"I hate it when you have to be nice to someone you really want to throw a brick at."
-Teenager post # 5908
CHAPTER 6: MOONLIGHT
8:18 PM
Vacant Room, Third Floor, Fairy Hills, Magnolia, Fiore
"So what exactly happened?" Erza asked, calmly sipping black coffee.
The pink-haired fire mage simply rolled his eyes at Gray Fullbuster, who had been, for the last five minutes, rolling on the floor whilst laughing at the large, stinging bump on the fire mage's head; courtesy of Erza and her iron fists.
"Speak, Dragneel." Erza Scarlet demanded, cautiously eyeing the white, suspicious creature beside the unconscious blonde.
"I will, once the little ice princess shuts up." He glowered at the ice mage.
"Fullbuster, shut up." Erza bossily ordered, making the cryomancer shoot a glare at the requip mage.
"I'm your class mayor. You can't just tell me to shut u-" the girls, sensing the drastic increase in Erza's 'Impatience Meter', hastily shoved a nearby pillow in his face, effectively muffling whatever words he said that would cause the apocalypse, held his arms and legs down, and cheerfully smiled at Erza Scarlet.
"You were saying, Natsu?" Mira purposefully misdirected Erza's attention, to which everyone sighed in relief once she did resume to questioning Natsu.
"So, it went like this," Natsu Dragneel, for the second time that day, told his tale of 'heroism', at least, in his opinion.
8:23 PM
Vacant Room, Third Floor, Fairy Hills, Magnolia, Fiore
Erza gasped dramatically, "She's freezing? Why didn't you say so?! Dragneel, hurry and get to warming her at once!"
"That was what I was doing, until you punched a hole in my head." The fire mage complained, to which Erza ignored.
"I don't care! Hurry and warm her up!" she ordered with fiery eyes and watched as Natsu lazily got up and walked towards the bed.
"Heat. We need more heat. I shall go get more candles!" Erza got up and briskly walked out of the room.
"Shouldn't someone go with her?" Levy asked, earning incredulous, surprised stares from everyone.
"Who'd want to?" Evergreen asked.
"That's a little bit mean, Ever." Wendy jokingly reprimanded.
"Couldn't Natsu just use his fire magic to heat up the place?" Sherry asked,
"No, Juvia thinks he'd burn the entire dorm down if he tried." Answered Juvia, earning an indignant 'hey!' from the fire mage.
The ice mage, on the other hand, finally broke free from the horrendous, confining pillow with a loud gasp. He looked around, and finding his target absent, walked towards the door.
"That's it! I've got a bone to pick with Scarlet! Hey strawberry-hair!" Gray Fullbuster, still half-naked, stormed out of the room; calling for the one and only Titania of Fairy Tail High. The remaining students, on the other hand, were internally debating whether to follow the two and save Earthland from destruction, or just stay put and save their lives.
"Did he just call her 'strawberry-hair'?" Laki sweat-dropped, thankful that Erza wasn't present.
Everyone looked at one another with silent comprehension, deciding to just stay put and save their lives after all.
8:25 PM
Kitchen, Fairy Hills, Magnolia, Fiore
A certain requip mage was standing tiptoed on chair, a small beam of light produced by her finger as she searched the top cabinet for the box of lavender candles. She was in deep concentration, thinking about spells which could instantly search for what the user needed, whilst rummaging through the messy, disorganized cabinet.
The rainstorm had finally ceased, it being replaced with a clear, bright, full moon. The moonlight shone and passed through the large windows, making the room dimly lit.
She frantically knocked the other things aside in worry for the freezing blonde-haired girl, not at all minding her surroundings until the slither of a smooth, dark voice filled the girl's ears.
"Scarlet." It dangerously whispered, and she whirled around in disarray.
That being done, the chair, the blasted, unforgivable chair, she thought, toppled with great force, forcing the rather jolted scarlet-haired girl to fall and land on something breathing, cold, and very much alive.
Erza Scarlet, losing composure every time her personal space was invaded, couldn't, for the life of her, speak, breathe, nor move.
So she just stared. She stared at the all too familiar black, midnight orbs in the moonlight. Her legs were in between his, both her hands slightly propped up against him while his hands were on the cold, tiled floor.
His skin radiated cool, icy freshness. And his raven hair was slightly ruffled, covering just the top of his eyes.
'His hair would feel like metal spikes, Erza. Metal, softly glowing, hypocrite spikes. Snap out of it.' Her mind screamed at her, but she could do nothing but gape and stare. Like a fish, she horridly thought.
Gray Fullbuster, on the other hand, came looking for an explanation; or a fight, rather, with the bossy Titania. Until she comically fell on him.
Originally, he thought she pounced on him with every intention of skewering him with a machete, or an axe, or whatever murdering weapon she preferred in the dark.
But in this awkward situation, where he could feel every soft puff of breath she took, he found the idea of facing her wrath much more likable and pleasant.
She smelled like strawberries, he thought; and he wanted to slap himself for the split-second idea of thinking he actually liked her scent. Her skin glowed in the moonlight, his hateful subconscious continued to notice, and her hair, which he never cared less about its length before, came in fury tangles and pooled at the floor just beside his face.
"You smell good." He whispered, causing the red-haired girl to mentally scream, if that was even possible.
He blinked in momentarily confusion. And slowly, he brought a hand up.
Erza, the ever unfazed, felt very fazed, dizzy, and nervous. And very, very much demented.
And then he flicked her forehead. Hard.
"You intemperate cryomancer!" she found herself sitting on the floor in a second, a hand over her forehead, and glared swords the laughing ice mage, who also sat up, a hand carelessly flung over his knee while the other propped himself on the floor.
"You should've seen your face, Scarlet." He continued to laugh, "I didn't know I was that captivating." He jokingly commented, watching in delight as her eyes radiated hell.
"You do smell good, though." And he didn't even know, for all the cares he gave in Earthland, why he was trying to appease the girl.
"What are you, a dog?" she snarled, grabbing a dropped can of tuna and throwing it towards his forehead in irk.
He froze the incoming flying can at the last minute with a sigh of relief and smiled at her.
"Why do you like throwing things so much?" he questioned, eyeing the can of tuna as if it would once more come alive and hit him on the head.
"I like to practice my target shooting." She answered imperiously, grabbing another dropped cup noodles and this time, successfully hitting the ice mage.
"I do know your weakness now, though." He cast her a full-fledged devilish grin, which she thought was a flash warning for an oncoming attack, and in a second, his face was once more mere inches from hers.
'That worked out pretty quickly.' He smirked as her eyes slightly widened and all her violent to-be thrashings ceased. He then moved away in triumph, leaving the red-haired girl looking for something else to throw.
"You're cute." He vaguely pointed out, while she huffed and crossly looked away.
"Gag me with a spoon." She scowled.
Gray Fullbuster stood up, reaching over the top cabinet, and drew the 'blasted box of scented candles', thought by her. Erza's eyes widened at the sight of the said candles.
"You inconsiderable prick! We've wasted so much time!" she exclaimed, snatching the box of candles away and left the kitchen, only to be followed by him.
"So now it's my fault?" he indignantly asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"Who else would it be?" she replied back, not bothering to slow her pace down.
"Who fell on me in the first place?" he shot back while she dropped the box of candles on the floor, faced him with unimaginable rage, and requipped a very deadly-looking, sharp scythe.
She was out for blood, he preposterously thought as she brandished it blindly in the dark.
"That never happened, Fullbuster." She exclaimed every word with a swish, as the ice mage dodged and blocked with nothing more than luck.
"It did, Scarlet." He managed to get out, barely missing her last swing as his hands gripped around the scythe's base handle, effectively stopping the killing machine.
"Okay, you need to chill." Gray noted, as she sent the weapon back to her dimension, to his sheer gratefulness.
"I do not need to do anything. I am perfectly calm and reasonable for that reason." She retorted, picking up the candles and continued brisk walking.
"You'd be much cuter without the bloodlust, though." He jovially tried to irk her. Once again, why he was trying to put effort in annoying the red-haired girl was beyond his understanding.
"You're insufferable." She primly replied, entering the vacant room where everyone was temporarily gathered with him in tow.