Fire, Blood and Stars

Chapter 24

A/N Hello, all my readers. Fun fact; telling your parents about your fanfiction is a baaad  idea. Really bad. Also, my earphones went wonky, and I can hear the music but not the words. So my playlist consists of Pretty Little Psycho, where the earphone misidentifies the lyrics as music. I'm sick of it.

It should have taken the rest of the guild members close to five minutes to calm the Master down, and prevent him from going to the Phantom Lord guild hall and sitting on it in his Titan form. However, since the majority of Fairy Tail echoed his sentiment, it took close to fifteen minutes for Mira (and by extension Laxus) to calm him down. Laxus would have probably been happier to destroy Phantom Lord, but going against Mira was laughably idiotic. Especially if you had plans to date her and do all sorts of things to her- Ahem.

A few minutes later, Natsu arrived with Lucy, looking incredibly tired but relieved.

Mira let out a breath. "I'm so glad you're safe, Lucy! We thought you had been kidnapped!"

"Thank god you weren't! We were really worried about you", said the Master.

Before Lucy could say anything, a deep rumbling was heard. The entire guild scrambled out, tripping on each other in the process, and came face to face with a gigantic... guild?

Laxus's face went red with anger. "Phantom Lord", he whispered, shivering with rage. "What do they want? It can't be one of us, because they could have taken Lucy then."

Jose's amplified voice chose that moment to erupt through the speakers.

"HAND OVER LUCY HEARTFILIA NOW OR FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!"

Makarov blinked. Laxus blinked. Mirajane, well, she squealed.

"Lucy! Does that mean they did try to kidnap you?"

Laxus covered his face with his hand. "Mira, not something to be happy about."

Mira shook his arm, which was the tallest she could reach, excitedly.

"Don't you get it? That means she fought them and escaped!" She looked towards Lucy with an expression of pride and joy. "What did you use? The Mira-style high kick? The Mira-style face punch? Or, heavens forbid", at this, Mira brought her face close to Lucy's, "the Mira-style super kick-im-in-the-nuts?!"

Lucy nodded at the last one, as everyone except Natsu and Laxus looked bewildered at the one-sided conversation. Natsu was smiling in appreciation, and Laxus was intimately remembering the 'Mira-style super kick-im-in-the-nuts' with a mixture of fear ("She kicked me in the nuts!") and a bit of something else ("She touched me in the nuts!"). Needless to say, this had happened back when they were hormonal teenagers, and of course, the fact that Laxus was dating her had nothing to do with his desire for those battles of dominance- ahem, activities that they used to do back then.

He was knocked out of his memories by the blaring of the Phantom Lord guild's microphone.

"OI, ARE YOU ALL EVEN LISTENING?" Then, the mike blared again, "OI, WHATCHAMMACALLIT MECHANIC! IS THIS THING ON?"

On the ground, Gray smirked. He gestured for the others to keep quiet, and yelled, "YES, IT'S ON!"

"GREAT! NOW GIVE ME LUCY HEARTFILIA!"

Lucy shuffled forward, partially certain that she would be given away. She felt a weird urge to go to Natsu, knowing he could fix everything, but she didn't.

Gray's smirk widened as he shushed them again. "WHAT? WE CAN'T HEAR YOU! YOUR VOICE IS BREAKING!"

A few curses were heard. After about two minutes, the mike blared again.

"IS IT BETTER NOW?"

"YES, IT'S BETTER! NOW, WHAT WERE YOU SAYING?"

Jose spoke slowly, to make sure his words were heard. "GIVE. ME. LUCY. HEARTFILIA."

Lucy's heart jumped. What if-

She felt Natsu put a hand on her shoulder, and somehow knew it would be okay. She looked back at him and was a bit surprised to see him trying hard not to laugh. He looked at her eyes, and his more-than-a-smile-but-not-quite-a-laugh widened. She smiled back at him, slightly hesitantly.

"SORRY? HEART-WHAT? DO YOU WANT A FAIRY HEART OR SOMETHING?"

Jose's attention was piqued. "WHAT IS A FAIRY HEART?"

Lucy giggled softly, and gasped as Natsu pulled her closer to him.

"FAIRY HEART IS A SECRET THING THAT GIVES PEOPLE A TON OF MAGIC POWER."

Jose was grinning like a six-year old girl would be upon being asked whether she wanted a pony.

"YES! I WANT IT! GIVE IT TO ME AND WE'LL LEAVE YOU ALONE!"

Gray almost broke down in giggles before shouting back, "WE DON'T HAVE IT. MAYBE IN SOME OTHER UNIVERSE, BUT NOT HERE!"

By that time, the entire guild was trying to stop laughing, except Cana, who continued laughing loudly.

"YOU BRAT! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

"YOU'RE GOING TO WHAT?!"

"I SAID, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! THEN I'LL KILL THE REST OF YOU, DESTROY THE GUILD, KIDNAP LUCY, AND SEND HER TO HER FATHER FOR MONEY!"

After a deep breath, he shouted, "ALTHOUGH, NOT BEFORE I PUNISH HER FOR KICKING ME IN THE FORBIDDEN PLACE."

Let us take a moment to see just how unlucky Jose was. Gajeel had been rethinking his decision, and was about to go to Jose, when his Guild Master said such a stupid thing. Natsu's resulting roar of rage made him jump back, grab his plushie, and start shoveling some vanilla ice-cream (Iago's Incredible Ice-cream! Never let your iron dragon be heartbroken again!) in his face.

The next moment, Jose came running into the control room and started shouting for the Abyss Break to be activated. The plan had been to use the Jupiter first, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The guild started changing into a weird structure, and a magic circle appeared.

The magic circle spun slowly. The guild members stared at it until Laxus drawled, "Well, it's Abyss Break."

Lucy asked hesitantly, "That's the spell that uses four elements to unleash incredible destructive power?"

Mirajane answered her. "Yeah. It's supposed to be able to destroy entire mountains at full power."

Lucy frowned. "And no one is scared of it at all?"

Natsu sighed. He trudged over to a large rock, grabbed it, and slammed it into his head.

Immediately, blood started pouring out of his head. Natsu blinked, dazed, and then stumbled. Horrified, Lucy caught him before he fell. Gray quickly froze the wound on his head to prevent more blood loss, and Lucy laid him down on the ground.

Natsu, in an utterly un-Natsu fashion, grinned goofily. Possibly a concussion. "Sorry. I forgot. Almost no magic."

Laxus blinked a few times. "Ah, I see." A few moments later, he added, "Now would be a good time to be scared."

Mira held up a hand. "Don't worry, now is usually the time when villains tell heroes how their trump card works."

Laxus sighed. "Mira, this isn't a book."

Jose chose that moment to yell through the microphone, "THIS SPELL IS POWERED BY THE ELEMENT FOUR. AS LONG AS THEY ARE OKAY, YOU CANNOT STOP THIS."

Mira looked triumphantly at Laxus, who raised his hands in surrender. "What? What do you want me to say? That this is a book?"

Gray slammed his palms together, and the magic circle was covered with a sheet of ice. Then, the ice began to spin with the magic circle. A few seconds later, it melted off.

"Okay, so that didn't work. Any better ideas?"

"Take down the Element Four?" suggested Laxus.

Gray cracked his knuckles and grinned menacingly.

"Let's do it!"