Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail. Hiro Mashima does. This story was made for fun, and not for cash. (How unfortunate.)

Chapter 7: A Warming Bond

Lucy, still in her new form as Sakura, had pressed her lips against Sting's lips with such gentle ease and wanted to let him know that she had small feelings for him. She had intended to tell him, but it looked like fate made her go another way to explain things. The blush on her face was at the median between pink and red, and Lucy knew that people were watching the seemingly romantic scene.

After a few more seconds, she got off of Sting and held out her hand to help him stand up. Lucy saw the calm blue look in Sting's eyes, and his lips formed a pleased smile. Had he realized her small feelings, or would he laugh and say that Lucy was a ditzy klutz? Sting told the cashier girl to make another one of those special pies to go, and he handed her 1,000 jewels. Lucy used this chance to run out of the café, and she looked somewhat embarrassed.

She couldn't believe that she had just done that, not even asking Sting if he already had an interest in anyone else, and Lucy felt really bad for kissing him with the thought of her own feelings. She hadn't considered his feelings, and Sting might not even like her that way. She even thought that he had ordered the pie to rid the taste of her lips from his mouth, and that made Lucy feel uncomfortable.

To make things even weirder, Natsu and Lisanna had seen the whole thing occur right before their eyes. Even though she currently wasn't in her normal form as Lucy, the book-wielding mage knew that the fire dragon slayer and his white-haired girlfriend would be asking her about that if she ever showed up to the Fairy Tail guild again. That would certainly create drama, would it not?

"Why did I act like a flirtatious idiot back there? I just wanted to tell him my feelings, and how I liked him! That was the worst move in the history of romance!" Lucy thought to herself, as she twiddled her thumbs and blushed while looking inside the café.

As the white dragon slayer exited Café Sonata with a large brown bag in his left hand that was containing the cake, he handed the emerald green book to Lucy and she quickly turned away from him. Sting narrowed his blue eyes for a moment, realizing Lucy must be uncomfortable after that accidental kiss and his eyes became calm afterwards for him to say something.

"Look, I know that was somewhat of an accident. I'd tell you to be more careful, but I guess your careless tripping made us both happy. I mean, that was technically my first kiss and my first time kissing a girl's lips. I liked it, Lucy." Sting told her while calmly smiling at her, and attempting to hold her hand to offer her comfort if she wanted it.

Lucy's emerald green eyes twinkled with slight joy when Sting admitted that he received his first kiss from her, and he liked it. She wanted to jump for joy, but she had calmed herself down enough to respond with a gentle hug while having her head resting against Sting's chest and feeling his rock-hard abdominals with her hands. She had made a stupidly romantic move, but at least it worked in her favor.

Sting looked down at her with a smile on his face, enjoying the fact that his friend was now happy, and the white dragon slayer's charming blue eyes shifted over to the harbor for him to take notice of the S.S. Aqua returning from a voyage. This was now their chance to go on that job to Cinnabar Town, and Sting knew that he would enjoy being on this job with Lucy at his side.

As he took her left hand in his right hand, Sting smirked a bit while releasing his grip and challenging Lucy to a fun race to see who could reach the S.S. Aqua first. She giggled happily while running after him at fast speeds, letting him know that this race was definitely on, and Lucy didn't even notice that her emerald green spell book began to glow once again from her new-found love, confidence, and happiness.

While the duo decided to race to the harbor out of pure fun, a certain pink-haired dragon slayer was fuming with rage while he exited the cafe with his blue-eyed girlfriend. He couldn't believe that Sting from Sabertooth had the audacity to be in the territory of Fairy Tail, the rival guild, and Natsu was also shocked that the new girl who had joined the guild was having a romantic moment with that guy.

"What the heck was that new girl doing with Sting from that stupid Sabertooth? She has no right to be hanging with a guy like him, or kissing his nasty lips!" Natsu shouted angrily, as he clenched his teeth while looking frustrated.

"It looked accidental to me, Natsu. Maybe they were just old friends or something. I don't know their history, but let's just go back to the guild and calm you down with another fight about nonsense. Maybe Lucy showed up today, too." Lisanna told Natsu with a smile while knowing that quelling her boyfriend's rage and apologizing to Lucy would be doing two good deeds in one day.

"Eh, who needs that weak girl? Lucy was really just useless to our team, and she probably still cries over me. Anyway, did you see where that jerk went?" Natsu asked sternly, still fuming with rage and wanting to beat down Sting for being on the turf of Fairy Tail.

Lisanna sighed while looking a bit disappointed, knowing that apologizing to Lucy with the intent of trying to be on good terms with her would be making some great progress, and she also knew that Natsu's attitude towards the blonde mage was still negative with the amount of progress still being at square one. Natsu was really dense about letting people down gently, and he couldn't even realize how rude and uncaring he acted towards Lucy.

While the two mages from Fairy Tail walked off towards their guild, not seeing Sting or Sakura anywhere close by, Karen came out of the shadow of the cafe's door. She looked pleased about something, possibly Lucy's transformation, and she smiled a bit from the fact that neither Natsu or Lisanna had seen through Lucy's disguise. Clearly, Lucy's plan had worked.

Karen was really glad that she had given the spell book to Lucy, despite it only having twelve spells available, and the woman of shadows knew that only one type of magic from the book could be used at one time. In other words, Lucy would have to use up one type of magic for her to gain access to another. The amount of magical power for each type of magic had its limits as well.

However, unlocking more than one type of magic would release seals on the book. Lucy had removed one seal already, increasing her magical power, and she had become quite good with the spells. Karen had been witnessing Lucy's progress from afar, wanting to see if she was anything like her master, and the blonde mage was starting to be quite skilled.

Karen had also seen Sting as a good influence on Lucy, since he was always encouraging her and assisting her, and the two mages really had no clue about the book. They weren't on a quest to complete it, but Lucy and Sting were sort of on a journey to know each other. Lucy had small feelings for Sting, enjoying his company, and he had liked the kiss that she had given him.

While she stood by the cafe, looking like an ordinary person with no suspicious or devious thoughts at all, Karen couldn't stop thinking about the white heart-shaped pendant that she had given to Lucy. It wasn't actually just a magical pendant for transformation, but that same pendant had belonged to Karen's master before she met her own destruction.

"The pendant of purity has changed its purpose, since all those ages have passed. It shall lead the young girl and her friend to my master, and then it shall lead to the end of something for my master's plan to truly begin." Karen thought to herself while having a scheming look on her face, seeming quite pleased about a certain light that transpired in a certain place earlier and allowed her shadows to create a certain job for a specific mage who had a spell book.

Karen had enjoying her task of keeping tabs on Lucy, but she also saw other factors that could interfere with her plans. For one thing, Natsu had just been looking around for Sting and his female companion. The fire dragon slayer didn't exactly like Lucy, and he had probably been fuming with rage because his opportunity to make Lucy jealous hadn't come around today.

Fairy Tail could certainly be a problem, should Natsu and his team ever get in Lucy's way, but Karen also knew that Natsu's attitude towards Lucy was really not making him look good at all. Even his own team hated the way that he was treating her, not even caring for one bit because he was so in love with Lisanna, and his desire for a perfectly strong team of efficient mages would eventually backfire.

His arrogance would definitely cause a few problems, especially since his team wasn't the strongest team ever. Natsu had even shown his overconfident side to Lucy when she was disguised as Sakura, and he tried to attack her with flames engulfing his fists. Unfortunately for him, she had really sent him crashing into the bar and injured his body. Hopefully, his ego also took slight damage after that experience.

Keeping watch on Lucy's main enemies would be a rather wise move for Karen to do, and the shadows allowed her to see and hear everything from the comfort of the darkness. This would be quite an easy task, and spying on Fairy Tail right now could be useful for matters later on. Upon seeing the cafe door open once again, Karen quickly went down into its shadows and moved through the darkness to get to where she needed to be.

No one was going to get in the way of the great plan that would make Karen's master become fully revived, so she just had to make sure that Lisanna was keeping Natsu away from causing any drama. After all, he did seem to have to obey her wishes in their relationship. He wouldn't go after Lucy if Lisanna wanted to be on good terms with her, and she was certainly helping Karen indirectly keep the fire dragon slayer restricted to where he should be. Every chess piece in a plan had its role and place, you know.

This plan was really going to bring about the beginning of one thing and the end of another, but what could either one possibly be? There was something really important about the spell book, but what was it? What could it possibly cause, and were there further mysteries surrounding it? Lucy hadn't even unlocked most of the book yet, but Karen knew many secrets about it. If Lucy was similar to her master, she could certainly use the book. However, would there end up being any twists of any kind in this epic adventure that Lucy and Sting were on?

At the harbor...

After running so far, Lucy panted heavily while looking a bit exhausted. She hadn't managed to beat Sting here, since he only arrived a few minutes earlier to the S.S. Aqua. He was touching the ship with his left hand while cockily smirking at his brown-haired companion, happy to have won this race, and Sting knew that Lucy just needed a little bit more training if she wanted to beat him in a race.

The duo boarded the ship that was set for Cinnabar Town, and they were once again directed to the room reserved for Lucy and any other guests that might want to travel with her. The food cart was now stocked with items for brunch, meaning that all of the food was for breakfast and lunch, but the two mages would save it all for later since they had just eaten a pie at the new cafe in Magnolia.

Lucy sat on the comfy blue bed while she tried to get some relaxation after running so far, and she yawned a bit as she opened up the emerald green spell book. She looked astounded to now find that the other four spells of Wind Magic had been unlocked, due to her being able to express her feelings to Sting and become more confident, and Lucy wondered how these new spells would work.

The green text surprisingly didn't say that these spells weren't readable yet, but the book instructed Lucy to save these four spells for later on. It was possible that she would have to use them at the Volcanic Shrine in Cinnabar Town, obviously since it was hiding a special secret of some kind, and Lucy smiled a bit at the possibility of the shrine's treasure.

The great treasure had to be unlocked by four spells, which is what Lucy currently had and could use later on, and she giggled a bit at the prospect of seeing something great. The treasure could even be something legendary, never seen for centuries, and now Lucy had to chance to uncover it. Of course, she wondered what Sting thought about treasure and ancient history.

"Do you have a thing for legends and lore, Sting? Does the exciting prospect of discovering uncharted places and finding new things make you interested?" Lucy asked him in a calm tone, blushing a bit while she had kindness in her emerald green eyes as she smiled.

Sting seemed a bit intrigued by her question, having a charming look in his blue eyes while looking at her, and he responded in a relaxed manner, "History has its great moments, but finding ancient stuff is nothing like taking down the monsters of today. Still, that accidental kiss will be quite the historic event for us to remember."

At that moment, Lucy began to blush cherry red from remembering how Sting had such soft lips. Her kiss had been really relaxed, not too hard or too soft, and Lucy had wanted him to understand the feelings that she had for him. Based on his last sentence, Lucy could tell that her feelings had definitely reached out to Sting. She admired him, and he was starting to like her as a response to her kindness, silliness, and new confidence.

Lucy saw Sting as a guy who was much better than Natsu in every way, much more smarter than the fire dragon slayer, much kinder with a great attitude that made Lucy have a smile on her face, and she really enjoyed being around a great guy like Sting. They weren't in any kind of a relationship yet, and they couldn't exactly move too fast after an accidental incident of romance.

She wanted to know more about Sting, wanting to know his past, but then Lucy also remembered that not everyone came from such a nice past. She wouldn't want to pry into matters that were sensitive for Sting, and even asking about why he surrendered to Fairy Tail in last year's Grand Magic Games might be a bad topic to bring up. Sting was the type of person who faced forward in order to become strong, and Lucy knew she couldn't be staring back at a person's past or her own. She had to focus on the current path, the route of success that Sting was sailing on with her.

The brown-haired female definitely had to remember her times of success over her times of failure, and she had even forgiven Sting for laughing at her humiliation in the Naval Battle last year. He had changed since then, becoming less of a jerk, and Sting was the exact opposite of Natsu. The fire dragon slayer didn't want Lucy on his team because she weak, and Natsu might probably even allow Minerva to join his team if they ever crossed paths. However, Sting wasn't like Natsu. He actually helped Lucy, being so kind to her, and that's what she mainly liked about his personality.

Natsu had cared for Lucy in the past, liking her as a teammate, but all that he could think about right now was Lisanna. He didn't care about what happened to an old teammate, and Lucy really had no other choice to be reciprocal with him. He had been quite rude to her lately, trying to make her jealous by kissing Lisanna and getting sexy with her at times, and Lucy didn't want his idiocy and immaturity to bother her.

She didn't have to take abuse from a brash idiot who saw her as nothing, and Lucy was really glad to be spending most of the time with the guy who liked her as if she was a rare and valuable jewel that couldn't be romantically obtained easily by loving her strength alone. Power and attention by themselves weren't everything necessary for loving a woman, you know. Her personality, if it was appealing in some way, would make her be admired as well.

Two-day timeskip…

The ship finally docked in Cinnabar Town, a tourist resort on an island that had a volcano. Many balloons of various colors were being released into the air by the young kids, and the merchant shops were also making great profits off of their merchandise because of the hot climate. The hotels were housing many tourists, and they certainly were having great food as well.

Lucy and Sting stepped on to the pier, both looking pleased at how cool the town looked with the volcano in the background, and they wondered where the Volcanic Shrine was located. Something important like that had to be found somewhere, but where? Sting thought about asking the people here, but most of them seemed to be tourists who only came here for a good time and some excitement. Lucy smiled a bit at the sight of a few happy couples buying snacks from a concession stand, and the brown-haired girl thought that she and Sting could spend some time being happy while looking for the shrine.

Speaking of time, the white heart-shaped pendant around Lucy's neck began to emit a white light once again. She gasped in shock as the light got brighter, even blinding Sting's eyes, and it only lasted a few moments. When the light faded away quickly, Sting opened his eyes to see that Lucy had reverted back to wearing her pink pajamas. She also had her blonde hair and brown eyes back, too. This transformation had been wearing off about after every 50 minutes or so, and Sting still wondered who in the world would make a strange pendant like that.

With that aside, Sting could guess where the Volcanic Shrine would be located. It would have to obviously be in the volcano or somewhere close to there, and the volcano was in the northeastern part of the town. The white dragon slayer quickly ran off in that direction, with Lucy following right behind him, and the two mages were determined to find the treasure.

Since the island wasn't exactly large, Sting and Lucy didn't have to go through a dense forest or take any long routes to reach the volcano. The town surprisingly had a pretty straight path to the volcano, straight enough with a few directions and signs for anyone not to miss the landmark of Cinnabar Town, and Lucy smiled a bit when she arrived at the foot of the volcano with Sting. Climbing upward would be a risk, and it also seemed to not be permitted since there were some guards around the volcano.

Lucy gasped a bit while seeing a cavernous opening at the foot of the volcano, and there was something inside that cave. Lucy could see a red glow of some kind, and she ran into the cave with Sting when the guards and tourists were busy looking at the top of the volcano while the history of the island was being explained. At least these people were lucky to not find a mansion and a ruined lab focusing on cloning and genetics, right? (Referencing Cinnabar Island in Generations one & three.)

Upon entering the small room, Sting asked in a shocked manner while seeing the treasure in the middle of the room, "This is the treasure?"

A red aura was floating about in the center of the room, seeming very familiar yet also mysterious, and Lucy also noticed that there were four floating grey keyhole-shaped stones on all four corners of the aura. They obviously had to be destroyed by four spells, one spell to obliterate one stone, and the brown-eyed girl had the perfect combination to get rid of those locks.

She opened the emerald green spell book, and Lucy called upon the power of the fifth spell. It was known as Feather Dancer. This move caused many green feathers to float in midair, before they landed on one of the stones and exploded in a multitude of medium-sized emerald green blasts of Wind Magic. From an aerial view of this room, the stone in the upper-left corner of the square seal had been destroyed.

Quickly looking down at the spell book, Lucy noticed that the next spell was known as Wind Cannon. This spell made a large green drill of wind emerge from Lucy's mouth, and it spun at intense revolution speeds that could rip a person to shreds if they made direct contact with it. This spell headed straight for the stone in the upper-right corner of the square seal, destroying it completely, and then proceeding to create a large emerald green explosion.

Lucy really wanted this treasure, really hoping to discover the secret of the red aura, and she used the seventh spell next. It was known as Aerial Shuriken, and this spell made a few green shuriken appear in Lucy's hands. She threw the seven projectiles at the next stone, noticing they were traveling along seven different paths of wind, and the shuriken struck the stone in the bottom-left corner while making cracks in it. They detonated, create emerald green blasts, and this spell had a side effect. The blasts created large air currents around Lucy, and she felt all the air entering her mouth like it needed to heal its master.

Her magical power was now fully restored, and Lucy decided to active the eighth and final spell of Wind Magic. This spell was known as Sky Impact, and its name seemed a bit ominous. The spell itself didn't call for Lucy to do anything, and it caused the winds to take the form of a large emerald green serpentine-like creature. This creature flew around Sting and Lucy, making the former seem a bit scared, but then Lucy's new creature fired a massive emerald green beam of Wind Magic from its mouth! The attack obliterated the last stone, creating an extremely massive emerald green blast, and then the light faded away with the creature.

After using up so much power, Lucy looked utterly exhausted. Those four new spells took up lots of power, especially the last one, and the brown-eyed girl panted heavily while she was about to fall to the ground. However, Sting caught her from behind and set her down on the ground for a moment. He took her emerald green spell book from her hands, seeming curious about it, and Sting walked towards the now unlocked red aura. It felt too hot for him to touch it, and the mysterious aura entered the book while it seemed to be laughing.

Lucy's book began to change to a cherry red color, making Sting look appalled at the sight of magic like this transpiring right before his eyes. He opened the book slowly, hoping to find something, but the book didn't glow like last time. The words in red had appeared, obviously in their olden language, and Sting couldn't understand any of it. This book was strange to him, and it seemed to only want to react to Lucy. What secrets could the book be hiding?

Not wanting to stay here any longer, Sting carried Lucy on his back while smirking a bit at the sound of her suddenly snoring softly. She had been really exhausted from using up so much power, and Lucy really deserved a reward for helping Sting uncover a treasure that was valuable to her. The white dragon slayer planned to take her back home on the S.S. Aqua, but first he had to buy some medicine that contained large amounts of Troia to prevent his motion sickness.

"Lucy, you're a pretty good kisser and you're also really attractive. I need to get strong for you, since you're improving your skills, and we're definitely going to have some more fun like we did today." Sting thought to himself, happiness in his blue eyes while smiling more as he walked down toward the merchant shops to get the medicine.

How was the 7th chapter? Did you like it? Sting and Lucy are building their chemistry some more, and things seem to be going well. The next type of magic has appeared, but it has its limits. Also, the NaLi development shall occur in the next chapter when Lisanna tries to be friends with Sakura, Lucy's alter-ego, and talks about the blonde mage. How shall that go? What happens next? Standby for the update!