"Okay Kritanta! Papa's gonna show you how to get a real catch!" a man in his mid-thirties clumsily twirled a fishing rod, trying to look cool for his latest creation.

"Papa, you look like a total idiot right now."

"Kritanta, that hurts my heart."

Kritanta woke up with a startle, immediately grabbing the necklace that rest around his neck, the silver flail resting against his prominent collarbone. The other four, including Happy, a talking cat that could fly that Kritanta had raised with Lisanna together as Natsu, were still asleep.

He sighed as he let his head fall back gently against the train window, gazing as the fields of wheat rushed past with astonishing speed. Blurs of never ending yellow with a unmoving blue, oh so blue, sky overhead.

The scene was so serene that... it was weird. Having a moment of peace, somewhat, to himself. A warm, breathing body next to his artificial, cold one.

Maybe Kritanta was just being paranoid, but he felt tense in that moment. Just about anything could happen at any second. An enemy might barge into their train cabin and attack them, or the train might malfunction and chug itself into a ravine of some sorts.

He was suspecting the former.

Erza slept unmoving next to him, her chocolate brown eyes hidden away from sight. Her scarlet draped over her shoulder beautifully, shining in the sunlight.

She looked ethereal.

Kritanta didn't know what he was feeling, but he knew that he hated it but loved the feeling at the same time. Erza, she made his wiring malfunction, and that was something he didn't like very much.

He hated how his stomach flipped like he was going down a hill every time that Erza smiled or laughed. Hated how he could feel his machinery overheating or malfunctioning whenever she glanced at him or even got close to him.

He had never felt that way before, and he found it very confusing as to why he was feeling such things. He had never felt such things for any other woman before.

And, the fact that Kritanta also loved the feeling was just plain weird. Hating something but loving it at the same thing was a human thing. Like how they told someone they loved they hated them but cared for them deeply, that was confusing. Is this how Grey and Natsu were? Hating each other but caring for each other?

Natsu is still him, but he wasn't really him.

Lucy groaned as her head bumped against the window, wincing slightly.

Kritanta chuckled slightly, amusement tinted his voice, sending goosebumps up and down Lucy's skin, her hair standing on end, her stomach doing cartwheels.

She looked up to meet his eyes, her own milky brown meeting his poisonous green.

Lucy couldn't possibly be falling for a freaking robot. Or whatever he was.

"You gonna keep staring at me or what?" Kritanta smirked, making Lucy look away as she flushed an impossibly bright red.

She began to fidget and squirm under Kritanta's intense gaze as he continued to stare.

There was a pregnant pause before Lucy spoke up, "Are you gonna keep staring at me?" She tried to imitate the intense look that was in Kritanta's eyes, but she failed the moment she made eye contact with him. She could feel herself melting into jelly as he smirked again, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards.

Shit, Lucy really was falling for a damn machine. You've only known him for a week, Lucy, don't be a like this.

Kritanta snorted in amusement, as though he knew exactly what was going through Lucy's head. He looked out the window, breaking the eye contact, resigning to looking out the window for the rest of the train ride.

Lucy couldn't be any more (disappointed) relieved.

Three Hours Later

"So... what do we do with this human?" Kritanta pressed his crossbow against the temple of the man who had tried assasinating the group in their sleep, luckily for them, Erza has just gotten up to use the bathroom, so she ran right into the assassin.

Quite literally.

"Do whatever you want to me," the man spat, also, quite literally, "I'm not gonna spill anything!" Kritanta grinned sadistically.

"Oh, you'll be spilling something. And that'll be your organs as I gut you." The man paled in fear, his eyes quaking at the speed of (gay) light.

"Okay," Erza made a motion with her hand to step back, and he complied. "If you don't tell us who sent you, I'll let the dog loose on you, and trust me, you really don't want that." The man visibly gulped, continuing to glance at Kritanta, scooting away from him a little.

"O-okay. I'll fess up," the man let himself glance nervously at Kritanta once more, "I was sent here to kill you to eliminate future problems in our plan. I'm part of a dark guild, my master sent me. He's planning to kill many, many, people."

Kritanta just sighed, "Who do I have to kill?"