Wifi has been down so I have been patiently waiting so that I could upload the next chapter or two. Praise Mavis that I am back up and running! Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Kaleb and Lucy had gathered everyone to decide what the teams would be and in what direction they were heading. One key was in Pergrande and the other was in Fiore and each team would be needing different skill sets. Lucy would be leading the Fiore team while Zen was in charge of the Pergrande mission since he could feel the keys and Lucy had her trusted dog spirits. While that was going Kaleb was going to be working on getting into the king's castle and into Kurino's room to get the dragon egg that was hidden there. Lucy and Yukino had worked out a temporary contract where she'd be able to borrow Gemini to help Kaleb out on his mission. This was a huge shit storm in the making but everyone knew that this needed to be done.

Zen was getting on a Boscan military airship with his team who were going to be heading to the quaint city of Ormill, which was located several hours south-west of the capital. Cristoff, Vander, Presca, Ayala, and Bickslow were saying their goodbyes to their teams and/or families before they were too take off. Arman and Farron were going to be calling a couple of favors for this mission to retrieve the key. They had a long flight ahead of them, most of which would be happening in stealth mode until they were able to have Cristoff moon jump them down. Once on the ground, Zen would pick up the key's presence before creating a plan of attack and heading in. The six mages hunkered down and waited with baited breath.

Lucy and her team were also heading onto a Boscan airship and heading back to Fiore, back to the Heartfilia Konzern. The last key was said to be in that location but since her family home had been bought by a greedy ass hole Lucy was going to be needing some big guns, just in case. Laxus, Gray, Wendy, and Cobra were the four that would be accompanying the celestial mage on her mission. The last key could literally be anywhere within the mansion, the servant's houses, or the grounds and was hoping that Canes Venatici would be able to sniff it out. This was also the first time she had been back to her childhood home since she had received the news of her father's death, not a trip she was really looking forward too.

Kaleb would be utilizing Yukino's powers, and a tad of Lucy's, to pull off the guise that would be needed in order to attain the egg. Sting, Natsu, Freed, Rogue, and Gajeel were the chosen team members he had spent several days going over various plans and team dynamics to come up with this one. Sting and Natsu were the ones that had given him some grief when he had chosen them, but Sting was Yukino's mate and Natsu was a powerhouse that they might need. The two remaining dragon slayers could easily use the shadows to gain the upper hand. Freed's rune work was amazing and he was needed in order to contain Princess Kurino so Kaleb could make her forget the encounter, if necessary.

Kaleb was having his father answer one of the weekly missives that came from the castle requesting the audience of a certain Pradesh. Knowing that once it was received by the Princess a reply would arrive in minutes. Tomorrow was going to be one hell of a day with his chosen team and if caught they would be in serious shit, which is why it was imperative to keep Sting and Natsu focused on their tasks at hand. His plan was solid and he would be discussing it with his team tonight because tomorrow they would be seeing Princess Kurino. His father wasn't fully onboard with Kaleb's plan but understood the importance of getting the egg from her. Farron wasn't liking the part he'd have to play either but the hope was that he wouldn't be bound, gagged, and abused at the hands of the Princess, that the team would be able to retrieve the egg before they had to leave the palace gardens.

Thanks to Ayala and Cristoff he had gotten a generalized idea as to what the egg looked like, its weight, and where in her chambers it was located. Ayala had wanted to help Kaleb out with this mission but he'd expressed how much calmer he'd feel if there was a second dragon slayer with Zen, especially one of her talents. She had relented trying to convince him otherwise after he made that point. Now all he had to do was gather the team, go over every possible scenario with them, and pray that this would go off without issue. He sat at his desk and sighed.

"What's wrong Kaleb?" Mira's quiet voice entered the room as she stepped through the door of his office. "You seem troubled. Anything that I can help with?"

"Just worried about our mission tomorrow and Zen having to go back to Pergrande." Kaleb wasn't as worried about Lucy going to the konzern since she was raised there, but the bounty on Zen's capture was huge. If anyone got wind of them or if something happened and he was back in the gladiator pits he'd never forgive himself.

"Well," Mira made her way around his desk and sat in his lap, "Maybe you just need to talk it out with another person."

"Or maybe I just need a distraction until my meeting later tonight?" He kissed her bare shoulder listening to her giggle.

"How about you tell me about your plan to keep Natsu and Sting from compromising your mission?"

"I figured if they were stationed with Gajeel and Rogue that they'd be ok, plus Yukino will be there as well."

"That won't keep them in place. You need to pose a challenge to them since they'll want to outdo one another in some form or another."

"What do you have in mind?"

"The person who can follow your leadership to a T will get the honors of a one-on-one battle with you."

"That'll work? Seems way to easy."

"Of course it'll work! Those two were constantly trying to pick fights with Laxus and Gildarts back home and now that they have a real opportunity they'll be excited about and listen, hopefully." Sting had calmed down a lot since he had mated and had the twins but was still rambunctious. Natsu wasn't as easy to rile up since he had Xally and twins in the way, however, he was still Natsu and still acted more so on instinct than the other slayers. "I think I deserve a reward for my ingenious thinking. What do you say to a trip to the Grass Sea hot springs?"

"Who's the mind reader now?"

"You tell me." She kissed him lightly on the lips before running out the door, sending him flashes of her naked form riding him on one of the springs low benches. He got up, chasing his teasing women with plans on fulfilling that scene she had shown him. Sex before a mission was one of the best ways to get in the perfect mindset, to relieve the tension he had been feeling lately. He had a gorgeous blue-eyed demon he was going to have his way with and he couldn't wait.

Zen was on pins and needles as they sat on the airship heading towards their destination. He could feel the key pulsing stronger with every minute that was passing by but couldn't shake the feeling like there was something else hidden there. His comrades hadn't said anything if they had sensed something, granted they were still a couple hours out from the small town. Ormill was a small town of five thousand people that mined semi-precious gems, one of the only places in all of Pergrande that they could be found. Script stones were plentiful in the sandy grounds where there was once water but due to shifts underground the fossils formed with the rock to give way to the extremely rare stone. Danburite was another gem that was readily found in the area along with heliodor and yellow sphalerite, all of which were used in intricate jewelry for the rich families of Pergrande. They also traded those stones with Sin, Seven, and Joya for what he didn't know, but those three countries were the only ones to do trade with Pergrande.

Cristoff and Presca were playing a heated game of chess, neither giving an inch while Vander and Bickslow were playing 'Would You Rather.' The items they were coming up with were disgusting, to say the least, but were putting smiles and laughter on most of their faces. Those two would do anything for a laugh and their attitudes were so similar to one another you'd think that they were the ones related, not Bickslow and Cristoff. It still amazed him how those two were actual clan cousins and were all being raised by his father, guess the universe works in weird ways sometimes. Ayala was standing towards the back of the airship with her arms wrapped around her side which he found odd since she was always close to her mate.

"Ayala? You alright?" Zena approached the earth dragon slayer, hoping to help her if he could.

"I don't know. I thought that my anxious feeling was over leaving the rescue of the egg to Kaleb and his team, but it just doesn't seem to go away."

"Was there something wrong with the egg? Do we need to contact Thane to bring you back to Pelerno?"

"The egg is fine it's just . . . ugh, I don't know." Zen put a hand on her shoulder and suddenly her eyes were glowing green, her powers swirling around her. His brothers and Presca were by his side in an instant, waiting to see what was going on. The smell of pine permeated the air as wisps of green light flashed across her body, almost as if they were playing tag.

"What the hell happened to my mate?"

"I have no idea. I just touched her shoulder and this happened," he gestured to her entire body as the light show and coniferous forest smell stopped. Bickslow steadied his emerald-eyed mate as her eyes refocused on him. "You alright Ayala?"

"Yea . . . that was quite the experience." She smiled and gave Bisckslow a hug, knowing that he needed to be reassured that she was alright. "Wasn't expecting Zen's attachment to the key to pull me in like it did when he touched me. The key is being hidden underground surrounded by gems, which I am assuming is in one of the mines. However, that's not exactly what caught me by surprise."

"Don't leave us in suspense like that!" whined Vander who was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"I know why I had been feeling anxious," she turned and smiled at Zen, "Guess there are some dragon eggs with Lucy's key. I can't assess them from here so I don't know the condition they're in, but nothing was immediately screaming at me, well at least not in regards to the eggs."

"Eggs? As in plural?" Cristoff asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yup! Two of them," she beamed at the lunar slayer. "I was sort of astral projected there . . . I guess that'd be the best way to describe it. There are armed guards there. This is most definitely a trap for Zen so they must have found out somehow as to what has been going on."

"I haven't killed anyone in weeks," Vander smirked as he played with a knife he'd forged out of shadow. "Presca and I can take care of them. It'll be just like the old days, just you, me, and the baddies."

"You make it sound like we're dating."

"I'm too much man for you to handle."

"You're too much of something alright, but a man isn't one of them." Bickslow snorted while Ayala hid her smiling face in his chest and Cristoff just laughed. "Why don't you go make yourself useful and scout the area for us so we know what we're up against?"

"So mean," Vander stated as he took off into his shadows.

"I'll go report this to dad while you three figure out how we're going to transport two eggs safely out of the mine." Cristoff turned his back and headed went to call Arman.

"Sure take the easiest job," snorted Bickslow as he followed Ayala and Zen to a small workspace where they could figure out how they were going to get everyone and everything out safely.

Lucy stared out the small window of the airship as they continued to fly amongst the clouds, lost in thoughts about her family estate. She hadn't been back to the estate since she had received the news of her father dying, which no one knew about except Natsu and Happy to her knowledge. It wasn't like she was going to let everyone know what happened after they had all just gotten back from their seven-year sleep on Tenrou Island. She also didn't tell anyone that the entire estate belonged to her, was her sole inheritance after her father's company was sold the business to the slimy forty-year-old man that had tried to make an arrangement for her hand in marriage. There were so many things that she didn't miss about be an heiress.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Laxus and Erik staring at her while Gray and Wendy were playing some sort of board game, one young woman was winning. Whenever Gray began to lose in a game he would slowly start to freeze things, like the legs of the chair he was on, and if he was winning he'd strip faster - both were a lose-lose situation for everyone else. She knew that Erik was either relaying what she was feeling to Laxus or they were having an intense conversation over unicorns and rainbows, to which Lucy heard a loud snort in the coffee cup that Erik was currently trying to have a drink out of. Take that soul creeper.

"Come on Tink. You know I don't creep."

"Would you prefer stalk, slink, spy, hack . . ."

"Alright Tink, I get the fucking picture. No need to take your feelings out on me."

"I'm not. If I were I'd be yelling at you before kicking you into the closest wall." Wendy giggled which had Cobra glaring at the little bluenette, but that only made her laugh more. Laxus was standing there with a smirk that was matched by the one on Gray's face as well.

"Why don't you tell us what's really wrong Blondie."

"Don't any of you think it's too much of a coincidence that one of the last keys is sitting at the house I grew up in? Something about this just doesn't feel right."

"Like a 'you're going to be kidnapped' or 'this is a trap' or a 'we are all going to die' not kind of right?" Gray asked while moving his piece five spots along the board.

"Is it sad that that's how you're identifying these types of feeling?" Cobra asked the ice make mage. Lucy and Gray looked at one another before shrugging, because it was pretty much the gist of every feeling she had while out on a mission. Every major battle that had happened to Lucy could be summed up in one of those three categories to the point where the team would ask her if she was feeling like A, B, or C that day.

"It's just what our normal is Cobra," Wendy answered as she motioned for Gray to hand her some brightly colored money. "Plus I am sure that she's worried about the other two missions going on right now, so how about you just give Lucy some space." Wendy didn't look up at the poison slayer to know that she had hit a nerve, but the growl that was directed at her had her smiling while ignoring him.

"What the sass squirt," Laxus muttered but Wendy saw the small smile at the corners on his mouth and knew she was still safe. Lucy was watching the slayer dynamic with contained mirth as Wendy's older brothers were learning what it was like to handle a mature female slayer. She was thankful that Cristoff grew up with Emzadi, otherwise having him learn like the other male slayers were was going to be the bane of her existence.

"So what? We get the key, return to Bosco, you call out the overrated dragon, then get jiggy with your mate and we all live happily ever after?"

"Erik please tell me you didn't just use the word 'jiggy'? How old are you?"

"Fuck you Tink."

"No thanks I have Cris, but I'm sure Kinana will be waiting when you get back."

"The sass, I tell you it'll be the end of the world."

"Nah, we'll just rule it instead. Right Lucy?"

"Damn straight Wendy." The girls broke out in laughter, as one eye rolled, and the other two kept their mouths shut about the topic.