I owns nothing. FT belongs to Mashima and the Pradeshes belong to Desna.

You guys are absolutely amazing!

They hadn't kissed yet when Vander popped into Kaleb's office and stole the blonde away, sticking his tongue out at his brother as he did. It took three stops to get to where they were going. The first was to shift Lucy into his chest. The other two were meant for Lucy to get a brief respite from the Voids.

"Fuck," Lucy cursed as she dry-heaved into a bush next to the road. "What the fuck was that?"

"The Voids." Vander flinched as he heard Kaleb scolding him. The kiss is just a formality, he retorted. That small distraction gave Lucy the opening to kick him and he didn't have the chance to use his shadows to keep him from crashing into a tree.

"Ow. Fuck."

"I'm about to beat you senseless."

Vander stood and walked over to her. "We're on the border of Stella and Joya. You wouldn't leave me out here and defenseless, would you?"

She paused and didn't try concealing the fact that she was considering it from her face. "Only because I don't want to explain to your father that you were abducted to be a sex slave to a Joyan warqueen."

"Ouch. You can turn that off, right?" he asked, nodding towards her dragon tattoo.

Lucy's dragon had moved onto her shoulder where it looked poised to attack with its wings open down her arm and up her neck. She glanced down and the tattoo disappeared in golden sparks like her spirits then opened her mouth so that he could she no longer had her fangs.

"Why are we here?"

"There's a slavery ring that's been taking travelers in the area. We suspect for Joya."

"So…search and destroy?"

"No. Intel right now. Farron's working on an export treaty on the condition that they stop their slave trade. They argue that they've scaled back but he doesn't believe them. Yada yada. Here we are," Vander said as he randomly picked a direction and started walking.

"Why me?"

"Because your magic is kinda perfect for this."

Lucy hummed. "Why do I get the feeling that your entire plan is for us to walk down this road and hope to get kidnapped?"

"Because it is."

"I kinda hate you."

"No, you don't."

"I really kinda do."

"Well I have a few ideas that'll change your mind. None of them involve clothes though."

"And who's to say you can keep up?"

"Back to this, huh? There are only a few things that I do better than sex."

"Color me impressed?" she said skeptically.

He stopped and turned to her. She met his gaze with a cocky 'I dare you' look. They stayed like that for a few seconds to see who would crack first before Vander pulled her to him and kissed her. She'd acknowledge that he was good with his tongue as it moved with hers. He walked her back against a tree and lifted her up so that her legs wrapped around him.

"When was the last time you were kissed like that?" he asked softly, not putting her down.

"A few days ago with your brother," she retorted, ignoring the soft pant in her voice.

"Ugh. You wound me, Starfire."

She pulled him down to another kiss. "We've got company," she said as she made it look like she was nibbling on his ear.

"Remind me to bring you on more missions," Vander murmured, resisting the urge to moan when she actually did bite his ear.

Lucy recognized the sleep spell and let it take her.

-oOo-

You know, I thought this would stop happening when I became a dragon slayer, Lucy thought as she awoke. The feeling of waking on cold cement was depressingly familiar.

She stayed still and did an inventory check. Nothing was broken and most of the soreness could be attributed to the awkward position her body was in. The ever-present hum of her keys was gone so they'd been taken from her. Again. There was a secondary magic. She guessed shielding around whatever cell or room she was in. That made her realize that she wasn't wearing magic cancelling cuffs.

Well that's just rude, she thought as opened her eyes and stretched to remove the kinks. The room was a dull, cold space with stone walls and floor. The most interesting thing was the lacrimas that were being used to shield the room.

She sat cross-legged with her arm in front of her. Cristoff thought that she should be able to manifest her dragon slayer abilities without Draco's key.

'The magic is inside you,' he says. 'You just have to summon it,' he says.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed like that, focusing on the familiar sensation of the dragon on her skin. Summoning the magic like that hurt, she found out. A lot. She bit on the cloth of her sarong to keep from crying out. It stung like hundreds of needles pricking her skin. After the pain subsided, it took her a few minutes to steady her breathing.

"I'm never taking you off again," she said to the dragon.

She was grateful for the amount of time that she'd spent around Levy and Freed that she was able to rewrite the basic runes. Again, she found it disappointing how easy it was.

"Eenie meenie miney moe," Lucy said to pick a direction and start walking.

"You know guys, you could just let me go," Lucy heard Vander say through the door.

"You having any luck?" a man said in Stellan.

"No. You?" another responded.

"I think we'll Jambers' blades. They can cut through anything. The Joyans will want to see the merchandise."

"All right."

"Awe. Performance issues? Happens to all of us. Well, not me but you know what I'm trying to say."

Lucy moved away from the door when she heard Vander's jailers walking out. Like their underestimation of her magic, they hadn't thought to take the rantai wrapped around her wrist. One, she knew was dead. She'd felt his neck snapping through the chain. The other, she wasn't sure about.

When she opened the door, she found Vander tied to an X-frame.

"You know, if you wanted someone to tie you up, you could've just asked."

"I've got handcuffs at home. Get me down."

She giggled as she walked over to him. Just to mess with him, she ran her hand up along his side.

"If you keep that up, I'm gonna tie you up here and have my way with you."

"I think you should be extolling my virtues right now. Otherwise, I'll leave you up there," she reminded him as she studied the lock.

"I'm your ride home."

"I'm resourceful. I'm also not getting this off. It's locked with a key."

"Can't you star blast it or something?"

"Sure. It'll also kill both of us in the process." The sass left her voice. "I um don't have enough control." She sighed. "I need Cancer's scissors."

"Didn't they take your keys?"

She moved so that she was standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. "You really did choose me because I use holder and caster magic, didn't you?"

"Do you know how many mages use both? Not many. Their lacrimas always kept me out and I wasn't going to get myself kidnapped without an exit strategy."

"So you do use your brain for something other than getting in people's pants."

"That is my favorite way to use it though."

She closed her eyes. "Listen for guards."

She felt Draco first. Her connection to Draco's key felt like a spring pulled taut. She wanted it to feel like that because it would pull her other keys with it. "Gotcha," she murmured and opened her eyes as the keys materialized in front of her.

"How did you do that?"

"Draco's key can't be taken from me. I found that if I keep his key on my key ring, it can summon all of them to me. It took me two weeks to master it. Open, gate of the crab, Cancer!"

"Ebi. You need a new 'do?"

She glanced at Vander's hair.

"Don't even think about it."

She kept the evil grin as she said, "Can you cut him down from there?"

"No problem, Baby. You should see if Virgo wants that though." Vander was down seconds later.

"Hm. Good point." She summoned Virgo. "You want that?"

"If you don't mind, Princess. Will you use it on me?"

"No!" She blushed as Virgo bowed and disappeared with it. Cancer left as well.

"I like her."

"Stay away."

The two of them continued their absentminded bickering as they wandered through the underground hallways. They were stopped by two more men and Vander showed her how quickly he could dispatch them.

"Show off."

"Impressed?"

"I'll show you impressed."

The set that they came across, Lucy took out using her rantai.

"Four to two," Lucy taunted.

"Why do you have two more?"

"The two that were with you?"

"They don't count."

"And why not?"

"Because they were from before we started counting."

"That's bullshit. You're just-" Lucy was interrupted by screaming. "Wasn't expecting that," she said as they ran towards the screaming.

They ran towards the sound and found a two people. There were another half-dozen bodies scattered around the room. Standing near the center of the room was two figures. The man was on his knees and looked relatively unscathed, but his face was contorted in pain. The other was a fairly diminutive figure. The second figure's features were obscured by the silver-lined navy cloak. However, it was the blue swords of light that Lucy recognized.

"Meredy?"

"Huh?" The woman turned and when she recognized Lucy, she grinned. "Lucy! Hi. Are you here on a job? Do you need him?"

"I don't know." She turned to her partner. "Van, do we need him?"

"Probably?" he said with a shrug.

Lucy turned back to the mage. "Yeah. Don't kill him."

"I don't kill anymore but okay." Her blades disappeared as Vander approached the man.

"What did you do to him?" Vander asked, recognizing the early signs of pain induced shock.

"Hm? Oh. I use a lost magic, maguility sense. I don't have to physically hurt him to- you know- hurt him."

Vander stood, walked over to the women, and draped his arms over their shoulders. Meredy flushed at being tight to him. "You know, I love Presca. He's a great partner. But don't want to have sex with him. If you two ever wanted-"

"No," Lucy said, worming away from him.

"That accent. Boscan?"

"Yup."

Her red eyes raked over him. "You know, I haven't been to Bosco in awhile."

"You've been?" Vander said, shifting towards Meredy more and ignoring Lucy who rolled her eyes.

"Because of my magic, my mother thought a Boscan sudehpah might be the best for me," Meredy said breathlessly.

"I was so good-"

"Do we have time for this currently?" Lucy asked.

"No," Vander said, stepping away from Meredy and walking over to the half-conscious man. "I'm gonna take him with me. You two figure out how to get us outta here."

"Yeah, yeah. Go." Lucy watched as Vander and the man were overtaken by his shadows.

"Come on. I think I got in this direction," Meredy said, walking the opposite direction than Lucy and Vander had been.

"Where's your team? Where's Jellal and-" Lucy stopped. There was more than a little bitterness in her mouth at the fact that Erza had disappeared. The last time she'd seen her teammate had been when Master disbanded the guild.

"Erza? Someone left a request at one of our drops. The two have been arguing non-stop over it. I almost miss having to hear them having sex."

"Yeah. Didn't need to know that."

"Sorano mostly stays near Crocus for personal reasons that she won't say. Macbeth stays with her a lot of the time. He doesn't like doing a lot of travelling. Richard and Sawyer never stop. Erik's disappeared. That's another thing they've been fighting over. We were in between quests and had stopped for a while. I just didn't want to deal with it."

"Erik's with us. Guilded with White Sea."

"That's unexpected."

"You're more than welcome to come with us. How did you get up here?"

Meredy pulled a small lacrima out of her pocket. "It's only got one more jump in it though." They paused at a fork. "This way, I think."

"Why is it so big down here?"

"You're not going to like the answer."

"Why?"

"They might have as many as twenty victims down here."

"You're right. I didn't like that answer."

"I think you and your friend were their first for a new delivery."

"Joy. Is there anybody left?" Lucy asked as she stepped over a body.

Meredy shrugged. "I was dealing with issues."

"Stairway to heaven," Lucy said with a slight smile when they found a staircase going up.

"Better than a highway to hell."

"Been there. Done that."

As soon as they were above ground, she was hit by Kaleb bombarding her senses looking her and his brother.

Fuck. Stop.

Lucy?

"Are you all right?" Meredy asked.

"Yeah. Just a pain in the ass mindbender." Who else are you bombarding? Lucy asked.

No one but you need to get back immediately.

I'm kind of stuck in the middle of nowhere. She sent him what she saw. The stairway led up to a small shack that was built to shield the stairs. The coarse wood nearly blended with the trees.

Who's that?

A friend.

How'd they get there?

Teleportation lacrima.

Borrow it. Van will take her home.

Kaleb chuckled through the link when he heard her thought, His or hers? flicker through.

"Can I use the lacrima? Van will take you home."

"You two fight like an old married couple. Any opposition to me having him for a night…or two?"

"We're definitely not a couple so no." Lucy unwrapped one of the rantai from around her wrist and passed it to her. "This will show that you didn't just kill me and dump my body. Have him bring it back to me at White Sea tomorrow."

Meredy studied the craftmanship. "Okay. This is really nice," she said absently as she passed Lucy her lacrima.

The protections around the guild prevented Lucy from entering with the lacrima. She landed just outside with an oomph.

Where is he? Lucy asked, already knowing the problem.

I put him in your apartment. Fourth floor, apartment five.

Is the moonlust already starting?

He did tell you. Yes. He came over to bring your belongings from his apartment-

"Lucy," Cristoff said when she entered.

She ignored the view that Kaleb had picked out or the bags on the floor. Her attention was on the dragon slayer sitting on the couch. She walked over and situated herself on his lap. The magic that she'd imagined feeling the first time he'd brought up his moonlust didn't feel like this. The magic swirling around him was antsy and nervous.

"Hey," she said softly, stroking his cheeks. The magic settled before becoming the arousing sensation that she'd imagined.

Wasn't the goal for him not to be your knight?

Yeah, but it started solidifying before I realized it.

That's kind of an important-

"Do you remember that offer you made? What if as my queen, you stopped the moonlust?"

"I remember."

"Do you want to try?"

Lucy pulled him down into a kiss as her answer.

-Intimacy isn't always kissing. It can be-

Kaleb?

Yeah?

Shut up.

I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I

Kaleb felt Lucy's orgasm at whatever his brother did. Thane looked up from his tablet when Kaleb's head hit his desk. It was the second time the woman left him aroused. Though, judging by the fact that the guild wasn't going crazy, he guessed that his brother's theory had proven true.

"Thane, you can go home for the day."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm headed to the bathhouse anyways."

"Ah. Yes, sir."

Before leaving himself, Kaleb checked to see what attendants were working. He was in the mood for blonde hair.

That was still lemon water, right?