A/N: I am so sorry you guys for the huge wait! I've been so busy with school and work lately that I haven't really had the chance to sit down and write anything yet. Plus I've had a case of MAJOR writers block. So I've decided to update today in honor of Christmas and keeping my word of giving yo guys a long chapter.
Big shout out to Rose Tiger, Llaelien, Dark Shining Light, brooke0315, 13, cookie panda-roo, Sierra, Guest, AngelKitty27, fake name, HimeAnimeFairy, and esefani36 for reviewing!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the plot!
After cleaning up Natsu's cut thoroughly at her apartment, the pair headed back to the guild in hopes of finding a cure for the pink haired pyro's current state. Even though the task at hand was nothing compared to some of the missions and battles that they had faced before in the past, Lucy was beginning to find babysitting Natsu to be just as equally difficult.
"Natsu you can't just take off running like that!" The celestial mage chided, trying to catch her breath from having chased down her miniature teammate. "What if something were to happen to you? You know just because you're a little kid doesn't mean you should take things so lightly." She crossed her arms across her chest, casting a hardened gaze at the child before her.
Looking up at his blonde teammate in surprise, Natsu had felt guilt for having worried her. Igneel was the only one who ever took care of him and had raised him before joining the guild that he had almost forgotten what it was like to have someone worry over him. "I'm sorry Lucy… you're right." He apologized, eyes downcast as he stared at the stone floor beneath them. The blonde was taken aback by this, she had expected him to brush her off calling her a worrywart or at least throw a tantrum but not this. "I won't ever leave you behind ever again. I promise."
And with that he lifted up his right hand, closing his fingers up to make a fist except for his pinky. There was a pregnant pause between the two before a soft smile broke out on the celestial wizard's face, copying his actions where both their pinkies curled around one another's. "You better not, you hear me? Otherwise I might have to give you a Lucy Kick." She grinned playfully.
"H-hey! I'm still a kid! What kind of abuse is this?" He yelled, knowing full well that she would keep her word.
"Oh please," she rolled her eyes, "don't act all innocent Natsu; you're lucky I'm not Erza."
A cold shiver ran down his back at the thought of the scarlet haired woman punishing him, no doubt that she would skin him alive—child or not. "Yeah you're right… I am lucky."
"We're back!"
"Did you find anything yet Levy-chan?"
"Well I've been doing some research and I can't find anything in the magic encyclopedia about these candies..." The solid script mage pouted, as she kept her eyes focused on the book in front of her. "This is a little more challenging than I anticipated." She chuckled nervously.
"In the meantime I think it's best if we keep Natsu inside of Fairy Tail, we don't want him running around causing such a mess." The master spoke.
'The mayor is already at my throat with all the damages these brats have caused, the last thing I need is for the citizens to complain about a fire breathing rug-rat running around.' He paled, imaging the mayor yelling at him (per usual) about the mischievous fire mage.
At that moment the guild's doors were opened, turning everyone's attention to the two newcomers.
"Well you two certainly got back rather fast," Mira chirped, "So I take it that the mission went rather well?" the takeover mage asked, preparing the usual for the ice wizard and water mage.
"Yeah everything went alright. Of course it was a small job so…" Gray's voice trailed off, catching Mirajane's attention. "W-woah! Since when did you and Natsu do the dirty?" the ice wizard asked in surprising, his gaze moving back and forth between the pink haired child and a blushing Lucy.
"W-what?!" Lucy practically screamed. And if it were not for everyone's eyes staring at her she would have bolted out the door and never leave her room until this whole fiasco was over with. Maybe by that time they would all move on to a new pair in Fairy Tail to tease…
"N-No we aren't—I mean we haven't done anything!" The blonde maiden sputtered, her face as red as a tomato causing the raven haired male to raise a brow in response.
"At least not until I'm back to normal." Natsu said rather plainly.
"R-Right! At least not until Natsu's…" Lucy's eyes grew to the size of saucers catching herself before she finished the rest of that sentence. Her imagination running wild with the idea of her and Natsu being together and what sort of… intimate acts a couple might do together. It was at times like these that she cursed her writer's imagination.
'Love-rival and Natsu-san already have children before Gray-sama and Juvia?' The water mage thought bitterly, "Juvia will not lose to love-rival, Juvia and Gray-sama will have more children then love rival." She said quietly sending the celestial wizard a murderous gaze.
"Well I don't really understand what's going on here but damn did I miss a lot of stuff going on." The ice mage scratched the back of his head nervously, "Who would've thought that flame brain would have it in him? And here I thought he was too stupid to talk to a girl," Gray mused giving Mira a small thanks before taking a strong sip from his drink. "Much less knock one up."
"What did you say?!" Natsu yelled, as steam seemed to blow from his ready to challenge the ice mage to a fight. "I'll have you know that I do know how to talk to girls! In fact I talk to girls every day!" He argued, glaring up at the raven haired male who was currently in shock at this little outburst. "Not that you would know anything about that with your ugly mug." He said rather smugly causing Gray to snap out of his trance.
"Oh you wanna go brat? I'll take you on right here, kid or not."
"Ha, I'd like to see you try."
"Alright, alright that's enough you two!" Lucy stepped in between the two, "Gray, that kid isn't my son he's Natsu," she explained, trying hard to keep herself from blushing. "He ate some magical candy that made him a kid again."
"Seriously? Man you are such a loser."
"Tch, better than being a pervert."
"What did you…"
"G-Gray-sama! Your clothes!" Juvia pointed out, trying her best to shield her eyes from the ice mage's naked figure.
"AAGH! When did that happen?" The ice wizard yelled, trying his best to change back into his clothes once more.
"Moron."
"There, so now that we've explained everything, do you guys think that you can help out?"
"Huh who knew that there was such an item that existed… but you can definitely count on us." Gray smirked, "It's bad enough we all have to deal with Natsu's stupidity, but if we have to deal with his stupidity and bratty ways there's no way the guild will stay standing." He sighed ignoring the fire mage's outburst and death threats.
"Juvia well help out as well."
'This way if Juvia helps out Natsu-san hopefully Natsu-san and love-rival will get together and Juvia won't have to worry about love rival stealing Gray-sama away from her.' The water mage chuckled rather darkly, causing Lucy to sweat drop in response.
"Then it's settled, if we all do our part in looking for some information about those age-regression candies then I'm sure we can find a way to turn Natsu back to normal." Mirajane smiled.
"Freed, is there any way that your ruins can possibly reverse the magic placed on these candies?" Makarov asked, all eyes turning to the green haired mage.
"I am afraid not master, for in order to reverse the magic I would have to know of all the ingredients that were placed inside of the candies." Freed explained, "I just hope that we can find a cure, otherwise…"
"Otherwise Natsu will remain a kid forever! I don't want a little Natsu as my partner!" Happy shouted, shivering at the idea of giving his adoptive father a ride every day until he stopped crying.
"Now everybody just calm down, as long as we all work together and do some reading we should be able to come up with something that will lift this magic." Makarov said reassuringly, "In the meantime, its best that we keep Natsu here in the guild and preoccupied until we get this thing all sorted out."
"I can keep an eye on ash-for-brains over here," Gray volunteered.
Lucy released a sigh of relief at having some time away from being the pyromaniacs' personal babysitter. "Thank you Gray, just make sure to not kill him before he turns back to normal alright?"
"Sure thing, Natsu and I are gonna have some fun." He grinned rather darkly, cracking his knuckles as soon as the blonde wizard had left to help Levy.
Natsu's eyes widened with panic as soon as he saw his curvy blonde partner leave with Gray to watch over him. Not that Natsu was afraid of Gray or anything now that he was several feet shorter than the towering ice wizard, he just felt slightly uneasy about the fact that no one had caught the evil glint in the ice wizard's eye as he volunteered to help watch him… it wasn't until now that he realized how small he was until he had to crane his neck all the way up to stare at his frienemy.
"Oh and Gray, make sure to keep Natsu entertained, he tends to get into trouble I noticed when he's bored." Natsu heard Lucy say.
"Don't worry Lucy I'll be sure to entertain him." Natsu started to sweat, debating whether or not he should ask for someone else to watch over him until he felt himself being lifted into the air. "Hey Natsu remember last week when you stole my meal and said that Gajeel ate it?"
The fire mage gulped.
"Y-yeah?"
"Here's my payback… Human windmill!"
Before Natsu had a chance to call out for help, Gray's hands were locked firmly onto his arms swinging him around in a circle in a very fast motion. The more the ice wizard swung him around the more Natsu felt nauseous .
"I'm gonna puke… ugh…"
"Hehehe now… way up high!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, Gray had flung Natsu high in air making the dragon slayer hit his head on the wooden roof courtesy of Gray's above average strength. Having a throbbing pain in the back of his head and his stomach churning in the most unpleasant ways, Natsu was a mess to say the least. 'Stupid Gray… when I get back to normal you'll be sorry…' he vowed, 'Or better yet…'
Missing the mischievous glint that the pink haired toddler had in his onyx black eyes, Gray laughed at the so called "pathetic" expression that Natsu had. Little did he know that Natsu was pulling something out of his overalls pocket, readying himself for the right moment. Once the raven haired male had threw his head back in laughter, careless of what his frenemies' intentions, did he realize his mistake.
Gulp.
Gray's eyes widened in shock at what had just happened, lowering his gaze to the now grinning Natsu who looked very pleased with himself.
"All that reading and still not a thing…" Lucy sighed in defeat. When they had first started researching for a cure she was more than determined to help out her fellow teammate but after reading over several books on magic spells, items, and dark magic… she was starting to have her doubts. "Maybe I'll go check on Gray and Natsu and see how they're doing." However, before she could get up from the wooden table though she was sent flying straight into a wall by something.
"Ugh…"
"Arrrgh! Gray you moron!"
'Natsu…' Her face darkened as she dusted herself off ready to give the flaming maniac that she called her partner a piece of her mind. Turning around to glare at the pink haired child she found herself staring directly at a miniature…
"GRAY?!"
"Quit hiding behind Lucy and fight me for real Natsu!" The now child sized Gray bellowed, holding out his hand in a challenging way, his pants and shoes on the floor leaving him to be covered only by his now over-sized white coat. "Or are you chicken?"
First Natsu… now Gray? Just how many of those candies did Natsu buy?
Ta-da! And there you have it folks a new chapter. :3 I hope you all have a pleasant Christmas and I promise to update more and more. Thank you all for reading and be sure to let me know what you think since it's been a while.