Lucy sunk to her knees, sweat plastering her hair to her face and clothes sticking uncomfortably to her skin. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly and she struggled to gather oxygen into her lungs – to be honest, she felt like she had just run a marathon.

"Can... We take a break?" She asked, opening one of her eyes to look up at Carter hopefully. The older teen was also panting, but he seemed less worn out than Lucy.

"Galliano-Sensei? Can... We take a break?"

"Yeah, ok... But not for long. Judging by the amount of battles there been, I suspect there's only about three more until we go through to the semi-finals." Carter said, looking up at the ceiling, eyebrows furrowed. "We need to toughen you up before then..."

"Yeah, and that's never going to happen if you kill me in training." Lucy giggled, putting on a fake angry expression and drawing Carter's attention back to her, making the black haired boy let out a breath, soft smile dancing on his lips. "Now, be a good little doggy and hand me over the water bottle would you?"

Carter chuckled and reached for the half-full bottle of water, handing it over to Lucy, only to yank it back when the blonde made a grab for it. Carter smirked and raised the top to his lips, taking a large swig of the warm liquid and giving an exaggerated sigh, watching Lucy from the corner of his eye.

The celestial mage growled and lunged for Carter, pushing the boy backwards, causing them both to topple to the floor, Lucy kneeling over Carter. Suddenly, they both burst out laughing.

"Here, take it." Carter handed Lucy the water bottle, still laughing. "Now get off me would you?" Lucy looked down at their position and blushed before crawling off from Carter and taking a gulp of water, trying to hide her embarrassment.

Then, something popped in to her mind and she looked over at Carter, blonde eyebrows neatly scrunched.

"Hey, I just remembered something." Carter looked up and gave a soft 'hm?'. Lucy nodded, blonde bangs bouncing as she did so. "Yep, I just remembered you promising to tell me about your past – but you never did."

Carter rolled his eyes while shaking his head, smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

"I already did Lucy – you fell asleep."

"What?" The blonde spluttered. "I did not!"

"Did too."

"Did not!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty certain you did."

"Well I'm pretty certain you didn't."

Carter sighed and chuckled before leaning over to ruffle Lucy's hair.

"Fine then, after training, I'll tell you again."

Lucy beamed before the overly happy smile fell straight off her face and she raised and eyebrow, confusion fluttering across her chocolate orbs.

"But we just did training."

Carter groaned as he stood up and stretched his arms behind his back. Then, the green eyed teen looked down at Lucy and smirked again.

"Yeah, but we were taking a break. Now get up."

Lucy blinked one. Then she blinked twice.

"What?"

"Anything?"

Pink tresses whipped from side to side as Natsu shook his head, the tiny spark of hope vanishing from his eyes. Erza's body slackened and she looked around the station sadly.

"Who would've thought that we'd end up exactly where we started..." The red-head murmured.

"Natsu, are you sure you can't catch even the slightest waft of her scent? Nothing at all?" Natsu shook his head again and walked over to the station seats, slowly sinking down into the cool metal furniture.

"I can't get anything. It's like she was here, but she wasn't."

That was exactly true. They had followed Lucy's scent all around town, starting from the oldest to the newest, and guess what? It led them from the train station, through every possible street, and then back to the train station. There was no trace of her from there on.

"Excuse me? Are you going to buy a ticket, or are you waiting for someone?" A vendor asked, having exited his ticket booth to see to the three wanderers crowding up his platform. Erza smiled at the man politely and bowed.

"No, sorry, we're here looking for our friend." The vendor smiled before catching sight of Natsu's guild logo – his eyes immediately widened and he snapped his head up to look at Erza again.

"You said you were looking for a friend? Oh no..." The vendor shook his head and took a couple of steps backwards. "So she was taken too... Poor lass."

Natsu whipped his head round to look at the vendor, eyes wide. Erza and Gray looked the same.

"You know Lucy?" Natsu croaked, the spark of hope fluttering back into his eyes. "Where did she go?"

The vendor looked off to the side, a sad look on his face. Natsu and the other members of Team Natsu followed the man's trail of sight, their gazes locking on a little dirt path just outside of the station.

"The trains weren't working that day... She was impatient to get home – apparently her team were coming home soon, and she wanted to be there when they got back." Natsu's heart thudded hard in his chest. "I told her about another train station... It's in a dangerous town though. She didn't care. So she was taken too, huh?"

"You mean entered in 'The Game'? You know about that?" The vendor nodded in response to Gray's question.

"Yeah, the town I sent her is the place where mages are recruited – their lured there some way. Many believe it's where 'The Game' is actually held... But I don't know much about that." Suddenly, his eyes widened and he looked at Team Natsu, a smile on his face. "I know someone who does though – a young man who's been researching 'The Game' in order to find his brother."

"Really? Who?" Natsu grabbed hold of the man's shoulder, the spark of hope erupting into fireworks inside his hazel eyes. Erza and Gray were also watching hopefully, their hearts pounding behind their ribcages, body's tensed.

"His name is Alex."

It was strange how quickly that girl could fall asleep. Actually, there were a lot of things strange about Lucy – for one, she adjusted to this situation incredibly well, and actually managed to smile at least once every day, usually even more than that. And she worked hard in her training, even if she moaned a lot.

"Natsu..." Carter smiled at her sleep talking – he found out more about her when she was asleep than when she was awake. For one, he knew that she absolutely adored this Natsu, and two, that he was one stupid guy for not realising it.

"You know Luce, you are going to go far in this world; I can just see it." Carter mumbled to himself. "You're strong and smart, and I can tell that your friends mean everything to you. There's only one other person I've ever met who's like you, and I managed to lose him." Carter sighed and looked down at Lucy. "But I'm not ever going to make that mistake again – as soon as we're free from here, I'm going to apologise to Alex!"

"I always thought you would be too proud to apologise to anyone." Carter froze and a pink tint dusted its way across his cheeks. "So you talk to yourself now? That's kind of weird... but cute."

"Well at least I don't talk in my sleep." Lucy chuckled and poked Carter's cheek playfully. "Actually you do!" Carter tensed. "Alicia, I swear, it wasn't me – Ouch!"

"You're weird, you know that, right?" Carter mumbled. "You shouldn't listen to people when they sleep-talk."

Lucy chuckled again and rested her head down in Carter lap, chocolate brown eyes staring into emerald green, a soft smile playing on plump pink lips.

"You're not the first to call me weird you know."

"Natsu?"

"Ah..."

Carter grinned, a grin so like Natsu's it made Lucy's eyes widen slightly.

"Well don't worry Luce; I'm sure Natsu doing all he can to save you!"

Lucy's eyes softened slightly before her eyelids fluttered closed and she brought her hands to her chest, clasping them over her heart and smiling.

"Thank you, Carter."

Another update? Something must be wrong here... But anyway, Team Natsu is off to find Carters brother Alex, and the semi-finals are drawing ever closer. I'll introduce the new teams next chapter - only three more mini-tournaments, and I'm planning on not making any of them more than two-three chapters, but it seems they have a mind of their own XD

If you like this type of story, then you should also check out Fairies-Alchemy-Exorcist-Anbu's story, 'The Games Of No Return'. It's really AWESOME, even though so far only the prologue has been released!