And thus the continuation of plan B, or really, the after affect in other words. Just cause I wanted to sorta keep going with the plot for the plan, but it not really have anything to do with the plan, if you get what I'm saying.

Plan B: Ball (Aftermath)

The moment that consciousness hit Lucy, she let out a rumbling groan. Everything ached. Her head, her feet, her eyes, her ears, her stomach, her chest, her arms, her butt, and just … everything. She wasn't quite ready to be awake, she wanted to sleep the pain away, but she knew that it doesn't work like that. Her mind was awake thanks to the aches, and they weren't gonna let her go back to sleep until they were dealt with.

Peeking an eye open, she saw the familiar paint shade of her apartment ceiling being lit up by the painfully bright morning sun. Lifting an arm up, she sluggishly tossed them over her eyes, trying to protect them from the evil beams of light coming from her window. Sliding it back and forth, she wiped the sleep from her eyes before dropping it back down onto the ground with a sigh. But instead of the soft bounce of her mattress, she hissed when her wrist bone suddenly smacked against hard wood.

She was on the floor.

And was being pinned down. With another groan, she lifted her head enough to see what it was that was lying across her stomach. To say the least, she wasn't very surprised to see a head of pink hair resting on her stomach, his arms splayed out in front of him gripping the corner of the blanket that had been precariously thrown on top of her. If she had to guess, she would say that he was going to lay the blanket over her, but ended up tripping, falling on her with the blanket still in hand and just decided to stay there. Happy was lying across her shins, completely pinning her down with his claws digging into the black cover …

Why was she in a giant black bag? And it wasn't a garbage bag, it had a zipper going along the side, like a sleeping bag, but it went all the way up. She was lucky it wasn't zipped all the way up, or else she probably would have gone into panic mode. And that's when she realized … it was a body bag. One used to move dead bodies around, or in some cases, kidnappings.

She didn't have the energy to move a muscle, especially enough to remove the two boys lying on top of her. She supposed she should be freaking out like she would have originally, but she was just too tired and her head hurt too much to yell and scream and flail around. So, to pass the time, she examined herself and her partners.

Natsu's head was nestled on her stomach, but that was all he was really touching. He was lying horizontally across her, thankfully. She wouldn't have cared if she was going to hurt even more, if he had been lying completely on top of her like she sometimes wakes up to, she would have kicked them both as hard as she physically could. All he was wearing was his puffy white pants, but they were sagging down his legs slightly, his belt missing and she could see the rim of his red boxers. His spiked hair was sagging over his forehead with his bangs, but what she found interesting was that the tips of the pink locks were black. Not charred, but dyed. His signature scarf wasn't anywhere to be found from her position, but she would keep her eye out for it when she was finally able to stand up.

Happy looked relatively normal, if not a little bloated from, no doubt, an inhumanely amount of fish consumption. He was hugging her legs and snoring lightly, his tail wrapped around her visible foot, and she had to admit, it was really cute.

She couldn't see any of the possible damage inflicted upon herself thanks to the body bag and the blanket. She could see that her arms were free of anything that shouldn't be there, but for the rest of her body … she was starting to get curious, or a better word would be scared.

She couldn't remember a damn thing from the night before, other than getting to the Guild, having a few drinks with Natsu, and then everyone asking her to try their drinks … after that, it was a blank. She vaguely remembered a little dancing, but that was still a big blur among the blank spot in her memory. Her room didn't look all that trashed, other than a few things being knocked off her dresser, the window sill looking a little on the burnt side and some clothes lying around. She doubted anything really happened here and that most of the night had been spent at the Guild. She knew she was completely hammered the night before, so either Happy had flown her and Natsu back to her apartment, or Natsu had been sober enough to carry her himself.

Her face pinched up in discomfort when Natsu turned his face into her stomach, huffing out an uncomfortably hot gust of air onto her already sweltering stomach. Natsu's naturally overheated body temperature not helping.

Man, she needed an aspirin. She was about to close her eyes and try and force herself back into a hangover stupor, when her stomach suddenly lurched. She smacked her hand across her mouth, a burning hot burp slipping out silently. She needed to get to the bathroom, and soon. She had a feeling that she'd be seeing everything she drank last night very soon.

Mustering all the strength that she could, she sat up and tossed Natsu's head off of her, his hands still gripping the blanket. She wasn't able to kick Happy off, his claws dug too deeply into the body bag fabric, so, with a slightly strangled cry, pulled herself out of the body bag and rushed to the bathroom, stumbling the entire way. She threw the door open and ran to the toilet just in time to relieve herself of … an orange liquid with metal screws floating in it. The sight of it made her heave again.

When she was sure that she would be fine temporarily, she stood up shakily and walked to the sink, splashing water on her face and a little on her hair to help her smooth it away from her face. She was panting and her face felt like it was on fire. Maybe … this was more than a hangover. Yes, her stomach and head was killing her, but it felt like … more. She had been hungover before, and it wasn't like this. All it had been was the aches and the vomiting, but her entire body was flushed and she felt rather weak.

Either the amount of alcohol was just too much for her body, or she had done something last night that was making her sick. She really hoped it was just the alcohol, she didn't have the money or time to be sick.

She looked up at her reflection, seeing her flushed cheeks, the coat of sweat that was growing on her forehead and the hazy look her eyes held. Well, no wonder her neck is so hot, she's got Natsu's scarf coiled around it … what.

Her half-lidded eyes widened at the sight of the treasured, checkered scarf coiled rather thoroughly around her neck. And no wonder she hadn't noticed when she was looking at herself when she was on the floor. It had been bundled up in the back and tied, making it flat against her neck like a collar. She twisted her shoulders so she could look at the tie and knew instantly from the multitude of twists and windings that she wouldn't be able to untie it on her own.

She huffed out a breath and leaned against the sink, her knees beginning to shake from holding herself up for too long. Taking a deep breath to help clear her mind, she stood up as straight as she could and stumbled to the kitchen. Pulling out a glass from her cupboard, she held it under the faucet and struggled to turn it on for a few seconds until cold water came rushing out and into the cup. Pulling the cup out from under the stream, she lifted it to her lips and chugged the entire glass in three chugs, holding it under the still running faucet to get more. Her throat was on fire.

She had to wake up Natsu and Happy and get to the Guild to figure out what the hell had happened last night. She knew that Mira hadn't drunk anything, saying that she had to make sure that everything stayed at least a little under control since the Master would more than likely be the most drunk. Reaching for another cabinet, she pulled out a bottle of medical pills that Wendy had given her that should help her body heal itself faster—no matter what it was that was wrong—and turned back towards her bedroom.

Time to awaken the dragon and his cat.

^V^V^V^V^V^

It took the trio about two hours to finally completely wake up and get to the Guild, mostly thanks to Natsu waking up still partially drunk and hadn't recognized at her first—until he saw his scarf and smelt her scent. She gave him one of the pills and he seemed to sober up pretty quickly. He didn't even appear to have a stomachache.

She was carrying Happy in her arms, still sleeping and refusing to awaken, when they reached the Guild, stepping through the completely gone doors. She couldn't remember if that had been their fault when they arrived, or someone had finished it off sometime during the night. Either way, everyone seemed to be awake, and some of the outside Guild members appeared to have left sometime during her absence and unconsciousness.

She had Natsu's arm thrown across her shoulders, apparently the stomachache hitting him halfway through their walk and wanted to have her as a support beam. But she swore to him that if he threw up on her, she'd dump him in the river—which made him stop moaning instantly, but that might have been due to the fact that he knocked unconscious for a few seconds.

Either way, they made it there in one piece.

Everyone grumbled their greetings to the three of them when they passed by on their way to the bar, Lucy murmuring her own hellos but not really paying them any mind. She wanted to talk to Mira about what had happened last night. The Guild was trashed.

Tables were thrown about the room, chairs were broken and hanging from the ceiling, a few people were passed out either half naked, completely naked, or wearing something that belonged to the opposite gender, the walls had graffiti of strange lettering and immature drawings of penises all over, some on the ceiling that Lucy wouldn't even begin to guess how they managed to do. Summed up, everything was absolutely chaotic. She was beginning to become nervous as to how much damage she had done, if any at all.

When they reached the back bar, where Mira stood in the act spot, rubbing down a mug with that same content smile on her face, she dumped Natsu onto a stool and threw Happy onto the counter. Her arms were aching from supporting the both of them, so she didn't care that Natsu had happened to fall off of the stool and Happy had bounced somewhere out of sight. She fixed her eyes on Mira with a determined gaze to get information from the woman, just knowing that she knew absolutely everything that had happened and would hold certain things over their heads if she didn't find out what it was.

"Oh, Lucy! It's nice to see you up and about." The white haired barmaid said kindly, placing the beer mug back into its rightful place before picking up a wine glass. "What can I do for you?"

"I need information, Mira. What the hell happened last night?!" she asked, setting herself onto the stool beside her and leaned against the counter. The magic pill had definitely helped with the hangover side effects, but she still wasn't feeling completely like herself. She still felt flushed and extremely hot, not to mention a little dizzy, but she would blame it on carrying Natsu halfway to the Guild.

"Why, a lot of things happened. And not to worry, Jason took plenty of pictures and footage, so I don't think I'll need to explain."

All the blood drained from Lucy's face. She had completely forgotten that Jason had been invited to the party to document the party of the year, and now, who knew what kind of crazy stories he'd spread about the pictures he took! He had once written an article about her and Elfman having a secret relationship, which had caused a lot of confusion and drama within the guild. Evergreen had threatened to turn her to stone, Bixlow had made multiple dirty comments that embarrassed both her and Evergreen, comments that she would rather not think about. Natsu had believed her when she said that nothing was going on, him saying that he would have been able to smell him on her if that had been going on. She didn't know if she should have been relieved by the fact, or disturbed that Natsu was able to tell who she had come into contact with during the day just by smelling her. Not to mention that Mira had seemed … heartbroken, her eyes shifting between the stellar mage and Natsu before promptly passing out. By the time she had woken up, the issue had been resolved and they told her it had just been a crazy dream.

Mira must have seen the complete horror on her face, because she suddenly giggled and patted her shoulder comfortingly.

"Don't worry, dear, he doesn't have any of the pictures yet. I requested that the Guild hold them and decide which ones he can have before he publishes the article. I was just going to wait for everyone to wake up before putting them into the Lacrima projector."

Though it made her happy that Jason didn't have the pictures and that they would be able to decide which ones Jason could choose from, she was still incredibly nervous about the entire guild seeing what she might have done. She didn't have a single idea what she had done last night, but she hoped it wasn't so attention grabbing that Jason would take hundreds of her. There had been several Guilds at the party, so it wouldn't be too much of a surprise if she hardly showed up in any of the pictures at all.

"Until then, why don't you have a drink?"

"NO! Never again!" Lucy exclaimed, throwing her hands forward as if to shove the very thought away from her.

"I was thinking more along the lines of tea, or hot chocolate." Mira giggled behind her hand, awaiting the girls reply with interest.

"Surprise me." Lucy sighed, dropping her head onto the counter with a thud. When she heard the clink of the mug being set beside her head, she mumbled her thanks but didn't lift her head.

What kind of things happened last night? She knew that, due to the guild's interesting quirks, there was going to be some good blackmail material, but what good would it be if she could possibly be just as embarrassed. She became a pretty different person when she was drunk, or so her friends told her, and she was concerned about what kind of things she had done. She knew that once, when they had been training for games, she had come onto Natsu, which had absolutely terrified the boy. She doesn't remember a thing from that night, and that's what scares her. She was told that he carried her to the bathroom on his back, but who knew what kind of stuff she tried on him when they were alone! He would be the only one to know about it unless he told the other guys, but they never teased her about anything—which they would have immediately done if they learned. So, either, she hadn't done a single thing, or Natsu kept it all a secret.

He never acted differently towards her, so her guess is that he must have brushed it off as the alcohol doubling her 'weirdo'ness. Or maybe he knew it was the alcohol that was making her act weird, and didn't want to hold it to her. Or maybe—

"Okay everyone! I hope you're ready to see the pictures from last night!" Mira's voice cut off her thought pattern, waking her up from her daydream to look up. Mira had sat the Lacrima ball on top of the counter and held a glowing square between her fingers. With a giggle, she slipped it inside of the ball and stood back, watching as a beam of light shot into the air to make a screen.

She felt Natsu finally get up from the floor, albeit groggily and most likely not entirely awake, and sit on the stool beside her, the one that he had fallen off of the first time. He squinted up at the glowing screen, everyone waiting for the pictures to start filing through with a nervous excitement.

She was thankful that first picture that came up wasn't of her. It was Laxus and Gajeel arm wrestling on one of the tables, both looking like they weren't even trying and simply smirked at one another from across the table. The next was of Gajeel, lying on the floor, his eyes swirling and mouth hanging open with a table split in half in the background and Laxus walking away with his hand held out in victory. She chuckled along with everyone else, while Natsu bellowed out loudly, smacking his fist on the counter.

The next was of Levy, sitting innocently at one of the booths with a book hiding her face. Lucy could see the white around her knuckles as she clutched the book tightly, her knees pulled up to her chin. Levy was annoyed. Lucy could just see it. The Shadow Gear team stood behind her, smiling at the camera, and giving her antler ears. She apparently had enough of their fooling around because the next picture was the two of them lying face first on the ground, smoking square indents on their heads while Levy was in the exact same position as the last, only the content smile was visible on her face now. Lucy knew that Levy first starts out as an agitated drunk, but then progressively grows loopy. And it was clear the girl had been drinking thanks to the four empty glasses of who knows what sitting on the table.

The next had everyone laughing.

It was Gray and Lyon, their foreheads pressed together as they glared heatedly at one another with Juvia and Chelia hugging in the background with hearts in their eyes as they stared at the two eyes make wizards. A collage of pictures followed after, showing what happened in chronological order. Lyon and Gray were now standing apart, but their shirts were seen fluttering in the air in the background, Chelia and Juvia both jumping for their designated ones. The next made Lucy blush, because now Gray was completely naked, staring down at himself in confusion and panic with Lyon apparently screaming at him. Juvia was in the back, passed out with a fountain of blood shooting up from her nose while Chelia had her face covered.

And in came Erza, her face flushed but looking angrier than usual. She crushed the two boys under her feet, both of them having tears running down their faces, and Juvia and Chelia gripping each of Erza's arms, trying to pry the warrior away from their beloveds.

There were a few with the other Guilds, some with Mermaid Heel girls posing, but not looking intoxicated in the least. There was another that had Lucy smirking in satisfaction. Levy was seated in the same spot, but now, she had company. Rogue sat beside her, staring at the book she held out to him with a small smile. Frosch sat in her lap, smiling at the page with amazement, and there in the back, was Gajeel, looking rather … steamed.

Of course there were many pictures of the Blue Pegasus males, mostly of them doing common things, like drinking, eating, talking amongst themselves. Those bored everyone, until it came to them flirting with a group of girls. Their stood Yukino, blushing and most likely shuffling awkwardly back and forth, Jenny, Laki, and Millianna; all of them reacting differently to the presence of the attractive males. The next one showed the boys standing frozen in shock as the girls ran away.

Apparently, all of this happened before she and Natsu had arrived, because the next showed the two of them at the entrance, only one of the doors broken—so it hadn't been them that completely broke it then. She felt a blush grow slightly on her cheeks at the sight of the blush in the picture. In the picture, Natsu stood innocently smiling at the crowd with his arm around her shoulders, her not having noticed that his hand was precariously close to her boob.

Lucy had a feeling that she should escape to the bathroom for the next few pictures. If she knew Mira, she knew that the woman had most likely bribed the reporter to pay close attention to the people she wanted to get together. Then next on coming events were going to scare her forever. She remembered them. But when she stood to leave, Mira pinned her with a blank stare, not threatening in the least, but it disturbed Lucy so much, that she immediately sat back down. She apparently made the right decision when Mira began to smile again.

The next was of Natsu lighting her drink on fire and holding her wrist, the Strauss sisters standing in the back with matching grins. The next was her freaking out because her face and hands were on fire, Natsu laughing in amusement, and the sisters staring akin to shock, but their smiles still in place. Then him sucking on her fingers, but it must have been when she agreed to let him do it, because she was covering her face and leaning as far away from him as she could. And then, it was him licking her face.

She felt pretty much everyone's eyes on her then, but she tried to ignore their stares. She just continued to look up at the screen, hoping that it would move onto the next group of people. But it stayed on her for quite a while. The next pictures came with her being forced to drink all the different specialized brands and all her bizarre reactions to them. And then, thankfully, she disappeared for a while.

The rest of the pictures were mostly uninteresting to her unless she saw someone that she was close to doing something … weird. Like Natsu and Gray standing a few feet away from each other, back to back, but they were in fighting stances, blurs where their arms would be swinging. They had been fighting drunk and didn't even know where the other was. She felt like smacking her forehead but refrained, her head still pounding slightly.

In came Erza again to break up the fight, but this time, she smacked them both with a chair, the broken bits lying around the second picture with both boys lying on top of each other, bumps grown from their skulls. Then there was Gajeel, holding Levy above his head, apparently running through the Guild with a knocked out Rogue lying on the ground in the back. Levy wasn't reacting to the action, just lying stuff as a board as he ran. Then there was Juvia, crying against Lyon's shoulder with Gray in the back, looking … guilty and angry. It was then, she noticed, that Juvia was being held in place by Lyon and was most likely crying because she wanted to escape from him.

Then next few pictures were of her and Sting, which she vaguely remembered about. It was them, on the dance floor, standing feet apart doing some sort of awkward chicken dance/shuffle. And then, it was them lying on the ground, her on her back, Sting on her face. And then her biting his arm and him screaming to the high heavens. Oh yea, she sort of remembered that. BUT SHE DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS HIS ARM! SHE THOUGHT IT WAS FOOD!

Everyone burst into laughter at the sight of Sting crying and smacking her head, trying to rip his arm out of her mouth, but she was refusing. Natsu was laughing pretty hard, but she noticed that he had been mostly quiet through the picture of her and the blond dragon slayer dancing.

And then … it got weird.

There she was, crying in the next one, with Sting holding his arm and bawling like a baby. Everyone appeared to be running back and forth in the back, since they were slightly blurry from motion. They appeared to be in a panic. The next was Natsu smacking Sting repeatedly on the head with his fists. Then there was Elfman, engulfing her in a giant hug, crying just as hard.

The next, made her blush a thousand degrees hotter than her normal temperature. It was her, mostly unconscious, in Natsu's arms. She was smiling blearily at the camera, her hand raised in a wave, and Natsu had his face tucked into her neck from behind, staring at the camera with small, narrowed green eyes. The next was too blurry to see what was going on, but she could see that his head was still tucked into side of her neck, but she was freaking out a little, her movements blurred by frantic action.

She reached a hand up to touch her neck, her fingers brushing against the fabric of Natsu's scarf, which was still tied around her neck. What was underneath it …?

The next picture that had her in it, she had Natsu's scarf tied around her neck … and she was unconscious. Her eyes widened as she took in the picture that was plastered on the screen. It was a picture that just made you wonder what the hell was going on. She was unconscious with a big goofy grin on her face, being held in between Natsu and Sting. Sting was gripping her ankles and Natsu had his hands hooked onto her forearms, holding her into the air while Gajeel came barging in from the background with the body bag she woke up in. A lot of people looked panicked, Natsu looked almost in tears along with many others, and then there was Cana, Mira, Laxus and Lisanna in the back, smirking and seemingly trying to cover up their laughter.

The next was her hanging halfway out of the bag, being carried over Natsu, Gray, and Gajeel's shoulders out the guild doors. She was still grinning goofily, her arms swaying back and forth along with the pace they were running at, and the scarf was still tied around her neck.

Now, the next picture had her jaw dropping onto the counter. This one was taken outside, by the river. She was airborne. The picture showed Gray and Gajeel throwing her into the river, Mira in the background, both hands covering her mouth and her eyes widened in shock. Natsu stood slightly behind them, tears running down his face as he watched her fly into the river. And then in the back, Levy, Sting, Rogue, Lyon, Elfman, Evergreen, Master, and the Blue Pegasus boys stood in even lines, hands folded in front of their chests … and appeared to be singing.

The next showed Mira and Lisanna frantically yelling at the three boys, motioning to the river where you could see her floating down it slowly. Natsu's eyes were wide with tears and a happy smile as he looked at the sisters while Gray and Gajeel stood to the side, white with their spirits leaving them, staring after her.

The next showed Lucy, dripping wet, completely unconscious, her lips a little blue, as she was held between the three idiots that had thrown her into the river. They were all grinning at the camera, someone giving her bunny ears and thumbs-ups. After that was a series of group pictures of each Guild, but Lucy wasn't paying any attention to those. And apparently, no one else was either. Everyone was staring at her completely shocked expression.

"You guys … threw me … INTO THE RIVER?!" she shrieked, turning to see the three boys in questions making their escape out of the doors. She stood up to chase after them, but all of the emotions running through her mind and the increase of temperature at her rage, was too much for her body.

She promptly fell to the ground in a dead faint, her skin a rather bright shade of pink and huffing out pants.

Sorry for the delay, I got into Doctor Who the other day so I was having a marathon and made it to season 3, episode … 8(?) in a day and a half, plus, I read divergent In less than 12 hours, so I'm pretty proud of myself. HERE IT IS! And I've decided that I'm not going to tell you guys what the prompt is until the end of the chapter, by giving you a little scene between the matchmakers. *evil laughter* *Cuts off into chokes*