It turns out that I'm going to be busy tomorrow so you all get an early update! Enjoy yourselves! As promised, it is longer than the last two! And yes, I know the last one was a bit of Graylu but like I said, there's a whole bunch of ships mixed up in this fic so those who want Gratsu/Natray will see it when it comes! :)

Also, you guys seem to have some interesting speculation on Gray's condition :D I won't tell you what it is for now, but I can say that no one's gotten it right so far! Keep guessing! Thank you to everyone who reviewed! You guys are awesome!

Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima, the ultimate trollmaster, does.

Read and Review!

Obsidian eyes snapped open when their owner heard a scream come from the kitchen. Within seconds, Natsu was up and running towards the source of the scream, Erza, Gray and Happy all following closely behind. Natsu found Lucy staring and pointing at a spot of the table where flames were coming from. His eyes narrowed. For one, the flames were dark purple. He'd come across some weird coloured fire in the past, but a purple dark enough to almost become black? Never. Secondly, they stayed perfectly in a rectangular shape. And even stranger, the flames didn't seem to grow. It took Natsu a second to realise what exactly was burning and when he did, he did nothing to stop the flames. Lucy gawked and tugged on Natsu's arm.

"Natsu! What are you doing? Why aren't you putting out the fire?!" Natsu snarled in the direction of the fire.

"I'd rather have that stupid piece of paper burn," he said simply. Gray stayed back and held Erza back as well, to keep from pummeling Natsu for not saving their clue. Eventually, the fire began to die out by itself, which puzzled the mages even more. What the hell was going on? Then, as if being controlled, the flames morphed themselves into words. Eyebrows rose in surprise before the looks on the mages' faces turned to pure and utter hatred.

If it's a fight you want, come to the heart of the forest just west of this city. We'll destroy you pathetic fairies.

The mages trudged down the worn path in the forest, dark scowls on their faces, save for Lucy, who wasn't exactly capable of mustering a dark scowl. But she still felt the same anger and rage that her comrades did. No one insulted Fairy Tail and got away with it! As they walked along the path, Natsu noticed that the smell of death growing stronger and stronger. He frowned. That meant that they were getting closer. But somehow the nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong bothered him the entire time.

They arrived quickly at their destination. What greeted them was to be expected: a giant army. The mages sighed. Were dark assassin's guilds never creative? They sighed as they all took their battles stances.

"Natsu, Lucy, Gray. Take these ones out. I will try to find the master," Erza said as she requipped into her Heaven's Wheel armour and took off. Some of the foolish ones tried to go after her, only to find themselves getting some quality time with one of her magic swords. The rest of them seemed to get the message and focused their attention back on the other three Fairy Tail mages. Just when they were about to charge, the flanks opened up to make an aisle as a single woman strode forward. Light green locks bounced as she came to a stop. Gray surveyed her. She dressed akin to the rest of the foot soldiers, in a purple robe over dark clothes of their own choice, but her violet shirt and black jeans were emblazoned with the same symbol that Gray had found in the room. His eyes narrowed. Judging from how she carried herself and how the others seemed to be in fear of her, he would say that she was the second or third in command maybe. Lavender eyes scanned the group carefully. Her gaze stayed particularly longer on the Dragon Slayer, a look of distaste on her features. Natsu growled but her attention was soon redirected to her next opponent. When she was finished scanning the group, she pointed a finger at Gray, an expression of pure loathing on her face. The ice mage raised an eyebrow. What was she pointing at him for? And why was she glaring at him so hatefully?

"You…!" she shouted as she charged forward. Gray barely had any time to back up when her first kick caught him in his side. He cursed as he quickly grabbed onto her leg and using his momentum, threw her towards a tree with all his might. Unfortunately, the mage turned in mid-air and landed perfectly on the side of the tree. Upon landing, she immediately pushed off of the tree towards Gray. The raven scowled as he created two swords of ice and charged to meet his opponent.

The two clashed for some time before Lucy decided to intervene since the giant army didn't seem like it was going to charge without an order of some sort.

"Gray!" Lucy called from behind him. She rushed forward, hands on her keys when the enemy scowled and back flipped away from her previous position in front of Gray.

"It's not fun if you bother us while we're fighting you brat." Lucy's eyebrow twitched. Did she just call her a brat? "And from the look of pinky over there, he wants to fight too," she continued. "But you two aren't going to interrupt. Burning Coliseum!" she exclaimed as she pressed her palms to the ground. Immediately, a ring of dark purple fire rose from around Gray and the green haired mage. Gray turned around, looking for any opening in the wall of flames. His opponent laughed and he turned back to face her, a scowl on his face.

"It's pointless. You can't escape Burning Coliseum. No one goes in and no one gets out without my say so. You'd better fight well and entertain the second in command of Fatal Falcon, ice mage!"

"Gray!" Natsu called out. His best friend wasn't answering his calls. He needed to know if Gray was alright, damn it! He took in a deep breath and tried to suck in the flames in. In the back of his mind, he was kind of curious to see what these flames tasted like. As soon as the first flicker of flame touched his taste buds, he immediately spat it back out. There was no way he was eating that! Lucy and Happy looked on with concern. The dragon slayer wiped his mouth with his forearm.

"Those flames taste like shit!" he growled as he lit his fists on fire and turned to the giant army that had been more or less quiet up until this point. Without waiting a second longer, Natsu jumped right into the thick of them and began to fight. "I'm all fired up!" Lucy sighed.

"Happy, can you fly above the flames and check on Gray? He's the only one we can't see," Lucy asked. The cat activated his magic and flew off, with a determined,

"Aye, sir!" Entrusting that task to the Exceed, she turned back to her part of the giant army. Taking a deep breath, she pulled a key from her pouch.

"Open Gate of the Bull!" she said as she swiped the golden key. Taurus both appeared out of a magic circle as began to flirt with the celestial mage.

"Lucy-san as usual you have a nice body!" Taurus fawned. Lucy sweat dropped. Seriously? The enemy wasn't going to take her seriously like this! As expected, their opponents laughed.

"What does this little girl think she's doing? Does she seriously think that that pathetic spirit can beat us?" one of them scoffed. That ticked the Bull off. Taurus turned to the army.

"These are the ones who have insulted Lucy-san's nice body?" he asked. Lucy nodded in confirmation. Taurus grinned as he charged forward with a fierce battle cry, swinging his giant axe.

Erza on the other hand, had located the master and was currently locked in combat with him. But something felt off. This man's magical power wasn't high, nor was his physical ability. Was the really the master of such a feared guild? Her eyes narrowed as she requipped into her Black Wing Armour. She would end this soon.

Natsu threw a flaming punch and watched in satisfaction as the last mage on his side went down for the count. He smirked.

"All right! Who's up next?" he challenged. Suddenly, the space in front of him seemed to warp and swirl. His eyes narrowed. From the swirl, someone stepped forward. Natsu's eyebrows rose. Was that swirl a portal? The man in front of him dusted himself off. He didn't seem to be much to scoff at but he didn't seem like he was weak either. His orange hair billowed in the wind as ice blue eyes analyzed him. He chuckled at the rosette in front of him, irritating the boy.

"What are you laughing at, bastard? I'm going to kick your ass to Magnolia and back!" Natsu threatened. The man laughed.

"Oh? A fairy threatening a falcon? That's rich. By the time I'm done with you, you'll be nothing but pixie dust!"

Gray jumped back to avoid another attack. So far the mage in front of him had only used fire based spells. Did that mean that she was solely a fire mage? No, he shouldn't dismiss the possibility of her knowing another type of magic. His opponent seemed to notice his attempt at reading her and threw her head back and laughed.

"This is amusing. You're trying to figure out if I'm only a fire mage. And if I am, why am I the second in command?" she accused. Gray scowled. She read him like an open book. Lavender eyes turned back to him. "If you're so curious, I'll show you. But not many people have survived this attack..." she said as she inhaled deeply, much like a certain member on Gray's team when he unleashed a certain spell.

"N-No way... You're a Slayer?" Gray asked, dumbfounded. A smirk made its way to her face before she let loose a blanket of purple flames from her mouth.

"Fire Angel's Howl!"

"Aaah!"

"Watch out!" Natsu yelled. Lucy whipped around fast enough to see the incoming attack from Natsu's opponent and leaped out of the way. Natsu watched in relief. Good, Lucy was safe. Erza was still off somewhere fighting the master. Lucy was busy finishing off the last of the underlings. Gray on the other hand, was still busy fighting that green haired woman. Natsu scowled. His nagging feeling from before still hadn't gone away. Combined with the fact that he couldn't see Gray, it made Natsu extremely anxious. He needed to check up on the ice mage. He called up to the Exceed flying above the obstacle keeping him from his friend.

"Happy! How's Gray?" he hollered. Happy's ears perked as he yelled back to his friend.

"Not good! He just got hit by a really strong attack! But he's getting back up!" Natsu growled. Even if Gray had a handle on his opponent, which he still had his doubts about, he still wanted to see the ice mage's condition for himself. But to do that, he would have to finish off the asshole in front of him first.

Gray panted as he wiped away some of the blood on his face. He hadn't seen that coming. He turned back to the Angel Slayer and scowled. He could now see why she was the second in command. She was definitely strong; even her basic fire spells probably caused thousands of jewels in damage, even more so after she began using her Angel Slayer magic, and she was agile and cunning; just what a mage from a dark guild should be. He scowled as he dodged another Howl. He needed to end this quickly.

"Ice Make: Lance!" The frozen projectiles advanced quickly towards their target. The woman scoffed as she jumped up and avoided the hits only to find a giant icy hammer crashing down on her. Before she could react, an icy prison appeared as well. She grinned as she unleashed yet another Howl and easily melted the prison, but not before Gray landed another hit with his Ice Make: Lance. She emerged from the steam cloud formed by the attacks, scowling as she spit the dirt from her mouth. A magic circle appeared from her hand and not a second later, a fiery blast erupted from her palm.

"Fire Angel's Burst!" she yelled. Gray jumped to the right and. His eyes narrowed. This spell wasn't much different from another fire spell that she had used earlier, but this one was clearly more powerful, maybe by five times. This was going to be a lot trickier than he originally thought. The green haired mage laughed as she jumped back and brought her hands out in front of her and placed them diagonally on top of each other, like Gray did with his Ice Make: Lance. A purple magic circle appeared, spinning in front of her palms. Gray's eyes narrowed. He didn't recognise that circle. With her earlier attacks, he could at least guess what was going to happen; this circle gave no such indication. But from the intense magical pressure around them, he figured it was a pretty powerful spell. Even the flames of the Burning Coliseum around them died down enough that he could see the rest of his team. He scowled. Before he could warn them of the impending spell, the magic circle around the fire mage's hands glowed with power.

"Fire Angel's Heavenly Judgement!" Violet flames in the shape of swords and spears emerged from the circle and flew in a torrent towards the weakened ice mage.

"Ice Make: Shield!" By chance, the first one missed him and he saw just how terrifying that spell was. The area where the spear shaped flame had hit looked like it had been caught in a small explosion. Gray frowned. So the flames exploded on impact... that was good to know.

The amount of weapons that materialised was incredible; almost incredible enough that Gray's shield wasn't enough. In fact, his shield was breaking apart bit by bit as the onslaught continued. He growled as he forced more of his magic out. There was no way he could let his friends get hurt by this attack! He vaguely registered his name being called out in concern in the background but paid it no heed. There was something more important than whatever the voices needed right now. Finally, the seemingly endless attack ceased. Gray collapsed on one knee. He had used way too much magic holding up that shield and the damage he had sustained from that first Howl. But it was worth it. At least his comrades were safe. He looked up at his opponent. She had this ridiculous sneer on her face. The raven scowled as he rose from the ground. He vaguely heard mumbling from his enemy and felt a burning feeling at the left side of the base of his neck- maybe he got hit? - but ignored it. There were more important things right now. A tugging sensation in his gut warned him that he was pushing his limits. The fight had lasted too long already. Nevertheless, two ice swords appeared in his hands as he charged the enemy.

"That's impossible! You shouldn't be able to move!" the woman shouted. But that didn't stop Gray. He charged forward and brought the two swords in a crossing motion against her.

"Ice Bringer!" The evil mage shrieked as she was encased in ice, which soon cracked and let her fall onto the cold floor. The defeated mage scowled, before breaking into maniac laughter.

"I admit... I underestimated you, ice mage. But that makes my plan all the better..." Erza, who had finished her battle with the master, stepped up and confronted the Angel Slayer.

"What's so funny?" she demanded. The woman stood shakily before pointing a finger to Gray, who was kneeling on the ground, panting heavily.

"Foolish Titania, have you not noticed? One of your own is already mine," she announced. At that moment, Gray decided to faint.

"Gray!" the scarlet haired mage cried out in concern. Even Natsu turned back from his own battle to look back in worry. His opponent smirked and used this chance to hit him with a water attack. Natsu cursed and flew back. Straight into Lucy. She cried out in surprise as she was all but knocked down by a flying dragon slayer. Taurus turned back in concern for his master.

"Lucy-san! Are you and your nice body ok?" he asked. Lucy slowly got up and rubbed her back.

"Yeah... I'm ok. But what the heck, Natsu!" she complained.

"Don't look at me! It's his fault!" Natsu's opponent faked a smile and waved nicely. A tick mark appeared on both of their foreheads.

"Why you little..." Natsu started as he made his way back over to him. Just as the man was about to retaliate, a look of understanding passed through his eyes when he made eye contact with the green haired mage in front of Erza and Gray. He shrugged in mock apology.

"Sorry Salamander-kun. Seems I have to cut this meeting short. But at least remember the name of the mage who defeated you. I'm Steven Broderik. See you around, Fairy Tail." Natsu growled as he charged the man in rage, only to end up punching empty space as the man seemed to all but disappear. Natsu extinguished his flames, kicked the dirt and shouted in frustration before looking up and making his way to Erza and Gray; with Lucy following suit after Taurus had finished wiping out the last of the army.

The only enemy remaining struggled to stay upright. That last attack had done quite a number on her. She grinned maliciously at the team. She turned to Erza before declaring,

"My name is Matilda Mueller and I am the true master of Fatal Falcon. Remember that," she declared before a magic circle appeared at her feet and she faded away into thin air.

DON'T KILL ME PLEASE. I really am not the best with fight scenes but I tried my best! And I also apologise for Steven's horrible "pixie dust" line. It felt appropriate, however corny it is. Plus, I don't mean to diss Lucy when I say that she can't make a dark glare, but let's be real here, she can't. Not really. She's too nice for it.

But now we know that Matilda is an Angel Slayer! Dun dun dun! What does this mean for Gray and the others?(Please don't kill me for making him faint) See you next time~! (I'm thinking Monday or Tuesday)

PS: If you want to know the colour I had imagined for Matilda's almost black flames, the RGB is 55, 6, 58. I did my research! ;)