Natsu lay on a bed with fresh linen sheets. His hair was still damp from the shower he had taken, a shower with actual hot water! A new pair of jeans that fit perfectly sat on his hips and a grey button down plaid shirt hung from a chair next to the door of his room. His shotgun was propped next to his nightstand where his other personal stuff lay and Natsu was just about to doze off to sleep when a knock came at his door. He didn't even feel the knife in his hand and would have opened the door with it there if the blade hadn't knicked his thumb on the way out.

"Shit." Natsu flicked the doorknob with his left hand and stuck his right thumb in his mouth to catch the blood that had started flowing.

"Hi! Are you...oh God are you okay?" Lisanna barged into the room and grabbed Natsu's hand out of his mouth and inspected the small cut in his thumb.

"For someone who shoots a Baretta the way you do that was a quick response to a little scratch." The white-haired girl smiled innocently at him while looking directly into his eyes.

"Because no matter how nice I am I can still kill ya!" She poked his nose before turning around and walking outside. "Put a shirt on we're going out!"

"Out? Where?"

"The town of course!" Her voice was already disappearing down the hallway. Sighing and shaking his pink head Natsu grabbed the grey shirt on the chair along with his shot gun and quickly followed her down the staircase of his third floor motel room and out the main doors while throwing his trenchcoat on himself, chattinering with her as their feet hit the pavement with soft clopping sounds. Lisanna had switched out of her military fatigues and was wearing light grey University of Arkansas sweatpants and a black jacket that hugged her figure tightly. Her blue eyes shone with mischief as she talked about the town and the layout of its post-end of the world reconstruction of sorts.

"When all the bombs went off people here didn't panic like most other places, instead everybody got right down to business and started building up the wall that you see circling the place. There are only two gates in and out of the place now, one in the North and one in the South. The wall itself is only a couple stories high but it does its job well. There are bandits all over this part of the road, I'm surprised you haven't found any yet!"

"Oh we did." Natsu was suddenly thinking back to the three men who had attacked him, Gajeel and Gray only a night or two ago. After he described the three to Lisanna she went silent as if in deep thought.

"I know those three. They killed some other people about a week ago. They were part of a pretty tough group of bandits called Eisenwald, after the two twins that you killed actually. They've tried to break in here a couple of times though, never actually succeeded but they sure have tried." Her voice got distant for a second before coming back. "I know where we can go! Come on!" Before any protest could be thrown up the girl had Natsu by the hand and was dragging him down the main street of the town where people barely even looked at them. After a block she slowed but kept her hand in his which he was totally okay with. As they walked Natsu checked out the people they were walking by and sized each one up and what kind of weapons they were carrying. It was generally as he expected it would be, pistols, rifles and shotguns scavenged from peoples houses and attics with a fully automatic rifle here and there that were probably grabbed by Lisanna and the other military people on their way to the town.

"Hey can I ask you about something?"

"Laxus, right?" There was a deep saddness in Lisanna's voice.

"Um, yeah, him."

"Sure! But if I'm gonna tell you I need something sweet." Without warning the white-haired girl turned left into a shop and almost taking Natsu's shoulder out of its shoulder in the process. Unlike the rest of the town the shop was bright and cheery with paintings of different kinds of cakes decorating the walls with splashes of colour. The perfectly white tiles gleamed with the anticipation of customers and across the well sized room with its many three person tables and standing behind a counter was a red haired woman with a wisk flying around a large metal bowl.

"Hey Erza!" The woman looked up from her whisk and smiled widely.

"Lisanna! I'm so glad you're here! I've got a fresh cake just about to come out of the oven!"

Elsewhere

Gray couldn't figure out what it was about her. Hiding in a tree just outside her main office, Gray had been watching the Colonel for what seemed like a few hours already. So far the most she had done was taken a shot of what was probably whiskey and changed her bra once or twice. Not that Gray truly minded that part, in fact it was a nice addition to his scouting mission. But still, after all of it, his gut just kept telling him that something wasn't right. Gajeel never had a gut feeling and Natsu's only gut feeling usually involved food but Gray? Gray's gut was never wrong. But after three hours of laying prone in a tree even he began to doubt himself. Maybe it was just his distrust for people in general? No, it couldn't have been that. One hour later Gray got his answer.

The Colonel had been sitting at her desk writing some papers when something changed. It was a small change, almost nothing more than a twitch of the corner of her mouth but it was a change none the less. She looked up from her oak desk and started talking to the chair in front of her. The one-person got heated with her looking more and more furious before finally she picked up the shot glass that had been sitting beside her and chucking it into the chair before starting to cry. The hair that lay around her shoulders became a tangled mess as she threw her head back and forth while scratching her nails into her scalp and heaving her shoulders up and down. After a few minutes of this the freaking out seemed to have stopped and all that was left was a ball of white messy hair laying on the desk. Gray had seen enough, his heart was beating out of his chest and his breathing was shallow with distress. They needed to get out of here and they needed to do it now. He slid one leg off the branch he had been laying on when Mira's head shot upwards and turnerd sideways to look right at him, her wild eyes fixating on his. Gray couldn't move out of complete panic but it didn't matter. A second after their eyes locked, his world went black.

Whew what a hiatus! Sorry about that y'all a concussion kind of put me out of work for a while and then school started again and, well y'all get the picture. Anyways! This chapter has been long in the works and I hope y'all enjoy! Read and Review and tell me what ya think!