Fire, Blood and Stars

Chapter 25

<A/N> Hey, sorry for the late update. I got sick (not of writing, of bacteria) and had to have antibiotics, and damn, they mess with you a lot, so this chapter is probably gonna be as good as the rest, but I'm not going to regard it as that good yet. Also, I make it a point not to use Japanese, but to Juvia, Gray will always be Gray-sama. Juvia to Gray is Gray-sama, and Wendy to Natsu is probably gonna be Natsu-san. Other than that, everything is English, 'kay?

Gray and Laxus charged at the Phantom Lord guild hall, followed by Elfman. Natsu sat up, presumably to follow them, but Lucy stopped him.

"You're not going anywhere like that! You just injured your head, you have no magic, and judging by the way you're grinning, you may have a concussion!"

Natsu's grin widened at that. Lucy frowned at him, confused. "What happened?"

"Nothing. It's just... You've grown better at asserting yourself. A few weeks earlier, you wouldn't even have thought of stopping me or shouting."

Lucy froze. "S-sorry."

Natsu winced. "No, don't apologize! It's a good thing!"

Lucy looked down at Natsu's chest, her eyes occasionally darting up to his face. Once Natsu had become certain that she was quite unapologetic, he said, "And don't worry about me. I'll just grab some random guy and suck his blood."

Lucy hesitated, unsure of whether she should say anything. "You know that, uh, you know, right? That the offer I made... I mean, you drinking my blood, you know it's a standing offer, and not just a one-time thing?"

Natsu raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You sure?", he asked, reaching for her wrist. She nodded, and he pressed his teeth to her wrist.

For some reason, it wasn't arousing. This time, it made her feel calmer, and caused her stomach to flutter peacefully. She let out a happy sigh.

After around half a minute, Natsu let go and stood up. The wound (if you could call it that) on his head faded almost instantly. He wiped away a bit of blood from his cheek (which was weirdly attractive, Lucy noticed). He looked at the rest of the guild.

"Protect her, you got that?"

"Sure", yelled a drunk Cana. Bickslow saluted. The Master simply said, "Throw me."

"What?" asked Natsu.

The Master repeated, "Throw me at them, I'll expand on the way."

Realization dawned on Natsu. He grabbed the master by his legs (causing him to squawk in surprise), swung him around and threw him. However, he had misjudged how badly Makarov growing in the middle of flight would mess up his trajectory. Instead of soaring above the magic circle, the guild master slammed face-first into the magic circle for Abyss Break. The Titan magic was knocked out of him, and his tiny form dropped down from the sky.

Natsu muttered, "Okay, so don't touch the magic circle."

He made eye contact with everyone there. "Stay here."

Looking to Lucy, he remembered just how scared he had felt when he had felt that she was in danger. "And, Lucy", he asked, "After this stuff is over, can we talk?"

She looked up in surprise. "Uh, sure!"

Cana slurred out, "Hooray for Natsu." Mirajane immediately corrected her, with shining eyes.

"No Cana, it's hooray for NALU!!!"

Lucy blushed, grasping the meaning of Nalu. Natsu frowned, before giving up and heading towards Phantom Lord. When he was out of earshot, Mirajane squealed and hugged Lucy.

The very first person Gray and Laxus bumped into was a blue haired woman, who had an umbrella, and was wearing blue clothes.

"Laxus, I'll handle her. Go and find the element four."

Laxus ran further into the guild hall as Gray faced the bluenette. He smacked his hands together to create a block of ice where the girl's feet were. The girl then turned to water, which Gray had not thought possible, and flowed out of the ice.

Gray raised his eyebrows. "This is gonna be fun!" he said, and, combined with his shirt-lessness, Bluenette (he really needed to find out her name) blushed deeply.

"Juvia is the water woman of the Element Four."

Gray looked interested. He immediately turned gentlemanly. "Hello, charming lady. Could I trouble you to tell me where this Juvia is?"

The bluenette looked incredibly offended. Drawing herself up to her full height (which was still shorter than Gray), she said, "Juvia is Juvia." Then she pointed at Gray and asked, "Pervert is?"

Gray struck a pose, reaching for a non-existent hat.

"Me? Well, I am the great Gray-sama!"

Juvia blinked. "Juvia is not calling pervert that."

Gray suddenly had an epiphany that the girl in front of him was speaking in third person. Deciding to humor her, he asked, "Is Juvia Juvia?"

She looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "Juvia has to be Juvia. Otherwise Juvia wouldn't be Juvia in the first place."

Gray blinked several times, trying to make sense of that sentence, which had to have broken the limit of how many times you were allowed to say Juvia in a statement. It had not. Gray would be the one to break the limit, in the far, far future.

"Are you Juvia?"

Juvia nodded.

"Hmmm", Gray said, deep in thought. "Well, this is nothing personal, but I'm gonna have to knock you out."

"Snowman can try", said Juvia, smirking.

"Snowman??"

Juvia pointed at herself. "Water woman." Gray nodded. She pointed at him. "Snowman."

Gray winced. "Yeah, no, that makes sense. Die- no wait, I'm in Fairy Tail, I can't say that. Fall unconscious after getting attacked by me and then become a good guy!" Inwardly he thought, what kind of a battle cry is that?

"What kind of a battle cry is that?"

"Oh goddammit!" Gray swept an arm violently, creating a wave of ice that knocked her away and off the bridge (of sorts) they were on. After debating with himself what the legal and emotional ramifications were for killing a person, he saw that she was still hanging on to the edge. He lifted her up (and immediately handcuffed her).

It was quite simple for him. The same could not be said for Juvia. First of all, she saw kisses floating around, and there were two annoying hearts in front of her eyes. The ease with which he had swept her off her feet (and almost off the bridge) was se- positively alluring. And the handcuffs! Mm, hero-villain role-play. Although, she was a villain in the scenario, so it wouldn't be role-play.

Every time she looked at his muscular chest and his fifty thousand pack abs (probably the first clue that she was fantasizing), she could only think of him striking a pose and saying, "I am the great Gray-sama!"

She began sniffling. No one had shown such great care to her! She conveyed this to her beloved Gray-sama, to which his utterly confused response was, "What care?!"

Then her sniffles turned into flat out bawling, along with a rendition of her life story.

"Juvia was born in-"

-Five minutes later-

"Juvia thought Gajeel was different-"

-Ten minutes later-

"Juvia made Gajeel rust-"

-Twenty minutes later-

"Waaaaaaaah! Gray-sama is so kind!"

"What the hell did I do?! I showed no kindness yet! No- DON'T! Nope! No grabbing! Bad girl! Juvia- I SAID NO GRABBING!"

-Forty minutes later-

In the end, when she was winding up, Gray knocked her out, made an ice dome around her, and ran further in. He was itching for a fight. And, he thought, I would love to run into this Gajeel idiot on my way.