Cana took a deep breath then plunged into the warzone. "Lucy!" she called her friend's name as she dodged flaming cloth and splintered wood. She was amazed to see that not only were the Fairy Tail members suffering through the disaster, but most of the other guilds had stayed for the show as well.

"Fairy Tail's like one huge comedy show…" She muttered to herself. She waved at Bacchus moments before he was forced to dive under a table to escape more flames.

"Oi. LUCY!" She bellowed. The blonde turned in her direction.

"What's up Cana? Kind of busy here…"

"Erza and I have a plan to stop Natsu," Cana said. "But I need your help. You and Lisanna, to be exact. Any idea where she is?"

Lucy looked confused. "What kind of plan involves me and Lisanna catching Natsu? Erza, Laxus and Mira are all here."

"They're part of it too. But we need as many people as possible to get this to work." Cana was scanning the smoky room for short silver hair. "Ahh, found her. Come on!"

She grabbed Lucy's wrist and pulled her along. Lucy looked at Loke to see if he had any explanation for Cana's behavior, but he just shrugged.

"Since this plan doesn't seem to involve me, should I go?" Loke asked. "Of course, if you want me to stay I will. Anything to prove my love!"

Lucy rolled her eyes again as she was dragged by Cana. "Go ahead."

Loke winked at her as he disappeared. At that point, Cana had reached Lisanna, and was repeating what she'd said to Lucy to Lisanna.

"Isn't Mira-nee better suited for a capture mission than I am?" Lisanna asked.

"That's what I said!" Lucy exclaimed. She pulled her wrist out of Cana's grasp and looked at her suspiciously. "What's this plan of yours?"

Lisanna aligned herself with Lucy and awaited explanation as well.

"Honestly, we need you guys to be the bait," Cana said.

Lucy and Lisanna blinked. "Bait?" They said in unison.

"You're the only two people Natsu will be gentle with," Cana explained. "Anyone else he'll go full-force at. With you two, he'll hold back for fear of hurting you."

"Are you sure about that?" Lucy asked nervously. She could think of countless times Natsu had sent her flying into walls, or set her clothing or hair on fire, or full-body tackled her.

"I see the logic…" Lisanna said slowly.

"Then it's settled. Hurry, we don't have much time before this place crumbles."

Lucy couldn't really argue with that, so she agreed to stand in the middle of the room with Lisanna.

"Perfect," Cana said, standing between the two girls with a hand on each of their shoulders. "Now just stand there and call his name to get his attention."

Lisanna and Lucy exchanged a look. "Natsu!" They called.

The dragonslayer, who was throwing fireballs at Gray, turned in their direction.

"Whaaa?" He said indistinctly.

"Can you come here?" Lucy asked.

"We have a problem," Lisanna added.

"Okaaaay?" He deflected an ice lance. "Why d'yah need me ta come down?"

"We need to talk to you in private," Lucy supplied.

"Let's tawwk later," he said, turning his attention back to Gray.

"Oh for crying out loud," Cana said in frustration. "HEY, NATSU!" She shouted, simultaneously pulling up Lucy's skirt and pulling down Lisanna's shirt.

"EEEEEK!" The two girls screamed. But Cana's plan definitely worked – Natsu's eyes, along with most of the eyes of males in the bar, snapped toward them and in one leap he was in front of them.

"Wow…" He reached out toward them, but at that moment Erza, Laxus, Mira, Kagura, Lyon, Sting, Rogue, and Bacchus all descended upon him.

"Got you!" Laxus said in triumph as the dragonslayer squirmed under the weight and magic of so many powerful mages.

"Cover his mouth!" Erza ordered. She was straddling her teammate's back, trying to keep him from breaking free. Rogue moved a hand over Natsu's face but pulled back abruptly.

"He bit me!" He said in disbelief.

Sting, who was struggling to keep Natsu's right arm pinned, started laughing. "What a guy."

"HOT!" Bacchus, who was holding the left arm, jumped back. "Shit."

Lyon quickly neutralized the flames with an ice attack, but Bacchus was already burned. "Wild!" The drunken man chuckled.

"That's enough Natsu," Mira scolded as she seized the flailing left leg. "You've made enough of a mess."

"I dunno what you guys'r so mad about," he grumbled. "I was juss havin' fun. Isss a partyyyy…" He continued to wriggle under the weight of the other mages. Laxus felt the younger dragonslayer's body heating up.

"Quick – where's the girl who makes ropes to restrict magic?" Laxus shouted.

"Here!" Millianna appeared and quickly tied Natsu's wrists and ankles.

Erza smacked Natsu hard on the head and he passed out. "Just to be safe," she said when the other mages gave her a disapproving look. Lucy and Lisanna took this opportunity to slink away from the perverted eyes.

"I can't believe you have somebody like that in Fairy Tail, Erza-nee," Kagura said, shaking her head. "Impressive power."

"It's not so impressive," Lyon said.

"That would be more convincing if your pants weren't on fire…" Cana said. He yelped and skillfully removed his pants.

Bacchus was laughing. "Another master of the drunken fist. I'd like to spar with him sometime."

"Make sure you're outside for that…" Sting said, before turning away to make sure Lector was unharmed.

"Wait – he's drunk?" Mira asked.

Erza smiled at everyone. "I'm sorry for the trouble, and thank you for your help dealing with…that…" She looked down at Natsu with a bizarre mixture of disgust and affection.

She then turned to Laxus. "I believe someone owes everybody an apology?" She prompted.

"Err…"

"What do you mean?" Kagura and Mira asked.

"How do you think Natsu got that drunk?"

Mira gasped. "Laxus! You bought him alcohol? He's not of age!"

"Erm…"

A boisterous laugh saved Laxus the trouble of responding. "Ladies, ladies, give the young man a break," Ichiya said, smacking Laxus on the back. "Sometimes men need to share a drink to express ourselves. If you ladies are upset I'd be happy to take you out and make you feel better." He reached out to take Kagura's hand but found himself with Erza's sword as his throat.

"I've had enough nonsense for one day…" she said. The older man gulped and backed away slowly.

"Seriously, all this was because of a few beers?" Gray had joined the conversation. "That moron." He kicked Natsu's unconscious body.

"I thought it was kind of fun," Jenny from Blue Pegasus piped in. "We never have this kind of excitement in our guild."

"Excitement is one thing, but this was so classless," Sherry of Lamia Scale appeared, hand in hand with Ren.

"A gaudy woman like you has the nerve to call Fairy Tail classless?" Evergreen and Elfman had joined the circle, and the only female Raijinshuu member didn't take kindly to Sherry's words.

Erza felt a vein pulsing in her forehead. "ENOUGH!" She shouted. After her display at Pandemonium the other guilds knew better than to mess with Titania. She turned back to Laxus. "Are you going to take responsibility for this mess?"

"It's really Cana's fault for challenging the punk to a drinking contest," he said.

"HEY!" Cana shouted. "Don't blame me you bastard! I'm not the one who set the place on fire."

"You are the one who stripped us to catch Natsu though." Lucy and Lisanna had reappeared, looking angry. Mira rubbed their backs sympathetically.

"Right, sorry about that," the brunette said sheepishly. "Desperate times…"

"Well I'm not the one who destroyed half the bar chasing after a pest," Laxus said, turning to Erza.

"Do you guys always bicker like this?" Rogue asked. Everyone turned to glare at him. "Just asking…" he said, putting his hands up defensively.

"Salamander brings out the worst in people," Gajeel said, appearing with Lily.

"Natsu only brings the worst out in you, Gajeel," Lucy said.

"Not true – he and the stripper here are always destroying something or other," Gajeel said.

"You wanna fight about it?" Gray growled.

Out of nowhere, Loke appeared and glared at Cana. "I wanna fight about you stripping my girlfriend in front of half of Fiore's mages."

"I'm not your girlfriend!" Lucy said indignantly.

"But you liiiiike him," Happy sang.

"Is Fairy Tail always this random?" Jenny whispered the question to Mira.

"Pretty much!" she said brightly.

Erza rubbed her temples. "I need cake…" she mumbled, leaving the unconscious Natsu with Lisanna and Lucy. She wandered over to the bar, where the bartenders were still huddled together with their hands over their heads. "Do you have cake?" She asked, poking her head over the bar to speak to them.

Shaking, the head barkeep (also the one who served Laxus and Natsu earlier) stood up. "Ma'am, I'm afraid we're not in working order after your little party…"

"Of course we'll handle the repairs," she said, waving her hand impatiently. "But right now, I need cake."

"But –"

"CAKE!"

Elsewhere, Wendy and Chelia were standing away from the crowd, assessing the damage.

"I'm amazed the building is still standing!" Chelia said. "Your guild is crazy, Wendy!"

"Yeah…" Wendy ran her hand down a scorched pillar. "But I love being in Fairy Tail!"

Chelia laughed. "We should check on the dragonslayer. He might need to be healed!"

"Good idea!" They walked over to Lucy and Lisanna, who had propped Natsu's head up on a seat cushion.

"Has Natsu-san woken up yet?" Wendy asked.

Lucy shook her head. "Erza gave him a serious smack. If he wasn't so hard-headed he'd be dead!"

"He's going to be really sick when he wakes up…" Lisanna said. "It's better to let him sleep."

Wendy and Chelia looked at each other. "Let's do magic together, Wendy!" Chelia said. "Together we can create a spell to combat the alcohol in his system!"

"You guys can do that?" Lucy asked curiously. "That's really cool."

"Not as cool as celestial spirit magic," Loke, who was still hanging around the human world, piped up. "But you two will grow into beautiful women."

Lucy glared at him. "What in the world does that have to do with anything?"

Hibiki and Eve of Blue Pegasus appeared at that moment. "They will indeed be beauties in the future. Would you beauties care to go on a date?"

"Aren't you 27?" Lisanna said, positioning herself between the younger girls and the Blue Pegasus playboys.

"I'm only 23!" Eve said. Lisanna just crossed her arms and glared. "Get lost!"

In all this chaos, Laxus was trying to sneak away. Unfortunately for him, he ran smack into the older guild masters, who were just about to join the party.

"Oh my…" Master Bob said as he walked in. "What in the world happened here?"

"And why are four of my guild members unconscious outside?" Master Goldmine asked.

Makarov just sighed deeply– he knew without asking which guild was responsible. "Laxus…" He said, looking to his grandson for an explanation.

"Funny story, Gramps…" Laxus began.

"Oh no you don't!" Cana shouted, running into him full force. "You'll skew the facts again.

"Oooff," Laxus said, not actually budging but humoring her.

"Don't touch Laxus so intimately!" Freed shouted, appearing out of nowhere.

Makarov bit his lip and shook his head. "You shitty brats…."

"We were just having a good time, Gramps," Laxus said. "Then Natsu got a little out of hand…"

"Because you kept buying him beer!" Cana accused.

"Because you challenged him to a drinking contest!"

"Because I didn't want to lose my top to Bacchus again!"

Makarov and Goldmine exchanged an uncomfortable look after that comment.

"Then Erza went on a rampage…"

"I do not rampage!" Erza said crossly, joining the conversation. "I was just trying to stop Natsu."

"But it turns out that little dragonslayer can use the drunken fist technique," Bacchus said, also joining the conversation.

"It took eight of us to hold him down," Sting said.

"Impressive power, as expected of Natsu-san," Rogue added.

"Fairy Tail is certainly an animated guild," Kagura said with a small smile on her face.

All the blood had long ago drained from Makarov's face. He took a good look at the bar. "At least the building is still standing…" he said weakly. "A party's a party, right?" He smiled at the other guild masters, who shook their heads.

"About that, sir," Kagura said. "It's actually only standing because of Yukino's celestial spirit and my gravity magic."

"No way…" Laxus said.

"So in other words…" Erza started.

"Fairy Tail destroyed another building…" Cana finished.

The color also drained from Erza's face. "I said we'd handle the repairs…."

"You couldn't have mentioned that sooner?" Laxus asked Kagura.

"There's been so much activity I haven't had a chance," she said. "But I recommend we evacuate soon, actually. We can only hold it so long…"

True to her word, the building began to creak suspiciously.

"Everyone out!" Erza ordered, a sword appearing in her hand to gain attention. "The structure is unsafe!"

First out the door were the bar staff, followed by the members of Blue Pegasus (and Sherry with Ren) who complained they didn't want dust in their hair. Mermaid Heel followed (save for Kagura who was still keeping the building standing) and Bacchus, the only member of Quatro Cerberus to actually make it inside, behind them. The members of Sabertooth left chuckling and Lyon exited with Juvia, Gray and the rest of Fairy Tail.

The minute Lucy dragged Natsu's unconscious form out the door, the building collapsed.

"You're more trouble than you're worth sometimes," she chided him. He murmured incoherently and curled up in a ball, dead to the world.

Makarov couldn't find it in himself to wake the sleeping dragonslayer, so he turned his rage on his grandson instead.

"Laxus…what do you have to say for yourself?" He said, using his Titan magic so he towered over the young man.

Looking up at his grandfather, Laxus threw his hands up and shrugged. "Um…oops?"

Thanks to Wendy and Chelia, Natsu woke up the next morning feeling great. He wandered out of his room at the inn and into the restaurant downstairs where all the Fairy Tail members were enjoying breakfast.

"Great party last night – eh everyone?" Everyone whipped around to look at him. Some of them laughed, some of them shook their heads, and some of them wouldn't even meet his eyes.

"Er…what's wrong guys?"

Even after a vicious beating, he had no idea what Laxus, Erza and the Master were so angry about.