Phoenix

Remember

"Sting, where are you going? We should return to the balcony."

Rogue could see that Sting had a small stream of blood dripping from his ear, which troubled him. Sting was the first of the pair to be able to stand again after their defeat. Rogue noticed that he stood rather quickly and didn't have the strength to stay upright for long, let alone walk. Yet here he was, dragging Rogue towards an unknown location.

"Where are we going?"

Sting's ears were pierced with pain as he felt the blood drip down the side of his face. Rogue planted his feet and stopped the blond dragon slayer from going any further.

"Sting, I'm not going to be dragged somewhere when you won't speak."

Sting faced the shadow dragon slayer, ready to yell at him. Instead, he hissed as he fell to his knees. He could feel the overwhelming pain in his ears as he listened to her screams. Sting looked up to make eye contact with his partner.

"How can you not hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Seriously?!"

Sting stopped yelling as he was hit with another wave of pain. Rogue watched as his partner continued to hiss, obviously extremely uncomfortable. He would suggest that he go to the infirmary, but there were two problems with that. The first was that Sting was on a one track mindset right now and would refuse to get any medical attention until he was finished with whatever he was trying to do. The other was that even if he agreed to go to the infirmary, Sabertooth didn't have one. Master Jiemma believed that no member should ever be hurt enough to need one.

"Sting, maybe you shouldn't--"

Sting forced himself back up and weakly continued on his path.

"Do what you want. I don't care if you come or not."

Rogue sighed before taking Sting by his side and helping him stand up. He let Sting lean to him in order to help him walk. The two started walking to an unknown direction, Sting wincing every so often.

-------------------------------------

"Damn. She's loud."

"Natsu!" Lucy scolded. "She's in pain."

"Yeah but like, how much pain is that to make her scream like that?"

Laxus stayed silent as he sat by the bed.

"Hey Laxus," Natsu started as he moved closer to the bed, "do you think that--"

"Don't touch her."

Natsu, Lucy and Elfman looked at him astonished. They had never seen the wizard so territorial.

Porlyusica spoke up next, "Are you her mate, boy?"

"No, I am."

Everyone looked to the voice to see that the twin dragons of Sabertooth were leaning in the doorway. Elfman stood up to say something when Natsu moved and stood in front of them, blocking Sting and Rouge from entering. Sting went to push through when Natsu crossed his arms.

"No tigers allowed!"

"What did you say, fairy?"

Lucy could sense the tension in the air and decided to speak up.

"Um, guys? Maybe not now."

"Will you just let me through already? She going to start--"

Emi started writhing in pain and shrieked again, shaking the room. Natsu finally turned around from his position to look at her, and Lucy and Elfman had wide eyes once again. Sting hissed again and fell a little before Rogue steadying him. Sting used his free hand to cover one of his ears.