Thanks again to everyone who is reading this with us! Sorry for the delayed update! Dragoncon was a thing, and Kytrin and I were both at it so there wasn't going to be any updates until both of us regained a pulse. It was lots of fun, and I even saw a Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Erza cosplayer!

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"

Here comes Clint Eastwood

Natsu had never been on a train before. Shoulders bunching with tension, he didn't bother to break the hold Lucy had on his wrist. She walked with brisk steps to the station, where Lyon and Jura were waiting to say goodbye.

The train hissed and steamed, almost like a great metal dragon. Except this one was going to be far worse than any encounter with a real one. He reflexively tugged backwards, his stomach rolling at the sight of the metal contraption.

Lucy simply released him, not having noticed his cringing.

"Thanks for your hospitality Jura," Lucy gave him a grateful look. The wizard saint merely nodded gamely, his face calm and smile kind on her. Natsu wanted to shove him onto the tracks for putting the idea of traveling through the town in Lucy's head.

What a pain in the ass.

"Think nothing of it," Jura slid his hands into his sleeves, crossing his arms over his chest, "Know you are always welcome in Lamia Scale if you ever find yourself back in Hargeon."

"And if you see Gray in Magnolia, tell him to stop by to brush up. His magic needs work," Lyon added, a superior smirk on his face.

Natsu snorted, mouth opening to throw a barb at the ice make wizard, but jumped back instead when the train gave a hissing growl next to him.

Jura stared for a second and then returned his gaze to Lucy, "Take care on your travels Lucy. There have been quite a number of bandits on the road as of late, but the train should provide you safer passage than if you were traveling by carriage or foot."

Lucy nodded, "We'll be careful." She promised, making a mental note to keep an eye out for suspicious people. Well, as much as possible. The people in this world were strange by her standards regardless, and she wasn't sure she would be able to spot something out of place.

Still, it couldn't hurt to keep her eyes open just in case.

She smiled at both wizards and waved as she boarded the train, dragging an increasingly green Natsu with her despite his efforts to avoid boarding by clawing at the platform floor and then clinging to the door.

"I really hate you." He groaned, already feeling his stomach churning more just from the at rest vibration.

Lucy blinked at him in confusion, "Natsu, what are you doing?" She asked, taken aback by the sight of him in kind of a Natsu shaped puddle of misery on the floor, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He choked as he clawed his way to the nearest empty seats and collapsed in one, taking up the whole seat, "Just leave me alone."

At least the seat was comfy. He half curled his arms around it possessively, and growled a little when Lucy initially moved to sit on it. His seat. If he was going to be miserable then he was at least going to have his own space. Lucy could just sit somewhere else. And so could anyone else for that matter.

Lucy stared at the dragon in mingled amusement and confusion. Obviously there was something wrong, though she couldn't imagine what since nothing was happening, but if he didn't want to tell her she wasn't going to press.

As it was watching him lay claim to an entire seat bench and growl feebly at anyone passing too close was kind of funny to watch.

She shook her head a little and opened the window to at least get some fresh air blowing in. Maybe it would help whatever was eating at Natsu so badly.

Regardless of his problem, he was being quiet and well behaved, so that was all that really mattered to her. She didn't even want to think about how Natsu would behave within close quarters for the trip back to Magnolia. She was lucky he seemed to have rolled over onto his side to take a nap.

Although the strange growling and hacking noises he was making told her he wasn't quite asleep.

"Natsu are you really going to take up that whole bench? You know some people are going to want to sit down too," She chided lightly. Natsu just reached around for Lucy's pack and set it on top of his head to prevent himself from hearing her.

It was the only sign he even acknowledged what she said, which just proved he was rude as usual.

The jerk wasn't even looking at her!

Rolling her eyes, she huffed and snagged her book from within the bag once the departing whistle of the train rang out. Her moving the sack elicited a territorial growl from Natsu, but Lucy ignored it.

Especially since the growl seemed to choke off at the root seconds later into a pathetic sounding whine. Lucy gave him a curious look as she sat back down to get comfortable with her book. Natsu actually seemed a little sick at the moment, so she didn't see the harm in reading while he was out of it.

Could dragons get sick, much less demons?

Lucy didn't know, but the thought seemed too ridiculous to be possible. No, it was too insane. Natsu was just being grumpy and taking a nap as usual. Which was why she didn't pay him any mind when the train began to move and Natsu all but became one with the bench he was sprawled over.

His back was still turned towards her, his breathing shallow and head still buried underneath their pack of supplies. An uneventful hour passed, where the train rattled on through cleared out woods and tracks, Lucy's attention drawing from the book every now and then to watch the moving countryside flash past.

The only movement from Natsu was when he moved the pack from the top of his head into his arms to drop his head on it like a pillow. Lucy pulled her attention up from a chapter about Fairy Tail's run in with their dragon-enemy. He had apparently been stealing lacrima from merchants coming into the town for fun.

Seeing Natsu on his side, with his head on her bag and his knees drawn up to his chest, Lucy had a little trouble associating the images in her mind. And then had even further trouble recalling how Natsu had so ruthlessly been about to kill both her and the guild members in Hargeon.

But some of the stories surrounding Natsu and Fairy Tail were strange.

Lucy had seen what Natsu did to Master Hades' ship. He had ruthlessly squashed the fleeing guild members and ripped apart the hull of their ship with his teeth alone.

But the crimes he committed against Fairy Tail ranged from serious, all the way to petty. So much in fact, it seemed more like a prank than anything else compared to his usual ferocity.

Still, perhaps the book was flawed after all. Lucy didn't know how Natsu would react to Fairy Tail in person. And that was something she would have to see with her own eyes.

Lucy was pulled out of her musing when a strange shudder ran through the train and yelped as the brakes suddenly squealed sending her flying directly onto Natsu, "What the...?" She groaned as she picked herself up and looked around in confusion.

All around her other people were picking themselves up as well, groaning softly from crashing into things, and blinking with the same confusion she felt, but there was nothing she could see that explained what had happened.

Of course, that didn't mean anything either. They were on a train. It could've had something to do with one of the other cars, and the more she got her bearings the more likely that seemed to be.

Whatever it was though, it had to be bad. They were in the middle of nowhere. Which, as clichéd as it sounded, probably meant the train was being robbed.

How ironic that her guilty pleasure of spaghetti westerns would actually prove useful.

"Natsu, I think the train's being robbed." She murmured to the dragon, who actually did look distinctly green up close. Maybe he really was sick?

"Good." The dragon growled, his face still buried in their pack, "It stopped this stupid train." That was always going to win points in his book. Always.

"Natsu!" Lucy scolded, "This is serious!"

Natsu cracked an eye open, giving her an irritated look, "Why? They'll grab whatever they want to add to their hoard and leave."

"You don't know that!" Lucy hissed, annoyed as much by his attitude as his rudeness, "They could be planning to blow up the train, or take everyone hostage or something!"

"So what?" He yawned as he sat back up, feeling considerably better the longer he sat there without that stupid rocking driving him insane, "I'll just roast 'em if they get too close."

Why should he care otherwise? Lucy would be fine. He would exert himself enough to keep her from dying until she unbound him. He wasn't certain what clauses there were if she died while they were connected, so it would probably be better to err on the side of caution for now.

And he would certainly be fine. So what was the big deal?

He swung his legs up, dragging his fingers through his hair to shake off the remaining twists of nausea coiling in his stomach. He really was not a huge fan of trains, but even less of a fan of Lucy waving a hand in his face.

"What're you gonna do, roast them on a metal train and cook everyone on it with them?" Lucy huffed, dropping her hands on her hips. Granted, she wasn't the most courageous of people. She usually exercised caution on the better side of valor, especially since she didn't exactly know how to defend herself in this world.

Her great 'magical' ability consisted of yelling at a dragon and running away into a random location.

Not even one of her own choosing.

"Yeah, so?" Natsu's scowled, giving her a dry look.

He stopped as the sound of heavy footfalls caught his attention and he snagged Lucy's wrist to cut her off, dragging her behind him. He ignored her indignant splutters and poked his head out into the aisle.

Plenty of confused and wary humans were muttering amongst themselves, frightened and confused. All except the humans standing in the aisle and making their way through the carriage.

His nose twitched, picking up a curious scent of dark, magical energy coming from them. Wizards then, belonging to a dark guild. Annoyance flared in him. Bandits were one thing, dark guild members were another. They just irritated him on principle, but it also made protecting Lucy a little more difficult as a guild of wizards tended to complicate matters.

He watched as they approached, lead by a heavily tattooed man, shouldering a heavy scythe across his back. Every now and then when they seemed to detect a magical presence, they would drag someone out of their seat to loot them of their valuables.

Were they searching for something?

Natsu's lips twisted in amusement. They were heading right towards them. Lucy could say whatever she wanted. This was going to be fun.

For her part, Lucy wasn't sure what she was feeling at the moment. It was kind of like when she'd met that guy Hades and his guild only more pronounced. These guys just seemed to ooze slime, and from what she could see peeking around Natsu she absolutely didn't want to get near them. They took creepy to whole new levels. Especially the guy with the scythe. Could you get more grim reaper than that?

Unfortunately, they were getting steadily closer, despite their stops, and she couldn't help gulping nervously when they stopped at her and Natsu.

"Well...what have we here?" The leader drawled lazily, looking at them both with interest, "You're certainly giving off a lot of magic."

Wait...that was a thing? It was possible to actually sense that?

Maybe she shouldn't have been surprised by it, but she was. After all, this world ran on magic. Why shouldn't it be something detectable? Except she hadn't been able to tell who was magical and who wasn't. And Jura had given every indication of surprise when she'd explained her own magic. Such as it was.

It was kind of confusing.

"It looks like they're both wizards." A wizard with black hair and the creepiest smile she'd ever seen laughed darkly as he slithered up next to Lucy and draped an arm around her shoulders, ignoring her startled yelp of indignation, "Maybe we should take them with us. Especially this one." He leered at Lucy in a way that had her shuddering and smacking him.

An action that had his buddies all roaring in laughter.

"I dunno." The leader drawled in amusement, "She looks like she might be too much for you to handle Kageyama." He smirked.

"Get away from me you creep!" Lucy wrestled her way free and backed up. She wished she had thought to ask Jura for some kind of weapon in case she had to protect herself, because relying on Natsu in situations like this was not going to work for her.

Natsu had his arms crossed, looking almost bored by everything going around. Which was impossible, since they were in the middle of getting robbed.

In fact he looked like he was getting ready to take a nap again.

That was until the leader's eyes dragged towards him, specifically their sack of supplies.

"Take their supplies, and bring the girl with," His chilly stare landed on Lucy, drawing a shiver up her spine, "I sense something unusual about her."

Natsu's gaze flashed to the men advancing into their compartment, an eyebrow ticking. Lucy had just enough knowledge of Natsu to know whatever the leader said, it bothered the dragon in some way.

This time she took two large steps back.

"You better not," She tried to warn them.

But it was too late. A wicked smile was spreading over Natsu's face, one Lucy was beginning to understand meant nothing good. The guild member put one hand on their bag, and the next thing any of them saw was Natsu's fist smashing into his nose.

"I don't like anyone touching my stuff," Natsu let out a snarling warning, the edge to his voice giving Lucy enough time to duck and shield her hands over her head. There was no way she was getting mixed up between a dragon and a wizard. Especially with that maniacal grin on Natsu's face.

There was nothing more terrifying in the world.

The leader of the guild had enough sense to twist to the right into a spare compartment just as a jet of fire roared out from Natsu. It blasted a hole straight through one side of the train and smashed out the other, mowing through a large chunk of the dark guild.

And the train.

"Natsu! What the hell were you thinking! There could have been people over there!" Lucy grabbed one of the train seat cushions and hurtled it at the back of his cackling head.

"Jeez, what's your problem now?" He grumbled, glancing over his shoulder at her, "I didn't hit anyone!"

"That's not the point!" Lucy exclaimed as she stood back up, "There could have been! You need to be more careful!"

"You're so noisy." Natsu grumbled, rubbing his head despite the fact the cushion hadn't hurt at all, "I got the job done, and none of your precious people were hurt, so why're you complaining?"

Lucy opened her mouth to retort only for her eyes to widen in horror as she spotted that enormous scythe coming right for them. Without thinking she grabbed Natsu by the scarf and hit the deck, dragging him with her just as the weapon passed overhead at what would've been shoulder height on Natsu.

She instinctively curled closer to the dragon as their entire side of the car was blown out by a powerful gust of wind.

These people were all completely insane! It was the only explanation.

"Kageyama!" The leader barked as he prowled towards them, "Go ahead and find that treasure! I'll deal with these two pesky flies myself."

"I'm no fly!" Natsu snarled, springing at the man as the others ran off.

"Wait Natsu!" Lucy tried, but it was far too late as the dragon unleashed another cone of flame only for his opponent to literally call wind up out of nowhere and blast the roof off as well.

Maybe she was better off getting out of the way like everyone else seemed to be doing. It would probably be better for her health if these two were really going to duke it out.

She edged around the combatants towards the door and slipped into the next compartment. It couldn't be any worse in here than it was out there right?

It was a rather complicated situation to be sure. And Lucy was hedging around broken pieces of machinery, trying not to cut herself on the metal shards. They were completely trashing the train, and it seemed they would be forced to hike it on foot even if they made it out unscathed.

She wasn't entirely confident that would be a possibility either. Not with the way heavy gusts of wind and flame were beginning to shake the train.

Chest heaving with tight fear and worry, Lucy managed to make her way over to the storage carriage. She sagged in relief and dropped her back to the door. Safe at last.

At least for now.

She could hear Natsu roaring something extremely rude at the leader, her cheeks burning at the sheer audacity of his crude insults.

What was she expecting from him though? He slapped her in the face this morning with a fish to wake her up.

Another ground rattling tremor had the car rocking, and Lucy yelped a little and curled into a ball as some of the boxes and crates shook loose and fell, "Do those guys have any other setting besides overkill?" She muttered as another rattle hit.

She sighed a little as she uncurled a little, and blinked in shock at the sight of the contents of the now cracked open crates before her.

Gold.

Gold coins. Gold artifacts. Gold everywhere.

Was she looking at someone's secret treasure hoard or something?

It sure looked that way at first, but then she caught sight of a piece of pottery in one spot, and a wall etching fragment in another, and she slowly realized that these were archaeological artifacts of some kind being transported.

Could this have been what the creepy tattoo dude was after?

None of it seemed especially magical to her, but then what did she know about it?

She had a sudden flash to her fairy tales about cursed dragon hoards, and other cursed magical items and pressed a little more closely against the door. Better to stay far away. She did not need to be turned into a newt or something on top of everything else.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world had other ideas as the door was suddenly wrenched open behind her and she tumbled back to find herself staring up at the creepy jerk from before.

Her eyes widened in horror as she scrambled back, suddenly acutely aware of the fact Natsu wasn't there, and having terrifying flashbacks to when she'd been cornered at the church.

"Well, well, look what we found here." Kageyama drawled as Lucy scrambled back, heedless of potentially cursed treasure, "Looks like we found both our treasure and Erigor's prize."

"Leave me alone!" Lucy shouted, though it came out sounding a lot more terrified than she liked. This was not good. Where was a weapon when she needed one?

Her hand bumped against something warm as she continued to retreat through the pile of treasures. It was warm and inviting, and it drew her attention enough to look down at it.

A gold key?

That was the only word she could think of to describe it despite the fact it looked nothing like any kind of key she'd ever seen. It had ornate tooling on it, and the base looked kind of like an ancient water jug with the symbol for Aquarius on it.

It was also glowing and pulsing, as if prompting her to pick it up.

Had her magic somehow activated the key?

She didn't know, and certainly didn't understand, but she was desperate enough to try anything at this point and curled her hand around it.

Immediately a surge of power coursed through her, along with a sense of irritated triumph. As if something was both glad that she'd picked up the key, and annoyed it had taken her so long.

She didn't have time to contemplate that though as something else pushed her to scramble to her feet. Water. She needed water. She didn't know why that was, she just knew she needed it.

And there was none around. Of course.

At least, there wasn't until she heard a crack of thunder and rain started to pour down outside.

Her eyes widened and she sprinted for the door at the back. Those guys could have whatever they wanted from the pile. She was going to where there was water.

"You're not going anywhere!" Kageyama shouted at her retreating back. Lucy didn't stop to look back at him or whatever sorcery he was conjuring.

There was a sudden, eerie shift in the air. Almost like a pressure she hadn't felt before.

Was this magic?

She yelped in surprise when a sudden fist emerged from her shadow, catching her from the side and tilting her worlds sideways. The impact on the ground was hard, and her head spun, jaw throbbing in pain from where she had been struck.

Worn carpet, unraveling at the edges twisted through her fingers, keeping her cemented to what was going on. An ache ran through her head, telling her an ugly bruise would no doubt form just under her jaw where she had been struck.

Her eyes fell to the outside, where rain lashed against the train's windows, falling in heavy streams. It was so close, but so far away.

She couldn't possibly hope to reach it at this rate.

The footsteps of Kageyama's approach sent shudders of ice cold terror running through her, and she managed to whip around just in time for his foot to cruelly catch her shoulder and shove her down onto the floor.

"So, you wanna run do ya? It's not real nice to make me chase you," He mocked, a sneer drawing over his face. His booted heel ground into the joint of her shoulder and Lucy thrashed outwards with her legs, trying to break free.

"Get away!" She cried out, driving her leg upwards to nail him between the legs. Satisfaction sank into her when Kageyama's eyes bugged out of his head and his knees collapsed inwards, dropping backwards like a stone.

"Serve you right!" Lucy stuck her tongue out at him and scrambled back to her feet to safety.

But she quickly realized, Kageyama was down, but his magic wasn't. Something cold and hard wrapped around her ankle after she hadn't taken more than five steps towards the door. Her feet were ripped out from under her, dragging her weight down to the floor once again.

Shadows, thick and heavy were wrapped around her ankles, rising over her calves and spreading across her knees.

A scream of terror bubbled in her throat, dying out as she stared at the shadows creeping up along her body and dragging her back towards the felled Kageyama.

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