I AM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING SOONER. APOLOGIES. PLEASE REVIEW. AND FOR THOSE FOUR THAT DID, THANK YOU! IT MOTIVATED ME TO GET THIS CHAPTER UP AS SOON AS I COULD! THANKS! PLEASE REVIEW AGAIN!

•Lu-chan•

"Kill me?!" I exclaimed, hugging myself. "Why? Who sent you?"

"A request from a client." Juvia replied simply, and looked at Gajeel again. "Unless, of course… You want to do what we usually do, and…"

"And what?!" I demanded. "What are you going to do with me!"
"Gajeel, shut her up." Juvia said after a moment, looking at me with slight distaste.

"Okay. Well, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Which one would you like?" he grinned cockily, a predatory glint in his eyes.

"E-easy way." I mumbled as I tried to back away as much as I could, forgetting that I was already pressed against a wall.

"Well then, there are two easy options: I can kis-I mean-shut you up however I please, or you can stay quiet." I noticed him twitch as he rushed to cover his slip up, but I ignored it.

"I'll stay quiet." I immediately replied, and I shut my mouth and watched the two mages with piqued interest.

•Gajeel-kun•

It sucks that she chose to shut herself up. Wait, what? … Good grief. I'm becoming a pervert like Totomaru. I glanced at Juvia, who was staring at me with her usual blank mask, but I had known her long enough to be able to decipher how she was really feeling.

"Gajeel-kun. What should we do? The choice is up to you." She told me, and I could tell that she already knew what I was going to say by how she had reached for her umbrella.

"Deny mission's orders." I turned to face the girl, whose brown eyes were now completely wide.

"You're what?"
"Lettin' you live. Now come on, let's go. You're welcome, by the way. It prob'ly would've been easier to kill you." I reminded her, and she gave me a small smile, causing butterflies to fly around in my chest.

"Thank you, Gajeel." What was that? I wondered to myself as she turned to ask Juvia a question. How come one smile from that girl had that effect on me? I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. I needed to focus, and try to plane the best way to convince Jose to let her join Phantom. It definitely wasn't going to be easy…

•Normal•

By the next day, Gajeel and Juvia had managed into talking Jose into allowing Lucy to join. Lucy, surprisingly, was more than willing to join.

"I probably won't ever get a chance to join another guild, so it'd be a waste if I turned this offer down!" she had told them a few hours previous. She and Juvia were now talking, Juvia opening up slightly, and Lucy talking animatedly and gesturing wildly with her hands.

•Gajeel-kun•

I sighed and watched the blonde mage. Why was she different from the other girls at Phantom? There were some that had prettier hair, makeup, clothes… but I figured that it was probably the one with the prettiest face and figure. I quickly looked her body over, for the five-hundreth time that day, and frowned slightly as I saw Totomaru do the same. That pervert. I quickly decided that, if he didn't stop by the end of the day, I'd punch him. I growled another order of iron to a nearby waitress, who whimpered and ran away to fetch my order. I sighed, but quickly sucked in another breath as I saw the girl stand up from her seat across from Juvia and towards me.

"Hi, Gajeel-kun!" she beamed, sitting down on the seat next to me.
"Don't… Call me that." I told her instinctively. "Just Gajeel. No 'sama'."

She nodded, and I wondered why so many other people were afraid of me, and she had been before, but now it seemed as though I was as scary as a butterfly to her.

"Aren't you scared of me?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.

She shook her head. "No, not anymore. On the yacht, I was only afraid of what you'd do to me. You just don't come off as scary or mean to me. You seem more like the type that's misunderstood and doesn't know how to react kindly to other people. You're not mean." She smiled at me, and waved over the same waitress that I had ordered my iron from. "Excuse me, would you mind fetching me a cup of water if you get the chance? Oh, and by the way, I love your hair. It's like a model's." she told her, smiling. The waitress beamed and gave her a nod.

"Sure! I'll get it as soon as possible!" the waitress quickly jogged off, admiring her hair in a reflective surface as she walked back to the guild's kitchen.

"See? That's how you should talk to someone. Well, at least to girls, anyways."

"Oh." I nodded, and turned towards my iron, which had arrived a moment ago.

"It's easy!"

I just shrugged, and I looked at her again. "So, your name's Lucy."
"And your's is Gajeel."

"…"

She laughed, sipping her crystal-clear water.

"Did you… Have a guild that you wanted to join before any of… this happened?" I asked her, trying to make conversation.
"I wanted to join Fairy Tail." She replied, a sad smile working its way onto her face. "But I guess that won't be happening now."

"I'm sorry." I told her. "You can quit, go join Fairy Tail! Go! Do what you want to do!"

"Nah, I'm good. Besides, you and Juvia aren't at Fairy Tail, and I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of people I don't know without a familiar face by my side." She shrugged. "Besides, Phantom's actually pretty cool. It isn't exactly all that bad, except for the occasional curse word, and rude comment, but that probably happens at every guild, not just Phantom."

I smiled at her, and she grinned.

"Lucy-chan!" Juvia called out. "Would you like to go swimming? Juvia knows of a nearby pool that we could use."

"Sure!" she shouted to Juvia before turning to face me again. "See you later, Gajeel!" she hopped off her stool to go join Juvia, who was already at the guild's doors.

I watched the two leave the guild, and as soon as the doors closed, wolf whistles seemed to come from all directions.

"Did you see that new chick? She's hot!" A guy called out.

"Seriously! Did you see her rack?!"

"Okay, I'm going to ask her out once she comes back."

"She's sooooo pretty…"

"She's gorgeous!"

"My heart is officially stolen by that girl!"

Gajeel found himself getting more and more irritated at each comment, but he didn't actually become angry until he heard Totomaru speak.

"Hey, Sol! Y'know how I said that I wouldn't want to be stuck in a closet with anyone? Well, I changed my mind! I'd like a few hours stuck with Miss Lucy. I'd love to make her mine." He grinned pervertishly as he imagined very, very naughty things. That was enough to make me kill him.

"Shut. The fuck. Up." I mumbled.

"Hey, you say something, Gajeel?" Totomaru asked me.

"I said…" the entire guild quieted down, ears straining to hear what I was about to say. "Shut the fuck up!" and with that, I gave all of the guys who had said something about Lucy a proper beating. Eventually satisfied, I sat back down in my seat, munching on a new piece of iron. 'That should teach them a lesson,' I thought to myself.