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Hiro Mashima owns Fairy Tail.

CHAPTER 19 - FINDING MY WAY

GRAY'S POV

The group came back changed, their faces pale, the dried tracks from their tears easily visible, and I couldn't help but be grateful that I'd been spared the view of that alley. I never wanted to see the place where we'd nearly lost Lucy. I knew if I ever did, it would haunt me in ways I'd never be able to forget. There were a great many things I knew I could face, things I could stand strong about, but that definitely wasn't one of them.

Natsu trailed in after the others, looking haggard and aged somehow, his hands streaked with blood. I'd never seen him look like that, as if he'd finally found the one thing that could destroy him. I felt a pang of sympathy for the other man, certain he was in pain after visiting the site of the attack, but then I shored up my defenses, refusing to give him another thought. He'd started Lucy on this path, and I'd be damned if I was just going to let it go.

Maybe now, that ignorant bastard would get it. Maybe now, he'd do some soul searching, realize that he had a great deal of growing up to do. Natsu had lived for far too long with the idea that he could say and do whatever felt right at the time, and never have to worry over the consequences. He was the reason we'd lost so much money when we went on jobs as a team.

My attention was pulled away, as Gramps asked Freed if he was able to get the sample of DNA he needed. The green-haired mage nodded briefly, before being led upstairs along with Levy, where Porlyusica awaited them. I hoped it wouldn't take them long to formulate the ink for the runes. The longer it took to find the bastard that hurt Lucy, the harder it would be to convince her that it was safe for her to return to the guild.

Looking over to the bar, I found Mira and Lisanna enveloped in a hug courtesy of their older brother, both girls tearing up as they spoke in low tones. I could see Mira shaking her head at the youngest take over mage, and then point her finger off to the corner of the room. I followed her line of sight, finding Natsu slumped over a table by himself, his face laid over his arms. Lisanna took a deep breath before making her way towards the lone slayer.

I scowled as she sat across from Natsu, feeling like the two of them had no business being near each other. After all, that was how all this had gotten started. Apparently the fire mage agreed with me, shaking his head at the white-haired girl and turning away. I felt a small measure of satisfaction at his shunning of her, before I chastised myself for the moment of petty childishness.

That instant of rebuke was quickly brushed aside though, as Lisanna reached out a hand and grabbed onto the retreating man's arm, stilling his movements. I could see her pleading with him, obviously asking him to wait and hear her out, and I grumbled low, "She's got a lot of nerve, acting like that after what she's done."

"It's not what you're thinking," Gajeel spoke, plopping down in the seat beside me, continuing, "She's not trying to date him."

"What do you mean?" I asked in suspicion, remembering how every action she'd taken lately had been about Natsu and her, "What else would she be doing?"

The Iron Dragon Slayer listened for a moment, before relaying their conversation, "She's telling him that he's right, that their focus should be on Lucy.

"What else is she saying?" I inquired, leaning forward, wishing I could hear them as well. Normally, I wouldn't be trying to pry into other people's conversations, but the way I saw it, those two didn't deserve such decency.

His head turned a bit to the side as he tuned in to their voices again, and informed, "She's saying what happened to Lucy was their fault. She feels guilty. Looks like the trip did her some good."

"Maybe so," I acknowledged, continuing to watch the two of them as they carried on their serious conversation. I had my doubts, but it was possible that they had finally gotten the picture. I refused, however, to pin my hopes on that possibility and decided I would simply watch. If this newfound realization wasn't real, it would show eventually, and I'd be there to call them out on it. I wasn't going to just assume Lucy would be safe with them anymore.

"Gray-sama, Juvia knows that you aren't totally convinced, but Juvia believes it's true. They both looked very upset when they came in," the blue-haired woman offered softly.

I nodded at her slightly, finding myself surprised that she knew me well enough to know how I thought, though I suppose it shouldn't have come as such a shock to me, considering how much time she'd spent in the past stalking me. "We'll see, Juvia. We'll see," I answered thoughtfully.

LISANNA'S POV

I sat across from Natsu, my hand still on his arm, as I spoke softly, "Natsu, please. Just hear me out."

"I'm not in the mood to talk about us, Lisanna," he answered, his voice harsh as he pulled his arm away, "That's about the last thing on my mind. Or didn't you see what I saw?"

"No, I mean yes, I saw it. That's what I wanted to talk to you about," I continued, pushing aside the hurt I felt at his reaction to me. I couldn't blame him though. I'd been so focused lately on protecting him from the guild that I had lost sight of what should have important. I forgot what Lucy had been through, what I had helped cause. "I just...I'm not trying to talk about us, more like saying that I should have never made us the priority here. I don't even know what I've been doing lately. I still love you, but I can't believe how I've acted because of that," I explained, struggling to find a way to say everything I was thinking.

His face softened a bit as he agreed, "Yeah, that's how I feel too."

"That alley today," I began, stopping as tears clogged my throat, my voice becoming a broken whisper, "I can't even fathom what she went through. And I can't believe it happened because of us." By this time I was crying, tears slipping down my face in earnest as my emotions got the best of me.

"I know," Natsu replied, his eyes filling, "I used to be the one saving her, and now, I'm the one who's hurt her the most."

I brushed a hand across my wet cheeks as guilt rose up inside me again, and whispered my confession, "I don't know how to live with this, Natsu. I've never hurt anyone so badly, and I don't know how to make it right."

"I don't either. I can't even figure out how I feel anymore. I'm so worried about Lucy, and scared that she'll never be okay. It hurts me to know she'll probably never forgive me, and then I feel guilty for even thinking of myself. How can I be such a selfish bastard?" he choked out, tipping his head down as a stream of tears slid down his face to drop on the table.

It was the most broken I'd ever seen him, and my heart ached in understanding. "We've both been selfish, me even more than you, but it's time to change that. Lucy needs all of us, and we're going to have to find a way to be there for her, even if it's just going on jobs to help pay for her rent," I declared, feeling sadness at the thought of being without Natsu, but this wasn't about me. I had finally come to understand that fact, and now I was determined to give Lucy all of my attention. She deserved that and more.

"You're right," he said, nodding briefly, as he offered a shaky, watery smile, "I'm all fired up."

FREED'S POV

I followed Makarov and Levy up the stairs, leaving our group to settle in with the rest of the guild. I had a job to do, and I knew it would probably take several hours, even with Porlyusica's assistance. It was a tedious process, blending DNA into an ink made of magic. Combining a tangible thing with an intangible element wasn't exactly easy, and with the limited amount of DNA I'd been able to recover from the site, we'd only have one chance at this.

We could afford no mistakes with our procedure, so every step would have to be checked and rechecked to be sure it had been done correctly. If we slipped up even once, the entire process would fail. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong. We had all considered different plans to capture our prey, but none had held even a tenth of the probability of working that this idea had. This was, quite simply, our one shot.

Entering the room, I found it completely set up with everything we'd need scattered across multiple tables. I nodded quickly at the old healer, and leading Levy to the table in the middle of the room and explained what we'd need to do, "Okay, here's how things will work. Porlyusica will take the sample, extracting the DNA from the cells and then amplify them. This will give numerous copies to work with."

"Why do we need the copies?" Levy asked, her eyebrows scrunched up in contemplation.

Porlyusica spoke up, expounding on her part of our plan, "You'll need a copy for each rune station around town. With only one sample, we would only be able to put a single trap out there. We need as many as possible if we're to catch this criminal."

The Solid Script mage nodded her head, her eyes alight with understanding. "Okay, so what do I do for now?"

"Now, we work on the containers. I've come up with a set of runes I believe will work to help contain the magical ink. Come, I'll show you," I informed, as I put my hand out to motion for her to follow me. Turning to Porlyusica, I handed over the sample I'd collected, and she set to work, her movements sure and unwavering.

She spoke over her shoulder, "I'll need to measure out how much DNA we actually have to work with. This will take some time."

"Very well," I responded, moving to a separate table holding various empty bottles. Picking one up, I held it up, and began showing Levy how to write the proper runes along the sides of it with my finger. The glass shined brilliant purple for a moment, before turning back to its normal, clear color. I set the finished item down on another table, and moved on to the next, handing it over to Levy, and watched as she duplicated my actions. I nodded encouragingly as the runes once again glowed, showing a completed set.

"Freed," the scipt mage stopped and asked, "Why are we using ink? Why can't we just write the runes with our magic?"

I turned to her, clarifying, "If we were simply putting up the rune stations for anyone coming through them, that would be fine. However, we will be using Tatankan's DNA to target only him, and that cannot be simply added to our magic. The DNA must be mixed with another source before it can be fused with magic. This ink will satisfy that need, and adding our magic to it will make this the perfect medium to use in the runes."

We continued through the remaining bottles, pushing through the tedious work of runing all 20 bottles. I sighed as we finished the last one, feeling immensely grateful for the small blunette's assistance, especially considering we'd fairly flown through the entire stock. I'd always done this type of work alone, so to have another person to share the tedium with was quite a nice a change. It was too bad that they experience had come at the expense of Lucy being hurt.

Now that we had bottles capable of storing the magical ink, we would have to create the blending agent. Pointing to the table with a large pot of ink on it, I directed Levy to start bringing over the bottles we'd rune marked already. We'd need to fill each one evenly with the ink Porlyusica had brought from Magnolia's resident witch. It was a special blend, one specifically used in writing spells with the caster's blood.

The two of us worked quickly, spooning the dark liquid into the small containers with relative ease. As Levy finished up the last few, I walked over to Porlyusica to check on her progress. She looked up at me with a deadpan expression, and said, "It's not done yet. Now leave me alone."

My eyes widened a bit as I moved back over to where Levy was standing and said, "Okay, now the only things left to do are adding our magic, and the DNA copies, to each ink pot."

Pulling out my sword, I demonstrated, dipping the tip into one of the bottles, and pushing out a small burst of magic down the blade. The contents of the glass container lit up, the purple combining with the dark ink to make a deep violet, before fading away once again. After watching me, Levy pulled out her pen, touching it lightly to the dark ink, and eased out a slip of her magic, lighting the inside of the pot with the bright blue of her magic, blending with the ink into a deep navy blue, before returning to its original color.

"Nicely done. Now we'll each take half, and we'll have these completed in no time at all," I instructed, and receiving her consent, began on my remaining nine.

It took us another 30 minutes to accomplish our task, and by that time, Porlyusica had already begun the duplicating process. This part of things was left up to her, as she was the only one with experience in that area, so I pulled Levy away, heading towards the door.

"You've done quite well, Levy. I appreciate your assistance. We managed to get through the bulk of our portion rather quickly," I complimented.

She smiled brightly up at me, and answered, "Thank you. I'm happy to help Lucy in any way. I want to catch this guy." Her face felll a bit with the mention of her friend, and placing a hand on her tiny shoulder, I told her, "We'll find him. What's lost will always be found."

She took a deep breath, nodding once as if to assure herself, and agreed, "You're right. Fairies never give up."

Just before she opened the door, I handed her a small notebook, saying, "This is last thing I require of you. I need you study up on these notes. They're on the type of rune traps we'll need. Make sure you familiarize yourself with these very well tonight. They must be done exactly right; a single part written incorrectly, and the entire trap will be useless."

"Right then, I'll get right on it. Good thing I brought my Gale Force reading glasses," she mused as she walked through the door, her mind already occupied with the pages in her hands.

"You should get going too. You're going to have a long day tomorrow, so you should head home and get some rest," Polyusica prodded me, her face turning a bit sour, "Besides, there's nothing more for you to do here...and all you humans are getting on my nerves."

A/N: I really hadn't intended to go into depth on how the were making the rune stations and traps, but suddenly it seemed important. IDK, did it make sense to everyone? lol If not, don't tell me. I'm just kidding - tell away! :)