#i spent too much time through the anti nalu tag for this

[natsubeatsrock]

My 10 Favorite Posts, So Far

Well, tomorrow makes 5 years of blogging as natsubeatsrock. It’s been quite a crazy 5 years and I’ve made a number of crazy posts in the time between starting this blog and today. To celebrate I wanted to talk about 10 of my favorite posts over the past five years. This list isn’t necessarily ranked from least to most favorite, but there is one post I can call my absolute favorite.

Let’s go!

Honorable Mention: The Rewrite of Fairy Tail: Part 16 (Lisanna) [originally posted March 27, 2019]

As an honorable mention, I want to shed some light on my favorite post from last year. I started making this post months before the series was on the verge of ending. As I was working on this post and decided to work on rewriting Fairy Tail, I started to rework this series as a defense for keeping Lisanna in the series, as opposed to cutting her. This has been a theme in a lot of the posts I’ve made about Lisanna since a post I made before that one and I do plan to talk about that in the future.

#10. My Incredibly Unpopular Thoughts on: Ships/Zervis [originally posted October 25, 2015]

This is the earliest post in my top 10 and it shows. Around this time two big things happened: I made a post on August 31st called My Incredibly Unpopular Thoughts on: Juvia and the fandom exploded over Zervis, due to the revelations in canon. I intended to make that first post a part of a series and this was too big of an opportunity to pass. I remember that writing this was ridiculously easy for me. In fact, it’s one of the shortest posts for me to draft and upload with its relative size.

While I’m not as proud of how my writing prowess shines in this post, almost everything I’ve said in this post has become my philosophy on ships since posting it. My thoughts on shipping fandoms? Check. My thoughts on canon weight of ships? Check. My wishy-washy feelings over Zervis? Check. For a long time, this was my favorite entry in this series, but we’ll ge tto that soon enough.

#9. Bye, Bye Lucy: Part 4 [originally posted May 20, 2017]

A lot of you may be shocked to see this post on the list. “Bye, Bye Lucy“ was a series of posts I did explaining all of the issues I have with the infamous subset of fanfics that has Lucy get kicked off the Strongest Team in favor of Lisanna, resulting in her leaving Fairy Tail. I had a ton of fun working on this series. So much so, I actually ended up writing a story based on the idea I posit in Part 3 of this series, which I released earlier this month. But, individually, Part 4 is my favorite individual post in the series which focused on the idea of Lucy leaving the guild over the whole situation.

Originally, this whole series was going to be one really long post at just over 10,000 words. However, around the time I was working on the part that would become this post, I realized that these stories fail with each successive plot point important to this trope of story. At this particular point, any stories lose me as both stories inspired by Fairy Tail and as their own type of stories. No good story that I know even tries to play with these tropes has Lucy actually leave the guild, even temporarily.

#8. Why I Still Ship Nali (Even if Most of the Rest of Fandom Doesn’t) [originally posted March 1, 2020]

I didn’t want to add too many posts from too recent on this list. As much as I think my current writing is my most consistent writing, it would be hard to say that too many of my posts now are at the same level as many of the posts coming up on this list. But, I’m honestly glad that I made this post, especially considering some of the things surrounding its creation.

About three months into my blog, I made a post called “What I Need to Stop Shipping Nali (and why I still do)”. Around the time I was going to post it, I guess someone made a post questioning why people would still ship Nali. It’s become one of my least favorite posts and I’ve felt it desperately needed to be updated for a while. I decided to tackle an issue I’ve had seen in much of fan interpretations with Nali: doing nothing past Edolas with Nali. I wrote the first draft out months ago and waited for a good opportunity to type it out. When I got the hate messages, that felt like as good a time as any. Speaking of which...

#7. My Response to Anon-san [originally posted March 31, 2016]

A bit of backstory may help with this one. I posted “My Incredibly Unpopular Thoughts on: Lisanna” on Easter that year. I check my phone coming out of my church’s night concert and I got the two messages I respond to in this post. When I first saw I got messages, I was worried because that was the first time I ever got negative anon messages. But when I read them, I knew I needed to talk about this as my 3,000th post on this blog - a milestone I was on the cusp of approaching when I got the messages.

While I like the precedent my response seemed to set for my dealing with this type of stuff, the reason this post is here that I legitimately love the messages I was responding to. Every now and then, I read them to myself just to remind myself they exist. I’m not even sure why I got them in the first place. They don’t even seem terribly connected to that Lisanna post. While complaining about fandom has been something I’m apt to do for a number of reasons, I can’t imagine which post got on their “nevers”. But believe me when I say that I am feeling very cooling about the fact that I did.

#6. My Incredibly Unpopular Thoughts on: Nalu [originally posted July 9, 2016]

I’m sure this one isn’t much of a shock too many of you. Around the time I made this post, the “anti-Nalu“ community was very different from how it is now. I had made a couple of posts about some of the issues I had with the ship and its fandom, but nothing on this scale. As a part of Fairy Tail month, I figured should try to explain everything I saw wrong with both.

Even as I wanted to do this and made plenty of similar posts before this, the thought of backlash terrified me. I made sure to set it up to post when I knew I’d be away and wouldn’t be able to see how it was received. When I finally did see the responses to this post, all of them were positive and from people who agreed with me. It’s become my favorite post in the series and still seems to serve as a great primer for people who don’t ship Nalu.

Though I’m kind of sad that a lot of the stuff I talked about in that post regarding the development of Nalu and fandom habits haven’t changed almost four years since I first posted it. When I went to make the sequel for this post, I was shocked how little fandom changed and how stuff inside and outside of canon seemed to embolden fandom to be worse about other actions over abour 18 months. Though, I didn’t hate Nalu when I made this post, even as I stopped wanting to ship it around that time.

#5. Opinion I’ll Probably get Stoned For #100 [originally posted April 29, 2016]

I really have to get back to making these. “Opinions I’ll Probably get Stoned For” was the series I was known for starting less than two months into making this blog. It’s a series where I drop spicy takes ranging from Sweet Bell Pepper to California Reaper. I’ve gotten into it with fans over more than a few of the posts in this series. However, my favorite of the series is one of the longest editions in the series.

Months before posting this, I remember seeing one of my favorite Graytear bloggers get into trouble with Gruvia shippers. One point brought up that particularly pissed me off was the moment that Gray was about to used Iced Shell against Silver. According to the Gruva shipper, the fact that the panel remembering Juvia is bigger than the panel remembering Ultear showed enough of Mashima’s priorities. This argument literally made me sick to my stomach. For months, I’d privately joke that this proved the exact opposite: Gray went through with Iced Shell because he remembered Juvia.

To celebrate hitting the milestone of 100 posts in that series, I decided to make a longer version of the series and explain my thoughts in depth. As soon as I had the idea, I knew that had to be the one. My favorite thing about this post is that, despite clarifying that I’m not terribly serious about this argument twice in the post, I actually got blocked by a Gruvia fan over this post. I guess they didn’t see it as that funny of a joke. Weird how that works.

#4. Nali Week: Scars and Unkept Promises [originally posted July 24, 2016]

Every once in a while, someone will make the remark to the effect of “People should stop complaining about the ships they don’t like and make stuff for the ships they do like”. Thank goodness no one has actually said that in regard to my posts. As much fun as I’ve had over the years complaining about the stuff I don’t like in Fairy Tail and its fandom, I do make a point to talk about the stuff I do like and why every now and then. While the series was running, ship weeks usually meant meta posts from me and this is my favorite of them.

This post was born from my own musings about how the anime dealt with Natsu and Lisanna’s relationship. I wanted to talk about its handing through the perspective of Lisanna being an important person Natsu lost and how that works with his desire to see Igneel again. The big moments I draw on is his promise in episode 75 where Lisanna asks Natsu to save her if she ever gets lost and their reunion in episode 79.

The perspective I took in that post is one I don’t really take a lot. I’m not arguing against an idea a lot of people in fandom agree with. I’m not even really arguing that my perspective is the correct perspective. I’m explaining the thought process that Natsu, as I interpret him, has regarding someone he cares about. The stuff I talked about in this post has become part of my interpretation of Natsu and traces of it can be seen in a lot of the posts I’ve made since. We have to bring Nali Week back.

#3. An Open Letter to the Nalu Fandom [originally posted October 1, 2017]

I love satire as a rhetorical tool. I love taking an idea I disagree with to so large an extreme that the problems with it are obvious to even the people who agree with it. While many of my posts have drips of sarcasm and irony, I love making an entire post based on the idea of pointing out the problems with an argument. Consider that I’ve done similar things with Opinion #100 and, to an extent, my most recent story.

The trick is finding something with problems that are so glaringly obvious, you can’t imagine people actually taking its side. In the case of this post, it was a hilarious letter addressed to the “anti-Nalu’s”. Apparently, the idea that people openly didn’t like Nalu got on “the nerve of every last one of their pussy hair“. So they wrote a short letter they meant for fans who don’t like Nalu to read. I would give them a pass becasue they were apparently on their period, but they were defending those Twitter pics of Natsu and Lucy on chain leashes.

It’s worth mentioning that this was a few months after the original series ended. I had been trying hard not to make a post about Nalu and the stupid things I saw their fandom do. I didn’t even talk about the pictures they were defending. When I made this post, I figured that I was probably not going to be making many more posts about Nalu for a while. So I decided to throw in every issue I had with the Nalu fandom between talking about it a year earlier and then.

As you can probably tell, I haven’t stopped complaining about Nalu and its fandom. This post seems to have set the tone for how I would deal with the ship and its fandom this side of the ending. Instead of pointing to why a ship fails for me, I’ve been talking about why others should have expected the ship to fail. And, if recent events are a sign of the future, it seems like I’m going to have stuff to say about it for a while. Yay?

#2. Why was Ichiruki Popular? [originally posted July 6, 2018]

What does it say that this post is among my top 10, both on this list and in terms of most notes on a post on this blog? This is a Fairy Tail blog for crying out loud. I shouldn’t be able to get so much attention for talking about a series that isn’t Fairy Tail. It almost certainly shouldn’t get more attention than most of my posts about Fairy Tail. A few people even liked and reblogged it this week.

Then again, this wasn’t my first time talking about other series. I’d already spent time talking about Rave Master, Naruto, and Monster Soul on this blog. I asked my followers if it would be cool if I spent time talking about other series, now that Fairy Tail had ended. Since I got a fairly decent response I decided to talk about a few series, including Bleach.

I got into reading Bleach about a year before it ended. At the time, I was following people who were already into it and was well aware of the popularity of Ichiruki and infamy of its fandom. I was fairly behind but I didn’t see much reason to ship Ichiruki when it ended and I saw the fan meltdowns. Imagine my shock when I got to the end and felt exactly the same about its chances when Rukia said Ichigo’s just her friend. I made this post to vent.

If I started reading Bleach about a year before getting into Fairy Tail, I likely would have been a Bleach blogger. This post served as an interesting glimpse into what that timeline might look like. It’s also one of the few posts that sparked actually interesting responses. While many have pointed to the anime as a reason for its fan popularity, I can’t tell how the staff came to the conclusion that Ichiruki needed to be portrayed as more romantic than in the manga.

#1. I’m late to the “Nalu wasn’t the original plan” party, aren’t I? [originaly posted December 10, 2016]

I’ve made a lot of posts on this blog. I’ve said a lot of things, done a lot of analysis and meta, and shared a lot of opinions here. And yet, I can’t say that too much of the stuff I’ve said is important. Not to say that my insight into certain topics isn’t appreciated. It’s just that much of what I’ve said over the years, even in some of the posts on this list, likely has been and would have been said by anyone else if I didn’t say it. The biggest exception to that has been this post.

A few months before this post, there was a leaked image of Mashima’s afterword in Fairy Tail S regarding the extra chapter Special Request, which happens to be one of my favorite chapters in the series. In it, he admitted that he didn’t originally plan on writing Natsu and Lucy’s relationship as romantic and was currently writing them as somewhere between friends and lovers.

When I first saw it as an image on a Tumblr post, I was extremely hesitant to say anything about it. I didn’t know about Fairy Tail S and assumed it was a troll. When it was confirmed by another blog, and it source was ultimately verified, it was a dream come true. Mashima had vindicated my thoughts on the ship literal months after my big post on Nalu. And yet, not many people were talking about what this actually meant for Fairy Tail and the fandom moving forward. So came this post.

In many ways, I’m still shocked that I still have to point people to this afterword and what it means for Fairy Tail. I’m sure many people know Mashima didn’t plan on making Nalu happen, but I doubt many people understand that fandom is outright incorrect to say that Nalu hsa been obvious from the jump. In a weird connection to the previous post, Mashima’s comments on Nalu are similar to comments Tite Kubo made regarding his writing Ichiruki. Even now, it’s hard to say that Nalu will become canon knowing Mashima’s original intents.

Of the most important thing to come from this post, this marked the start of me starting to hate Nalu. Up to this point, I went from being indifferent to it to not liking it. However, once this came to light, I came to actually hate the idea of Nalu as romantic. I’ve had even less patience for the fandom that made itself near synonymous with the Fairy Tail fandom at large on every site ever. I doubt that will change anytime soon and I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing anymore.

Well, that’s my list of my favorite posts. I’m sure you guys have favorites among my posts and maybe some of them are on this list. If you want to see more of my other personal favorite posts and reblogs, I’ve tagged all of them as fav on my blog, including this one. Here’s to 5 more years of whatever the heck I’m doing on this blog!

See you!

[bijuewled]

Charmed: Chapter 7

A/N: Hello beautiful people! I just wanted to bring up something I forgot to mention earlier. This is a nalu-ccentric story, however I will be putting minor gruvia and gajevy in it, since I planned it like that from the beginning. All ships will be receiving love at some point, but I will always focus mainly on Nalu! The next chapters will solely be focused on Natsu and Lucy's points of view with minor other ship happenings.

Remember when I said I wasn't sure how much I'd push the rating of this story? Yeah...me too...sorry not sorry

Read all parts here

You can also read it here on ff.net 

Rating: M (sexual situations)

Summary: As the days grew older, they grew closer, closer than they could’ve ever imagined. And as an innate power forces itself upon Lucy, she becomes a piece of a destiny that would be beyond her control; for the one who bears the mark of gold is charmed with the power to destroy everything..and to begin everything anew.

                           Chapter Seven: Machine Gun Love

Gajeel was confused. More so, he was utterly puzzled at the events that unfolded during his day that led him to where he was currently standing.

He couldn't help but grin at seeing Juvia act so boldly with her water attack on Gray earlier that morning. He got a kick out of that smug little face of hers, knowing that she had managed to push Gray's buttons a little too aggressively in the early hours of the morning. And he knew that she was loving every second of it, showing off to him in those little spandex shorts of hers, it was almost comedic.

And speaking of little…

Gajeel bit down on his tongue when he thought of those spandex shorts, though more specifically, he was thinking of how they looked on someone else...someone who he couldn't understand had taken him so long to track down.

He first went to the library, a place that he had rarely ever set foot in before this game, and even then it had been a complete waste of his time. He was immediately hit with the suffocating scents of mildew and parchment, it even made the dragon slayer's head fuzzy. It was weird to not be greeted by the little old lady who sat behind the reception desk, who's voice you could only describe as the stereotypical grandmother voice, or at least that's what Gajeel told anyone who'd asked. The woman was always incredibly kind to Gajeel whenever he was dragged into the ancient building by Levy, offering him a lemon drop from a silver bowl she kept on the desk. He'd be lying if he said he didn't take one every time he saw her, begrudgingly enjoying the tart yet sweet candy.

Though, after walking through the empty building, he made his way to the very back of the first floor, past the Young Adult Fiction section and towards the blue couch that rested in the corner of the room, Levy's favorite spot. He remembered her talking about how the sun poured through the window at the perfect temperature to warm her skin while she read or translated Ancient Fiorian text for pleasure. He picked up the weakest hint of her scent from the area, mixed with cleaning supplies and parchment, however he knew that the scent was a few days old thanks to the anti-scent perfume the girls used. He didn't expect to catch her scent anyway, though he hoped that he'd maybe find her in the place he first thought to look in. He'd be lying if he said he didn't feel any anger upon realizing that she wasn't at the library, call it a pride thing. And while this fact would have frustrated him, the folded up note he'd found on the couch angered him even more.

Nice try.

He recognized her curvy handwriting, and he gritted his teeth as he crumpled the note in his hand, though after a few seconds, he began to grin.

She was taunting him.

Now, things got even more interesting.

Next, he tried that cafe that her and Bunny Girl always went to, some cutesy place that drew designs in the foam of their lattes and sprinkled powdered sugar over everything they served. He couldn't understand why girls loved places like these, and if that weren't enough, he couldn't for the life of him understand why girls had such an affinity for coffee. The hot bean water was bitter, and it made his tongue feel strangely dry whenever his curiosity piqued and he'd steal a sip from Levy's cup. Gray drank the stuff cold, which had baffled him even further.

He wasn't surprised to find the cafe door locked, the inside dark as he peered through the glass door. He sighed as he glanced at the wrapped up umbrellas that stuck out of the middle of the tables outside the cafe. After all, the french lady who ran it was most definitely in Juniper picking apart different kinds of exotic coffee beans to bring back to her business.

But, he was surprised to hear a strange noise from the bakery a few feet down from the cafe, thanks to his superior hearing. With a mischievous grin, he abandoned his post at the cafe and quietly made his way to the front entrance. He crouched below the glass display cases, pressing his ear to the glass right under a white frosted wedding cake with blue roses. While the glass was thick, he focused in on the barrier and suddenly the sound of a fork scraping lightly against a plate filled his ears.

Gajeel frowned. He hadn't expected anyone to be having a snack at this time, especially Levy. Was she really that relaxed about this game? Relaxed enough to sit down and enjoy a piece of cake? But then that didn't seem incredibly characteristic of the bluenette, after all he knew damn well that she was more of a cheesecake person.

Gajeel's eyes widened at his train of thought, and shook his head rapidly. Focus, he thought to himself as he clenched his fists and his lips curled into a devious smile. Time to move.

With a sudden rush, he sprang to life and launched himself towards the entrance of the bakery, and threw the glass doors open in a flourish, too excited to consider the fact that he could have actually broken the glass doors and cause more trouble for the Guild. But in the moment, nothing else mattered to him, other than the victory that was sure to taste sweeter than the frosting on the wedding cake display.

"I got you!" Gajeel exclaimed in victory, as he pointed his finger towards his target. "I-"

His arm dropped as his eyes widened in shock, suddenly realizing he'd entered a lion's den.

A pair of eyes blinked up at Gajeel as sweat began to drip down his temples, his throat becoming dry as his eyes drank in the person before him. His muscles refused to move as his jaw dropped to acknowledge the horrifying mistake he'd just made.

His eyes travelled down to the plate on the yellow table before him, on top of it a piece of angel food cake frosted with buttercream and adorned with strawberries, crumbs of it splattered across the piece of china as proof of evidence that the piece of cake was currently being eaten.

He hastily swept his eyes away from the plate, and when he tried to speak, he coughed in discomfort.

The pair of eyes blinked once more, and without a single word, his enemy held out a plate towards him that was adorned with cookies, which appeared to be fresh out of the oven, to which he had no idea how they'd managed that.

Gajeel's nerves began to petrify his body even further as the plate was held out towards him, the walnuts and chocolate wafting up towards his nose and making his mouth water. Out of pure instinct, he began to reach for a cookie before he hesitated briefly.

This had to be a trap, it just had to be. There was no way that he'd be offered cookies so willingly...and with such a strange uncharacteristic calmness.

But they did look delicious…

He made eye contact with the person who extended the sweet treats to him, and with a curt nod, Gajeel decided he would act quickly.

He swiped a cookie from the plate, and with an uncertain look, began to back up from the cookie plate towards the doors. He moved slowly yet efficiently, keeping his guard up just in case his enemy decided to strike at the last minute.

But, the lion of the sugary territory only placed the plate of cookies back onto the table and picked up the silver fork that was left beside the piece of cake. Gajeel watched the fork cut into the cake slowly, to which the action only took five seconds to induce his escape as he backed out of the bakery with a frown on his face.

He'd never make that mistake again.

An hour had passed by, and he was still drawing a complete blank, silently cursing his tracking abilities. If he really wanted to, he could've blamed the perfume that shook things up for the dragon slayers on his team. That would be the easy way out, blaming a foreign liquid for the lack of progress on his end, something that he refused to do. What made this whole situation even more frustrating was that he had told Natsu that he had an idea of where Levy could be, to which he decided that if Natsu taunted him about his cockiness that morning, he'd send him flying into another oblivion with a few broken bones.

It also didn't help that he and Lily had been separated; Charle had leapt out of the shadows all too suddenly an hour prior; The two cats had managed to knock each other out of the running simultaneously. However, much to Gajeel's shock, Wendy had managed to slip away without being detected. He hadn't seen the bluenette with Charle when she had tagged Lily, but Gajeel knew that she had to have been nearby her partner. So, he spent about a half an hour trying to track down Wendy, but it was no use, since the little sprout basically molded into the air itself and vanished without a trace.

And so, it was back to silently cursing to himself as he was unable to locate the one person who the guys all decided to put on Gajeel's shoulders entirely.

"Well, obviously Gajeel is gonna go for Levy first!"

The voices of his teammates danced through his head as he stomped down the abandoned roadway the bakery he'd invaded was located. He wished that Lily was with him, more so that he could fly above the buildings for a greater vantage point like he had done earlier.

"Well, can you blame him? He's obviously got a thing for her."

He rounded a corner, kicking a rock that lay defenseless in the street, smirking as it sprung up from the ground and landed perfectly in the flower pot that was perched atop a windowsill of a gardening shop that always smelled strongly of lilacs, a scent that made his nose itch. Deciding to try his luck once more, his eyes located another stray rock that lay helplessly on the road just waiting to be kicked.

Smirking to himself, he drew his foot backwards, allowing his black boot to scrape against the pavement to prepare for his kick.

"When are you guys gonna make it official, huh?"

His leg began to falter, and his eyes widened as the tip of his boot thumped against the ground as the words toppled into his train of thought. The rock he had tried to kick skid against the ground sloppily and hit the side of the brick building.

Gajeel glared down at the rock that now lay a few feet away from him, clenching his fists as he remembered everyone's stares towards him on that day, feeling like needles were poking into his skin over and over again.

He was used to people staring at him, he could handle that with no problem. Back in Phantom, he'd been given the side-eye and terrified looks from his own guildmates and people passing by on the streets. He'd seen mothers bring their children closer to them and turn them away from him protectively, never making eye contact with him. He had to admit that back then, he rather enjoyed being feared, or rather watching their reactions. The adrenaline that pumped through his veins at the fear in their eyes was a form of pleasure for him.

But the stares he'd been receiving these days were far from pleasurable.

He knew everyone was watching him, waiting for him to make the move that the whispers and giggled all told him would come one day.

He'd glare right back at them, but this was nothing like Phantom Lord.

Back then, people would cower away from his glare, he could practically smell the fear radiating off of them. And now, he'd just receive laughter and smirks, the complete opposite of what he was used to receiving.

And it made him very uncomfortable.

But why? It was the million dollar question he'd been asking himself ever since the doe-eyed girl he'd once almost murdered started to trust him with her whole heart. He hadn't understood why she poured her trust into someone like him, someone who was once Fairy Tail's enemy, someone who so ruthlessly traced Phantom's guild mark on an innocent girl's stomach with her own blood, someone who played a part in kidnapping one of their own and beating her.

And he most certainly didn't understand how quickly he'd managed to fall in love with her.

It had just...hit him all at once one day. He realized that it didn't matter what she was doing, whether she was brushing her hair or reading a book, everything about her was just so fascinating. He was perfectly content with sitting silently next to her just soaking up her presence, or watching her brush Lily's fur. All he knew was that he had it bad.

And it hit him all at once and quick, like a machine gun.

Drip

A sudden prick broke Gajeel out of his thoughts as he halted in his tracks, a small shot of cold water splashing onto his shoulder. He frowned down at the drop that began to cascade down his arm slowly, almost tickling his skin.

His first thought went to Juvia, after all, he'd been conditioned to associate every foreign interaction that he'd had with water with the water mage. However, he quickly dismissed that idea, knowing that she had most likely gone to the river in the center of down. He also assumed that Fullbuster was right there with her, on the count of the growing attraction for Juvia that he could practically smell radiating off of him. He had decided to leave his long-time guild mate's fate in the game to Gray back when they all were cooking up a plan.

He tilted his head back and focused on a pipe that stretched across the rooftop of the building that towered over his head. His eyes traced the white pipe towards a small hole right above his head, and a another drop of water that was threatening to fall down onto his skin.

Gajeel brushed the sight off, rolling his eyes at the fact that in Magnolia, they could charge six-hundred jewel for just a dumb cup of fancy coffee, but they couldn't swing to fix some leaky pipes. Typical.

Gajeel began to make his advance forward but paused as a gust of wind tickled his skin, sending scents of pine trees and rotting leaves into his nose.

And not only that…

Gajeel's eyes widened upon recognizing the third scent. It was faint, but it was just enough to register in his senses.

Even though he wouldn't give him the satisfaction, Gajeel had to admit that Natsu had the right idea when it came to playing the game. When their meeting was over, Gajeel overheard Natsu telling Happy that he'd stolen a shirt from Lucy's apartment, a pink tank top that he'd found hanging on one of her chairs or something like that. Gajeel had thought about it for a few seconds, and realized that the Salamander had a good point. There hadn't been anything in the set of rules that Makarov gave them that prohibited them from finding loopholes or taking clothing. The shirt could be used to track Bunny Girl with an extra kick, giving him a higher sensitivity to her scent. So, it only made sense that Gajeel did the same tactic, even though the two of them weren't counting on getting nose-blocked from some stupid liquid in a fancy bottle.

His lips curled upwards into a smirk, and he took off running.

After all, he knew that scent anywhere.

"But Jet and Droy were able to tag Kinana and Laki after they were kissed!" Elfman exclaimed, raising his arms up in the air for emphasis, sweat dripping down his temples. His eyes swept back towards the entrance to his impending doom. "So one of you can man-up and go in there instead of me!"

"I told you, we can't!" Freed exclaimed with his arms adamantly crossed. "We're long past the one minute rule, and you know that!"

"What?! I never heard Master say anything about that!" Elfman exclaimed, silently cursing to himself as his plan completely backfired on him, suddenly feeling so small next to his guild mates.

The three fairies were still shaking with fear, their faces pale as the blood in their veins washed away completely.

"Now you're just making excuses." Bixslow almost yelled, grabbing onto Elfman's tanned shoulders and began to shake him. "Man up, Dude!"

"Man up! Man up!" his babies chanted threateningly as Elfman nervously glanced back towards the bakery entrance. He felt his heart rate pick up a few extra beats as he began to experience tunnel vision, something that he'd only ever heard about from others. He couldn't understand why his friends were pushing him past his limits. They all knew what awaited them inside of the bakery, and yet they still decided to push Elfman into a decision that could quite possibly ruin his life.

He felt his manhood slipping quickly away from him as he felt his guild mates' eyes watch him intently, and he absolutely hated how powerless he currently felt. He'd taken on far more dangerous jobs in his lifetime; bandits without batting an eye, murderers without breaking a sweat; hell, he even lived after experiencing Acnologia's fury on Tenrou island.

But this? This was something else entirely above him.

He felt Freed's shaking hand on his back, patting him encouragingly.

"If you hurry, maybe you can get to her before she eats her fourth piece of cake." he said nervously. "It always goes downhill after piece number four."

Elfman gulped as a violent image flashed in his head, causing him to close his eyes and shake it off violently. He inhaled slowly, and exhaled all in a rush as he gave his two teammates the side-eye, both of them nodding encouragingly at him, though the two of them were terrified for him.

He glanced towards the entrance of the bakery, and after saying a silent prayer, he made his way inside.

Levy knew she was screwed the minute that water droplet hit her shoulder.

She had been doing so well in this game, so well at not being caught within the first few hours of the start of this whole charade that she had mistakenly allowed herself to get cocky. Bad idea.

She had been nearby when Juvia had launched her first surprise attack at Gray, though she left as soon as she heard Natsu's thundering laughter. She'd have to thank the dragon slayer later on for covering up the sound of her footsteps as she darted away from the area to the first place she could think of.

The library had been quiet and peaceful, the strong scents of mildew from the pages of the older books extra prominent that morning, though it was strange not to smell the lemon scented wood polish that they used every morning before they opened their doors, though Levy knew that it was because the staff decided to abandon parchment for organic peppers that increased in heat the more they were chewed. They never really locked the doors to the library, only locking the books into the shelves with a sliding glass device that made the books even more appealing, according to Levy anyway.

Thanks to her confidence, she decided to have some fun with her pursuers, or rather the one pursuer who she knew would come after her. Scribbling down a note, she left it on her favorite blueberry colored couch and trotted out the back door, almost feeling like a child with her giddiness.

She went more into town next, sliding into the shadows of the buildings and practically gluing herself to the walls to avoid being seen. She had almost slipped up when she heard footsteps coming her way, flinching when she saw Loke stroll by with Romeo in tow. She'd immediately covered her nose and mouth to muffle the sounds of her breathing, and slowly exhaled a sigh of relief when the two boys were out of sight.

All had been going too well after that point. The sky was just showing signs of bleeding into the orange hues of sunset and she hadn't ran into anyone from the boy's team. The only people she'd seen from her own team was Evergreen as she was walking alone and out in the open, to which Levy could assume that she'd been tagged. The two made eye contact briefly, and Evergreen only shot a small wink in her direction as she continued to make her way towards the Guild.

Levy stretched her arms over her head as she walked leisurely down the road as the sky continued to darken, her spirits high as she convinced herself that nothing could stop her.

That is, until she felt that damned drop of water hit her.

She'd immediately froze in her spot, her eyes widening as they slowly landed on the bead of water balancing atop her porcelain shoulder. She felt her heartbeat pound out of her chest in a panicked rhythm as her mouth went dry, and before she'd realized what she was doing, her feet sprinted her forwards as she booked it out of the open.

Damn it! She'd cursed herself as she rounded a corner, breathing heavily. Why hadn't she been paying extra attention to her surroundings? This was totally karma for her cocky behaviour throughout the day, and who could blame the world for teaching her a lesson? Even the smallest misstep could lead her down the path of failure, or in her case, the washing off of her anti-scented perfume.

All she knew was that she had to get away from her current spot, and fast.

The heavy scents of chocolate and fruit invaded Elfman's nose as he stepped into the bakery, his palms sweating to an obscene degree. He'd entered the lion's den, a room of impending danger and doom, and he didn't know what to think or say as his eyes immediately landed on the lioness herself, who was currently munching on a chocolate chip cookie.

Be a man, be a man!

Her eyes glazed over his body slowly, watching him with slight fascination as he bit down on his bottom lip anxiously, even though she seemed to be more interested in the glaze melting on top of the donut that sat prominently on her plate next to a slice of cheesecake topped with cherries.

His eyes fell to the stack of plates on the table, and he began to panic even more.

She had just finished her fourth piece of cake.

She sighed then, cutting into Elfman's panicked breaths as she silently put her plate down on the table. She directed her attention to the cheesecake on her plate, and in a flash, plucked a cherry off of the cake by the thin stem and placed the fruit in her mouth, her lips curling around the plump base of the cherry as she separated it from its stem with her teeth. He watched her chew slowly and thoughtfully, before she swallowed and a playful smile curled onto her lips.

"I assume you're not here for cake?"

They'd been staring each other down for far too long, and it irritated Gajeel to his very core.

She was sitting with her legs crossed and arms folded, glaring down at him with those mocking doe eyes as she pouted down at him.

They'd reached a sickening form of a stalemate, or rather, that's the best that Gajeel could describe the situation that he'd found himself in.

It had been a cinch to track her after catching her scent, after all, dashing away and running around in a panicked frenzy certainly didn't help mask one's scent. If anything, it became more potent to him as he rounded corners and passed through alleys following Levy's growing scent.

Though when he'd found her, he didn't count on her scurrying up a giant lamp post like some kind of squirrel, her plan to avoid him undoubtedly half-assed and a spur of the moment.

However, for such an act as this, she held a ton of dignity on her end.

"So, you're not coming down?" he asked her, his voice dry.

"Nope." she shook her head, closing her eyes and tapping her foot in the air to a silent beat.

The kid was stubborn, he'd give her that much anyway.

Gajeel turned to glare at the dark orange sky, frustration building in his body as he began to realize that he was running out of time, and that he had to act very soon. He knew that from the moment he saw her of course, though for some un-godly reason his body hadn't wanted him to succeed in finishing his task right away.

"Are you sure?" he tried once more, surprising himself in his choice of words. He realized how uncharacteristic his voice sounded with his question, even going as far to raise an octave and lose his gruff demeanour. Instead of sounding threatening, he ended up sounding like a dumb student questioning his teacher about whether two plus two equals four. If he were being honest, he hadn't expected Shorty to be so stubborn. Well, at least to some extent he did, after all this was the girl who refused to sleep one night just because he'd been hit with an extreme fever from some damned spider that bit him on a job. Out of all things for Gajeel to find his downfall in, it just had to be something stupid like a little bug. Natsu had been with him on the job, and he'd even been bitten himself, but he figured that his body heat had burned away the venom like it had been nothing. Lucky bastard.

Levy had spent the entire night at Gajeel's side, adorning his forehead with a cold cloth every five minutes and monitoring his temperature. He'd told her about a thousand times to go home and get in bed, but each time she'd just roll her eyes and continued checking his temperature.

She sure was stubborn alright, even going as far to chug five cans of a fizzy energy drink that was some sickly yellow color and fizzed.

So no, he wasn't surprised that his stubborn partner refused to give him the satisfaction that he had cornered her. Then again, he hadn't expected to corner her like this.

She glared down at him. "Positive." she stated, the wind blowing her hair over her shoulders.

Gajeel scowled, the awkwardness of his voice melting away and roughing itself back into having as much softness as sandpaper. "You do realize that I could come up there." he threatened, pressing his palm onto the black surface of the post, his fingernails scratching against the black softly.

She blinked down at him, frowning as her scowl softened. He knew that she was all too aware of that possibility, and if she weren't, she was utterly stupid. It began to show all on her face, that this possibility could quickly turn into reality.

He enjoyed watching her stubbornness turn into uncertainty. It gave him an excited thrill.

"Th-Then why haven't you done it already?"

This surprised him as she clutched onto the edge of her shirt with her left hand, the other steadying her body into a controlled balance on top of the post. "You're running out of time, you know."

She flashed him a confident smile, and before Gajeel realized what he was doing, he gripped the pole tightly and launched himself upwards, the air rushing around him as he got closer and closer to his target.

Her doe eyes widened in fear once more, but as opposed to cowering in fear or trying to leap off of the lamp post, Gajeel watched in horror as her legs uncrossed themselves and began to swish around in the air at a frantic pace, almost as if she were listening to some upbeat music. But then, it was his turn for his own eyes to widen as the word Acid came splashing down from the script she'd created, and he immediately launched himself away from it by pushing off against the post.

A sickly smell wafted up to his nose from his shirt, as some of the acid had dripped onto him before he could properly get away.

"I'm sorry!" he heard Levy squeak as he watched her learn forward with concern, her hand abandoning her shirt to cup her mouth.

"What the hell, Levy?!" Gajeel exclaimed. "Ya tryin' to kill me?!"

"I panicked, okay?!" she exclaimed, her eyes filled with worry. "You can't just jump on me like that!"

"Well the last time I jumped on ya, you sure as hell didn't pull a stunt like that!"

Gajeel's eyes widened as he realized what had just came out of his mouth, his entire head feeling as though it were going to explode from the fire burning in his cheeks. He felt his throat crackle dry as Levy's panicking waves to him froze. He watched as her own face lit up into a bright red that put his to shame, her lips hung open and twitching uncontrollably.

Crap. He just had to go and open his damn mouth and spew out some crap like that. For all he knew, he was just as bad at Natsu for being so obvious with Lucy, though he thanked his lucky stars that nobody was around to hear what he'd just said.

And nobody was around to see his flushed face increase when he realized that the last time he had..er..jumped onto Levy, he'd received a much more pleasant reaction from her.

He began to feel the acid tickle the tops of his shoulders painfully, but he barely felt anything.

"S-Sorry" he mumbled uncharacteristically, looking off to the dying sun. "I'm spendin' too much time with Natsu-"

"You didn't jump on me."

Her words surprised him, and as he turned his attention away from the sunset to face her, he was met with a mocking glare from the bluenette. She gripped the sides of the glass she sat on, and glued her legs together as she leaned forward from atop her tower of safety.

Gajeel frowned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You didn't jump on me." she repeated, leaning back to a proper sitting position as she crossed her arms. Gajeel could still see a hint of blush dusted on her cheeks, and his own remained prominent after picking up on what she was hinting at.

"I-It was more...gentle than that."

Oh Mavis, what had she gotten herself into this time?

She watched as Gajeel's face glowed a bright red, a completely uncharacteristic attribute to give the Iron Dragon Slayer, hell, she was even surprised seeing this reaction from him. It also didn't help that the orange sky deeply accentuated his flushed face, hers as well.

But even so, watching him grow uncomfortable over the sudden slip gave her an excited rush. What had once felt like embarrassment now felt like empowerment. She glanced at the sunset quickly, realizing that she still had time to turn things around despite her sticky situation she'd found herself in by basically cornering herself. She was in a bad enough situation as it is.

Not to mention the sudden burst of heat between her legs. That was another issue.

But maybe she could have some fun with him.

"Ain't nothing gentle about me." he muttered suddenly, pouting towards the ground. "I ain't that soft."

You got that right A snarky voice sang in Levy's head, which only made the heat intensify to an uncomfortable level. She gulped softly, inhaling oxygen to soothe the aching burn.

She'd have to apologize to Lucy soon for all of the teasing she'd done on her for the past few weeks. After all, nobody likes a hypocrite.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked him, putting her plan into action as she squeezed her legs together and placed her elbows on her knees, resting her chin in her hands as she smirked down at him. "I beg to differ."

Gajeel gritted his teeth, clenching his fists as he looked about ready to pounce. "Oh, you do, do ya?" He looked at her as if she were crazy, also with a small ounce of anger and...she couldn't describe the other feeling she was getting from him. She watched as his eyes traced her legs, looking as though he were about to melt like butter on hot toast. The corners of her mouth ran dry as she watched the blush on his cheeks grow, an action that she had always secretly loved about him. It was like a treasure to her, since the closest thing to blushing anyone had ever seen on his skin was when he was blowing up at Natsu for stealing his breakfast. She had been the only one to ever really see a soft side to the gunmetal mage.

And once she saw it, she couldn't stop searching for it. It was like a drug to her, a way to satisfy her craving to reach her maximum aptitude for satisfaction without any sort of physical compensation.

Levy's legs squeezed tighter together, turning her already pale thighs white as sheets. It also had some immediate effects on her that she really wished weren't so effective. She released a shaky breath, and as Gajeel looked up at her once more to let out a complaint, he placed his arm upon the post and his fingers dug themselves into the metal. His eyes met hers and his tongue slipped out from his pale lips and slowly traced them, his silver tongue ring shining up at her.

Now that was an issue.

She couldn't stop a small distressed grunt from escaping her mouth, the heat between her legs rising in tantalizing temperature..

"Take it back."

She blinked down at him through her hazy mind. "Wha-"

"I ain't soft." he repeated, his fingers digging deeper into the metal as if it were mere dough. Levy watched him digest the word soft like a bad piece of fruit, the discomfort on his face growing with every second. She couldn't take her eyes off of his face, her eyes tracing his jawline slowly back up to his lips. "Take it back."

She ignored the shivers going down her spine and glared back at her partner. "Or what? You'll pick the cherries off of my ice cream sundaes that you're too proud to admit that you enjoy?" she shot down at him, her eyes glancing up at the sky and grinned in satisfaction as the sky told her their time was almost up. "Snatch my books out of my hands while I'm reading them? Steal my morning coffee?"

The pole beneath her jerked forward, causing Levy to release a surprised shriek as she uncrossed her arms and grabbed onto the pole next to her hips, her legs flinging forward like a rag doll's and her heart stopping in her chest. The backs of her ankles bumped back onto the lamp post and she looked down to the ground shocked, her heart pounding in surprise.

Perhaps she'd gone a little too far with the provoking..

"Time to come down." Gajeel said threateningly, Levy catching the slight smirk on his face as he said this. Typical, always trying to make himself the most fearsome even though Levy knew all too well how much of a teddy bear her partner was.

He gave the pole another shove, this time having more success as it took away Levy's balance and pushed her off of her perch, causing her to wrap her arms and legs around the cold metal tightly. She pressed her right cheek into the metal and glared down at Gajeel who had satisfaction practically radiating from his body. She had a sour taste in her mouth as she watched his fingers dig themselves deeper into the metal, as if to convey that this would be the final strike.

Her fingernails pressed against the surface of the metal.

"I'll be takin' that coffee of yours." he told her with confidence brimming from his voice. She gritted her teeth as she watched the proud look on his dumb face, but the sour taste in her mouth soon disappeared as she flashed him a mischievous smile.

His cocky grin dropped from his face slowly.

Hell would freeze over before she let herself go down without one final fight.

"But my Dear," she said sweetly, steading herself on the pole and bringing her thighs up closer to her chest, relishing in the fact that his eyes locked on her thighs just as they brushed against the post deliciously slow. She brought her hand to her hip and un-tied the flag attached to her hip "We haven't had dessert yet."

He could barely register what had happened until everything around him had gone black.

It was like watching a spectacle of seduction, a trap that he'd walked into more often than not.

His eyes had widened when he watched Levy release her hold of the post and bend backwards, her fingers flying and eyes blazing with determination.

The word Mist flew directly into his face, causing him to let go of the post and rub the water out of his eyes, cursing softly.

"Shorty!" he exclaimed, opening his eyes once more. "What are ya-"

He let out a grunt of surprise as the world around him went black, pressure being applied to the bridge of his nose and temples as he felt a pair of legs wrap themselves around his neck. He felt weight shift on his shoulders, and didn't stop the quick peck he'd received on his cheek, or rather, the corner of his mouth.

Light laughter filled his ears as his hair was ruffled roughly atop his head.

Goosebumps raced up the back of his neck.

"I win."

She smiled triumphantly down at her handiwork, the loose knot in the makeshift blindfold she'd created looped around her fingers as she settled herself comfortably on his shoulders, ravishing in the satisfaction of her endeavors.

The sunset was no more, darkness in the hue of a light violet draping their bodies as crickets began their usual song of the night. She immersed herself in it, sighing with relief at the cool air that brushed against her cheeks.

"Satisfied?"

His voice broke her out of her reverie, having a sort of strange tone that she couldn't place. She huffed softly down at him, about to answer him in a cocky tone when she began to feel a strange heat invade her inner thighs. Frowning, she looked down at the mess of black hair beneath her to see that same familiar blush that could only belong to someone like gajeel, pink blushed against his tan skin. She frowned before she really looked down at the situation she was in, her bare thighs on either side of his head, his breath lightly tickling her skin as he looked to his side.

She swallowed back a gulp as she felt his hand grab onto her ankle slowly, lingering there before his hand travelled up her smooth leg and up to her thigh on his shoulder, fingers dancing over her skin as he got closer to his own ear, and advancing closer to…

That uncomfortable heat slowly began to return between her legs, making her hands shake softly as her doe eyes widened immensely as his hand continued its journey upwards...

"B-Barely" she stammered, falling into a lustful trance as she felt her body move on its own, out of pure instinctual habit. Her thighs trembled as she felt her hips begin to rock ever-so-slowly on his shoulders, relishing in the heat from his bare shoulders meeting with the heat from her...arousal.

Her blood began to boil violently as her breathing intensified as she slowly arched her neck back and released a shaky breath into the air, her hair falling in waves down her shoulders, toes curling.

Oh Mavis…

"Then let's fix that, shall we?"

In a split second, she was lifted off of his shoulders and left the lamp post pressing against her back. She let her body do the thinking for her, wrapping her legs around his sturdy hips and tangling her fingers in his hair.

His lips crushed down on hers hungrily, claiming them as his own as his left hand cupped her cheek and supported the back of her head, his other hand squeezing her butt. She threw her head back as his lips left hers and went onto her neck, sucking on her skin hard giving her excited chills. She felt his body push on her torso, pressing her against the pole so she wouldn't fall away from him. She heard a high pitched moan escape her glossed lips as his hand left her ass and found its way into her spandex shorts and past her underwear, kneading her very core with the utmost urgency. Her voice cracked with every stroke of his fingers, pleasure escaping the small mage with hurried breaths as her eyes were squeezed shut. She rolled her body with his hand, catching onto his rhythm as her pale hips rocked against his hand.

Oh, she definitely needed to apologize to Lucy. She was the biggest hypocrite of the guild, and quite frankly, she didn't care at the moment. She had more pressing matters to attend to.

Breathing heavily, she cracked her eyes open and unhooked her shaking fingers of her hands from his hair and grabbed the sides of his head. She leaned forward to raise his head from her neck to lock lips with him once more, smiling against his lips as her right hand slipped past his belt.

"I-" she whispered shakily as she found her target, slowly wrapping her fingers around the stiffness that had been trying to make its way out of his pants. "-think they won't mind if we're a little late."

He hissed with pleasure in her ear, which sent chills down her spine.

The blank red flag lay on the ground a few feet away, abandoned and forgotten for more important matters.

"Screw 'em."