Chapter 2: Missing Items

Lucy cowered behind the two boys in front of her, absent-mindedly running her fingers over her severely bruised ribs that had been a result of a beat down from the particular man standing in front of the trio. Luckily, before a brawl had broken out, the bell had rang and the group of boys turned after letting out a chuckle, walking away from a frightened Lucy, an aggravated Natsu and a pissed off Gray. Obviously unsatisfied with this turn of events, Natsu lunged towards the intimidation group in rage.

"Wait, flame-" Gray had begun after registering Lucy's concerned facial expression, but it was no use. Natsu had already punched the blond into the ground, causing the rest of the group to stop in their tracks. No one spoke, except the noticeably quietest of the group that was obviously concerned for his friend. He had medium length black hair that covered his left eye, drawing the attention away from his deep red right eye.

"Sting..." He had almost whispered, dropping to the floor beside him, however this action of friendship was in vain as Sting simply got up and pushed him to a side.

"Natsu..." Sting had practically growled his name before being dragged away by a green-haired boy and a boy that had a rather elaborate hat. Sting's friend had silently stood up and trailed behind the group. Natsu and Gray visibly relaxed and turned to Lucy, only to find that she was no longer behind them. Automatically assuming the worst, the duo split to search for the blonde.

Lucy was running through the streets of magnolia;She would worry about ditching school later. Stopping in a place she was sure no one from school would find her, she sat and let the tears stream from her eyes. She felt terrible. How could she expect Natsu and Gray to protect her all the time?

"They're not gonna want anything to do with me..." Lucy mumbled. She snapped up her head when she heard someone's footsteps stop in front of her and their shoe came into sight. A tall, broad blond man in the magnolia high uniform stood in front of her, giving her a sideward glance and a slight grunt. This was followed by an obscene amount of squealing that the blond must not have noticed, or was at least used to it as his facial expression remained stoic. Lucy didn't even need to ask his name as a green haired man squealed "Laxus-sama is so helpful!" Which was then followed by females squealing that "Freed is so observant!"

Lucy looked up at who she could only assumed to be Laxus, as he stood in front of her.

"What you moaning about, blondie?" His voice was deep and showed little emotion.

Lucy was startled that such an intimidating man had stopped to ask her what was wrong. Wiping away her tears, she began to explain what had happened to her, before she was interrupted by Natsu and Gray calling her name and running toward her, drawing out a grunt from Laxus. Eventually within a few meters of Lucy, the two boys stopped in their tracks.

"Lucy, what are you doing with Laxus of all people?" Natsu said rather offensively as Gray gave a confused but weary facial expression.

Laxus stood up and turned to leave before calling back "If you don't wanna burden them too much, I guess I can take you today, blondie. I haven't got much else to do."

Lucy stood up, grateful to her new kind-of friend for taking time out of his day to escort her home. Natsu and Gray stood there with their mouths hanging open, visibly unsettled by this development and could do no more but stare as Lucy gathered up her bag and trailed behind Laxus.

The walk home with Laxus was reasonably quiet. Neither Laxus or Lucy spoke, but Freed and his fans could still be heard. Reaching her house, Lucy thanked Laxus and let herself in, only to find her house in a state of disarray. She took a step into her house, turning back to see if Laxus or at least Freed were there just in case, but they had already left the moment Lucy's key had entered the lock of her front door. Standing in utter disbelief, she was almost knocked over by her father running, looking as if he were frantically searching for something he had lost.

"Dad?" Lucy questioned. His reply came within seconds.

"LUCY," he shouted, but he didn't seem fazed by her being home so soon. "HAVE YOU SEEN MY BLOCK OF CHEESE?" He continued, making Lucy chuckle.

"I've looked all over." Jude looked at his feet, seemingly disappointed in the disappearance of his latest bizarre item.

Unable to take any of this seriously, Lucy let out a laugh and made her way into her room, only to find two boys in there already and the window wide open. Natsu was sprawled out on her bed, and Gray sat on the floor.

"WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE?" Lucy shouted,"AND GRAY WHERE ARE YOUR CLOTHES?" Gray looked down and had a facial expression of utter disbelief.

"I had them a second ago.." He mumbled, standing up and surveying the area in search of even a single article of his discarded clothing.

The shouting, of course, had lead once again to an intrusion by Lucy's father. Spinning around in wonder as to what he was going to threaten them with, Lucy's eyes grew in shock to find he was empty handed. Instead, he walked right up to Gray, and put his hand on his shoulder. Lucy was getting prepared to intervene, starting to prepare a little speech in her head, but it appeared it wasn't necessary.

Instead of the expected fight, Jude looked at Gray intently and asked softly "Have you seen my block of cheese?"

An extremely confused Gray simply replied with "No, Have you seen my clothes?"

At what happened next, Natsu and Lucy were shocked to say the least.