Of course, Natsu protested. But, unfortunately, she had puppy-dog eyes. And that was definitely an unfair advantage.

"Lesson number one," he said, tossing her a book. They were out of the dungeon now, and in his study, where he kept all the cool-looking books he never read. Except for the one she was holding right now, of course. "The Villains' Rulebook. All these rules are absolute. Do not disobey them, no matter what."

Lucy flipped through it, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "'A villain absolutely must wear a delectably villainous outfit, meant to strike fear into the hearts of those who oppose them.' Seriously?"

"Don't dis the Book, the Book is law," lectured Natsu. "And if you mess with the supervillain laws, Erza will come after you with her breadsticks. Which you do not want, trust me. But we can deal with that later. First, we need to fix that outfit of yours, pronto."

Lucy looked down at her pink, comfortable, spandex uniform, then back up at her former nemesis. "What about my outfit?"

"Uh, for one thing, it's pink."

"What's wrong with pink? It's the color of your hair."

"Uh, yeah, okay, pink hair is cool. But on a supervillain outfit? I can't have a minion who wears pink. I'll be laughed at for the rest of eternity."

Lucy paused. Squinted at him. Repeated his words back. "Minion?"

"You're a villain-in-training, working under me. That makes you a minion. Actually, as a minion, what you usually do is kill or humiliate me and then take your rightful place in the world as a supervillain, but I'd rather skip that part if you don't mind. You've already caused me enough embarrassment as it is."

Lucy folded her arms, indignant. "That was totally your fault, not mine. And I absolutely refuse to be called a minion."

"Well, that's not up to you to decide. You wanted in on this business, you start at the bottom like everybody else. Which means that from this point on, Celestial Girl, you're a minion." Natsu turned around to fix her with the sternest look he could muster, which was actually really hard because damn, she was pretty, and those brown eyes were really, really good at doing Bambi eyes, and oh, no, she was fixing him with those again, and – whoa whoa whoa wait, he couldn't back down to his minion. Stay strong, Natsu. Stay strong.

"Any questions?" he managed in a decent manner. His voice hadn't even cracked or anything, thank God. Maybe he was getting better at this stuff.

Lucy cocked her head to the side and frowned. What came out of her mouth was something he didn't expect. "It's Lucy."

Natsu blinked. "What?"

"It's Lucy. Celestial Girl sounds a little awkward now that we're on the same side."

"Lucy," he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth. It felt strange, yet a little familiar. It fit her somehow.

"Yup. Lucy. Actually, can we continue this tomorrow? I'm running a bit late for dinner. I do have a secret identity, you know."

"Oh, yeah, right." Natsu glanced at his wrist, then realized he didn't have a watch and blushed. "Uh. Well. You can leave through the window, right?"

"Yeah. See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," he echoed, the words feeling awkward in his mouth. It was strange being so polite to anyone, let alone his (former) nemesis.

Lucy gave a brief nod before throwing the windows wide open. Right before she took off, he blurted, "Wait!"

She turned, looking confused as he hurriedly told her, "Natsu."

Lucy blinked and repeated it. "Natsu?"

"My name. Since you told me yours."

"Natsu," she echoed before breaking into a brilliant smile. "Well then, see you tomorrow, Natsu."

"Yeah," Natsu said with a million mixed-up feelings in his heart. "See you tomorrow, Lucy."

"You're gonna die," Rogue said matter-of-factly.

Of course, this absolutely did not stop his brother from dumping an entire can of Beast energy drink into his mug of coffee and gulping the whole concoction down in total bliss.

"Have a life, bro," Sting responded, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "Dang, I can feel the buzz."

"You just took ten years off your life and will not be able to sleep for a week."

"Totally worth it. Hey! There's Yukino! Want some, Yukino?" Sting held out a mug and another can of energy drink to the white-haired girl entering their room, who thankfully refused the offer.

"We can't all charge up our superpowers with extra energy the way you do," she teased. "I might actually die."

Sting shrugged, feathers unruffled. "True. Hey, where are the others, anyway? Usually, Lucy's the first to show up."

Yukino hesitated for a second.

"Um, actually, about that. We might have a slight problem."

"Problem? Like what, a supervillain attack or something?" Sting questioned, still sipping his heart-attack-inducing drink. "Please. This is a superheroes' meeting, for Pete's sake. We can take whoever it is and be back in time to order in pizza. Actually, speaking of pizza…"

"No," Rogue said firmly. "We're trying to save money here. And you always order anchovies."

"Don't hate on the anchovies, man! Do. Not. Hate."

Yukino gently cleared her throat, bringing the two boys' attention back to the matter at hand. "Um…"

"Oh, yeah, right." Sting swung his legs around so that he was facing her. "Sorry about that. What's the problem?"

"Well…" She twisted the hem of her shirt in her hands. "The thing is, Lucy has somehow switched sides."

Sting promptly spat out his drink. "Say what?"

Rogue's jaw also dropped, a rare sight. "Lucy? As in, our Lucy? As in, Celestial Girl?"

"Yeah, I know, it's weird. But here's the thing." Yukino leaned in. "I don't think it was her decision."

Sting frowned, suddenly serious. "You're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting, are you?"

Yukino nodded sharply. "Remember yesterday, when Salamander built that Fire Dragon superbot and Lucy got herself captured? Well, she was fine when she went in, but when she came back out…"

"You don't think Salamander brainwashed her?" Rogue questioned, his voice hushed, because brainwashing was a serious matter. And Lucy knew a lot about the superheroes, including their weaknesses. Fighting her… well, let's just say it'd be a big pain in the bacon.

"Definitely," Yukino nodded. "It's the only way I can imagine. There's no other reason why Lucy would want to join Salamander."

"B-But brainwashing," Sting spluttered. "That's just… That's just no."

Rogue considered it for a moment before slowly nodding. "I don't like it either, but it does make sense. So… what do we do?"

Yukino bit her lip, thinking it over, but Sting responded before she could.

"We gotta get Lucy back, obviously. Okey-doke, first things first. Where the heck is Romeo?"