Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)

A Good Friend, and A Smart Rival

When the white dragon slayer had opened the entrance doors for his blonde companion, Sting could only smile in a happy manner as he heard Lucy gasp in awe at what she was seeing. The brown-eyed girl was clearly impressed by how the inside of the Sabertooth guild had looked, blushing a light shade of pink when she had even seen some girls who wore fashionable clothes that had not even reached the stores of Magnolia yet, and Lucy had also taken notice of how there were many paintings of Sting on the walls. He took a lot of pride in how he looked, and the painters even had to get his cocky smile right.

The inside of the Sabertooth guild had looked like a fancy hotel lobby with its golden walls and red carpet that spread out far enough to cover the entire wooden surface that was underneath, and Lucy had also liked how the chairs looked very fancy as well. They were not wooden and creaky like the ones at Fairy Tail, and the blonde mage also could tell that they were very durable. Four white chairs had been surrounding all of the round tables that were black, and Sting truly did have a pretty good sense of style. He wanted his guild to look the best, and he was hoping that Sabertooth would also be the best next year.

This guild had a brown bar like the one at Fairy Tail, but it was a self-serving bar with its machines for drinks, candy, and chips. There was even a waffle machine that dispensed waffles, and the ice cream machine stayed pretty cold with the help of Rufus having Gray's Ice-Make Magic in his memory. There was also a pinball machine in the guild that kept track of the scores, and the person who had the highest score of 987,654,123 points was Sting. He certainly was a pretty skilled guy, and Lector had known perfectly well that no one would beat his blond friend's record for quite a while.

Lucy had more happiness in her cocoa brown eyes when she saw a machine dispensing the finest desserts that anyone could ask for, and the paintings on the walls behind her were portraying Sting doing many poses with his red Exceed named Lector. The gold reception desk at the back of the room with two golden elevators next to it appeared to be where a Mage could join the guild. Classical music being played by a violin could be heard through a speaker somewhere in the gold ceiling, and Sting noticed his companion's smile.

He was really glad to see that she was taking in the elegance of it all, enjoying her new surroundings, and Sting told himself that he was lucky to have met a girl who looked pretty cute. Not only was Lucy attractive, but she was also very strong as well. Her Wind Magic had showed Lucy's new strength yesterday, and her Water Magic had saved Sting's life. Even though Lucy probably had no idea about who she was dealing with, she still stepped in to save Sting, Rogue, and Yukino from the watery wrath of Shelly Izumi. Speaking of that woman, Sting had turned around before entering the guild to see that only Shelly's wet clothes were on the ground.

The white dragon slayer had wondered where that black-haired villain had gone, having a feeling that she went to an unknown place, but it was probably impossible to track her now. If she had taken off her clothes, then Shelly would not be smart enough to run through the streets. She was obviously hiding somewhere now, but Sting had to get his mind off of her. He was just still creeped out about the fact that he had almost been frozen through what would've been his first kiss, and he was glad that his first kiss was not with such an evil woman.

"Hey, Sting. Before I actually get to stay in the guild, check out this request that I got from the request board at the Fairy Tail guild. It may be tied to that woman we fought today, but I have no idea about who she was or what she had been after. In fact, I had mostly wondered if she was a dark mage that was sent to kill you and your friends. It sure looked that way to me." Lucy told him in a calm tone while looking a bit sad at the fact that she did not intervene sooner, pulling out the neatly folded brown flyer from the left pocket of her yellow skirt.

He responded nicely while putting his hands on her shoulders, looking into her sweet cocoa brown eyes while having a kind facial expression, "There's no need to look down about it, Lucy. You saved our lives, and that's what matters. Anyway, that woman we all fought is known as Shelly Izumi. She's a wanted criminal from a guild known as Aqua Kyogre, but no one knows where it is. She had managed to steal the Red Orb from the Oceanic Museum in Cerulean Town, but it's probably not in the wet clothes that she left behind. I wonder what she did with it."

Sting gently took the brown flyer that had been in Lucy's hands, and he unfolded it to see that this was a request for someone to watch over the precious treasure that was in the museum. This seemed a bit strange to Sting, clearly having seen Shelly take the Red Orb before she had jumped out of one of the museum's windows with it, and he had wondered if the curator was actually stupid enough to think that people would steal models of ships or water samples from other regions. Sting also sighed a bit while thinking that the museum should have better protection, but this job was worth doing if the curator offered up 900,000 jewels. Quite a lot of money, wouldn't you agree?

The white dragon slayer would not just be doing this for the money, though, since he wanted to repay Lucy for saving his life earlier. If anyone from Shelly's guild tried to attack Lucy for what had happened earlier, the blond male told himself that he would use Holy Nova to make them meet their end. Also, Sting liked how Lucy's eyes were so brown like tasty chocolate, and she looked very fashionable as well. Sting would not make any flirty moves on her, especially since Lucy was probably still hurt by the drama that Natsu had caused her, and Lucy may not be looking for a relationship yet. However, he also knew that the key to bonding with someone was building chemistry.

Seeing this as a good opportunity to pay Lucy back for helping him out, Sting simply smirked while challenging her to a friendly race while he would lead her in the eastern direction to reach the town of Cerulean. Lucy smiled confidently while accepting his race, happy to be having fun on the way to Cerulean Town, and both of the mages ran out of the guild quickly to signal that their race had started. Lector had flown out of the guild to follow his friends, and Yukino could only blush pink while she was surprised to see that Sting was so excited to watch over a museum.

Rogue said nothing while looking calm, as he took the Celestial Spirit Wizard's hands in his to sink down into the door's shadow with her, and the red-eyed dragon slayer would simply move through the shadows with Yukino to reach the museum. He was hoping to get there before Sting, knowing that his friend would start a riot with people from Shelly's guild if he possibly came into contact with them, and Rogue had also taken notice of Sting trying to subtly pass hints of flirting towards Lucy. She had not gotten his hints, but Rogue figured that her smarts were eventually going to help her understand those hints.

Meanwhile, at the Fairy Tail guild...

Erza had been checking the watch on her left hand for a few minutes now, almost like she was waiting for someone or something, and the scarlet-haired mage folded her arms while she sat at a table with Gray. She had been waiting for Lucy to come back from a job, having seen her in the guild earlier this morning, and Erza had assumed that Lucy would just take a typical easy job that was close to Magnolia. Jobs that were close to the guild usually came with cheap rewards, usually up to 2,000 jewels as the highest reward, so they weren't that great.

The money was not the issue in Erza's situation, though. If Lucy had been taking a job that was easy and close to the town of Magnolia, then why had she not come back yet? Lucy was not weak enough to be defeated by easy enemies, so she should've easily defeated them with the help of Loke or one of her other Celestial Spirits. As Erza was also keeping Natsu's affair a secret from Lucy, she also wondered why the entire guild was in almost full attendance. Lucy was the only person absent right now, and she had never gone out on jobs alone.

Narrowing her brown eyes while she continued to be deep in thought, Erza had remembered hearing a few noises that sounded like faint explosions in the distance. It didn't seem like anything serious had been going on, nothing to really worry about, but Erza just hoped that Lucy had not gotten on the wrong train to end up in a place like that. Even though she was keeping Natsu's affair from reaching Lucy's ears, Erza had only done it to not hear Lucy's bawling and screaming over such a matter. She did not want to see Lucy cry, either, knowing how that would be painful to witness.

As she looked up from the table to see Natsu and Lisanna kissing while they stood near a window, both of the mages blushing happily while Lisanna was about to help Natsu take off his shirt, Erza had the idea of using the fire dragon slayer to find Lucy. However, she could also tell that he was too busy with Lisanna to do any searching right now. Erza could probably ask Gray to help her, but then that would mean Juvia would want to join in on the job as well. Also, was it really a good idea to tell Juvia that she would be looking for her "love rival"?

Since Cana was running the bar right now, that only left Erza with one unfortunate option. She would have to ask the woman who she had a rivalry with, ever since they had met, and that was Mirajane. The sword-wielding woman had never really gotten along that well with Mira, usually fighting with her in every single brawl that Natsu would start in the Fairy Tail guild, and they weren't exactly friends. However, before Erza could even go over to a table where Mira was sitting at with Elfman to ask her something, a loud scream of shock from Juvia had gotten the attention of everyone in the guild. What made her so surprised, other than the fact that Gray was fully clothed today?

"Juvia cannot believe it, everyone, but the newspaper is telling Juvia that it is true!" The Rain Woman exclaimed happily while she walked over to Erza's table, gently setting down the newspaper for Gray to check out what the big news could possibly be. He was hoping that it had nothing to do with Lyon possibly saving a town from destruction, or the black-haired male would simply have to top that by saving two towns. Whatever this news could be, it had to be truly exciting for Juvia to get excited about the excitement of a report in the newspaper.

Gray read aloud with a calm look on his face, seeing the big headline that made top news in Fiore right now, "Earlier today, the swift thief known as Shelly Izumi attempted to steal the Red Orb from the Oceanic Museum for purposes that are unknown at this point. She had taken a red herring, however, and it looks like she dropped it off a building while people from the Sabertooth guild gave chase to this sneaky villain. The Magic Council has urged all mages from light and dark guilds alike to be on high alert for people who operate in organizations known as Aqua Kyogre and Magma Groudon. The former attempted to rule the world with Water Magic ten years ago, and they love the sea."

Upon reading all of that, Gray gave Juvia a puzzled look while wondering why she could possibly be happy about something like this. The blue-haired woman smiled happily while telling him that they love the sea, and how they would probably want to be friends with her if they had ever crossed paths. Gray's right eye twitched in pure disbelief at that idea, seeing that the media had labeled these people as villains, and Shelly was probably the leader or one of the commanders under the boss. Even though Shelly was beautiful, Gray knew that she was also a dangerous criminal.

Erza knew that Natsu had not really cared much for Lucy, since him and Lisanna had walked out of the guild during the announcement given by Juvia, and those two must've gone somewhere to continue their make-out session. They would probably even go back to Natsu's house to heat things up in there while they would be happily in love, but it was really their loss since they missed Gray read the top report for today's issue of the newspaper. If they ever encountered Aqua Kyogre and challenged them to a fight, the seemingly more dangerous of the two organizations, then Natsu and Lisanna would only have themselves to blame if they lost.

At the Oceanic Museum...

While Yukino and Rogue had their jobs of respectively keeping watch on the first and second floors of the museum, Sting had taken Lucy down to a lower floor where there appeared to be an underground hot spring for the prospect of relaxation. There were surprisingly no fish down here, since this water had been kept sparkling clean by someone, but Sting was probably the only person in the museum who had discovered this passage. He had actually come across it a few minutes ago, but the white dragon slayer just thought that it was an underground chamber for the fish.

He had actually stepped on one of the blue-green tiles on the first floor of the museum while holding Lucy's hand by accident, causing her to be scared while the floor tiles quickly flipped over from underneath them, and Lucy fell down to the green grass with Sting. There was a circle of beautiful green grass surrounding this hot spring, some pretty flowers adding a nice touch to this place, but Lucy looked suspicious as her cocoa brown eyes caught sight of the museum's yellow walls and the blue tiled floor above them. How could flowers, grass, and sparkling water in a hot spring be thriving in places with no sunlight?

This may have probably been an old part of the museum, and it was really weird to find a steamy hot spring still bubbling like someone had recently been here. What in the world was going on in this place, and who could possibly be here? Deciding to now ignore the questions that had no answer, Lucy chose this place as her new area for training with her Water Magic. Even though she had technically defeated Shelly earlier, Lucy narrowed her brown eyes while knowing that her opponent now knew that she could use three spells from the book that had recently turned blue. Lucy could also only use one type of magic at a time, so combining Water Magic with Wind Magic wasn't permitted.

Focusing on what she wanted from the blue spell book, Lucy closed her eyes while summoning up all of her confidence. She closed her cocoa brown eyes while making a spell known as Scalding Shot, and it caused Lucy to unleash a scalding and spiraling beam of blue water from her mouth, and the water was obviously hot by the fact that steam was surrounding it. She aimed the beam down at the hot spring, making the water get a little bit hotter, and Lucy was sent flying up towards the tiled floor. It was pretty obvious that they could get back up through the same tile that sent them falling down, but Lucy had to do some more training.

She held the book in her right hand while unleashing the fifth spell, and it was known as Aqua Torpedo. This spell gave Lucy the ability to create sharks out of water, and they could rocket off towards their targets in the water before exploding on contact with them to create massive blasts of energy. She had used this spell on the hot spring, making the shark explode at the bottom of the lake, but it didn't look like the underwater explosion had done much. It made a few bubbles appear in the water, but that was all that had happened.

Sting exclaimed in a shocked manner while looking startled, as his enhanced hearing picked up some sounds of yelling from above in the first floor of the museum, "Wait, Lucy! Don't use anymore spells for a moment! It looks like we're about to have a little bit of company down here, and that'll be pretty nice for a warm-up! Come on and get us then, since you can hear us so well! You're not exactly smart, if you make a part of the museum's floor sound more hollow than the others while you're simply doing some walking!"

Deciding to go right upstairs and confront whoever Sting was talking with through the ceiling, Lucy called upon her sixth spell of Water Magic. It was known as Aqua Mallea, and the name simply came from the fact that Lucy spat out a gooey blue substance from her mouth before jumping on it with Sting for them to be sprung up high into the air. They flipped over the hollow tile, now back up on the first floor, and the duo of mages quickly raised their left fists to deliver strong punches to the face of the person who must've been their opponent.

Lucy and Sting stepped back to see that their opponent was a girl with long teal hair that was tied back into a short ponytail, and she wore a blue and white striped shirt with black pants to match. Lucy honestly had to outright judge her fashion sense as being really bad, and the blonde mage also said how the girl's look was similar to that of a pirate of some kind. Sting looked pretty stern while seeing the teal-haired girl rub her bruised cheek as she glared at the two mages for finding the secret hideout that was no longer kept secret. (My jokes are kind of corny, I know.)

"I was planning to sneak in here and steal the Red Orb that Shelly had spoken of, and I planned to pull of the theft perfectly by going down to the secret hideout. Unfortunately, it looks like a couple of pesky mages stumbled upon it. Well, don't feel bad that a grunt wizard from Aqua Kyogre took you out in one shot! You're going down, and I'll be taking that orb! Besides, even if I do somehow lose, it'll get taken anyway by the upper-level grunts. By the way, Blondie, don't criticize my sense of style when yours makes me want to throw up. Oh, well. At least you look weaker than that rampaging guy named Natsu Dragneel." The grunt told them in a cocky tone, smirking arrogantly while not knowing that Lucy nearly defeated Shelly.

Upon hearing that girl say that Lucy was weaker than Natsu, her ex-boyfriend who had cheated on her with Lisanna, the blonde mage's fists clenched tightly while she began to clench her teeth together as well. Her body was shaking while her blonde hair had obscured her eyes, but Lucy quickly lifted her head to give Shelly's little lackey a pretty pissed off look. Sting stepped back a bit while knowing that it was a life lesson to never say that a girl who had been cheated on was weaker than her ex, and now he'd get to see Lucy let out her feelings about the fire dragon slayer while her blue book began to shine brightly.

The teal-haired woman fired ten ice shards from her fingertips towards Lucy, and these ice shards grew in size with distance. However, Lucy quickly created the seventh spell known as Scalding Sapphire Rage. It caused a wall of hot water to be created right in front of Lucy, acting like a shield as its heat melted the ice shards down to nothing, and it reflected the attack back at the grunt by unleashing ten vortexes of water that fused into a large one for a pretty fierce attack. Lucy watched the vortex attack her opponent, creating ten sapphire blue blasts of Water Magic, and they were pretty large like they had chained their levels of power together.

The pressure of the vortex and the power of the blasts had been focused enough to only damage Lucy's opponent, so the museum was okay. The smoke cleared up quickly to reveal that the grunt had water leaking out of her legs and her neck, almost like she was not human because of the fact that blood did not come out at all, and she was obviously a decoy made with Water Magic. Even though Sting had told Lucy to not waste her energy on the leaking decoy, since the real person wasn't there, the blonde girl still felt really upset about being called weaker than Natsu. She wouldn't take that from anybody, even a Water Clone.

Lucy's blue book kept shining brightly while she was making her eighth and final spell of Water Magic, and this would be the attack that would finish off the clone for good. Even if the real person was outside, Lucy would make sure that they still took damage from this move. It was known as Aqua Melancholy, and this spell caused Lucy to create a large blue sphere of Water Magic in her hands, and she threw it straight at the Water Clone to end this fight. This attack could follow its opponents, as well as absorbing any attack sent at it, and its power would be exponentially increased with the effect of chain power.

In a few seconds, a light blue blast of Water Magic transpired while making blue smoke appear in the process! The blast's power had not damaged the museum in the slightest, but using up so much magical power like that with her rage had made Lucy fall to her knees while she panted heavily. Even though the Water Clone had now burst, the fight still wasn't over. Sting and Rogue had both seen Yukino come downstairs while some grunts from Aqua Kyogre had put the Celestial Spirit Mage's hands behind her back to keep her from summoning any help.

To make matters more interesting, Shelly had walked into the museum with an smug smile on her face while she had heard every single pant that Lucy was letting out. The black-haired woman was still in her lacy white bra and lacy white panties, looking soaking wet like she had been waiting underwater until the fight was over, and Sting groaned in frustration while he knew that defeating her was not exactly possible yet. It seemed like she had recovered quickly as well, her injuries from earlier having been healed, and Shelly slowly walked over to Lucy before she squatted down in front of the blonde girl.

"Wow, what a shame. You do have a lot of talent and creativity with those spells, Lucy Heartfilia, but you made the major flaw of letting your anger get to you. I was nearly beaten by you when you had your emotions under control, but your body language tells me that you suffer from a broken heart. I feel sorry for you, but you're just not emotionally strong. When you've learned how to control your heart, then you will not use too much power. Now look at how exhausted you are, little girl. Learn that being physically and mentally strong are only part of dealing with magic, and then let's see if you won't be so pathetic. Enjoy the waters of my hot spring, rookie, and think of my little Water Clone distraction as payback for when your smoke distracted me." Shelly told Lucy in a devious and cold manner, her criticism of Lucy stabbing the blonde girl in the heart like a knife while she rubbed Lucy's left cheek with her left hand.

Suddenly, before Sting could react to help her, Shelly kicked Lucy hard in the stomach while sending her flying towards Sting. He ran towards her to catch her, not knowing that he stepped on the tile that would send him down to the hot spring, and Shelly laughed evilly while she had been more than happy to simply organize this supposed invasion as a way to simply give Lucy a test. She had actually made one of her guild's grunts set up a secret camera in Fairy Tail before she and Lucy had ever met, and Shelly had seen the blonde girl watching Natsu kiss Lisanna on the tape when the grunt had brought the footage to Aqua Kyogre's hideout.

As Shelly walked out of the museum, however, she told the grunts to release Yukino from their grasp. They ran out of the museum quickly while seeing Shelly's glare, not wanting to be hurt by a woman who had only shown off a fraction of her strength when she fought Lucy, but seeing the grunts run away did not give Yukino any sense of happiness. She received the bag of 900,000 jewels from the curator, but the hazel-eyed woman was more concerned about how Lucy was feeling from being criticized like that. Yukino hoped that she would be okay, and hopefully not depressed.

In the hot spring...

Lucy had used the last bits of her strength to take off her clothes, stripping down to a black lacy bra with lacy black panties, and she had fallen into the hot water of the hot spring. She put her red flat shoes on the grass with her orange top and her yellow skirt, and Lucy let out a depressed sigh while she couldn't believe how embarrassing it was to get riled up over a decoy because it had mentioned Natsu to her. Was she really bottling up her emotions, not letting them out properly or converting them to where they would not give her any damage?

Lucy had told herself that she wanted to move on from him, be free from the pain that he had caused to her, and her mind had understood that. However, had her heart not gotten the message to move on? Two days had passed since she had broken up with him for cheating on her with Lisanna, and Lucy had wanted to get revenge on them. However, how could she hope to beat them when she had fallen for the decoy grunt that Shelly had created? How could Lucy get better, if she wasted all of her power against a Water Clone?

She let the tears run down her face while the hot spring was healing her body, taking away the pain from Shelly's powerful kick against her stomach, and sobs wracked Lucy's body. She had thought that not being in a relationship and trying to enjoy eing single would work, but it clearly hadn't. That strategy had failed, and Lucy could even imagine Fairy Tail winning the Grand Magic Games again while Natsu and Lisanna would be kissing. She wanted to get them out of her heart, no longer feel the harsh pain that she felt from seeing them kiss, but Lucy did not know what to do.

"No matter how many spells I learn, I'm a failure at love! Natsu left me because he got bored of me, and Lisanna is what he wanted! I could've been better, I could've gotten stronger, but I'm so emotionally weak! I actually got tricked by Shelly before she made me feel like I wasn't good enough to be wielding so much power, and I don't know if I'll ever be ready to battle again! My heart feels so alone right now, and thinking of Natsu makes my heart break when my anger and confidence try to restore it! The pain of being a failure hurts, Sting!" Lucy shouted loudly while crying as the steam rose around her, the blonde mage's confidence feeling destroyed.

The white dragon slayer responded in a calm tone while he had took off all of his clothes to only be wearing his orange swim trunks now, giving Lucy a comforting look as he swam over to her, "Lucy, listen to me. You are not a failure, ok? You are so much more than that, and Natsu just couldn't see that. Even if he chose Lisanna over you, there's no need to act like they're better than you. Shelly may be more experienced than you, which is probably true, but don't let her words rattle you so much! Maybe she wants a rematch someday with you because she believed you to be excellent, and I believe you to be good as well! Who says that one mistake makes you a failure, Lucy? People can grow stronger by experiencing failure like I did, and you will become strong. You're not alone at all, and I'll be right beside you every step of the way."

From hearing his speech, Lucy could only hug Sting while wrapping her arms around his back as she cried and sniffled. No on had ever said so many nice and inspirational things to her before, and the blonde mage could tell that Sting was right. She could not let one mistake be enough of a reason for her to be deemed as a failure, and Lucy also could not let down her new friends by being depressed. She also could not let herself down, either, and Lucy needed to have more pride in herself. She would not give up or be beaten down easily, and Lucy had now promised herself to officially work on erasing her leftover feelings of sadness about Natsu and Lisanna being together.

While she was in the water with Sting, Lucy blushed pink while she saw him wipe her tears away. He was such a nice guy, wanting to return the favor because she had saved his life, and Lucy smiled a bit as she got to look into his charming blue eyes. They were so beautiful, having such a relaxing effect on her, and Lucy's crying had stopped. Her tears had now ceased, and she felt like relaxing in Sting's blue eyes that were warm like the water in the hot spring. She had lost her will to speak because of the warmth that she was now feeling from being in his arms, and Lucy could only sigh happily while she smiled at the thought of considering to be in a relationship again.

How was the 6th chapter? Did you like it? Quite emotional, was it not? Lucy now has a new rival, but this does not make Natsu a lesser antagonist in this story already. He'll have his moments where he can be a jerk, but who cares about him? The StiCy is building up, and Sting shall help Lucy become stronger! How shall they build chemistry, you ask? Standby for the update, and you'll see!