Chapter 12

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Lucy's POV

I woke up nice and early and got prepared for the day. I was going to go on a mission with my team and I was rather excited. It felt like it had been ages since we had gone on a mission together. Sting still had to go on the one Rogue and I was going to go on. He insisted that Rogue did it with him and I told him to go ahead because I was hoping to go on a mission with my team.

I showered and washed my hair using my cherry blossom shampoo and conditioner. When I was done in the bath I brushed my teeth as I had already eaten breakfast when I woke up. I left the bathroom and saw Rogue looking rather sleepy because he was just waking up and had a bit of a bed head. I giggled at the state of his hair which stuck up in all directions. That and his face which was still half asleep made me wish I had a camera so that I could capture the image and tease him about his adorableness later. Unfortunately I had no such luck as Natsu broke my camera quite a while ago and it was, sadly, beyond repair.

"What's Lucy-san laughing at?" I felt a tug at my foot, "And can Fro have something to eat?"

It was Frosh. He had a questioning look on his face that fitted him perfectly. In my opinion there are different categories of cute. There's cute then there's adorable and the last category is 'squeal' because if something is too cute you just squeal. And in my opinion Frosch was squeal. (This is the way I judge cuteness. With the exceeds, who would you put in what category?)

"Of course you can have food cutie. And I'm laughing at Rogue' bedhead" I told him. He looked delighted at the prospect of food, "Why don't you go wake Lector up?" I suggested he then scurried off to do as I asked.

I went to my fridge mentally thanking Freed for putting up runes because it was full for once. I grabbed some fish and warmed it up and gave it to the exceeds. Lector was cranky about being woken up, but he cheered up when he saw fish. I went to Rogue to see that he had fallen asleep again.

"Rogue is not a morning person" Lector explained to me. I could clearly see that. I shook him awake, which he wasn't very pleased about.

"Good morning sleeping beauty, I suggest that you do something about that bed head of yours" I said whilst laughing.

He grumbled something that was incoherent and went to the bathroom. I then went to wake up Sting, which took ages. I finally woke him up by putting food by his face. He then sniffed in his sleep and sat up looking around frantically for the source of the smell.

When everyone was ready, Sting and Rogue went to the train station to head out for their mission. I laughed at the look on Sting's face when the word 'train' was mentioned. I went to the guild, balancing on the edge of the river as usual. I summoned Plue to keep me company; he was dancing as he walked next to me. He was always trying to make me laugh and he succeeded more often than not. When we arrived at the guild I ordered my usual chocolate milkshake and Mira got some candy for Plue, which he was absolutely ecstatic about.

After a while I felt an abnormally warm arm around my shoulders. I turned to see Natsu, as I suspected, who was grinning as usual. I couldn't help but smile back at him.

"Hey Luce, want to go on a mission?" he asked enthusiastically. I smiled and nodded. If I ever turned him down he got all depressed and made me feel really guilty. We went to go pick out a mission with the help of Gray and Erza. After much debate about whether we would take a complicated mission or a relaxed one. In the end, we decided to go on a mission to find an ancient book. The reward was 500,000 jewels. The book must be in a dangerous place for the reward to be that high.

We headed out and when we got to the train Natsu started complaining so Erza knocked him out. I laughed at my predictable team. I followed Erza as she dragged Natsu by the collar into the train.

"Now, we might have to split up on this mission so I think that if the need comes I will go with Lucy and Gray will go with Natsu and Happy" Erza said with a glare in Gray's direction as if she was daring him to argue. He must value his life because he nodded with fake enthusiasm. Natsu just lay there on the floor, not hearing a word of what we were saying.

It took a while but we finally got to the town where the book supposedly was. We headed to the forest surrounding the secluded town and walked until we came across a temple.

"I think that the book might be in there, but there's probably traps so be careful" Erza declared. When we got into the tunnel there was a path that led left and one that led right. We decided to go in our designated groups. Natsu was not happy at all about being put in a group with Gray. He tried to argue but Gray quickly covered his mouth and dragged him away. I can just see the fight that that action will cause. We walked for quite a while in silence.

"Huh, where are all the traps?" Erza said. But it appeared that she spoke to soon because spikes appeared from every direction. I dodged them as they headed towards me and mentally thanked Laxus, Sting and Rogue for their help training me. Laxus was like a big brother to me, and I don't know what Sting was to me other than rather annoying but still, I'm thankful that he helped me train. If it weren't for his training I would have been skewered by the wooden spikes.

I turned to check on Erza. She was standing staring at a wooden spike that she had cut in half. She was staring at it as if she was asking it how it dare attack her. I smiled at her antics; of course Erza would destroy the spikes rather than dodge them. It was like her to be destructive.

We continued along the passage with Erza walking in front of me because that's what she insisted upon. Eventually we came to a point where the road forked into two different paths.

We got ready for an attack when we heard footsteps coming from the right path.