Author's Note: It probably isn't going to be described at any point in the fanfiction where on their body everyone's gem is, so for anyone who cares where their gem is, I'll write it now (you can skip this if you don't care): Natsu's is in his forehead, in the same place Zeref's was. Serena and August also have theirs in their foreheads. Ajeel's is on his back, Dimaria's is on her navel, Invel's is on the back of his left (from his point of view) hand, Brandish's is above her chest, and Wahl's is on his shoulder (where the Alvarez emblem is in the manga).

"Guys, I'm home!"

No response.

Natsu sighed. "I guess they're out on another mission." He frowned. "All seven of 'em? Must be pretty serious." There had been very few times when he'd come home to find that all seven of his guardians were in the house, but usually at least one of them was around. Not today, he guessed.

"Natsu!"

…Or not.

Jumping back, Natsu assumed a fighting stance as a man with spiky black hair landed a few feet in front of him, having jumped over the railing from the second floor of the house. What appeared to be an arm made of sand smashed the floorboards, missing him by a few inches. Grinning and balling his hands into fists, he charged at his opponent. Nothing like a good fight to relieve the stress of the day.

Suddenly, rather than the floor he was expecting, his foot landed on something softer. "Hey!" he cried as the translucent white platform his foot had landed on grew larger and surrounded him in a bubble. Lying flat on his face inside the sphere, he was able to see that Ajeel – or Agate – was I a similar situation… and wasn't very happy about it.

"God dammit, Invel!" Ajeel turned and slammed his fist on the side of the bubble. "You always have to ruin our fun!"

"I'm not ruining your fun," snapped the white-haired man known as Invel or Moonstone. "If you want to fight, you can. Just do it outside. I'm not having the two of you wrecking the house again." He reached over and popped the bubbles, causing Natsu and Ajeel to crash to the floor. "How was school, Natsu?"

"Boring," Natsu replied. He looked around. "So, are you and Ajeel the only ones home?"

"No, Brandish is here. She's just asleep."

"Where are the others? Isn't it usually just one or two of you going on a mission at a time?"

Ajeel stood up, dusting himself off. "Yeah, but we saw some weird thing in the sky earlier and wanted to go check it out. I didn't get to go with 'em, though. I guess they wanted the strongest one guarding the house."

Natsu's eyes widened. "Where are they? Can I go find them? Can I help fight the weird thing?"

"Do you have any homework?" Invel asked.

"…No…"

"Go do it, then."

"Dammit!" Natsu sighed. "It's not due until Monday, Invel. Do I have to do it now?"

"Yes," Invel replied. "Because if I don't make you do it now, it'll get left until Sunday evening. And then you'll rush it because you left it until the last minute and don't have enough time to do it properly." He turned to head upstairs.

Ajeel watched until he was out of sight, then leaned over and whispered to Natsu. "Hey, listen. If we go right now, we can get to the beach to fight, and we'll be back quick enough for you to do your homework. Invel will never kn–"

"I still hear you, Ajeel. I'll bubble you again if you try to fight him."

"Ugh." He patted Natsu's shoulder. "We'll fight later, kid."

The house was silent – in fact, it was so quiet Natsu could hear the clock ticking in the living room. On the desk in front of him was an almost-blank page: he'd only managed to answer two of the thirty questions. And it had been half an hour.

Normally, he would be done – or almost done – by now. But he couldn't stop thinking about the "weird thing" Ajeel had mentioned. Earlier, at school, he'd heard some of his classmates talking about seeing something red floating in the sky, but the teachers had told them not to worry about it. It was probably harmless, they'd said.

Looking out of the window, he could see the Weird Thing. It was almost a dot since it was so far away, but he could see that it was red. Looking down, he was able to make out four figures standing on the beach, peering at the red dot through a telescope. Serena, Dimaria, August, and Wahl. Also known as Topaz, Citrine, Zircon and Melanite.

Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. Natsu stood up, turning around and heading out of his room, toward the front door – and running straight into Serena, knocking both of them over.

"Hey! Serena!" Natsu stood up. "What's the weird thing? Do you know? Can I fight it?"

Serena scrambled to his feet. Instead of answering Natsu's question, he cupped his hands around his mouth and turned toward the stairs. "Moonstone! Emerald!"

Brandish, rubbing her eyes sleepily, came down the stairs. She was quickly followed by Invel, who was still holding his book in one hand.

"This better be important if you woke me up for it," Brandish muttered.

Serena was jumping up and down. "We know what the red thing is!" The rest of his sentence was gibberish.

Invel grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to stay on the ground. "Topaz, calm down. What is it? Is it hostile?"

"Yes! It's hella hostile! It's a Red Eye!" Serena's voice was getting high-pitched with panic. Oblivious to Brandish's eye-roll, he grabbed her wrist in one hand, Invel's in the other. "Natsu, you come too!" He turned and ran down the wooden steps that led to the beach, dragging the two other gems behind him.

"Wait! What the hell is a Red Eye?" Natsu asked, trying to keep up with the trio.

"It's a… thing that we used back on Homeworld," Invel began.

"It can scout out gems on other planets," Serena continued. "Oh, it can also create a vacuum that could potentially suck in this whole city!"

"Who would send a Red Eye here?" Brandish asked, glancing at the other two. "Is it from Homeworld?"

"We don't know," Serena answered. "We think it was lost in space somewhere and somehow ended up here. The Homeworld wouldn't attack now, right? It's only been seventeen years since they last got their asses kicked by us!"

They reached the sand and the three gems who were standing by the telescope. Ajeel, who had gone out to find monsters to fight earlier, wandered up to join them. Lagging behind, Natsu reached them as Brandish was peering through the telescope.

"That's a Red Eye, alright," Brandish murmured.

Ajeel snorted. "Thanks, genius. We had no clue." Dimaria smacked his arm.

"How the hell are we gonna destroy it?" Wahl asked, using his hand to shade his eyes as he peered at the Red Eye, which was now a much larger dot. "Can I blast it again?"

"That had no effect the first twenty times, Wahl," Dimaria reminded him.

Invel sighed. "This would be so much easier if Zeref were here…"

"Yeah, but he's not. So we gotta do this by ourselves. Why don't you try shooting one of your fancy arrows at it, princess?" Ajeel asked.

"If it can take a blast from Wahl, it can take an arrow from Invel," August answered.

"D'you think it could take a hit from Zeref's dark-energy-cannon-thingy?" Wahl asked.

"Well, the cannon is much more powerful than any of our weapons." Dimaria frowned. "But nobody knows where it is."

"Hey, guys!" The gems turned around to see Mavis approaching them. "What's going on? Why are you all gathered on the beach like this?"

"Beach City might be in danger," Brandish answered. She gestured over her shoulder, toward the Red Eye. "That thing may or may not be about to destroy this whole place."

Mavis looked up, her eyes widening. "Ohhh… Have you tried to fight it?"

"Nothing's having any effect," Serena replied. "The only thing that might be able to beat it is Zeref's… dark… energy… cannon…" He trailed off, looking down at Mavis.

She looked around to find that all the gems were staring at her. "…What?"

"Mavis, did you keep any of Zeref's old stuff?" Ajeel asked.

"Oh! Um…" Mavis nervously played with her fingers. "I… I don't know, I might have a couple of old things lying around in my house… but i-it's not like I…"

"Anything that looks like a giant black gun?" Wahl asked.

"Maybe. If I have that, it'll probably be in the garage."

"Mavis, go look for the giant black gun," August ordered. "Natsu, go with her."

"Huh?!" Natsu looked around. "That makes no sense! I'm literally the only one of us who doesn't know what the cannon looks like!"

"You'll know it when you see it!" Invel called over his shoulder as Natsu and Mavis turned to run toward the latter's home.

"We've searched the entire garage, Mavis. I don't think it's here."

Mavis groaned. "I don't know where it would be if it isn't here!"

"We could go look in your house." Natsu turned around. "Wait… except your house is really clean, right? So if there was a giant black gun anywhere in there, you'd know, right?" His shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Mavis frowned thoughtfully. "Um… I guess I almost never go in that second bedroom that I turned into a storage room… it's pretty cluttered in there, too. But I don't know about any giant – Natsu! Where are you going?"

"It's worth checking!" Natsu pushed through the door from the garage into the house, searching for the storage room. He eventually found a small room, the carpeted floor concealed beneath piles of boxes and various objects. Following him, Mavis flicked on the light, watching as he pushed aside old cardboard boxes, looking for the cannon.

"…Natsu?"

"Yeah?" Natsu turned around.

"I think I found it." Mavis pointed to the far wall. Against it was what looked like a military cannon: it was a giant black gun on wheels, pointing at some point on the wall between Natsu and Mavis.

"…Oh." Natsu looked down at the boxes he had knocked over in his search, feeling stupid for not noticing it there before.

"It's alright." Mavis smiled and headed toward the weapon. "You've cleared a path for us to get it to the door. The real question is how we're going to get it all the way to the beach in time for us to stop the Red Eye." She turned back toward Natsu. "Hey, you're half-magic-space-gem, right? Do you have super strength or something?"

"Nope." Natsu had followed Mavis over to the cannon and was now inspecting it. "So this belonged to my brother, huh?"

"Yeah. But I only remember seeing him use it about once. On those gems who – never mind." Mavis stared at it for a few seconds, before she sighed and decided to just try pushing it. She moved behind it and began pushing it toward the doorway. "It's heavy…"

"Need help?" Natsu asked. Without waiting for an answer, he moved behind the weapon as well. Mavis was right; it was heavy. Between the two of them, it took them a while to push it out of the room and to the front door of Mavis's house.

"It took us more than a minute just to get it this far," Mavis sighed. "How are we going to get this to the beach in time?" She kept pushing the cannon as she spoke.

As it rolled out of the door, Natsu frowned. "I dunno. I guess I could get the gems to come here and help – holy crap!"

Mavis turned around to see what Natsu was looking at. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of the Red Eye, now a huge orb in the sky, rapidly moving closer to the beach. "We can't make it in time!"

"Yes we can!" Natsu pushed against the cannon with his shoulder, trying to move it faster. Mavis, deciding that it was best to at least try, helped him.

"You two!" Dimaria and Wahl were running toward them. Dimaria reached them, putting her hands on her hips. "So you found it, huh? You're certainly taking your time with getting it to the beach."

"Don't blame us!" Natsu panted. "It's… really… heavy!"

"I know a shortcut!" Wahl had reached them as well. He pointed to the east. "There's a hill over there that leads straight to the beach. We can get the cannon there faster if we roll it down the hill."

"Yes!" Mavis moved to turning the cannon in the direction of the hill. "Can you two help us?"

With one final push, the cannon rolled down the hill, landing on the sand. Dimaria and Wahl slid down after it, followed closely by Mavis and Natsu.

"Do we have to push it over there now?" Natsu asked, pointing toward where the other five gems and their telescope were standing.

"No. There's no time." Dimaria grabbed the cannon and turned it toward the Red Eye. "We can fire it from here."

Wahl started frantically searching around for a switch. "Natsu! How the hell does this thing work?!"

"How should I know? I'm not my brother! Don't you know how it works? Didn't you ever see Zeref fire it?"

"We saw him fire it, but we were too far away to see how it worked," Mavis admitted. "He told us all to stand back while he fired it because it was too dangerous to be near him."

Natsu climbed onto the cannon, trying to find a switch. Suddenly, it became too bright to see; he quickly realized that his gem was glowing. The lines down the sides of the cannon began to glow as well, a black orb forming at the end of the muzzle. His eyes widened. "It's charging! Everyone stand back!"

Dimaria, Wahl, and Mavis all turned and ran toward the other gems. Natsu turned the cannon in the direction of the Red Eye, making sure it was pointing directly at it, and covered his ears.

The cannon went off.

The recoil caused Natsu to fall backwards off of the weapon. Falling onto his back on the sand, he had a clear view of the Red Eye: he saw it just as a black spear seemed to impale it. It became a ball of fire and smoke in the sky, pieces of it crashing down around the city.

"Natsu!" Ajeel was scrambling toward him over the sand. He leaned over Natsu, grinning and holding up his hand for a high-five. "You did great! The Red Eye is gone!"

Next thing he knew, Natsu was underneath a pile of the Spriggan Gems and Mavis, all trying to hug and congratulate him. Except two.

August and Invel stood completely still in horror, watching the chunks of metal falling onto the city.

"The repair costs are going to be terrible, aren't they…?" Invel sighed, adjusting his glasses.

"Natsu's paying for this. All of it," August told him. He turned to walk away, grumbling to himself. "I'm too old for this…"