Rated M
M is for MATURE, people.
If I can pretend to be, then you can too!

DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! *sob* However sometimes I wonder if Mashima-sama used to follow me and my friends around to help him dream up a few of his characters!

At least let a girl dream!

Episode 26
Conduits

In the span of three seconds, FairyTail's hard work had come undone. Wendy and Gajeel had heard the danger first. The sound of scraping and clawing quickly coming up from below the ground they walked, but as soon as they began to call out to others; it was already happening.

Most of FairyTail already knew what the dreaded earthquake would bring. When an earth-shattering crack followed after it, panic ran a muck much as it had before all of Magnolia was consumed. Jellal helped Erza regain her bearings as they both stared out in horror. Just as before, a huge gash scarred the earth.

However this time... it tore open Droy's wall. So not only were terribly disjointed figures crawling out of the unexpected canyon, but the infected constantly beating at the wall and drifting in the moat were now scaling the edge and pouring past the barrier.

Their homestead was being overrun.

Levy clung to Gajeel's arm tightly as horror claimed her face. She shuddered at the disjointed, ravenous crawlers that climbed up the wall of the precipice, "Gajeel... what are those?!"

Gajeel put a large hand over the two digging into his arm, his eyes glued to the danger coming at them with wicked speed. "Don't know, Shrimp. Get Wendy and barricade yourselves in the guild."

"No Gajeel! I can fight with you!" She interrupted vehemently.

The iron dragon turned to her then and practically snarled, "You take as many civilians as you can, but you get yourself in there, NOW!"

The blunette's eyes grew moist at how determined he was to see her safe and at her concern for his—but she knew he was dead serious. "Okay... okay Gajeel." She pulled him down to press a chaste kiss upon his lips—and she pressed firmly—before she released him to go after Wendy.

Gajeel stared after her for only a mere fraction of a second, but to him it was an eternity. He would see her safe, never would he survive without her. He knew that now just as he knew iron tasted fantastic. When he turned back, Gajeel could hear several different people throw out far too many commands for anyone to actually follow a specific commander. Not that it mattered. These creeps sought to destroy his family?

They would find themselves on the painful side of an iron dragon's wrath.

As the crawlers and the fastest of eaters made it to the middle of the yard, they found themselves blocked by hundreds of cruel iron columns slamming down mercilessly on top of the leading line. The dark mane of the iron dragon waved behind him like a tattered flag when he landed atop of one of his pillars and began sweeping a huge iron blade for an arm through countless bodies as he roared his defiance.

Erza had stood ready to confront the monsters in her black wing armor when the iron came raining down in front of her. She'd jumped back, knocking Jellal down from how close the columns were to where she'd made her stand. The battle maiden turned to see Jellal on his back and she scoffed, "Get up Jellal! This is no time to laze about."

"Yes..." Jellal pulled himself to his feet, "of course not, Erza..."

The ground shook yet again as an enormous wall of ice rose from behind the wizards making a stand against the hoard in an effort to protect those taking refuge behind the guild walls. Juvia stood on it with furrowed brows as she shot massive amounts of boiling hot water into the crevice with demented undead creatures still crawling out of it. Hundreds of them were blasted back down—but it was a temporary solution at best.

"Ya know, if you'd turn down the heat, I could freeze that water and patch up that hole, Juvia." Gray frowned as he jumped up onto the wall that had lifted her up to the vantage point she'd needed.

"Oh Gray-sama, always seeking ways to cool Juvia's warm waters!" The rain woman giggled jovially as she lowered her water's temperature.

Gray smirked, bending into a stance more befitting his maker-magic as he drawled, "Well... if you'd stop melting on me, maybe I wouldn't have to."

The rain woman blushed wildly at his comment as she tried to focus all her thoughts on lower temperatures.

Levy halted at the foot of the ice wall. Wendy had been right on the other side of it, good news—except for how mad Gajeel might be to discover Levy was not there with her. She turned toward Erza as she heard her scream out a command at one of her team members.

"DROY! Fix up that wall! There are too many!"

The solid-script mage cupped her hands together, calling for Droy, she couldn't see him anywhere. What if he couldn't hear Erza's call?

"Levy! GET OUTTA THE WAY!" Gray called as he shot a huge jet of ice into Juvia's steady stream.

At the first sound of warning, Levy ducked down, only to be swept up in Jet's incredible speed. He held her bridal style and stopped once he got her to the other side of the yard, setting her down.

"Jet! Thank you!"

The speed wizard grinned at her with a thumbs up, "Not a problem, Levy! Just like old times."

"Jet!" Levy clutched her hands into fists worriedly, "where is Droy? Erza called him to repair the wall!"

Her partner scratched his chin as his other hand rested on his hip, "Not sure, but I can find him."

Levy gave him a genuine and relieved smile, "That would be a load of help!"

With a much more charming grin that he could have possibly flashed her two years ago, he replied, "Anything for you!" Jet hesitated before taking off though, "are you going to be okay?"

Levy grinned, "Are you kidding! Team Shadow Gear never runs!"

"Ha! True that!" Jet laughed, and sprinted off to find Droy with as much speed as he could muster.

As brave a face as she had put on, Levy could not deny that she was terrified. So many of her loved ones were here, mixed into the fray or trying desperately to save what could be lost. She needed to do something too, but what? She yelped and covered her head as the atmosphere suddenly erupted with deafening thunder, followed quickly by several thick bolts of lightning turning Juvia's flood into an electrically charged pool of destruction.

Gray cursed, looking up at the dragon leaping over his jagged ice wall to land where Gray had been trying to freeze Juvia's water. "Damnit Laxus, I had that under control."

The grandson of Makarov gave him a thumbs up without turning to look back at him, "Sure you did, Iceman, and that's why those things were still crawling out!" He kicked one of the freshly electrocuted infected, "they're not crawling now..."

Gray frowned at Laxus' pompous voice, and Juvia set a reassuring hand on her love's shoulder, "Things will be alright, Gray-sama... everyone here has the same goal."

"Tch..." Gray would get Laxus back for that.

Gajeel with his excellent hearing growled at Gray and Laxus, "You pretty boys gonna just stand around or help out, damnit! This ain't done!"

Laxus laughed, stomping on the closest twitcher's head, "Yea pretty boy, get your ass down here!"

Gray growled out his own retort, "He was talkin to you, Mr. Late to the party!"

As a gargantuan heavenly orb turned a chunk of the sea of undead masking the horizon into nothing but a crater, compliments of Jellal, Erza barked at the both of them, "Damnit you two! Point those tempers to the enemy!"

"Yea yea..." Both Gray and Laxus prepared to attack again.

Despite their substantial offensive powers, they would not be able to hold for long. It seemed as though the masses of undead were limitless, and no matter how many they decimated, more were slipping through the cracks.

Gray had made his way down to back up his long time red-headed partner, but after a while, their powers were becoming drained with no sign of the invading forces weakening. The bodies were piled high, but an endless stream of infected kept crawling over still corpses with an unquenchable hunger. "Erza! We gotta fall back!"

The battle maiden violently slammed the broad side of her dark blade into a crowd trying to pass her by instead of facing others lunging for her flesh. As she pushed them back, she crashed her foot into the gut of the other closest to her. "And fall back where, Gray? They are all in there, everyone! We'd never get all of them out!"

"I dunno, blast the back wall out and make a retreat underground—but we can't keep holding them back like this!"

Gajeel yelled out from where he fought further away, "Underground is no good, maybe ya didn't notice, but that's where mosta these creeps are comin from!"

"Perhaps if Max-kun could fill the gap with sand?" Juvia called out.

"No time," Jellal gritted his teeth, blasting the eaters away from himself and Erza with a wave of his arm. "It would only serve to let them crawl out of mud."

"Everybody jump!" Laxus roared out as he stomped his foot, sending a wave of wild lightning fanning out from the ground. Everyone but Juvia jumped in time.

Juvia cried out in intense pain, the electricity shooting up every part of her being—her entire body flickered the color of Laxus' power. That blood-curdling scream ringing out from a comrade sung out like none other. Not the moans of the undead, not the wails of the crawlers, not even the battle cries of the wizards could compare. Though it echoed the very core of one wizard so much that he staggered.

"Juvia!" Gray ran as fast as he could, sliding through damp ground to catch her before she crumpled in a heap. "Damn you, Laxus!"

"Get her out of here, Gray—" Jellal called out just as Erza yelled out, "Control youself, Laxus!"

Laxus growled, mad at Juvia for not being quick enough, but mostly mad at himself for hurting a comrade. "I'll make it up to her, Gray, but right now we gotta get more aggressive!"

With a situation this dire, no one could fault him too severely.

"Damnit! Where is Droy!?" Erza screamed.

o.o;;

The fully formed exceed Carla was calling out for Wendy. She couldn't find her anywhere and was worried sick. Happy ran up to her also in his enlarged form as Jet zoomed past them inside the guild.

"Any luck, Tom Cat?"

Happy shook his head, "I couldn't find her."

Carla gripped her head as she focused on breathing, "I never should have let her run off! I'm the worst guardian ever!"

"No..." Happy laid a blue paw onto her shoulder, "Wendy's gotten older and is as headstrong as Natsu. You couldn't keep her from doing anything if she'd already made up her mind..."

The white fur on her face moistened as she wrapped herself into his arms, "Oh Happy! I'm so frightened!"

Working through his surprise of Carla's actions and uncharacteristic venerability, he stroked through the fur on the top of her head and murmured softly, "Everything's going to be alright, you'll see."

Soon, Loke, Virgo and Aries ran to the exceeds, tailed by the most welcome sight of Wendy and Pip.

"Wendy!" Carla ripped from Happy's arms and all but tackled the sky dragon, forcing her friend, Pip, to jump back.

"I'm so sorry, Carla! But I had to make sure that Pip and his mom were safe!"

"Wendy! I'm gonna go help Mirajane and Lisanna. I think they're tryin' to come up with a fallback plan." Pip had to speak loudly over all the sounds from the other side of the wall.

"Okay, thanks Pip!" Wendy nodded.

"Nah..." the boy ran a hand through his sandy hair, "thanks to you for checkin' on us!"

"Happy," Loke walked the rest of the way up to him. "Lucy and Natsu were at the fishing hole last I knew, care to give me a lift?"

The blue exceed turned to Carla with an unspoken question, and at her nod of a response while holding Wendy protectively, Happy gave Loke a smirk that was eerily similar to one of Natsu's. "Aye, let's go get our guys."

o.o;;

It wasn't long before Natsu and Lucy stopped at the sight of the biggest ocean of infected they'd ever seen. Not a single creep looked in their direction though they were probably in smelling range—if smell is what they did. Their stink, however, was enough for a fairly queasy fire dragon to melt off of Equuleus' back and do everything to keep his breakfast inside, rather than outside.

"It smells... so... baaaad...!" Natsu whined, one with the ground at the moment.

Lucy reigned Equuleus in from where the horse danced nervously and soothed her with whispers, making Natsu wish she'd take such tender care with him for a change. He was in way more pain than that dumb skittish animal.

"Natsu! They're all headed to FairyTail! How can that be?"

The wizard started lifting himself up, still feeling extremely nauseous. "Those stinkers can't possibly be what made the ground shake, could they?"

Lucy shook her head, staring into the massive hoard of shufflers, "I... I just don't know."

Managing to stand up on his feet, he smirked and tried to punch his hand into the other, but then turned blue again and hunched over, "Urrrrrgh!"

"Natsu!" Lucy frowned, "what are we gonna do!"

"Mmmrph... kick their... asses... of course! Gaah..."

The blonde rolled her eyes, "Geez you're hopeless! How is it that you can handle flying all over the place with Happy, but get so worked up over Equuleus? Animal! Not machine!"

Natsu began whining again, "Why do you gotta be so meeeean!" The smell of so many dead bodies was really taking his previous motion sickness go into over drive. If he could just make them smell roasted...

"Uhhhh... Naa, Natsu!" Lucy began to turn a little blue herself as she saw that their commotion had not gone unnoticed. She reached for her fleuve d'etoiles and leapt from the paint's back. Pointing the horse back in the direction of the cottage, she lightly slapped her rump, sending the filly running off. Once Equuleus was safely away, Lucy cracked her whip free. She narrowed her eyes as the undead began to quicken their pace toward them, "Natsu, you better get it together..."

"Mmmrgggh..."

Once the undead breached Fleuve d'etoiles' reach, Lucy swung it in a wide arch into them. The magical stream was aimed at their heads and sliced through mouths and foreheads like butter, sending sprays of coagulated blood onto the tree trunks. Other trees caught in her swing tumbled down onto other eaters and as her whip reached the end of its arch, Lucy cracked it with a flick of her wrist, making a loud popping sound. The Celestial mage had her legs spread and looped the whip to make another round, "Come on Natsu! Any day now!"

He was trying! Really he was! He wanted to protect Lucy—and certainly did not want it the other way around. Natsu knew that whip of hers could only keep them at bay for so long... after what felt like forever, his body began to fire up in his frustration.

The eaters were getting close, Lucy was doing everything she could, but her whip did not have enough room to soar through the air properly. It was catching in the undead bodies because she couldn't gain enough momentum to slice them through. Lucy screamed her terror when one finally grabbed hold of her arm. So many memories came flooding back to her from when Levy and her were traveling as soon as those clammy fingers wrapped around her skin. In her panic, she struggled to rip Fleuve d'etoiles from out of the body it was lodged in so she could bring it down onto the cretin gripping her. It was then that she felt an immense heat where cold fingers once rested.

Natsu tore the arm off of the eater, removing the offending hand from his partner and held the stiff arm up, as his other hand held Lucy's arm possessively. "You wanna taste my Lucy?"

The mage flushed, feeling a wealth of emotions all at once. Relief and exasperation at Natsu being back on his feet, arousal and indignation fighting for supremacy at him calling her 'his.' She would not have the time to sort through those feelings however, because by the time she would have a chance to try—they would seem trivial.

"MY Lucy?!" Natsu snarled and swung the arm he held straight into the obtrusive creep's face, blasting it into oblivion crying, "WELL GET IN LINE!"

His choice of words only causing Lucy to be less of a warrior and more of an intensely embarrassed, glowing red damsel.

Without sparing another moment, Natsu released her arm and stood in front of her and roared out his revenge. They'd touched Lucy!

Fuckers gotta die.

His dragon's roar sent the entire plethora of infected back into the rest of the hoard that was still focused on reaching the guild hall. Natsu was smirking out at the damage he'd done and feeling pretty good about it until—

"Get in... line...?"

Natsu's eyes widened and he jumped back around in a ready stance like he feared an attack, "Err, uh..."

The blonde always seemed sexier when she looked at him all mad like that. What could he say? Her fire was hot...

It was a good thing rescue was coming in fast, because a fire dragon that sweats takes a turn toward unappealing.

"Natsuuuuu!"

Both Lucy and Natsu looked up, unaccustomed to the deeper voice Happy took when in full exceed form. Natsu smiled at Happy, "Heeey buddy!"

When they landed, both spirit and exceed stared at Lucy with very different expressions. Loke folded his arms with a raised brow, and Happy gawked right before he started snickering.

"Whaaat?" Lucy frowned, "is there something on my face?" She quickly gave herself a once over, Bloodied clothes, sure, slightly tangled hair, of course! Burnt hand print right over my boob— "ACK!" The mage quickly crossed her arms over her chest and took an embarrassed step back.

Natsu, never one to grieve any sort of mark on his chosen mate, grew a cheeky grin, "Hey Happy, let's go get us some sickos!"

"Aye sir!"

As the dragon and exceed turned to run off, Lucy raised an angry fist, "You get back here Natsu! I'm not done with you!"

"You better keep your hands offa her, Loke!" Natsu called out before he leapt up into the trees and high into the air, aiming his jump right into the middle of the swarm.

Loke tsked, "You're one to talk." He turned to Lucy with that same raised eyebrow, "just say the word and I'll kick his ass." Then the spirit's eyes went round and he quickly plugged his nose from the pending nosebleed.

Lucy was grumbling to herself, smearing handfuls of dirt all over her chest in an effort to hide the hand print.

"Cut, cut, cut that out, Lucy!"

"Oh shut up, Loke!" She barked back, ready to rip the head off of pretty much anything male at that current moment.

The Celestial spirit king turned around, looking up at the tree's canopy with his hands behind his back. "I'm so gonna kick his ass. Groping? What the hell..."

Still grumbling, Lucy stood up and inspected her dirty tank top. "You just leave Natsu to me, I know how to get him back..."

Loke frowned, looking at her from over his shoulder. That's what I'm worried about.

He shook his head, realizing (begrudgingly) that he would have to make clear his feeling before the salamander beat him to it. "Hey, uh, Lucy—"

Lucy cracked her whip and smiled much like Virgo did when administering punishment, "Are we gonna let Natsu have all the skull crushing fun? Let's go Loke!"

A sly smile crossed his features, "You're so beautiful when you order me around..."

Lucy rolled her eyes, keeping that same grin. She always dismissed his words as playing around... he was going to have to fix that. "Come on! We gotta protect FairyTail!" His mage ran off into the direction Natsu and Happy had gone.

"...Aye sir." Loke adjusted his glasses right before he took on a blindingly brilliant yellow glow as he morphed into the embodiment of his constellation. As soon as all four mighty golden paws touched the earth, he dug into the ground and leapt after his summoner. It only took three bounds to catch up. Positioning himself directly behind her, he lowered his maned neck to headbutt her rear, sending her into the air with a feminine yelp. Loke then jumped to catch the blonde by making her land on his back. When he landed with a frazzled mage astride him, he glanced back at her.

"I'm riding a lion!" Lucy's astonished expression soon melted into a wicked grin, "I'm riding a lion!" She cracked her whip in the air and pointed to the hoard, "let's go Loke!"

The enlarged golden lion reared his head in a magnificent roar, and ran toward the infestation plaguing their guild.

o.o;;

"WENDY!" Gray felt extremely relieved when he saw her outside near the ice wall as he slid down it, cradling an unconscious Juvia in his arms. When his feet touched the ground he raced to her, hugging the rain woman close, "Laxus sent this huge wave of electricity out, but Juvia didn't get outta the way in time! Do somethin!"

The sky dragon tore herself from Carla's arms and began looking over Juvia. "Lay her down, Gray."

The wizard knelt down, but did not let Juvia go. There was a big part of him that felt that if he released her, she would slip away. Wendy fussed about her nonetheless and finally placed her ear to the blunette's chest. "Gray... her heart! It's not beating!"

"What? Well start it up again wouldja!" Gray exclaimed through gritted teeth.

Even over Carla yelling at the wizard about Wendy not being a miracle worker, Wendy pressed her lips together and delved her healing magic deep inside the mage. Just as Juvia had taken on the color of Laxus' magic, now she glowed a luminous white but Gray just squinted his eyes, refusing to look away. Her heart wasn't beating... her heart wasn't beating! How could this be? Gray'd been hit by Laxus' magic before and yea, it hurt—a lot—but it shouldn't be fatal! In his unwillingness to believe her, he grabbed one of Juvia's slender wrists, her skin a beautiful pale peach and exquisitely soft... so soft, and checked her pulse for himself.

Gray waited... nothing. "No!" He shook his head, "come on, Wendy! There's gotta be something!"

Tears were welling up in Wendy's eyes as she kept plugging Juvia with her magic, what good was she if she could not save the life of her friends? "She's water, Gray! Pure water! That lightning must have used her like a conductor! Every bit of her got shocked beyond repair!"

"Beyond... repair?" Gray froze, staring at Juvia's closed eyes, holding a wrist that refused to pulse.

….

"...No..." Gray whispered to himself.

Wendy could feel what Juvia had gone through. Less than a second of mind-traumatizing pain and then—nothing.

"I cannot believe Laxus could be so reckless! Didn't he know the rain woman was out there protecting us!" Carla spat through fanged teeth. "Child, if you keep this up then you will not be able to help anyone else!"

"I can't just let her die! There is still life in her! I can feel it... somewhere. She doesn't want to go!" Cried out the young dragon, her power flickering in her grief ridden state.

Virgo put a hand on Gray's shoulder that he violently shook off. His composer was forgotten, nothing mattered if Juvia couldn't be by his side.

The spirit spoke anyway, unperturbed by Gray's rude response. "Juvia is water, that is what you said, yes? Then perhaps it would be beneficial if she were to have a bath. Shall I draw one up for you? Far from the thunder dragonslayer, of course."

Wendy, Carla, and Aries all looked at the spirit with mouths slightly agape.

As the healing magic winked out, Gray stood, refusing to set Juvia anywhere. She belonged in his arms. "Water huh? That's genius, Virgo." Without loosening his grip on the rain woman at all, he cast aside his shirt without knowing it. "She uses water to freshen up all the time. Why should now be any different?"

"The water in Fairy Hills' bathhouse is the cleanest. Taking her there may be best." Carla murmured, fearing they would only be soaking a corpse.

Gray was already running, tearing the hinges off of doors too stubborn to swing open properly in his haste. Water heals her—why didn't he take her there first? It could be too late now.

No! Don't think that. Juvia! You're gonna be okay!
...I'm gonna fuckin gut Laxus like a fish...

o.o;;

The defenders of FairyTail cheered when they witnessed a blazing ball of fire diving down from where a blue exceed flew the salamander off in the distance. Erza smirked, "It's about time." She lifted up her sword as she kicked yet another creeping crawler back and cried over the undead's moans, "we've got them surrounded now! Take them down!"

"No mercy!"

"They will die hungry this day!"

"Hell yea!"

"This is for Juvia!"

Busy day in Magnolia.

OMG! Eleven reviews! I MISSED this! FEED DA LICK MOAR!

MyLuv: EGGS ARE GREAT! OMG! Add some milk and some cheese... purr... Lickably delicious! Loke's occupied having Lucy ~ahem~ ride him... and yea, I enjoyed the cottage scene too, but that place is a little too... corpse ridden for cherry poppin. :D
MoonLilyLuv: It just wasn't sanitary... eh heh heh... ((check Luv's reply XD))
Irhina: Chibi bubbles are THE BEST. Finding a place for them is too rare and in between when writing instead of animating. T.T The manga, I have recently skipped ahead and checking out the newest ones—just cuz I GOTTA know what happens when Natsu wakes up. (almost there Gohan! Almost there!)
tkittyPrettyKitty: It keeps us on our toes! And besides... I like dead. You can be my dead. Hi dead! Check out SEVEN DEADLY SINS! You'd like Ban just like I do!
AliciaT: Jealous Natsu... makes me soo... Ahem, I AGREE! Cana's the best! :D
ScarletLoveliness: again, XD check Luv's response. Just not a great place for first epic Nalu Lemon—though I doubt either of them would have minded at the time...
Stormie: Oh you KNOW Loke's gonna mention Lucy riding him! XD Cocoon of flames... hmm... interesting. Hehehe...
Eddings: YAAAS! Equuleus is the lovable paint that Natsu hates! Mwahaha! Lemon? What is this lemon you speak of? No lemons here! GET URE MIND OUTTA THE GUTTER! *smiles sweetly* check other replies, I COULD NOT put the lemon in that stinky old cottage!
NomNOmDOM: I will not stop. *swishes fox tail* and you can't maaake meeeee!
SilentMaiden: Blush more! Didja notice that Natsu's frustrated about the interruption too didja didja didja? Hehehe...
KawaiiNekoSweetness: Wb my cuddly reanimated Neko-chan! Oh, I do believe Cana and Happy realized that together they have great power... Shiver MORE! Keep up the brainz intake! It's good for you! ;)

Just for you my lovelies
Don't forget to always double tap!
Seriphia
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