Chapter 7

The creatures had clearly been humans at one point, but they looked as if that had been a long time ago. All of them had weird lumps all over their body. Their clothes were just rags. None of them spoke, but they made weird, growling noises. Erza could make out ten of them, although she believed that this weren't all of them.

At first, the monsters appeared puzzled, regarding the room and its occupants much like one would an abstract piece of art that one just did not understand. Erza thought she could almost hear them thinking, „What is that? I can understand pretty, but this is just random. I've got a friend, his cat could draw better than that. Also, that cat can fly." Wait, where did that last part come from?

„Those are at least ten!" said De Monza. „Professor, you told me it was two. Did you lie to me?"

„Of course not!" replied the professor. „There are two in what seems to be the penultimate stage. After that follows death. Those patients represent the early cases. It was all in my report." With a grin, he added „You did read that, right? No, of course not. You only want to look educated, you don't care about actually learning about all of this."

De Monza shook his head. „Whatever. How many are there now? No, wait, let me guess. You had forty-seven test persons, so I'm guessing it is seventy-four in total, right? When where you planning to tell me?"

The creatures did not seem to care about the discussion and slowly started moving towards the beds. Erza yelled „Hey, stop!", but they didn't even seem to hear it.

„Natsu, you have dealt with them getting here, right? Anything you can tell me?" she asked.

„They can kick and hit and some tried to bite me", the dragon slayer replied. „But they aren't strong, you can just push them away. It's just that there are so many." He thought for a second more, then added, almost as an after-thought: „Oh, and I think they can't feel pain. And you can't hurt them, they heal like super-fast."

„That is to be expected" said the professor suddenly. „Super-fast healing is, after all, the core of this miracle cure."

„Miracle cure for what?" asked Happy.

„For death. Now, I do not appreciate being interrupted by flying cats." said the professor icily. „Anyway, the healing is limited. The drug will fix holes in most organs, but if you cut something off, it can only block the wound, not regrow it. So if you just cut off their heads, we should be fine."

„What!" shouted the Fairy Tail mages almost simultaneously, except for Happy, who shouted „Aye!"

„We do not kill these people!" said Erza. „Maybe they can be cured!" She ignored the scientists shaking their heads. Suddenly, the young man who was apparently Dr. Medina's assistant shouted: „Hey, get away from there!"

The first of the monsters had reached the beds and started sniffing at the patients, when suddenly the young man started hitting them. They seemed surprised, but were clearly not moved by the barrage. Then, one of them bit the man in his arm, and another threw him to the ground. Dr. Medina's face went white, and she shouted „Help him!"

Erza and Natsu did not need any prompting. Between her swords and Natsu's flames, it took them less than a minute to drive them out of the door. They started barricading it with empty beds, while Lucy went to check on the unconscious scientist.

Before the stellar mage could get there, however, she was stopped by Dr. Medina. „Don't touch him! The medicine replicates in the blood stream; he is infected now, too."

„What do you mean by that? Will he turn into one of those monsters, too?"

The doctor nodded. „With bites, it seems to happen faster. He has maybe an hour or two." She mumbled „I'm sorry" at nobody in particular and got out a syringe.

„Is that some sort of antidote?" asked Lucy, but the other woman shook her head. „Not exactly, no. It's poison. This will let him die in peace, before he becomes a monster."

With a speed that surprised even herself, Erza was suddenly restraining the woman, while Natsu took the syringe and burned it. Dr. Medina screamed.

„You don't get it! There is no cure! He will turn into a monster, and he will kill us or turn us into monsters, too. It is more merciful like this!"

„What do you mean, there is no cure?" asked Natsu. He sniffed at the unconscious man. „This smells curable."

„Wait, what?" said Dr. Medina and Lucy at the same time. Erza was similarly baffled.

„Listen, do you have some sort of place where I can do some mixing and where you have different, like, what's it called, chemicals and such?" the dragon slayer asked.

„A… a lab? Yes, there is one down the corridor…" said Dr. Medina, hopelessly confused.

„Okay, you're coming with me! Everybody, I'll get you this cure!" shouted Natsu. He sprinted out the door, dragging the perplexed woman behind him. With an „Aye Sir!", Happy followed them.

Lucy, Erza and Juvia stood still for a second, completely speechless. Even Gray looked shocked, although that might have had something to do with him still being unconscious. Their surprise was interrupted by a loud horn.

„Damn, we need to get out of here!" shouted De Monza. „This is the self destruct. It must have detected that guy being bitten." He pointed at the unconscious scientist.

„Why do you even have a self destruct?" asked Juvia, still holding Gray.

„Precisely for this! My own scientists creating unstoppable monsters! So, let's go, this thing saves work for us." He noticed that nobody was moving. „Oh, don't worry about Medina and that fire guy. She knows what this means, she'll be getting out, too. Hell, we can catch them on the way out. We have half an hour, so it should not be a problem."

„No." said Juvia. „Juvia and her friends will stay here. If there is a cure, then it is our duty to help these people."

„There is no cure! That flame guy there is just nuts! Right, professor?"

The professor seemed to think for a bit. „Well, we have been doing some research into it. It's highly speculative, of course, but maybe…"

„That settles it." said Erza. „Is there a way to deactivate the self destruct?"

„Well, yeah, at the other end of the facility. But you'll never get there. It's all full of monsters, I expect" said De Monza. „And when you're there, the control is bio-signature-locked. Only I and the Prof-guy there can turn it off."

Erza was not fazed by this. „Professor, will you help us?"

The professor shook his head. „I have to agree with that annoying little criminal on this one. It is much safer to just burn everything. I still have the formulas in my head, so maybe one day I'll…"

He stopped as he noticed Erza's sword at his throat.

„Mister von Harzburg, this wasn't an actual question. You are coming with us to stop this thing, whether you want to or not." She looked around at the others. „Juvia, are you…"

„Juvia is staying here. She will protect Gray-sama… and also the others in this room."

„Good…" Erza wondered a bit. There was no way to get Juvia away from Gray now, but she preferred to have two people on her mission, so that one could watch the professor. He was not working for them, after all.

„Lucy, you're coming with us!" Erza said, hoping the stellar mage did not notice her hesitation. Together, the three set out.

„He is your friend! Do you really leave your friends behind!" shouted Natsu.

„Well, more of an acquaintance, really…" mumbled Medina, but she hoped that the mage did not hear.

„You fight… or do science together, right? You rely on each other, right? You're basically a guild, and you're telling me you want to abandon him!"

„No! If I could save him, I would, really. I just don't think I can…"

„Ah, don't worry" replied Natsu, suddenly with a smile on his face. „We'll get your friend back! Now, I need some things…"

He looked around the room, but Medina could tell that none of the labels meant anything to him.

„You know the complicated things for all this stuff, right?" asked Natsu. She nodded. „Okay, so I want one thing that smells like new car, something like petrichor, and also what Lucy smells like after she gets out of the shower."

The blue flying cat was giggling at the last one, but the dragon slayer didn't care and was sniffing around. He sniffed at the floors, tables, the seat, then her coat, which made her uncomfortable. Then he smelled at her hair, which made her even more comfortable, but she didn't seem to notice. Finally, he brought his face almost directly to her face and looked her in the eyes.

She felt her heart beat loudly as he moved closer, slowly. A part of her wanted to push him away, but another part of her, one that she felt rarely, was working against that. She opened her lips a bit and…

Natsu jumped away, screaming, „I've got it! That scent is in your lip stick. I need whatever is the third-most smelling thing in there."

„Oh my god, they are so many! What are we going to do? Erza, protect me!" Lucy was panicking, and she did not care who knew. They were facing at least twenty of the monsters now, and had to keep an eye on the professor. Of course, on some level, Lucy had absolute faith that Erza and Natsu would save the day, just like they always did, but right now that was being drowned out by the part of her that kept saying „So many monsters! They eat little Lucys!"

Erza turned around to face Lucy and started speaking, but she barely listened, instead focusing on the monsters that were rapidly approaching.

„…are one of my best friends, Lucy. I love you like a sister", the knight said. Why wasn't she thinking about the monsters? „…want you to know I'm really, really sorry about this."

Wait, her red haired friend was sorry? For what? Was she not able to defeat the monsters? But it were only so few! If not even she could deal with them, then they were all going to —

Lucy's thoughts were momentarily paused as Erza's fist hit her face.

„Owwww!" shouted the stellar mage. „You hit me! Why did you hit me?"

„You were panicking, and I need you to snap out of it. This is a dangerous situation, and I can't use you if you're trying to hide behind me all the time. I am sorry that I hurt you. Please, hit m—"

Surprising both of them, Lucy did actually hit her. Hard. Erza was thrown back for a moment, while Lucy went into shock. „Oh my god, Erza, I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry…"

But something was odd. The knight was actually smiling. „That's the spirit! I know you had it in you!"

„I had it in me to punch you?"

„You had it in you to stand up and do something. Lucy, you are more powerful than you know. You are easily the most powerful stellar mage I have ever met."

„I… I am?"

„Of course. Look at how many keys you have. And your spirits serve you willingly. Most stellar mages I have met spent all their time arguing with their spirits or beating them and ordering them around. You don't have to do that. That makes you really dangerous."

Lucy could not believe what she was hearing. Her? Dangerous? „Erza, you are dangerous. Natsu is dangerous. I am just me."

Erza shook her head. „I've seen you in action. Part of my job is to evaluate who might become an S-class wizard, and I think in a year or two, you could become one as well. Now, Lucy, you take care of these creatures. Don't hurt them too much, we want to cure them after all."

„Aye aye, sir!" said Lucy, filled with new confidence. She, an S-class mage? She couldn't believe it, but if Erza said it was possible, then she would do everything in her power to make it happen. „I've got just the spirit for this job… Aries!"

For someone else, being cuffed to a radiator in your own secret laboratory would be incredibly humiliating, but it didn't even make the top ten list of Sergio De Monza. In fact, he had some experience paying for things like this, and right now, he would've asked for his money back.

He shouted „I'm bored here!", but the blue-haired girl did not care. She was still fuzzing over the unconscious Gray, even though it was absolutely obvious that he could not hear her.

„Hey, you! Water girl! I'm talking to you!"

„Juvia does not care" came the reply. „It is not in your interest to make her care."

„Oh yeah? What are you gonna do? Hit me? Kill me? Nah. That's the problem with being all water, you just don't have the guts! Hey, what are you rolling your eyes for? That was a good pun, ask anyone!"

„Juvia believes you are incapable of good puns."

„That hurts, lady. I can feel my heart breaking. You know, I was going to offer you a job, but with an attitude like that? Never!"

„Why would Juvia want a job from you?"

„Why not? You're scary competent, you're smart, and you don't seem to mind being bad. I mean, the way you broke in here, that's just cool. And what with you coming from a dark guild and all…"

„Phantom Lord was never a dark guild." What was she doing all the time anyway? As far as he could see, she was simply watching Gray sleep. Oh well. If his only source of entertainment here was to try and make her angry, then he was absolutely willing to take any risks that came with it.

„Sure it was. Not in name, but look at what you did. An entire guild hired to start a war with another guild, just so one man can get his daughter back and marry her off? Yeah, Heartfilia was crazy back then, and I guess he offered a lot of jewels, but at the end, you all still went along with it and had fun. You call that a good guild? Nah. There's darkness in you, Juvia Lockser. And you could use it to make a lot of money."

Finally, she stood up and walked over to him, slowly, quietly. „Do you really want to know how dark I can be?"

He shrugged. „Nothing else to do around here."

„I told you that was going to explode! And it did explode! For heaven's sake, why don't you ever listen? You could have killed us all!" screamed Dr. Medina.

„Relax", said Natsu. „I ate all of the flames, so what's the danger? Also, it totally worked! Smell that, this is exactly what I need for the next stage."

„Wha… you can't smell that! It's not possible! Your nose is some kind of monster!"

„Don't answer, she's just jealous", said the blue flying cat. If Medina had more time, she would have loved to examine it more closely. The Exceed were a very reclusive bunch, and no scientists had been allowed to do even the simplest of tests on them.

„You're right" answered Natsu to his cat. „Anyway, we need more of that. Is there some sort of catathingy we can use so it doesn't blow up?"

„You want to throw a cat in there!" shouted Happy.

„You can't use a catalyst for this!" screamed Medina. „That'll only make it react worse! …although, come to think of it, maybe…"

She grabbed a bottle from the shelf and handed it to Natsu. He proceeded to open it and, before she could scream „Don't!", put his nose in there. Of course, he fell over immediately. It was all she could do to stop the bottle from falling, too.

Natsu whispered „smells right…" before he fell unconscious. His cat, however, became active. „We need something that burns, really hot!"

„Erm… I've got a bit of thermite over here, but I don't think that this is what you…"

The cat ignored her. He grabbed the bowl of the gritty mixture, lit the fuse… and dumped it all into the dragon slayer's mouth. In shock, she retreated.

„You stupid cat, what did you do that for? You killed him! You killed your owner!"

„Natsu is not my owner. He is my friend!" the cat said, just as the reaction started. Apparently he had no problems with the sparks flying out of his owner's – no, friend's – mouth. And then it became truly weird, as Natsu started to chew.

It took only a few seconds until he was back on his feet. „Thank you, Happy! This fire is awesome, it just keeps going! I'm all fired up now! Hey, Medina, fight me!"

„Wha… what? I don't fight! I'm a scientist! Don't hurt me!"

„Huh? I don't want to hurt you. I just want to fight!"

„Natsu, we don't have time for that" shouted the cat.

„You're right, Happy!" Natsu pulled a white lab coat seemingly out of nowhere. „I'm all fired up now… for science!"

„Lucy, do something!" shouted Erza. As if it were that simple, Lucy thought. They had, of course, expected the professor to turn on them. What they had not expected was that he somehow managed to get control over the nearby mutants, as he called them. They had surprised them and managed to overpower Erza. Lucy was still not sure how they had done that, but the knight was now cuffed to a bed that was standing in the corridor. Between the two, four of the monsters were blocking all ways.

„Can't you requip into something?" Lucy asked

„No, I can't access my magic! He must have blocked it somehow!"

The professor shook his head and screamed „Get out of my way, you silly girl! You can't stop my creatures!" Lucy's heart sank, because deep inside her, she knew that he was right. If they had managed to defeat Erza, then what chance did she have? It seemed as if Erza was able to sense her thoughts, because she said „Don't listen to him, Lucy. I know you can do this. It was your plan that got us here, and it worked fine, remember?"

Lucy was not sure how accurate that assessment was. True, it was mostly her plan, and it did get them to Gray. On the other hand, it also got them into a position where they were being chased by people that had been turned into monsters and were able to take down Erza.

„Don't focus on me, Lucy. You fight differently. You can win this where I don't!" she said, apparently fully aware of what the stellar mage was thinking. Was that an additional and so far unexplained power, like the artificial eye? She decided she needed to test this later, but right now, Erza was right. She had her stellar spirits, surely there was some way to solve the solution. In fact, come to think of it, there was… She smiled as a plan started to form in her head.

„Open, gate of the Scorpion! Scorpio!" she shouted. Aquarius's boyfriend appeared with an enthusiastic „We are!" Lucy whispered a few words in his ear. He nodded, and suddenly the entire room became filled with dust.

„We are! Sand Buster!" the stellar spirit shouted, as a wall of swirling sand hit the creatures. They were dazed for a moment, but quickly got back up again, as if they had never been hit.

„Get him!" shouted the Professor as the sand in the air was slowly dissipating. The monsters started chasing after the stellar spirit. „Yes, yes, send him back where he came from! We will… wahh!"

To his great surprise, he fell over. Looking down, he saw that Lucy had bound his feet with her whip. She was now holding one of the swords that Erza had lost early in the fight and was pointing it right at him.

„You should pay better attention when someone makes it impossible for you to see. I don't have any training with this but I do know ‚stick him with the pointy end'. Want me to show you?"

The professor meekly shook his head. „Good.", said Lucy. „Now, you will send these creatures away, where they can't hurt my friends. Oh, and I need the key to unlock Erza, of course."

„Thank you, Lucy, that was amazing!" said Erza as Lucy unlocked her. Lucy felt herself blush at the compliment. Suddenly, however, the professor started to chuckle.

„You, my red-haired friend, have the heart of a true scientist! Bravo!" he said, while clapping slowly.

„Erza? What is he…?"

„She performed an experiment, with you! You see, I never did stop her magic. She could have done the whole thing on her own, but no, she let herself be captured, just to see what you would do. I love it!"

Lucy turned to Erza, intending to roll her eyes, but Erza actually looked ashamed. „Wait, Erza… it isn't true, is it?"

„Sorry." said the Knight. „But I thought you could handle this. If not, I would have broken free and helped you, of course."

„And she did handle it marvelously! Destroyed our only chance of getting out of here alive, of course, but still, this experiment was a total success!" said the professor.

„Wait… so this whole thing was just an experiment?" Lucy felt anger rise inside her. „You never wanted to rely on me. Earlier, you didn't want to take me either, you wanted Juvia. I guess I should have known. I am just not good enough to be in a team with you all…"

„No!" said Erza sternly. „Lucy, I did this to show you how good you really are. Look at it: You defeated these monster and a mad scientist without breaking a sweat! I meant what I said earlier, but you like to hide behind Natsu and me. That way, you will never grow."

Lucy had to chew on that for a bit. It was true; she always expected subconsciously that everything would turn out fine if Natsu or Erza were there. And it usually did, didn't it? But was her dream really just helping them out here and there?

„Are… are you saying that I should leave the team? Because I don't want to! I really love all you guys!" she said, almost starting to sob.

„No!" said Erza. „I don't think our team would work without you. You have the nicest apartment. You are the only one who can stop Natsu when he's out to do something stupid… without hitting him, anyway. And Natsu is good for you, too, he pushes you to act instead of overthinking everything…"

Suddenly, Erza stopped and her eyes went wide. She grabbed Lucy by the shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes.

„Lucy, I just realized something." She paused for a second, before continuing earnestly. „Did you know that you and Natsu would make a really great couple?"

„Kyaaaa!"

The caged rat looked horrible. It looked also kind of stupid, even more than a normal rat did. Not that the cat seemed to care.

„Can I eat it? I'm so hungry!"

„No, you cannot!" said Natsu. „We made it sick, remember? If you eat it, you will get sick, too. I will get you a nice fish once we are out of here, I promise."

„Oh, how about a mackerel? No, wait, how about a shark! Then I can tell Carla I ate an entire shark!"

„You can't eat a shark! A shark is way bigger than you. You would explode!"

„Aye.", said the blue cat, dejectedly.

Medina cleared her throat. It was a wonder those two ever got anything done. She couldn't fault Natsu's nose, though. She really, really wanted to examine it more closely.

„Oh, yes. Doctor Medina, hand me the mixture!" Natsu said, doing a bad impression of a bad actor playing a bad scientist. She rolled her eyes, but did as he told her. He emptied the small bottle into the cage so the rat could breathe it in.

„When should we see the effects?" whispered Medina. She wasn't quite sure why; noise was not a factor in the procedure.

„Wait a bit…" he replied. Suddenly, the rat started to change. The lumps on its back were getting smaller. After a few seconds, they were gone entirely, and the rat began to act more lively, too. It saw Happy and began to hiss.

„It did not work! It's hissing at me! Natsu, protect me from the monster rat!" the cat shouted.

„Don't be stupid!" shouted Natsu. „It's a rat. They are supposed to hate cats! It hissed at you just like that before we gave it the medicine, and then it didn't when it was a monster."

„Oh… so that means…" said the flying cat, as it dawned on him, and he began to smile.

„Exactly. We did it!" The dragon slayer grinned wide as he and his cat high-fived. „Come on, Doctor Medina! All your science friends will be jealous now when they hear that you got to work with the great Natsu Dragneel!"

She rolled his eyes. The boy was horribly arrogant and annoying. He had endangered their lives at least nine times since they entered the lab. She walked closer to him. It was just… it was just… Without thinking, she suddenly kissed him.

It always confused people that Juvia could sweat. They would always go on about her having built-in cooling, loosing mass or similar, but none of it made any sense if you really thought about it. Water body or not, she was perfectly human. And keeping all those mutants out was really hard work.

„You look like you could use a drink" said De Monza, still secured. „Why don't you make yourself one? Seems easy enough. Plus, I could use some as well."

Juvia was done answering his comments. Over the past forty-five minutes, he had asked and insulted her about every tiny thing, including her history (as far as it was publicly known), her tendency to say „Drip, Drip Drop" or her nose size, first because it was too small, then because it was too big, with no apparent reason for the change. This particular question he had asked three times, and she had simply given up explaining to him what elemental creation magic could do and what not.

Instead, she went back to check on Gray-sama. He was still lying in his bed, taking forever to wake up. Given that he had spoken to them just minutes before passing away, Juvia was getting more and more worried whether the sedative had any side-effects. On the other hand, his breathing was still stable, and the scientists had told them that it would take this long.

„Does he love you back?" asked De Monza suddenly. She tried to ignore it, but she felt herself getting hot, and apparently he saw her reaction, too.

„Oh, he doesn't. Isn't that cute? Does he even know that you love him? No, wait. I figured it out in five minutes and I haven't met either of you before; clearly he is either an idiot or he doesn't love you back. I love it when things like that happen; so much drama!"

„Shut… up…" Juvia growled, her self-restraint all but gone.

„Seems like I hit a nerve there, didn't I?" De Monza laughed. „Come on, you thought it too. If it isn't you, then I wonder who else… Maybe Lucy or Titania? They both seemed really concerned about his health, too…"

She took a deep breath. This was ridiculous, of course. While Juvia had always had certain fears about Lucy, at the end of the day, Lucy was working with Gray almost all the time and nothing had ever happened. As for Erza, it was either Siegrain, Jellal or Mystogan (Juvia was always confused about all of this).

„Face it, Miss Lockser: You are just pathetic and weak. When I first met you, I was all like ‚Cool, she can manipulate water and she's creepy and she's all like Drip, Drip, Drop and what's up with that?', but now… you're always fuzzing over one guy who does not love you back, it's just sad. Why do you do that? Does that really make you happy?"

She just couldn't help it. To De Monza's horror, she began to laugh. It took her a while to stop, before she could finally say, „Yes."

„Yes? What do you mean ‚yes'? You think it is great to degenerate from an unstoppable badass to crazy girl who can't talk right and wants nothing more than to be someone else's pet?"

Juvia shook her head, still smiling. „You would not understand. Juvia is scary when she's scared or upset. It is how she… it's how I cope. All rain all the time does not help one make friends. I can hide behind scary, and for a while, at Phantom Lord, people accepted that… it was almost like being happy, but not quite. Do you know that feeling, Mister De Monza? Of being lonely and hiding it by being scary?"

From the look of his face, it seemed that she had hit him, so she just continued.

„Maybe I am crazy when it comes to Gray-sama. Maybe I still have some self-image issues that lead me to speaking of Juvia instead of ‚I'. But I am happier than I've ever been, and I am happier than you."

„Well that is harsh."

„Oh no, I didn't mean…"

„Yeah, I know, ‚you can be as happy as I am today if you just call this number'. Look, doll, this is all very touching, but in the end I just asked this question to distract you."

Juvia turned around to find herself face-to-face with at least ten burly men, all armed with swords. Before she could do anything, one of them rammed a syringe into her arm.

Lucy had expected something huge and important, with glowing lights, red buttons and so on. Instead, the mechanism to shut down the self-destruct was just a button with a lacrima built in, hanging loosely on some wires. She felt disappointed.

„Let the record show that I am against this and that in my professional opinion, you are condemning us all to a gruesome, slow death", said the professor, but you could tell his heart wasn't into it. He seemed resigned to go along with whatever plan Fairy Tail had come up with now.

„I will mention your objection in my report to the council" said Erza drily and pointed her sword at him. „Now press the button!"

The professor grumbled, but complied. A siren sounded to acknowledge his action. „There. Happy now?"

Lucy felt a huge weight fall from her shoulders. All they had to do now was rely on Natsu. Yes, she was not sure how much she could really trust his chemistry, but on some basic level, relying on Natsu always made her feel safe. Her train of thought was interrupted by a familiar voice screaming.

„Lucy! Help! Hide me from that crazy woman!" Natsu shouted as he ran towards them. Happy was with him, and Doctor Medina shortly behind, carrying a bottle of something. Before Lucy knew what was going on, the dragon slayer cowered behind her.

„Natsu! What… what happened?"

„She just, she grabbed me, and then she kissed me! Ewww!"

„It was horrible," said Happy solemnly. „With tongue and all."

Lucy had absolutely no idea how to react to this. Erza seemed similarly confused, but fell back to her default behavior. „Stop right there, evildoer!" She pointed her sword at Medina's throat, making the woman go „eep!".

„Why would you dare to do such a thing?"

„Well, er… look, I misjudged something and I'm sorry, but the important part is, we have the cure! It works!"

„Really? That is… amazing!" said Erza. „And Natsu did that?"

„Hey, stop acting so surprised!" complained Natsu. „As if this was the first time I did something like this."

„It is the first time you did something like this" said Lucy. „At least the first time I've seen or heard of you doing it." She paused to think. „By the way, back when we were fighting Oracion Seis, remember when Erza got poisoned? Why didn't you just create a cure for her then?"

„Huh?" replied Natsu. „That was totally different! Seriously, why do you all even have a nose if you never use it?"

She decided to abandon this line of inquiry. „So how do we use this medicine? Do we have to feed it to them?"

Natsu shook his head. „No, we just need to mix it with water and sprinkle it on all of them. I thought the water girl could help us here. What was her name again? Julia?"

„You don't remember! It was not Julia!"

„Hm… Movia?"

„That's a kind of train."

„Gruvia?"

„I'm not sure if that counts as close…"

„I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation" said the professor suddenly, „but I would suggest you surrender now. Mister De Monza's reinforcements have arrived."

He held up a communication lacrima. „It seems that they already managed to knock out… damn you, I knew the name until you started arguing about it! The water woman!"

Lucy felt shocked. Juvia was down? How was that even possible? Meanwhile, Erza and Natsu got angry.

„Listen, professor-guy, you don't know me yet…" said Natsu.

„Actually, I've heard some very interesting stories about you and Miss… aaargh!" If Lucy really needed to kick someone in the shin, they would stay kicked in the shin. Actually, she was going to rephrase this slogan one day.

„…but when you tell any of us that one of our friends has been defeated, we don't surrender. We go help them, because we are mages from Fairy Tail!"

Erza and Lucy both nodded. Lucy could see that the Medina woman seemed very uncertain about what to do.

„Look, these thugs that De Monza hires are really scary. Are you sure you can do that? Because if not, then I expect they'll kill all of you… and me, too, if I help you instead of the professor."

The professor nodded. „Damn straight. Great you found the cure, by the way, but pointless. They'll just kill all the mutants, so it does not make any sense to try that now."

She stood there with open eyes, trying to process this information. „All of them? Including the old and the weak and those who just got bitten? Even though we know we could help them?"

„Come with us." said Erza. „You care for your friend, that is good enough for us."

Slowly, Medina nodded. „Good", said Erza. „Also, I really meant it when I said ‚why would you do such a thing?'. I'll need a full report."

„Should we start eliminating the threats in this room?" asked the leader of De Monza's security team.

„No, Arnold, not yet." De Monza asked himself why he kept calling him Arnold. The guy's name wasn't Arnold. He didn't even know any Arnold. But somehow, the name just fit. „We don't want the Fairy Tail people to have a reason to attack us even harder, do we? And we need to stay in this room so that we have the advantage."

„As you wish, sir. Do you need any survivors?"

He just loved the guy. Wasn't he great? No beating around the bush, just a quick question how many people he wanted dead. De Monza made a mental note to ask the professor for clones later on.

„Only our scientists, if possible. Other than that, the earlier they die, the better. You know, I was thinking of keeping Lucy for myself, but that kind of stuff only leads to trouble."

„Yes, sir."

Suddenly, he heard a small, child-like voice shout. „The correct term is ‚Aye, sir!'"

„Cool, they're here. Arnold, you know what you have to do!"

Without another word, Arnold and his men got unsheathed their swords and started to move towards the Fairy Tail team that had just arrived. They had set up a perfect ambush, with people hidden behind the door, ready to flank them and cut off their retreat. It lasted almost half a minute.

Before they could even begin to swing their swords, other, magic swords had started to appear in front of them and began to block their every move. De Monza had heard about Titania's capabilities, of course, but was she really this good in real life?

Meanwhile, the others began their work. Natsu was punching the guys with fire, while Lucy had shouted something about a gate while holding a key and now looked on smugly as a guy with scissors for hands started cutting up the swords.

Suddenly, Arnold, who was fighting right next to De Monza, fell over, as a huge jet of water hit him in the back. He looked around to see Juvia looking at him.

„But… how are you still…?"

„Juvia diluted the poison, then pretended to be unconscious. Juvia would like you to know that homeopathy does not work."

Before he was even finished thinking, De Monza picked up Arnold's sword (boy, that thing was heavy) and took a wild swing at Juvia. Only to find that the sword got stuck in an ice wall. Had that always been there? He was sure he'd have noticed something like that.

„Gray-sama!" Juvia said. Indeed, Gray was standing next to her, fully awake again. „Thank you for your help, but should you not still be in bed?" Juvia asked.

„He was trying to kill you. I had to stop him!"

„Oh, Gray-sama! …but you do remember that Juvia has a water body and would not have been hurt, right?"

„Eeh…" Gray smiled uneasily and blushed. De Monza wondered whether he needed to rethink his assessment of their relationship… but then, it did not matter, really, did it? After all, he was being currently being cuffed with handcuffs that Lucy seemed to have gotten from the spirit world.

The rest of the mission was fairly simple. Natsu's plan to have Juvia spray the medicine everywhere worked, to the surprise of everyone except Natsu. The guards came to arrest De Monza and most of his operation, something they had apparently wanted to do for a long time, but never had a good enough reason for. They also handled all the other abducted victims. All that was left for the Fairy Tail people was to return home.

Author's note: Wow, this one took forever, because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do here. I'm still not fully certain that it's a good chapter, but I hope you like the individual scenes. After this, there will be a short epilogue, so see you there. And, of course, please write reviews!

Dear children reading this: Do not ever do chemistry the way Natsu does!