I just want your two hands on me (at all times, baby).
After taking the train out from Tekka, members of Team Natsu had finally started their eight-hour journey to the city of Drasil, with their train eventually making a scheduled two-hour stop at the Rainhill station—giving them all more than enough time to explore around before they would have to continue the trip to their destination (unsurprisingly, Natsu and Wendy had both already begun to dread the rest of the trip and wondering whether they would be able to survive it without puking their guts out before they were to arrive in Guiltina's biggest city).
Rainhill was a moderately sized city, situated somewhere in between the cities of Tekka and Drasil. It was a city that practically buzzed with life—its busy streets were lined with stalls that sold all sorts of merchandise, vendors shouted about their goods as a way to attract potential customers and the smell of deliciously cooked food permeated the air. The city was also known for its architecture that gave the entire place a unique feel, the one that combined the rustic with the modern in a way only a place as old as Rainhill could. The townspeople also seemed to be just as diverse, and as the members of Team Natsu wandered through the cobblestoned streets during their short stopover, they also found themselves amongst all kinds of merchants, travelers and adventurers.
Fairy Tail's resident Celestial Spirit mage, Lucy Heartfilia, took in a deep breath as she savored the deliciously sweet scent of pastries coming from nearby bakeries, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she took in everything there was to see and instinctively clutched the celestial spirit keys hanging from her belt with her hand.
''Woah!'', she gasped in awe as she stared up at the towering building of the Rainhill city library and marveled at how magnificent and imposing it looked. She even contemplated going inside to check out what kind of literature Guiltina had to offer, although she knew it probably wouldn't be the best idea for her to go inside—knowing just how easy it was for her to get completely immersed in the world of books and sometimes lose track of time as a result of it (and honestly, she really didn't want to incur Erza's wrath if she were to miss their train just because a few books happened to pique her interest).
Still, Lucy really loved these little moments—moments of quietude and calmness in between missions where she could simply enjoy being with her guildmates and explore new places.
Speaking of guildmates…
Walking right beside her was Natsu Dragneel, her close best friend and Fairy Tail's rambunctious Fire Dragon Slayer. Despite being happy that he had finally gotten out of that goddamned death contraption on wheels (having his head in Lucy's lap and her pillowy thighs acting like the softest cushions imaginable did help him with his motion sickness at least for a little bit), the pinkette also felt less than thrilled about just walking around and not scarfing down copious amounts of food instead. His stomach grumbled loudly, signaling to him that he and his teammates should probably go and grab a bite to eat somewhere.
About a million scents engulfing his sharp dragon schnozz didn't help his case either.
''Ugh, this place smells weird…'', Natsu commented, scrunching his nose as his strong sense of smell started to suddenly get overwhelmed by so many different scents mixing together all at once. Perched on his left shoulder as if he were a parrot and not an Exceed, Happy also had less than thrilled facial expression.
''It smells like fishies, but not the good kind.'', the Exceed added, crinkling his nose in displeasure.
Lucy chuckled at the best friend duo, shaking her head. ''You two are always so dramatic.'', she teased, earning herself a mock glare from both Natsu and Happy. ''There is actually a fish market nearby, so maybe that's what you guys are smelling?''
''Yeah well, not everyone has a schnozz like mine.'', Natsu argued, puffing out his chest. ''Everything's all mixed up here—wood, dirt, sweat, fish…'', he paused and glanced down the bustling street. His gaze was sharp, almost predatory, as if something or (even worse) someone had caught his attention, but he then shrugged it off. ''Anyway, I don't really like it.''
''I actually think this whole place smells really nice! It gives the entire city a very special feel, you know?'', Wendy, a young Sky Dragon Slayer also walking beside Lucy, spoke up. ''It's almost like an adventure waiting to happen!'', she exclaimed as her Exceed companion Carla flew alongside her. Unlike Happy, she had a certain air of elegance and grace to her, though she also couldn't hide her own curiosity as they wandered through the streets.
The five of them had decided to explore the city, while Gray had ventured off somewhere on his own and Erza had stayed behind to watch their luggage and read one of the books she'd brought with her.
''See? Wendy gets it.'', Lucy replied with a smile as she patted the younger girl on the shoulder. ''We only have about two hours before the train leaves, so let's make the most out of it. I heard there's a fountain plaza that's really beautiful not far from here, and some well-known clothing stores as well!''
''Lucyyyyy, are you sure you're not just looking for an excuse to buy some new clothes?'', Happy teased as he spread his wings and floated over to Lucy, grinning as if he'd just caught the most delicious fishie ever.
''Ugh, of course not, cat!'', the blonde shot back, rolling her eyes in slight annoyance. ''I just want to admire the culture and Guiltina's just so happens to be a really interesting one! I don't see anything wrong about buying a souvenir or two…or three.''
As the group continued walking and reached the aforementioned fountain plaza with several stores and stalls in its proximity, Lucy's attention wandered to the shops around them. The city of Rainhill, just like for its architecture, was also known for its long-lasting tradition of fabric making and tailoring, so she couldn't really resist admiring some of the elegant, beautiful dresses displayed in the windows. She briefly daydreamed about how she would look in one of those long, flowing gowns, completely lost in her thoughts.
However, it wasn't long before Lucy began to notice something else—some of the people standing near the fountain weren't exactly subtle with their glances.
A group of men was starting to take a note of her, their eyes lingering on her figure a little too long for her liking. While yes, she knew how to use her best assets to her advantage and was confident in herself and her sex appeal, there had been a few times where she had felt really uncomfortable with unwanted stares and unnecessary comments and cat calls. Finding herself in a similar situation yet again, now she tried brushing it off at first, but when those creepy men slowly started to approach her and continued whistling in her direction, Lucy tensed.
''Hey baby! Looking for some company?'', one of the creeps said as he took a lingering step forward, laughing with his other sleazy friends.
''Hell yeah, why don't you join us, hot stuff?'', another creep shouted.
Lucy's face flushed bright red—but not with embarrassment, but rather with sheer anger that was slowly but surely starting to consume. She balled her fists and turned to face the source of those disgusting comments. ''Excuse me?'', she started, her voice sharp.
The guy, for whom Lucy had correctly presumed to be the leader of those disgusting-ass thugs, took a few more steps forward and now stood only several feet away from her, with his arms crossed over his chest and a disgustingly smug smile etched onto his face. ''It would be such a shame if a pretty lady like you is all on her own tonight! This town can get pretty dangerous sometimes, y' know?''
Lucy let out a small gasp at the creep's sheer audacity to speak to her in such a callous way, but she didn't want that to get under her skin, so she almost instinctively reached for her Celestial keys and got her ready to summon one of her spirits, but not before Natsu managed to beat her to it and was now standing right in front of her.
His face was twisted into a fierce scowl and his already naturally warm body was seemingly getting hotter with each passing moment. His fists clenched, flames licking at his knuckles as his fire magic flared to life. ''What the hell did you just say?'', he spoke in an eerily calm tone, his voice low and dangerous.
''Woah, chill out man! We are just messing around!'', another thug stammered, holding his hands up in mock-defense. ''No need to get all fiery on us!'', he added, snickering as Natsu's flames grew even more intense.
Natsu, unsurprisingly, wasn't in the mood to let it go that easily and turn down an opportunity to kick someone's ass just because they happened to verbally harass someone who was so near and dear to his heart. ''You really think it's funny to harass someone, especially if that someone is a woman?'', he snapped, with anger evident in every word that left his mouth. ''You better get lost before I kick your butts and turn you all into a pile of ash!''
However, instead of retreating, the group's expressions quickly shifted to ones of sly grins and dangerous confidence, as Natsu's threat seemed to trigger something in all of them. Their leader took another step forward, cracking his knuckles as a faint aura of dark magic began to shimmer around him. ''Those are some big words, flame boy…'', he sneered, his voice laced with mockery. ''You might wanna' think twice before picking a fight in Rainhill, because you're in our territory now.''
Lucy's eyes widened as the rest of the creepy group members began summoning their magical weapons and their bodies started glowing with some kind of dark magic, which was a clear sign to Fairy Tail mages that they were about to deal with a potentially dark guild whose headquarters just so happened to be right in the city of Rainhill.
''Natsu, wait, these guys are from a dark gui—'', she warned the Fire Dragon Slayer, but he obviously didn't give two shits about it as he took a bold leap forward and launched himself towards the group's leader.
''Oh yeah, that's how you wanna' do this?'', Natsu's grin turned feral, with scorchingly hot flames erupting around his fists as he prepared to unleash his signature move. ''Well, that's fine by me, so let's go! Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!''
The leader let out a maniacal laugh before casting an intense wave of dark, cold energy that was aimed for Natsu, but the Dragon Slayer effortlessly dodged it. With a roar, he propelled himself forward and managed to send a flaming punch straight at the leader's chest, which sent him flying back and crashing right into a market stall in what was now a heap of broken wood and scorched fabric.
The remaining few dark mages were able to escape Natsu's attack, so they quickly retaliated by focusing their attacks on Wendy, Lucy and the pair of Exceeds.
One of them conjured a bunch of sharp, pointed roots at Lucy, who immediately summoned Cancer and changed into her Cancer Star Dress, snipping through the pesky material with a pair of twin scissor blades and quickly taking out the dark mage. As a way to finish off the second dark mage she was fighting against, Lucy summoned Virgo and allowed her to use her Spica Hole to pull the enemy deep underground. The battle soon ended fairly quickly, which was all thanks to the combined efforts of both celestial spirits and Lucy's quick thinking.
In the meantime, Carla transformed into her human form (much to Happy's delight) to kick away a couple of mages and send them flying in Wendy's direction, who used her Sky Dragon Slayer magic to counter them and to end their seemingly endless barrage of attacks. Happy happily contributed to the fight as well, using his beloved fishie as a weapon to knock out cold both thugs who had fought against Carla and Wendy.
The only dark mage left standing used magic that was a combination of water magic and a type of ice magic similar to Gray's, so he summoned both a whip of water and a cloud of sharp ice shards that rained down on Natsu, who was undeterred and ducked and weaved through the attacks, using his flames to melt the ice and evaporate the water with shocking ease.
''You seriously call that magic?'', he taunted. ''I've seen pervy popsicle pull out better stunts than this joke magic of yours!''
Natsu was, unsurprisingly, getting too caught up in the thrill of the fight. His flames got hotter and wilder with each attack he unleashed at his opponent, so the collateral damage soon began to mount. Stalls and storefronts were starting to catch on fire, sending merchants and nearby shopkeepers scrambling to save their goods. A nearby awning also went up in flames, causing Lucy to let out a yelp as she transformed back into her regular outfit and watched some of the store signs getting reduced to ash.
''Natsu!'', Lucy shouted, trying to get his attention to tell him to take it easy at least for once—but it was already way too late.
In one final, over-the-top attack that was just so quintessentially and unabashedly him, Natsu unleashed one of his Dragon Slayer's Secret Art moves, Crimson Lotus: Exploding Flame Blade, incinerating the last of the rogue mages and sending him flying high into the sky.
And of course, the Fire Dragon Slayer left a path of destruction in its wake.
Lucy and Wendy both started coughing as smoke billowed around them, only for the two of them to realize with horror that their clothes had been partially burned away, leaving them both clutching at the remnants of their clothes to preserve their dignity. The bluenette also squeaked in shock, her face getting redder than a tomato.
Sitting on the ground not that far away from the two female Fairy Tail mages were Happy and Carla, who also hadn't been spared from Natsu's destructive flame attack. They were both blackened with soot and got their respective furs charred to no end, which looked especially noticeable on Carla's usually pristine white fur. The female Exceed could only give Natsu a disapproving, disappointing sigh, while Happy's whiskers drooped as he coughed out a small puff of smoke.
Natsu, completely oblivious to the chaos he had just caused, stood triumphant in the center of the charred plaza. ''See? Told you I would take care of it!'', he declared, pumping his fist up in the air and flashing his signature toothy grin.
Lucy could practically feel smoke coming out of her ears as she clung onto the tattered remains of her top. She covered her breasts with both hands as she marched over to Natsu, glaring daggers at her teammate. ''Natsu! Do you have any idea what you just did?!''
Natsu blinked in slight confusion, looking around the smoldering market stalls and the partially melted storefront windows, the frightened townspeople and his friends who had unfortunately found themselves in the crossfire of his ginormous finishing move.
''Uhm, oops?''
''Oops?!'', Lucy shrieked as she got closer to him, deservedly smacking him over the head with her hand.
Her clothes—a tube top she wore underneath a cropped long-sleeved cardigan, skirt, thigh-high socks and boots—were singed, burned. In fact, her entire outfit was almost completely in tatters, barely covering her at all. And to make matters even worse, her underwear had suffered the same fate!
Lucy's face turned beet red at the realization. ''You idiot!'', she yelled, holding onto what was left of her clothes in a desperate attempt to cover herself and salvage the last shreds of her modesty and dignity.
Natsu still looked perplexed about the whole thing, the fire in his hands immediately extinguishing. ''Huh? What's wrong, Luce?''
''What's wrong? You just burned my clothes, you pyro!'', she replied, her voice now high-pitched and frantic. She glanced around and hoped that no one else had noticed her current state of near-undress.
The pinkette scratched the back of his neck, but also slowly but surely (and hopefully) coming to the realization about what he had done. ''I did?''
''Yes, it was you who did it, flame brain!'', Lucy snapped, trying to keep her voice low so as not to draw even more attention to herself. She could feel her cheeks burning, and she was sure that it wasn't from the heat of Natsu's flames.
''Typical Natsu…'', Wendy sighed as she shook her head in disbelief. ''But uhmm, Lucy-san, I should probably get some new clothes too.'', she said, her voice gentle but firm. She had also gotten herself charred by Natsu's hot flames, as evident by her clothes slowly starting to melt.
Lucy was quickly snapped out of her thoughts by the younger mage's voice. ''Right, new clothes. Good idea!'', she answered quickly. ''I'll summon Virgo so that she can give us a new set of clothes.''
She then reached for her celestial keys and summoned the masochistic spirit in an instant. A ding-dong sound was followed by a flash of golden light, with Virgo appearing right away and supplying the mages with two similar sets of clothes—a simple tracksuit with Fairy Tail's emblem stitched onto the zip-up hoodie, with Wendy getting a dark turquoise one and Lucy getting a pink one. She silently thanked Virgo before closing her gate and sending her back to the spirit realm.
Natsu suddenly spoke up, gaining Lucy's attention. ''I was just trying to help.'', he said, crossing his arms. ''Those guys were acting like total assholes and creeps towards you, so I just couldn't stand idly by and watch them treating you like that. And you're not like that—you're a strong, ridiculously smart and really talented mage!''
It looked like he had finally started to piece things together.
A faint blush spread across his cheeks, causing him to divert his gaze away from his best friend and partner. ''Uh, I mean, I wasn't purposefully trying to burn your clothes. It's just that I didn't like those guys hitting on you and treating you like crap.'', he muttered into his scaly scarf, his voice uncharacteristically soft and his cheeks even redder now. ''Y' know, harassing you and making you feel super uncomfortable.''
Lucy's mind began to race as her heart thumped against her ribcage. She blinked, still trying to process what she had just heard and what had just happened—she knew that Natsu had always been really protective of her and had been willing to go to great lengths to kick the asses of those who would even dare to lay a finger on her, but felt…this felt way, way different.
From his initial reaction, to the anger in his eyes when those men had begun harassing her, the way he had said he didn't like them hitting on her, his cheeks blushing and him acting surprisingly shy about the whole thing…
Could it possibly be…?
Lucy immediately shook those thoughts out of her head.
No, don't be naive Lucy! He doesn't see you the way you see him and that's probably something that will never change. Being close best friends with him? Absolutely! Being more than that? Absolutely not!
The Celestial Spirit mage let out an internal groan.
She had been in love with Natsu for what felt like forever, but she had always assumed that he just saw her as a close best friend and partner in their guild. After all, Natsu had always been dense as shit when it came to the topic of romance—and everyone knew that. However, as glanced over at him and noticed that the blush in his cheeks was still visible, she began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, there was something more to his feelings that she had realized.
''Oh Natsu…'', she started, her voice much softer now, with her anger fading as quickly as it had come.
The day has finally come—I'm posting my very first Fairy Tail fanfic!
This is my first time writing a FT fanfic, even though I've been an avid fan since 2021. I've read all chapters of the original manga, watched all episodes of the anime multiple times and have been also keeping up with both FT100YQ manga and anime (especially the English dub, which is my favorite). I hope I did both the story and characters some justice, and apologies in advance if some characters seem a bit OOC—fight scenes aren't exactly my strongest suit, and I'm more into all that mushy, sappy, romantic crap anyway. 💕
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING THIS STORY AND FOR YOUR SUPPORT! I LOVE YOU ALL. 💫