Finally I'm updating one of my stories! It's been almost 3 months since I last updated and I feel ashamed. I'm having a bad case of writer's block, I just can't seem to find inspiration, so writing this chapter was quite a pain in the ass! Especially since I actually wasn't planning to write down Natsu's and Gray's mission, since I'm not good at writing fights, but readers seemed to be pretty eager for the two to go on a mission together, so I felt like I didn't have much choice but to write it! I apologize if it's not that great, but like I said: I'm not good at writing missions. Although something surprised me: I had the biggest trouble to reach 3000 words (which I kind of set as a minimum for my chapters) but once I passed that, I suddenly hit 4000 words. Maybe I'm slowly crawling out of my writers block.)

This chapter isn't really that important to the story, just a fun in between chapter thing. But I do hope you like it anyway.

Chapter 8

Naked Mission

By Neko Erza

Gray inhaled deeply, letting the ice cold air fill his lungs. It had been too long since he last smelled fresh, snowy mountain air. The snow fell down non-stop. He could almost feel the different structures of the complex icy crystals as they fell down on his skin.

Gray took another deep breath before turning around to see where the dragon slayer was at.

"Hurry up, flamebrain!" He yelled annoyed when he saw Natsu was still a whole distance away.

"I don't know why you like the mountains so much." The pinkette grumbled as he made his way through the layer of snow. "This damn snow is in the way and disturbs all scents and the air is so damn cold it hurts my lungs."

"Stop whining." Gray said, yet a smile played around his lips. He proceeded his way up the path only he seemed to see, up to the village. "We're almost there."

"Are you sure? It all looks the same." Natsu said, looking around. He could barely see 5 meter in front of him due to the heavily falling snow.

"It doesn't to me." The ice mage said.

They floundered through the snow for about another ten minutes before they reached the small village. An old man stood at the edge of the town.

"Are you from Fairy Tail?" The man asked hopeful, yet there was also a hint of dread in his voice. Not a lot of outsiders visited their town, but occasionally a member of the dark guild would come and terrorize them. Any people who arrived in town couldn't be trusted until they were identified.

"Yes, I'm Gray Fullbuster and this is Natsu Dragneel." The raven said gesturing to the dragon slayer. Both of them showed their guild mark. Luckily, Gray remembered to pull his shirt's collar down, instead of his whole shirt up like he normally did.

"Ah yes, yes, that's the Fairy Tail guild mark! And they told me the name of the ice mage was Gray. Please follow me, I'll bring you to the major; he'll explain the situation."

The two of them followed the man into town. Natsu leaned in a little closer to the ice mage and whispered. "I'm surprised you remembered not to pull your shirt off to show your tattoo. You're really starting to learn, Gray-chan."

"Shut up. Flashing that old man might just give him a heart attack." The raven smirked.

Natsu chuckled and looked at the mountains surrounding the village. "Nah, don't you think he has seen enough mounts? In this cold weather I guess you can also see a lot of... peaks."

"Women wear too many clothes here to see their nipples through it." Gray said as he pushed the slayer away and rolled his eyes, but he could hardy supress a smile. He didn't know Natsu could make such dirty remarks.

A few minutes later they reached a small building. The old man knocked on the door and announced, "The Fairy Tail mages have arrived!"

The door opened and a man greeted them with a warm smile. "Please, come in, come in; it's no weather to be outside."

"No shit." Natsu muttered annoyed, but Gray jabbed his elbow into the pinkette's side and gave him a warning look to be polite. They stepped into the hallway, warmth spilling over them. The ice mage immediately took off his jacket.

Gray looked around and noticed that the major was looking at him with a confused expression. "Is something wrong?"

The major smiled and shook his head. "I didn't know Fairy Tail had another ice mage beside Gray Fullbuster."

It didn't take long for Gray to understand what was going on. "I am Gray Fullbuster."

Now the major looked truly confused. His eyes scanned Gray one more time. "I'm sorry?"

Natsu snickered as he caught on to the situation too. Actually they should have anticipated this.

"Yes, these are them, sir." The older man who had picked them up nodded. "They have the guild marks. These are Gray-san and Natsu-san."

"Yes, of course I remember mister Dragneel from the Daimatou Enbu. The whole town cheered you on when you fought the Sabertooth dragon slayers. But..." He looked at Gray again from head to toe. "I just seem to remember Gray Fullbuster being... more manly?"

Gray let out a sigh, not caring to hide his annoyance. "I am. I got cursed a few weeks back and now I'm temporarily a woman. We haven't found the counter curse yet, but there's nothing wrong with my magic."

"If you truly are Gray, then I don't doubt your abilities. There's a reason why we sent you the request. That fight against Sabertooth's Rufus was truly amazing. We need someone with that kind of talent."

"Well, since I am Gray Fullbuster, I am someone with that kind of talent." Gray said defensively when the major looked at him not all that convinced.

"I assure you it's really him." Natsu skipped in.

"I hope this isn't a problem?" Gray said still feeling piqued. He really hated to be doubted.

"Oh no, no problem at all. This isn't a matter of gender. Whether you're male or female, if you're Gray Fullbuster, you can do the job." The man smiled. "Although this is going to disappoint a lot of the girls in our town; they were quite looking forward to see you."

"Gee, I wonder if prancing around naked on TV had something to do with that?" Natsu said, nudging the ice mage in the side.

"I don't prance." The ice mage growled, crossing his arms.

"I'm really glad you could make it here so fast." The major continued, ignoring their little brawl. "I actually hadn't expected you before tomorrow or at least not for another few hours, most people get lost a few times on the way up here."

"I grew up in a nearby village, I know the terrain."

"Oh, that will definitely make it a whole lot easier, because you'll have to cross the mountain for this mission." The major smiled. "I'll explain the situation to you."

"So what exactly are we doing here?" Natsu huffed as he tucked his scarf closer around his neck, trying to keep the falling snow away from his skin. Waiting in this freezing weather for hours really wasn't something he'd signed up for.

"Didn't you listen before?" Gray said annoyed.

"Not really."

'At least he's honest about it,' Gray thought with a sigh. "There's an important trading route along this way and the village is left in charge to control it, but the dark guild is trying to get a hold of it. They are sabotaging the route by letting the glaciers melt, so this way becomes too dangerous to cross. No goods can come through, unless people pay a hefty toll to the dark guild, then they let them through."

"But if they blocked the road, how can they let the goods through?" Natsu mused.

"They probably have an ice or snow mage."

"So what's the plan again? And why are we hiding behind a rock in this horrible weather?"

"Really, try to listen next time, stupid flame brain." The ice mage growled. "We don't know where the dark guild's hideout is and this is a central point; they have to pass through here some time. That's why we're waiting for them: so they lead us to their camp."

"Can't we just go look for it?"

"No, there are hundreds of caves in these mountains. We'll just have to wait."

"And what are we going to do once we've defeated them? Push 'em off a cliff?"

"That's why they gave us these, remember?" Gray said holding up a light flare. "People from the town will come and get them and put them in jail once we defeated them."

"Okay." Natsu nodded, starting to understand the plan. "But how long are we going to lie around in the snow like this exactly? My toes are freezing off."

"Gee, who would have thought sandals were bad footwear to wear on a snowy mountain?" Gray said rolling his eyes.

"Shut up, I don't have any problems with the cold as long as I'm able to move, but we've just been sitting here since forever," Natsu pouted with a bored sigh.

He looked over to the ice mage sitting about a meter away. Gray had already lost part of his outfit, only wearing pants and a tank top. Seeing this female Gray sitting in the snow like that, he couldn't help but feel fascinated. He didn't know why he had never noticed before how the mage's pale skin resembled the snow so much. Next to that, it was in perfect contrast with the raven hair. Seeing the mage here felt like seeing an animal in its natural habitat for the first time, like this scenery wouldn't feel complete without Gray in it.

Natsu quickly shook his head, wondering where all those weird thoughts suddenly came from. But still he was curious. "What about you? Don't you ever get cold?"

Gray looked at Natsu eyeing him from head to toe, feeling weirdly observed by him. This was the first time he could remember that the dragon slayer showed any sort of interest in him apart from fighting. "Not really."

"Really? Never? Not even the tiniest bit?" The pinkette asked intrigued.

"Yeah well, I used to train stark naked in blizzards for hours since I was only eight. Compared to that, this feels like a freaking sunny vacation." Gray chuckled, running his fingers through the snow. "I can feel the difference in temperature of course, but no, I don't remember feeling cold in years."

Natsu laughed, "Ice mages sure are wei-", but stopped abruptly and turned his head to look around the rock they were hiding behind.

"What's wrong?" Gray asked, suddenly alert.

"I hear someone coming."

Gray also peeked around the rock, and sure enough two people were visible on top of the hill, their figures blurred by the falling snow. "Where did they suddenly come from?"

"Dunno, but I can hear their voices."

"What are they saying?" The raven asked.

"I can't really hear them clearly, this stupid snow blocks too many. I can hear the sound of them speaking but I can't distinguish any words." The slayer growled annoyed.

The two figures disappeared over the hill again. Gray turned to Natsu, "Do you think you can keep track of them like this?"

"Not sure, if the weather gets worse it's gonna be hard."

"Well, we actually don't have any choice, we have to find out where they set up their camp. The villages on the foot of the mountain are waiting for their goods. We need to take them out as soon as possible."

"Let's go then." Natsu said, grabbing Gray's arm and pulling him along. They ran up the hill to where the figures disappeared. Once they reached the top they hid behind another rock, making sure they weren't spotted by the dark guild members.

"You know this part of the mountain?" Natsu asked keeping an eye on the two.

"They are taking the small path along the side of the valley, it leads to a whole labyrinth of caves if I'm not mistaken." Gray answered, then looked to his wrist, "you, uhm… can let go of me now."

"Oh," Natsu said flustered, quickly retracting his hand that was still holding onto Gray's wrist. A small blush crept to his cheeks. "We need to follow them, otherwise we'll lose them." He said quickly to change the conversation.

"Indeed, let's hurry, but keep a safe distance."

The two Fairy Tail mages followed the dark guild members along a small path around the mountain, trying to keep a safe distance. The path continued higher and higher, to the top.

"I'm not entirely sure if we're going the right way, ice princess. We're climbing awfully high. Why would they set up camp this high?"

"Because people won't go looking for them there as quickly, it's easier to defend if someone did find them and I guess it gives them better access to control the glaciers."

"Pretty smart for a dark guild. They might be tougher than we first thought."

"Being smart doesn't necessarily mean you're tough." Gray looked at Natsu and smirked. "Same goes for the other way around."

"What do you mean?" Natsu asked confused, missing he was being insulted.

"Exactly." Gray chuckled. He just couldn't help insulting Natsu; with that confused look he always reminded Gray of a puppy. "I think we're almost there, can you still hear them?"

Natsu listened for a moment then nodded. "They are still pretty close, so don't make any loud noises; they might hear. Luckily the weather cleared up somewhat, makes it a hell of a lot easier to follow them." Snowflakes were now just lazily flittering from the sky.

They slogged through the pack of snow that covered the mountain ground. After a while Natsu stuck out his arm to hold Gray back.

"I think we've finally reached their hide-out, I can hear a lot more voices now. Let's go beat them up." Natsu said, setting his hand aflame.

"All right, let's go."

The two climbed just a little higher, where they had full view of the camp. Tents and goods were set up all around the caves, about fifty people swarming between them.

"More than I'd anticipated. You think that's all of them?" The raven asked the pinkette.

"Dunno, can't really smell it. Might be some more inside the caves. Hopefully they won't run off through one."

"I doubt it. Most caves around here have dead ends, too small passages or are just too damn long to wander through unprepared."

"Then I'll just smoke 'em out if necessary." Natsu smirked.

Grey rolled his eyes, but smiled. He scanned their surroundings once more and pointed to the edge of a cliff, on the right side of the hide-out. "That must be the place they control the glaciers from. It would be best to prevent them from going there, because it shouldn't be too hard for their ice mage to make an escape route from there."

"So more easier said: burn everyone down before they get there."

Gray raised an eyebrow at the over-destructive mage. "Yeah, something like that."

The two of them stuffed their backpacks away behind a rock and stood up, ready to charge the dark guild. Gray was just about to start towards them, when Natsu hold him back. He looked around confused at the dragon slayer.

"Hey Gray… just be careful, okay?"

Gray's mouth opened in surprise. "Yeah… you too, Natsu."

The pinkette smiled. "Don't want anything bad happening to our precious little ice princess."

"What made you so concerned all of a sudden?" Gray asked, not entirely sure where all this concern for him was suddenly coming from.

Looking like he only just realized how he'd sounded, Natsu started blushing slightly, "You know… because if something happens to you, the master will be even more pissed off. So make sure your girly ass doesn't get itself into trouble and needs saving."

"But I thought it was an ass worth saving?" The raven girl grinned right before sprinting off.

Natsu watched speechless as the ice mage ran off to the dark guild, then he chuckled and ran after her.

Natsu punched down another dark guild member. As soon as the Fairy Tail mages had attacked the place, a whole lot more of them came out of the cave to defend their hide-out. There were a few with a decent bit of magic, but most of them went down with just a few blows. The only strength they seemed to have was their numbers.

"How's it going over there, ice princess?" Natsu yelled to Gray, who was fighting somewhere behind him.

"Way too easy! Where did these guys learn how to fight? You see I could have done this by myself?" Gray laughed.

Natsu knocked another one down, while spinning around to make sure Gray was doing fine. Even though the ice mage said everything was going great, Natsu didn't want to take any chances of taking him back injured. He really is too overprotective when it came to the girls, even if it's just a temporary one.

A bit further away he saw the raven easily swatting down the people attacking him. The sight of it seemed to hypnotize him for a moment. Even though he had spent training practically every day with the ice mage for the last few weeks, he had never seen him fight like this. Gray swirled around easily dodging magic and hits of his opponents, hitting them back with his ice. No movement seemed superfluous or rushed and every step was well coordinated.

Had Gray's movements always been this graceful?

Natsu couldn't seem to take his eyes of off the raven.

That is, until he got knocked down by one of the dark guild members.

"Natsu, what the hell are you doing?" Gray yelled annoyed as he saw the dragon slayer go down. "Pay some attention to it, will ya?"

Natsu crawled back up and hit the person that had knocked him down knockout. "Stupid ice pervert, distracting me." He mumbled annoyed as he lit his fist up to hit another attacker. More came towards him so he continued his counter-attacks, "Fire Dragon's Roar!"

The flaming breath scorched down the attackers, along with all the snow on the side of the mountain behind them. The melting snow slithered down the rocks.

"Goddammit Natsu, we're here to PREVENT the ice from melting, you idiot!" Gray growled annoyed at his teammate.

'Taking a fire mage on a mission to save ice glaciers, great idea Gray', he cursed himself.

"But these damn idiots just keep coming, this is getting pretty boring!" The pinkette countered. The dark members just kept on coming and it didn't seem like they'd soon be giving up. Even though they weren't skilled fighters, their numbers were certainly starting to tire the two Fairy Tail mages out.

"We should find out who their master is and take him or her out, maybe the rest will cave in too then." Gray said to Natsu when he passed him.

"How do we know who it is?" The slayer asked, looking around.

"Can you lazy good-for-nothings not even take out a little girl?" One of the dark members yelled to the others. He stood on a rock, not participating in the fight.

"My guess it's that guy." Natsu said, nudging Gray, but the raven wasn't paying attention to that matter any longer.

"I'm not a little girl!" Gray yelled angry, but the fact that his voice sounded more like shrieking kind of nullified that statement.
"Ice make: cold Excalibur!" The huge ice sword formed while the raven stormed towards the man. But before he even got to him, Gray was roughly yanked back by his arm. He looked back to see what had stopped him, only to see it was the weight of his own sword, unable to lift it properly.

He rolled his eyes, "Oh, right."

The man had a cocky grin on his face as he watched the raven. "Maybe you shouldn't use such big weapons, little girl. It's way too heavy for you! Maybe you should make something more suitable, like a frying pan?"

"A fr…? You stupid, cocky bastard." Gray growled annoyed. The big ice sword vanished and instead two smaller ones appeared in his hands and he resumed the attack, but this time was blocked by a barrier of ice.

"I knew this whole operation had to involve an ice mage." Gray said looking at the caster of the spell; a young woman with blonde hair stood at the end of the ice wall.

"Yes, and clearly I'm a whole lot better than you." The woman said haughtily with a chuckle. "Can't even make ice weapons she can wheel."

"At least I don't sound like a cocky bitch."

"You can be quite bitchy, Gray-chan." Natsu chipped in with a grin before knocking down some other members.

"Who's side are you on, jackass?"

"Fairy Tail mages, huh?" The man stated. "I've heard they fight amongst themselves quite a lot. I wonder if it was such a great idea to send this duo. Quite a special one, indeed: fire and ice. Or I guess it's true that opposites attract. Sure an odd couple."

"We… we're not a couple." Natsu said blushing.

"Quit your blabbering, already." Gray said annoyed. "We're here to put a stop to your plans."

"I don't really feel like fighting." The master turned to the blonde woman. "Why don't we let the two beautiful, little ice girls fight? Should be a nice catfight."

Gray gritted his teeth. "I'll show you what this little girl can do. Time to get serious."

Natsu quickly turned to the raven. Every person in Fairy Tail knew that Gray 'getting serious' always started with the same thing: taking of his clothes. "No, Gray-" But the dragon slayer's warning came already too late: the pants, top, and bra already were sent flying.

The other ice mage's eyes opened confused. "Why…?"

"Gray, put your damn clothes back on!" Natsu yelled blushing. He turned to the man he was fighting , whose eyes almost fell out of their sockets staring at Gray. Natsu angrily gave him a fiery punch in the middle of his face. "Don't fucking stare."

All the other male dark guild members had forgotten their fight for a moment and just stared at the almost completely naked ice Fairy.

"T-that ain't a little girl." One of the men stuttered.

"I wish we had women like that in our guild." Another said. The possibility of fainting from blood loss due to nosebleeds was getting dangerously high amongst the male members.

The leader shouted, "Get back to fighting, you idiots! Stop staring like a fool," even though his own eyes were glued to the bouncing chest.

The men snapped out of their daze. Kind of.

"I'm gonna fight that raven! You can have the flame monster!" A man yelled while pushing another towards Natsu.

"Like hell, I'm going to get her!"

"What, I'm not good enough for ya?!" Natsu yelled piqued. "Fire Dragon's roar!" Another group went down. The others were starting to seem hesitant to attack the angry dragon slayer and started to keep a safe distance. Their fight had been going on for quite a while now and even though they were clearly outnumbered, the dark guild hadn't been able to put a scratch on the Fairy Tail mages.

Meanwhile Gray fought the other ice mage, who seemed to be not half as skilled as he was. Her magic lacked stability and all of her creations felt lifeless, without emotion. People like that made terrible creation mages. He had defeated her within no time.

"Dammit…" Gray cursed, supporting his breasts with his arm, "I remember why I bought the bra." But his clothes were nowhere to be seen. They probably flew off somewhere.

"Told you not to do it, stupid perverted stripper." Natsu said with flaming red cheeks as he quickly tied his scarf around the raven's chest.

Then they turned towards the guild master. "Seems like your lackeys had enough after all. You can surrender peacefully now, or be in a lot of pain." Natsu grinned, cracking his fingers.

The man looked around nervously. "Like hell I will. Attack them!"

But none of the others moved a step. "Seems like you don't have a lot of choice."

"No!" The master yelled as he tried to run away.

"Ice make: trap!"

Ice formed around the feet of the fleeing man and he smacked to the ground.

"I really have no idea why master said this mission would be too hard. This was a pretty whimsy guild." Gray sighed as he pulled the master from the ground to his feet again. "Ice make: handcuffs."

"Why are so many of the masters of dark guilds such pussies? One second they are all talk, the nexts they are running away with their tail between their legs. It's pretty pathetic." Natsu chuckled.

"Stupid Fairy Tail! With its stupid dragon half breeds and perverted strippers!"

"Yeah, yeah, we've heard that before." Gray said as he pushed the man forward.

"This isn't the last you'll hear of me. I will have this trading route!"

"Stop blabbering already!" Natsu said annoyed.

"I'll come back with more followers and a more powerful ice mage and-"

BANG.

The master fell to the ground unconscious before Gray's feet.

"Here's your freakin' frying pan." Gray said as the icy kitchen utensil evaporated from his hand.

End of chapter 8

Next chapter might be a continuation of their mission, depends on how well writing goes.

You might have noticed that Natsu called Gray 'her' at a certain moment, that was intentionally because I think Natsu is starting to see Gray more and more as a girl. That's probably the hardest about writing this story: which gender should I describe Gray with. His/her, him/her? Is it time to start calling him her?
It's kind of a dilemma since Gray is still fully convinced he's a man. I'd love to hear your opinion about it.

And yes, I obviously based the frying pan bit on Tangled. I was trying to think of a womanly weapon, and then decided to make it a frying pan, because if Tangled showed us one thing: a frying pan is definitely a weapon.

As for the Gray wearing Natsu's scarf bit: I just really love the idea of Fem!Gray wearing Natsu's scarf as a top (or male Gray for that matter, but than just as a scarf of course, not as a top).

Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think or what you'd like to see happen!