A/N: *gasps with exhaustion* I did it. I got this done in my month time slot with...*checks clock* ...twenty-seven minutes to spare. Hell yeah.
This chapter was loads of fun to write, so I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Also, kudos to alla you guys who guessed who the mystery person was! I mean, I wasn't exactly being subtle, but still. That means you're actually reading this and paying attention. I LOVE YOU ALL.
Lucy's fingers desperately scrabbled at the arm with its steel grip around her neck, retching.
"Well?" the person strangling her demanded. "Where did you get it?"
"Can't—breathe—" she managed to choke out.
The man (she was pretty sure it was a male) made a disgusted noise in his throat and released her. Lucy stumbled away from him and leaned against the wall, gasping and massaging her throat. Angrily, she glared at the man who had grabbed her.
He was a tall human-looking man wearing a dark black skin-tight bodysuit of some kind that accentuated his lean muscles with dark gray combat boots and a sleek mechanical belt. He wore a silver cross necklace around his neck that brought out the brighter flecks in his slanted charcoal eyes. The sinewy arms that had so rudely grabbed her were shackled in front of him, and messy black hair fell across a chiseled face that was scowling up a storm directly at her. His expression did not help her current mood.
"Helpful tip," she rasped irately. "If you want someone to tell you something, it helps to ask nicely instead of putting them in a headlock!"
He sneered at her. "I don't care about being nice. I want to know where you got that jacket from!"
"And I don't think I'll be telling you," she retorted. "Not with that attitude, anyway!"
His already slanted eyes narrowed even further. Before she could react he flew at her and pinned her to the wall with his arm, but this time he avoided cutting off her oxygen flow.
"I know the man who owns that jacket," he hissed in a low voice. "I've seen him wear it countless times so I know it well. I also know that he would never let just anyone wear it, and I've never seen you before in all the years I've known him. So where. Did. You. Get it?"
She gave him the filthiest look she could muster. "Bite me."
"You're really pushing my buttons here, lady," he warned. His eyes darted back down to the jacket, and then to her clothes underneath. He stiffened and flicked gaze back to her face to stare at her with eyes smoldering with intense hate.
"Federation." He spit it out like a curse.
Oh no. She did NOT have time to deal with a violent psychopath nursing grudges against the Federation. Working her mouth, she gathered up all the saliva in it and spat the glob directly into the man's eyes. He withdrew with a sharp cry of revulsion, trying to wipe his eyes with his bound hands. Lucy took advantage of his situation to send her boot flying directly into his ribs, just as she would to Natsu. The man doubled over in shock, and she jumped, swinging her leg up into the air in an arc and bringing it down onto his shoulder in one of the neatest wheel kicks she'd ever pulled off. He slammed into the ground with an agonized gasp and tried to climb back to his feet, but Lucy wasted no time in leaping behind him, ramming her knee into his back, and stepping on his arm with her other foot to stop him from moving.
She cleared her throat and leaned towards his left ear, her hair falling down over her shoulder. "Now will you listen to me?"
The man laughed. "Holy shit, you can fight!" he panted. "I don't remember the last time I came across a chick that put me down that fast aside from my family and Mira. I must be getting rusty."
"Or maybe I'm just that good," she remarked dryly, trying not to dwell on the fact that she hadn't taken self-defense in years. "But it's nice to know you have a healthy ego, anyway. Now," she said, pressing her knee into his back more sharply, causing him to hiss in pain. "Let's start from the beginning, shall we? I'm Lucy Heartfillia, and I did not steal this jacket. Who are you, and how do you know Natsu?"
"I'm Gray Fullbuster," he grunted. "I've known Natsu since we were kids."
"Wait, Gray?" she cried, lifting her legs slightly in shock. "The Gray? The ice princess?"
"Oh no," Gray moaned. "What has that flame brain been telling you about me?"
"Oh my God, you're Gray Fullbuster!" Lucy leapt off the prostrate man in horror. "I just wheel kicked one of Natsu's best friends! Aah, I am so sorry!" She tried to help him up off the floor, but she was finding it difficult to do much more than kick him with her hands tied behind her back. Gray waved her off with an arm and climbed stiffly to his feet, wincing as he felt his side and shoulder.
"Aw shit this hurts," he groaned. "And your spit's all gunky in my eyes." He awkwardly tried to wipe his eyes again.
"I am so, so sorry," she said frantically. "If I'd known who you were I never would have—"
"It's nice that you seem to know who I am, but I've got no idea who you are," he interjected harshly. "Last I'd heard Natsu had gotten himself caught by the Federation and next thing I know you're showing up in a Federation uniform wearing the jacket that he never lets go of. Sorry if I'm a little suspicious." He didn't sound sorry at all.
"Wait wait, I can see how this must look," she pleaded, backing up several steps. "But just hear me out, will you? I didn't take this from his cold dead corpse; he gave it to me after he kidnapped me—"
"He what?"
"—and I didn't have anything to wear and couldn't get new clothes and this was the only thing lying around—"
"He kidnapped you NAKED?"
"What? No!"
"That's what it sounds like!"
"No no, it's nothing like—"
"How the hell did he get that pervy in the two months since I've seen him?"
"He's not a perv, he—"
"And why were you naked in the first place? Are you some kind of porn star or something?"
"I WASN'T NAKED!" she bellowed, effectively shocking him into silence. "God, is everyone connected to Natsu this thick-headed? He kidnapped me from my starship while trying to steal from it and I had no choice but to stick around with him. All I had was my Federation uniform which was something we agreed would get us in trouble if we ran into the wrong crowd so he lent me the only other article of clothing that he wasn't wearing, which was this jacket. Capisce?"
A pause. Then: "Yeah, but—"
"No buts. I will be more than happy to give over the full story in all its gory richness when we aren't shackled in the brig of a slaver ship."
He had the decency to look abashed. "Yeah, alright, I guess."
She took a deep, calming breath. "Okay," she said slowly. "Now, if you're really Gray Fullbuster, then this is a stroke of luck I really needed. The pigs that threw me in here didn't bother to search me, so I've got a sonic screwdriver in the pocket of my jacket. Problem is, I've never used it on something as large as these doors. Do you know how to work it?"
He frowned. "Lemme see it."
Lucy awkwardly twisted her bound hands up the inside of the back of her jacked and managed to extract the screwdriver. Turning around, she gingerly tossed it to Gray. In an impressive move for someone with shackled hands he managed to catch it and held it up to the light, examining it.
Lucy sulked. "How come they cuffed you in the front?" she grumbled. "It figures that I get all the horrible luck."
"I backed myself up to the wall so they couldn't," he replied absently. "Escaping is so much easier when your hands are in front of you." He twisted a couple knobs on the screwdriver, adjusting the settings, then deftly flipped it in his hands and disabled his own shackles. They snapped open with a sharp click and fell to the floor.
"That's much better," Gray sighed, rubbing his wrists gratefully. "I was getting real tired of those stupid things."
The blond held out her own hands. "Well?" she asked, twisting her head around to look at him expectantly.
He didn't move. "First tell me where Natsu is."
She felt her eye begin to twitch. "Are you kidding me? Can't this wait until after I'm freed?"
"No." He folded his arms. "Where is Natsu?"
Lucy let out a sigh of frustration. "He's on our ship that's directly in front of this one with Happy. I'd like to add that said ship is about to be targeted by a bunch of slaver scum who don't keep their word and I'd also like to prevent the destruction of again said ship and friends aboard it, so can you PLEASE UNCUFF ME ALREADY?"Her voice rose to an enraged scream at the last part.
His eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "Woah, alright. Geez." He pointed the screwdriver at her shackles, causing them to fall off in the same way his had. Lucy mimicked Gray's actions and rubbed her chaffed wrists.
"Now that we've done that, what next?" Gray asked. "It's not like we've got anywhere to go."
"Actually, we do," Lucy said, and pulled out the container that Natsu had given her for him to see. "We need to get to their engineering section so we can toss this little baby into their dilithium crystal chamber."
He eyed the container in askance. "Why? What's in that?"
"Chronometric particles."
The way his slanted eyes seemed to pop out was comical in a slightly creepy way. "Where the fuck did you get those?"
"Natsu. He stole them."
Gray rubbed his forehead. "Of course he did," he muttered to himself. "And of course he'd come up with something as crazy as this. Chronometric particles, particles of time that run faster than normal time. Toss them into the dilithium chamber and they'll drain the crystals in minutes. No engines, no shields, and we're free to go." He looked up at her. "That's brilliant. I really hate to say it, but it is. Just don't tell him I said that, okay?"
"I'd like to have the opportunity not to," she said wryly. "And first step to doing that is getting out of this brig. I think I know where the engineering section is from here."
"On it." Gray strode forward and gazed at the door appraisingly. He raised the screwdriver, adjusted the settings once more, then pointed at the top of the door. The screwdriver emitted a high-pitched whining noise and the doors rumbled for a moment, then opened smoothly. He held his hand out.
"Ladies first."
"Don't mind if I do," Lucy said, surprised. She cautiously stuck her head around the corner, looking to see if anyone was walking around. Seeing that the coast was clear, she beckoned to Gray with a quick flip of her hand. He followed after her, and after handing her back the screwdriver, they set off together down the hallway.
"Are there any other slaves on board?" she asked as they swiftly made their way towards the sign that Lucy had seen earlier.
"Yeah, they're on a lower deck," he said.
She poked her head around another corner to see that the next hallway was also empty. "How come you were on your own in there then? Did they run out of room or something?"
He snorted. "They wish they were that good at their trade. Nah, I was just stirring up too much trouble so they dumped me in solitary confinement. I guess they were too impatient to get out of here to bring you all the way down to the rest of the cells."
"Lucky for me, then. Oh!" Lucy flung out her arm, stopping Gray from proceeding. "It's down here," she said, referring to the sign that she had seen earlier by a turbolift. Having no opposition, the two escapees slid into the trubolift with relative ease and hit the button for engineering.
"This place has really lousy security," Lucy noted as they descended. "What are we going to do if we run into some of the slavers?"
"Now that I'm unshackled, we should be fine," Gray said, cracking his knuckles.
"He says to the girl who just floored him with two kicks," she commented under her breath.
"Heyyy, that was an exception," he protested. "I mostly fight with my hands to begin with, and I dropped my guard 'cause you're pretty girl."
"Should I be flattered or insulted?"
"Um…"
"Bear in mind that I tend to kick people who insult me."
"Definitely flattered."
She nodded. "I thought so."
The turbolift started to slow down when suddenly the entire ship seemed to jerk to the side, shaking vigorously. Lucy and Gray flew across the lift and slammed into the wall with yelps of pain.
"What the hell?" Gray cried.
The ship heaved again, this time in the opposite direction. "I'll bet it's Natsu," Lucy called over the shaking of the lift. "He said he would give me some kind of distraction; this is probably it."
"This is totally like him," grunted the dark haired man as he braced himself against the wall. "Make up a plan to save someone that involves recklessly endangering the person he's trying to save. Can't he have a normal plan for once?"
She laughed. "If he ever does, I'll eat his jacket."
"And I'll join you with a side dish of my boots."
The doors to the lift swished open and they both stumbled out, trying to regain their balance on the still quaking ship. They looked up to see a shocked Cardassian staring at them. It reached for the phaser strapped to its side but Gray darted forward faster than Lucy could keep track of and slammed the heel of his palm into its jaw. It staggered backwards, stunned, and Gray cracked his elbow into its chest. The Cardassian hunched over and Gray grabbed its head and smashed it straight into his knee with a sickening crack. The Cardassian slumped over onto the floor, out cold, and Gray turned to look at Lucy with a raised eyebrow.
"Good enough for you?"
She blinked rapidly. "Uh. Yeah, yeah, I think so."
They took in the engineering room. It was a large, circular room painted the same horrid shade of orange the transporter room had been with the glowing warp core located directly in the center, extending from the floor to the ceiling with control stations situated all around it. Lucy tentatively went further in, looking for more crewmembers that would raise the alarm. To her unease, she found none.
"Where is everyone?" she wondered aloud. "Shouldn't there be a whole bunch of people in their main engineering room? At least more than one guy, anyway."
Gray went over to look at a console with the ship's layout on it. "It looks like they've got a huge hull breach in their weapons hangar," he reported. "This ship probably didn't have many people on board to begin with, and I'd say that the rest of 'em went to go help with the breach. Whatever the hell Natsu did, it was definitely effective."
Alarmed, Lucy turned to look at him. "A hull breach?" she said. "How bad is—where did your shirt go?"
He glanced down at his bare chest. "Huh? When did that happen?"
Her eyebrows shot up. "Are you telling me you don't know when you took your own shirt off?"
If his nonplussed look was anything to go by, he didn't.
"I dunno, it kinda just happens," he said with a shrug. "Anyway, the ship's containment field in that section is going to fail in around six minutes."
"That doesn't give us a lot of time. We need to fine the dilithium chamber now."
He looked up from the console. "I can probably find it faster than you."
She tilted her head. "Why's that?"
"'Cause I'm an engineer, that's why. Probably the best one you'll find around these parts." Noticing her surprised expression, he frowned. "Why's that so weird?"
"I always imagined you to be a pilot like Natsu," she said with a light chuckle. "Guess that was kind of silly of me."
Gray strode about the room, examining each aspect of its design thoroughly. "Hell no, not me," he said with a light shudder. "I hate piloting. It makes me so freaking nervous. Like, what if I don't notice something in front of me and ram into an asteroid or something? Or another ship? Nah, I leave that kind of stuff to the pyro. I'm much more at home in a warp core field or fixing a circuit board. And speaking of me being a damn good engineer, I found our chamber." He began to pry loose a slightly discolored panel in the wall with a completely undecipherable sign in an unknown language over it. Lucy hurried over to him and pulled out the container of particles.
"We just toss it in, right?"
"Well yeah, once you tell me how to open it."
"Open it?"
"It's got a hermetic seal on it so the particles don't escape; I've gotta undo it before I chuck 'em in."
Lucy bit her upper lip. "Um…"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Natsu did tell you how to open it, right?"
Mutely, she shook her head. Gray facepalmed and hissed to himself, "Flame-brained moron, how do you forget something like that?"
"What do we do?" she asked anxiously.
He closed his eyes, thinking, then held out his hand. "Gimme the sonic screwdriver," he ordered. "I'm gonna work on this seal for now. The rest of the crew's gonna be back here any minute so while I'm trying to figure this out you need to go down to the third deck and free the rest of the slaves."
Her brow furrowed. "How am I going to do that if you've got the screwdriver?"
He pointed to a small dark square device lying on a nearby console. "See that? That's an electroflux modulator. It's meant for helping to repair burnt out conduits, but if you stick that on one of the panels that opens their doors it'll fry the whole system and you should be able to pry the door open without much of a problem. They're not hard to work; just point and press. Better hurry though—we don't have much time left."
Lucy nodded, snatched the modulator, and ran out of the room. Back into the turbolift she ran, slamming the down button with unnecessary force. When she finally got down, she started to proceed further down the hall only to freeze upon hearing multiple voices shouting harshly about plugging a breach.
Natsu may not be the best when it comes to sharing information, she screamed internally, but you, Sir Gray Fullbuster, are no better! For the self-proclaimed "damn good engineer" had neglected to mention that the hull breach that the slaver crew had gone to repair was on the same deck as the slaves she was trying to free.
From the sounds of the shouting, it seemed that the breach was almost contained. Which meant…Lucy glanced back at the turbolift she'd just come down from. That was how they'd be getting back up to engineering. If she wanted to give Gray more time, she'd have to make some sacrifices.
Heart in throat, the blond made her way back to the turbolift and looked around. Locating the control panel inside it, she aimed the electric-whatever-Gray-had-called-it at it and pressed the main button. With a satisfying zapping noise a crackle of blue light jumped from the device to the panel, lighting it up. The whole panel flared for a moment, then with several panicked beeps went dark. There. Now even if there were other ways to access the other decks, at least this would buy Gray some more time. Pleased with her work, Lucy ran out of the now useless turbolift and down the hall.
Several feet down it branched into two paths; Lucy took the one where she didn't hear the voices coming from. Unfortunately for her, she had no idea if this was the right one. What if the weapons hangar was right next to the brig where the prisoners were and they'd all died from oxygen deprivation? Was she even going anywhere productive?
A large, hideous orange door rushed by her head as she ran, and she skidded to halt, backtracking slightly. The door looked an awful lot like the one she'd been thrown through, even if the color was different. Curiously she tried to open the door, but the keypad responded with an angry beep and demanded a password.
"Bingo," she whispered. "Just please let it be prisoners and not their alcohol." She aimed the device in her hand at the keypad and zapped it just like she had the turbolift. The doors opened with a faint hiss to reveal about a dozen figures of various forms shackled to separate stations within a very large room. They all looked up upon hearing the door open.
Lucy opened her mouth to greet them but gagged on her words. An utterly foul stench was wafting towards her, making her eyes water and throat burn. Whatever those slavers did to their slaves, she had a feeling it was not hygienic. Coughing slightly, she tried again.
"Is this all the slaves?" she wheezed.
One filthy human-looking male in a corner glared at her. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Another bastard to try and buy us off?"
"What? No, no," she said, shaking her head. "My name's Lucy. I was taken prisoner a few minutes ago but I escaped. I'm here to free you all."
"Are you kidding me?" another prisoner scoffed. This one had far too many limbs to be from this side of the galaxy—it must have been far away from home. "You think we're just gonna pick up and waltz outta here with some random human female?"
"You will after I unshackle you all," Lucy declared. She stepped into the room and examined the shackles on the nearest prisoner, praying that they were computerized like the ones she and Gray had worn. To her immense relief, they were. Flipping the electro-device in her hands, she began to free the prisoners one by one.
"What should we do?" asked the first prisoner she released. "So what if you've freed us—we have nowhere to go."
Lucy kept unshackling the slaves. "Yes you do. My ship is currently engaged in battle with this one and I know for a fact that some of this crew is already down. If you work together you can easily take over the rest of this ship." She reached the final prisoner just as the ship gave another tremendous lurch to the side, knocking everyone over. "And that's my cue to leave," she said as the final shackles fell to the floor. "Good luck everyone!" she called, and rushed out the door."
"Wait lady, you can't just leave us—" the liberated slave's voice faded out of earshot as she ran back down the corridor to the disabled turbolift. Luckily for her, she saw that the slavers had already attempted to use the lift but had been met with little success, so they'd run around to find some other way. Lucy smirked to herself and aimed the electro-device at the control panel again, expecting it to simply zap back into operation.
It didn't.
The smile slid from her face like water over glass. Why wasn't it working? She pressed the button again. Still nothing? Why? Wasn't this stuff supposed to work like integers? Two negatives made a positive? One zap disabled the lift, another restarted it?
Apparently not.
She really needed to retake basic engineering.
Chewing her lip, she reconsidered her plan. She had to get back to the deck above somehow, but how? Her gaze flicked upwards to the ventilation shaft at the top of the turbolift. The large and awkward Cardassians may not have been able to fit into it, but she might.
Jamming the device into a pocket of her jacket, she stood atop the railing of the lift, pressed the button to open the hatch for the shaft, and heaved herself into it. It was dark, narrow, and cramped inside, but she was able to locate the ladder and start climbing. The ascent seemed to take forever, but she finally reached the door that opened into the next deck.
Breathing heavily from her exertions, Lucy stumbled into the engineering room. A brief glance about the room told her that no crewmembers had come back. With a sigh of relief she made her way over to where Gray was working on the seal for the container.
"Gray, I'm back," she said wearily. "I freed the slaves, they should—WHERE ARE YOUR CLOTHES, GRAY FULLBUSTER?!"
Lucy clapped her hands over eyes as quickly as she could and turned away, for sitting cross-legged on the floor, fiddling with the seal with a look of intense concentration on his face, was Gray Fullbuster sans a single stitch of clothing on him.
The dark haired engineer looked up innocently. "What?"
"Pants," she moaned weakly. "Underwear. Something? Anything? Why on earth are you naked?"
"Huh?" He looked around distractedly. "I guess I took 'em off at some point. Sorry, I tend to take my clothes off when I'm concentrating. They're so stuffy."
"My God," she said faintly. "Natsu was right. You really do strip, and it's just as bad as he said it was. I thought he was joking!"
"Nope," Gray said. "Done this since I was a kid. Something I grew up with. It was how I was taught to work."
"I'm…I'm going to go look for your clothes while you finish with that," she mumbled. "Just keep working."
He made a face. "Sure thing."
Desperately trying to banish the image of a naked Gray from her mind, she walked around the engineering room in a light daze, trying to locate his clothing. She might have to pour some bleach over her eyes later.
There was a slight click and Gray made a pleased sound. "Got it!" he crowed triumphantly. "That was one hell of a weird seal, but I got it in the end. Told you I would!"
"That's nice," Lucy said as she approached him with several pieces of his clothes draped in her arms. She determinedly kept her gaze fixed on the floor and shoved his underpants, pants, and belt into his arms. "I don't want to know how your pants got on the other side of the room when you haven't budged an inch since I left."
"Thanks," he said. "Can you dump the particles in the chamber while I put these back on?"
"Gladly," she muttered. Lightly flipping open the panel, she nestled the container in between several crystals and unscrewed the cap. The instant she did so a hot pain lanced through her fingers and she withdrew her hand sharply, slamming the panel closed.
Wincing, she examined her fingers. The nails on the hand she'd had in the chamber where much longer than those on her other hand and her skin felt dryer as well. She suspected that her brief exposure to the particles had aged her right hand by several weeks. Lucy giggled slightly. It felt odd to think that one part of her body was older than the rest of her. She flexed her hand to make sure that everything was still in working order and, finding that it was, lowered her hand and turned back to Gray.
"How's this?" he asked. The serial stripper had fortunately put his underwear and pants back on, but he was still missing his shoes and shirt.
"Better, but you're not going to be admitted to any restaurants any time soon," she deadpanned.
"Restaurants are overrated," he said. The ship shook violently again, and voices suddenly began echoing down the hall, causing him to brow furrowed. "We need to find somewhere to hide until the particles drain the crystals. Do you have some way to contact Natsu?"
"Um…"
A sigh. "Of course you don't."
"Hey, we were pressed for time," she said defensively. "It's not like we had an hour to run it through a tactical simulation."
He raked a hand through his hair. "Yeah, whatever. We need to get outta here!" He grabbed her hand and the two of them raced out of the room back to the turbolift. Lucy explained to Gray what she'd done to the lift to try and deter their pursuers and after enduring Gray's mini-rant on her idiocy ("That's like throwing a cooked French Fry back into the frying pan and expecting it to magically turn back into a potato!") they both climbed through the ventilation shaft to the deck above them. Unfortunately, all that was on the deck was the room they were held prisoner in and a section filled with slavers, so they headed back to the shaft. By a stroke of luck they stumbled upon Gray's discarded shirt (literally—Lucy nearly careened headfirst into the wall) and after he hastily stuffed in on, they climbed to the next deck.
They emerged into a hallway that only led in one direction. With no choice but to follow it, they cautiously headed down the passage, pausing every few steps as the ship shook. As they proceeded further down, they began to hear the sounds of raised voices, weapons, and fighting. Gray exchanged looks with Lucy.
"Sounds like those slaved you freed are doing their job," he remarked casually.
"It's about time something went right today!" she replied emphatically.
A curve in the hallway came up before them. They slowly stuck their heads around the corner to see a massive brawls going down before them. Indeed, all of the prisoners Lucy had released had converged on what appeared to be the bridge of the ship and were currently engaged in battle with the slavers. Amidst the chaos of flying limbs, phaster blasts, and hurtling sharp objects, Lucy and Gray could make out on the main viewer screen the image of several small objects darting quickly about the ship, firing small bursts at the ship every few seconds. The slaver ship was trying to fire back at the small image of the Torus in the background, but the smaller ship moved far too agilely to actually get hit. Every now and then a large blast of crackling blue light would be shot from the Torus and hit the slaver ship with a massive slam and the ship would shake aggressively.
"So that's what he's been doing," Lucy called to Gray over the noise. "Natsu's been firing bursts of ion blasts at the ship to short out their shields, then sending over drones to do damage while the shields were out!"
"And at the same time, he's dodging all of their counterattacks flawlessly." Gray shook his head. "And that is why he's the pilot, and no one else."
"Tell me about it." Something large and white flew over their heads, causing them to duck reflexively. She glanced at Gray and did a double-take. "Gray, why are you taking off your pants again?!"
He glanced down. Sure enough, he had unbuttoned his pants and was slowly sliding them off. His eyes widened and he yanked them back up. "Crap! Sorry, I didn't mean—"
"We need to get over to the communications to contact Natsu," she yelled, cutting him off.
"I'll make a path," Gray said. "You get over there!"
Together the two of them began to hack their way through the melee of frantic slavers and murderous slaves. Gray went in front of Lucy, knocking people out of their way left and right with his bare fists and feet. He did a remarkable job of clearing the way; Lucy barely had to kick anyone. Finally, they made it to the communications console. Lucy opened the hailing frequencies to the Torus while Gray fended various attackers off.
"About time!" Natsu's voice roared. "Have you recognized the superiority of my absolutely awesome drones and piloting skills?"
"Yeah, I think we got the point, Natsu!" she shouted, trying to be heard over the din.
"Lucy?"
"In the flesh." An arm flew by her head so closely that the breeze from the swing ruffled her hair. "Look, things are really crazy over here, but I got the particles in the dilithuim chamber. The engines and shields should go out any minute now."
"I can't really hear you that well, but that sounds great," Natsu said. "Where are you right now?"
"I'm on the main bridge." Gray tackled a huge Cardassian and threw it into another three attackers' paths.
"There are too many lifesigns there—I can't tell which one is yours!"
"I'll tell you what: I'm going to go out into the immediate hallway from here. There'll be me and one other person standing right next to each other. When the shields drop for good, beam us out."
"Another person? Who—"
"Trust me, Natsu!" Her voice was beginning to grow hoarse from all the yelling. "Just get us out of here. And don't fire on the ship anymore! I don't want to get blown to smithereens."
"Gotcha," he said.
"Thanks. I'm out." She cut off the channel and motioned to Gray. He caught her eye and nodded, and the two of them began to fight their way out once more.
Once they made it out of the bridge, they collapsed against the wall near the turbolift, convinced it was far enough from the chaos to relax a little. Lucy looked Gray over to make sure that he was alright. Aside from a few nasty bruises on his face and arms, he seemed to be alright. There was, however, a rather nasty cut across his chest that she wanted to take a look at later to make sure that there wasn't anything malicious in it. Some creatures came naturally equipped with poison, after all. And if it came from one of the slaves, she knew that judging from the cleanliness of the main holding cell she didn't want anything they'd touched to be in her bloodstream.
"So you talked to him, right?" Gray asked, chest heaving.
She nodded. "Yeah. We should be out of here any minute now." Sure enough, even as she spoke the ship went dark as the main engines died. Seconds later, the world shimmered before them and they materialized in the transporter room of the Torus.
"Oh thank God." Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. "I was beginning to think we'd never get out of there." She ran over to the panel by the door and contacted the bridge. "Natsu, we're here, you've got us."
"About time!" the thief cheered. "Annnnnd we are OUTTA here!" The ship vibrated beneath them as they shot into a warp jump.
Gray let out a nervous laugh. "Holy shit, we're really out," he said, raking his fingers through his hair again. Lucy noticed that both he and Natsu seemed to share that particular habit.
"Welcome to the Torus," she said to him. "Now come with me to the medbay, I want to make sure that you're okay."
"Isn't this an Engi ship?" he asked as he followed her down the halls, gazing at the green paneling lining the walls.
"Yeah, we had to steal this one," she said. "It's a long story."
He chuckled. "I'll bet."
Upon reaching the medbay she sat him down on the examining table and began to prepare some disinfectants and bandages while he took his shirt off. She was about to start cleaning it when the door swished open and Natsu charged in with Happy right behind him.
"Luce, are you okay? I'm so sorry about all of this, and who's the—" He skidded to a halt and stared at the man on the table in open disbelief.
"Gray?"
He raised a hand in greeting. "Yo."
Happy squealed happily. "Gray!"
"Wha—what the—how—what are you doing here?" Natsu spluttered.
"Nice to see you too, flame brain," grumbled Gray.
"Don't get smart with me, droopy eyes! How the hell did you get here?"
"The magical fairies sparkled me here," he said sarcastically.
Natsu blinked. "Wait, you were the second person on the slave ship?"
Gray looked up at the heavens. "It finally clicks!"
"Gray!" Natsu's eyes were wide and horrified. "How could you take up slaving?"
"I wasn't the slaver you idiot, I was the slave! The SLAVE, dammit!"
The rosy-haired thief laughed. "How the hell did you end up as a slave? That is so lame, man."
"No better than you, lava spit! You went and got your ass caught by the Federation!"
"I," stated Natsu matter-of-factly, "was almost captured by a full fleet regiment at an admirals' convention but escaped in the end. You, on the other hand, were bagged by a bunch of third-rate slaver scum that couldn't even control their own prisoners. How exactly am I not better than you?"
"I wasn't caught by them at first! I was trying to take a Federation ship, just like we bet!"
"That didn't look too much like a Federation ship."
"That wasn't the ship I was trying to steal; the first ship was a full-blown A-class Federation cruiser that was docked for repairs. It's just, well…" he let out a harsh sigh of frustration. "How was I supposed to know that the ship was in the middle of being stolen by someone else?"
Natsu doubled over with laughter. "Are you kidding me?" he said in between chortles. "You tried to steal a ship that was already being stolen?"
"There was literally no freaking way for me to know that the Raven Tail pirates were going to be taking that ship at the same time I was."
"So what, you got caught by them and then sold?"
"…yeah."
More laughter. "That is so freaking lame!"
"Oh yeah? If I'm so lame, then how did you end up in some Engi scrap heap?"
"In a much cooler way than you, I'll say that much."
"Shut up, you flaming bucket of lighter fluid!"
"You wanna go, popsicle pants?" The two of them glared daggers at each other and seemed fully prepared to start swinging punches.
Lucy, who had been following this exchange with a feeling of increasing confusion and concern, decided that she'd had enough, and slammed the medical bag in her hands down onto the table with as much force as she could muster. Both men jumped in surprise, seemingly having forgotten she was there.
"That is enough, both of you," she said sternly. "I don't care how weird your bromance is, it's going to have to wait to blossom until after I've patched Gray up so that he doesn't die of an infection."
"I can take care of him way before that if you want," Natsu said with a menacing glare in his rival's direction.
"Like you ever could," Gray sneered back.
"I'll show you!" Natsu started to wind up his arm but froze as Lucy calmly walked up to him, grabbed him by the scarf, and promptly flung him outside the medbay, locking the door behind him.
"You can come back in when you can behave like an adult," she told him through the door, and turned back to her patient who was staring at her with a slightly awed expression.
"Now," she said crisply. "Hold still while I clean this cut of yours."
"Yes ma'am."
He was quiet for a few moments while she cleaned the wound, but then asked, "So, uh, how did you guys end up on this ship? And meet, for that matter?"
And so Lucy started to tell Gray the story of how she and Natsu had met, Happy taking over for the second half of the story when Lucy's voice began to give out. When they finished, Gray looked mildly impressed.
"Y'know, don't tell him this, but I think he's right," he said. "His story is better than mine. Although," he added," I'm still trying to figure out how you can accidentally kidnap someone."
"Aren't we all," muttered Lucy. She seemed to be doing a lot of muttering of late.
"Can I come back in now?" Natsu yelled from outside the room.
"Only if you promise to behave," she called back warningly. There was a grudging reply in the positive, so she nodded to Happy to let him back in as she began to bandage the cut.
The door swished open and Natsu walked back in, eyeing Lucy warily. Then he looked at Gray. "Your paper cut all taken care of, ice princess?"
"This?" the dark haired man gestured at his chest dismissively. "This isn't even gonna be here tomorrow."
"The testosterone levels in this room are revolting," Lucy said disgustedly. She looked at Happy. "Are they always like this?"
"Always," the little cat replied gravely.
"Lovely."
Natsu raised an eyebrow at Gary suspiciously. "So what are you gonna do now, stripper? You want us to dump you at the nearest station or something?"
"Anything would be better than staying on the same ship as you," Gray scoffed, but there was something off about it, as if he were only saying those words out of some twisted macho-fueled obligation. Lucy was no mind-reader, but she had a feeling she knew what he really wanted. Of course, he would never actually admit to it, so she decided to help him out.
"He's not going anywhere," she declared, tying the bandage with a flourish. "He's useful and cute, and we're going to keep him."
Natsu gaped. "Useful?"
"Cute?" Happy echoed.
"Keep him?" Gray repeated, frowning.
"Well of course," Lucy said with a this-should-be-obvious air. "We need a proper engineer in case things go wrong, as none of us have the proper qualifications. He's nice and I like him, and I doubt we'll find anyone better anytime soon. Also, he has nowhere else to go, so he's going to pay us back for saving his butt by traveling with us and ensuring that we don't die. Sound good?"
Both Gray and Natsu spoke at the same time. "No."
She nodded with satisfaction. "Excellent. Glad we could work this out so seamlessly." She put the medical bag away and headed out of the medbay. "Oh and Gray, the main engineering section is this way." She jerked her thumb to the left. "Be sure to check it out. You can take one of the empty rooms to sleep in once you're done." The sound of their indignant splutters followed her down the corridor.
She stopped by their maintenance room to put back the sonic screwdriver. Down the hall, she could hear Gray yell, "Dude, your engine SUCKS! How the hell are you moving at all?" and Natsu boast back, "Think that's bad? Ya should've seen the last one!" Smiling to herself, she went to go freshen up in her quarters. Things were going to be very interesting from here on out.
She couldn't wait.
Annoying author here to pester you lovely readers for reviews. Please, I really wanna know what you all think! I love hearing from you guys almost as much as I love chocolate.
And hey, even if you don't normally review, wanna do it just this once? As a birthday present? It's tomorrow. Or, well, today, depending on when y'all see this. I dunno-it's the 16th. Anyway, that'd be just about the best b-day present I'm gonna get this year :)
As usual, thanks so much for reading!