No, I haven't died, neither have I abandoned my stories! I'm sorry it takes so long before I upload, I'm really really busy with college. I try to write as much as possible whenever I can and I finally managed to finish this chapter. I really hope you'll like it!

I always try to answer people questions when they leave it in a review, but I can't send those to guests, so I'll answer it here:

To guest Jasmine98: I'm not going to spoil that part yet, whom Gray had sex with before will sure be answered later on in the story ! Thank you for the review, I'm really glad you liked the chapter!

Chapter 4

Naked Wound

By Neko Erza

The sun was slowly starting to rise when Team Natsu walked down a broad road towards their client's house. Due to the early hour the streets were still empty, which was a good thing. After the whole situation in the guild last night it was clear that Gray needed some time away from too much people. He especially needed to get away from all the teasing and this mission was a great opportunity to do so. However, it was hard not to think about his current situation.

"I can't believe I have to wear these." Gray grumbled as he looked down at his feet. They were enveloped in flexible and protective, yet elegant woman boots. They weren't anything like the heavy boots he normally wore and they were way too feminine for his taste.

"We couldn't take you on a mission if you were going to wear your own shoes, which are ridiculously too big." Erza said firmly. Gray knew she was right since their mission was to catch some thieves that had been plundering the city and it would sure come to a chase and a fight. In his oversized boots he would only fall flat to his face, but still he didn't feel happy about the new ones.

"And you should be happy! I picked them out especially for you!" Lucy said a bit insulted. She had picked them out herself, trying to stick as much to Gray's tastes as possible. They hadn't had the time to get a whole fitting outfit yet since they left immediately yesterday evening, but they decided it was the most important to get the right shoes so he could at least decently travel.

"Why couldn't I just buy male shoes?" The ice mage complained with an annoyed sigh.

"There weren't any in your size. And by the way, even if it's just temporarily, it doesn't hurt to look a bit decent." The blonde said as she scanned the ice mage's body with a judging gaze and let out a sigh. "At least the shoes fit."

Levi had suggested for Gray to borrow some of her clothes for the mission so he could wear something that fit and was more comfortable, but stubborn as he was Gray refused. He insisted on wearing his own clothes so here he was in a way too big shirt and one of his shorter pants. Normally they reached just below his knees, but now they were almost down to his feet, so he had put them into his new black boots.
Even though he was clearly female now, the baggy clothes, messy hair in a male cut and his behaviour made him look more like a tom-boy.

"And they just look fábulous, Gray-chan." Natsu teased. Ever since last night the fire mage had been calling the raven 'chan' to annoy him; tapping in with the suffix whenever he had the chance.

"Shut the hell up, flame brain!" The ice mage yelled annoyed before he froze his leg over and gave the fire mage a hard kick.

"Oww, stupid stripper!"

The ice mage defrosted his leg and looked at the shoe. "They might be not so bad after all. Not a scratch on them." He grinned.

Natsu planned to hit Gray in return but when he saw the grinning face he somehow changed his mind and murmured. "Stupid frostbite…"

The rest of the way went by quite peaceful and with not too much complaining. When it was almost noon they reached their client, the mayor of the city. The man explained the situation they were in: a large group of thieves came from the nearby woods every night and plundered parts of the town. The villagers were too scared to leave their houses and come outside, and if they refused to give their belongings to the thieves' guild then their houses would get burned down. The dark guild possessed a lot of explosives and Fairy Tail would have to look out for those if they were to engage in a fight.

After the explanation Erza processed all of the information and made up a battle plan.

"I suggest we evacuate all the villagers, just to be sure that they don't get hurt during the fight." The scarlet mage knew that when her team went all out it was hard to keep anything whole, mix in the explosives and the villagers and you'd get a disaster.

"That would be the safest indeed." The mayor agreed.

"Where to and how fast can they be evacuated?"

"About two hours east from here there's a large ruin of an old city where they can be brought to safety." The mayor informed. "If we activate the city's code red then we will be able to have everybody gone in three hours."

"Then we can arrest the dark guild tonight already."

"I'll make sure everybody is gone, in the meantime you can prepare at your hotel. I'll give you the keys, since of course there won't be any personnel at the moment.

The Fairy Tail team stood in silence before their doors at the empty hotel. There was one small matter they had overlooked.

"S-So…" Lucy stuttered as she looked at the two rooms; one with a female emblem and the other a male. "Where's Gray going to sleep?"

"I don't mind him sleeping with us." Erza stated bluntly.

"Erza!" Lucy whispered. "It's a shared bathroom and well…"

"I don't see the problem?" Titania answered sincere. The scarlet mage had never felt ashamed to bath with the boys after all, now that Gray looked like a girl it would be even less of a problem. The blonde sighed since arguing with the scarlet mage never ended well, but still… Gray was a straight man on the inside.

"Why can't I just stay at the men's dorm?" Gray asked stubbornly. He was still a man after all, just because his body didn't really work with him didn't mean he changed on the inside.

"Gray…" Lucy said with a wry smile. "Shared bathroom? There will be other men you know. And well… I think it will be pretty hard to cover those up."

The celestial mage motioned at the raven's boobs. He quickly folded his arms before them. "I don't care. When did I ever feel embarrassed to show my naked body?"

"It's a bit different now." Natsu said, somehow a small blush to his cheeks. "Women don't really tend to rape a naked muscular man, but the other way around..."

Gray was a bit stunned that the flame brain even thought about that. A small blush also formed on his cheeks as he murmured, "I can still beat your and their asses."

"We'll just let Gray decide." Erza compromised.

"Then I'll stay at the men's side. It's not like it's a shared bedroom, so no other men will be there than Natsu." The raven said, too proud to neglect his masculinity. He was a man and so he would sleep in a men's room.

"F-Fine by me." Natsu said silently. He hated it that his cheeks felt hot. This wasn't like him, he had slept in Lucy's bed a thousand times and she often showed a lot of flesh. But a completely naked woman still was a whole other level.

"Let's set up our stuff. We have a job to do, flamebrain." Gray said as he walked in and motioned the dragon slayer to follow.

"Don't call me that, stupid stripper!"

The whole town had been evacuated and the Fairy Tail team was getting into position. According to the mayor it was about 25 to 30 people who came to the town every night from two ways. Without those mages the guild would be sure to fall apart.

Lucy and Erza formed a group to protect one side of the town, Gray and Natsu formed the other one.

"They should be here anytime now." The light voice of female Gray sighed.

"I'm all fired up!" Natsu shouted as his fist got covered in flames.

"No surprise there." The ice mage rolled his eyes.

"Shut up, princess frost bite." The fire mage growled. Then he suddenly started laughing.

"What?" The raven asked annoyed.

"Well, that nickname sure is fitting for you now, princess."

"Are you ever gonna stop that?" The raven shouted annoyed, although it sounded more like a shriek.

"Haha, no it's way too funny! I mea-" Suddenly the dragon slayer stopped talking and turned his head. "They're almost here."

Gray's posture suddenly became alert and took on his battle stance. He could see small figures approach from outside the city. Not soon after the first enemies came into sight and before they even knew exactly what was going on, at least four of them were already floored.

The ice mage was slightly surprised just how tall they all were, but then he remembered that it wasn't them being tall, but him being small that was the problem. The frustration that came from being reminded at his situation came into good use as he used it to put more emotion and thus power in his attacks.

He looked over to the fire mage, to see how he was doing. Of course he shouldn't have worried since the dragon slayer was still going all out like always. And just as expected as that, a few minutes later the first house caught fire.

The thieves slowly got further and further into town, driving the two Fairy Tail mage's back. Gray and Natsu were definitely outnumbered and some of the others were very skilled mages themselves.
Once they got over the shock to find the town empty and the Fairy Tail mages taking them down one by one, they reformed and started to make some kind of plan instead of just running around disoriented.

The fight became harder now that the dark guild members worked together and they had managed to get almost into the middle of the town already. Natsu had lost sight of the ice mage by this time, since the raven had run after three thieves who tried to escape. When he listened more carefully he could also hear that Lucy was somewhere nearby by now. And sure enough a few minutes later the blonde came running into the street where the fire mage was fighting.

"Lucy! How's your side doing?"

"Erza's crushing them." The blonde explained shrugging, not really surprised by that development. "I'm just in her way I think."

The two carried on fighting together and after a while a few thieves ran down the street, probably back to the forest. Now only three of them remained.

"Three against two, huh? That's easy!" The fire mage snickered, but abruptly stopped when a loud pained cry sounded a few streets away.

Lucy and Natsu looked up surprised, since the town should have been completely evacuated.

"A girl's cry? There shouldn't be anyone left! What is she doing here?" Natsu grunted. Next to him the celestial spirit mage looked around in worry, trying to figure out how they could have overlooked one of the villagers during the evacuation. Then her eyes went big as she realized what the girl was doing there.

"Natsu!" She shrieked. "There is another woman!"

"What?" Natsu asked confused as he shot another blast of fire towards the dark guild members. "What do yo-" Then he understood what the blonde meant. "Gray!"

Before the name had even left his mouth, he was already running towards the place the scream had come from. "Lucy, you take down these guys!"

The fire mage ran down the streets, towards the only place in the city other than where Erza was where he could hear people. He tried to listen to what was happening, but he was too stressed to actually make out something useful. He heard the searing of magic and pained grunts, but nothing that could determine what state the ice mage actually was in.

When the dragon slayer finally turned around the corner he was in the street where the ice mage was fighting. He could see the fragile posture standing only a few meters away. The raven had a pained expression on his face as blood dripped down his right arm. Whenever he tried to move, he was obviously hindered by a limp in his left leg. Everywhere in the street were thieves frozen in ice, but there were still two remaining. They had cornered the wounded mage and bombarded him with their magic. The ice mage tried to defend himself but with the wounded arm he could barely get his battle stance right and use his magic properly.

"Gray!" Natsu yelled concerned as he charged forward towards the two thieves. "Wing slash of the fire dragon!"

The two enemies blasted away and the fire mage reached the raven who was breathing heavily but somehow managed to get out a squeaky 'thank you'. Before either one of them was aware of what was happening, Natsu had lifted the tiny raven's body up into his arms, just like he would do with Lucy if she were wounded. A bit shocked by his own acting, Natsu started walking back to their teammates.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, flamebrain?" Gray grumbled annoyed, struggling against the hold. That comment reminded the pinkette this was still the same ice mage, his rival. But he still wanted to do this, he was Nakama after all and he was clearly in pain.

"You're wounded." Was the short answer. He didn't want to say much about it, since the fire mage didn't really get it himself either.

"I might look like one, but I'm not a woman! Put me down, idiot!"

The fire mage chuckled at the embarrassment in the raven's face. "You're like a little damsel in distress."

That comment did it. The ice mage wrestled out of the pinkette's hold and stubbornly walked the whole way back on his own. Natsu had to hold in his steps, since Gray's speed wasn't all that due to the limp and the fact his steps weren't as big as when he was still a man. They were quiet for a long time, but finally the dragon slayer got tired of the silence.

"How did you get wounded? Those guys weren't that tough, you could have beaten them easily." He often hated to admit it, but the ice mage was very skilled and people like those dark mages should have been a piece of cake.

"Some guy got close and threw a punch at me. I couldn't block it completely for some reason."

"Idiot, did you already forget what the old lady said?" Natsu said recalling Porlyusica's words. "Your physical strength has gone down, remember?"

"Oh… right." The raven answered, shocked by the little rebuke which was very unlike Natsu.

"You forget something as important as that and you call me a flame brain, mush brain?"

"Shut up…" Gray mumbled, clearly getting gloomy again by being reminded of his current situation. "I couldn't block the blow, which knocked me to the ground. I hurt my hip, which made it hard to get up right away. The other guy hit me with a beam of his magic, fucking up my arm."

"Let Lucy take a look at that once we get back to our hotel."

"Battling with this body is a lot tougher than I expected…"

"You'll get used to it." The pinkette said trying to cheer the other up, but it only had an opposite effect.

"I sure hope not!" The raven grumbled. "I want to get rid of this body as soon as possible. Before I can get used to it."

"The old lady will find something soon I hope, 'cause to be honest… it kind of weirds me out seeing you like thi-" The dragon slayer stopped as he noticed the ice mage wasn't beside him anymore. He turned around confused and saw the raven standing still a few meters behind him. "Gray?"

Suddenly the ice mage fell to the ground. Natsu rushed at him instantly picking him back up. "Hey, stupid stripper, wake up!" He yelled worried, but no reaction came from the raven. "Oi, Gray!"

The girl's eyes fluttered open dazed. "What…?" The raven whispered but couldn't get out a decent sentence.

Natsu tried to figure out why the mage had suddenly collapsed when he felt hot fluid run down his hand. When he lifted it he saw blood had colored his hand red, only now remembering the ice mage's wounded arm. He carefully rolled Gray to his left so he could take a look at the wound.

"Shit… it's way deeper and bigger than I thought it was." Natsu cursed as he looked at the gaping wound with shocked eyes. The ice mage had passed out from the blood loss. "You stubborn, proud idiot! Why didn't you say anything? You're ready to bleed to death like this."

But Gray had already passed out again. Natsu quickly tore a piece of cloth of his clothes and used it to bind the wound up at least a bit. Then he lifted the light body up and ran back to their friends.

"You'll keep an eye on Gray, right?" Lucy asked the fire mage as she left the room. She and Erza had treated the wound and put on a bandage stopping it from bleeding.

"Of course." Natsu assured her. "Wendy will take a look at it when we get home and everything will be okay."

The celestial forced a little smile on her face as she looked at the sleeping figure of the ice mage. "Maybe it was a bad idea to bring him on a mission already. He isn't used to this body at all, of course something was bound to go wrong."

"We couldn't have predicted this, Lucy." Erza said as she laid her hand on the blonde's shoulder. "Don't be too worried, he lost quite a lot of blood but not enough to threaten his life in the slightest."

"He did pass out." The dragon slayer said, feeling more worried than he liked to admit.

"It's never good to lose blood, but he probably passed out due to a combination of that, stress and the fact that he still has to get used to his new body, which is obviously not as strong as his male one."

"You're probably right." Lucy smiled as she went to her own room.

"We're leaving tomorrow morning." The scarlet mage said as she also left the room.

Natsu somehow couldn't fall asleep. He listened to the calm and rhythmic breathing of the ice mage beside him. He felt confused to why he had felt so worried before. He had seen Gray in worse situations, but somehow it felt different. He always felt more worried with the girls (except for Erza), but this was Gray of all people.

The pinkette turned his head to the side and watched the sleeping mage beside him. Even by just seeing the silhouette, you could see it was the same ice mage. This body looked so different, yet felt so familiar at the same time.

The dragon slayer slowly sat up and watched the raven. He didn't understand himself but Natsu slowly crawled over to Gray and leaned over the raven's face. It was the first time he looked at him this closely since he had changed. The long eyelashes, the plump lips, the soft features.

Natsu had seen Gray, the male Gray, sleep many times before. It was one of the rare occasions that his face wasn't pulled into his usual frown. He always looked younger when he slept and somehow more fragile. It only occurred to Natsu now that, although he hated to admit it, the ice mage's face was very attractive.

And it was clearly still visible in this girl's face. Natsu couldn't believe that he first doubted this was the ice mage, since it was still so similar, even while sleeping.

For some reason the dragon slayer's heart started beating a bit faster the longer he looked at the ice mage. He leaned in a bit, inspecting the raven's face a bit closer, their noses almost touching when,

"What the hell are you doing?" The somewhat hoarse voice of the female ice mage sounded. A second after his eyes opened.

"I- I…" Natsu stuttered unable to explain. What exactly was he doing? A dark red color crept to his cheeks as he quickly crawled back to his own futon. "You were breathing a bit funny, I just wanted to make sure you weren't slipping into a coma, you stupid stripper." The dragon slayer lied, hiding his embarrassment behind the insults.

The ice mage didn't respond and the room went silent. After a while Natsu thought Gray had fallen back to sleep when he heard the light voice whisper.

"Thank you for taking care of me, Natsu."

Somehow the words relaxed the dragon slayer and he finally felt able to fall asleep, but not before lightly chuckling and teasing,

"Don't mention it, Gray-chan."

End of chapter 4

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Thank you for reading and like always; I'll upload as soon as possible although I can't really promise when that will be. Thank you!