"So he hasn't started teaching you anything?" Yukino asked.

"No. He keeps saying that I'm not strong enough." Before they'd left, Lucy had grabbed the entire stock of dried fish and collected vegetables, only to find that Yukino had brought extra food thinking that Lucy would miss it.

The two women were settled across from each with a small fire. They were still close enough to the valley that they weren't concerned about wyverns or vulcans. According to Draco, vulcans were rather tasty which was a thought that Lucy would prefer not having.

"But I thought the whole reason for a Heartfilia to become a dragon slayer was that only a Heartfilia was strong enough."

"Magically, yes. But physically…" Lucy trailed off but leaned over to examine what she could of the abdominal muscles that had begun to appear.

"You're not weak."

"I know but look at Sting and the others."

"Okay yeah."

They rolled out their sleeping bags. It was a fairly clear night, but Lucy found herself wondering how winter would feel. It would probably snow. She hated snow. It was wet, cold, and hard to move in. Capricorn had probably planned her training in the snow.

"Lucy?" Yukino had rolled over and was staring at her. She waved off Lucy's apology and asked, "Where'd you go?"

"I was just thinking about what training will be like when it snows."

"Oh. That's probably not going to be any fun. Speaking of training, you train with Leo, right?"

"Yeah…?"

"Don't you ever get you know…erm flustered?"

"Huh?" Lucy murmured until she realized what Yukino had meant. Then her face flushed bright red. "No! He's my spirit."

"So? I've sparred with Sting and Rogue. I know that it gets a bit…hot."

"He's Loke. Flirt, playboy, biggest perv short of Taurus." In its pocket inside of her sleeping bag, Loke's key heated up admonishing her. "Don't even," she said to the key. Anyone other than Yukino would have thought she was crazy, but she'd communicated with her keys enough to recognize the gesture.

"I know. But still. I got so flustered once I ran out in the middle of sparring. Rufus saw the whole thing and teased me afterwards. Luckily, I don't think Sting figured out what happened."

"So, which one is your favorite?" Lucy was satisfied with how flustered Yukino got. "I mean, I've only got-" Lucy stopped. It took Yukino a moment to realize what happened.

"He'll come back."

"Yeah, and when he does, I'll be able to kill his ass for leaving."

Yukino laughed. Like most of their conversations, they soon devolved into speculations about the lost keys.

To create the Infinity Clock, a number of celestial wizards were killed. There were still others out there. Lucy knew Horologium had a contract with at least one other mage. Of course, it didn't necessarily mean that the contract was with a celestial mage. Any mage could create contacts with a celestial spirit, but most could only make one contract. Most spirits refused to make contracts with non-celestial mages that already had a contract.

The conversation slowly petered out as they drifted to sleep.

"Why do they always insist on living in places that look like something out of a horror movie?" Lucy asked blandly as they surveyed the guildhall of Chimera's Poison.

Yukino giggled at her comment and Loke smirked.

"Okay. So, the plan is to not need to call on me to help. You have my stardress and your rantai. I will, of course, be watching both of your backs."

"Our backs or our butts?" Lucy muttered.

Again, Yukino giggled while Loke looked offended at her assertion.

"Anyways," he continued, with a hint of pout still on his face, "you need to get more practice on channeling your magic through your rantai."

"I should point out that Rogue is probably somewhere around here. He and Sting saw me grab the job sheet. I told them that it was for the two of us, but you know how they are," Yukino added.

"Fair enough. We can make him wait for the Council to do the clean-up."

"How do we want to do this?"

"I think we should just bust through the front doors."

Yukino was quick to disagree. She thought splitting up and taking down as many as she could in silence was the best option. The two women argued over the best way to take on the dark guild, ignoring Loke anytime he tried to input his opinion. Finally, they agreed to sneak but stick together.

The first few rooms that they cleared, they were able to knock to wizards out without making much noise. Yukino found Lucy's skill with her rantai more than a little terrifying.

The chains seemed to dance around her when she moved. Small sparks of unadulterated celestial magic bounced along it. According to Lucy, Yukino would be able to learn how to channel her magic like that as well if she wanted and Loke had already agreed that when they returned to Draco, she could train with Lucy if she wanted.

In one room, they found half a dozen different wizards. As one prepared to scream, Lucy wrapped her rantai around her neck and pulled. Though she felt confident that she didn't kill the woman, the sickening thud made her cringe.

The snapping energy of Leo's Regulus attack as it trailed down the rantai was sufficient without the potentially fatal attacks. Fighting like this with the rantai made her feel powerful in a way she wasn't used to. It made her understand Natsu enjoyment. Even Erza would have a small smile of pleasure when she was being challenged, and triumphing, the way that Lucy was.

In the midst of the fighting, Yukino and Lucy had been separated. Libra was formidable but didn't always differentiate between friend and foe so as they moved into the large main space of the guildhall, Yukino had eased away from Lucy.

Lucy whipped one man across the chest, the light blasting him away, as she kicked another. She'd turned in Yukino's direction as a man moved to attack her from behind.

"Yukino!" Lucy yelled as a blast of magic erupted from her mouth. It was bluish-black with red-orange specks. The recoil, and the surprise, of the attack knocked Lucy back. It didn't have the raw power of any of the dragon slayers' breath attacks, but it didn't knock all of the wizards out except for Yukino. Libra had turned to give Lucy a speculative look while Loke was giving his hand a similar look.

Rogue, who'd been about to stop the attack himself, fell out of the shadow he'd been lurking. "What was that?"

"Seems we're immune. That's interesting," Loke said at the same time as Rogue's exclamation.

"What was that?" Rogue asked again as he marched up to Lucy.

"That's a very good question," Lucy said, standing up and looking at Loke. "What was that?"

"That was a dragon's roar. How did you do that?"

"That's a very good question. Loke?"

"You know, I really need to go update Draco about the development. Uh bye." Loke fled back to the celestial realm. Virgo replaced him with an armful of magic canceling rope.

Now that the cat was out of the bag, Lucy and Yukino filled Rogue on what she'd been doing over the last month. Answering his questions ended up taking as long as it took for the Magic Council to arrive to round up the wizards.

"Are you going to take Leo up on his offer?" Rogue asked.

"No, but I want to know how Lucy saved me. I'll be back in about a week or so."

"All right. I'll tell Sting."

The two women left Rogue with Lucy's share of the reward to cover the guild storing her belongings though she did buy a few things in town while the waited for the train.

I'm sorry. You may now punish me. Hm… That sounded vaguely dirty. I didn't mean to leave this for as long as I did. Blame school. It's a nice reprieve from my Master's Thesis though.