'What a morning.' Ace thought to himself as he walked to Magnolia Station. He didn't even know how he managed to sleep last night. And when he woke up that morning: Lucy was already making breakfast for them like nothing happened. But when he was heading out, Lucy grabbed him and kissed his cheek to wish him luck. Whatever got into her: it was leaving him at a loss for words.

"Hey Ace! Ready to go?!" He snapped out of his trance hearing Happy's voice. Looking up, he saw the blue Exceed and Natsu waving to him at the entrance of the station.

"Y-Yeah!" Ace called out, hurrying ahead to meet the two. He should worry about his Lucy situation when they return, right now he should focus on his job with Natsu and Happy.

"I've gotta warn you: Natsu gets motion sickness pretty easily." Happy said as the three walked towards their train.

"You do?"

"It's something that's gotta do with being a Dragon Slayer. Porlyusica explained the details to me once, didn't understand a single word she said." Natsu said as they boarded the train.

"You did what?" Lisanna asked, covering her mouth in shock. Lucy had just arrived at the guild hall and told her about what happened last night. She knew she told Lucy to be honest with her feelings, but what she just told her was way beyond honesty. "And what did he say?"

"Nothing. It's like his soul had left his body, and then he was the same way when I gave him a kiss goodbye before he left." Lucy groaned, hiding her face in her arms from embarrassment. Lisanna laughed at her reaction and patted the top of her head. "Did I mess up?"

"Not at all. You did a great job. If he didn't feel the same way about you: he wouldn't be acting like that."

"You think so?"

"Boys are easy to understand. He was just caught off guard by everything, watch when he comes back he's gonna scoop you up in his arms and kiss you just like you did to him." Lisanna said, doing her best to just tease her friend. And it worked because Lucy began to whine and hide her head even more.

"You really weren't kidding." Ace chuckled as he helped Natsu get off of the train. It was only a two hour train ride from Magnolia to their stop in the central part of Fiore, but as soon as the wheels started moving: Natsu had collapsed on the floor due to his motion sickness. But once his feet were on solid ground, Natsu quickly returned to his usual self.

"Sometimes I don't think it's as bad as he makes it seem." Happy whispered, perching himself on Ace's head.

"Think whatever you want, now it's mission time." Natsu said, beginning to walk away towards the nearby mountains. The two followed him while Ace took out the job flier, reading the details more carefully as the name of who requested the job seemed familiar to him.

"It really makes you wonder what could be in that dig site that's not letting those archeologists find what they want to." Happy said as he read the flier as well.

"Depends on the kind of dig site. Sometimes you have some that are above ground, and others that are going underground like in a mine or a dungeon." Ace replied surprising Happy.

"Dungeons are real?"

"Oh yeah, some of my dad's partners bought land that had secret dungeons in them. But the vast majority of them were explored years ago and emptied out, I don't think there's one left in Fiore that hasn't been completely explored."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and find out that this one is in an unexplored dungeon!" Natsu exclaimed as he raised his fists in the air.

"Easy now, dungeons are still dangerous no matter if they've been explored or not." Ace said as he placed the flier back in his pocket.

"Really?"

"Well they're typically underground and not to mention ancient, so you wouldn't want to make a big ruckus inside of them unless you want all several thousand tons of dirt and rock to come falling on top of you." Ace explained making the two nod in agreement.

"Why didn't Lucy bring you around sooner?! You know so much!"

"Yeah, it could've saved our asses a million times."

"I don't really know that much." Ace laughed sheepishly at the two's praise and scratched the back of his head.

"Oh, I was meaning to ask: what kind of magic do you know?" Natsu asked as he shoved his hands into his coat's pockets.

"Just some pretty basic Wind Magic. It's really nothing to write home about."

"Oh so you have magic like Wendy." Happy said as he remembered that Ace hadn't met their blue haired teammate yet.

"Wendy?"

"Close, she's a Sky Dragon Slayer. So her Magic is closer to normal Air Magic than it is Wind specifically." Natsu spoke up this time, trying to make the distinction for Happy. "Lucy didn't tell you about Wendy?"

"Oh she did. I just realized I've been in town for a while and I haven't met her yet."

"Well she and Carla were on a job that's pretty far away, but they should be back soon." Happy explained making Ace nod as he understood. After another half an hour of walking, the three finally arrived at a large camp at the base of the mountains. "So who do we ask for?"

"Oh, may I help you?" Happy's question was answered by an older man dressed as if he was hiking walking up to them.

"We're wizards from Fairy Tail, we came here to deal with what's bothering the dig site." The man's eyes lit up at Natsu's response and immediately motioned for them to follow him. He led them to the largest tent of the camp to see a group of people dressed like him standing in front of a desk as if they were arguing.

"We can't keep going in there!"

"It's too dangerous to keep trying as long as those ruffians are inside." The group was then silenced by the person behind the desk slamming their hands on it and speaking up.

"I hired you all and paid good money for you to bring me what's inside of that cave, if you go against my wishes then I'll have no choice than to ask for my money back." The voice sounded like an old man, but the voice was already too familiar to Ace as he recognized it.

"But we spent most of it to fund this expedition-"

"Ah then you'll just have to wait until the wizards I hired come here and deal with it since you can't pay me back."

"About that sir, they just arrived!" The man who led the three to the tent spoke up and everyone turned around to see Natsu, Happy, and Ace standing behind him.

"Thank goodness!"

"And look at those marks! They're Fairy Tail wizards!" The voices from the group in front of them surprised the three by how excited they were to see them. But then the person who they were speaking to walked out from behind the desk, revealing himself to be an old man wearing a brown suit with a very tired and angry expression on his face.

"Perfect, now you all can get back to work and-" The man stopped talking once he saw Ace. "Asemu Falkner? Is this some kind of joke?"

"It's not a joke, Mr. Rayzen." Ace replied, surprising the two next to him. "This is Eugene Rayzen, he's one of my father's colleagues that he used to do business with."

"It has to be, because last I heard: you weren't part of any guild and worked at your father's company." Rayzen said, walking up to Ace with contempt evident in the face he was making. "Have you all fallen on such hard times that now you're working in a guild to make money?" Rayzen's question made Ace grit his teeth and clench his fists from anger at the man in front of him.

"Easy pal or else I'm-" Natsu tried to take a step forward, only to be held back by Ace placing his arm in front of him.

"Don't worry Natsu, he knows all he can really do is talk smack." Ace said, shaking his head and chuckling. "We're the ones who came here to fix his problem, so he should at least show a little courtesy."

"You impudent brat."

"So then tell us what the problem is and what we have to do, and we'll be out of your hair. Then again with the little bit you have left, that wouldn't take long anyway." Ace said before turning his attention to the group behind Rayzen. "You guys seem to be the ones having the problem, so I'd rather talk to you than this guy."

"Y-Yes, I'm the one in charge of this expedition." One of the men from the group walked forward, making himself known as the leader of the group. He didn't look that much older than Ace, but anyone else from the group was better than Rayzen.

"Alright then. Please explain to us the problem, outside in case this old man has to take his medication right now." Ace said, making the man nod and lead them out of the tent. He led them to a nearby bonfire and the four sat down to be able to talk.

"Forgive me, I've never seen anyone speak to Lord Rayzen in that way." The man said as he cleared his throat after being silent the entire time.

"Yeah, sounded like you don't like that guy." Natsu agreed and nodded his head. Ace sighed and scratched the back of his head since he knew there was no way to avoid this topic.

"He worked with my dad, but he's not exactly an easy person to get along with. Acting like he's better than everyone, insulting anyone who even did something as small as breathe incorrectly in front of him, he's always been someone that rubbed me the wrong way. Then when Ryu took over the company, he tried to strongarm us to selling it to him and since then I have to be honest and say he's the one person I actually despise." Ace quickly explained, doing his best to keep the conversation short so they could focus on the job. "But enough about that. What's going on in there, uh...what's your name?"

"Rudy. You can call me Rudy." Rudy said, introducing himself to the three. "So my team came on an expedition for Lord Rayzen to explore a cave in this mountain over here." Rudy began to explain as he pointed to the smallest mountain of the range behind them.

"What's so special about a stinking cave?" Natsu asked, reaching into the bonfire and taking one of the sticks on fire. He then began to eat the fire at the end of the piece of wood as if it was candy, surprising the man in front of him.

"W-Well the thing is: the cave itself actually leads into a dungeon inside the mountain."

"A dungeon?!" Happy and Natsu jumped happily into the air hearing where they were going.

"Y-Yes? However once we began to make progress: a group of bandits appeared and attacked us. They took the maps we had made to be able to find our way around the dungeon, but luckily what Lord Rayzen was after had yet to be found. Once we were unable to remove them ourselves, that was when we asked for more professional help." Rudy finished his explanation and the three Fairy Tail wizards nodded at him.

"Sounds simple enough. Alright let's get going, guys." Natsu stood up, followed by the other two, and they proceeded to make their way towards the mountain.

"I really recommend being careful, the cave walls may collapse if too much force is used inside!"

"It's fine, we can handle this quickly!" Natsu called out, waving a hand in the air to reassure Rudy.

It only took roughly an hour to climb up the mountain, but Happy did have to help Ace when he was struggling to keep up since he wasn't as athletic as Natsu. But they arrived at the cave Rudy had told them about early in the afternoon.

"Man, it's really stuffy in here." Natsu groaned, pinching his nose to prevent the smell of dust and dirt from entering it further. As they walked deeper into the cave, the light from the outside began to diminish, so Natsu ignited his hand to provide light for them to see.

"How long until we reach the dun-AH!" Happy walked ahead from them, bored from how much they had already walked. But then he suddenly fell, making the two men behind him run forward to see.

"Happy!" Ace and Natsu yelled, only to see the Exceed had sprouted his wings just in time, so they all let out a sigh of relief before looking down. There was a large ravine in front of them and Happy managed to walk right off the edge. But to their luck: there was a wooden bridge that led to another tunnel on the other side of the ravine. They all crossed the bridge together, with Happy making sure to stay close to Natsu to avoid walking into something else.

Once they were across, the trio then made their way through the next tunnel only to find themselves in a large room with the walls going from dirt and rock into stone bricks. They looked around in awe, picking up a torch from the wall and igniting it with the fire in Natsu's hand.

"Maybe we should've asked Rudy if they managed to make more maps." Ace noted as they walked through the halls and looked around at the architecture inside.

"Wait." Natsu stopped walking and the other two followed suit. He began to sniff the air, gritting his teeth at the unfamiliar scents entering his nose. "I smell something."

"Could it be those bandits?" Happy asked, closing his paws into fists.

"Definitely. Ace, hang back with Happy while I deal with them." Natsu said as he began to walk forward. Sniffing the air, Natsu used his nose as a guide through the dungeon which seemed to be devoid of any traps. But they agreed that it was possible that Rudy and his team had managed to disable them during their exploration of the dungeon. After what seemed like an eternity of walking: they arrived at a large room to find a group of about ten rough looking men with weapons strapped to their bodies inside.

"It took long enough, but we finally found it."

"Alright let's grab it and get out of here."

"Hate to break it to you guys: but you're not leaving here with anything." Natsu called out, catching the group by surprise and they turned to see the three standing in the entranceway.

"Who the hell are you?"

"We're the exterminators that got called for a pest problem." Natsu said, igniting his fists.

"So why don't you just make it easy for us and give up now before things get ugly." Ace added, cracking his neck. The group of bandits began to laugh, before a tall man covered in scars carrying a large axe walked forward.

"Pest problem? Who the hell are you kids?"

"We just said it too. Natsu, would you like to do the honors?" Ace asked, taking a step back. Natsu chuckled and lunged towards the group, specifically the man who just tried to taunt them. The man swung his axe as hard as he could, but Natsu jumped over the weapon and delivered a hard punch to the man's head sending him flying into the wall on the far side of the room.

The group, seeing their leader beaten so quickly, all rushed towards Natsu with their weapons drawn. Natsu smiled and threw a punch forward, shooting an enormous stream of fire from it, and swiftly defeating the bandits. He then grabbed rope from one of the bandits' waist and used it to tie all of them up together outside of the room.

"See? That wasn't so hard." Natsu said, brushing off his hands. Ace and Happy shrugged and walked over to him. "Alright, so what were they after?" Natsu asked before they noticed a large concrete chest in the middle of the room. They walked up to it and both Natsu and Ace pushed the top of the chest off, revealing two green orbs inside of it. "Any ideas?"

"Lacrima?" Ace asked, reaching in and taking the Lacrima out of the chest, before noticing the bottom of the chest was made of a red crystal. "That's interesting."

"Hey, what kind of Lacrima are they?" Natsu called out, but all of the bandits in the room were unconscious. "Oh well, we might as well take them to Rudy and that mean old dude."

"Might as well." Ace said, handing Happy the Lacrima to put them away in his little backpack. 'This seemed too easy.'

"Well the earlier we get home, the better it'll be for Lucy right?" Natsu asked as they began to walk out of the room. But once they began to leave the room, they felt the everything around them begin to violently rumble. They heard a loud groaning sound and looked behind them to see the stone bricks that made up the floor around the chest begin to rise and come together to form a giant Golem with the red crystal that was inside the chest for a head. "What is that thing?!"

"Whoever put that Lacrima away here didn't want people to take it, so they must've put some kind of magic to make a Guardian to get rid of whoever tried to take it." Happy said as he anxiously took a step back. But when they tried to run out the way they came in, walls had closed together and sealed the exit.

"And I'm willing to bet that's why there were no traps here either. If you make it to the treasure room: the room itself would trap you in and kill you, so no one would be able to leave with the Lacrima." Ace added as the Golem began to walk towards them. His eyes widened as the truth of the job began to dawn on them. The bandits weren't what was stopping Rayzen and his team from getting the Lacrima, the job had been posted for days and if the bandits were the reason: they would've already been long gone by the time they arrived. It was the Golem that was stopping them, so they put the job request out so that wizards could deal with it instead.

The Golem roared once it set its sight on them and threw a punch to attack them. Natsu rolled out of the way and Happy jumped on Ace's back, sprouting his wings and taking the man into the air with him.

"Well now I'm all fired up." Natsu chuckled as he took a deep breath. He let the breath out, shooting a stream of fire from his mouth into the Golem's body to try to destroy it. But it was unfazed by his attack and swung its arm at him, sending Natsu flying into the wall behind him.

"Natsu!" Ace called out as he saw Natsu cough up blood from the force of the hit. Ace grit his teeth and extended his arms forward, pointing his open palms at the Golem's head. "Wind Bullet!" Ace called out, firing multiple bursts of wind from his hand. Each one hit the Golem's crystal head and it turned its attention to Ace and Happy who gulped once they saw it ready to attack them.

"Why did you have to attack it while I'm carrying you?!"

"Natsu! Get that thing to make an exit!" Ace yelled as he fired more Wind Bullets from his hand into the Golem's head. Once it swung its arm: Happy swiftly flew away and made it punch the ceiling, causing the room to begin to rumble again. Seeing how it damaged the ceiling and its stone fist, Natsu chuckled as he saw what Ace's plan was.

"You got it!" Natsu yelled as he jumped up and punched the Golem's head, getting its attention once more. He then stood where the exit was and waited for it to attack him once more. And when it swung its arm at him one more time: Natsu jumped over its arm, causing its arm to go through the sealed wall and open the exit once more. He then kicked the Golem's chest as hard as he could, knocking it onto its back to give Ace and Happy a chance to escape. "Let's get out of here!" Natsu yelled, making the two nod and hurry out of the room with him. Once they were out, they noticed the bandits managed to wake up and escape by the cut rope on the floor.

"Good thing they got out of here when they did." Happy said, letting go of Ace so he could fly on his own. Hearing the Golem roar once more, the three turned their heads to see the Golem beginning to stand again with its head beginning to glow a bright red. "We've gotta go!"

"Then hurry up!" Natsu yelled as the three took off, running back the way they came from. But each time they arrived at a dead end, they could feel the rumbling from the Golem chasing them. Catching the scent of the bandits once more, Natsu sniffed the air and used his sense of smell to lead their way back to the exit as now they heard the Golem's roar getting closer.

"That thing is relentless!" Happy yelled as they finally made their way back to the wooden bridge and could feel the rumbling growing closer.

"It's easy when you have no stamina to waste!" Ace yelled before feeling something fall on his head. They looked up and saw that the rumbling from the Golem chasing them was causing the ceiling above the bridge to begin to fall as rocks began to fall and grow in size. "This must've been what Rudy meant!"

"Well then let's hurry before everything comes crashing on top of us!" Natsu yelled as he began to run across the bridge. Happy quickly flew across and Ace followed right behind Natsu. But when he was halfway across the bridge, the tunnel behind them burst open as the Golem had finally caught up to them. "Come on Ace, hurry!" Ace nodded and continued to run across the bridge as fast as he could. But right as he was about to make it: the bridge suddenly began to shake before collapsing. The Golem had tried to get on the bridge to follow them as well, but the weight made the old bridge come apart and now both it and Ace were beginning to fall into the deep ravine below. "Ace!" Natsu yelled as he jumped forward and extended his hand toward Ace. He luckily caught the man just in time, but Happy had to grab Natsu as well to prevent the two from falling down into the ravine too.

"Th-Thank you, Natsu." Ace said as Natsu began to pull him up. The two let out a sigh of relief as soon as both of them were back on the ledge. All three of them jumped once they heard a loud boom, and looked down to realize it was the Golem finally hitting the bottom of the ravine. "Let's get out of here."

"Aye sir." Happy said, taking the lead as all of them stood up and walked out of the cave.

"Ah, you all made it back alive." Rayzen said as the three wizards made their way back to the camp and to his tent.

"Thank goodness, you're alright." Rudy said, letting out a sigh of relief when he saw them.

"Yeah, no thanks to you two." Natsu growled, glaring at both men.

"W-What do you mean?" Rudy asked, taking a step back and raising his hands defensively.

"The bandits weren't why you hired us, it was the Golem protecting the Lacrima." Ace said as his glare was directed more at Rayzen who was unfazed by his look.

"I never said in the job description it was bandits, you all assumed because they were already there."

"Either way, that thing hunted us down and nearly got us killed." Ace said, walking up to Rayzen's desk and slamming one of the Lacrima down on the table. "Here's your damn Lacrima."

"Well, I can see you are a competent wizard. Thank you. I will have your payment sent to your guild." Rayzen said, lifting the Lacrima up and examining it closely. "This is a one of a kind treasure, and it goes for such a high price."

"Good for you. Now you can be even richer." Ace said as he turned around to leave the tent.

"Thanks for your help." Rudy said, raising a hand to thank the three. They nodded and walked away, beginning to make their way out of the camp. Once they were far away enough from the camp, Happy reached into his backpack and took out the other Lacrima they had found.

"Was it a good idea to keep one?"

"It looked like they only assumed it was just one Lacrima, so we'll keep the other one for nearly getting us killed. But I think the other one was just a big old rock." Natsu replied as he grabbed the Lacrima and began to toss it up and down like a ball.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because I only feel magic power from this one. So whatever this is: it's safer in Fairy Tail's hands." Natsu said, tossing the Lacrima to Ace who caught it and nodded. "But I think you should keep it as a souvenir. That way you can remember your first ever job as a wizard."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, why not? Plus we got out of there thanks to your quick thinking, so you definitely earned it."

"Aye sir!"

"Thanks you two." Ace smiled and nodded at the two who gave him a thumbs up. "But can you put this back in your bag, Happy? I don't have big enough pockets to carry this the whole time."