A/N: Italics without quotations are thoughts!
Lucy crossed her arms and glared at Gajeel. Honestly, even Natsu was not as stubborn as this man! She fumed lightly. Who was he to make fun of her music?
Lucy Heartfilia and Gajeel Redfox had been engaged in a heated staring contest for quite some time. Sparks were crackling from the lightning jumping between their eyes. The train conductor had scurried off without even checking their tickets, they had looked so terrifying! Though they had had their tickets, and they were legitimate, of course.
What could have caused such dissention in the ranks so early into their very first journey? There was only one thing Gajeel would bother to argue about with her. Music!
Gajeel Redfox loved music; everyone at Fairy Tail knew this. He played the guitar and wrote his own songs. Hell he had even put on that white suit and sang for the guild! With Lucy as his dancing eye-candy in her memorable bunny outfit, it had been a smash hit in his opinion. Gajeel disregarded how the people had been cringing.
However Gajeel had very selective tastes in music. Plus he would violently oppose those who slandered those precious favorites. Or try and convert them to his point of view if he did not feel like beating the hell out of them.
Lucy Heartfilia on the other hand was a musical jack of all trades; she liked almost every genre out there, excluding rap. Lucy claimed that she loved just about everything since she had favorite songs in almost every genre. However, Gajeel was devoted to rock and roll and it's siblings.
Both were stubborn to a fault, refusing to budge. And since they were nakama, they could not try and pound the opposer into the ground till they agreed to their point of view. That little detail tossed out most Fairy Tail tactics in convincing others to change their viewpoints. Well that and they had already found they had other similar interests in other, less volatile areas.
Gajeel tried his best death glare on the gutsy blonde. Damn her! Why isn't she cowering yet? He gritted his teeth.
"Blonde, I don't get how you stomach that fucking trash that all the new so called 'artists' produce! It's worthless lip singing with synthesized music, no talent required! It's shit!" Lucy had threatened to tell Ezra something horrible so she would pulverize the Iron Slayer and every time he cursed, or did not refer to her by her name often. But Gajeel had snorted before calling her bluff, stating that "Yeah right Bunny Girl. You're not mean enough to do that." She had pouted before admitting he was right. Her forgiving nature did not make for excellent threat credibility.
Lucy grunted in frustration, a strange sight coming from the usually proper girl. Gajeel had this talent for pulling out the vulgarity in her, but she could not deny it was not refreshing to be treated like a capable adult.
Lucy finally pulled out her Sound Pod, the latest Lacrima version. It had the Fairy Tail brand on the coverings instead of the optional traditional spikes. The Sound Pod was black in color, with the Fairy Tail brand being a bright pink like her own mark. She had splurged on it as a reward to herself for surviving Oracion Seis.
Lucy jammed it onto Gajeel's pierced head, much to his displeasure, and started playing a random song from her collection. She could hear the song playing very faintly, and identified it as "Turk's Theme." Lucy loved the song. It made her feel quite badass.
"Shut up and listen you metal head. Put aside your bias and listen!"
Gajeel glared at the audacious blonde, but his growing respect for that fiery nature kept his mouth shut. She may not have the physical power he was accustomed, but she was fearless enough to take on one of the S-classed Thunder Tribe and win. It was more than he could say for most of Fairy Tail.
He closed his eyes, to focus better, and did as his fellow mage commanded him. Reluctantly he began to see her point, after ignoring his desire to hear the familiar strains of rock, even starting to enjoy the song a bit. Gajeel pulled off the Sound Pod with a smirk and said "Alright Blonde, maybe you have a point. Now-" Gajeel dropped the smirk and grew serious.
"Do you know anything about this 'Torque of the World Eater'?" Lucy grimaced, pulling out a Light Pen to help her out. She pulled off the cap and began to narrate as she drew, much to Gajeel's amusement. She was so serious as she drew her kiddy drawings.
"The Torque is one of the lesser known ancient artifacts. No one knows who created it, though most believe it is one of Zeref's lost works. The Torque is a necklace that looks like one of the mythical wingless dragons."
Gajeel's eyebrows rose into his mane of hair when he saw the drawing of the mythical type of dragon. Metallicana had not looked anything like the wingless and ribbon like drawing in front of him.
"It's made of some sort of black metal, and it has an unknown type of red Lacrima inset in the dragon's eyes. People have speculated its eyes might be the Lacrima of a Fire Dragon, though no one knows for certain." She paused, finished with her drawing. She had drawn a circle, and a figure of himself and her. His caricature had spiky hair, feathers, and pointy teeth. Gajeel grinned at it, and blinked in surprise as it gave him a thumbs up.
"There's little information on the Torque since it's rarely been used. So most of the lore about it is speculation. All I could dig up on it was that it's Lost Magic, and it does what it's name implies. It 'eats'." Gajeel watched warily as she shivered at the word "eat". Obviously it was not pleasant, but Gajeel wondered if she was just being squeamish.
"The Torque requires a sacrifice to activate it; a human sacrifice. Once it's activated it begins to…devour its surroundings. Supposedly it gouged out a crater so big, Magnolia could fit in it with room to spare in Bosco. This was hundreds of years ago, so no one is certain as what caused it to occur. It's a lake now. You might have heard of it. It's called Lake Lilium."
Gajeel grew rigid as he realized just what they were getting into. He had heard of the lake from one of Phantom Lord's lackeys. It was the deepest lake in Bosco's territory and of any known lake, going down to about roughly four thousand feet and having a surface area of near three thousand feet.
And it was just Bunny Girl and him, going after a artifact that could create that gigantic lake...
"Gajeel…" Lucy gulped in unbridled fear. "The Torque only had one sacrifice."
Gajeel grew grave as he thought about how much damage the necklace, could do with the deaths of multiple people. One human death equaled the destructive range of a Lake Lilium. Every dark guild would war over such an object. Fuck! Why the hell is this a A-class mission? God damnit! This Aras has fucked over the wrong Slayer!
Pissed beyond measure, this made him wonder just how strong this monster had to be in order to get past the protections of a Wizard Saint. Plus whatever else this Aras might have had in place. Which again begged the question of why this had been classed as a fucking A-class mission!
But... Gajeel had to smirk at such a prospect. This was the challenge of challenges. Gajeel was going to get some fan-fucking-tastic fights if this Torque was any indication. Oh yeah, he could get behind this!
It was a good thing he had Bunny Girl though. He did not want to have been the idiot that walked into such a clusterfuck unprepared. Lily was going to be so pissed he missed out on this.
But really, Natsu had really screwed up by letting his medic go. Gajeel though, was more than happy to snatch up a free medic. Hell, Rolf had been the most sought after guy in Phantom Lord because he could cover everything for his partner. All Rolf's partner had to do was fight, never having to worry about medical supplies, sleeping arrangements, or transportation. Even Gajeel had not minded teaming up with him alongside Juvia.
Not to forget, Gajeel remembered the difference between Ezra, Gray, or Natsu returning from a solo mission or after a team mission with Lucy. Lucy was Fairy Tail's Rolf. She had the brains of her usual Team's outfit, and took care of the million and one things that sheer magical might could not touch. Maybe he could convince the girl to join on with him and Pantherlily, if she proved as capable as he thought she was. Sure she annoyed the piss out of him, but damn if she was not handy.
Gajeel grinned ferally at the worried blonde and asked "Any reason why a Slayer or a Celestial mage would be best for this job?" Lucy frowned and seemed to go into deep thought as she replied,
"No offense, but the Celestial World is tied to ours in ways only a celestial mage understands. No one notices, but magic from the Celestial World constantly flows in and out of Earthland and vice versa. After all, we're dependent on the Sun, which is a star. Earthland's magic helps to stabilize the Celestial World."
She closed her eyes, and Gajeel stared at her intently. He was surprised she would take her eyes off him so soon. "As far as I can guess, with the old account I found, the Torque might be the antithesis to celestial magic."
Gajeel interrupted quickly before she could start the tangent he saw forming. "Layman's terms?"
Lucy sighed and started messing with the drawing of Gajeel, herself, and a glowing circle he guessed was the activated Torque. "In layman's terms it'd probably be called Void Magic, since it 'eats' its surroundings."
The circle ate the Lucy image, and then started eating the Gajeel image. "Luckily for us, the Torque's dormant for the moment. And it has a set area it can 'devour' per sacrifice. Thankfully we won't have to guess the exact range due to Lake Lilium's existence."
The circle suddenly stopped eating the half eaten Gajeel image, as though it had run out of fuel. Gajeel suddenly smirked, amused, as his image self began to angrily punch the now immobile circle.
"My guess is that if the Torque is the antithesis of celestial magic, celestial magic could neutralize it." Gajeel could smell that upcoming "but." "Or it could set off a negative reaction and kill us all and destroy all of Earthland."
Gajeel felt a shiver go down his spine at how she said that with such a cheery tone, sometimes he felt Ezra was less scary than the blonde and this proved him right. But God damn if the Blonde was not kind of sexy when she was being terrifying. As soon as the thought crossed his mind he killed it and buried it in a shallow and unmarked grave.
He watched in a terror induced trance as the words Lucy had written, 'Celestial' and 'Void', blurred into each other and then exploded, erasing the word 'Earthland' that had been written in large letters. Lucy kept smiling as she continued.
"There's a fifty fifty chance that the Torque will either be neutralized or explode. So that explains my request. As for you…well Slayers are destructive. Going by the information we have right now, that's it in a nutshell." Gajeel watched in silent amusement as the half eaten Gajeel then tore apart the circle with his bare hands, smirked, and pulled out his lower body and a smiling Lucy image. "You know, Lucy, you're scarier than Ezra sometimes." She smiled sweetly "Thanks!", and then gasped in shock. "Gajeel! You said my name!"
Gajeel looked away from her and refused to acknowledge her silly triumphant grin.
Back at Fairy Tail, Mirajane looked between the request board and the piece of paper she clutched between her hands in a death grip.
She looked at a trembling Jet and Droy, and asked in her menacingly sweet voice "Are you sure Gajeel and Lucy left for this mission?"
They trembled and yelped in unison. Mirajane was scary! "Yes! We picked the paper up from the table they were at, after they left!"
Mirajane felt her breath quicken in fear for the odd new duo. She raced upstairs recklessly, and threw open the door to Makarov's office, surprising the small elderly man. She panted lightly, pushing away the errant pieces of hair that had become disheveled during her flight while leaning against the doorframe.
"Master! Lucy and Gajeel have taken a misclassed mission!"
Makarov -who had been leisurely throwing darts at a picture of what looked suspiciously like the symbol for the Magic Council- straightened to his full diminutive height and gave Mirajane a serious look. "Mirajane how could this happen?"
"There was an old request and it had been buried under more recent requests. It was termed between a high A Class and low S Class mission at first, but when Freed and Bixlow failed in their attempts to complete it you transferred it to the mission pile you'd give to Gildarts or Mystogan. However-" Her voice grew strained "It seems we missed a flyer and Lucy found it."
Makarov paled and asked quickly in a similarly strained voice "Has Lucy and Gajeel left yet?" But before he could address the situation he had to ask, "And why is Lucy with Gajeel, and not Team Natsu? She has never taken any mission without Natsu and Happy, and I was unaware anyone besides Juvia approached Gajeel."
Mirajane shrugged helplessly. She had no answers for her concerned Master. "I don't know Master. Lucy was acting strangely this morning, but I was distracted by one of Cana's mishaps." The card mage had tottered over to the bar soon after Lucy had walked in, and promptly vomited all over the bar and Mirajane's clothes.
But Mirajane reprimanded herself silently. She was supposed to be her Master's eyes and ears, and she had failed. Mirajane frowned deeply. "Lucy and Gajeel left almost at once and by now should be approaching Hargeon." Would the Thunder Tribe be a wise choice to send as backup? Or wait for the rest of Team Natsu?
"And as for why she's not with Team Natsu…Lisanna told me that she would be taking Lucy's place for a mission like they did before she fell into Edolas." Mirajane gasped in shock as she had an epiphany. "Lucy must have seen it as though Lisanna was replacing her!"
Makarov gained a sad look on his face and said quietly "My children sometimes can be quite dense. I doubt they even noticed what effect their actions had on our celestial mage." He shook his head in disappointment. "Mirajane when is the new Team Natsu due back?"
Mirajane jerked in sympathy for how Lucy must have felt, when Makarov put it that way. "They should be back by later this evening Master. The job was close and it was an easy Jewel making job." Makarov commanded Mirajane in a grave tone "Send them to me as soon as they get in Mirajane. And Mirajane?"
He asked in a loud voice as she turned made to exit his office "Which job did Lucy and Gajeel take, exactly?" Mirajane gulped and said in a whisper "The retrieval or destruction of the Torque of the World Eater." Makarov's face grew even more serious as Mirajane left the room. This job had only a very small chance of survival for the two mages, but that was more than anyone who was not a celestial mage or Slayer.
A small chance, was better than none after all.