Hey guys! Welcome back to Heavenly Vengeance! Some bad news guys, my laptop broke! ;w; There's a problem with its fan. Luckily, I save my stories on a USB and I've already submitted all my documents on . Haha, I've never been happier about doing things beforehand.

Quick announcement, the sequel to "The First Time" is up! It's called "The Times After That"! Yes, I am shamelessly advertising my own stories on my other stories XD Sue me. Anyway, that's all from me for now, see you guys at the end of this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own FT, Hiro Mashima does!

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Natsu walked back into the guild sluggishly. He hadn't done a productive thing all afternoon. Somehow, he had ended up running into Gray a lot more than he would have liked. The second the dragon slayer caught whiff of the ice mage's distinctive scent of pine and winter, he turned and sprinted in the other direction, only for Happy to follow in confusion. Just thinking about it again made Natsu sigh with irritation. He was about to plop himself down at a chair when Lucy came up to him, grinning like crazy. Natsu raised an eyebrow. Lucy grinned even wider as she pulled a job request out from behind her back.

"You seemed kind of down so I thought that going on a job might cheer you up!" she exclaimed. Natsu felt his sprits lift. A job! That would distract him and keep him away from Gray for a while! He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't hear the rest of Lucy's sentence. He stood up, surprising her and cutting her off.

"Thanks, Luce! You're the best!" he said as he grinned childishly before racing out of the guild. He needed to tell Happy and pack his bags for the job and didn't want to waste any time. Lucy sighed as she watched him run. She had a feeling that Natsu hadn't listened to thing that she had said. Oh well. He would find out tomorrow.

Natsu felt his eyebrow twitch in irritation. What the hell was Gray doing here? He watched as Gray's own eyebrows furrowed in confusion at first, and then irritation of their own. Natsu rolled his eyes. Good to know that he was loved. He stomped his way up to his rival.

"Why the hell are you here stripper?" he demanded. Gray crossed his arms.

"If you must know, Lucy said that we're going on a job." Confusion replaced irritation on Natsu's face.

"Hold on, Lucy said she was going on a job with me…" Gray rolled his eyes.

"That means, you flame brain, that –"

"It's a job for the team," a voice interrupted. The two boys turned to Lucy, and most importantly, Erza, standing there with a menacing glare. A collective "eep" was heard from the two of them as they sweated nervously and awaited the great Titania's wrath.

"Are you two fighting?" she asked. The boys shook their heads furiously. A smile replaced the frown on the scarlet haired mage's face as she nodded with approval. "Good. I don't want any fighting between the two of you on this mission. Is that understood?" The furious head shaking turned to nodding. Lucy looked around.

"Natsu, where's Happy?" she asked. Natsu scratched the back of his head.

"He said he wanted to go on a mission with Wendy and Carla," he said. Lucy nodded. It was rare that Happy was separate from Natsu, but maybe his crush on Carla took precedence over their mission. Lucy grabbed her luggage and made her way onto the train, Gray following behind her. Natsu was trying to run away, but had failed in doing so, especially with Erza there. The train whistle blew as they prepared to depart. Natsu gave one last desperate cry before being dragged onto his moving death. Gray and Lucy watched, amused, as they sat down next to each other and began to prepare themselves. It wasn't a long ride, but listening to Natsu's moans and groans wasn't exactly the best thing to deal with.

They finally reached their destination and Natsu all but crawled out of their rail car. Gray rolled his eyes at the dragon slayer's antics. Erza grabbed the pink haired idiot by the ear and proceeded to drag him in to town. Lucy laughed as she was about to follow, only to notice that it had gotten colder than it was a few seconds ago. She glanced over at Gray, who seemed to be emitting a frosty vapour around him. She raised an eyebrow in confusion. That had never happened before, at least without reason. She tapped him on the shoulder.

"Gray, you're uhh... frosting?" she tried. The ice mage looked down at himself and realised that he indeed was frosting. Furrowing his brows, he dispelled the mist around him and shot a sheepish and apologetic look at the blonde. Lucy still had an eyebrow raised. It wasn't like Gray to do that. But nevertheless, she ignored the feeling in her gut and plastered on a fake smile. They heard Natsu's voice from far down the road.

"Oi you guys are gonna get left behind!" he warned. With that, the two were reminded that they had a mission to do. Lucy turned back to Gray only to find him in only his boxers.

"Gray your clothes!"

"Ack!"

The team had located the troublesome gangsters in a heartbeat. It also helped a lot that they were harassing a poor kid when they had come out of the mayor's office. That had been a dead giveaway. In a flash, Natsu had launched himself at the gang leader, fists blazing. The three of them sighed as they jumped into the fray as well. What they hadn't counted on though, was the gang having weapons. With a flick of the wrist, they had all unsheathed their switchblades. Most of the team had to jump back to avoid being stabbed. For Erza, it wasn't a problem since she wore armour as she continued to beat the members of the gang. The rest of them sweat dropped but jumped right back into the thick of things, being extra careful to avoid the knives.

It wasn't until a few minutes into the fight that the fighters found themselves unable to move. They all looked down to find their feet frozen to the ground. Frantically, the members of the gang screamed and tried to pull themselves free. The Fairy Tail mages however, turned to look at the ice mage, who was staring at his hands in shock. He slowly back up, ice spreading from wherever his feet touched.

"I- I'm not doing this on purpose, I swear!" he promised. The ice began to crawl up everyone's legs. Natsu attempted to punch the ice with fire but for some strange reason, it didn't melt. He looked up in frustration and met Gray's gaze. For the first time in many years, he saw pure and utter terror on his rival's face. Gray, who was usually so in control of his emotions and the situations he found himself in, was scared.

The ice had spread onto his chest by now. The others were not as lucky. Lucy and Erza were frozen up to their shoulders while the gang was already frozen solid. Natsu thanked his lucky stars that he was a fire mage or else he would be in the same predicament as his female guild mates. He turned back to his terrified friend.

"Gray, you have to calm down. Take deep breaths. You know how to make it go away. Please, you just need to calm down," he tried. The raven had begun to take deep breaths and was on the verge of hyperventilating. It was as if he hadn't heard Natsu at all. He growled. Now was not the time for him to be useless. Scorching flames flared up and slowly but surely, the ice encasing him began to recede. However, the same could not be said for the girls who had ice up to their necks. Making a silent promise to the girls to free them later, he headed over to Gray. The ice mage was hugging himself tightly, his breaths coming out in ragged pants and he trembled as if he had suddenly gotten the chills. The last one bothered Natsu more than the rest. Gray was an ice mage. He shouldn't shiver. He didn't shiver. As Natsu got closer, he noticed the tremble in Gray's lower lip and the unnatural paleness of his face. His strides got longer as he rushed to his friend's side. A very visible flinch racked Gray's frame as he tried to put some distance in between himself and the Dragon Slayer. But Natsu would have none of it. He roughly grabbed onto Gray's bicep and fought back his distress as he watched his best friend bite back a scream. A whiff of iron made Natsu that Gray had bit his lip so hard that it had bled. He quickly let go of the ice mage, only for him to fall to his knees and begin dry heaving. Natsu knelt down next to him, careful to refrain from touching the ice mage lest he make things worse.

"Gray... Gray! Come on, talk to me!" Natsu pleaded as the ice mage began to really hyperventilate. Natsu looked at the raven helplessly, not knowing at all what to do. Behind him, he heard Erza shout to him.

"Snap him out of it, Natsu!" Snap him out of it? What the hell did it look like he was trying to do? The polka? Since he ran out of ideas of waking Gray up without touching him, he ended up delivering a quick hand chop to the back of Gray's neck. A small gasp escaped the raven's lips before he began to slump forward. Natsu caught his friend and quickly propped him up against the closest wall, not wanting to cause Gray more pain from his touch. Once he made sure that Gray was, for all intents and purposes, safe, he made his way back to his almost completely frozen teammates and let his flames loose.

After Lucy dropped the still frozen members of the gang off at the police station, they all gathered back in the mayor's office. The man had stepped out for a while and had offered the use of his office until the mages left. Erza and Lucy were wrapped up in warm blankets, still a little chilly from their time encased in ice. Gray was laid on the couch, where he was still lying unconscious. Natsu watched from behind the couch as his friend shifted in his sleep and his eyes widened as he watched the tendrils coming out of the magic circle on Gray's neck squirmed and extended. Almost immediately, Gray began to furrow his brow and shifted on the couch again. Natsu turned to Erza, who was sipping calmly from her mug of hot chocolate.

"Erza, can you wake him up? I think there's something wrong…" he trailed off. Erza raised an eyebrow but stood up and began to make her way over to her friend. Before she took even a step forward, ice shot out of Gray's body. The sudden blast of magic threw Natsu back and he crashed through the door, breaking it. Erza stood her ground as best as she could and covered her eyes with her forearm. When she withdrew her arm, she found a cave of ice separating her from Gray. She drew back in surprise, only to requip a magic sword and began to hack away at the barrier. She was surprised to find that her sword had barely even scratched the surface of the ice. Frowning, she brought out her sword from her Flame Empress armour. A column of flame erupted from the sword tip but did not do as much as she had hoped to melt the obstruction. Erza growled as she summoned more magic and let loose a more powerful blast. From the looks of things, this would take a while.

Natsu shook his pink locks as he stood up and brushed off the stray pieces of wood from the door. He was about to step into the room again when he found the ice blocking his path. Unfazed, he let loose a powerful Fire Dragon's Roar. When his magic subsided, he found that the ice had barely melted at all. He tried again and again and finally succeeded in melting a tunnel big enough for him. Cautiously, he walked through. He found the couch easily enough, but the only problem was that Gray was still unconscious and Natsu really did not want to touch and hurt him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Erza trying to hack through the ice, armed with her sword. Natsu let loose another blast of magic, but was surprised to find that this time, his Roar had not done as much as it had last time. A good chunk of the ice was still gone, but not enough to let Erza through. Growling, he unleashed another. And another. But each time, the amount of ice that melted grew smaller and smaller. It was almost as if the ice was developing antibodies against his fire. Finally, it grew to a point where the ice just didn't melt at all. Sighing in defeat, he signalled to Erza that this was all he could do. He saw her nod and point back to the raven. He hesitantly nodded and made his way back to Gray, who still had not regained consciousness but had begun thrashing on the couch, fighting an unseen enemy. Natsu had to hold him down in fear that he would hurt himself. A part of him felt guilty when a pained scream tore itself from Gray's throat but he reminded himself that this was for Gray's own good.

"Stripper, wake up! Gray! Stop fooling around! You have to wake up!"

Dull dark blue eyes opened slowly as their owner blinked drearily and began to come out of the recesses of sleep, panting as if it pained him. Natsu's heart stopped for a minute. Those eyes. Those eyes had never looked so dead. Not even when Gray wandered around aimlessly in Magnolia during Ur's death anniversary. A bead of sweat trickled down his face as his mouth opened and closed soundlessly. And just like that, the look in Gray's eyes was gone and the life returned. He blinked quickly, as if clearing his vision of any remnants of the void that had been seen in his depths earlier.

"Natsu...? Where are we?" he asked as he pushed himself up. Natsu gulped and finally found his voice again.

"We're in the mayor's office. You passed out after the fight," he explained. Gray nodded slowly as he held his head in his hands. A quick flicker of pain ran across Gray's features before they settled back into their normal state. However, it didn't go unnoticed by Natsu. Nevertheless, the Dragon Slayer kept his mouth shut. It was then that Gray lifted his head and finally seemed to take notice of his surroundings. A small tremor ran through his frame.

"Did I... do this?" he asked quietly. Again, Natsu said nothing. And that was all the confirmation Gray needed. He grit his teeth and cursed. The two rivals stayed there, silent and not making eye contact with one another. After what seemed like an eternity, the silence was broken by an explosion off to their right. Erza had finally burst through the ice on her side. Immediately requipping her sword away, she raced to Gray with Lucy hot on her heels.

"Are you ok?" she asked urgently. Gray managed to nod numbly and Erza knew that there was something bothering the ice mage. But she couldn't linger on that right now. They had to fix up the office before the mayor returned. She gently helped her friend off the couch. "Can you dispel the ice?" she asked. Gray frowned but nodded. He placed his palms on the remaining ice and closed his eyes in concentration. For a while, nothing happened. The rest of the team waited there patiently as Gray kicked the ice once out of frustration. Finally, taking way longer than anyone thought it would, the ice vanished in a sweep of cold Arctic air.

Lucy surveyed the office. Other than the door, it actually wasn't in too bad a shape. Nevertheless, the guild would still have to compensate for it. She was brought out of her musings when Gray fell to one knee on the floor. They were all immediately upon him, but were all pushed away by the raven who stormed out the hole where the door once was. An awkward silence fell upon the rest of the group before Lucy meekly pointed at the door.

"I'm going to go check on Gray..." she said as she left the two childhood friends to their thoughts.

So...what do you think? Good? Bad? Leave me a review! See you guys on Thursday! Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed/favourited/followed!