Authors's Note:

Hey all! It's Christmas Eve! Yay! And yes...I'm a day late. . Sorry!

As always, a humongous thanks to everyone who reviewed! Big hugs and kisses to my repeat reviewers: SunnieDayys, illleashya, stranger1999, Donthedarkdragon26, valerioux, Leomae2.0, Softkittypaw, Lucinda, Perfect Memories, agirl0ntheinternet, Lexi1994, Firefly9917, TheJSmooth, and sakshishetty3003. Equally big hugs and kisses to my newest reviewers: Raven claw, DemonicSpider, and CathJorda.

Also, as I mentioned last time, I'm going out of town today, so I probably won't be able to make the Wednesday posting. However, I'll try to make it up by posting early this weekend...like maybe Friday or Saturday instead of Sunday. :3 And happy holidays everyone!

Now, on with the show! And stay tuned till the end for a sneak peek of next chapter. ;D


After Zero disappeared, Kurama dismissively looked at his frozen tail and knocked it into the wall to shatter it. Then he turned back to Lucy.

Before he had taken so much as a single step though, a blast of hellish heat exploded through the hall, making him wince and stagger back a few paces. Several seconds later, Natsu tumbled through his gate, in the middle of transforming back to his human form, and Kurama barked a laugh as he took in the sight of the fire dragon in such an uncoordinated state.

He somehow managed to hit the floor running, and by the time he'd made it to Lucy's side he was back to his normal pink-haired self and had stopped trying to bake them alive. Kurama ambled over as Natsu gathered her into his arms and proceeded to fuss over, pester, poke, prod, kiss, and hug his mate in a ridiculous display that might have once irritated Kurama. Now though, he just felt amusement and fondness towards his summoner and her overeager dragon… but he still rolled his eyes and snorted.

Then, to add to the ridiculous scene, Amaterasu popped into being and pounced on Lucy too, sniffing and licking her from head to toe. Under the demanding attentions, she quickly ended up back on the floor, though Natsu obviously took over the job of lowering her gently into his lap when her legs gave out.

After a moment more of this, Kurama pointed out, "We should probably get going…oh wait, never mind, keep doing that." He quickly backpedaled as he realized that Natsu was apparently healing Lucy's hands with fire. "I'll keep watch while you heal her. Yo, fuzzball, stop slobbering over her and help me out."

Amy turned to give him a nasty look and he had to keep himself from flinching. She stood and shook out her coat, then stalked over to go nose to nose with him.

Coldly she growled, "I'm the Alpha here, kit. Don't forget that." Then she sniffed regally and spun to point her nose and ears down one side of the hall.

With a sarcastic grumble of, "yes ma'am," he turned to do the same in the opposite direction.

They'd had a few altercations in the past, and somehow she and her pack had always managed to come out on top…despite the fact that he had way more raw power than her. It certainly made for an interesting relationship now that they were with the same summoner, he thought to himself somewhat sourly. They'd definitely had a rocky start, but at Lucy's request they had tried to get along to the best of their ability. They still snapped and griped at each other, but he was slowly starting to actually like the prissy bitch. He'd now classify them as friendly rivals.

As for Lucy, she was utterly limp with relief. Being cradled in Natsu's lap while he bathed her sore hands in fire was heavenly, and she let her head rest on his chest and listened to his rapid heartbeat, feeling like she could easily go to sleep if she let herself. She was finally warm, after what felt like forever. Any ice still sticking around had melted within seconds of Natsu's appearance and the overall ambient temperature had risen significantly.

The soothing heat of his fire helped to ease the pain in her hands too, taking the sharpness of torn skin away at least, though she knew that he couldn't do much for the bones. If they were set properly, he could help them heal, but with them all out of place he didn't dare. Even so, it was still a relief.

She remained limp, even after he finished with her hands and started probing her for other injuries. That seemed to worry him though, and he gently shook her. "Luce? Hey, you okay? You haven't passed out on me have ya?"

"M'fine. Jus' happy." she mumbled, smiling up at him.

His eyes relaxed some, but then he frowned. "Why're you talking like that anyways? You sound weird."

"She protected our keys by shoving them in her mouth. The insides are all cut up." Kurama interjected from nearby, and Natsu glanced up at him with wide eyes.

Then he turned those eyes back on her, looking horrified. "Seriously? Shit, come on, let me see."

When his fingers prodded at her lips, she opened and let him see the inside of her mouth, and his eyes tightened with shock and even more horror. "Holy…fuck."

She wasn't exactly surprised when his lips landed on hers and he started pouring fire into her mouth to heal her, but it still made her jerk and mumble a half-assed protest. She wasn't exactly comfortable kissing like this in front of other people, even if this wasn't a normal situation and he wasn't really kissing her…not exactly. Still, trying to tell her body that was a little difficult, and she flushed lightly with embarrassment.

The flames soon settled her mind though as their heat soothed her pain, and she slowly started to relax, sighing into his mouth. However, it was only a few minutes later when she tensed up again as a new situation distracted her. Voices and pounding footsteps sounded down the hall, soon getting quite loud.

"Just up ahead, we're getting close."

That was Sting's voice.

"Yeah, I can smell blood and demons. It's real close."

And that was Laxus…. Sting must have run into the second infiltration team while he was escaping with Yukino.

"How much blood?!" Gray spat, sounding highly perturbed.

"A lot, but most of it is demon." Rogue answered. Apparently the seal on his gate had melted with the destruction of Zero. Good to know.

And then they were rounding the corner.

Lucy tried to pull away, flushing bright red once again and wanting to greet their comrades without a dragon attached to her lips, but Natsu refused to budge.

This didn't go unnoticed of course, and soon Gray was shouting, "What the hell hothead?! This really isn't the time!"

Mira twittered, Laxus said something along the same lines as Gray, Erza sputtered something insensible that sounded like, "honestly," and Juvia just said, "How romantic."

But over everyone else was a loud screech of, "LUUSHY!"

Natsu finally pulled free as Happy bulldozed into them, and Lucy quickly wrapped her arms around him as he bawled into her chest, drenching her shirt in seconds.

Meanwhile, a very flustered Gray continued to scold Natsu. "What the hell man?! She just got out of a fight! She's hurt! And we're still in enemy territory! What were you thinking?!"

"I'm healing her, dumbass!" Natsu shot back.

"In what world does making out equal healing?!"

"In the world of dragons and their mates! Now would you fuck off and let me finish?!"

"What in the…"

Thankfully Rogue stepped in to explain that a dragon's element had many positive effects on their mate, and healing was a fairly common one. Of course then Laxus asked what sort of injury she might have in her mouth, and this time it was Kurama who came forward with an explanation.

Meanwhile, Natsu had recaptured her mouth and was busy finishing up what he started, much to Lucy's embarrassment. The whole situation was amazingly awkward, but thankfully it was over relatively quickly.

Once they had disengaged, Yukino hesitantly came forwards, looking agonized. "I'm so sorry…this is all my fault. If I wasn't so weak, I wouldn't have been captured, and you wouldn't have been so badly hurt. And…our keys wouldn't have been…"

She broke down into tears, and Rogue rushed forwards to comfort her. Sting lingered back, his face a mask of deep pain and guilt as he was confronted by what had happened.

"It's not your fault. We were all taken by surprise." Erza said soothingly, but also with a firmness that brooked little argument. Then she said, "Now, we have to decide what to do from here and what our best plan of attack is. Team One has been successful in finding Yukino, but we still have to get her and Lucy to safety. Plus, we still need to accomplish our mission and destroy the gates."

"Agreed. We should split up again to accomplish both." Jellal nodded in accordance with his girlfriend's statement.

"Now wait just a minute!" Lucy protested.

Simultaneously Yukino said, "I can still fight!"

All eyes turned to the two celestial mages, looking them over with doubt and disbelief.

"Um, hate to break it to ya, but you two are beat up, out of magic, and out of keys in Yukino's case. You should both get the hell outta here." Laxus intoned with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball, but there was compassion in his eyes.

Yukino winced, being hit the hardest by that statement, but she quickly stood to her full height and stared the lightning dragon slayer down. "I'm not particularly injured and I can still fight…even without my keys. As for magic…" she glanced at Rogue and made meaningful eye contact.

His eyes went wide and he murmured, "Are you sure? You haven't been able to before…"

"That's just because I was afraid…but I'm not anymore. Not after what I've been through." she said softly and held out her hand.

After a moment, he nodded and placed his palm in hers. A rush of magic filled the space, and Lucy recognized the feel of power being transferred from one person to another, even if she'd never experienced it from this side of the situation before. Yukino tensed for half a second, but then completely relaxed and Rogue's eyes filled with awe and something else, something more intense, as she apparently completely accepted him for the first time.

Everyone silently waited out the exchange and averted their eyes, sensing that it was a very private and intimate moment between the celestial wizard and the dragon.

Once the transfer had been complete, Yukino dropped Rogue's hand and met their eyes again, something new and fierce in her gaze. "I will fight."

"Oookay. Well, that still leaves the issue of Lucy being hurt and out of magic." Laxus grumbled.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be just fine." she countered, accepting a healthy dose of Natsu's fire into her veins. Her hands might still hurt where the bones were broken, but otherwise she was fully capable of kicking ass.

"Very well, but at least let me tend to your hands. The bones are obviously broken." Jellal intoned, bringing out a roll of bandages from one of his many pockets.

She nodded and he wrapped up her hands and fingers to help support the bones and keep them from getting even more out of place, though he left her enough mobility to wield her keys. As they did that, Gray froze and shattered Sting's anti-magic cuffs, finally freeing him from them.

Once they were all ready to go, it was simply a matter of following the map still in Sting and Lucy's heads towards a massive centralized room that had to be the chamber where the gates were being constructed.

As they ran, Lucy edged her way closer to Yukino, worried about the other celestial mage.

"Um…Yukino? How exactly are you going to fight without any keys?"

"I never said I didn't have any keys left."

"What? But…"

"I still have one. But I've never used it because I couldn't control the being it summons." Yukino divulged, and then pulled up her sleeve.

Lucy watched with a great deal of shock as what looked like a black tattoo skittered down Yukino's arm. Really though, at first she'd thought it was some sort of bug…like a centipede or something.

"Ugh. You've got yourself a possession demon huh?" Kurama said from the other side, startling both girls.

"It attacked me several years ago on a mission and just…stuck around. I've never been able to control it before, but with Rogue's power, I really think I can."

"Makes sense, those little buggers are nasty. Without some demon in ya, there's no way you'd be able to control it. It would just try to take you over instead."

"Yeah I know. That almost happened the one and only time I tried to summon it."

Feeling like she was a little in the dark, Lucy asked, "So what exactly is a possession demon anyway? It doesn't sound like you made a contract with it or anything."

"You're right, I didn't. It just latched on without my permission."

"Possession demons don't typically do contracts. They're parasites…and their keys are like leaches. They attach to people that taste particularly good to them and then suck out their magic. But if you tried to use the key, it would summon the full demon, which would then latch onto the person completely and take them over…or eat them, it's kind of a toss up. Sometimes they can be symbiotic though, if you have a way to force them to behave themselves. Rogue's magic is pretty potent, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's just the thing to make this demon work for you, Yukino, but it'll still be a risk."

"I know, but that's a risk I'm willing to take right now." she replied seriously, her determined tone squelching the protest Lucy was about to make.

After that slightly disturbing conversation, they focused on simply traveling through the castle at top speed without running into any more demons…or as few as possible. It was inevitable that they would run into some, but thankfully with such a strong team they were able to plow through them fairly easily. That was probably because they didn't encounter any overly strong ones…at least not right away.

However, after about ten minutes of relatively unhindered progress, they rounded a corner and ran smack dab into a very large, muscled, longhaired demon that obviously had more firepower…literally. A few seconds after turning the corner, twin fiery lasers shot at them with enough force to break apart the wall behind them.

Everyone immediately scattered, doing everything in their power to dodge the attack. It was only after the dust and rubble had settled that they noted the beams hadn't come from him exactly…but rather from two dolls that floated above each shoulder.

"Excellent work my darlings." he crooned to the two dolls while flexing his arms and pecs as if posing for a photograph.

Everyone glanced at each other with similar expressions of bewilderment and disbelief.

One thing was certain though…. no matter how strange he was, he was also incredibly strong. That attack had been no laughing matter and had left more than one of them a little shaken.

Mira responded first, launching herself at him with her demonic wings. However, she only got so far before his dolls responded, and she was forced to dodge before she got a hit in. Erza dashed in on the opposite side to try for an attack as well, but the other doll spun to beat her back too. And all the while, the man beneath the dolls just stood there and encouraged them while striking poses. He was an odd one, that was for sure.

"You will never get past my Catherine and Francois. They are much too good for the likes of you!" he boasted, seeming almost like a proud parent or something.

"There's no way two little dolls are going to be enough to beat us." Natsu snorted back, sounding more amused than anything else.

"I wouldn't underestimate him if I were you. Doll is a pretty powerful demon lord." Kurama warned, though he didn't seem overly intimidated.

"Seriously? This joker's a lord?" Sting asked with a quirked brow.

"Yep, though he lets his 'daughters' do most of his fighting for him. But watch out, if you push him hard enough he'll get involved too, and then we'll have a problem."

"Really? What does he do? Shoot fire from his mouth too?" Laxus inquired as they continued to watch the battle between Erza, Mira, and their opponent. The two ladies seemed well-equipped to handle him themselves, so the rest of them were spectating for the time being until a sound battle strategy was decided upon.

"Nope, that's just the dolls. Actually, he has super-strength. Those muscles aren't just for show. And he's a good fighter…likes boxing and wrestling moves above others. He's not super-fast, but if he catches you, you're toast. Literally toast if Catherine and Francois get involved too. Plus he can break things apart, like the ground or walls, and throw insanely huge things at ya which isn't always fun. Oh yeah, and the dolls are immortal, you can't hurt them at all. So the only way to take him down is to knock him out, then the dolls will pass out with him."

"Sounds pretty tough." Gray grumbled, eyeballing the guy and snorting quietly when he started to pulse his pecs back and forth to a beat only their opponent was aware of. "Looks nuts though, it's hard to take him seriously."

"Can't argue with you there." Kurama laughed.

After a moment to absorb what had been said, Gray contemplatively asked, "Do you think I could freeze the dolls? Or would that not work on them either?"

"No, they can be frozen. I've seen Zero do it once before when Doll really pissed him off."

"Well then, I think I'm our best bet with this guy. Hey Erza!"

She had just landed from a particularly strenuous dodge and was now standing relatively close to them. At the call, she glanced over.

"Yes?"

"I'll take this guy, you all go on ahead. I'll catch up." Gray grunted, and everyone present turned to give him a somewhat disbelieving look.

"It doesn't seem like a good idea to take him on by yourself." Yukino pointed out.

"He won't be. I'm happy to help my Darling Gray take down this obstacle." Juvia predictably spoke up.

What wasn't so expected was for Sting to also volunteer, and Yukino and Rogue both looked at him with shock written on their faces. He avoided their gazes and it was clear to see that he was still ridden by guilt over losing Yukino's keys. Judging by his constantly shifting posture and the way his hands clenched spastically, he was also going a little stir-crazy and desperately needed to exert some pent-up negative energy. That probably explained why he was leaping at the first opportunity to go up against a big bad, even if he probably wasn't needed to take this one down.

"O-okay." Yukino finally said somewhat tremulously, looking a little hurt.

"Don't worry, I'll keep him safe!" Lector boasted from Sting's side, and she shot him a thankful grin.

After a long pause, Erza finally nodded. "Fine. Mira! Fall back!"

The she-demon did so, though she didn't seem pleased about being bossed around by Erza. Her Satan-Soul forms were always quite a bit bitchier than her normal sweet self.

"I don't take orders from you!"

"True. Nevertheless, Gray, Juvia, and Sting have said they'll take our places."

A somewhat intense stare off was interrupted by Sting – who was either stupid or had a death wish. "Um…hello? Let's get this party started already!"

He cringed back a little when two sets of terrifying eyes whirled on him, but thankfully he didn't end up dead. It looked like it was a close thing for a second there though.

"Fine. Come on." Mira finally conceded.

With that out of the way, the four volunteers engaged their opponent in battle, and once he was thoroughly preoccupied the rest of them managed to sneak around the ongoing fight and continue on.

Once again, they were able to make excellent headway towards their destination for about ten minutes or so, but then they started to hit complications.

They skidded into the middle of a ridiculous arrangement of halls that made no sense even with a map. There were at least fifteen different paths branching off of theirs and it took Lucy a few minutes to decide which was the right one. However, even after she'd made her choice, she wasn't confident about it, and after a few minutes of travel she realized it was the wrong path. So, they had to double back and try another, which thankfully turned out to be correct this time.

That wasn't the end of it though, because soon they ran into what seemed like a dead end. Oh, the hall continued, but it curved off in the wrong direction and the fork in the road that was supposed to be there was conspicuously absent.

"What the hell? There should be another hall right here!" Lucy burst out, starting to get exceptionally irritable with the whole thing. "Am I going crazy?"

"No, I smell another path too." Natsu said as he sniffed around the area she'd indicated.

They all went over to the smooth wall and started swiping their hands over it, looking for any sort of mechanism that might open it up. After a moment, Rogue turned into shadow and started crawling across the wall, disappearing into every little crack. Soon he disappeared and a thunk, click, and grinding sound made everyone take a few precautionary steps back, but thankfully it wasn't an indication of a trap being triggered. Instead, the whole wall shuddered and then rose, exposing Rogue standing behind it.

"Well, it looks like we're going the right way if they're going to this much trouble." Laxus grunted.

"Indeed." Erza agreed with a nod.

As they all started descending the stairs now in front of them – which led straight to the ground floor where the chamber was located according to the map – Natsu asked, "How much further?"

"We're getting close."

"Great, cause I'm all fired up!" he said, ironically right as they ran into a pack of demons. With a feral grin, he punched one flaming hand into his other palm and then bulldozed forwards, acting like a fiery bowling ball and knocking all the demons down.

They all hung back a second to avoid being cooked alive, and when he got through the demons – which poofed back to Asphodel extra crispy – he turned and barked, "What're you all waiting for?! Come on!"

With a series of rolled eyes, huffs, and grumbles they followed him.

Eventually, after plowing through more demons, running through halls, taking more than one wrong turn, and making their own doorways, they finally all skidded through a massive gateway that led into an equally massive courtyard.

It was open air, there was no roof to the courtyard or ornamentation of any kind. It was completely and utterly empty, just a huge hexagonal room with only one massive entrance. If it weren't for the two ginormous magical gateways that sat slightly cattycorner to each other, one on either side of the courtyard, it would have looked incredibly void-like and strange.

One of these gateways was obviously a portal to the demon's world – judging by the hordes of them clomping through in droves. It probably wasn't usually this packed, but they'd likely been enlisted to help with the invasion – which explained why the Fairy Tail mages had encountered more and more of them the closer they got to this place.

That gateway was actually quite lovely, made of silver, gold, and lots of darker richer metals, all coiled like vines around a massive sparkly black granite archway. The doors to the gate were also elaborate and highly decorative, with the metallic vines forming what looked like bars.

The other gateway was similarly beautiful. Ornate gold and silver spirals decorated an archway that culminated at a point instead of being totally rounded. The archway itself was made out of a rich blue stone that looked like lapis laced with sparkly mica, and the doors were made of a white pearlescent material – which would have lent to an excellent pearly gates joke if it hadn't been utterly inappropriate under the circumstances.

However, the disturbing thing about that lovely piece of magical architecture was how complete it seemed to be. There were some spots in the doors where it looked like someone had taken a cosmic eraser to them, but for the most part the thing was tangible and real. Lucy knew exactly what magic was being piped into it too…she could feel echoes of her own keys as a little toad-like demon used a tube to direct liquid gold into the empty spaces. As soon as the magic touched the structure, it disappeared in flashes of gold and silver as more of the gate appeared in the spot it touched.

"We have to stop them from completing the gate!" she burst, getting the attention of her comrades.

"Indeed. And we have to break the gate that's letting in all these demons…no offense." Erza muttered, and then glanced at Kurama for the last part.

He shrugged. "None taken. You want me to take care of these small fry for you?"

They glanced at the hordes of demons now heading right for them, and Erza's eyebrows raised with some consternation. Waving her hand towards them she said, "By all means."

He grinned, and then to everyone's shock he started changing. In a painful looking process, his skin seemed to burn away, exposing what looked like black charred flesh. Then bones began to appear over his body, almost like he was growing a second skeleton. The new skeletal structure was distinctly not human, a notion which was swiftly made even stronger when muscles began to layer themselves on top of the bones. After a detailed lesson in vulpine anatomy, skin and orange fur finally appeared, leaving a fox with nine tails, excessively long ears, and an unnatural pony-sized stature. He was about the same size as Amy in fact, and turned to give the white wolf a grin and a wink.

Then, he started to grow – rapidly – and soon they all had to take a few rapid steps back to avoid getting smooshed. That turned out to be a doubly good idea, because the next moment he had bunched up his hindquarters – which shoved his tails in their faces and nearly knocked them all over as he sprung forwards. He landed in the exact center of the courtyard and promptly began to play whack-a-mole with the other demons – using each of his nine tails as a glowing club. Most of the lower leveled demons went poof at one hit, while a few required a second or third strike.

Both front paws also danced as he smacked demons into the ground like a puppy playing with a bunch of ants, and it almost looked like he was having fun as he squashed all his brethren. The rest of team two hung back and watched the bedlam with mixed expressions of shock, amusement, confusion, bemusement, and slight disturbation.

Laxus snorted and reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "Well…you've got an interesting one there, Lucy."

She caught his bemused side eye and snorted in amusement.

The courtyard was mostly cleared in a few minutes and they quickly started heading towards the demon gate to try and take it out of commission. However, halfway there they encountered a strong demon who Kurama hadn't been able to take out. She was some sort of rabbit demon, with tall white ears, long white hair, and a puffy rabbit tail in the back. Other than that she looked human and wore a shiny blueish-purple set of armor, though she also strangely went barefoot.

Erza and Mira immediately took her on, which turned out to be good since she was remarkably strong. Her superpowered kicks were tough for even those two to contend with. The rest of their party left them to it and continued on towards the demon gate. If they could take that out, all the demons here would be forcibly sent back, and that would be the end of it. They could destroy the other gate at their leisure after that.

Natsu fried all the weaker demons they met as they got closer to the gate, and Laxus zapped the ones Natsu didn't. It quickly turned into a competition, with them shouting scores at each other from the front lines.

"I've got 25!"

"That's 39!"

When a giant mammoth-looking thing with enormous spiky tusks came through, they all stared at it for a few seconds, and then Natsu launched himself onto it, grabbing its trunk on the way over its head – which wrenched its neck around and probably broke it. If that wasn't enough, he then drove a fiery fist into its back while still going. When he landed on the other side of its tail, the demon was basically bent in half and had flipped over backwards…. and its shaggy fur was on fire. It immediately poofed back to Asphodel.

Natsu then brushed his hands off and turned to give Laxus a smug smirk. The lightning dragon slayer scowled at him and remarked, "It still only counts as one point."

Lucy rolled her eyes at their ridiculous shenanigans, while Happy snickered in the air next to her.

Thankfully it didn't take long for them to get to the demon gate, and once there they didn't waste any time in hitting it with their strongest attacks. Lucy used Taurus's star dress for brute strength, hoping to just kick it apart. She didn't summon Taurus though of course, because he was still probably recovering from being skewered by a giant icicle. Laxus beat it with fists covered in lethal lightning, while Jellal hit it with a bunch of different kinds of spells, obviously trying to see if it was weak to any particular magic type. Natsu blasted it with both fire and physical attacks. Amy and several of her pack stood sentinel and attacked any demons trying to sneak up behind them. Rogue meanwhile turned himself into shadow and slithered all over the thing – easily avoiding their attacks on the gate – and searched it for any weak spots that he could use to tear it apart at the seams. Happy flew up above them and called down reports of the rest of the courtyard, letting them know how Erza, Mira, and Kurama were doing and if any demons were coming their way.

Meanwhile, Yukino had summoned her possession demon and was currently struggling to wrestle it under her control…a rather ugly looking process as black stuff oozed out from her hand and wrapped tendrils up around her arm that tried to crawl towards her face. She seemed to be in a great deal of pain, and at the first scream, Rogue stopped working on the gate and went to her side to help in whatever way he could. With a glance at Amy, the white wolf nodded and summoned a guard of wolves to watch out for the downed celestial mage until she could get control of whatever thing was currently trying to take her over.

Even though her heart ached for her friend and she wished she could help, there was nothing Lucy could do for her. She was better off focusing on the gate…not that it was doing much good. Nothing they threw at it seemed to make a dent…or if it did, the dents were really, really tiny. Even more irritating, demons kept pouring out of the thing and getting in the way – though a lot of them were instantly fried from the constant barrage of attacks. Any that dared to sneak by were promptly ripped apart by wolves or were squashed by an orange tail.

The Fairy Tail mages were so focused on the demon gate – or their own problems – that they didn't even notice that the little demon who was building the celestial gate had managed to sneak by Kurama and was still over there working on its job – even if it had to hide from time to time. At least, they didn't notice it until Lucy started to feel a telltale tingle and glanced over her shoulder to see the celestial gate even more complete than before.

"Shit! I have to go stop that little demon from finishing the celestial gate!" she yelled to her comrades as she ran off across the courtyard.

They split up into two groups, Natsu, Amy, and Happy all followed Lucy across the courtyard – though Amy left several wolves behind to help the others. Jellal and Laxus continued to bash the demon gate, and of course Rogue and Yukino were a bit preoccupied with other things at the moment.

As Lucy made a beeline for the golden gate, using Cancer's star dress now for speed, she started running into trouble.

Demons were very gradually beginning to pile up again. As they wised up to how the attacks landed on their gate, some started to slip through, and even more began to pour in from the rest of the castle. Kurama was kept busy trying to smash every one of them flat, but the ones in the courtyard now were quicker and tougher than all the grunts from before and gave him a run for his money. So Lucy had to dodge more than one demon on her way towards the celestial gate, and very nearly got knocked on her ass a couple of times.

Of course Natsu used his flames to knock aside any demons that dared to approach her, and Happy kept chattering down at them from above, letting them know whenever it looked like one was coming their way.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like they were going to make it… the demon constructing the gate was tubing magic into the very last empty patch and it was very quickly starting to close up.

Seeing this, Lucy panicked and shouted, "Amy! You're our last chance!"

"On it!" she barked, and - using her supernatural speed - she zoomed ahead of them, leaping into the air to avoid demons as they tried to stop her. Even with Cancer's star dress, Lucy couldn't hope to compete with Amy…especially not with demons tripping her up. The celestial wolf moved like a shooting star…a streak of white zipping across the sky so fast that a single blink would make her invisible.

She dove from the air with the speed of a bird of prey and pounced on the demon doing the piping, latching her jaws onto his throat and shaking him like a ragdoll. He immediately poofed back to Asphodel.

However, he had just pumped in a rushed amount of magic when he saw her coming for him, and as Lucy, Natsu, and Happy finally arrived, they all watched with horror as that empty hole grew smaller, and smaller, and smaller…and then finally closed.


Sneak Peek

Lucy immediately turned and attacked the gate with everything she had, shifting once again into Taurus's star dress and kicking it so hard that any normal structure should have been blown apart. She was distracted though when a demon plowed into her from one side and she got knocked head over toes into the gate.

With an oof, she found herself on the other side of the gate, but that didn't matter to her, she still attacked the structure.

...

(Plus, an extra peek for a special holiday present. ;D)

Magic snapped the air and crackled as the gateway shut, and a vortex formed, sucking any and every being that wasn't supposed to be in this world out harshly like a whirlpool.

Lucy didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to any of the spirits she had lost contracts to before she was whisked away.