A/N: *laughs insanely* I did it. I DID IT. I wrote this whole freaking chapter in two days. With school. I haven't slept and am on the brink of insanity, but I did it. And now, you'd better go READ MY DAMN CHAPTER. And ENJOY IT. Or not. That's up to you. I certainly hope you do though, especially after the work I put into it.

Lucy stared at the man's lifeless form in numb disbelief. One second he was alive and talking and the next…nothing. On an intellectual level she had known that there was no way the man would have survived such a grievous wound, but it was another thing entirely to watch the life drain out of a person right before her eyes. She had never seen someone die in front of her before, not even when her mother died.

Natsu maneuvered around the beams and, reaching out towards the dead man, gently closed his wide, staring eyes. Then he firmly took Lucy by the arm and brought her to her feet, leading her away from the body. She stumbled over the fallen debris as she followed him, still in shock.

"He…he just died," she mumbled. "He was there and talking and then he just wasn't and I couldn't do a thing about it. I—"

"Lucy." Natsu halted abruptly and turned around to face her. "Look at me." She blinked a couple times, but didn't meet his gaze. "Look at me, Lucy." At the hardness of his command, she finally managed to focus on him.

"Listen to me," he said slowly, gripping both her arms tightly and looking her squarely in the eye. "People are born, they live, and they die. That's just the way things work. It's not pretty, it's not nice, and it's almost never fair, but that's just the way things are. There's no point in dwelling on it."

Eyes widening, she ripped her arms free of his grasp. "How can you say that?" she demanded hotly. "You just want me to forget about the man who just died in front of me?"

He shrugged. "Basically. There's nothing we can do about it. What would be the point?"

"The point," she snapped furiously, "is that he was a person. A person with a life, with a family and friends and people he loved and people who loved him. And he just died, and we're the only people around to mourn him! So excuse me for wanting to feel something at the death of another person!"

He stared at her. "Why do you even care? You didn't even know him. Yeah, it's sad, but it's not like we're the only ones who'll ever know he's dead. His family or whatever will find out, they'll be upset for a while, and then they'll get over it."

She gaped at him in speechless rage. "You—you—'get over it?!' Did you 'get over it' when your father died? Would you 'get over it' if your best friend were to die suddenly?" Her face had taken on a crimson hue, and she was breathing heavily. "When people die Natsu, they don't go away. You don't just 'get over it.' They stay with you forever, and that's where they're supposed to be! They live on in our hearts; if we don't remember them, then they're really dead, and it's as if we've killed them ourselves."

Natsu glared at her angrily, his brow furrowed. "That's a really nice sentiment to have when you're sitting safe in your pretty little house on your perfect, peaceful planet, but out here you can't afford to be that—"

"Don't you dare," she cut him off, livid. "Don't you dare say that it's because we're on our own in the galaxy, and that it's 'kill or be killed' out here. Don't. You. Dare. I meant what I said on our first day together when I destroyed that ship: I will not throw away my basic morality. I will not harden my heart and become an unfeeling monster, even if you don't seem to give a damn!"

"Is that what you think?" Natsu said through gritted teeth. "You think that because I'm not gonna sit and cry for an hour over a dead guy I never knew, I'm an 'unfeeling monster?'"

"Well, what else am I supposed to think?" she exclaimed. "You don't seem to have any regard for life aside for your own! Yeah, sure, you care to extent about Happy and Gray, but don't you realize—"

"Shut up!" he yelled, and she was so taken aback that had raised his voice at her the she did so. "Just shut up, okay?! What do you even know?" His onyx eyes were narrowed and his fists were clenched. Lucy had never seen him this upset before. "You're just a snobby rich girl who got lucky and got to fly around in a big fancy spaceship—"

"What does my upbringing have to do with this?" she cried, finding her voice.

"It means you're soft!" he bellowed. "It means that you think you can afford to open yourself up and give out little pieces of your heart to every single sorry soul out here that gets bitten in the ass by reality! Well I've got news for you Lucy—you can't. If you try and do that, if you try to care about anyone who isn't yourself or the people closest to you, then you'll have your heart broken so many times there won't even be any pieces to pick up."

She stared at him, aghast. "What made you so hardened against the universe?"

"Reality did," he answered, breathing harshly. "Reality did as I watched my older brother give out more and more of his heart to other people and how much he hurt and how much it killed him inside as every single one of them dropped like mayflies. So for over fifteen years I didn't make any friends, I didn't talk to anyone aside from my brother and my attendants, I didn't give my heart away—and I didn't hurt.

"Well, eventually I realized how stupid that was; I mean, everyone has to love someone in their life—it's part of being alive. But I only started caring about a few people here and there, mostly at the guild. I didn't go around crying over every sap that lost his job or was in the wrong place at the wrong time or did something stupid and got themselves blown up. I didn't and don't because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it and that's just the way things are. It's called life, and if you're can't deal with it then you're not ready for life in space."

Lucy could only shake her head with incredulity. "I don't understand how you can live with that mentality. Our ability to empathize with others is what makes us who we are."

"Yeah and that's all well and good for what, fifteen minutes? An hour? A few days or weeks if you were really close to the person." He raked his fingers through his hair in agitation. "But then that's it, they're gone. You're sad for a while and move on. What's the point in putting yourself through that?"

She ogled him in disbelief. "Natsu, how old were you when your father died?" she finally asked softly.

"Four or five." He frowned at her. "Why?"

"And has no one close to you died since then?"

"My mother died pretty soon after that. Since then, not really, no."

To Lucy's surprise, she felt the slight prick of tears behind her eyes. She understood why Natsu was so unconcerned with the plight of others—he'd never had a reason to feel pain. His parents had died when he was at a young enough age that he wouldn't really feel grief the way an older person would, and had learned only from his older brother who had been able to grieve. Natsu had seen what that had done to his brother, and had shied away from it. By distancing himself from others for so long (over fifteen years—how had he done it?) he had created a wall around his emotions that prevented him from being empathetic towards others. Obviously he had begun to open up in the past few years; Happy and Gray were proof of that, but…

"I pity you," she whispered. "If you're this afraid to feel now, then what'll you do when real tragedy strikes you? What'll you do when one of the closest people in your life is gone?" The image of her mother's pale, still face flashed through her head, and she shook her head again. "I can't imagine… I'm sorry for bringing this up. We should go check the databanks for those coordinates the man talked about."

His lips parted in surprise as she brushed her way by him through the wrecked ship. She didn't wait to see if he followed though—she simply swiped at her eyes angrily and headed for the main computer for the station.

It was much easier said than done; there was so much damage to the station that she had trouble telling apart a food replicator from a toy tricorder, let alone a main computer. Then she noticed a section of the station that was still lit up, and she made her way over to it. The computer was mostly intact, but it may have been superficial. She'd have no way of knowing the extent of the damage until she tried to access the databanks.

Lucy heard Natsu moving around behind her and decided to ignore their argument for now. They had more important things to be doing. She sat herself by the smoking console and delicately pressed several buttons, trying to get a response from the computer. The lights on the console weakly flickered to life and Lucy began attempting to access the computer's databanks. It was incredibly difficult; for all its outward appearances, the computer had sustained severe internal damage during the attacks, and much of the information was inaccessible. What little that was available had to be accessed through unconventional and roundabout means.

"Oh, this is a disaster," she moaned as she typed away furiously. "This thing's so busted I can't even tell where the coordinates would be stored, let alone find the right ones. Think you can help me out?"

He didn't reply. "Natsu?" Had she angered him so greatly that he was refusing to talk to her? She turned her head to look at him anxiously. The thief was standing near a particularly charred section of the station and appeared to be…smelling it?

"Uh…" she said. "Are you okay?"

He skimmed his fingers lightly over a burnt beam and leaned forwards, sniffing at hit. He looked like a pink-haired puppy with a scarf.

"Natsu, you're freaking me out here."

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply and then coughed, wrinkling his nose. He opened his eyes again and looked at her.

"There's something about the smell of this burnt stuff that's bugging me," he told her. "I can't really put my finger on it, but I could swear that I've smelled this before."

She lifted her nose and sniffed. "I only smell smoke," she said. "And that nasty acrid smell of melted plastic and alloys. Nothing really unusual."

"Etherious's noses are more sensitive than yours," he said, smelling the beams again. "There's definitely some other smell here, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is. It's really pissing me off."

She watched him sniff fruitlessly at the ruins of the station for a few moments before she cleared her throat loudly, catching his attention.

"I know this smell is driving you nuts," she said placatingly. "but I don't think you're going to suddenly get hit with a bolt of inspiration by acting like some kind of mutated bloodhound, especially if it hasn't come to you by now. I think we'll get more done if you help me out with this computer instead."

Natsu nodded and straightened, frowning at the charred walls one more time before making his way over to her. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe it'll come to me later." She got out of her seat and he took her place, beginning to work at the computer and narrowing his eyes as the screen began to glitch on him. "Man, you weren't kidding when you said this was a disaster." He hit a couple buttons and, frustrated, gave the console an angry kick. The computer screens flashed brightly once before going completely dark.

"Whoops," Natsu said. Lucy facepalmed.

"I'm going to call Gray," she muttered. "Get him down here, see if he can manage to salvage anything from this wreck."

"Yeah," Natsu agreed as he rapidly pressed buttons with no response. "Y'might wanna do that."

"No need," Gray said from behind them. "I'm already here."

They both jumped, Lucy letting out a shrill squeal and Natsu spinning around on his chair and throwing his arms into some kind of ninja pose.

"Holy shit ice princess, don't DO that!" yelped Natsu, breathing hard. "How long've you been there for?"

"Calm down flame brain, I just got here," Gray snickered. He was barefoot and shirtless, with his arms folded and was wearing a half-amused, half-exasperated expression on his face.

"Sure ya did," Natsu huffed. "You're such a creep, man."

"Agreed," Lucy said faintly, clutching at her heart. "A little warning next time?"

"And how do you suggest I do that?" asked Gray, raising and eyebrow.

"Just tell us on our communi—" She stopped. "Oh."

Gray clicked his tongue. "Yeah." He unfolded his arms and tossed them two little square flip-communicators. "I know saving lives is important and all, but next time at least make sure I have a way of figuring out when you wanna come back up to the ship when you're done."

Lucy blushed. "Sorry." Natsu frowned grumpily.

"So what happened?" Gray asked. "Did you find the guy?"

Lucy and Natsu didn't look at each other. "He was on his last legs," answered Natsu. "We couldn't save him."

"But he did have a dying request," Lucy added. She told him about the coordinates for the slaves within the wrecked computer and their problem. Gray listened patiently and nodded.

"Both of you should go back up," he told them. "I'll work better here if I can strip without you guys going postal on me."

Lucy narrowed her eyes and took a few hasty steps away from him. "Ten feet," she hissed malevolently, glaring at him.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, rolling his eyes and adding under his breath, "I said I was sorry."

"You don't look sorry," she muttered sourly.

The two of them beamed back up to the ship and told Happy about everything they had discovered down on the station. The Exceed was concerned upon hearing about the slaves and slightly apprehensive as well. His fears were only amplified when Gray came back to the ship with the information from the station.

The four of them gathered in the conference room, a small, bright green room with a translucent yellow circular table in the center. There was a large screen on the wall that could be accessed from panels on the table, and oddly enough it was the only room on the ship to be furnished with an eye-watering shade of neon-yellow fuzzy carpeting. They settled down around the table in large Zoltan seats that thrummed with little streams of energy, complimenting the buzz of their nerves.

"So their computers were pretty much trashed, but I did manage to get two things from 'em," Gray announced. "First is that they had no warning of the attack. From what I can tell, everything was fine and dandy one second and the next they'd had half their side blown into oblivion. They didn't even have time to raise their shields."

"Did they see who attacked them?" asked Happy.

Gray shook his head. "Nah. Their last reports indicated they had no idea where the attack was even coming from."

"So no leads," Natsu said, pouting. "That sucks. That smell's really bothering me."

"What's the second thing you found?" Lucy asked.

He leaned forward onto the table and laced his fingers together. "Apparently the station had been secretly supplying a rebellion on a slave colony in a nearby sector. They'd been sending 'em food and weapons and stuff. It looks like that had shipment planned for today, but, well…that's not gonna happen anymore."

"So where is this slaver colony—what'd they call it, the Tower of Heaven?" Natsu asked.

"I got the coordinates—here, I'll put 'em up." Gray quickly input them into the panel in front of him, and an image of the system appeared on the screen on the wall.

"Oh hey!" Natsu said as the screen zoomed in on the image. "That's not far from here!"

"We could be there in less than twelve hours," Gray said. "If we're gonna go, I mean. This isn't exactly the safest of situations."

"Why not?" said Natsu. "Those slaves'll be expecting aid from this station that'll never come. Someone's gotta tell 'em!"

"I dunno," Happy said skeptically. "This isn't really our business, and we're not really equipped to charging headfirst into the unknown, y'know? Whaddo you think, Lucy? Lucy?" His nose twitched. "Why're you looking like that?"

Lucy had turned as white as a sheet and was staring at the screen with wide eyes. "Natsu?" she said through clenched teeth. "I know you want to help the slaves, but…do we have to go to that system?"

"Why?" Gray asked. "What's wrong with that star system?"

"Um, it's in the Mantis controlled sector?" She received three blank stares in reply. "Honestly, do you no know anything about the sectors you're going to be travelling through? What to avoid, what not to avoid? Hello? Anyone?"

Happy let out a slow, nervous giggle. "I, uh…didn't realize that it was a Mantis controlled sector. Oh…oh dear," he mumbled to himself. "That's not good, that's not good at all."

"So what?" Natsu insisted. "It's just a bunch of Mantis, we can take 'em."

She gaped at him. "Have you lost your mind, Dragneel?" she said "Mantises are only the most powerful and feared warrior race in the known galaxies!"

He shrugged. "We can take 'em."

"Oh can we." She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "Tell me something, Natsu: have you ever actually seen a Mantis before?"

"Well, no," he admitted. "But I know what they are; I'm not stupid. Gray hasn't seen 'em either, right man?"

The engineer shook his head. "They never really came up in the thieving business," he said. "They never really have anything worth stealing. We're just told to stay away from 'em."

"And suddenly the reason behind the insanity is revealed." Lucy sighed. "Allow me to educate you, then." She leaned forward and copied Gray's pose, clasping her hands together and resting her chin upon them. "I assume you know what a praying mantis looks like? You know, the relatively harmless insect that can be found on most Terran planets?" They both nodded. "Well, Mantises look about the same…only they're roughly six to seven feet tall. Their forelegs are a good three feet long with foot-long spikes on them that can easily shred through steel and half a dozen other metals. And what their forelegs can't rip through, their acidic saliva will melt through."

"How…nice," Gray said, swallowing heavily.

"Oh I'm not done," Lucy said with relish. "Their exoskeleton is harder than Rockmen's skin, and they exude special pheromones that allow them to move with three times the speed and agility of a human. And they use their abilities, too; whereas praying mantises kill prey merely to survive, the much larger and intelligent Mantis race kill remorselessly to suit their own personal agendas—usually without survival as a concern, making for a pitiless and brutal warrior species.

"Because of all of this, what I'm about to say applies to virtually every known species in our galaxy: if you go up one on one against a Mantis, the Mantis will win. Always. They're simply too fast and too strong to fight, even for Rockmen. If you see a Mantis, you just hope it hasn't seen you. If it has…say your prayers and hope for a miracle."

"Oh, is that all?" Gray mumbled, sweating. "And here I was ready to be impressed."

Natsu made a face. "Don't they have any weaknesses?"

She frowned, thinking. "Well, while they're the best at personal combat, they suck at building and repairing things."

"How come?"

Lucy clicked her fingers together in a pincer motion. "Spiked forelegs are great for rending your enemies to shreds, but they're not the best for intricate tool management. Of course, they overcame that problem easily enough by become the principal slave holders of the galaxy. After all, if you can't do something, just have a lesser species do it for you!"

"Do they work with anyone at all as an ally?" Happy asked uneasily.

She shrugged. "Well, some individual Mantises have been known to work with the Federation, but the race as a whole tends to be deceptive, opportunistic, and untrustworthy. Nine out of ten times they'll sell their own mothers for a corn chip."

"Delightful," Gray grumbled.

"How do you know so much about 'em, Lucy?" Happy inquired. "We've been out in space our whole lives but have only ever heard of 'em, and not nearly as much as you."

She pressed her still-clasped fingers to her lips. "Mantises are bedtime stories," she answered tightly, "for human children who misbehave. We're told tales of their red ships, and of the Mantis invasion of our planets if we don't do as we're told. Aside from Engi, we're the easiest race to subdue, and the Mantis homeworlds are dangerously close to ours. When we grow up we realize that they're not going to attack us if we don't brush our teeth, but the threat of a Mantis invasion is still very real to us."

"Oh," Happy said, looking down at the table. "Sorry."

"It's fine, but don't you see?" She gazed imploringly at Natsu. "The Mantis are not a joke! They salvage the weaponry and defensive technology from the ships they capture. If we get caught, we'll be destroyed. There's no way this will end well for us!"

Natsu pursed his lips and seemed to be considering her words. As she waited, she silently prayed that he would see reason for once. Then he shook his head and clapped his hands.

"Nah, I think we can do it."

Lucy buried her face in her hands in despair.

"Dude," Gray said. "Did you not just hear everything Lucy just told us? We'll be slaughtered over there."

"I did listen!" Natsu protested indignantly. "She said if they catch us we're dead, and I'm not disagreeing. But that's only if they catch us, right?"

Happy's tail twitched. "What're you suggesting, Natsu?"

He gave his feline friend a wide grin. "We haven't had a chance to test out the cloaking device on a real ship yet. I'm thinkin' now's a great time."

Lucy raised her head from her hands. "You want to sneak through the Mantis sector…cloaked?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yup! I figure that if we divert power from weapons and shields and a bunch of secondary systems, we'll have enough energy to power the cloak for at least a good twenty-four hours, probably more."

"Sorry?" Gray cupped an ear. "What was that? Did I just hear you say 'divert power from weapons and shields' in the middle of intensely hostile territory?"

Natsu nodded again. "Yuppers."

Gray stared at him.

"Aw, don't gimme that look," the rosy-haired thief argued, "We wouldn't be able to use the shields and weapons while cloaked anyway."

"You're insane," his friend stated flatly. "This is the stupidest idea you've come up with to date, and that includes the time you tried to draw on Laxus' face while he was sleeping."

"Those slaves need our help," Natsu insisted stubbornly. "And we're the only ones who can give it to 'em."

"Not if we're all dead," sniffed Happy.

Natsu spread his hands out in supplication. "Come on guys, where's your sense of adventure? We're only dead if we get caught, so we won't get caught! It's as simple as that."

"Only because you're down to your last two brain cells," Gray said with disgust.

"There's no point guys," Lucy said tiredly. "He's not going to change his mind now that he's made it."

Happy groaned. "Can someone remind me why I hang out with you guys?"

"I sure as hell can't," Gray declared, rising from his seat and heading out of the room. "Considering I'm seriously debating committing myself to a psych ward after this, my words should be regarded as unreliable and ignored at all costs."

"Duly noted," Lucy said and lay her head down on the table, letting her eyes flutter shut. She was awfully tired and wanted nothing more to go to sleep and forget about her day that seemed to keep getting worse and worse. Federation bases claiming she didn't exist, surprise lethal pop-quizzes by dangerous aliens, switching ships, battles in the middle of asteroid fields and close encounters with perverted exhibitionists, a destroyed space station and a man dying in her arms, her fight with Natsu, and now the news that they were heading into the territory of her childhood nightmares…yes, sleep was sounding better and better by the second. Unfortunately, a certain blue feline with an annoyingly high-pitched voice was doing its best to prevent her from doing so.

Her eyes flicked open with irritation. "What?" she snapped.

Happy flattened his ears worriedly. "Lucy, you should go to your room and get some proper sleep," he told her. "Lying out here can't be comfortable, and the guys already went to bed. I can watch over stuff—I don't need as much sleep as the rest of you."

She groaned and stretched her limbs. "Fine," she yawned, standing up. "I'll go to bed. Thanks Happy."

"No problem," the little cat said flippantly. Lucy exited the room but as she left, she could have sworn she saw a wicked grin steal over the Exceed's face. Not entirely sure what to make of it, she gave a light shrug and headed for her room. To her surprise, when she arrived she saw a sulking Natsu standing outside of it, fiddling with his scarf and looking extremely awkward.

"Oh, hey Luce," he mumbled. "There's, uh, still no oxygen in my room 'cause stupid Gray hasn't turned the air back on and I was wondering if you meant what you said about borrowing your room 'cause I really need some sleep and Happy's room doesn't have air either and there's no way in hell I'm sleeping with the stripper—"

"Of course," she blurted out, cutting of his rambling. "Come—come on in."

She opened the door to her room and they both walked in. Her quarters here were similar to those on the Torus, only with a smaller window and a better bathroom. They stood by the door, staring awkwardly at the single bed and not meeting each other's eyes.

"Take the bed," Lucy told him at last. "I'll sleep on the floor; I've done it before. I don't' mind."

"So have I," Natsu protested. "It's your bed, I'm not gonna kick you off it—"

"Natsu." She gave him a hard look. "Take the bed. Now."

He still hesitated. "But—"

"Good Lord," she sighed exasperatedly. "If it really makes you feel better, think of it as me paying you back for letting me borrow your bed back on the Dragon. I haven't even slept in the thing yet. Seriously, you're not imposing."

He tugged at his scarf. "Fine," he agreed grudgingly. He slowly walked over to the bed and sat down on it, and Lucy pulled out a chair by the little green table in the corner and sat down as well.

They sat like that for a while: Natsu on the bed, Lucy at the table, neither speaking to or even looking at each other. The uncomfortable tension in the air steadily built until Lucy was sure that she could cut it with a knife. After nearly ten minutes of painful silence, Natsu finally spoke.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Lucy looked up in astonishment. "I shouldn't have yelled at you today."

"I'm sorry too," she said quietly, still surprised. It hadn't occurred to her that Natsu would be the first to apologize. She assumed that she would have to take that step, and had been merely considering how to say it. "I shouldn't have gotten so worked up."

"No, you should have," Natsu said. "You had every right to. I was being insensitive. Sometimes I forget that not everyone's like me and Gray and the guild."

She frowned. "You're saying that everyone you know is the same?"

"Kind of. We all came to the guild as messed up kids who'd had crappy childhoods and had lost someone they loved at some point. I lost my dad, Gray's mom died and his dad dumped him, Mira said that she'd been abused as a kid and was an orphan, Laxus' dad nearly killed him…I guess we all kind of have a bit of a jaded view of life." He stared at his feet. "I never really realized 'til now that not everyone shares that view."

"You've been at the guild your whole life then?"

"Pretty much. I'd go there whenever I could. Sneaking away from home was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. And then last year, I finally did it for good."

"Was your home that miserable?"

He snorted. "Both of my parents died within a year of each other. My brother was okay when Dad died, but after Mom…he got weird. Watched over me like crazy, never let me talk to anyone outside the other people in the house—he wouldn't even let me talk to my nanny if it wasn't totally necessary. After a few years, I'd had enough, and ran away for the first time. That's when I met Happy, and not long after that, Gray and the rest. I'd get dragged back every few months or so once my brother found me, but I always ran away again."

"I'm glad you found a place you could be happy," she said honestly. "I wish I'd had your guts when I was little."

He cocked his head. "Why? Did your family also suck?"

She laughed lightly. "Not at first…we actually were a great family. But then my mother fell ill and passed away when I was seven, and after that my dad changed, like your brother. Only instead of obsessing over me, he was the opposite. My governess told me it was because I look just like my mother, and it was painful for him. I could understand that, but it didn't make it hurt any less. He completely ignored me, except to tell me what I couldn't do, which was pretty much everything he didn't consider proper. It took me nine years to work up the courage to openly disobey him, and that's when I enrolled in the FA."

"Wow," he said, looking impressed. "I think it's a lot harder to go against someone when you've been following them for so long then if you never really listened to them to begin with. "

She shrugged. "I guess, if you look at it that way."

"Well, here's to our mutually crappy families," he said, raising an imaginary glass. Lucy laughed and raised one of her own in return. She began to lower it, but put it to her mouth instead to stifle a yawn. Natsu looked sheepish.

"Sorry, we're supposed to be sleeping right now. Didn't mean to keep you up."

"Don't worry about it," she said drowsily. "It needed to be done, and I enjoyed it. Misery loves company, right?" She rose from her chair and sat down on the floor next to the bed.

"What're you doing?" Natsu said, raising his eyebrows.

She blinked. "I'm sleeping on the floor, remember?"

"Oh hell no," Natsu said, shaking his head emphatically. "I said I'd sleep on the bed, but there's no way in the pits of Rura Penthe I'm making you sleep on the floor. C'mere—" With one deft motion he scooped her off the floor and tossed her onto the bed next to him.

"Natsu!" Lucy yelped, flailing about wildly. "You can't—let me go, this is so not okay—"

"Whadday mean? It's fine, there's room for both," Natsu said cheerfully. "Anyway, I thought you liked cuddling. You do it all the time to my jacket."

"That's not—that's totally different—have you no sense of propriety?" she wailed, still struggling fruitlessly to escape his arms that were wrapped around her waist. He really was incredibly strong.

"Propra-what now? Sorry, I dunno big words like that."

"You lying jackass, you know exactly what it means!"

"No idea what you're talkin' about Luce," Natsu said innocently. "But if you keep thrashing around like that I'll just hold onto you all night. I got no problem with that."

Internally Lucy fumed, but she forced herself to calm down—sort of. Long after Natsu had hit the switch by the bed to turn off the lights and whispered "good night," Lucy lay wide awake and stiff as cardboard, glaring at the ceiling. The snoring thief beside her really was an idiot, but she supposed that was why she loved him. As a friend, of course. And before any miserable, insignificant, annoying, and unwanted part of her brain could argue with that, she drifted off to sleep.

OOOOO

When she awoke she was alone, but the spot next to her was still warm, so he must not have left long ago. She sat up with a ferocious yawn, stretching her limbs luxuriously. It may have taken her forever and a blue moon to fall asleep, but once she had she'd slept like a teenager on a weekend. Running her fingers through her hair sleepily, she slid off the bed and headed to the bathroom to freshen up. Lucy opened the door to be met with Natsu's shocked expression and she screamed.

Slap!

"Ow, what the hell?" he moaned, cradling his face. "I was just washing my face…"

Lucy was beet ret and seething. "It's the natural reaction to seeing a man in your bathroom first thing in the morning!" she hissed. "Why aren't you in your own?"

He pulled an irritated face. "You got amnesia or something? My bathroom is currently void of oxygen, along with the rest of my room. Where else did you expect me to go?"

"I…" Her brain seemed to have stopped functioning. She rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, it's too early in the morning for this."

He gave her a puzzled look. "Luce, it's o-ten hundred hours. We slept through practically the whole trip to the Mantis sector."

She froze. "What? How long 'til we get there?"

"A half hour, maybe?"

"Are you kidding me?" she shrieked. "Get out, get out, I need to shower! Move!" She grabbed his arm and started yanking him out of the bathroom.

"Shower?" he yelped. "We're going to a slave colony in the middle of a sector full of bloodthirsty overlarge insects, and you wanna smell nice? Why not try and eat some food instead?"

"I can do that later, but I absolutely cannot operate at peak efficiency covered in sweat and smoke—now GET OUT!" With a huff she flung him out the door of the bathroom and slammed it shut.

"Women," Natsu muttered, shaking his head at the door. "I'll never understand 'em."

"I HEARD THAT."

OOOOO

A half hour later after Lucy having showered and them both eaten, they stood at the helm in the bridge as the Adjudicator approached the edge of the Mantis controlled sector. Happy, who had looked extremely bored when they walked in, was delighted to see them.

"You two look like you got some nice shuteye," he remarked cheerfully, a big grin on his whiskered face.

"Yeah we did," Natsu said, cracking his back. "And we needed it, too. Thanks for looking out for things over here, little buddy."

The little cat's grin seemed to stretch even wider. "Sure thing, Natsu. Always happy to help."

Natsu leaned over to Lucy's station and hit the button for the intercom. "Yo Gray, you ready to go?"

"Just about," came the weary reply. "I've gone over just about every circuit and wire in this thing for the past three hours to make sure it's in working condition. If something happens, it won't be because of the cloaking device."

"Great," Natsu said. "So we're off?"

"Just about."

"Good. Also, Gray…"

"Yeah?"

"I know you're all focused on getting us through this in one piece and all, but when we do get out and we're safe again, would you please pump some air back in my room? I kinda wanna brush my teeth eventually."

"Whaddaya mean?" Gray said. "I restored the oxygen to your room while you guys were down on the station."

"Well check again, 'cause nobody's doing any breathing in there any time soon with it like that. Happy's room too."

"Happy's room too? I could've sworn I…" He trailed off. "Huh. Sorry about that. Guess I really am losing my mind."

Happy made a small, strange noise that sounded like a cross between a snicker and a cough. Lucy glanced at him suspiciously, but he simply groomed his tail in a very self-satisfied manner and ignored her.

"Okay," Gray announced. "Ready when you are."

The three of them on the bridge immediately snapped to attention and went to their stations. Now that Gray had given them the go-ahead, the reality of the situation was taking hold: they were about to sneak through Mantis territory.

"It'll take us about an hour to reach the coordinates that we found, so we need to be on our toes the whole time," Natsu said. He inhaled deeply. "Happy, maximum warp. Engage."

"Aye, sir!" Happy said, and the ship shuddered it as it passed into warp. Natsu hit several buttons, and the cloak rose around them, causing their ship to disappear from sight. And then they waited.

For nearly an hour, nothing happened. They travelled at maximum warp, tense as a wire the entire time, each waiting for something to spring out of the darkness at them. Natsu was glued to the helm, staring intensely at the screen with his leg bouncing furiously. Lucy couldn't handle the stressful atmosphere and started pacing back and forth by her seat, while Happy played solitaire on a palm-tricorder. He appeared to be completely nonchalant about the whole situation, but the constant flicking of his tail and ears betrayed his unease.

Suddenly Happy leaped to his feet, dropping his palm-tricorder and pressing controls frantically.

"Our cloak's down!" he cried in dismay.

Both Natsu and Lucy whipped around in alarm. "What?" Natsu said. "What's wrong with it?"

"I don't know, some kind of glitch I think—Lucy, get me Gray!"

She shot over to her station and hailed the engineer. "Gray—"

"I know, I know!" Gray yelled over the intercom. "It's not the device itself; it's some kind of energy feedback from one of the systems it's tapping power from, I just have to figure out which one—gimme a sec!"

"We don't have a second," said Natsu urgently. "We need to get that cloak back up pronto! Someone could pop up at any time!"

"You don't think I know that?"

"Just making sure!"

"Then shut up!"

"Okay, okay, but hurry up—"

"I'M TRYING!"

"Well, try harder!"

"Maybe if you'd just shut up—"

"Natsu." Lucy put her hand on his arm as he opened his mouth to issue a retort. "Let him do his work."

He closed his mouth and nodded. "Sorry," he whispered. "It's automatic."

The seconds ticked by in agonizing silence as they waited. Lucy and Happy's eyes were firmly fastened to the long-range scanners, holding their breaths to see if something would show up on them.

"Got it!" crowed Gray triumphantly. "Cloak's back up!"

"Thank God," Lucy sighed. "Will it happen again?"

"Probably not. The malfunction in the circuit seems to be unique to that specific system."

"Thanks man," Natsu said gratefully. "Sorry for yelling at you."

"Don't worry 'bout it," his friend replied, and cut out.

"It's weird," Happy said, staring at stars zooming by them on the screen. "The cloak was down for nearly five minutes, and we didn't have any shields to stop us from being scanned. Why hasn't someone come to see who we are?"

"Maybe the Mantis don't patrol their territory as much as other species," Lucy suggested. "Or maybe their sensors aren't as good as others'."

"Just be happy they didn't, and keep moving," Natsu said shortly. "We're nowhere near outta the clear yet."

Happy snorted softly to himself. "You don't need to tell us that."

They flew in silence for a few minutes more, and then—

"We're here," Happy announced suddenly. "The coordinates are coming right up."

"On screen," ordered Natsu.

The image of the slaver colony flickered into view, and Lucy inhaled sharply.

"Oh," she said faintly. "I guess that's where all their patrol ships are."

The slaver colony was an asteroid a quarter of the size of a small moon. Most of the surface of the asteroid was just normal bare rock, but in the middle of it, visible even from space, there was a large steely gray patch, as if something was being built on it. And surrounding the asteroid were nearly ten blood-red Mantis ships, fully armed and functional.

Natsu reached over to Lucy's station and hailed Gray, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Yo Gray," he said. "You seeing this?"

"Yeah, I'm seeing it—can we please not go near the fleet of Mantis warships?"

"Sounds good to me," Natsu said. "Where do you wanna go?"

"I think we should circle under the asteroid," Happy said, pointing to the spot he meant. "That way we'll be out of sight of the ships. It's still close enough to transport onto the colony surface."

"That'll work," Natsu decided. "Pull us out of warp, Happy. I'll get us over there."

The exited warp drive just as they came into transport range of the asteroid. Natsu neatly looped them around the asteroid, veering around the warships, and pulled them to a halt just beneath the rock.

"Happy, can you tell what's going on down in the Tower of Heaven?" he asked.

The Exceed frowned. "Sort of. They don't have a shield to prevent beaming—I guess they're not really worried about escapees smack in the middle of their territory—but there's something interfering with the sensors and I can't make out any life forms anywhere."

"The asteroid is comprised of duralumin and cadmium," Lucy said, scanning it. "Those alloys will definitely screw with our life-sign detection. Body heat won't register at all."

"That would explain it," Happy concurred. "There are radioactive hotspots and plasma waves all over the place though, so I'd say that there's some kind of fight going on down there."

"Which would match up with the station's information." Natsu watched the screen for a moment, then clapped his hands together. "Okay guys, here's the plan. You listenin', Gray?"

"Go ahead."

"Righto. So, here's what we're gonna do. We can't contact them because we don't know who's who down there or even who to talk to, so we hafta go down ourselves. We're gonna beam down there, tell them what happened to the station so they know not to expect any more supplies from it, and offer our help. If they want it, we give it. If they don't, then we beam back up and fly outta here like a bat outta hell." He beamed at them. "Sound good?"

Lucy shrugged lightly. "Would it matter if we said no?"

His grin widened. "Nope!"

She sighed. "Then sure, sounds great."

He turned back to the helm. "Awesome. Why don't you three go get whatever weapons we need and meet me down in the transporter room—I'm just going to put the ship on autopilot bunny mode."

"Bunny mode?" Lucy asked Happy as they jogged down the hallway towards the weapons room.

"It's his stupid name for a certain setting that most ships can be set on," the Exceed explained. "The ship maximizes its use of the long-rage sensors to detect anything coming near it. If something enters range, anything at all, then the ship will automatically move away until the object is out of distance, then return to the preset coordinates. That way the whole crew can leave the ship and not worry about it getting stolen or blasted out of sight. It's not terribly reliable though, or at least not long-term; just another reason for us to get back to the ship as soon as possible. But for now, it'll work."

They stopped by the weapons room to grab their ion blasters from the Torus, but there wasn't much else to take. The Adjudicator hadn't come with any new handheld weapons, so they were still stuck with the same useless junk they'd had since Rura Penthe. The more Lucy attempted to prepare to storm the colony, the more she realized how absolutely idiotic their plan was. Lucy also realized that there was no point in working herself up over the fact that she was once again, for the who-knew-how-manyeth-time in the past few months, about to embark on a suicidal mission, so she decided to just stop thinking about it altogether.

She and Happy met up with Gray (who, wonders of wonders, had actually put his shirt back on) in the transporter room for Natsu, who showed up shortly after they did. He was holding four little chips and four square communicators in his hands, which he promptly dished out.

"The chips are transporter chips to get us back onto the ship," he told them. "And the communicators are to be able to talk to each other if we get separated down there."

"Wow," said Gray, impressed. "You actually listened to me for once."

"What's that supposed to mean, popsicle pants?"

"Boys," Lucy said warningly.

"Right, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I scanned the layout of the colony down there, and I think the best spot to beam down would be right here." He pulled up the scan onto the miniature screen by the transporter console and pointed to a large rectangular room. "It looks like some kind of storage room, and it's decently far away from any radiation or plasma waves, so it seems pretty safe. Y'know, as much as a hostile slave colony hosting a rebellion can be."

"Just in case, can you drop us near the door?" Lucy asked nervously. "You know, just to be on the safe side."

"You got it." He input the coordinates and stepped back. The four of them climbed onto the transporter pads and waited for the computer to kick in. "But I don't think we'll run into anything overly dangerous…"

The pads activated and the world disappeared around them, only to shimmer back into focus seconds later. The four of them blinked and were greeted by the sight of approximately twenty Mantises standing in a tight circle, clearly in the middle of some sort of meeting.

For a moment, the two groups could only stare at each other, both shocked at the other's sudden appearance. Then the Mantises started to rustle aggressively.

"That's the last time I let you choose the landing coordinates," Gray said to Natsu weakly.

"RUN!" Lucy screamed, and the four of them bolted out the open door, the Mantises hot on their heels.

The ran into a dark, open hallway that they couldn't see the end of. They all ran faster than they'd ever ran in their lives, but Lucy was right—the Mantis were fast, far faster than anything they'd ever encountered before. Judging by the spiked forelegs catching on the ends of their clothing, it was only a matter of seconds before they were caught.

Suddenly, Natsu whipped around and before the Mantises behind him could even process that he'd stopped, exhaled a tremendous ball of fire directly into the insectoids' metallic faces.

The Mantises let out horrible shrieks of pain, stumbling back and attempting to desperately scramble away from the unusually hot flames.

"Ha!" Natsu yelled. "Don't wanna get barbecued, huh, ya overgrown fleas?" He breathed more flames at the Mantises, creating a wall of scorching fire to separate them.

"That won't hold them for long!" Lucy shouted. Natsu backed away, still breathing flames, until he seemed to run out of energy. Then he backed away quickly, and Gray ran forward instead.

"Get moving!" he bellowed, and held his palms to the ground. In sharp contrast to the roaring heat of Natsu's fire, a sharp cold began to gather around Gray. Lucy watched over her shoulder in astonishment as frost collected around his hands and spread to the floor. As he moved backwards, hands still brushing the ground, a trail of ice spread from his fingers to cover the floor and creep up the walls. He did this for nearly twenty feet until his strength, too, seemed to fade and began to run with the rest of them.

"That should give us some time," he panted as he raced alongside them. "Once they get around Natsu's fire, they should have a bitch of time trying to get across that ice with their spindly legs and awkward bodies. They'll crash into each other and hopefully clog the hallway and stop chasing us."

The ran down the seemingly endless hallway, making the occasional turn here and there, but still getting nowhere.

"There's—gotta be—somewhere we can hide," Lucy gasped, clutching her side.

"Guys, they're behind us again!" wailed Happy.

"If we die here I'm gonna kill you, Natsu!" Gray screamed. They made another turn—

The wall behind them exploded.

All four of them were hurled forwards by the force of the explosion and landed face-first in a pile of rubble. The Mantises behind them shrieked once more—it sounded like they had borne the full brunt of the blast.

Lucy climbed to her knees, shaking her head to try and clear it. She looked up to see a group of humanoid figures standing in the dust cloud. A woman strode out of it. She was wearing a raggedy gray dress that hung loosely on her shoulders and looked to be holding multiple small sorts of weapons in her hands. Shockingly crimson hair fell down her back and obscured one of her cold gray eyes, and the other gazed down at them impassively.

"Who are you?" she demanded sternly.

"We—we came to try and help the rebellion that was going on down here," Lucy stammered. "Who—"

The woman cut her off. "My name is Erza Belserion Scarlet, and I am the one who is going to save your pathetic lives. But don't expect me to die trying." And with that, she charged the oncoming army of Mantises.

Review? If you feel like it. Shoutout to anyone who caught the random meme I stuck in here. I couldn't help myself.

Thank you all so, so much for reading. I adore each and every one of you wonderful people.

I'm going to bed now (thank God). See you all next time!