I don't own Fairy Tail or any of its characters.

*sigh* I'm getting so tired of saying that.

Here's chapter 5...

~Remedy~

Chapter 5

"If our love is a tragedy, why are you my remedy?"

Lucy's POV

For two days I've been pondering about my fortune and it has been driving me nuts. I would do small tasks to set my mind of the subject, but it would always come drifting back to my mind. Mira and Levy worried about me and tried to convince me to spill what's on my mind, but I can't do that. I just can't.

I heaved a sigh as I sat at the bar full of people, stirring a glass of water filled with ice. At Fairy Tail, everyone usually stayed up late and drank, getting tipsy. Cana always told me that the best thing to do when you've had a rough day or frustrating problem, you could just drink it all away. I couldn't afford to do that. Besides that, I can't tolerate alcohol as well as Cana.

I glanced at the clock on the wall that read, 9:37 PM. I gave another sigh. What was wrong with me? I couldn't even push myself to put a smile on my face.

A pink-haired friend of mine slid in the bar stool next to me with a soft grin on his face and ordered some food. I smiled back politely then took a sip of my water. There was a comfortable silence between us. Just to make conversation I asked, "How's it going with you and Lisanna?"

He choked on his drink, coughing hysterically. Out of breath he looked up at me with glassy eyes from coughing too much. "Fine, why?" he croaked. I arched a brow at his crimson face. What was he blushing about?

"Just wondering."

"I just have to ask," he started, innocently curious. "Why do you keep wearing that white coat?" I tilted my head down and looked to see that I was indeed wearing Gray's coat...again. I knew that something was wrong with me. I think Mira pointed out about the same matter yesterday. Why do I keep putting it on? It was just...strange that I unconsciously put it on and wasn't even aware of it.

"No reason," I replied. "It's just...warm." It makes me feel safe.

"Whatever you say," Natsu said skeptically.

"Anyway," I rose from seat and gulped down the glass of water and gave a content sigh, "I'm going to bed. Night." Natsu's voice stopped me.

"Lucy."

"Yeah?" I asked, surprised at his soft tone.

"...Take it easy, will ya? Oh and tell Gramps that Macao won't be able to go on the scouting mission. The damn guy is under the weather."

I grinned. So, he was worried about me. Damn, I must me like an open book.

"I will." He smiled at my answer and waved. I waved back and walked out of the cafeteria.

I found it quite odd that Erza still hadn't returned yet. From what I've heard from Master Makarov, it was a simple mission. She should've been back yesterday. I hope she's not in trouble or anything. But...this is Erza I'm talking about.

I strolled to Master's office and then suddenly froze mid-step as I heard voices talking and chatting. My curiosity got the better of me, so I stayed silent. I sighed in annoyance and knocked the door, pushing my impertinent attitude away. The voices I heard earlier silenced as heard a muffled 'come in'. I entered and suppressed my urge to gape.

I see Master standing on a stool with Erza by his side and Gray on the opposite side of Master's desk with a white spikey-haired guy. On Gray's other side was a beautiful girl with straight dark purple hair that looked vaguely familiar . Master's desk was covered in a giant map of Magnolia and on the side was a smaller map of Fairy Tail's layout. They all stared at me with questioning glances. I blinked in confusion, perplexed at what was going on.

"I didn't know you were back Erza," I said. "Seems I worried for nothing," I added. She smiled and gave me a bone-crushing hug. Everyone cringed as there was a loud clang as my head hit her armor and I swore I saw stars. I meekly patted Erza on the shoulder while Master Makarov gave me an expectant look.

"Natsu wanted me to stop by to tell you that Macao won't be able to do the scouting mission because he's under the weather," I explained.

"Hmm, good to know. Tell him to get well for me," he said. His eyes turned back to Gray and his company. "From what you've told me, you already know Gray. This boy here is Lyon, Gray's older brother," he introduced. I met Gray's dark blue eyes with a small acknowledging smile before glancing to the older looking boy beside him. He greeted me with a smirk. I felt my blood boil.

That stupid smirk.

It looked exactly like Gray's, except that his was more roguish than wolfish. His spiky white hair was jutted upwards aside for a few strands that fell over his left eye. Speaking of his eyes, the were slanted and pitch black. Combined with his smirk, his personality spoke "mischievous".

He then turned me to the taller girl beside him. "And this is-"

Hold on, dark purple hair that it was almost black, brown eyes, the eldest I suppose, looks like Queen Ur...

"Ultear?" I said. The said girl's eyes widened slightly and then an impressed smile twitched on her lips.

"Seems you know your facts," she said. I smirked then a question popped into my mind.

"Not to be rude," I said, "but what are you all doing here?"

"Preparing for battle," Master stated. I arched a brow. "Might as well explain it to you now," he grumbled.

"Battle?" I said breathlessly.

"When I came back from my mission where we met that pure blood rogue," Gray began, "Lyon and I overheard two of our guards chatting about an oncoming attack."

"They mentioned Fairy Tail and said they wanted to scare you guys a bit," Lyon added. "So we told our mother, Ur, and Erza and we formulated a plan. We don't know how well it's going to go though. Ultear predicts that most of the city will be destroyed."

"We brought a group of loyal knights that are our strongest. Hopefully, they'll help prevent anything worse for Magnolia," Ultear said, biting her lip.

"Why didn't you contact other pure bloods that are your allied?" I asked. "Is it because of the increasing rate of them going rogue?"

"That's half of it," Gray informed tiredly. "They might help us, but if they're really against us, they'd report our movements to their higher-ups in whatever damn cult they're in."

"We have good allies, but they're having a battle of their own right now," Lyon inferred, running a hand through his hair.

"Hn, I see," I mumbled, walking up to the desk. My eyes scanned over the map eagerly. "So what exactly is the plan? And when do the rogues plan to come?"

"They plan on coming before midnight," Erza said. "We're splitting ourselves into teams and covering different parts in Magnolia. One of the knights is at the Kardia Cathedral as we speak. He's going to ring the bell as a sign of alarm when he spots them." I nodded. Simple enough.

"The teams?" I asked.

"Well," Makarov said indifferently, "we planned on evening out the teams, but there will be a few pairs like you and Gray." I felt my throat tighten.

"Is that so?" I strained a smile. I glanced at Gray's emotionless face, but his eyes had a tinge of smugness and amusement.

"Since you already worked together, it would seem easier," he elucidated. "I'm going to let you two head out and guard the southern part of the town, here." Master tapped the map. "I'm going to let everyone else know and speed things up."

Gray and I left silently. We didn't utter a single word to one another until we got outside.

"This is annoying," I stated with a flat tone. Gray rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"I'm the one who should be saying that," he said. "But I have to say, I'm happy I'm not with the flaming-headed idiot."

"Natsu?"

"The one and only."

"You two know each other?" That's interesting. Natsu never mentioned anything about Gray.

"We were on a mission together once and it ended up pretty bad."

"Did you guys destroy the town or something?"

Gray looked at me with wide eyes. "How'd you know?"

"Seems like the very type of thing Natsu would do, but you?" I shook my head, incredulous at the new information.

"We don't get...along well."

"I hardly believe that," I whispered. I stopped walking when I noticed we in the southern area of Magnolia. I leaned against a house and yawned. I should've drank coffee if I knew that this was going to happen. I glared at the black clouds overhead."Why are you helping us?"

"That was Makarov's idea or whatever," Gray said with a shrug. "He made Erza send it a documentmanually, so a rogue wouldn't take the it easily, which is a alliance of some sort. So, I have to help you." He suddenly smirked. "I didn't know you liked my coat so much."

I blinked and felt my cheeks heat up slowly. Oh shit! I slipped it off and shoved it to his chest. "Here! Happy now?"

"It's fine," he said hoarsely, clenching his jaw. "Just...keep it for now..."

Gray's POV

I felt her scrutinizing me for a moment before her gaze softened. "You okay? You seem tense."

"I'm fine," I said, voice tight. I threw my coat back with her mesmerizing scent with it. She hesitantly put it back on. I dragged the heel of my hand across my face. God, I almost lost it there. Why does she have to smell so...amazing?

The deafening silence was broken by the ringing of bells. It was a light, merry tune that had a underlying message to it.

Many houses started switching there lights on. One by one each house started blinking on like wildfire until the whole town was awake. There were some screams scattered around the town, coming from everywhere. I whirled at the sound of shattering glass nearby. Lucy and I exchanged a look before appearing at the scene.

I scrunched my noise in disgust while Lucy's breath hitched. A rogue a few feet away, held a mangled child greedily gulping down the blood and tossing the child away like trash when the child was completely dry of life. Lucy stared at the vacant empty eyes of the child before slamming her fist into the rogue's face. There was a sickening crunch as he was sent flying. I quickly followed up and lifted him up by the throat.

He was already dead.

I had to say that I was impressed. It only took one good punch in the face or the rogue was just very weak. I dropped his limp form onto the ground before turning back to Lucy. She was staring motionlessly into the child's vacant eyes.

The cathedral's bells continuously rang but with more urgency.

More rogues appeared, some fixated on us - mostly Lucy while others spread out and hunted for prey and destroyed the town.

"Lucy," I called. My voice seemed to snap her out of her daze. "Are you ready?"

"You know it," she affirmed. Her knives extended into twin swords.

"Ice-Make: Death Scythe," I yelled, unconsciously stripping of my shirt. A large scythe made of ice formed and I casually leaned it against my shoulder. Three rogues lunged at me and I easily evaded them leaping into the air, slashing my weapon down on their exposed backs. I landed on ground and instinctively jabbed my scythe backwards, hitting a rouge in the stomach, stunning him for a moment before spinning around and slicing him clean through the middle.

"Tch," one of the rogues scoffed. "You think you can kill-" he suddenly gulped as Lucy ominously loomed over him with a deadly aura, before graciously severing his head off. Meanwhile, I changed my scythe into twin swords like Lucy's weapons.

"Hey, stop copying me!" she shouted childishly.

"I'm not copying you, it's the opposite!" I retorted. "I've been using swords before you were born!" I smashed the flat of my sword into an unlucky, careless rogue who flew back a few meters, crashing into a few of his buddies.

Our back bumped into each others as we faced a circle of oncoming rogues. "This is like last time," Lucy chuckled. "Just way more rogues."

"That was it looks like, Blondie," I said. She threw me a glare at the nickname. "That was the mission where there was that persistent pure blood rogue, right?"

Lucy nodded, knocking down another unfortunate rogue. "Yeah, then it kept getting worse."

"Cliff collapsed," I recalled absently, dodging a sloppy attack and responding with a far more precise one. "Then the river I believe."

"That's right. Then the waterfall, my dislocated shoulder, almost died," Lucy listed. She kicked a rogue in the back causing him to crash into a deserted bakery.

"I think you forgot one thing," I observed, then scowled at the barely diminished horde of enemies. "This is taking too long," I remarked, as I froze the ground surrounding us. The rogues feet became encased in ice and couldn't move even if they tried. "Ice-Make: Geyser!" I shouted, slamming the ground with my fists. Lucy watched in awe as towers of ice spikes impaled each enemy.

"What'd I forget?" she asked. "God, it's like thirty degrees cooler!" Lucy shivered, teeth chattering. I smirked, glancing over my shoulder to look her in the eye.

"CPR." Her face flushed.

"That wasn't something that went wrong in the mission!" she countered.

I arched a brow, my smirk growing wider. "Didn't go wrong? So you enjoyed it?" Her face turned even more crimson.

"I didn't say-"

"Lucy!" a voice called, interrupting my fun. A short white-haired girl leaped down panting.

"Lisanna, what's wrong?" Lucy questioned with concern evident in her voice.

"We managed to wipe all of them out, but the guild's been destroyed!" Lisanna sobbed. "The western part of the town has been burnt down too. We were able to stop it from getting worse, but the town's basically in rubble."

"Where are the others?" I asked patiently.

"At the Kardia Cathedral," she replied. "Follow me."

We jumped from roof to roof. As we were running, I didn't see a single house standing. Lisanna wasn't exaggerating. The whole place really was in rubble. I glanced at Lucy to see she had a pained expression. It must be hard on all of them. Maybe Ultear can use her Arc of Time...

We reached the others and found all of them sitting on what used to be the steps of the cathedral. Some hunters were pretty beat up while others didn't have a single scratch on them. There was this old pink-haired lady and small blue-haired girl tending to the wounded while some tried to lift people's spirits. Lucy ran up to some of her friends, asking if they were okay. I watched her laugh and smile. I looked at all of them.

So these were Fairy Tail hunters.

I smiled lopsidedly. No wonder they're the best. They can make it through thick and thin together.

"Ultear," I called. She turned around and draped an arm over my shoulders.

"What is it?"

"Arc of Time?"

Ultear shook her head. "I could try, but the seal on my back is restricting my power."

I raised my brows disbelievingly. "Still? After all this time?"

"It's almost gone," she assured. "I just need more time."

"Don't worry, Ultear has an idea," Lyon clarified. "And mom is going to agree with it."

"That's right," Ultear nodded with a smile. "We didn't sign the alliance for nothing."

My eyes widened. "You don't mean-"

Ultear gave me a rare grin. "Listen up!" she shouted. Everyone stopped their idle chatting and looked up at her. "Since you guys have no place to stay, we're offering all of you to come to the Fullbuster Palace in Crocus."

Makarov scrunched his brows down. "But Ultear," he began to protest.

Ultear fished through her jacket pocket and brought out the signed document. "Master Makarov," she addressed sternly. "My mother would have offered the same thing."

"Besides," Lyon said, "we're all going to need all the help we can get."

"The more the merrier," I added.

I had a feeling it was going to get worse yet far better from here.

Okay, nothing much happened really, but it set up all the future chapters coming up. Hehehe~

Please R&R! XD