A/N Hello! I was so excited to start posting this one! I think that it is a great chapter and will show some good foreshadowing into the future. Thank you for reviewing, it really did make me happy! I would love to find out what you all think of this chapter, and can't wait until I get to write the conflict part that has been in my brain for the longest time.

I do not own Fairy Tail!

Chapter Ten: Let the Games Begin

As the eight teams that had made it past the qualifying sky maze, Lucy couldn't help but feel that they were a little bit helpless. Just like last year, Fairy Tail A team had come in dead last. It was kind of embarrassing for the strongest guild. But at least Fairy Tail B team had made it in first. That did reassure her somewhat.

There were very little differences in the teams. For one thing, Twilight Ogre actually made it into the competition. The other change was that both Sting and Yukino were not on the actual team Sabertooth. Sting being the master was not allowed to, and Yukino was still learning her magic so she was not a strong choice to put on the team.

Of course the strange pumpkin head that was Mato was already ready to referee the games, and he was happy about it too.

Chapati wasted no time in announcing what the first trial would be. "We have a special teat for all of you today. The first event of this year's Grand Magic Games is the Magical Carnival Race!" He yelled into the microphone for the entertainment of the audience.

Thinking about it, Erza knew that they needed versatility, so she chose Lucy to participate, much to the disappointment of a certain pink haired dragon slayer who wanted to start off for team Fairy Tail. But he didn't dare go against Erza.

"Alright, here are your competitors!" Chapati announced with pure excitement running in his voice. "From Fairy Tail A: Lucy Heartfilia, from Twilight Ogre: Namur Grout, from Quatro Cerberus: Warcry, from Mermaid Heel: Beth Vanderwood, from Blue Pegasus: Eve Tearm, From Lamia Scale: Lyon Vastia, From Sabertooth: Rufus Lore, and finally, from Fairy Tail B: Cana Alberona."

The crowd went wild as the corresponding mages were teleported into their corresponding places. Then the announcer announced "Your job is to make it through the obstacles while avoiding both the clowns that we have placed to slow you down and the other mages that might try and slow you down!"

As the mages waited, they listened to the countdown. Once the ticker had fallen to zero, they all took off. Though it was a race, they were in a maze type layout with the destination being a lacrima in the center of the arena.

Within seconds Lucy was at her first obstacle. It was a whack a mole game that seemed to want you to use magic. Not really caring if she destroyed the thing, she concentrated her magic in her hand and called out in a loud clear voice "Stellam!"

A golden beam flew out of her palm and hit the target, completely destroying the game in the process.

Up in the booth, the announcers were speechless, and so were most of the other guilds in the stands. The announcer announced what most of the others were thinking at the moment "It looks as if Lucy Heartfilia has used some kind of Celestial ability based magic instead of the normal holder type. She had clearly improved in this past year."

"I truly have never seen that from a Celestial Spirit mage. But it does seem to be based on her star magic. It almost reminds me of the spell that she attempted last year against Flair." Yajima commented as he too watched with interest.

Lucy was not the only one who decimated the first test. Cana also blew it up with her cards, and several others had done something similar to it. It was the fastest way through the obstacle in question anyway.

Lucy was currently running when she heard the familiar call of "Ice Make: Dragon!" and then she saw the ice coming towards her. With a smirk Lucy wondered how his ice sculpture would live up to the real thing, but she did not want to play that card so soon. It was going to be a surprise to everyone but the Sabertooth mages.

"Open, gate of the swordfish, Dorado!" Lucy called without faltering in her step. The sword came into this world already clutched in her hands, and she swung it at the ice sculpted dragon. It shattered under the serrated edge of the sword she carried. When Lucy ran past the crumbling pieces of ice, she saw that Lyon was utterly stunned that she had gotten past his creation so quickly.

He didn't even notice when Lucy ran her fingers over one of her keys silently before widening her stance in anticipation of fighting the ice mage. He thought that it was going to be a one on one fight between him and her, but Lucy had other plans. As he settled into his own Ice Make stance, the ground below him disappeared and he fell. In front of the place where the ice mage had stood now had a bowing spirit in a maid's outfit.

"This should hold him for a minute or two. Punishment, hime?" The stoic spirit asked as she straightened from her bow.

"No Virgo, thank you. You may go back, you too Dorado." Lucy told her two spirits. They gladly left in a shower of sparkles.

She continued, somehow being lucky enough not to encounter any of the clowns that were supposedly trying to stop them. The same could not be said for Cana. She was using her cards to the best of her ability, but things just kept coming at her. She would have preferred a fight with someone who was real.

The next obstacle that Lucy came across was a shooting gallery. It was set up that if she got hit by one of the cork projectiles, she would have t start from the beginning again. If it hit her were the words. It didn't say anything about hitting something else.

Summoning Scutum, she asked him to push his barrier out so that the cork wouldn't get anywhere close to her. He happily complied, and Lucy ran through with the shield out, making a mockery of the trial that was supposed to be a difficult obstacle for the mages to complete.

Making all of the right turns, Lucy managed to finish first as she touched the lacrima and was transported back into the arena. With announcers still talking up a storm, Lucy turned just in time to get engulfed by the rest of her team.

"You know, you should have taught Lyon more of a lesson," Gray reasoned as he looked back to the screens in order to see who would come in second.

"And waste more time? I think it was better just to deter him instead of losing in a race because I wanted to beat someone up." Lucy said as she shook her head. No sooner had the sentence had left her lips than Rufus from Sabertooth reached the lacrima and came in second. He turned to Lucy and gave her a tip of his hat to shoe that he thought she had done good in beating him in this first competition.

"You did great Luce!" Natsu praised as he grabbed her shoulders in excitement. It made the young blond smile along with him. It hadn't quite registered that she had gotten first in the first event of the GMG.

Cana made it in fifth with Blue Pegasus and Lamia Scale just barely coming before her. Sadly, that had everything to do with luck. Where Lucy had run forward and tried her best not to stop, Cana had paused to think, thus giving the clowns enough time to hone in on her and attack.

Once everyone was back, they announced the first battle of the day. It was between Fairy Tail A and Blue Pegasus. And the competitors were Natsu and Ichiya.

Natsu visibly paled before turning green and shaking his head back and forth like a little kid trying to get out of cleaning their room or something of the like. He was only silenced and pushed out into the arena by Erza and her murderous death aura.

Natsu stood on his end of the arena as he watched with uncertainty as Ichiya walked, or more like hopped in his case, out into the arena while posing for the crowd and shedding sparkles. The Fire Dragon Slayer shivered in disgust that he would have to fight something like that.

"Natsu-kun, the smell of your perfume tells me that this will be a most enjoyable fight, men!" Ichiya said as he winked, squeezing a sparkle from him eye.

Trying to keep his own disgust in check, Natsu said "Well, it won't be much fun beating you. I'm sure Erza would be more fun for me to fight. I'm not even fired up." It was the truth. Natsu really did not want to be in this fight at all. He would really rather face Jura or anyone else. This was just torturing him unnecessarily. Cruel and unusual punishment.

Mato finally said "You have thirty minutes to fight after the sound of the gong. If both of you are still standing after that time, then the fight will be a draw and both teams will get five points. Otherwise the winner will get ten points for their team!"

With that done, the gong started and Ichiya took out two vials of his perfume magic and stuck them up him nose. In almost a second he was built even better than Laxus and was twice the size of Natsu.

"Men!" he shouted as he started running towards Natsu.

The dragon slayer wanted nothing to do with the newly buffed up Ichiya. In fact, he began to sprint away from the giant as fast as his legs could carry him. He didn't care how he looked. Ichiya was scary and Natsu did not want to touch him at all!

"So it seems like his speed has improved with the training we did," Erza noted as she watched the fight.

"I think it's just that he wants to get away from Ichiya," Lucy challenged the observation before yelling "Come on Natsu, you can do it! Show him what being a part of Fairy Tail means!" Lucy wasn't sure if it was the right thing to say, but she felt as if she had to cheer on her partner somehow while he was fighting.

Natsu heard Lucy just fine over the roar of the crowd. And so he came to a sudden halt and sucked in as much air as he could before attacking. "Roar of the Fire Dragon!" he yelled as fire spewed out of his mouth and shot in a beam towards the offending mage.

Ichiya was not fast enough to dodge the attack, but as he took it head on, it didn't do too much damage. But Natsu was not going to let him attack! Running while the S-class mage was still slightly dazed, he used his arms and yelled out his next attack; "Wing Slash of the Fire Dragon!"

This flung Ichiya into the brick wall of the arena where it created a large dent where the body hit. Natsu watched, his body engulfed in flames, as he waited to see if his opponent would rise again. He should have expected him too, Ichiya, even with how vile he was, was still an S-class mage, even if most people didn't believe it.

The man did get up, and with two new vials sticking out of his nose too. He was just able to mutter the word 'men' before Natsu had his flame covered fist slamming into his head. Natsu wanted this done, and he didn't even feel the need to waste time by talking to him either.

In the end, the battle was not nearly as long as the announcers had hoped that it would be. In the end Ichiya did get off one attack, but the sent that he had flung at Natsu was highly flammable, and it had burned in the flames surrounding Natsu before it could even come close to his nose.

"Natsu, are you okay?" Lucy asked when she noticed that he was being particularly quiet.

He turned to her slowly, his face still deathly pale before he started to dry sob as he said "Never again! Please Lucy; make sure that they never do that to me again!" He said before putting his head on her shoulder before passing out.

Lucy was stunned by this, and a little ticked that he had decided that she was a pillow. So she said so that he would wake up "Okay, I will do everything in my power to make sure that it doesn't happen, just get off of me before I kick you off of me!"

The threat of bodily harm had him jumping off of his best friend and partner. But he just leaned on the railing so that he could comfortably watch the next fight. It wasn't that big of a deal. Sabertooth easily beat up on Twilight Ogre, and Juvia beat up on the Quatro Cerberus contestant. That left Lamia Scale and Mermaid Heel. Kagura was called out, and she basically sent Yuka back in shreds. It was not a very pretty sight.

And so the fighting ended for the day with Fairy Tail A in first place, followed closely by Sabertooth, and with Fairy Tail B just getting third.

But as they went to sleep and Lucy fingered her keys to thank them for helping her with the events of the day, she couldn't help but feel something was wrong. Though they tried to hide it, she could feel the anxiety coming off of them in waves. It had her thinking that there was something coming. Something that she was not prepared for.

But, she didn't want to get in over her head. There were only four more days in the Grand Magic Games, and Lucy was determined to do her best in them. She had promised her keys that she would train with them afterwards, so whatever it was that was coming, could just wait for the moment and let her sort out everything here first.

But deep down, Lucy wondered how bad it could be if they were training with her this hard. She wanted to get it out of her head, but worst case scenarios were running through her head and leaving pictures that she would rather not see. It haunted her for the rest of her night. As did the feeling that something was watching her.

Outside the place where Fairy Tail is staying:

Lazarus looked into the window of the sleeping Celestial spirit mage. They had been watching her from the shadows all day, assessing her strength and making plans about what they were going to do with her. Though it bothered him greatly that he had to be the one to keep an eye on her.

The blue haired man knew that she could not sense his presence, but he did wonder if her keys did. And he wondered if they had told her anything. It would be no fun if they came at her and she didn't know the first thing about them.

Since he had started to follow her three days ago, the fallen star had often been surprised at her innocence. It would be fun when the time finally arrived where they would use her. He was sure about it.

But he was not there to think about things like that. He was there to make sure that her magic continued to grow. He was there so that when the time came, he could report to Mordachi that she had gained enough magical energy that was needed to complete the plan that the leader of the fallen had come up with while they were imprisoned.

It wasn't all that surprising that they were using her, in Lazarus's mind. After all, it was her and her team that had been the catalyst for their escape.

It had all started when Lullaby destroyed the mountain that had ensnared Sophronia. Of course the Tower of Heaven gave the red head enough energy to free Ezekiel. They were joined by Ambrosia not long after that when she had freed herself from her prison during the Nirvana incident. Then Lazarus himself had been released when the Eclipse Gate had been opened a year ago. And of course, when the Heartfilia girl had gained enough power, Mordachi had freed himself and waited for the others to come to him. It was all thanks to the Celestial Spirit mage and her team that they were freed.

But Lazarus also could not help but admit to himself that her magic called out to him. And he hated the way it did. It was as if she was trying to get him to go against Mordachi when she didn't even know that they were freed. For that reason alone a part of the fallen star wanted to kill her now so that she wouldn't be a threat. So that he wouldn't have to deal with her later.

A/N: I hope that you all enjoyed that! I liked writing it, and I really couldn't help but do that to Natsu, lol it was slightly evil. And I got to get into the head of Lazarus! Yay! Please let me know what you all thought about this and how it is doing.

And real quick, for those of you who were interested, I have posted the Ghost Hunt and Fairy Tail crossover. It is called Fairies and Tigers and Ghosts, Oh Mai. Yes, I had too much fun coming up with a name...

Thanks for reading, and until next time!