Disclaimer: All Fairy Tail Characters belong to Hiro Mashima
Chapter 4: At The Guild
When Natsu entered the Fairy Tail guild hall he was already feeling better about his non fight with Gray. Obviously, they had still been tired from all the work they did during their mission and he knew they had both went all out when they raced. It was their nature, neither one of them liked to lose to the other after all. He had gone home, taken a nap, eaten some food and was feeling more like his normal self. He was sure he could goad the ice mage into a fight quickly. The fact that he had recently agreed to not fight the ice mage in the guild hall slipping his mind for the moment, he looked around and spied members of his team already sitting at their table. He stopped to get a drink from Mira and happily went to join them.
"Finally decided to join us, eh Natsu?", Erza greeted him warmly. Gray, who had arrived earlier, had already informed her that they had agreed to her deal. "I look forward to the peace and quiet I expect in the coming days. I am happy that you are willing to give this a try and I will be keeping an eye on your progress. I will now go upstairs to report to the Master." She rose from her seat and headed upstairs to the Master's office, leaving the boys alone at the table with their beverages.
Lucy finished catching up with Levy and sat down at her team's table a mischievous look on her face.
"Oh, hi Lucy! ", both boys greeted their teammate warmly.
"So I heard that you guys agreed to work on your " , at this Lucy put her fingers up in air quotes as she said the next word, "relationship!". She grinned at them cheekily as Gray's drink came sputtering out of his mouth in red faced indignation.
"WHAT? That's not funny, Lucy.", Gray growled at her.
Natsu didn't quite get what she was implying so he just ignored her, still trying to figure out the best way to draw Gray out into a brawl. However, he was quickly noticing that now that he was near his friend he had lost all interest in fighting him. Again. 'What in the holy hell is going on?', he thought to himself. He did not like this at all. He wanted a fight and if he couldn't fight his best friend he would move down the list to his second rival. He got up from the table without saying a word to his friends and headed towards a certain spiky haired, iron eating dragon slayer.
"I thought it was!", Lucy giggled at Gray's quick anger. It was amusing to be able to get such a quick rise out of him. "Relax, I was just teasing you. I know that's not true. I don't think I have ever seen either of you showing interest in anyone, let alone each other."
"I think things will be a lot more fun from now on if you two aren't at each other's throats every waking second.", Lucy said happily, ideas of things they could now do without the ever present fear of the boys' fights destroying everything around them flitting through her head. She also couldn't help but wonder if this would somehow translate into more reward money. Erza was right, this might work out after all.
"I suppose, but to me it seems like they will be less fun.", the ice mage replied a bit gloomily thinking about how things had turned out at the river earlier. He had meant it when he had told Erza that he did not want the nature of his friendship with Natsu to change and he was starting to get a bad feeling that this agreement they had made might do just that. He looked up to look at Natsu and suddenly noticed that the fire mage was no longer there. He looked around the room trying to spy a glimpse of pink hair.
All of a sudden the sound of Natsu's loud, obnoxious voice could be heard across the hall.
"Oi, Metal freak did you get uglier while I was gone?", Natsu taunted Gajeel Redfox. He shuddered at the lameness of his taunt. He really was losing his touch. Well, whatever he was only after a fight after all.
Gajeel just ignored him. That made Natsu angry. He was tired of his attempts at fighting going nowhere. He decided to up the ante by throwing his mug at the Iron Dragon Slayer managing to hit him right on his head, hard. That did it, Gajeel was now furious and getting up from his seat with murder in his eyes.
"You want a piece of me? Let's go, Salamander", Gajeel finally uttered the words that the Fire Dragon Slayer had been waiting to hear. Natsu's signature grin graced his features and he happily readied his fists to meet Gajeel's. It felt so good to feel like his normal self again.
The two dragon slayers fought each other roughly using their heads, their fists and their legs. In unspoken agreement they used no magic against the other. They did not want to destroy the building's structure and anger their Master. They made each other fly across the room and crashed into tables, they threw chairs and whatever they could get their hands on at each other in reckless abandon losing themselves to the thrill of their fight. Soon, the fight began to rage out of control and other members of the guild, including Gray, happily joined in the fray. Fairy Tail was known for their out of control brawls after all.
Erza came out of the Master's office. She heard the loud noises coming from the lower floor and was on her way to stop it. 'I can't believe those two idiots, they couldn't even last twenty minutes', she thought sadly.
She looked down to the first floor fully expecting to see Gray and Natsu going at it yet again only to be surprised by what she saw instead. Gray and Natsu were fighting near each other. Suddenly their backs bumped into each other and they both turned quickly with their fists raised.
Natsu was having a great time, Gajeel quickly forgotten as other opponents became available. This was exactly what he needed to take his mind off the weirdness with the Ice Princess. At least now he knew he could still fight. Everything would be fine. He had somehow made his way to the middle of the guild and as he searched for a new opponent his back bumped into another. He quickly raised his fists and turned to face whoever it was and came face to face with Gray, also with his fists raised. His smile grew even wider as he faced his rival, fist at the ready. Gray also had a huge grin on his pale face when he recognized his opponent. Natsu, looking forward to wiping that smile off his friend's face, powered his fist and... nothing. His fist would not go any closer to the ice mage no matter how much he willed it. He gaped at Gray and saw him make a similar expression, his fist also at the ready but moving no closer to Natsu. Disbelief then turned to anger, and then sadness as they turned away from each other. Both looked for another to fight.
Erza let the brawl continue for another minute before shutting it down and instructing everyone to clean up the mess. This was so much better than she had hoped! She was so happy that the potion seemed to be working that she failed to notice the sad, confused looks that had been on her friends faces during the encounter. She ordered a piece of strawberry cake to celebrate and walked over to their table to sit with Lucy who had not taken part in the brawl.
Gray and Natsu returned from doing their part of the cleanup and joined Erza and Lucy at the table.
"I am really impressed with the restraint that you just showed! That must have been hard for you guys.", Erza said warmly. She embraced the pair in a sisterly hug.
"Yeah, restraint", Natsu muttered grumpily.
His mind raced to try to understand the events of the day. He couldn't fight with Gray? How is that even possible? He had spent a large part of his life doing just that. Could they even be friends if they couldn't fight each other? That's pretty much the only way they communicated. Well that and insults. He had to figure out a way to fix this before he lost his best friend. Best friend? When the hell did I start to think of Gray Fullbuster as my best friend? He had to admit to himself that it rang true. He was upset all over again, he liked things simple and this weird situation was more than he wanted to deal with at the moment.
Gray did not respond at all. He was trying to come to terms with what had just happened. How was it possible that he could not make his arm do what he wanted? He clearly sent commands to his brain that were not followed. This went beyond suddenly losing the desire to fight the dragon slayer while in his presence. There was no way that this had anything to do with their agreement with Erza. It felt somehow magical but what kind of magic could do something like this? Both he and Natsu clearly had no problems fighting others. They just could not fight each other. That was oddly specific. All he knew for certain was that something had changed after they finished their last mission and he was very sure that he did not like it.
Lucy looked from Erza's happy expression to Natsu and Gray's undecipherable ones and became uneasy once again. She vowed to pay closer attention to the boys behavior. Erza began talking about looking for another job soon while the others begged for a few days off. They agreed to go on a job in two days time. Natsu went home while Gray headed over towards Cana and settled in for a night of drinking with his friend.