Author's Note: Hello! Here is the second chapter of my Fairy Tail Christmas Special! As I said, I will supply a little extra header today.
So this is the second chapter, which means if you've made t here you will more than likely be my real audience, so yay!
Also, this story will be a twelve part special, twelve days of Christmas...yea just go with it. The last chapter set the scene, but the next nine or so chapters will feature specific characters in their search for gifts, and each chapter will turn its focus on a different group! The last two or so chapters will give the FT members time to organize themselves, and the chapter I release on the 24th will be the actual gift exchange, so please stick around to enjoy the Christmas Countdown with me and the Mages of Fairy Tail!
Also, I do not own Fairy Tail.
(PS, don't be fooled by the name Lucy drew in the last chapter...)
Chapter Two - On the Second Day
Lucy didn't even have time to run before Juvia of the Great Sea ran over and pinned her to a bar stool in a bout of pure rage. She was on the hunt for the ticket to getting Gray a Christmas gift for Secret Santa, and Lucy was the one who kept her from having it.
"YOU! YOU STOLE HIS NAME FROM THE BOWL, DIDN'T YOU!?"
Juvia had searched all over the guild trying and find the person that pulled Gray's name out of the Secret Santa bowl, and just as her luck was running out she managed to find the person who had it.
Sadly for Lucy, it was her. The poor blonde wizard couldn't even come up with a defense to save her in this perilous situation.
"Um…H-Hi Juvia. Listen I really didn't try to pick his name…"
"QUIET!" Juvia snapped back as she held Lucy's arms in place. "WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR ME TO HAVE HIM!?"
Juvia then silenced herself with a blank expression on her face and looked down to Lucy's rather exposed chest, and right away Lucy blushed and covered herself as she yelled back in anger.
"NOT GONNA HAPPEN!" She didn't even know what Juvia was going to suggest. "HERE, you can just have him!"
Lucy freed herself and tossed her slip of paper up in the air, and without hesitation Juvia grabbed it and brought it in to her tight grip.
"Teehee! Oh thank you Lucy! I knew we were good friends!" She jumped up and brought Lucy in for a tight hug.
Lucy rolled her eyes as she began suffocating from the embrace. "Yea…erg...whatever."
Juvia let go and left to carry out her mission, but not before she stopped and turned back to Lucy. "Oh, here is my paper. I suppose we should trade!"
The blonde gasped as Juvia handed her the other slip of paper. She then cried out for Juvia as the energetic rain woman left for the door.
"Hold on who is…?" Lucy's words stopped as her cheeks began flushing with red the moment she read her new name for the Secret Santa gift exchange.
"NATSU DRAGNEEL"
The blonde mage had no idea what to say after seeing his name on the paper, and as a result, fell to the floor with total disappointment.
"OH COME ON!?"
~Meanwhile…
"Tsk, I can't believe you guys had to drag me with you." Gray Fullbuster looked down to a rather ill Natsu as they both road with Happy on a train out of Magnolia.
Happy giggled as he fanned Natsu with a newspaper. "Aye! Natsu said Lucy was too busy wasting her time with Juvia, so I decided we should take you!"
Gray laughed and scratched his chin. "Lucy and Juvia? That's a weird friendship…"
Natsu spoke up from his sickly state. "Yea…wouldn't it be funny if Juvia had your name for Secret Santa?…hehe." He tried to laugh as he held down his lunch.
Gray waved his hand and looked away. "Just stop, I don't want any nightmares, tonight…so why did you wanna go to Crocus, Happy?"
Happy looked up and smiled. "I dunno. I just figured they would have a lot of cool stuff. Oh I know! We could all get our partners cool stuff!"
Even though the gift exchange selections technically weren't "partners" Natsu still rolled over and laughed. "Well…now we know who Happy got."
Happy turned around and smacked Natsu on the leg. "What's that supposed to mean!?"
Natsu retaliated. "HEY! THAT HURT!...anyway who did you get, Gray?"
Gray looked puzzled. "Guys, you're really not supposed to tell…" He went to continue but noticed Natsu and Happy were both staring blankly back at him.
Gray sighed and continued. "Ugh fine. I got Bickslow, okay?"
Happy jumped up with a smile. "Oh that's...wait, what will Bickslow want for Christmas?"
Gray scratched his chin. "I dunno. But like you said Crocus is pretty big. I'm sure we'll find something."
Happy smiled and looked back at Natsu. "Who did you get, Natsu?"
Natsu laughed. "Ha! Like I'd tell you losers. Besides Gray said we shouldn't share the names!" He then quit laughing as he dry-heaved into a nearby trash can.
Happy and Gray both face-palmed as Gray spoke up first.
"Great…this will be a longer day than I thought."
After an excruciating day-long train ride across Fiore; Natsu, Gray, and Happy all made it to the large and elaborate train station of the Crocus, the flower blooming capital of the kingdom.
As soon as the train stopped, Natsu stumbled out of the door as the first passenger out of the cart. "Ugh, can we just walk on the way back?"
Gray followed him out and rolled his eyes. "Nah, we'll just buy you a bucket while we're in town." The Ice Make wizard gave the Salamander no sympathy as he then looked for a map. "So, I wonder where the best shops are at in this place?"
Happy started panicking. "Hold on, didn't you fight in the whole city during the last day of the Grand Magic Games? I figured you would know where places were."
Gray turned away. "Yea well I wasn't really taken notes that day. There's gotta to be a map somewhere."
As Gray began to look for a directory he then spotted a bizarre advertisement along the side of the walkway in the train station.
He slowly walked over and noticed there were a few very familiar faces modeling some very expensive clothing in a wall ad just inside the station.
"Hold on…is that Cana?"
Gray recognized the drunken Card Mage as soon as he saw her face. She appeared to be modeling some very high-fashioned designer clothing for a regional tailor company.
Natsu walked up and scratched his head. "Yea! And that's Erza!"
Pictured to her left was none other than the Titania of Fairy Tail, dressed up in equally eligent clothing fit for a night out on the town. As they looked even further, they could also see ads featuring other familiar guild faces, both boy and girl.
Natsu huffed out with anger the moment he saw everyone's face but his own. "Total BS! Why was I never asked to do a photo shoot!?"
"Natsu, shut up." Gray rolled his eyes. "You never would have agreed to it anyway." He then looked around, and failed to see his own pictures. "Besides, you're not the only one who never got the invite."
"Yea, hehe..." Happy started covering his face. "Maybe whoever asked them to do it just doesn't like...hold on! There's Nigel too!"
He was right. Towards the end, and conveniently located inside the same ad as the map was actually the wealthy businessman Nigel standing next to his brown haired bride-to-be. Like Cana and the others, Nigel was also dressed in high-fashioned clothing, only for some reason, it almost looked natural to him.
Happy scratched his chin and commented on the bizarre ad in its whole, but then put two-and-two together once he remembered Nigel's background in business. "Huh. I wonder if this will get us any discounts…?"
After finding a directory and locating the garment district of Crocus, Natsu and the gang made their way to a very large and luxurious three storied building at the center of a majestic plaza.
Natsu smiled as he gazed at the impressive building. "Wow, that thing is huge!"
Gray looked puzzled. "Yea, that's even bigger than that stupid clothing store Lucy went to shop at in that Pokémon game…"
Natsu and Gray then sat in silence as they tried to reminisce on their days inside virtual reality, but Happy snapped them out of it as he flew forward.
"Come on! This is the store that has all those billboards with the others!"
As the blue exceed talked them into going inside the store, the two boys were stopped by a stuffy door man with a thin frame and short blonde hair. He also had on obnoxious black framed glasses, a black turtleneck short sleeved sweater and grey slacks with black shoes.
The overly posh man than scowled and turned the Fairies away. "Um, no. Sorry but we can't just let anyone into the Fleuriste garment store."
Natsu then punched his fists together. "Flur-what…? Well lucky for us we ain't 'just anyone'!"
Gray then took off his shirt in the middle of the snowy street and got into his Ice Make stance to join Natsu. "Yea, sounds like you guys need a new door policy."
Happy quickly tried to stop them both. "GUYS, STOP IT! Oh man, where are Lucy and Erza when you need them...and Gray why did you take your shirt off?"
Gray went to answer, but not before the stuffy door man saw the black guild emblem on the Ice Wizard's chest.
"Oh…my…god…you're both from Fairy Tail, aren't you?"
Natsu and Gray looked at each other with a confused look before the man replied.
"I should have known! Oh you're both so fiery and passionate! It can only be Fairy Tail!"
The man than grabbed them by the arm and pulled them in. "Oh I am so glad you all came! My name's Geoff, and I will be so very happy to take you on a tour of the Fleuriste! We have been waiting for Fairy Tail mages to come try out our new winter line ever since Mr. Thomas came and modeled for us!"
Natsu stopped him there. "Mr. Thomas?"
Gray continued. "Yea, and he was with a few others too?"
Geoff stopped and began to whisper. "Ah well I'm not supposed to say who the names were, per say. Some of those little girls you have in Fairy Tail got a little carried away during their photo shoots."
Gray sounded intrigued. "How carried away we talking here?"
The garment worker stepped back and put a finger to his face. "Well one was trying to boss all our employees around, and there was another who kept getting drunk off our sampler bar...and there was another that...!"
"Okay, we get it." gray raised his hands after hearing too much. "That's our guild."
Geoff laughed, and then gave them another sails men's smile. "Yep! And as for Nigel, he just happens to be our boss!"
The Fairies all paused as Happy spoke first. "Wait a minute, you're owned by A.N.T.?"
The blonde door man laughed and replied. "Well, duh? Why do you think we have him in most of our ads? I mean sure, the batch of models he brought from that guild of yours are all total knockouts, but we had no choice but to work him ever since he developed our new line of business wear."
Gray stuttered. "Business…wear?"
"Yep! It's all over there." Geoff pointed over to a large department of fancy suits and dress cloths as they walked by. "FT by NT they're calling it. It'll be huge at the fashion show next month!"
Natsu shook his head as it began to hurt. "Uh yea sure. Hey listen. We're here in town to go shopping for a few friends. Can ya help us out?"
Geoff smiled. "Well of course! You'll be happy to know you'll get a nice discount as well for showing us you are members of Fairy Tail."
Gray smiled. "Hmm, maybe this wasn't such a bad idea, Happy?"
Happy smiled. "Aye! I am pretty smart, aren't I?"
Geoff then stopped them all before they carried on. "Alright! What is this some sort of Secret Santa thing? Oh I love the holidays! Who's first?"
Natsu dug around in his pocket and pulled out a crumbled up photo from a while back. "Here this is the person I'm shopping for. I'm not really sure what she'd like…"
Natsu held out the photo full of Fairy Tail Wizards as he pointed to his secret partner.
"Hmm...I don't remember seeing that face at the shoot..." Geoff squinted his eyes to get a better view, but quickly shot back after collecting the person's full image. "OH GOD! Those things are huge!"
"Huh!?" Natsu grabbed the picture with a confused look on his face as Geoff took him by the arm.
"Well, I'll take you right over to the ladies' department for your special gift. She looks like a real cutie!"
Natsu would have replied, but he felt too awkward as Geoff grabbed him by the arm and took him to the next floor.
Gray and Happy both stood in place as the former spoke first. "Uh…what just happened?"
Happy sighed with defeat, and slowly followed his pink haired friend off to the women's department. "Well, I think Natsu's being bossed around by a crazy person…and this time it isn't Lucy or Erza."
So a few things...
1.) As you saw, the first bit of the chapter featured Lucy and people at the FT guild (about one page on MS Word.) However, the actual chapter focused on Natsu, Gray and Happy (about 4 pages on Word.) This is how the nine character chapters will be organized; a random "pre-group" and a random "actual group" will be shown each chapter.
2.) So we know a few things so far...Asuka has Gildarts, Gray has Bickslow, Juvia has Gray and Lucy has Natsu...but we know nothing about anyone else. Prior to the actual gift exchange I will reveal a few random people's "giftees" and some I will keep a secret. Also, for everyone I put names into a hat and drew them in order to randomize the pairs, then I went back and changed some things around to make sure not every pair was random; so with the gift exchange its about 50% random pairs and 50% big relationships. So hopefully it will be fun!
Today we had Natsu, Gray and Happy, but tomorrow...who knows! Chapter three tomorrow!
(Star Wars comes out this week...I am way too pumped.)
(Edit: So I forgot to mention one last thing, and all the references I made helped remind me. This story is set between the GMG and the Tartaros arcs, sorta near that episode where Juvia celebrates her weird anniversary with Gray, hence the snow.
Also, you will notice me making A LOT of references to not only FT episodes but also my past stories as well. These will include Oasis and the Battle for Freedom, Operation Vacation, and my Pokemon x FT crossover I Choose You! So if you have read my past stories you will certainly enjoy the references, but if you haven't then don't worry, it won't hurt you when reading. At the VERY least you will be able to enjoy the last chapter and gift exchange!)