Celestial Dragon

by Silken Ink

What if – instead of Natsu bringing Lucy into Fairy Tail, it's the other way around? This is the story of a Fairy Tail celestial mage who stumbles across a red burning key…one that summons a celestial fire dragon. Nalu pairing. It will be a slow burn romance with eventual fiery lemons. ;D

47. Chapter 47

Author's Note:

It's Sunday! Booyah!

As always, HUMONGOUS thanks to all my WONDERFUL reviewers out there! Big kisses and hugs to my repeat reviewers: Anna5949, sakshishetty3003, mikeczajk12, Surfy, valerioux, quidditchChick6, Donthedarkdragon26, Firefly9917, TheJSmooth, The Age of Awesomeness, Lady La-sara, Lucinda, SunnieDayys, Leomae2.0, and dani-yell10. Equally big kisses to my new reviewers: alydragneel, Perfect Memories, Lori Baker, and illleashya.

I'm so happy that you've all enjoyed the GMG arc so much! Not to give away too much, but this is the last chapter that's super duper long, so we'll be going back to the Wednesday upload (as long as we reach the review goal of 10 by then).

Anyways, on with the show! And stay till the end for the sneak peek. ;D

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The next day, they were informed that, due to now having an odd number of teams thanks to Raven Tail's disqualification, Fairy Tail would only be allowed one team. Their lowest score – which was 44 currently – would carry over to the new team, but since their higher score was only two points more that wasn't too big a deal. The real problem lay in deciding who to cut from the team, and for a long time Makarov paced in front of them in the new Fairy Tail balcony. They'd been able to pick which one to keep, and they chose the one that Team B had been using since it had a roof.

They had all come together for Master to inform them of the change, and now he was picking who would stay in the active team and who would join the rest of Fairy Tail as backups. Obviously this was a very important decision, as it could decide whether they would ultimately win or lose.

"Um…I'm okay with joining the backups Master. I'd rather focus on healing everyone between rounds." Wendy announced before he could cut her out.

He nodded, shooting her a small smile before eyeballing the rest of them with that same intense expression he'd been fixing them with for the past few minutes. Now that that had been decided, Wendy gave them all a small wave and jogged out of the room, tripping over the door of course on her way out. With a small whimper of, "…ow…" she stood back up and exited completely, leaving them with nine.

"Erza, Laxus, Mira… as S-Class wizards I believe you should all be part of our new team." he finally said, and the three listed stepped to the side. Now there were only two more that had to be chosen and four that had to go.

"Jellal, you were a former wizard saint, and considering that Jura's out there, you should probably stick around too."

He silently nodded and went to stand next to his redheaded girlfriend. She shot him a small intimate smile, which he returned with a crinkle around his eyes – his mouth being hidden of course.

"The rest of you are fairly evenly matched, so this is where things get tricky…" Makarov muttered, looking them all up and down. "However…I believe that Natsu should remain. He is a dragon after all. BUT! At the same time, he's also one of Lucy's spirits, soooooo…." Suddenly a slightly evil grin appeared across their master's mouth. "According to the rules, if we keep Lucy on the team, Natsu can still fight for her. He just can't participate independently anymore."

Lucy blinked, shocked that she was getting chosen alongside S-Class wizards and a previous wizard saint. The remaining three thankfully didn't seem overly perturbed about being kicked off the team…. if anything, they just chuckled at the sneaky way Makarov had snuck Natsu unofficially onto the team along with Lucy. With waves and brief words of luck, they all headed out to the large booth to watch with the rest of their guild, and Makarov followed behind after offering his own words of wisdom.

"Knock 'em dead out there today!"

After that, it wasn't long before things kicked off for the day. As the last day of the Grand Magic Games, there were no challenges. Instead, there would be three team battles where two members of each team would fight simultaneously. Then, at the very end of the day was the grand finale, which would consist of a battle royal between all teams simultaneously – probably in a large magical environment like the ones that had been used for challenges so far.

"Alright Pumpkins! Welcome to day four of the Grand Magic Games!" Mato said loudly over the speakers. "Today's first team battle will be Blue Pegasus against Quatro Puppy!"

The crowd erupted into cheers, and the new Team Fairy Tail settled in to watch the first match.

Naturally the teams were composed of the two strongest members – or at least the most compatible – to give them the best chance of winning. Blue Pegasus sent down Ichiya and Ren, while Quatro Puppy sent down Bacchus and Warcry to meet them.

When the gong sounded, the Quatro Puppy contestants immediately geared up to fight. However, before they could, Ichiya and Ren stepped forwards and thrust their hands out for a pre-match handshake like true gentlemen.

Erza groaned and looked a little sick – the way she always tended to look around Ichiya – but the rest of them were busy laughing at Quatro Puppy's reaction to such a thing. Both looked utterly dumbstruck and just gaped at the two Blue Pegasus wizards. After a long ringing pause, they eventually reached out and awkwardly shook Ichiya and Ren's hands, almost acting like they'd never shaken hands with someone before – which, to be fair, they probably hadn't… at least not in this particular context.

Chapati exclaimed how gentlemanly the act was over the loudspeaker, and a mixture of sounds rung from the crowd – some cheers, groans, swooning women, and also laughter.

A particular cheer caught Lucy's attention as the fight started, and she risked glancing away from the battle to look over at the Fairy Tail section. Cana was whooping and cheering for Bacchus noticeably loudly, and Lucy let herself smirk. A quick side-eye showed that Mira had noticed as well and was smirking in that direction too.

When she finally looked back down at the ongoing battle, she wasn't surprised to see that Ichiya had been KO'd and now Ren was fighting both members of Quatro Puppy by himself. He easily managed to take out Warcry with a wind funnel that slammed the spiky haired blond back into the wall of the arena… knocking him out. However he was unable to keep up with Bacchus's drunken fists, and soon lost the match to Quatro Puppy's one and only S-Class mage.

The ten point boost launched them into third place right behind Fairy Tail.

As soon as the contestants for the first match had vacated the field, Chapati got back on the loud speakers.

"Wowie! What a fight!"

Yajima agreed. "Quite a spectacular battle indeed."

"So cool!" the commentator from Sorcerer Weekly supplied, but that was pretty much what he always said about everything so everyone ignored him.

After some more comments from the judges, Chapati said, "Mato! Why don't you tell us who our next contestants will be?"

"I'd be happy to!" the referee/mascot chimed in. "Next up we've got Lamia Scale against Mermaid Heel! Remember you've got only thirty minutes to win!"

Out onto the field walked some super strong mages from both teams. Mermaid Heel sent out Milliana and Kagura, and Lamia Scale sent out Jura and Lyon. As far as Lucy could tell, if Jura was out there, the two ladies from Mermaid Heel had no chance. Which made it even stranger when Kagura stepped back and apparently told Milliana to take them both on by herself.

Lucy had no idea what was going on in that woman's head, but it seemed like a nasty thing to do to her teammate.

Whatever the case, as soon as the gong sounded, Milliana attacked and actually turned out to be surprisingly fierce competition, attacking with those furry whip things – which Lucy had only just noticed had kitty paws on the ends of them.

"That's the way Milliana! They're tough so be careful!" Erza shouted from beside her, and Lucy let herself grin. It was nice to see Erza with friends outside of the guild for once.

"Fro thinks so too!" the little green Exceed chirped, agreeing with them all indiscriminately as usual.

As the fight continued, Milliana escalated from using one whip to using many at once, and she also took off her gloves to scratch the dickens out of them. Even Jura seemed to have trouble keeping up with her. He created earth spikes beneath her feet and pillars of rock, along with simply shooting earthen projectiles at her, but she was able to dodge most of his attacks with alarmingly fast and exceptionally unpredictable feline moves. She dashed and darted to and fro, sometimes running on all fours even, and was able to leap high into the air. They weren't able to land very many hits, and she kept them busy well over a third of their allotted time. Of course, Lucy suspected that Jura was going easy on her, probably because he didn't want to go all-out on someone in a simple game.

Through a series of bluffs, she managed to park herself on Lyon's shoulders and tied his hands behind him with furry whips. Then she proceeded to scratch, claw, and punch without mercy until he went down. When he was on his knees and well-beaten, she looped one of those furry ropes around his neck and choked him till he passed out. Jura couldn't do a thing about it because she had her claws bared over some places that should never be scratched on poor Lyon and threatened to use them if the Wizard Saint tried to attack. Besides that, most of Jura's attacks were so large and powerful that he would likely take out Lyon along with her if he attacked.

As soon as Lyon was down for the count, she dropped him and leapt away from his motionless body – which was still visibly alive thankfully. However, once she could no longer use Lyon as a captive, Jura used his full power on her, and within a few seconds she'd gone down. Apparently Lucy was right and he'd been holding back, but the sight of his comrade being taken down had obviously driven him to going all out.

At that point, Kagura stepped forwards and took on the Wizard Saint head on without even looking the least bit concerned… a feat that Lucy wasn't even sure Erza could do with a straight face. Then again, Erza could take just about anything with a straight face, as long as it didn't involve her cake getting smashed… or someone's socks being torn up apparently. Lucy was still confused about the incident from yesterday.

For the remainder of the battle, Jura attacked with devastating magic, which Kagura either managed to dodge or cut through with her undrawn blade. She also unleashed gravity magic that sent him and all his rocks floating up towards a massive magic circle in the sky, which obviously disoriented him and even seemed to unnerve him a bit. Although, it would make sense that an earth mage wouldn't feel overly comfortable away from their element.

Before a winner could be decided, the bell sounded signaling a draw, and Mato stepped in to tell them to put away their weapons and magic.

Both calmly settled down and collected their teammates before walking off the field…showing similar levels of control over themselves and their emotions.

Then, finally it was time for them to go… which meant they would be facing Sabertooth.

"Let's go Luce!"

"Um…me? Are you sure that one of the S-Class mages wouldn't be a better choice?"

"Na…it's a good choice. Look." Laxus pointed.

They glanced down to see Sting and Orga walking out into the arena. Lucy grimaced at the thought of fighting Sting – who she now considered a friend – but it was true that she was probably the best match for him.

Furthermore, Laxus added, "And I should be your teammate. Come on, let's get going. Don't wanna keep them waiting."

"Knock 'em out!" Happy cheered.

Shrugging, she decided it was best to go along with this crazy plan and followed him down the hall and out into the arena. Once there, they faced off with the lightning god slayer and the light dragon slayer.

"Hey there, Blondie. Looks like we're gonna hafta fight, huh?"

"Why does everyone always call me Blondie!? I have a name you know!" Lucy exclaimed, and sent Laxus a dirty side-eye while she was at it.

"Uh…okay, well…anyways…. let's get this thing started shall we?" Sting said after stumbling over himself for a moment at her outburst. Obviously he hadn't known what to do with it, so he just changed the subject.

Coincidentally, at that moment the gong sounded, officially starting their match.

"Open! Gate of the Fire Dragon!" Lucy immediately called, and with a burst of flame Natsu appeared.

Over the loudspeakers, Chapati exclaimed, "Woah! Wait a minute, wasn't Natsu Dragneel cut out of the Fairy Tail Team? And this is a two-person match, not a three on three. Isn't Fairy Tail breaking the rules right now?"

"Actually no…" Yajima countered. He seemed to be the one who knew the rule book inside and out. "Lucy Heartfilia is the competitor here… and he is one of her celestial spirits. It is completely legal for her to summon him to fight in her battle."

The crowd of course reacted with shock and then erupted into cheers. However, the opposing team didn't seem at all surprised to see their new enemy.

"Alright…Rogue! I need you!" Sting called. Of course, he didn't need a key.

With a black wisp, the shadow dragon stepped onto the field. Once again, there was an explosion of sound, which Laxus and Lucy both participated in.

"Hey! I can do it because he isn't on our team anymore! But Rogue is still on your team! You can't summon him! That would still be considered outside help from your teammates!"

"Actually, we officially replaced him for this fight with a substitute. So, just for this battle, he isn't a part of the team anymore." Orga explained in a dull voice that said he thought they were maggots and certainly weren't worth his time.

A similar sort of conversation was taking place in the judging booth once again, and Yajima admitted it was stretching the rules a bit. However, considering that the two teams were now evenly matched, the judges decided to let it slide.

With all those surprises out of the way, they finally settled down into the actual fight. Lucy eyeballed their opponents to try and determine which one she would be taking on. Orga and Laxus had already launched themselves at each other and were going at it with a flurry of fists and lightning, which made her hair stand on end from all the electricity in the air.

Meanwhile she and Natsu were standing off against a dragon slayer and another celestial dragon. Lucy wasn't sure if she could hold up against a slayer, but the choice was obvious here. Dragon had to go against dragon. So, she squared off with Sting.

"Alright then Sting…let's do this." she announced and shifted into her fire dragon star dress. That would at least level the playing field a tiny bit.

"Wow…that's pretty awesome." Sting commented, grinning briefly, and then attacked with a blast of light shot from his mouth.

Yelping, she threw herself to the ground to avoid it and quickly rolled out of the way. Then with a grunt she heaved herself back to her feet and grabbed for a key. "Open! Gate of the Lion! Leo!"

He instantly appeared next to her in a flash of light. "What's up Lucy?"

"You're gonna want your battle gear for this one." she warned straight off, and with a cocked brow he disappeared again.

The white laser shooting out of Sting's mouth clicked off as his teeth shut and he grinned. "Good dodge there. Let's see what you can do with this one!"

He launched himself at her with light glowing from both fists, but a second before he reached her, Leo popped back into existence in full black and golden armor. His appearance threw Sting off his game for a moment, and Leo took advantage of the distraction to shove his glowing armored fist up Sting's nose, tossing him back on his ass.

"So he wields light too, huh? Interesting." the lion spirit said with a grin, and his furry ears twitched forwards all the way, like a cat hunting prey.

"That's right kitty! I'm a holy light dragon slayer, taught by Weisslogia the celestial light dragon!"

"Rogue's mom? I thought I recognized the feel of that magic." Leo said, and Sting looked momentarily flabbergasted.

"You know Weisslogia?!"

"Of course. We both live in the celestial realm."

"Well that makes sense." Lucy commented with a thoughtful finger to her chin.

"Oi! How about less chatting over there!" Laxus yelled from his battle on the other side of the arena, and Lucy flushed a little.

"Focus on your own fight Sparky!" she yelled back – borrowing Natsu's nickname for the lightning dragon slayer – and heard the faint laughs of her team and guild up in the bleachers.

She dutifully turned back to her battle though and thought hard about who to pull out next as Leo and Sting went at each other in an all-out brawl. Going with her gut instinct, she drew a key and called out, "Open! Gate of the Maiden! Virgo!"

Loyally, the pink-haired maid showed up and bowed. "Is it punishment time Princess?"

"Uh…never mind that. Can you make some traps for Sting to fall into? Make them shallow enough that his head will still be above them."

"Of course Princess!"

And with that, Virgo drilled down into the ground. Thankfully, Lucy knew that Leo was familiar enough with Virgo's magic that he wouldn't be tripped up, but hopefully it would give him some great openings to beat on Sting. As soon as the holes were done, Lucy sent Virgo back to conserve her power, and almost instantly began reaping the rewards of that trick. Sting fell into one of the holes with a surprised shout and Leo capitalized on it by kicking him upside the head.

He was strong though and burst out of the hole piping mad. "Alright! Now you did it!" he yelled, and with a burst of power that singed her cheeks, he altered his magic signature.

All of a sudden, she could feel the hairs on her arms stand on end as an immense magic power flooded out of him. He answered her unspoken question of, 'what the hell is he doing?!' when he shouted, "WHITE DRIVE!"

She still had no idea what 'white drive' was, but she assumed it must be some kind of magic enhancement spell that he'd cast on himself. And suddenly, he was much tougher to land a hit on. Leo seriously began to struggle against his attacks, and Lucy knew she would have to summon some back-up… and quickly.

"Open! Gate of the Wolf Pack!" she cried out – using the keyword needed to summon all of them at once – and Amy flashed into being at a run. Behind her streamed her whole pack, one after another popping onto the field. Exclamations of amazement sounded from the crowd and she heard her team cheer, but Lucy ignored all the sounds in favor of focusing all her attention on the battle.

"Wow…you rarely summon all of us!" one younger wolf panted happily and wagged his tail while grinning up at her with a dangling tongue.

"Well, I think that's what it's going to take this time." she responded and pointed at the fired-up dragon slayer pounding on her lion spirit. His armor was doing its job and keeping him in the fight, but she could see that he was starting to become taxed.

"We're on it." Amy said, and with a howl she called all the wolves into formation. As one, they circled around the two fighters, until both were surrounded.

It took Sting a moment to realize the change, and his attack stuttered as he noticed the ring of massive pony-sized wolves now all staring at him with glowing eyes. The hair stood up along their spines and every single tooth out there was bared as positively terrifying growls ripped from their throats. Leo backed out of the circle to let them do their thing as he caught his breath, and they started to close in. Then, a new set of snarls made Sting look up, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw the wolves now prowling through the air above him, thoroughly trapping him. Even the arrogant dragon slayer looked worried, though he tried to still act cocky.

"Oh yeah? A bunch of mangy mutts ain't gonna be able to do anything against me!"

He followed the statement with an attack launched at one part of the circle. Before he could even reach the wolf he had aimed for though, wolves darted in from the sides and behind in perfect synchronization with each other to attack his back. He was forced to stop his attack so he could protect himself and block the vicious bites that landed on his shoulders and back. One wolf was sent flying out of the circle with a blast of light, and it disappeared back to the celestial realm to heal. That still left way too many for him to deal with though.

"Just so you know, I've seen these guys actually fight a dragon before… and hold their own. So be careful." she called out to him in warning and he shot her an exasperated look that plainly said, 'thanks so much.'

This was an intimidation tactic that Lucy had seen several times before on tough missions, but it never ceased to impress her as the wolves successfully herded their opponent. They were also familiar with Virgo's traps, so they knew where to lead him.

Meanwhile, Natsu and Rogue were just standing off to the side staring at each other.

"So…come at me then." Natsu said – earlier on in the fight – and waggled his fingers.

"I would really rather not." Rogue responded with a frown. "Unless you intend to attack Sting, I'm content keeping you here."

That didn't really sit well with Natsu, and he frowned. "Ah come on! That's no fun!"

"You know I don't like to fight, Natsu… especially not my friends."

It was true enough; the guy was a major pacifist. That wasn't to say he couldn't fight, or that he didn't necessarily enjoy it once he got going. If his darker instincts were woken up, he could enjoy bloodshed and carnage more than just about anyone, but Natsu knew he didn't really like for those instincts to be woken up.

With a sigh, Natsu backed down…for now. "Alright, fine. But that goes for me too! If you get involved in the fight, then you and I are gonna go at it!" And then they turned to watch the fight unfold.

As for Lucy and Sting, they were somewhat at a stalemate for the time being. The wolves had pushed him into a hole and went at him mercilessly, but he countered by surprising them all with an explosion of light and magic, similar to when he went into white drive. The shockwave tossed all the wolves back and he leaped out of the hole and clear of their formation.

With that one blast of magic power, more than half the wolves poofed back to the celestial realm, which meant that Lucy had to switch gears – and fast. Leo thankfully stepped in to engage him again as the wolves regrouped, and Lucy herself joined in on the fight. Part of her was still considering the best spirits to bring out, but like hell was she going to stand back and let her spirits get pummeled without lending a hand. It was true that she had to stand back and act as captain more and more lately – especially as she learned how to bring out multiple spirits – but she still got into the thick of it whenever she could.

Using a star dress, she didn't have her normal weapon, so instead of her flueve d'etoiles, she fashioned a whip made of fire – something she had worked hard to perfect on the island. With a crack of her wrist, she snapped it at Sting as soon as he was in range, and it landed squarely across his back, leaving a cut in his shirt and skin and lighting his fur collar on fire. With a loud yelp, he jerked the article of clothing off and stomped on it before turning to see what had just hit him.

When he saw her standing there, his eyes widened in shock and he exclaimed, "What the…you're fighting too? Don't most celestial mages let their spirits fight for them?"

"Not this celestial mage. I fight alongside them."

He blinked for a moment and then grinned. "Alright then!"

For the next few hectic minutes, Lucy engaged in battle alongside her wolves and Leo, but the longer they fought, the more apparent Sting's strength became. Even against all of them, he was holding his own and just sent more and more wolves back to the celestial realm. That holy light of his was nothing to mess with. It was powerful stuff, and Lucy had a hard time keeping up with him.

With a roar, he blasted her with a hundred rays of light all at once. She somehow managed to dodge by doing a faceplant in the dirt once again and dove into one of Virgo's holes for cover. As soon as the light disappeared from above her, she clambered back out again to see him readying yet another attack. It shot out – at the speed of light of course – and she ducked back down into her hole. Unfortunately, this attack was significantly more powerful than the last, and when it hit the ground layers of dirt started to peel back, slowly exposing her hiding spot.

If Leo hadn't shot his own light attack at Sting, she would have been in deep trouble, but thankfully when Regulus's light hit from the side, Sting's attack blipped out. That gave Lucy the chance she needed to get out of her hole and back into the ring.

At this point, her magic was running dangerously low, but Natsu started feeding her some dragon fire to bolster her reserves, and so she was able to keep going. For the bizillionth time, Lucy was grateful that her mate and partner was a natural battery. Having the energizer bunny as backup never ceased to come in handy.

She momentarily played with the idea of using Urano Metria against Sting but dismissed it quickly. That spell was her trump card, and she'd probably need it for the grand finale. It used up too much magic for her to risk it before then.

So, she decided to switch strategies and hopefully catch him off guard. To prepare, as Leo and the wolves kept him busy, she cycled through a few summons, briefly letting her spirits know what was about to happen so they would know what to do. As soon as her battle companions were all ready, she began.

She closed the gate for the wolves, momentarily surprising Sting, which gave Leo an opening to land a hit. The dragon slayer bounced back fast of course, and as he was mounting an attack on Leo, she swapped the lion spirit out for Taurus. Sting was suddenly facing a much larger opponent, with a huge ax, which certainly wasn't what he expected. It worked just like Lucy had hoped it would and the attack that had been meant for Leo didn't quite work – partially because Sting had stumbled in surprise and hesitated for a split second. Taurus managed to block the blow with his ax, and then flipped it around and knocked Sting back with a hefty smack of his blade.

Lucy quickly summoned Capricorn behind him. The goat spirit wasted no time in unleashing a vicious kick to Sting's posterior, which bounced him back towards Taurus. Both spirits got a good number of hits in as they traded him back and forth, but it wasn't long before Sting had rallied. He managed to get out of his predicament by spinning to block Capricorn, and then sent the goat spirit back to the celestial realm with a swift series of attacks. As he was focused on that, Lucy swapped Taurus out with Aries and she shot a wool ball at Sting's back.

He must have sensed it, because he spun just in time to blow the wooly pink puff away with a laser beam. Lucy sent Aries back right before she was also pierced by the light. Anticipating his next move, she summoned Gemini, who immediately took her form. By the time he whirled around to attack her, they had swapped places, and he was looking at Gemini instead, while Lucy had hopped into one of Virgo's holes.

While Gemini summoned various spirits to keep him busy, Lucy summoned Virgo and tunneled underneath him. He was so thoroughly preoccupied with Gemini's attacks that he didn't even notice them emerging from underground behind him – which was precisely what Lucy had hoped for. The other Lucy had summoned Scorpio, who was bombasting the white dragon slayer with small sand tornadoes.

Knowing she didn't have much time before Sting noticed her, she hurried to summon Pikachu. Making eye contact with Scorpio, she nodded, and he nodded back, showing he understood her silent command. Abruptly, his small tornadoes converged on Sting from all sides and turned into a giant funnel, wrapping around him tight.

At the same time, she said, "Get him Pikachu!"

With a high-pitched squeak, he stood to his full height and did his war-cry of, "Piiiiiiiiiiikaaaa!" As he did so, a ball of high-charged electricity built above his head, and then released when he squealed, "CHUUUUUU!" Multiple blasts of intense lightning hit the sand ball that was Sting at the moment and instantly turned it into a glass prison.

For a moment there was absolute silence, and Lucy let herself hope that she had won. To conserve energy, she closed all gates and all her spirits disappeared with various poofs and flashes of light. When nothing happened, she started to hesitantly relax and think she'd actually done it, but then a deep ominous sounding 'CRACK' let her know that Sting wasn't done yet. Abruptly and without warning, brilliant light illuminated the glass ball from the inside, and Lucy quickly threw up a shielding arm to prevent eye damage. What followed was an explosion, and she flinched as shards of glass pelted her. Luckily most bounced off her dragon scales. Natsu's armor almost seemed sentient in a way, because it always rushed to cover any area of her body at risk without any urging from her.

After a few moments, the light died away, and she risked a peek through her fingers, only to see a sight she most definitely did not want to. Gajeel had explained Dragon Force to her once. It was when a slayer took on the true power of a dragon – or as close to one as was humanly possible – though of course Natsu had scoffed and informed him that it was far from actually reaching the strength of a true dragon. Still, it would definitely create a huge burst of power nonetheless, plus certain physical changes – like scales and such. She had imagined it would look sort of like Natsu's first transformation or when Gajeel put on metallic scales.

When suddenly faced with it in reality though, it was less visually impressive than she'd expected. There weren't that many changes, only a pattern of white scales that appeared at Sting's hairline, down his neck, and across his shoulders. But the sight of it still terrified her. His magic exploded out of him in thick rivers, and when he grinned and leaped into the air, she cringed as he inhaled deeply and roared.

Meanwhile, this entire time, Laxus and Orga had been having it out in a fierce battle on the other side of the large arena. Laxus had intentionally drawn his opponent as far from his teammate as possible so he could go all out without fear of knocking Lucy out… or worse. Orga however, hadn't seemed to care about Sting or the other battle going on and had gone with full power from the get-go. So, it'd been a bit of a struggle for the first few minutes, up until they were far enough away that Laxus could unleash his own beast.

As he'd suspected, Orga was a god slayer like Sherria – though none of them really knew what the hell that meant – so his lightning was black and blatantly more potent than Laxus's. The other problem was that god slayers could eat dragon slayer's elements, but if a dragon slayer tried the opposite it acted like poison to them. Thankfully, Laxus didn't need to actually eat the black lightning to successfully conduct it through his body. It stung plenty more than any normal lightning and left him feeling a bit sick to his stomach as he inevitably absorbed a bit of the poison, but it didn't affect him nearly as much as eating it would have. Channeling the stuff like that also let his body slowly adapt to it, thanks to the powerful lacrima imbedded in him.

Thanks to his weak constitution, he'd been implanted with a lacrima possessing lightning magic, which gave him power over that particular element. He had then been trained in the ancient dragon slaying arts through a forbidden text his father had come across during one of his many ventures within the black magic market. Therefore, while he was a second-generation dragon slayer, the lacrima's true purpose was simply to give him power over the element itself…which made him more adaptable than a first gen dragon slayer. And that meant…

As he slowly let the new kind of electricity into his body little by little, his lacrima began to accustom itself to the black lightning. For the first few minutes of the fight, he was at a serious disadvantage as he intentionally let Orga's attacks land, and he acquired a nice set of bruises to show for it. The entire time, he heard the Fairy Tail section in the stands erupting with noise. Plenty of his guildmates were shouting at him, almost angrily asking him why he wasn't fighting back, but there was also lots of encouragement too. Of course the loudest cheers came from the Thunder Legion, particularly from Freed… and Fro was yelling her little heart out from their team's booth.

As soon as he felt his body fully accept the new form of lightning, he allowed himself a grin as he peeled himself off the ground. He was looking forward to giving his guildmates something to really cheer about.

"Why are you smiling? Are you happy to be beaten to a bloody pulp?" Orga asked derisively, sneering down his nose at Laxus the same way he had the entire fight.

"Not particularly." Laxus answered dryly as he wiped blood from his newly split lip. "But it was worth it."

Standing fully now, he took his battle stance and got serious for the first time, watching and waiting for Orga's next attack. Sure enough, he sent bolts of lightning searing through the air, but this time Laxus opened his jaws wide and inhaled the whole lot…much to Orga's shock.

"You do realize that a god slayer's power is poisonous to a mere dragon slayer…?" he asked, sounding a little less bored now, but sort of like he thought Laxus had come down with a sudden case of stupid.

"Sure. For MOST dragon slayers, you'd be right."

However for him, he had now completely absorbed the black lightning, and instead of poisoning him it had strengthened him to previously unknown heights. "How about you taste it for yourself? Black Lightning Dragon Roar!"

After that, it was simply a matter of who could beat the snot out of the other through purely physical attacks, since their magic was equal now. They never did figure out who was stronger though, because at that moment, Sting unleashed his roar and the ground was ripped out from under them. Both lightning users scrambled for the edge of the arena – where a strip of ground stayed intact – but only Laxus made it in time by transporting himself through lightning. Apparently that was a spell Orga lacked, because he went down with the rest of the floor. If they'd kept fighting, that ability would have undoubtedly let Laxus win, and he was a little peeved that he hadn't had a chance to use it in their fight.

"Well…so long I guess. If you survive, I'll be looking forward to a rematch." he snorted and then casually leaned his back against the arena wall to wait for the timer to expire.

Once the dust settled, there were two figures hanging in midair where the floor once existed. On one side, Rogue had wrapped himself around Sting while in shadow form to keep him afloat. That was an interesting sight to behold, Sting appeared to have turned black from head to toe, which was really just Rogue's shadow-form encasing his. Only Rogue's head and shoulders were visible, lifting directly out of Sting's back, and immense black wings held them both aloft while his black tail whipped through the air behind them. Meanwhile, Natsu had simply caught Lucy, and she was currently cradled in his arms as they faced off across the open expanse of the now much deeper fighting space.

As for Lucy, she was pretty exhausted and a little traumatized after having the floor zapped out from under her. That blast should have incinerated her as well, only Natsu's fast thinking had saved her hide as he flashed in at full speed and yanked her out of the direct path. They had fallen together, but not for long of course.

The lacrima vision showed that Orga was still alive but had been knocked out cold. However, neither dragon or mage paid attention to the screens now hovering around them. Instead, they were focused entirely on each other.

With her state of exhaustion, she wasn't sure how much more she could take. She'd already been boosted twice by Natsu's magic, and she was loath to leech off him anymore, but he didn't really give her a choice in the matter as fire pumped directly from him to her once again.

"Don't you have a limit to how much magic you can give me?" she groaned, feeling a bit weak for needing yet another transfusion.

"Nope. Not until I'm out…and refilling you barely makes a dent in my reserves, just so you know."

When she shot him a disbelieving glance, he flashed her a boyish grin. "Dragon…remember?"

All she had to say to his nearly cocky statement was a tired roll of her eyes.

"Do you think Sting and Rogue can do the same thing? Because if so, this fight's gonna last a reeeaaaallly long time." she muttered, eyeballing them.

"Not if we knock him out. He can't be refilled with magic if he's out cold."

"True."

"Ready for round two?" Sting called across their new ring and flashed a cocky grin her way. He was still in dragon force of course.

"Bring it on I guess." she sighed. Then she brought out yet another golden key and called, "Open! Gate of the Archer! Sagittarius!"

The dapper centaur appeared in a green flash on the narrow lip of ground next to them.

"Cheerio Milady!" came his cheerful and polite greeting.

"Hey Sagittarius, could you- whoops!" They had to dodge as light shot towards them. "Pepper him with arrows!" she eventually shouted, and then had to focus her attention entirely on the fight.

"Straight away!"

Soon sharp projectiles shot at their enemy, forcing them to perform some of their own evasive maneuvers.

Natsu took advantage of the distraction to swoop in close and engage them in direct combat. At the same time, Lucy relocated herself on his body. After all their training, it was easy enough to do. When he sensed her intention, he just grinned down at her and took a short detour to accommodate. She flipped in his grip so that he was holding her wrists while her back now faced his legs. In a single fluid move, he folded his wings close so that he dropped, while simultaneously swinging her up. She went with it, and as soon as he released her hands, she reached out to grab his shoulders and latched on. They fell together for a few short feet before she was seated, and his tail snaked out to whip around her and lock her in place like a seatbelt.

She was now seated high on him, her thighs clenching tight to his ribs as her upper body poked up above his head and shoulders, which gave her free reign to shoot fire balls at their opponents or spank them with a fire whip.

This whole exercise had been caught in bits and pieces by Sting and Rogue, who had both been shocked and amazed by the aerial maneuvers. However, much of their attention was eaten up by dodging arrows and trying to take out the centaur that was shooting at them with such deadly accuracy. He was too fast though, and deceptively nimble for his large size, and he was able to run around the lip of the arena to dodge every attack they shot at him. And all the while, he continued to shoot arrows at them.

That gave Lucy and Natsu plenty of an opening to come in and launch their own attack. With a crack, Lucy snapped her fire whip out – aiming high to avoid Natsu's wings – and managed to wrap the flames snuggly around one of Rogue's wings instead. With a shout, they were sent into a careening drop, which of course dragged Natsu and Lucy along for the ride. Rogue yelled in pain as his wing got burned, and she felt bad about it, but kept the attack up. Sting countered with a roar meant to drive them off as they both cartwheeled down through the air. Natsu blocked it though with his own roar. However, when Rogue added his roar to Sting's, theirs managed to break through. To dodge the attack of light and shadow, Lucy had to let the fire rope disperse and released Rogue so they could roll to the side and avoid getting a face-full of roar.

Both dragons had a tough time for a moment regaining their flight – Rogue more-so with his injured wing – but eventually they were both airborne again. They shot upwards, each trying to gain altitude over the other. According to the combat rules though, they couldn't get too high or it would be considered leaving the arena entirely, so they stalled out at a hundred feet or so. However, the drop was much further down since they were hovering above such a deep hole.

Rogue had transformed fully into his first form on the way up judging by the horns now atop his head, the black scales adorning his face, and the claws that Sting seemed to have sprouted. So, to even up the playing field, she felt Natsu go into his fully draconic human form to match him…. With a blast of heat of course. The increase in temperature didn't go unnoticed by Rogue and Sting, who both flinched back as it reached them and probably stung a bit.

"Woah! Watch it, you're gonna cook your passenger!" Sting barked while squinting and recoiling.

All Natsu said to that was to start laughing, and flames erupted all over his body, coating Lucy too. That spurred her to slap him on the head though. "Put those out right now or my clothes are gonna burn off!"

"Not my star dress. It can handle a little fire."

"Oh…" she glanced down to see he was right. How nifty. She made a mental note to slap on his star dress anytime he got overly toasty around her.

This left Sting blinking at them in shock, and then a lightbulb seemed to come on. "Oooohhhh. Of course. Duh." He started laughing too. "I'm dumb. You're mates."

The fight resumed then, but only a few moments later the bell rung, signaling that it was a draw.

Both dragons landed on the thin ring of land still standing in the arena. Then Rogue separated from Sting – a really odd sight to be sure – and dipped down into the huge hole to pick up Orga from the bottom. Meanwhile, Natsu had landed near Laxus and was already picking a fight with him.

"Lazy, you've just been standing here and watching the whole time?!"

"Nah, I finished my fight. It's you two who talked more than fought and wasted all their time." he countered, and Lucy pouted.

On the other hand, Natsu revved up and got in Laxus's face. The entire way back through the halls to their booth, he was pestering the lightning slayer, trying to provoke him into a fistfight. He only shut up once they had arrived back in their booth and Erza gave him THAT look…. the one that made you feel like a fly on her cake.

They only had a short respite before the grand finale, during which time Mavis popped in on them to talk strategy, much to their pleasant surprise. She told them everything she had observed about their opponents and the plan she had cooked up to get them in first place. Each of them had a part to play, and they all payed close attention, recognizing that she was obviously very knowledgeable about strategy.

Meanwhile, Orga was taken to the infirmary to be woken up and bandaged, but as it turned out he wasn't too badly injured, all things considered. Everyone else who had fought in the team battles were also bandaged up during this time. Sherria had healed Lamia Scale of course, while Wendy and Porlyusica made a visit to their booth to heal Lucy, Natsu, and Laxus. The other teams had been treated by whatever medical mages they had brought with them, and it wasn't long before everyone was ready to go.

Soon, all six teams were assembled in the arena.

"This is it! The grand finale of the Grand Magic Games will be a full team survival game!" Chapati yelled across the speakers.

"Strap in Pumpkins because a very special arena has been selected for the final game! The entire city of Crocus!"

"The teams will now be spread throughout the city…" Chapati exclaimed.

A huge magic circle appeared beneath them, and suddenly they were transported to a random location in the city.

Then Yajima took over to tell them the rules, his voice echoing out even into the streets of the city so the combatants could hear. "The combatants will rush through the city, attacking any opposing teams they come across. Knocking out or incapacitating an opposing wizard will net that team one point. If you knock out the other team's leader, that will land you five points! However, none of the other teams know who has been elected leader!"

"Strategy will play a big role in this game…whether a team splits up, stays together, or splits into teams of two and three will play a big role in how everything goes down." Mato called after Yajima finished. This time the third judge actually was Mato, so he was sitting up in the judging booth and was coming across the loud speakers alongside them.

"Indeed, that's a very good point." Yajima added.

After a few more random comments, Chapati took over again to kick everything off.

"Ready! Start!" he cried, and the gong sounded, signaling the beginning of the game.

Lucy and her fellow teammates shared a look and then nodded before splitting up. As agreed on beforehand, Amy hopped out and four other wolves followed her – all of which had been spared from the previous fight. Each of the other wolves went with a member of Fairy Tail, and since they could communicate with each other telepathically, it would keep the team in contact with each other. That way if something unexpected happened, they could strategize on the fly.

As soon as they had gone their separate ways, Natsu popped into being next to her with a flash. "All right! Let's go kick some ass Luce! I'm all fired up!"

"Yeah!" she agreed, and they picked the path through the city suggested to them by the first master, walking at a brisk pace.

For the next few minutes nothing much happened, though the announcer and other judges continued to commentate and wonder who was going to meet first. They also told everyone what the starting scores were, which was interesting to listen to as she and Natsu jogged to their first set of coordinates.

"Sabertooth is starting in the lead with a whopping 70 points! In second place, 21 points behind them, is Fairy Tail with a total score of 49! Lamia Scale is in third place with 39 points and is closely followed by Mermaid Heel with 37 points, Quatro Puppy with 35 points, and Blue Pegasus with 33 points."

"Well let's get started on that 20 point gap…" Lucy muttered to herself.

She absentmindedly listened to the commentary as they kept moving along their road. The first action of the day was between Quatro Puppy's Nobarly and Lamia Scale's Toby and Yuka…with the later team winning. That brought Lamia Scale up to 40 total points.

The next battle that came across the loudspeakers was between Blue Pegasus's Ren and Eve against Mermaid Heel's Arana and Beth. Ren and Eve won their team two points.

Finally though, right on schedule, came, "Woah! It's Mira from Fairy Tail, and she's found herself some prey! Look at her go! Fairy Tail's Mira Jane against Quatro Puppy's Semmes! Well that was fast folks! Fairy Tail has just netted itself 1 point!"

That brought them up to fifty and Lucy grinned, thinking back to when Master Mavis had laid out the master plan and how well it had gone so far. Every encounter had been calculated, and by listening to the commentary, Lucy could tell which scenarios were going to pan out…if her memory served correctly. It had been a lot of information in a short period of time, and she'd only been able to memorize the parts that would affect her and where she should go.

When she heard the commenter then call out that Toby and Yuka were going up against Rocker from Quatro Puppy, she knew to turn down Rose Street instead of Baymont Way because it meant Scenario C was panning out. And when Kagura leapt into the fight and took out all three, bringing Mermaid Heel up to 30 points, she knew to take a shortcut through the alley to the right.

If everything was going according to plan, then she should be hearing the sounds of a fight – or more accurately, Natsu with his keener ears, should be hearing it from about five streets to the left…. and sure enough, Chapati described the battle between Erza and Jenny, which of course their teammate won easily, getting them up to 51 points.

"Alright, keep 'em coming! I'm getting a fire in my belly now!" Natsu crowed and spat a little flame into the air in his excitement.

"We'll be the next one to score if it all goes according to plan. Let's just hope we get there in time…" Lucy huffed as she picked up the pace and listened for the telltale sign that Jura and Jager were in a fight. Hopefully it wouldn't come before she reached her next location or she could miss her targets.

Thankfully, it came right as she was crossing Crane Street, and she relaxed marginally, knowing she was on time. Right as an announcer was saying that Lamia Scale was now at 41 points, she turned the corner and ran right into Ren and Eve.

"All right! We made it!" she whooped, getting a weird look from the two boys now in front of her.

"Um…were you planning to meet us here?"

"Yep! Thanks for showing up right on schedule!" she chirped, and uncoiled her whip.

Natsu went for a headlong attack, which worked well against Eve's snow. He just melted it all with his fire and drove his fist right into the little blond's face. Unfortunately, Lucy wasn't having as much luck with Ren, as her whip was being derailed by Ren's wind magic. But with a subtle eye motion to Amy, she just focused on distracting him really good with a bunch of flashy whip work while the white wolf ran back out of the ally, hopped up onto the roof of the nearby building, and snuck up on Ren. A few moments later, she dropped down right on top of him, and that was all she wrote.

Lucy listened proudly as her name was listed next to the two points they had gained…bringing Fairy Tail's score up to 53 points.

"Well, let's just hope Jellal hits his mark too…because if he doesn't, this is all going to get a lot tighter."

He was the first to take down a leader, and if it didn't go as planned, Sabertooth might get the points instead and they would have a much harder time catching up. According to Master Mavis's calculations, Sabertooth would be going after all the leaders and not wasting their time on single points. And of course Fairy Tail needed at least a couple of leaders to make up that gap… and absolutely had to prevent Sabertooth from getting any further out of reach.

So it was with bated breath that they listened to the fight between Bacchus, Milliana, and Risley as they proceeded to their next designated location. Bacchus took out Risley, but then the commentary was interrupted by everyone exclaiming over how a fight had suddenly broken out on a nearby roof. The breath she had been holding released on a relieved sigh.

"Oh my gosh! Would you look at that?! Mystogan and Sting have just suddenly broken out in a fight!"

Yajima said, "It looks like Sting was getting ready to mount a surprise attack on Bacchus…but Jellal took him out in one massive attack."

"He took out the house too…"

"No need to worry, Pumpkins! All the damage from this challenge will be repaired with magic after the Games have concluded." Mato said perkily.

"It appears that Milliana has managed to escape thanks to that massive distraction…smart kitty."

"And now it's Mystogan against Bacchus! It'll be fun to see the outcome of this match!"

"Yes indeed!"

At that point Amy snickered and said, "Daimios is bored. He says that his human partner, your Jellal, is hogging all the action for himself."

Lucy just rolled her eyes. "He's surprisingly motivated when he thinks it's something that will impress Erza… even if she can only hear it over a speaker."

Natsu laughed out loud. "Never would have thunk it…he comes off as so serious all the freakin' time."

"Yeah I know."

Their conversation was paused a moment as they listened to the announcer. "And that's it Pumpkins! Mystogan has landed Fairy Tail 5 points!"

Another joined in. "And Quatro Puppy is now officially out! I don't think they expected to be taken out this early in the games…"

"Yes, Master Goldmine does look rather depressed, doesn't he?"

After that, Lucy stopped listening to the commentary for a while because she was entirely focused on reaching her next goal. Unlike their last target, this next one was really important, so they really booked it to get there in time. Mavis had tasked them with taking out the leader of Blue Pegasus – which of course had to be Ichiya – but if they didn't get there in time, Sabertooth would take him out with a 90 something percent probability, according to the first master.

Thankfully they skidded out of the alleyway into a cobbled courtyard and found Ichiya and Hibiki alone…or seemingly alone anyways. Rufus was nearby on a rooftop – which he seemed to like to do a lot – but the Blue Pegasus team hadn't noticed him yet. So they were just in time, and Lucy hurried to summon Sagittarius.

She didn't even wait for him to greet her before she was yelping, "Shoot him!" and pointed at Ichiya.

At the same moment, three flashes of blinding golden light rained down from above, aiming right at Lucy, Hibiki, and Ichiya. Mavis had warned them about this attack and told them that to avoid it, they needed to wait for it to be directly above, and then they had a 2 second window to avoid it. So, while her spirit shot Ichiya, she kept an eye to the sky and then dove to the side at the last moment. Sagittarius managed to snipe their opponent a second before he was zapped with lightning – or whatever that golden light was – and the force of the blunted arrow sent him flying out of the way and crashing into a nearby wall. He passed out upon impact, giving her the 5 points for taking out a leader, and she fist-pumped the air from her spot on the ground.

Hibiki had been zapped, but it was okay for Sabertooth to get one measly point.

"And Blue Pegasus is out of the Games as well! Fairy Tail is knocking them out one after another! What a comeback!"

Lucy wasn't really paying attention to the announcer though, because she was busy avoiding another round of bright flashing death. She also sent out a warning through wolf walkie-talkie to let the others know it was coming when he sent out five in retaliation for her taking his target.

They all dodged, according to the commentator at least, and Rufus seemed to just get more and more irritated and twitchy. He disappeared off his roof after moment, and Natsu instantly took chase with Lucy and Amy following. Amy was tracking his scent too though… so really it was Lucy who was playing catch-up with her super-sensory friends.

They eventually skidded to a halt outside of a library – which was very Rufus-like and she didn't doubt that he had taken refuge inside. With his memory make magic, a library was probably the best place for him to be…it would provide him with a broad arsenal of things to memorize and spit at her. However, the major weakness of memory make magic was her type of magic – holder type. He could memorize it all he liked, but without her keys he couldn't do diddly with it. Plus, he likely couldn't mimic the magic of her spirits, since it was a type of magic specific to a particular species – celestial beings. If he tried to take it on, it would probably hurt him in the same way that god slayer magic was poisonous to dragon slayers. It was simply incompatible.

And since Natsu was a dragon, he couldn't take pure dragon magic. Or, if he could, it would simply come out as dragon slayer magic, since that was how it was applicable to humans. Otherwise he would be burned to a crisp.

After catching her breath from running after the other two, they opened the grand double doors which made an ominous creak that signaled their entrance.

"Oh yeah…he's in here. OI! Come out and fight us you fancy feathered idiot!"

Lucy snorted at Natsu's description of his feathered hat.

"I'm not hiding, if that is what you were implying." A voice came from directly in front of them, and after walking around a bookcase, they came upon a huge marble seating space, completely surrounded by book shelves and sporting a few comfortable looking couches. Rufus was currently lounging on one with a pile of books around him.

"Oh good."

He snapped his book closed and elegantly rose from his chair, brushing out his clothes. "Picking a fight with me here is highly unintelligent. I have all the ammunition I need to destroy you quickly and efficiently." He gestured at the books all around him, and then that golden helix spell appeared and all the nearby books lifted into the air to float as he apparently memorized all the spells in them.

Lucy cringed, but she'd been expecting that. So, instead of waiting around for him to finish stocking up on super overpowered spells, she summoned Scorpio.

"Open! Gate of the Scorpion! Scorpio!"

"Wicked! What can I do for you Miss Lucy?"

"Blow him away!"

"Alright!" The scorpion spirit bent down and aimed his sand canon tail at their opponent, launching a funnel at him that should have swept him and his books away in a tidal wave of destruction. Instead, the memory make mage stopped his previous spell, tossed aside all the books, and cast a shield spell which he had undoubtedly just memorized. Scorpio's sand just bounced right off.

"What a fine attack, I believe I'll memorize it too." Rufus calmly stated, as if stealing spells was as normal as offering someone a cup of coffee.

Lucy scowled, disgusted with him. According to Master Mavis, this memory make magic was an ancient spell that had long been forbidden and forgotten, due to the fact that whenever he memorized someone else's spell, that person completely forgot it and would have to relearn it before they could cast it again.

"Memorizing spells from a book is one thing but stealing them from your opponents is just wrong." she scolded, but of course it had no effect on the man.

He still put his fingers to his temple and grinned, activating that helix light again. However, as he stared hard at Scorpio, that smile slowly slid off his face, to be replaced with a pained expression.

"Ah! What is…what is this magic?! Why can't I memorize it?" he finally exclaimed, the spell breaking as he cried out in pain that apparently got too bad for him to continue his attempted thievery.

"This is celestial magic, you putz. Good luck trying to memorize something that's not even from this world." Lucy gloated, beyond happy that Mavis had been right and he couldn't memorize her spirit's magic.

He glared and erected another barrier as Scorpio sent more sand his way. Then, with a growl, he started casting another ancient spell, one that caused the ground to break apart underneath their feet and fire to burst up from the cracks as if they'd been cast into hell. With a gasp, Lucy quickly donned her dragon's star dress, which thankfully gave her immunity to other types of fire besides Natsu's, but she also quickly sent Scorpio back before he could be burned.

The fire didn't last long either, not when Natsu sucked it all up into his mouth and then belched with satisfaction. "Thanks for the meal man. That fire was tasty!"

Rufus was left gaping at him in shock, but he quickly schooled his features back to calm and collected. "Oh yes, that's right. You are a celestial fire dragon, correct? Then perhaps this would be a better spell for you."

The fire disappeared, and in its place a sudden rush of water poured into the room, apparently from the ceiling – as if a tap had been opened up. It was another crazy ancient spell of amazing magnitude, and he paired it with a bubble of air around himself as the room began to fill – obviously with the intention of drowning them.

"Open! Gate of the Water Bearer! Aquarius!" she summoned, and the mermaid spirit popped into existence with her normal scowl.

She glanced around herself and then huffed, "You can handle this one on your own. I'm taking a spa day."

Lucy rolled her eyes, but unlike in the past when Aquarius refused to help, this time she was correct. The spirit herself poofed back to the celestial realm, but her door remained ajar, allowing Lucy to call forth her star dress. This of course allowed her to control the water and she easily created her own bubble of air. That was her first priority of course, but after that, she was purely focused on taking down Rufus as quickly as possible. She didn't want to give him a chance to pull out another crazy spell from his magical hat.

So, with that goal, her mind started shifting through all the possibilities afforded her by her spirits. Considering time was an issue, it made the most sense to use what she already had out, but if she used Natsu's power to boil the water, it would cook Amy. Normally she could just close the wolf's gate for the rest of this battle, but that would send all her wolves back as well and their lupine walkie-talkie system would disappear. So, she had to go with option number two.

"Open, gate of the rabbit! Lepus!"

Out came Pikachu with a squeak. Lucy quickly grounded them, making sure to push all the water away from their feet so they were just standing on the floor of the library, and then pointed at Rufus. "Zap him Pikachu! Make all this water crackle!"

With a happy chirp, the little rabbit spirit did exactly as she requested, and widened his stance before sending out a constant stream of lightning into the water from his tail. The sudden crackle and pop of electricity sounded from all around them, turning their surroundings into a deadly weapon. Now she had to be careful, making sure that they didn't touch the water as she tried to make sure that it did touch Rufus. To do that, she grabbed control of the swirling liquid using Aquarius's power and sent it at him, making it spin around him like a cyclone… which, of course, spun him too.

He screeched and hopefully got very dizzy. His bubble popped, leaving him at the mercy of Lucy's oceanic electricity-laced typhoon, while she and Natsu remained perfectly stable in the peaceful little bubble Lucy had created for them.

"Remind me to never piss you off around open water…" Natsu chuckled, shooting her an impressed glance.

"Indeed." Amy agreed with a solemn nod.

"Aquarius taught me very well." she answered back with a smile.

Unfortunately, Rufus was able to cancel his spell, and the water all drained away as if they'd just been in a big bathtub and the plug had been pulled. He landed coughing up water and looking pretty beat up. All his muscles were still spasming from the electricity he had just been exposed to, and she was surprised he was even conscious. When he attempted to stand, he wobbled and nearly fell back over, showing that he was probably very dizzy on top of nearly getting drowned and flash fried.

However, he quickly started up another spell, this one obviously for self-recovery, as he was surrounded by a gentle white glow and stopped spasming and stumbling around. It was apparently pretty potent and fast acting, since he was able to stabilize so quickly, and before they could stop him he was already finished with that and launching a new attack.

When he started up another of those stupid ancient spells – this one creating a whole army of magical armored soldiers – Natsu lost his patience. With one irritated roar, he sent the entire army flying, and they dispersed into sparks of mere energy. Bookshelves went up in flame, books disintegrated into ash and flaming paper that flew through the air, and the wall behind Rufus was taken out entirely. Of course Rufus himself also went flying, despite the shield he hastily brought up. The magical barrier he erected held, but he still got cooked from the flames on either side of him and then slammed into the rubble that piled up against the next building over.

He stayed down, only attempting to get up once before slumping back into an insensible heap.

While they were fighting, Lucy completely missed the commentary, so as soon as it was apparent that he was down for the count, she tuned back in to what was going on.

Apparently, Milliana had taken out Lyon and Mermaid Heel was up to 41 points. Also, near the end of Lucy's fight, Mira and Sherria had started a battle which had no end in sight. They seemed evenly matched for now, but that was the plan. With Sherria being able to heal herself indefinitely, the tactic that Mavis had suggested to defeat her was to slowly wear her down with a constant low-level attack. That wouldn't use up too much of Mira's power, but it would force Sherria to use up hers as she kept having to heal herself. Then eventually, after wearing her magic down enough, Mira would land a huge final strike with her Satan's Soul form, and hopefully Sherria wouldn't have enough magic power left to heal herself.

So that fight was going to last a loooooong time.

The next thing to come across the loudspeaker was, "Oh my! We have another epic match-up in the works! Check that out folks, it looks like Laxus from Fairy Tail is now squaring off against Sabertooth's Olga! This is going to be a fight to remember!"

Lucy didn't remember anything about that being in the plan… but then she had been focusing mostly on her part, so it wouldn't surprise her if she'd forgotten other people's roles by now. At the moment, all she had to do was recover from their fight with Rufus – and put out the fire in the library with some leftover water – but in a few minutes they would need to head out and get going towards their next destination. Being that Natsu was a dragon, it only made sense to go up against the other dragon present in this competition before he could mess with any of their team mates.

So, after finishing with the library, they exited and she sat on a bench just outside to catch her breath while Natsu paced impatiently in front of her.

"Come on Luce, let's get the lead out!"

"Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute here. Not all of us have the constitution of a mythical beast of legend."

Amy snorted in amusement. When Natsu shot her a nasty look, she glanced away and raised a hind foot to casually scratch her ear.

After a few more minutes of watching Natsu fidget, Lucy finally sighed and got back to her feet. "Alright, we can go."

"Finally!"

As they headed off to where Mavis suspected that Rogue would be, they listened to the commentary to catch up with what was going on, and Lucy's eyebrows shot up on her head when she heard that Jura had suddenly shown up to join in on Laxus's fight with Orga. That was one match-up that she knew hadn't been in the plan, and she was interested to hear how it would play out.

They were halfway to their destination when a nearby explosion shocked the hell out of them, and a shot of black lightning zapped the top off of a tall building several streets to the left of them.

"Shit! We must be close to those three! Let's get out of here quick!"

"How about we join in?" Natsu asked with a shit-eating grin and cracked his knuckles, his head pointing in the direction of where the lightning had come from.

With a deep scowl, Lucy grabbed his scarf and hauled him after her at top speed as she power-walked them out of there.

He groaned and protested, but she remained firm in her decision as she plowed them through the streets and towards their destination.

"We've got other things to do, besides…"

She was interrupted by the commentator as all the judges exclaimed loudly over the speakers. "Oh! Ouch! Wow! Jura just took out Orga with one hit!"

"Again folks, don't worry, the hole in the street will be fixed immediately after the games. As will the buildings…and the whole city."

"This could get pretty expensive couldn't it?"

Lucy snorted. If they were only just realizing that hiring a hundred mages to reconstruct the whole city would probably cost an arm and a leg…she didn't really know what to tell them. Then again, they might be planning on employing all the guilds who had lost during the preliminaries to do it.

At any rate, she needed to focus now, because she could already hear the expected sounds of battle and carnage ahead of them. The combatants' identities were confirmed when they heard over the loud speakers that Rogue had found Erza and Jellal – who were on their way to another target. Mavis had suspected that Rogue would go after Jellal after he took out Sting, and it seemed she was right once again.

Now their job was going to entail pulling Rogue off Erza and Jellal so they could go and do their business unhindered by an enraged shadow dragon – which would definitely slow them down.

As they rounded the corner, they came face to face with destruction as Rogue went on a rampage in his halfway dragon form. Even Jellal and Erza were having a tough time fending him off, and when they saw Lucy and Natsu they both called out.

"It's about time! You're late!"

"Sorry! We passed by Laxus's fight and nearly got fried. And this one here got distracted." Lucy added, jerking her thumb at Natsu.

Instead of paying attention to his teammates, Natsu had instead zeroed in on Rogue and a dangerous grin had started to split his lips. "Yo Rogue! Have you gone feral?"

The called dragon's head snapped around and glowing red eyes glared at them as he growled warningly.

"Yep…he's gone. This is gonna be fun!"

Lucy was doubting her boyfriend's definition of 'fun.'

He cracked his knuckles and that fangy grin only widened as one leg slid back, putting him in a battle stance, and he raised his hand. His fingers crooked in a 'come hither' gesture, and he growled back at their opponent. "Come on."

For a second Rogue wavered, and when he turned towards the already retreating backs of their teammates, Natsu took things into his own hands and shot a fireball at the distracted dragon – which successfully got his attention as it smacked into the back of his head and lit his hair on fire for a brief second. With a shake of his head, the flames went out – apparently dragons were partially resistant to other dragon magic in a way – but it still got his attention.

Lucy and Amy stepped back and got out of the way as the two dragons went at it, Natsu soon taking on his half-way form too. Thankfully, Natsu had enough presence of mind to push the fight a little down the street to keep it away from Lucy, which she was very thankful for. They were taking out buildings left and right, and she had to duck to avoid flying rubble more than once. For safety's sake, she equipped her dragon star dress, which would help somewhat in surviving the experience since it gave her extra strength, stamina, and resilience.

While she was watching the destruction and chaos that Natsu and Rogue created, she was also listening to the commentary on the battle between Jura and Laxus.

"Look at them go! Rocks against lightning, who do you think is going to win?" Chapati yelled excitedly.

"Surprisingly they seem evenly matched. I'm amazed that Laxus is holding his own against one of the Ten Wizard Saints…" Yajima commented, sounding impressed.

"Ouch that had to hurt! Is that it for him? No! He's standing back up! Man, these Fairy Tail wizards are tough!"

"It's amazing that he's able to avoid so many of Jura's attacks, even while so badly injured. He might really stand a chance."

This continued on for a few minutes, during which time Lucy had to relocated at least twice to get out of the way of the rampaging dragons and the rubble they were throwing around. Then, finally, over the lacrima speakers, Chapati yelled, "There it is! I think that was the final blow! It was simultaneous, so who will remain standing?!"

"Jura's down! Laxus takes five points for Fairy Tail!"

"Whoops, now Laxus has passed out as well. That's one point for Lamia Scale too."

"And that brings Fairy Tail up to seventy points! They're almost neck and neck with Sabertooth! What a match, ladies and gentlemen, what a match!"

Lucy breathed out a sigh of relief, thankful that Laxus had been able to secure Jura's defeat. That gave them a little extra wiggle room in terms of points. Now, it was up to Erza and Jellal to defeat Minerva…

…

As for those two, they had arrived where Mavis had told them to go, and sure enough, Minerva was there unintentionally waiting for them. She engaged them both, acting cocky and confident…and for good reason. Shortly into the battle, she pulled out an ancient spell, Yagdo Rigora, one of the Yakuma Eighteen War Gods Magic. It summoned forth an enormous giant tattooed with magical incantations and carrying a huge war-hammer that looked like it could do some serious damage. Unsurprisingly, when the huge warrior slammed its massive hammer into the ground, an explosion of magic blew away basically everything in the area – breaking apart buildings, reducing walls to rubble, and throwing rock and soil everywhere. Even Erza and Jellal weren't immune to the ferocity of the attack, and took shelter behind Erza's adamantine armor, which shielded them from most of the blast.

"That was one of the eighteen war gods…I can't believe she knows that spell." Erza commented, shocked and amazed.

Jellal just hummed contemplatively and narrowed his turquoise eyes at their opponent, taking her significantly more seriously. It seemed that Minerva was doing the same.

"I'll admit, I underestimated your power. For you to still be alive after that spell is unprecedented." she commented mildly, sounding impressed and also calculating, as if she was being forced to reexamine her plan of attack. But then her gaze refocused on something behind them and a broad, cruel smile stretched her lips. "However, it seems that luck is on my side."

Both Erza and Jellal risked a glance back, to see Kagura coming up from behind. She had a bland look on her face, but she definitely looked ready to fight.

"Perhaps it's time to play my trump card…" Minerva said, and produced Milliana – who seemed to be cringing in pain – floating within a dark blue bubble. "I believe you all know this little stray?"

"Milliana!" Erza bellowed, and Kagura instantly took a step forwards, a terrifying look on her face as she glared at Minerva.

Milliana dropped to the ground and started to cough, then whimpered when Minerva yanked her up by her hair.

"Minerva…. Release my team member this instant." Kagura growled, taking another step forward and fingering her sheathed blade.

Their attention was distracted though when the cat-girl's eyes slit open to look at them. She glanced from Mystogan, to Erza, and then to Kagura.

"Erzy…why are you with him. After everything he did to us…" she mewled, sounding completely devastated, betrayed, and angry.

All three froze, while Minerva cocked her head and observed them all with interested eyes.

"Are you saying…" Kagura began, her voice starting to tremble with pure rage. "That this man is him?!"

Milliana nodded. "I'd recognize him anywhere…and I caught a glimpse of his face earlier when he was fighting Sting and Bacchus."

"Well, well…isn't this interesting? I was going to force you to fight for this little prisoner, but it seems she's already done it for me. I'll just let the three of you tire yourselves out and come back later to collect all the rewards." So saying, she quickly slammed her fist – coated in a black orb of magic – into the side of Milliana's head, and she instantly went limp.

Erza gasped and headed towards her, but Kagura didn't even seem to notice. All her attention was focused on Jellal, and with a blood-curdling scream she broke the bindings and seal on her scabbard and drew her blade.

Minerva disappeared, and after a very quick check to make sure that Milliana was still alive, Erza turned back towards the battle, to see Jellal struggling under a barrage of lightning fast sword work that even Erza wasn't sure she would be able to keep up with. The only way he'd manage to stay alive was by cloaking himself in Meteor and dodging her attacks at lightning fast speeds. She kept up with him though, managing to attack even his fastest form of magic.

Meanwhile, she screamed, snarled, and growled, "You killed Simon! My brother! You killed him! I've been waiting years to get my revenge!"

Unfortunately, Jellal refused to attack back, only blocking and dodging to the best of his ability, and Erza could tell that he simply couldn't bring himself to hurt Kagura… not while knowing who she was. He was always riddled with a guilt that nearly incapacitated him at times, and right now that handicap was preventing him from properly combating this woman. So, Erza stepped in.

Getting in between the two was no easy matter, but by using a combination of her flight armor for speed and her adamantine shield, she was able to zip in between them and then repel Kagura's attack, sending her staggering back as she slammed into the impenetrable shield – which she was obviously not expecting.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" she bellowed, and attempted to slash her way through Erza.

The redhead wasn't having any of it though, and reequipped on the fly, donning her lightning empress armor and leveling a bolt at her opponent, which stunned her for a few seconds.

"Your opponent is me, not him. He will not fight you, not with the burden he carries. So I'll fight for him."

"Anyone who allies with Jellal is my enemy! I will cut you down alongside him!"

And so, they commenced trading blow after blow, and Kagura proved herself to be one of the best sword fighter Erza had ever gone up against. She was barely able to keep up, much less land another attack. It wasn't long before she was forced to don her clear heart armor and wield her demon blade Crimson Sakura to match her opponent's speed and ability. By placing every ounce of magic she possessed into her blade, she was able to finally hold her own against Kagura's unsheathed sword.

While they fought, they also spoke, and Erza told her some of her time spent in the tower of heaven… how she had known Simon very well, and how he had told her of his little sister. She also shared that she too had often thought of Kagura and hoped she had survived the attack on the night they were all taken. Ironically – despite the fact that Kagura was currently attempting to kill her – Erza, Simon, and Kagura were originally from the same village. In fact, Erza had saved Kagura's life during the invasion of their home by hiding the other girl in a barrel.

This information seemed to stun her opponent for a moment, before she shook it off and said, "Whatever our pasts may be, the fact remains that you are still shielding the murderer of my brother, and that makes you my enemy!"

Still, her attacks were slightly less aggressive than before, and Erza could only hope she was getting through to her.

…

Meanwhile, Lucy was avidly listening to the commentary on their battle.

"Well it sure does look like those two ladies are talking a lot while they fight. Wouldn't that make it harder to concentrate on the battle?"

"I don't know, but it seems like they're doing great to me!"

"It's certainly amazing to watch, that's for sure."

"My word! That attack took out the whole building! It's collapsing from the sides… they're going to be crushed!"

"No, no, wait…it seems that Mystogan used Meteor again to zip in and carry out both ladies…what a gentleman."

"Yes indeed…oh dear, it looks like he was injured! He must have taken a few blows from falling rocks in his rescue. That looks nasty…the whole side of his head is bloody. It took off that mask he always wears too…I wonder why he wears it?"

Lucy tensed at that, but then relaxed when nobody commented on the fact that he was Jellal. He must have been able to do his transformation magic to camouflage his face.

"He's always been very mysterious. I suspect he's just incredibly shy and antisocial." Yajima suggested.

"Oh my word, that was a close one. Minerva almost just stabbed Kagura in the back with her own sword! It's a good thing that Mystogan is so fast. Whoops, looks like she was too late anyways, Kagura's just fainted dead away. Five points to Fairy Tail!"

"Yes…" Lucy whispered, pumping her fist. "We're in first place! Finally!"

And then her attention was completely distracted by Natsu and Rogue as they both started to transform fully into dragons.

"Oh no…this is not good." she groaned, and hurried to run over as fast as she could. As she ran, she called over her shoulder to Amy, "I'm joining this fight, you better get out of here!"

The wolf nodded and jumped into the air, rising up high enough to watch from a safe distance.

Thanks to her sprint, Lucy reached Natsu halfway through the transformation and quickly jumped onto his tail, knowing that it was much safer to be on him, rather than hidden nearby in a building that could be accidentally crushed under one of them. Besides that, she had to get up to his head and tell him to stop it… turning full dragon here was completely unnecessary and would probably destroy the entire town!

She managed to snag his tail in passing as he wagged it back and forth, and looped her arms over it, her legs dangling a little until she managed to hook one over the red appendage. Thankfully his tail stopped whipping around in excitement, and she was able to mount it properly, glancing up towards his head as she did so. Sure enough, his head had swung sideways so he could glance back at her, and when he noticed the figure on his tail he grinned and faced forwards again but stayed still while she clambered up his body. Rogue though wasn't patient and attacked, going for Natsu's head with his claws, which forced the red dragon to swing around – taking a house out with his butt – as he dodged and then retaliated with his tail.

Lucy clung to the large spike between his shoulders as he whipped around, and very nearly got thrown off for a moment. It was a good thing they'd done so much training with him in this form, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to stay put. It was only due to her familiarity with the way he moved that let her adjust her weight to compensate. Once he stopped moving quite so much, she continue to climb up until she was in her favorite spot at the base of his neck, where there were plenty of spikes and raised thick scales to grab onto.

"Natsu! Don't you think this is going a little overboard?" she asked, knowing he could easily hear her.

"No way! This is tons of fun!"

"But you're gonna take out the whole town!"

Her protest probably would have included other important points, but she cut it short when Rogue made another attack. As a shadow dragon, he could turn his entire immense body into shadow and attack from any surface that could hold a shadow…which was pretty annoying since he could attack from directly underneath them. He managed to get in a good punch and clawed up Natsu's belly pretty good, but of course Natsu didn't just sit back and let him do that for too long. He instantly reared back and blasted fire directly downwards, driving Rogue back.

This repeated a couple of times, but Natsu spent that time memorizing how he moved. Finally, when Rogue tried to attack from yet another shadow, Natsu reached and grabbed him in one clawed fist, dragging him out of the wall where he'd been hiding. Seeing something that big come from such a small space was pretty freaky.

After dragging him completely out by his tail, Natsu flipped him…sending him flying backwards to land on his back, and he skidded through several houses. Naturally Natsu followed and pounced on top of him, straddling him and raining punches, bites, and claws down. Behind them, both powerful tails battled each other too, almost looking like another pair of creatures fighting for dominance.

Eventually Rogue kicked him off and tried to slink away back into the shadows, but Natsu wasn't having any of that. He snagged the tip of a wing and this time took flight, dragging Rogue out by his wing and forcing him up into the air. The black dragon desperately paddled with his other wing, trying to get away as Natsu tossed him around, kicking and biting. A thick black tail lashed across Natsu's belly, cutting him with the sharp arrow head that Rogue possessed on the tip, and Natsu let go momentarily. A little space was put between them, but the fire dragon was too close for the shadow dragon to try and escape again. So Rogue attacked, roaring and blasting them with a wave of black magic.

They got tossed back a ways before Natsu got them out of the blast zone, and Lucy hung on for dear life.

"You guys need to calm down and stop this nonsense!" Lucy scolded as Natsu's wings pumped and then sent them back at Rogue. Although she was sure that Rogue could hear her too, given a dragon's sensitive hearing, he didn't respond in any way.

"He's gone feral Luce, there's no talking to him right now. If we don't subdue him, he'll probably wipe out Crocus entirely."

"Oh…shit. Why didn't you tell me that to start with?!" she felt her blood run cold.

If that was the case, she'd better do more than just sit here like a useless mosquito. Mounting up higher onto his head and grabbing onto a horn, she said, "Let's hit him hard then and finish him quick as possible to minimize the damages. I'll use Urano Metria with your magic – giving it a major fire boost – and then you can blast him once he's down."

"Let's do it!"

With a fierce grin of her own, she put both hands out, and started the long incantation. Natsu's dragon fire licked through her, pouring into her and then into every word of the spell, and she felt the magic almost grow too intense for her to contain. As always, the sky grew dark, their surroundings disappeared, and heavenly celestial bodies hung heavy in the sky. However, with Natsu's magic thick in the spell, the dark starry sky was lit with brilliant golden flames and every heavenly body looked like a scorching sun. Then, as she finished the spell, the stars plummeted down in what looked like a rain of meteors.

Every flaming projectile hit Rogue, shoving him face first into the ground and then pounding him flat. When the barrage finally let up, he was limp – but pushed himself to all-fours after a moment, though he wobbled a little. At that point, Natsu swooped in and gave him a heavy punch followed by a tail to the face, and the black dragon went flying a pretty good distance.

He crashed into a group of buildings that were already broken.

…

Meanwhile, Erza and Jellal had been fighting Minerva. Of course Jellal was badly wounded by the falling building, but he still put forth a massive effort. However, Minerva's magic – territory – was truly formidable. It allowed her to do whatever she wished with everything inside her "territory" … including blowing it up – which explained how she could make those black hole bomb things. The 'black holes' were actually her territories.

Unfortunately, Jellal had slowed significantly with his injuries, which made it possible for her to capture him in one of these black bubbles. Inside, he couldn't access any of his magic whatsoever and was completely at her mercy, which she used against Erza with a sadistic grin. He became her hostage, and with him she was able to force Erza to disperse her weapon and armor, and then made her strip.

Erza was in the middle of complying with her demands, grudgingly, when an enormous black shape came hurtling through the air and crashed into them. Somehow, in the resulting chaos, Minerva's magic broke, and Jellal was able to use Meteor to dash out from underneath a huge black wing before he was crushed. Meanwhile Erza escaped by reequipping her flight armor. Minerva though, wasn't as lucky. She attempted to use her territories magic to teleport herself out of there, and actually did so successfully. However, she reappeared right where a huge heavy tail landed and still got squashed.

She then somehow managed to teleport herself out from under the tail before it completely crushed her. However, when she reappeared, Natsu had already landed and instantly turned to eyeball her. She sent a barrage of territory bombs at him, but they did precisely zero damage to his tough hide, and before the smoke had cleared and she realized this fact, a massive paw reached out and slapped her – sending her flying. She hit a nearby wall and stopped, hanging there for a moment plastered against the surface, and then flopped down to lie face down in the dirt… limp as a noodle.

Rogue likewise didn't get up. In fact, he transformed back into his human form. He groaned and pushed himself to a sitting position, but when Natsu growled and stepped towards him, he shuffled back on his behind and held up his hands in surrender.

"I forfeit…you knocked me out of rage mode. I'm good." he said with a wince, and Natsu heaved a disappointed sigh before transforming back into his human form as well.

Lucy hopped off halfway so she wouldn't end up sitting on his head. That had happened the first time they trained, and she ended up toppling off him, while he was knocked over as well. Hitting the ground and then having a heavy dragon (in human form though he might be) fall on top of you is not exactly fun, so they decided not to do that again.

After that, it was just a matter of Mira and Sherria both tiring out. Apparently Mira decided to finish things once the announcement came that everyone else was done, because she went into she-devil mode and knocked the god slayer out cold with one strike.

In the end, the final scores had Fairy Tail in first place with 81 points and Sabertooth in second with 72 points.

Naturally, following the conclusion of the Grand Magic Games was a huge feast and celebration, complete with a parade and the offering of a trophy to the guild in first place. It was hosted by the king himself, and they all stuffed themselves and celebrated in highest spirits. There was also an announcement that every guild who had been eliminated in the preliminary round would help to put the city back together, and since that was over 100 magic guilds, the city was back in shape mere days after, despite the major beating it took.

Of course, Fairy Tail also lent a hand, even though they weren't required to. And with their help the job went much faster. After that, they headed home with their heads held high, a glowing article in every paper and magazine throughout Fiore, and a trophy to put in their guildhall.

---

Sneak Peek:

And then they were interrupted by the other biggest change to the guild – the newest four-person team – walking through the doors of the guild after getting back from their first job.

"Hey they're back!" she exclaimed and Levy turned around to see who she meant.

"Oh cool! I hope it went well for them."

(extra brownie points for anyone who can accurately guess who the new team will be) ;D