times Natsu had used his magic to save her. She chewed the inside of her cheek, feeling uncomfortable with herself. Why did she always end up being the damsel in distress? Lucy pondered on the idea of getting even stronger, but the thought escaped her mind pretty quickly. She heard a twig snap in the distance and she froze. She knew she had best wake up Natsu but was unable to even allow her breath escape her lungs. She heard ruffled sounds from near by bushes, feeling like something was approaching her quickly.
In a single moment, something giant jumped from a near by area and launched itself towards Lucy. Lucy saw this coming. She saw the horrible dark beast about to murderously end her life. It was like everything was happening in slow motion.
Natsu.
In the second half of that moment, Lucy was swept off her feet and crashed into the ground. It wasn't as rough as she expected because she landed on something soft... Natsu himself. He was alert and wide awake. His eyes were focused on the beast before them. He was like a giant wolf, with long saber tooth-like teeth. He walked around the camp fire, watching Natsu.
"Natsu," Lucy managed to say, still sitting on the ground. Natsu was standing in front of her, in a crouching position, ready to fight.
"Lucy, go back," Natsu said in a deep voice, his eyes still focused on the beast. Lucy did as she were told and took a few steps back. The beast growled and hissed at Natsu.
"Alright," Natsu put his fists together, "bring it on!"
The beast was terrifying, it's red eyes gleaming with evil. The fight began and all Lucy did was watch. The beast snarled, attacked and clawed his way towards Natsu, but he dodged all the attacks with his acrobatic moves, kicking and punching with his flames every chance he got. Happy flew by Lucy's side, apparently only waking up now.
"I've got to do something," Lucy whimpered. It finally hit her what she could actually do.
She ran closer towards the battle and pulled out one of her keys.
"Open, Gate of the Lion, Leo!" she yelled, opening a magical portal.
"Long time no see, Lucy," Leo appeared, dressed in his sleek black suit. "Finally agreed to marry me?" he leaned in with a perverted look in his eyes.
"READ THE SITUATION HERE!" Lucy gave out to her celestial spirit. "Help Natsu," she explained, pointing out to Natsu's fight with a beast.
"Alright," Leo pulled his sleeve up, prepared to fight.
"Natsu, step back!" Lucy yelled out. Natsu jumped and stood beside Leo.
"Loke!"
"Let's go, Natsu!" Loke ordered. Both of them nodded their heads.
"Roar of the fire dragon!"
"Regulus Impact!"
A brilliant mixture of fire and light targeted the beast directly, hitting him straight in the face and sending far off into the forest.
"Alright!" Lucy punched the air excitedly.
"Well done Natsu," Happy cheered for his best friend.
"We did good," Leo high fived Natsu.
"Yeah, we should do it again sometime," Natsu grinned before Loke disappeared once more.
"Natsu, are you alright?" Lucy ran up to him.
"Yeah, Loke came in handy," he said with a big grin on his face. Suddenly, Natsu face changed grave and pained when he spotted something on Lucy's arm. There were three long claw marks, causing blood to trickle down.
"Lucy, you're hurt," Natsu pointed out.
"Huh?" confused, Lucy looked down at her arm. Sure enough she was bleeding. "I didn't even notice..." she mumbled. "It's fine, really. I don't feel anything," she said with a smile, trying to make it seem like it was okay. Natsu didn't like this one bit.
"We should get back soon," Natsu said suddenly, grabbing Lucy's arm.
"But the reward!" Lucy gasped.
"We'll get it later! We need to get to Fairy Tail quickly," Natsu ordered.
"Natsu, you're making a bid deal-"
Lucy's body plummeted to the ground. She collapsed, fainting, unable to move and remain conscious.
"LUCY!"