Chapter 20

Sting's p.o.v

We politely clap and nod when Fairy Tail's score matches ours. Minerva smiled because doing otherwise would make us seem like sore losers but beneath the smiling façade was a simmering anger.

She would conveniently forget that her ass was handed to her by Erza, that her support of her father cost Rufus his partnership, and that the tie was all her fault.

Sabertooth wanted to show off? Throw their best mages into an arena unwillingly. Lose a match? Throw the loser into the streets and tip the fragile relationship between the guild and its best asset. Then shatter what remains in a futile power play.

Of course, if that wasn't enough there was a hidden plot happening behind the castle's doors involving Lucy, our future selfs, and dragons. How coincidental then, that all known dragon slayers minus Cobra were within the thirty-mile radius of the town when this all began to surface. Truly amazing.

I keep up a smile on to the outside and do my best to draw the audience's attention away from Lucy's absence and Rogue's bad humor. Then a flirtatious girl tries to draw our attention.

Part of me waited for Lucy to grip my arm possessively while Rogue glared at the girl for even breathing his way. Then I remember that our trio is broken and missing and there's too much shit to just forgive and forget.

I smile at the girl but wave her off. My preference ran with girls with blonde hair and plentiful racks with looks that can knock me off my feet.

The sky began to darken. The street lights flickered to life one after another but the festivities dragged on. I let Rogue drag me away from the spotlight when my patience starts dwindling and I become more glares that smirks.

And then a roar

woke

me

up

Rogue's p.o.v

The city fell silent after the roar. No one knew where the sound had come from, but my instincts screamed 'DANGER!'.

Sting's face went slack and then a fire entered his eyes. Whatever had kept him docile and calm for the past twenty-four hours was gone and 'Twin Dragon Slayer' Sting Eucliffe was back.

"I'm going to kill Heartfilia." He mutters under his breath.

I send him a sly smile. "I knew you could never be so collected on your own."

"Let's save her ass before something else happens to her."

I hug Frosch to my chest and run towards the roar instead of away as my human instincts screamed at me to do. My dragon instincts? They told me to get to my—

"Why are we running towards the beast instead of away from it?"

I look at Rufus from the corner of my eye. "Lucy is there, and I'll bet that Yukino will also there."

"Yukino?" Rufus asks startled, "why would she be in the castle?"

"Leave your questions for later, we've got an overgrown lizard to stop." Orga shoots back. More mages were joining us on our race to the castle. Blue Pegasus ran parallel to Fairy Tail, Lamia Scale, Mermaid Heel, and Quatro Cerberus bring up the rear.

We stop in front of the castle grounds. Seven dragons stood proudly behind a cloaked figure. Lucy and Yukino had their hands attached to a giant gate. Sweat plastered their hair to their foreheads but where Yukino was exhausted, Lucy looked furious.

"You fucking bastard."

The cloaked figure chuckled darkly. "You were always too meddling for your own good princess."

Her face became thunderous. "Don't call me that. You don't get to call me that. Not when you killed future me without remorse."

"I'll enjoy killing you too." At an unseen signal, the dragons take off and begin to wreak havoc on the town.

Brown eyes meet mine. 'Go,' she mouths, 'I'll handle him.'

No, I scream back with my eyes. 'He's killed you once, I won't let him kill you again.'

"Trust me Rogue." She says calmly.

"Yeah," Future Rogue taunts, "lets trust her like we trusted her with Frosch. One'll end up gone and the other one crushed."

Lucy let Frosch die? But Fro-Fro means everything to me. She would never let her get hurt. "But she's already hurt you, hasn't she? She left you behind. She left you both behind." A dark voice whispers across my mind.

A hand clamps down on my shoulder. "We have to go!" the voice reaches me as if its underwater. "We can trust Lucy. She comes back. She'll always come back to us."

More hands try to drag me away as the cloak falls from Future me. She launches herself at him and that's the last thing I'm allowed to see.

Orga and Sting dragged me away to where the other teams were waiting, Rufus following behind them with an unconscious Yukino slung over his shoulder. Only those that participated in the Games and the S-class mages were there.

Everyone had a grim look on their faces that worsened with every scream from civilians.

"Let her deal with future Rogue. We need to eliminate the dragons." The first voice says.

"Normal magic won't do anything. Each of the Dragon Slayers will have to take a dragon," Mackarov starts.

"That won't be enough. Only a dragon slayer can take down a dragon the rest of us will provide back up."

"That won't be enough."

"Jellal!" Milliana and Kagura both growl. I try to make sense of their hissed conversation but I couldn't – wouldn't – focus.

"Get your revenge later. We need all the help we can get to ensure humanity's future." Jiemma scolds.

Jellal doesn't spare them a glance as his voice stays steady. "Seven dragons and one of the dragon slayer is busy right now. We need another."

"You mean Cobra, right?" Mackarov asks.

"We have no choice. I already talked to Doranbolt. He's on his way."

"Rogue." My head is pounding now but Fro's little paws bring me a small measure of relief.

"Let's beat some dragon ass!" Fairy Tail responds with an, "AYE!"

Lucy's p.o.v

Rogue's fist connected with my jaw. Resisting against the force of the blow only sends me staggering back. Then a knee to the stomach unbalances me and sends me to the ground. Blood trickled out of a head injury but I refused to look away from the Rogue that wasn't mine.

"Why are you doing this? What will you gain when the entire world is in ruins and you're all alone?" I ask him.

He starts circling me. My magic was draining fast. Between the gate and the fight, it was receding fast. "Why am I doing this?" His red eyes glare murder at me. "Because I enjoy seeing the suffering in their eyes as I take everything they ever loved away from this world as they did to me. But really Lucy," his hand wrapped itself around my neck, and he whispered, slowly, "it's because I hate you. You were supposed to be my rock. Said you would always be there but you lied. When time came for you to stand with me you ran. Like the fucking coward you are, you ran away from your problems, you ran away from us.

The hand tightened cutting off my air. "You ran away but Sting? Sting believed in you and you let him down too. It was so easy to rile him up and tear him to pieces. Watching the light leave his eyes under my hands…it destroyed something in me and rebuilt something even worse. And you still weren't there. Sting died with your name in his lips and you. weren't. there."

Tears bubbled out of me painfully. The same hands that cared for me and for Sting with such delicateness were now stained with our blood. The blood of his… "mate. You killed your mates."

It wasn't supposed to end this way. I would leave the guild for a couple of weeks then come back for a fresh start. We would have taken a vacation, just the five of us. Really settle down in a couple of years, maybe pop out a few kids. But this…this was never my intentions. Not if it would break our family apart and turn the sweetest man in the world into a cold-blooded mate killer.

"I'll stop you. I swear to the gods I'll stop you."

His hand crushed my throat and a dark smirk grew in his face. "Then I'll enjoy seeing you fail."

Air flow was stopped in its entirety. My airway was completely blocked and dark spots bloomed in my eyes. I try to trash in Rogue's hold but the darkness was spreading and I couldn't breath.

The only thing I can see are blue lines in a sea of black mass and then there was an earth shattering roar.

A/N: I apologize for my disappearance, it was not intentional. RL