Bonus Episode: In which the twin dragon slayers are a literal embodiment of those dragon bros comics and I regret nothing.

This is the actual last part. It takes place the next school year after Episode 6. I mostly just wanted to shoehorn in a headcanon or two, so it's not part of the "official" story but whatever I was having too much fun with this to not include it.

Lucy messed up. She'd really messed up. Well, she hadn't messed up too terribly, but Natsu was definitely going to nag her about this if it didn't turn out well. First, though, she had a few questions to ask him.

"So you know my friend Yukino, right?" she said during a quiet dinner together in the boys' apartment one day.

"Yeah, the art school girl."

"Well her two best friends, who are really cool by the way, each have a cat."

"…yes, and?"

"Soooo we should have a cat playdate."

Natsu's face instantly fell into the most done look she had ever seen on him. "Really? A cat playdate?"

"Come one, it'll be fun," she wheedled. "How often to Happy, Lily, and Charles get to hang out with cats that aren't each other? It'll be good for them."

"Or they could fight," Natsu said.

"Don't be so pessimistic," Lucy said. "I've wanted to introduce you guys for a while now. The cats are the perfect excuse to invite them over!"

"Where would we be doing this playdate?"

"Here, of course," Lucy said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course, it didn't get past Natsu.

"You already offered up our apartment as the location, didn't you?"

"Please?"

"Lucy, you're horrible."

Lucy pouted. It wasn't her fault she got carried away. Besides, last time it was Natsu who brought people over to Lucy's apartment uninvited, so she was allowed to have a similar slipup once.

"Fine. But if Gray and Gajeel don't agree, you have to tell your friend that you messed up and didn't ask for permission before setting this whole thing up."

Lucy jumped up and hugged Natsu tight. "You're the best!"

"Yeah, yeah. Tell me something I don't know."

The whole crew gathered at the boys' apartment until their three guests arrived. Even Erza deigned the event worthy to show up for, coming straight there from work. Lucy hadn't really anticipated all of them being there, but couldn't exactly tell them all not to come. The more the merrier.

There was a flurry of activity as everyone made their way to the front door to greet the newcomers. Lucy, being the one who knew them, answered the door.

"Yukino!" Lucy exclaimed, hugging her friend.

"Lucy! Thanks for having us."

"Thanks for coming," Lucy said, releasing Yukino to give Rogue and Sting their greeting hugs. "I see the cats came safely as well," she said.

"They were very good on the ride over," Yukino said proudly.

"Um, there's a lot of people, so everyone make your introductions," Lucy said, gesturing around the small crowd. Those with cats introduced their cats as well, some in their owners' arms and the newcomers still in their carriers.

"Frosch?" Erza said upon hearing the unusual name.

"It's German for 'frog,'" Rogue said. "You'll understand when you see it run. Come on out, Frosch." He let the cat out of its carrier. Frosch took a couple careful steps, cautiously observing its surroundings. Then, seeing a few of the other cats being let down to meet it, it hopped over like a frog to start sniffing them.

"It jumps!" Natsu exclaimed in surprise.

"Frosch has some medical issues," Sting explained as he let Lector out of his carrier. "We think the hopping might be related to the pain or something."

"My poor baby is gonna have to get surgery soon," Rogue said.

Sting scoffed. "Your 'baby,' huh?"

Lucy smiled. According to Yukino, Rogue had fallen for Frosch at first sight, and he wouldn't take "no" for an answer no matter how much the pet store emphasized how expensive the surgeries would be. Now the two were practically inseparable, something Lucy had gotten to see for herself when she visited Yukino once.

As for Sting, he just wanted to adopt cats with Rogue and picked the one with "the best attitude."

"The white cat is Wendy's cat, and her name is Charles. Gajeel's cat is Lily; he's the one with the round ears. And then Happy's the blue one."

"Wait, wait, let me get this straight. Charles is a girl cat and Lily is a boy cat," Sting said.

"Yes," they all said almost in unison.

"Okay, got it."

"We didn't coordinate it that way," Wendy said, pulling Charles into her lap. "We named her Charles before we realized she was female, and we got too attached to the name to change it."

"My grannie liked tiger lilies," Gajeel explained. "I wanted to get an orange cat and name it Tiger Lily. But I got Lily here, and he ain't colored like a tiger, so I called him Panther Lily instead."

"That has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard," Natsu said, hearing this story for the first time.

"Shut up."

"Well I think it's cute that he wanted to name his cat after his grannie's favorite flower," Lucy said.

"You shut up too."

"Come on, Gajeel, that was a compliment," Levy said.

"My cat doesn't like being called cute," Gajeel said.

"You have a cat named Lily," Lucy pointed out. "That's pretty cute if you ask me."

"Lily's tough," Gajeel said. "Look, see the scar over his eye?" He picked Lily up, and the cat just hung there, looking particularly grumpy in Gajeel's big hands. Both cat and owner had scowls on their faces. Matching big, grumpy lugs.

Levy giggled. "Nope, still pretty cute," she said.

"Frosch is the cutest," Rogue said, pulling it to his chest.

"Come on, bro, we both know Lector's cuter."

"Are you saying Charles isn't cute? Is it her name?" Wendy said.

"No, you're all wrong," Natsu said. "Happy's cuter. See? He's even blue!"

"I don't know, Natsu, a cat that thinks it's a frog is pretty damn cute," Gray said.

"Guys, let's not fight over who has the cuter cat," Lucy said. "We all know that nobody's going to win that fight. Everyone thinks their own cat is the cutest."

"No, Lily's tough, not cute," Gajeel insisted.

Lucy buried her face in her hands. These people were hopeless.

Yukino laughed and patted Lucy on the back. "Hang in there, Lucy. This whole cat thing was your idea, you know."

"I know," Lucy said.

"How about we let the cats play together and we can play some video games?" Gray said. "Anyone up for a Mario Kart tournament?"

"The only kind of driving I like," Natsu said. "Sign me the fuck up."

"It's just a game, no need to get so excited about it," Sting said, but he raised his hand as well to indicate participation.

"You're only saying that because you know you're gonna lose," Gajeel said.

"Oh yeah? Eat my pixelated dust, metal freak."

"I will, when I lap you for the second time."

Excited by all the trash talking, Natsu jumped up and let out a shout. "Oh, it is on! I'm all fired up!"

The boys except for Gray followed Natsu to gather in front of the TV and argue over whether to play Mario Kart or one of the other games lined up on the shelves. Gray lingered behind to flash Lucy a smile.

"Thanks, Gray," she said.

"What? I didn't do anything."

But she knew if he hadn't put a stop to the cat argument, it never would've stopped. Honestly, what would Lucy do with these boys? She loved them all to death, but sometimes she didn't know what to do with the constant bickering. If nobody did anything, it could go on for hours. Lucy actually timed it once. Thankfully there was usually at least one person who put a stop to it before it got that far; today, that person was Gray.

"Mario Kart it is!" Erza announced, holding the game case aloft.

"Aye!"

"Honestly, how is this even going to work?' Lucy said to Gray, standing back with her arms crossed. "There are what…eleven of us? And only four controllers."

"Well, not all of us will want to play," Gray said. "Right, Juvia?"

"Juvia is very bad at video games," Juvia said from Gray's other side.

"I wanted to play, though," Lucy said, pouting. But she didn't want to interfere with the very intense tournament planning that was developing over by the console. If she joined, there would be an odd number of people. She was certain she could crush all of them if she got her hands on a controller, but somebody had to stand back and be the host. Since she was the one who organized this whole thing, that responsibility fell to her.

Wendy popped up next to them to call Gray over to the group. "Gray, you're participating," she said. "You're in the first group."

"What about you?" Gray said.

"I'm going to play with the cats," Wendy said. "Don't worry, I'll be watching the tournament. I like watching more than playing sometimes."

"Does Lucy want to help Juvia prepare dinner?" Juvia said, wrapping her arms around one of Lucy's.

"The chili is already in the crock pot, right?" Lucy said, looking at Gray.

"We still need toppings and bowls and such," Gray said, "and I don't think Natsu did the dishes. On second thought, maybe you should take my place in the tournament. It's not fair to make you do all this work in our home."

"I practically live here, so it's my home too," Lucy said. "It's fine, go play. And if you switch with me, Natsu will probably tease you about backing out."

"You're not wrong," Gray said, lips twitching upward in a smile. "Well, good luck, ladies."

"You can do it, Gray," Juvia said, beaming.

"All right," Lucy said, pulling her arm out of Juvia's so she could roll up her sleeves. "Let's get to work."

After an intense Mario Kart tournament, they all gorged themselves on the food Lucy and Juvia brought out. Of course, with a bunch of artists sitting around together, the topic eventually shifted to art. Yukino talked about the portraits she was working on for school that she was making Sting and Rogue model for.

"That's right, you're a painter like Lucy," Levy said. "Sting and Rogue, how about you? We didn't hear what you two concentrate in."

"Installation," Sting said with a mouth full of food.

Levy lit up. "So you do sculpture!"

"Correct," Rogue said. "I focus less on the physical form of an object and more on the shadow it casts, and create different shapes and interactions of how shadows from different light sources can interact. We're both sculpture majors, though, yes."

"I work with light too, but I like to use it for things that light up, and to create color spaces. Rogue likes to focus on the shadows, but I play with the light itself," Sting said.

"You two are similar yet opposites," Lucy observed. "That must be why you two are so close; your interests seem really compatible."

"Well, we've been friends since we were kids, so…" Rogue said, pink dusting his cheeks. "It's more that we've been together a lot so we influence each other's ways of thinking."

"Wow, and you went to the same school and everything. And the Sabertooth art program is so hard to get into! That's amazing," Levy said.

"It's because Sting wanted to go," Rogue said.

"Nah bro, it's 'cause you wanted to go," Sting argued.

"Does it really matter who wanted to go first?" Gajeel said, rolling his eyes.

Erza shot him a glare. "Don't be rude."

The two boys ignored this exchange, continuing to debate whose idea it was to go to the same art school in the first place. It was almost comical how they interrupted each other with such a natural flow of conversation. Rogue said they'd been together a lot, but even just listening to them talk, it was obvious they were attached at the hip.

Yukino stood behind her boys, placing a hand on each shoulder to quell their debate. "In case all of you couldn't tell by the way they're fighting over who loves each other more, these two are the bro-est bros to ever bro."

"That's not what we were arguing about," Sting protested.

"I don't understand your meaning," Erza said.

Yukino let out a long-suffering sigh and came around the front of the couch to take a seat on the floor. "With these two it's always, bro this, bro that. Bro, bro, bro. For Pete's sake, they even finish each other's sentences as if they're one of those mind-reading twin sets or something. As much as I hate the word, they are the literal definition of bromance."

"Hey, Sting's the one who says all the sappy shit," Rogue said.

Sting glared. "Don't pin it all on me, bro. You're the one who blushes out of nowhere and makes it weird."

Rogue blushed. "Then stop saying embarrassing shit and maybe I won't get embarrassed!"

"See what I have to put up with?" Yukino said.

"I feel your pain, Yukino," Lucy said. "Being the third wheel to two bickering boys is tough sometimes."

"We understand each other," Yukino said.

"You're not talking about me and Hotpants over there, are you?" Gray said, scowling.

"I'm not even close with that bastard," Natsu said.

"See?" Lucy said. "They're practically an old married couple."

"Like hell!" the boys chorused, then glared at each other.

"That's my line," Gray said as Natsu growled, "Don't copy me."

"Juvia thinks it's great everyone is so close," Juvia said, stars in her eyes. She was startled by a cat pouncing on her back in an attempt to escape from another cat. To Lucy's surprise, it wasn't the previously unintroduced cats fighting, but rather Happy chasing Charles, whom he had seen many times.

"Hey, Happy, cut that out," she said, reaching out to grab Happy as he followed Charles's path over Juvia and crossed in front of her.

Happy let out an irritated mewl of protest, but Lucy held him tight.

"Sorry," Wendy said, running after her cat. "Charles tried to nap, but Happy wanted to play, and then they started fighting. I'll go get her."

"Happy," Lucy scolded, shifting the cat in her arms so she could give him a glare. As usual, Happy avoided eye contact, instead pushing his paws against her chest in an attempt to get away from her firm hold on him.

With the center of focus brought back to the group, the other cats started coming over as well. Lector and Frosch wrestled playfully on the floor while Lily watched over them, calmly cleaning himself.

Honestly, between the cats and their humans, Lucy wasn't sure which set was the weirder bunch of personalities.

"Ah, but we should get going," Yukino said suddenly, staring at the clock on the wall. "I still have to work on my portraiture project for tomorrow."

Sting looked at Rogue in wide-eyed horror. "Shit, the art history essay."

"Shit."

"You've gotta help me out, bro."

"I haven't even started my own essay, bro. How do you expect me to help you on yours?"

"I dunno bro."

"See what I mean with the 'bro?'" Yukino said.

"Yeah," came a chorus of muttered replies, the Fairy Tail group somewhat awed by how often the Sabertooth boys called each other "bro" now that they knew to listen for it.

"Whatever," Sting said, picking up Lector and putting the protesting cat back in his carrier. "You coming, Yuki?"

"Yeah, yeah." Yukino stood up. "It was nice meeting everyone."

"You too," Levy said.

"Lucy talks about you a lot, so I think all of us have been waiting for the day we finally got introduced," Erza said.

Yukino giggled. "I could say the same thing to you."

"Oh yeah?" Natsu said. "What does Lucy say about us?"

"That," Yukino said with a wink, "will have to be a topic for next time."

"I'll look forward to it," Erza said, smiling.

"Don't make me regret introducing everyone," Lucy said.

"Don't worry, we will," Yukino said, winking again. "Bye, Fairy Tail! Until next time!"

They waved the Sabertooth bunch goodbye. When the front door of the apartment was closed again, Lucy turned to her friends.

"So," she said, "how about another round of Mario Kart? A few of you need to get your butts kicked by a professional."

"I call Toadette!" Wendy shouted, running to the controllers.

The "cat playdate" was over, sure, but with this rowdy bunch, the play never ended.