Lucy could only watch in horror as the ape like Vulcan did a weird hyper dance around Horologium. She didn't know what it was supposed to be, but she had a feeling her spirit did. He was covering his eyes and muttering about how scandalous it all was.

The Vulcan had brought her to a cave, though she didn't know how far they'd gone from Natsu and Happy. From her limited point of view from inside Horologium, she could see that the walls and floor were covered in ice. Light entered through various window like holes that dotted the walls. If it wasn't ice covered and inhabited by a Vulcan, Lucy thought it'd make a rather nice dwelling. Regrettably that wasn't the case and Lucy would rather be anywhere but where she was.

All too soon she had less than a minute left to brace herself for a fight against both the Vulcan and the cold. While she could ask for an extension on his time, it wouldn't do her any good. She'd need all the energy she could get to summon Taurus and to fight the Vulcan. She could only hope that Natsu would find them quickly as well. Even if she could beat a Vulcan by herself, which was doubtful, she didn't want to be alone with him any longer than she had to be.

Suddenly, once more, the narrow monkey face was pushed against Horologium's glass. "Woman," her spirit cooed, "he said." The disgust in his voice was only matched by his worry as he then continued to speak. "Thirty seconds before my time is up."

"Okay." Her voice sounded small, but she prepared herself as best she could. Her left hand grabbed the whip at her side while her right clutched the key to her strongest fighting spirit. Lucy couldn't do much else to get ready. When Horologium left she'd drop down a little and the inside of his body was too small to get into a good position regardless. Soon she could do nothing as Horologium softly counted down.

Whatever that dance from before was, it seemed to have used up all of the Vulcan's excess energy, he was now content with standing in front of Horologium's door. His intense stare gave her goosebumps and she felt like a piece of meat waiting to be devoured.

As soon as Horologium reached one second before leaving she tensed. She threw herself to the side the very moment she felt the biting cold of the cave, clumsily rolling away from the monkey monster's grabbing hands. She turned to face him as quickly as she could, however it wasn't quick enough.

The Vulcan was suddenly right in front of her, grinning in what could only be describe as a perverted manor. He was too close. She could smell his foul breath and she could practically feel the heat his body was giving off.

She scrambled back, brandishing Taurus's key, which glowed hotly in her numb fingers. Her voice was shaky, from both fear and the cold that permeated everywhere. "I-I am la-lin-linked t-to-"

A shout interrupted her sorry attempt at summoning. "I finally caught up with you!"

She glanced at where the familiar voice echoed from. "Natsu," she breathed. The Vulcan was still far too close to her, but she felt a little safer with the dragon slayer nearby.

"Where is Macao?" He charged boldly into the icy cavern, only to slip and roll into a wall, crashing into it upside down. It would have been comical in any other circumstance. His actions served to distract the Vulcan and Lucy took the opportunity to back away from the monster.

"Hey! Monkey!" A glance told her he hadn't bothered to get up from his inverted position. His entire focus was on the Vulcan. "Where is Macao?"

The Vulcan grunted in confusion and Lucy began shuffling closer to Natsu.

"You understand what I'm saying right? I'm talking about Macao!" Natsu kept talking to the Vulcan, but given the blank look the monster was giving Natsu, Lucy wasn't too sure he'd understood what the rosette was talking about. How would he know the name of a mage? "A human man," Natsu tacked on, as if reading her thoughts.

That got a reaction. "A man?"

"That's right!" Natsu pointed dramatically at the ape. "Where did you hide him?"

Lucy twitched in shock. That was quite an assumption for him to make. Why would a Vulcan be interested in a man? Just because the beast kidnapped Lucy didn't mean he did the same to Mr. Macao. However, the usual diet of a Vulcan suddenly popped into her head. What if Mr. Macao was already dead? What if they were too late? What would happen to his son, Romeo, if that was the case?

The Vulcan was gesturing Natsu to get closer to him, to follow him as he walked towards one of the natural windows.

"Ooh! He understood me!"

"Wa-wait! Natsu, I don't think-"

However, Natsu wasn't listening to her and he eagerly looked out the window to where the Vulcan was pointing.

With a swift motion, too quick for her to react to, the Vulcan shoved Natsu out the window.

"Natsu!" She cried out, rushing to another window, hoping beyond hope that the cave wasn't too far up the mountain.

"Me…No likes man." The guttural voice of the Vulcan cut through the cold air. "Me…Likes woman!"

Lucy's breath left her lungs at the drop before her. Even without the rushing winds and billowing snow, she doubted she'd be able to see the bottom of the abyss Natsu had just been thrown into. "No," she gasped out, "he…he's not dead…he can't be, he…he's really strong and a great mage…I…I'm sure he's fi…" She couldn't bring herself to even finish that word. Halfhearted self-reassurances wouldn't do anything for the fire mage.

Was it possible to survive a drop like that? Even if he did, would he be hurt? Trapped at the bottom of the cliff without any way of getting out of there? Even if he couldn't freeze, Natsu could still starve.

The Vulcan, meanwhile was dancing and singing about his dislike of men and his love of woman.

Was it possible to feel so numb and yet be so angry at the same time? She had felt something similar not too long ago, when Bora tossed her keys into the ocean. How dare that flea bitten monkey try to kill Natsu? He wasn't like her, Natsu wasn't replaceable. There wasn't anywhere she could go to and grab another fire dragon slayer. Neither was Mr. Macao. If this Vulcan had killed them both then…

"Woman," he sang, "Woman."

"Shut up you…You pervert!" Those words were feeble and not nearly the one's she wanted to say. However, they were all she could think of with her blood pounding in her ears, cold freezing her fingers and anger simmering in her heart. "I won't let you get away with this!" She brandished Taurus's key like a weapon, "I am linked to the path to the world of Celestial Spirits, now! O spirit, answer my call and pass through the gate! Open Gate of the Golden Bull, Taurus!"

With a rush of displaced air and snow, a brilliant light and the sound of a doorbell ringing, a giant bull man appeared. His skin was tight on his body, showing off his well-muscled form, only helped by his lack of any clothing other than some briefs, gloves and boots. His skin was white with black splotches, much like the common Holstein, and he had the head and tail of a bull. On his back was his weapon of choice, a deadly and dangerous looking axe that was larger than Lucy was tall. He was a true Minotaur, ready and raring for battle.

"A bull?" The Vulcan grunted, looking confused.

"Not just any bull. He's the strongest person I know, and he's going to kick your ass you perverted monkey!"

"Miss Loo-ucy! You have nice booobs as always. There moo-re amazing than ever." He lowed out, leering at her chest.

With a sigh Lucy buried her face into her now freed hand. "Taurus," she gritted out, "now's not the time." Despite her words, a small part of her appreciated what he was trying to do. If the circumstances were less dire, she would have relaxed a bit more at his usual antics. At the moment, though, it was more annoying than anything else.

"Uho!" The Vulcan cried out, "don't take my woman!"

"My woman?" Her bull froze at that. "That's a moo-st unforgiveable remark." He growled out, stalking towards the monkey.

"That's right, you tell him!"

"You should say 'my boobs' instead." He deadpanned, surprisingly without mooing at all. There were so many things wrong with that statement, she didn't even know where to begin.

"Taurus!" She'd used Horologium to his limit earlier and between the cold, stress and lack of time since then, she hadn't recovered much magic at all. She didn't have time to yell at or otherwise scold Taurus about his behavior and they both knew it.

A slight shift in his stance let her know he was ready to take things seriously. It'd have to be quick and it'd probably be brutal, but they needed to end this soon.

"Go!"

With that word from her, he charged forward, swiftly and smoothly drawing his axe. "I'm moo-re than ready!"

The Vulcan prepared itself, bracing to meet the charging bull.

A sudden, achingly familiar voice rang out in the cave, freezing all three of them. "Hoow daare yooou puuush me oooof the cliiif!" The voice was purposely shaky and clearly trying too hard to be spooky. Soon the silhouette of a large figure appeared in the window. Happy's childish ghost voice impersonation continued. "Iiit waaaas clooose."

"Happy?" Lucy breathed, abruptly realizing she'd forgotten about the little blue cat in all the excitement. She then recognized the figure floating in the window. "Natsu! You're safe!"

"Hrm?" The rosette noticed the scene in front of him, coming out of some sort of stupor. "What! There's more monsters now?" Before Lucy could react, he lunged forward and kicked Taurus hard on the chin.

"No! Wait!" She cried out too late. Her big burly bull flew through the air and crashed not far from Lucy.

"…Can't take no moo-re," he mumbled, dazed. He hadn't been hit hard enough to unsummon him, but he was now out of the fight. This was bad; she couldn't unsummon him until he woke up. He'd keep draining her magic until she was depleted; thankfully he'd go back automatically at that point however it'd leave her in a very bad spot health wise.

Considering he was both unconscious and still in Earthland, Lucy wasn't sure what that said more about his strength or Natsu's.

"He was on our side!" She snapped. Just because she was glad Natsu was still alive, didn't mean she wasn't upset that he took out her dear friend. "How'd you manage to get up here so fast?"

Natsu turned to her with a grin, pointing up. "Happy did it!"

"Aye!" The flying blue cat called out, "you're welcome."

"Oh yeah, I forgot he could fly." She muttered. Wow, she'd forgotten a lot of things where Happy was concerned.

"Aye, with Aera."

"And you're not sick? You were acting kind of out of it when you came up."

"What? No. I fell asleep on the way up. Why would I be sick anyway? Happy isn't transportation. He's a comrade." He gave her a narrow eyed look and scooted away from her. "Weirdo."

"Ah, right, sorry." It made sense she supposed, but how was she a weirdo?

The fire mage turned more fully to face her. "Listen, all of Fairy Tail's members are comrades," he started to lecture, completely ignorant of how the Vulcan came out of its stupor and began to charge at his back.

Lucy could only make wordless noises of alarm and point behind him at the approaching threat. Natsu, however, didn't seem to notice at all as he continued. "From the old man, Mira, that annoying Gray and Elfman…"

"Got it! Just watch out behind you!"

Natsu ignored her. "To Happy and Lucy. We're all comrades." His words were touching and would have been quite inspirational, if he wasn't being rushed at by an angry intelligent ape intent on ripping him to pieces. "That's why…" he continued, abruptly turning to face the Vulcan, "I'm taking Macao home!" He ended with a cry, kicking the monster in the chin with a flaming foot. Making the Vulcan fly over both his and Lucy's heads.

She cringed away from the monkey's fallen form as Natsu moved to a more battle ready position.

"Tell me where Macao is," he called out, his voice full of an enviable confidence, "or I'll burn you like charcoal."

The Vulcan recovered quickly, steam practically shooting out from his nose in rage. However, he didn't attack thoughtlessly. Rather he reached up and snagged one of the many impressively sized icicles that hung from the cave's ceiling. Rapidly he threw it and several others at the fire mage, who laughed off the attack, melting the sharp ice as it approached.

Natsu stopped laughing when the Vulcan picked up Taurus's axe though. What followed was one of the most impressive displays of dodging Lucy had ever seen. She could only gape as Natsu wove around the wild swings. At least until he slipped on the water leftover from the icicles. Lucy winced at the loud thud that rang out from his sudden and harsh landing.

Unfortunately he couldn't recover in time to get out of the way of the large, sharp and heavy axe that was rushing right at his face. Lucy's heart lodged in her throat as the bladed weapon neared her downed comrade.

With a sharp clap, he caught the blade between his hands, something Lucy had thought was impossible considering the axe's size and weight. Even more so with regards to his awkward positioning as he had to lean back significantly to keep the axe from touching him. She rushed over to Taurus and quickly set about trying to revive him.

"Taurus! Taurus! Wake up! If you go back, the axe will too!" In the back of her mind, she wondered if she shouldn't hang around Natsu in the future. She hadn't even known him for a week, yet she thought he'd been killed at least three times already. Her heart couldn't handle something like that on a regular basis. Lucy could only hope that no one else in Fairy Tail was as danger prone as he was.

A sizzling sound drew her attention away from Taurus and back to the stalemate between Natsu and the Vulcan. Steam was billowing off of the Dragon Slayer's hands and the axe was starting to glow red.

Lucy could only watch with awe and a little horror as a bead of melted metal fell from the blade and into Natsu's waiting mouth. Her thoughts split into two directions at once; swinging rapidly between shock that Natsu had melted the blade and was currently chewing on molten metal, and concern for her spirit's favorite weapon. She wasn't too knowledgeable about blades or metal in general but she was fairly certain that being heated up to the point of melting wasn't good for any kind of weapon. She could only hope it'd bit easily fixed or Taurus would be devastated.

Natsu spat the bead of metal out like a bullet, hitting the Vulcan right in the forehead and distracting him enough to shift the axe aside. A slightly hysterical thought popped into Lucy's head at that moment, wondering how long it took him to get that sort of accuracy when spitting.

She shook that thought away as Natsu readied himself for his next attack.

"Here I come," he growled out, darting forward with a flaming hand. "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" He shouted, punching the Vulcan and sending it crashing into one of the smaller windows. Unfortunately, the window was too small for his body to go flying out of. Lucy thought that would have been a nice little bit of karma.

Considering the force behind one of his kicks, as Taurus was still unconscious, that Vulcan had to be down for the count.

"He's stuck!" Happy cheered.

As glad as she was that the whole fight was over, the Vulcan wasn't why the three of them were there. "Weren't you going to ask where Mr. Macao is?"

Natsu yelped in shock, "I forgot!"

She peered closely at the Vulcan, though she was reluctant to get any closer to it than she already was. His eyes were rolled back and he wasn't moving. "He's completely passed out." She sighed, letting her thoughts wonder a bit now that the danger had passed. Natsu wasn't that much bigger than she was, at least height wise; how could he be so much stronger than others twice his size with three times his muscle mass?

Another, more startled, shout from Natsu brought her attention back to the now glowing Vulcan. Lucy watched in shock when, with a puff of smoke and a flash of light, the Vulcan suddenly turned into a beaten and bloody man.

"The monkey became Macao?" Natsu yelled, sounding to be in just as much shock as she was.

"Eh?" That man was Mr. Macao?

"Oh," Happy started, "so he was taken over by the Vulcan!"

"Taken over?" The term sounded familiar, and she thought it was a term regarding some type of magic, however given her strict magical education, Lucy couldn't place it.

Thankfully Happy didn't seem to mind explaining. "It's a magic to take over the body; Takeover magic."

Unfortunately, while the Vulcan had been too big to go through the window, Mr. Macao wasn't. More than that, his center of gravity was too high for him to fall on the safe side of the window. All at once everyone dashed forward to try and catch him.

Natsu reached the man first, but he hadn't been quick enough to keep Mr. Macao from falling out. That, however, didn't stop Natsu from diving out right after him. Thankfully Happy was right on his tail and Lucy got to the opening just in time to see him struggling to hold Natsu by the leg who was grabbing onto Mr. Macao, also by the leg.

"I can't keep holding onto the two of you," the normally cheerful cat gritted out. "My wings are about to disappear too!"

Lucy lunged out and grabbed Happy by his tail. She thought she heard Natsu shout again, but all her focus was on trying to pull them up. However, even with Happy rapidly flapping his wings to try and gain some lift, it was all she could do to keep from either letting go or tipping over to join them in falling.

A warm presence appeared at her back and gloved hands wrapped around her own. A familiar voice mooed into her ear. "No moo-re worry."

She turned to face her now awake spirit. "Taurus!" With a grin her physically strongest spirit easily pulled the other three up and back into the cave.

Natsu and Happy quickly went to work, setting out Natsu's blanket for Mr. Macao to lay on and digging out their medical supplies. Lucy, though, had to sit down and catch her breath. Her magic was nearly gone.

She watched Taurus grab his axe and inspect it with a frown. However, he didn't look too worried about it. He noticed her look and gave a quick thumbs up.

"It'll fix itself back hoo-me. Don't woo-rry Miss Loo-ucy." He glanced back at the pink haired dragon slayer, before going home. Lucy would swear that it looked like Taurus had recognized Natsu. Probably as the guy who'd just kicked him in the face.

Lucy forced herself to her feet and joined the others in patching up their now found comrade.

"It seems he fought a lot before he was taken over." Happy muttered, digging through their supplies for something. Probably a needle and thread, Lucy thought, eyeing the large, deep and still bleeding gash on Mr. Macao's side.

"That wound is really serious." It felt a little pointless to say it, but Lucy felt she should say something.

"Hold on Macao!" Natsu cried.

She bit her lip as even more blood leaked out from that wound. She didn't know how he looked when healthy, but Lucy thought he was too pale.

"The wound on his side is too deep." To her inexperienced eye, it didn't look like any organs were damaged but that wouldn't matter if he kept bleeding. "We can't do anything with the supplies we have."

Natsu looked grim but oddly determined. She didn't have long to figure out why before he lit his hand on fire and pressed it to the wound.

"What are you doing?" She cried out around Mr. Macao's screams.

"This is all we can do for now! Live with it, Macao!" Despite the thrashing of the older man, he kept his hot hand pressed against the other man's body. "Lucy! Hold him down!"

Lucy did as he ordered and though she wasn't really strong enough to keep Mr. Macao from moving, she did keep him still enough for Natsu to finish cauterizing the wound. She fought back against the bile that lumped in her throat at the smell of burning flesh.

"Don't die!" Natsu snapped, his voice carried over the screams and the sound of sizzling flesh. "Don't die! Romeo's waiting for you!"

It felt like forever before it was over. Both Mr. Macao and Natsu were left as panting and shaking messes. Lucy realized that, though he was rowdy and seemingly careless with his fire, this was the first time Natsu had actually burned someone. All the other flame filled strikes she'd seen, from that fight in Hargeon to just now, had left bruises and maybe broken bones but absolutely no burn marks.

She didn't have long to contemplate that epiphany, Mr. Macao had recovered enough to start trying to talk. "Shit," he panted out, "what a shame." He took a brief moment to recover his breath. "I got…19…of them…" Lucy could only frown in confusion at his words, however the wounded mage continued. "I was…taken over…by the 20th one…"

"I got it so shut up!" Natsu snapped. "Don't open your wound!"

Lucy was just left stunned. Mr. Macao had fought 20 Vulcans and killed 19 of them. She hadn't even been able to take on one!

The older mage ignored Natsu's orders and continued speaking. "I'm angry at myself! How can I…Face Romeo?"

"I said shut up! You want me to punch you?"

Natsu and Mr. Macao, Lucy could only think that they were both absolutely amazing. She did have to keep Natsu from following through with his threat of punching Mr. Macao though.

They had to wait for a couple hours, both to make sure Mr. Macao would be fine to move and for the storm to ease up. Lucy wasn't looking forward to trekking through the cold snow. Despite the many openings in the cave, Natsu's body heat was enough to keep it a bearable temperature, though she suspected he was raising it on purpose for Mr. Macao's sake.

By the time the storm had cleared, Lucy braced herself for numb fingers and toes and held out hope that they'd get to a warm place fast enough that she wouldn't get frostbite. Her magic hadn't recovered enough to summon Horologium for the walk down. Even if it had, she wouldn't be able to stay in him the entire time.

A heavy large and, most importantly, warm blanket suddenly landed on her head. "Heh?" She pulled it off and looked between it and Natsu in surprise.

The rosette only grinned at her, shifting Mr. Macao's semi-conscious weight to better carry the taller man. "You'll get cold, right?"

She smiled in return, "thanks."

She wrapped it firmly around herself. There were some bloody spots on it from Mr. Macao's injuries, but that didn't really matter. Happy curled up around her neck, his fur tickling her cheeks and radiating warmth where the blanket didn't cover.

They quickly made their way back down the snowy mountain, all of them eager to return home safely.