Disclaimer: Fairy Tail and its characters belong to Hiro Mashima.
"Hey! Hey! Over here!" Lucy waved her arms through the water, trying to get Gajeel and Shrimp's attention. "Come over here! I think we found something!"
Gajeel lifted Shrimp up, letting her sit on his back as he waded slowly through the water to get closer to them. "Eh? What is it?"
"Natsu's down there right now, he's says that he can see something!"
"I also see something," Erza waded by Lucy, "But Natsu's eyes are better; we'll wait for him to come back."
The Fire Dragon Slayer resurfaced a moment later, brushing the hair out of his face, "There's definitely something down there! It's like an underwater building!"
"DO FISH LIVE THERE!?" Happy asked, producing a fork and a knife, presumably from the air.
"I don't know what lives there," Natsu frowned, looking determined, "But whatever is down there, it DEFINITELY has something to do with what happened to all of us!" It was much too suspicious NOT to have anything to do with it, and now that he was back on the surface he could certainly smell something very familiar.
"Then let's go; everyone take a deep breath and propel yourselves down below," Erza instructed, following her own lead and dipping below the water.
Lucy followed, grasping Natsu's hand so he could help tug her down. Happy held onto Lucy's foot, holding one hand over his nose; STINKY!
"... Gajeel... go on ahead." Shrimp looked down, tears welling in her eyes.
"Eh!?"
"I can't go down there... I can't swim like this... so you just leave me here and go on by yourself..."
Gajeel started walking to the shore and, at first, Shrimp thought he was actually going to leave her behind. She wouldn't have blamed him, but it just seemed so much more real that... she was useless here. He set her down on the sand and righted himself, producing a technique that she hadn't seen since the time that he crucified her to that tree.
He worked with his arms, using several metal shackles, bolts and pipes out of the iron in his arms to create something that... looked... sort of like...
"A SADDLE!?"
"I seen people use these before!"
"THOSE ARE FOR BABIES!" It was a baby backpack that mothers would use to carry around their infant young!
"GIHI! If it's good enough for some lady's baby it's good enough for mine!" he hooked it around his back and lifted a kicking, screaming, protesting little Shrimp, fishing her legs through the foot holes and fastening her firmly to him.
"Are ya ready?"
"I'm not talking to you."
"Then let's go!"
The five dripping, gasping guild members hunched over, falling to their knees. If the base had been any deeper down then they'd never have been able to make it; once they got to a certain point, though, they passed through a magical bubble that served as a producer of oxygen for the people down below.
"This is clever," Erza straightened, requipping back into her armor. "If we hadn't been looking for this place, we would have never found it."
"It's because of you two," Shrimp smiled to Natsu and Gajeel.
"Hey!" Happy crossed his arms, pouting.
"And you, Happy!" Lucy patted his head, "You're the one who recognized the fish smell!"
"I smell it now too, though," Erza tilted her nose up to sniff the air.
Everyone seemed to consider this, then followed Erza's gesture and started sniffing.
"Ew!" Lucy clasped a hand to her nose, while Shrimp buried her face in Gajeel's shoulder.
"The hell is that!?" Gajeel snarled, both he and Natsu reeling from the stench; their noses were much more sensitive, after all.
"Mmmmm!" Happy started rubbing his belly, flicking his tail around, "What a great smell!"
It was a very sweet smell, but almost sickeningly so. The intensity of the aroma was almost tangible, entering their noses like a wad of cotton trying to penetrate their pores. It was enough to water their eyes and give them almost a flavor of fish on their tongues.
"You may lead the way then, Happy," Erza, having wrapped a blindfold around her face, stood behind Happy for him to lead the way.
Shrimp removed her headband and wrapped it around her nose to block out the scent, while Gajeel took off his own headband and fastened it similarly.
Natsu, in a theft-like manner, used his scarf to bind up his entire head.
"Whad aboud be?" Lucy asked, pinching her nose.
Shrimp produced a second 'emergency' bandana for her friend, letting her wrap herself up before they pressed on.
Happy lead them through a maze of a building with twists and turns leading to more... twists and turns. Without Happy they'd be hopelessly lost, but a cat driven by the scent of fish was a hell of a guide. Eventually they came to a large set of glass doors, fogged up from the inside. Beyond that, though, they could see shadows of moving figures weaving in and out of themselves.
Erza crouched low, pressing her ear to the door. There were definitely people in there... When she straightened herself again, she turned to her comrades and opened her mouth to explain the next step.
"ROOOOHHHHH!" Natsu's fist flew by her face and crashed into the glass doors, shattering them and splintering the adjacent walls.
"NATSU!" Erza growled, drawing her sword and entering the room to block any oncoming attack. The idiot! They had the element of surprise and he destroyed it!
"Who the hell are you people!?" Natsu demanded, eyes flicking indiscriminately across the room.
It was massive, half the size of the entire base. White tables lined the walls with jars and test tubes and, directly across the door, was a large tank of brightly colored, purple fish.
The people in the room, ten thin men in lab coats, stopped their progress and turned to face the guild.
"Fairy Tail," one of them spoke, sounding monotone and bored, "It's... very surprising that you are here. We took the most extreme precautions to hide ourselves."
"It WORKED!" Shrimp spoke out, coming out from behind Gajeel, "It worked, but now you can't hide! We know what you've done!"
The girl made no sense; several of the scientists looked at one another then back at the girl.
"You may call me... X," the monotone man drolled, setting down a vial, "And I feel as though you should know that we have sounded the alarms... and our army is on its way."