Elsewhere in Magnolia…
"Such unruly, unmanageable, unbearable, annoying children…" Despite his muttered grumblings, Macarov's voice was warm and filled with endearment. He loved his guild, every destructive and frustrating member of it. A soft knock on his office door and Macarov called the person in. He was a bit surprised to see Loke. "Loke? Why are you here?" At the look of dismay on the younger wizard's face he stood. "What's wrong, has something happened to Lucy?"
"She- she's hurt. She was in the East Forest, and ran into Jellal… But that's not the point. She was talking to him and her foot slipped into a hole and she twisted it or sprained it or maybe she broke it… Please, Macarov, come quickly!" Without hesitation Macarov followed him out of the guild and into the East Forest, not really thinking that between Jellal and Loke they should be able to take care of Lucy's hurt ankle just fine without him… He was fond enough of the girl that he wasn't really thinking. They soon arrived in a small clearing where Lucy was sitting on the ground, her face twisted in pain, with Jellal kneeling worriedly over her. Macarov ran up to her and began asking questions which she gaspingly gave answers to.
"Macarov, Jellal, Lucy…" A pained look on his face, Loke looked down at her. "I have to go. I have some things in the spirit world which I have just got to take care of. I only stayed this long to get you, Macarov. Take care of her." With that he left. A grave look on his face, Macarov turned to Jellal.
"I need you to go to Porliusica's house. She will be able to take care of this. Run." Jellal nodded and ran to her home, returning with the old woman in just over fifteen minutes. They began nursing Lucy's ankle, which Porliusica said was only badly sprained.
At Porliusica's home…
"Well, well, that worked rather well… Though I do hope Lucy is alright. She is such a trooper… I'll need to get her to let me treat her to ice cream after this is all over." They had known they wouldn't be able to trick Porliusica unless someone was actually hurt. Loke wouldn't do because he was a Celestial Spirit. Jellal wouldn't do because it wouldn't get Macarov or the old lady worked up if he hurt himself. Lucy, though, was enough of a daughter to everyone that she worked perfectly. And she was willing to help them.
"Now where is that potion… Ahah!" Loke slipped a vial of shimmering magenta liquid off of one of the shelves. It was labeled rather clearly in Porliusica's distinctively spidery scrawl. He hoped that she wouldn't miss it soon enough to interrupt their plans. Now, for the real meat of the matter…
Somewhere in Magnolia (the exact location not really mattering)…
"Natsu… Natsu, where are you?" Happy wasn't so happy right now. Natsu had disappeared. "If Lucy were here she would ask me how I lost Natsu when he's wearing a donkey head…"
Natsu, meanwhile, had as little idea as to where he was as Happy did. This stupid costume head made it almost impossible to see, obscuring everything but the area directly around his feet. As far as he could see, there were leaves wherever he was. Because that was specific. Leaves were all over Magnolia.
Finally he realized he must be in the East Forest. That would never do. If he kept roving around like this then that baka Gray would see him. That would be a delight for the ice mage, Natsu with an ass's head acting like a chicken with its head cut off. So he plopped down beneath a tree and crossed his arms. His eyelids were getting rather heavy for some reason…
In the East Forest…
Loke glanced around as he returned from the Celestial Spirit World to see Jellal standing over a sleeping Macarov, Porliusca, and Lucy. He kneeled briefly to spread a blanket—which he had gotten from Virgo—over Porliusca and handed another to Jellal for Macarov, He would never hear the end of it if either of them caught cold or something because of this plan, from either Macarov or Lucy.
Looking back over at Jellal he cocked an eyebrow, gesturing to their sleeping companions. Jellal grinned, "You know that I spent a short spell masquerading as Mystogan?" At Loke's enlightened smile Jellal gave him a replying grin. The Celestial Spirit was quick on the uptake, and Jellal was glad for it.
He had spent enough time to ensure that anyone in the woods was asleep, and they now had only to wake up Lucy. He would help her to the edge of the East Forest, where he hoped that he would be able to meet with Wendy. Lucy would run into town to find her, having left the blue haired Dragon Slayer a note to come to her apartment. Once Lucy had her they would come to the Forest, and from there Jellal would be able to take her to the bunny. Perhaps Wendy and Lucy would even be able to take care of the creature until it was feeling better. However, they needed to make sure that when Erza awoke that she would be distracted—that was where the potion came in. After that, he would leave Loke to his own devices.
Loke kneeled next to Lucy and gently shook her, as Jellal eased his spell just the slightest bit. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, looking around. "Well, it seems you guys got what you wanted. Now what?" Jellal reached out a hand to help Lucy up. He looked over at Loke as the Leo spirit answered.
"I'll walk with you guys, just till you get to where you're to meet Wendy. Do you know where Erza is at?" Jellal nodded and Loke grinned, Lucy just catching the glint of mischief in his eyes and beginning to have some serious reservations. But, in for a penny in for a pound, as the saying went.
They headed off in the direction Jellal indicated, where they soon came upon Erza sleeping curled upon the ground. Loke kneeled down and gently dabbed some of Porliusca's potion on her closed eyelids, standing up and continuing with the others once he had finished.
They had told Lucy that the potion would make Erza more amenable, explaining Jellal's predicament with the bunny—which Erza would, of course, otherwise approve of, except that she wasn't willing to listen because it involved Wendy using healing magic. All of which was true.
They simply hadn't told her how it would make Erza more amenable. And Loke didn't plan to. As soon as she found out she would guess why exactly he had used that particular potion—she was a fairly smart girl, after all—and that would be the end of that. He wasn't nearly ready to see his brilliantly laid-out plans go to waste.
They came across Natsu on their way to the edge of the Forest and the last piece of Loke's plans clicked into place. Upon seeing the donkey-headed mage conked out at the foot of a tree Lucy sighed exasperatedly and stomped her foot. "The idiot still hasn't figured out how to get that stupid mask off!"
When she noticed the two men giving her an odd look—Jellal's intrigued and Loke's bemused—Lucy rolled her eyes and colored from annoyance and some small amount of embarrassment. Whether because of Natsu or on his behalf none could say. "We were in the costume shop and he got stuck. And of course the thing is expensive, and of course he and Happy are both broke, so of course I had to pay for it." As they laughed uproariously she muttered, "Baka," under her breath, glowering at Natsu's unconscious form.
They continued on but Loke made a mental note of where Natsu was at. Jellal had agreed to keep the spell going, but at a level where if people were shaken they would wake or let to lie then they would fall back asleep rather quickly.
After dropping off Jellal and Lucy, Loke made it back to Natsu. Pursing his lips for a moment the Lion Spirit stooped and shook the Fire Dragon Slayer awake. Natsu was decidedly drowsy.
"Whaaaa…? Who 'sit? Whaddya want? Lemme sleep, Lucy…." Loke rolled his eyes at the boy.
"It's not Lucy, Natsu, get up. Erza wants to see you. Now." That got his attention, and the pink-haired mage jumped easily three times his height into the air. He landed with the donkey's head a little twisted and struggled for a minute to right it. Loke found it easy to lead him to where Erza lie sleeping, and watched silently from the shadows as Natsu went and woke her up.
Loke stifled his laughter as he walked away, the notorious Fairy Queen's professions of undying love and Natsu's highly confused protestations following echoingly behind him. Now, to go find the real persons of interest in this escapade…
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the East Forest…
Grey and Juvia had a doozy of a time setting up the campsite. Mostly because neither of them had any idea what they were doing. And because Juvia got very distracted every time Grey suddenly appeared to be missing an article of clothing. Why the ice mage had to strip every whipstitch was beyond her…
Turning from where she was failing to light a campfire—honestly, she was much better at putting out these things and where was Natsu when he was needed—Juvia froze stiff and the stick in her hands broke in a few places. Grey's shirt had disappeared again. "Grey-sama, what are you doing?" The tent looked more like a lifeboat. Whatever the case, she was pretty sure it didn't look like a tent. Not to mention the fact that more of the tent seemed to be connected to Grey-sama that was connected to itself.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm building the tent!" If she were to answer his rhetorical question honestly, it looked like he was a puppet being manned by a koi fish. At that though Juvia began to giggle, which laughter quickly turned to full and impossible to control mirth. Grey glowered but not for long as he tripped over one of the tent pegs and sprawled, buried under mounding folds of canvas. Juvia barely controlled her laughter enough to help him out, at which point he found himself laughing as well. The campfire was hopelessly soaked.
They were sprawled exhausted on the ground when Lyon and Chelia burst upon the scene. To the two Lamia Scale wizards it looked as though they had been knocked flat by some miniature tornado terrorizing the glade. Lyon ran to Juvia's side only to meet halfway with Grey's fist.
"Ow! Hey, Fullbuster, what do you think you're doing?! Aaahhhh… And what on earth happened? Aaahhhh…" He stifled the rather undignified yawns as best he could. Grey didn't even have the opportunity to answer before the four of them fell under Jellal's sleep spell, curling up in their respective places.
Fifteen minutes or so later Loke wandered in on the scene. Whistling softly to himself he began to arrange the sleepers so that they were facing the right people—Lyon with Chelia and Grey with Juvia. Much better. He had just opened up the bottle of potion and had begun to turn toward Lyon when he was startled by a fluffy character appearing at his elbow. His arm jerked, and a fair amount of the potion spilled out of it an onto Grey's face. Hastily capping the bottle once more Loke tried to clean the elixir from the wrong Ice Mage's eyes, but he couldn't be sure that he had succeeded.
He turned to Aries. "What on earth are you doing here? You might have just messed up everything." She smiled shyly and shrugged.
"Lucy-san asked me to check up on you, she said you might be up to no good. What are you doing, Leo" The Lion colored a little bit, but only faintly. Lucy was a smart girl, and she was obviously onto him. Sending Aries was just crafty, though, since she knew that of the other spirits the Ram was the one he cared about the most and would be least likely to get upset at.
"I am trying to fix an unfortunate situation…" He turned back to the sleepers. There was only one way to know for sure whether he had gotten the entire potion, and that was to wake Grey up.
Pulling Aries behind him he slipped back among the denser trees. Picking up a small stone Loke crossed his fingers and threw the pebble. He hit his mark, but as Grey started up he turned full around, his eyes lighting first on the pink-haired Chelia. Inwardly Loke groaned. Lucy would have his head if she were here…
The Four Sleepers' Glade…
Waking suddenly from sleep Grey turned and saw Chelia sleeping beside Lyon. He had no idea why he had not seen it before, but she was the most delicate, beautiful, magnificent creature upon which he had ever laid eyes and he knew that he must have her for his own. Waking the girl he clasped her to him. "Oh, Chelia, my dearest Chelia, how sweet your fair face and gentle your eye. Say you will marry me, my dearest!"
Chelia woke to these amorous proclamations and remained firmly convinced that it was some misguided dreamful imagining. "What are you saying? I love Lyon and you Juvia, go back to her and leave Lyon for me. Let go of me!" She fought against his hands, and Grey fell back with a pitifully dejected look of longing on his face.
Seeing this exchange Loke smacked his forehead with the flat of his palm. How on earth was he to fix it? Suddenly he had an inspiration. Turning to Aries, he took her hand. "You have to help me! Lucy will be furious and this is all wrong. I need you to surround them with your wool cloud so they will go back to sleep."
Aries looked at him with no suspicion, such an emotion not being natural to her all-too-sweet disposition. She shrugged and cast her spell, surrounding the four young mages in a billowing cloud of bubblegum pink wool. Grey and Chelia immediately fell back into slumber, words dying on their lips as they sank into the downy mass.
Good, now he could fix it. Loke applied the potion to Lyon's eyes. Now he needed to go find the potion's remedy. As he turned, however, he tripped over Chelia. While the girl woke up Loke panicked and whisked himself back to the Spirit Realm. It would not do for any of them to see him.
Sprawling face-forward on the ground—if it could be so called, not really being a material plane—Loke sulked. It was such a perfect plan, but now… His eyes widened. Uh oh. Now both men would be in love with Chelia—the problem was exactly the same as before except their affections had changed their object. Lucy was gonna kill him and he hadn't even achieved the mischief he'd been aiming for. The only thing for it was to go back to Porliusca's and find that antidote. Then, if he could make Grey fall back out of love with Chelia then it would all be alright. Oh, and make Erza stop loving Natsu and his donkey-head, he mustn't forget that…
Back to the Four Sleepers' Glade…
"I love Chelia more, you dirty-haired stripper! Ice-Make Snake!" Frozen serpent winding its way toward Grey, Lyon stood panting in fury.
"At least I don't bleach my hair, you wannabe ice-mage! Ice-Make Hammer!" He smashed the frosty python to pieces.
As their fight waged on, the two girls stood at the edge of the clearing glaring alternately at the boys and each other in stony silence. Finally Juvia broke the tense mute enmity. "How could you do this? Why couldn't you just be happy with Lyon, Chelia-san! Grey-sama was mine, and you just steal him from me? So much for love." She drew out the last word in a sneering mockery of the other girl's obsession.
Chelia drew herself up, incensed and hurt and not ready to take abuse from Juvia, too, of all people. "Me?! I had nothing to do with this! Can't you see they are just making fun of me? I don't want Grey, I love Lyon-sama! Can't you just get Grey to stop?"
Their feuding continued for a long while, the girls ready to attack each other even as Grey and Lyon's battle grew more fierce and deadly. They were trying to seriously injure each other to prove their love for Chelia, even as they tried to convince Chelia of their individual sincerity and she tried to prove to Juvia that they were mocking her.
The whole situation had devolved into deadly chaos when suddenly the glade fell silent. The four lovers were once more asleep, enveloped in a cotton candy woolen bed.
Aries plunked herself down. Now she knew what Lucy had meant by Loke causing trouble. She didn't know how to fix it, so she just put them to sleep. It was the best she could do right now, she just hoped that when Loke had bailed it hadn't been permanently. Suddenly, her wish came true, as he sauntered up to her.
Taking in the torn up camping supplies, shattered and melting ice, and the various scratches and torn—or missing—clothing belonging to the four sleepers, he winced. "Smart of you, to put them to sleep Aries. This could have ended very badly if you hadn't. But never mind that, I have the antidote. Carefully he tiptoed over to the sleeping couples and applied the antidote to Grey's eyes. He left Lyon as he was, figuring Chelia deserved something for all that she had gone through that day. Besides, that was his plan from the start, anyway.
He left them to wake up on their own, or when Jellal's spell ran out, trekking off to find Erza and what would certainly be a miserable Natsu. He took Aries with him, so that she could put the two to sleep once they were found.
And found they were: Erza had Natsu's donkey's head on her lap and was (force) feeding him grapes. Loke shuddered a little bit. He would need to be very, very far away from here when she came to. Once they were asleep he crept forward and administered the antidote. As long as Lucy didn't find out about the mix-ups today he figured all would turn out just fine.
Loke wandered off to go find the pretty blonde Celestial Spirit mage and see how Jellal's plans had fared.
Lucy and Wendy were walking back toward the Guild Hall with Puffkin—the name Wendy had given the small white rabbit she had ministered to—when aloud commotion caused them to turn back to the East Forest. They saw a donkey-headed blur running as fast as Natsu's legs would carry him, being chased by Erza in her full Heaven's Sword armor. She yelled something about being in love with an ass while he yelled that it wasn't his fault. That was about all they caught before the pair turned a corner and their yells—and Natsu's screams—faded out of intelligibility.
Lucy and Wendy shared a puzzled glance and continued on their way, but not five minutes later they ran into Makarov and Porliusca. The two were rubbing their eyes and when Lucy asked said that they had somehow fallen asleep after helping her and that they were going to get a bite to eat at the Guild Hall because they were starving. At that time, the four mages—plus Puffkin—ran into Grey and Juvia, and Lyon and Chelia.
Considering Lyon was no longer chasing Juvia and was now concentrating on Chelia, Lucy was rightly confused. Asking, the four related to her that they had the weirdest dreams in the Forest. By the time they finished their tales—all remarkably similar—they had reached the Guild Hall. Makarov and Porliusca congratulated them all and offered to buy them a round of drinks.
As the others went in Lucy froze for a moment in thought. There was something nagging at her about all of this, some vague familiarity. Suddenly it came to her and she realized what it was Loke had been up to. Her eyes snapping, when she entered the Hall and he waltzed up to her, her response came out as a yell.
"A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM?! REALLY? YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA, DRUGGING EVERYONE? LOOK WHAT YOU DID! HOW COULD YOU?!" She took a deep breath. "You should apologize, right now." The Fairy Tail Guild Hall, for one of the only times in its existence, fell completely and utterly silent. All of those affected by Loke's machinations—including Erza, in the middle of hanging Natsu by his toes form the balcony—turned to look at the trickster Spirit.
He laughed a little uncomfortably, and a little with genuine mirth. "Well… If we Spirits have offended, think on this and all is mended: that you have but slumbered here, whilst these visions did appear?" The Hall stood stunned for just a moment before all of the involved parties dived in to attack the Lion of the Zodiac. However, instead of laying hands on him they ended up dogpiled together as he disappeared into the Celestial Spirit Realm.
Of course, this being Fairy Tail and everyone having had a very long day, it turned into a free-for-all.
The End