A/N: It's uh. It's really been a whole ass year, huh?
I uh. I don't have an excuse, really. ...hope you enjoy the chapter?

Each pair headed out soon after, splitting up at the door- Lucy dropped by her room to tuck her keys into a leather pouch at her hip and grab fleuve d'etoiles, the handle dangling from her belt like an ornament. Lucy and Sting were in charge of scoping out the bar to the east of the town square—not the nicest neighborhood, but not the worst one of the three.

"So," Sting said, falling into step beside her. "Information gathering."

Lucy hummed, fidgeting with one of her pigtails. "I'll be honest, it's not one our strong suits either."

'Wha—I didn't say anything about that!" he sputtered, to which Lucy returned an entirely unimpressed look.

Sting twitched, and then looked away guiltily.

The celestial mage let out a woeful sigh. "We'll be lucky if even one pair gets any good information," she lamented. Maybe Gray and Rogue would have some luck, level-headed as they were, but Erza and Natsu, ugh, her and Sting—

"We'll do fine," Sting said, interrupting her train of thought. "We've got the strongest teams of two guilds—"

"Too bad we couldn't get the smartest," Lucy groused, and Sting pouted.

"Hey," Sting said abruptly, tone serious, and Lucy paused, meeting his eyes. His expression was intense, brow furrowed. "We're going to get all those kids back home, and we're going to beat the shit out of those dark mages," he told her. "I promise you."

He was so sincere that she felt a smile tilt her mouth without meaning to. "Alright," she conceded. "I'll hold you to that."

Sting grinned, nudging her with his shoulder, and Lucy couldn't help but notice that he was warm.

The rest of the walk passed by without much conversation, with Lucy lost in thought on how to approach a subtle interrogation. Her first tactic was, per usual, being flirty and hoping that someone would be too distracted by her looks to really pay attention to the words coming out of their mouth, but with Sting hovering around she didn't really know how well that would work.

By the time she had settled on a strategy—let Sting get chummy on the one side of the bar while she worked her charm on the other—the bar was in sight. It was a squat, slightly grimy building that sat alone at the end of the street. The sign proudly proclaimed it as The Merry Spoon.

Lucy squinted through the grungy windows into the dimly lit rooms. It didn't really live up to the name.

"Okay," Lucy said. "We're keeping a low profile. If anyone asks, we're just a couple of freelance mages looking for work, alright? We're just looking for some local information."

Sting made a noise of acknowledgement and pushed open the door.

There was a man holding the bartender up by the collar—bulky but not particularly tall, with gaudy clothing and greasy hair. Over his eye was a guild mark—the profile of a caricature with a massive nose that was, quite frankly, deeply unflattering. The patrons of the bar looked largely uninterested in the proceedings—in fact, some of them were watching the spectacle with leering grins.

It went dead silent.

"Well," Sting said, and Lucy suddenly realized two things— one, that his canines were very sharp, and two, her plan had been doomed the second they walked through the door. "Looks like this is our lucky day. It's just the man we wanted to see."

"Who the hell are you?" the man spat, dropping the bartender to the ground.

"Oh, you know," Sting said airily. "Just the people who are gonna kick your ass."

"Really, now?" the guildmaster said darkly, and every person in the bar stood. Lucy saw flashes of the guild mark scattered through the crowd.

"Cute," Sting taunted. "Taking the kiddies on a field trip?"

"Get 'em!"

Lucy yelped as she ducked under a flying bottle, flinching at the crack of shattering glass behind her. "Open, gate to the bull! Taurus!" she shouted. A brilliant flare of light signaled the spirit's entrance—just in time for the bull to bodyblock the wooden chair being thrown Lucy's way.

"I'll protect Lucy-sama's perfect body!" Taurus bellowed into the crowd, and charged at the nearest offender, pinning him to the wall and knocking three others away. Lucy winced.

"What the hell is that thing?" Sting said incredulously, knocking a drunken attacker off their feet with a sweep of his leg.

"The righteous defender of Lucy-sama's perfect body—!"

"A nuisance," Lucy interrupted flatly, unhooking fleuve d'etoiles from her belt and extending the whip with a flick of her wrist. Then, with a sigh, "So much for keeping a low profile."

Somewhere in the back of the brawl, Titan Nose's master yelled something about how they would never get past his "army," and Lucy ignored him in favor of bringing her whip down on the nearest dark mage, who shrieked as it cracked down on his shoulder.

Sure, the whip was a cheeky weapon in a world of swords and magic, and maybe Lucy originally picked it because she liked the sexy vibe, but whips also hurt. They hurt a lot.

The celestial water glimmered as it soared through the air, almost crackling with energy she lashed out in wide arcs, giving herself some room. One unlucky mage stepped too close and suddenly found his face planted into the wall when the whip coiled around his neck and sent him flying.

Lucy heard Sting crowing with laughter as he brawled somewhere to her right, apparently forgoing magic in favor of an old-fashioned beatdown, littering unconscious bodies.

He sidestepped an ill-aimed bolt of something and darted in and finished off his would-be attacker with a fist to the face, then back-stepped once to avoid a clumsy sword swing. The swordsman had the briefest of moments to pale in horror before a booted foot sent him sprawling.

Sting skipped back to avoid a barrage of magical projectiles, and for a just a moment, he and Lucy were pressed back-to-back. He glanced over his shoulder, their eyes met, and in an unspoken agreement they whirled around and switched places, Lucy whip sailing through the air before she had even fully settled into place.

Titan Nose's leader was looking increasingly concerned , likely because over half of his "army" had been downed with what appeared to be minimal effort on the part of the two attackers in the span of approximately two minutes.

With most of the mages out for the count or reluctant to square off, Lucy turned her attention to the guildmaster, eyes narrowing. "You're next," her gaze promised.

"Taurus!" she called. "Let's go!"

"Of course, Lucy-sama!"

Taurus reared back and charged, clearing a path between Lucy and the guildmaster, the latter scrambling back and barely avoiding the horns of the rampaging bull.

"Holy Nova!" Sting roared, apparently growing impatient, and wiped out the rest of dark mages in one fell swoop.

Then, trapped between a massive bull and two mages, with his guild members scattered on the ground, Titan Nose's master squeaked, "I surrender."

When Lucy peeked into Erza's room, everyone else was already there—Rogue sat in the corner, disgruntled, with Gray cross-legged on the floor, sheepishly staring at his feet. Erza was sitting primly on the edge of the bed, Natsu unconscious and sprawled out behind her. Judging by the knot on his forehead, he wasn't just sleeping.

"How did it go?" Lucy asked cautiously, ducking a little so Sting could peer over her head.

"Gray took off his shirt and started a brawl," Rogue said flatly.

"Natsu picked a fight and started a brawl," Erza sighed, arms crossed.

"We found the guildmaster and started a brawl," Lucy chirped, opening the door fully, and all heads whipped around to face her.

"What?" Gray said, incredulous, and Lucy grinned.

"Yup! Taurus, bring him in!"

The spirit lumbered in, ducking under the doorway, and unceremoniously dumped a bound-and-gagged mage onto the floor.

"Nice job!" Lucy cheered, and shared a high five with the bull before dispelling her magic, then bumped fists with Sting.

"Well done," Erza praised, standing up. "Now—" she summoned a longsword, the blade wicked keen and gleaming, and pointed it the dark mage's throat. "Where are the children you kidnapped?"

The guildmaster let out a muffled shriek behind the gag, squirming on the floor like a particularly gaudy bug.

Lucy deciding that it would wise to evacuate the immediate area, grabbed Natsu and ushered the rest of her team and the twin dragons out of the room.

"And then Lucy summoned this weird perverted cow—"

"Taurus."

"—And then Lucy summoned Taurus and he crashed through the crowd, which was a pretty good follow up to my snappy one-liner, and we were just destroying them—" Sting pounded a fist into his open palm to emphasize his point— "and the guildmaster looked like he was about to piss his pants in terror—"

"Ew," Lucy said.

"Stop interrupting—and then we just beat the shit out of the rest of them and then he surrendered. I thought he was gonna cry. After that we called the guard to haul off the mages and grabbed the master to interrogate him."

"Cool," Gray said, perched on the bed that Lucy had been in the night before.

Natsu, who had woken up just a few minutes prior, was sulking. "That sounds way more fun than the fight I was in," he complained. "And it wasn't even worth it since Erza got mad at me."

"That sounds like it was your own fault, idiot," Gray said snidely.

"Like you're one to talk, you ice-for-brains stripper! At least I didn't blow my cover—!"

"What do you mean you didn't blow your cover, you charred bastard!"

"Sounds like you had fun," Lucy commented, glancing at Rogue.

The dragon slayer let out a woeful sigh. "Three minutes," he said. "Gray lasted three minutes before he lost his clothes. All of them."

"We, for one, were extremely successful," Sting boasted. "Couldn't have gone better, right Lucy?"

"It did go pretty well," Lucy admitted. "I mean, the original plan was shot, but we did end up bagging the leader, so I can't really complain."

Rogue nodded, a short little tilt of his head, and watched Gray and Natsu bicker, arms crossed as he leaned against the wall.

Sting elbowed her in the side. "Don't mind him. He's just grumpy because he had to leave Frosch behind. Normally he at least pretends to have a personality."

Lucy snickered, Rogue's eyes narrowed, and Sting grinned crookedly back, and suddenly she was caught in between an increasingly uncomfortable stare off.

The door swung open, and Erza strode into the room, dragging the limp body of Titan Nose's master by the collar behind her.

"I have the location of their base and the children," she announced. "We leave for it in an hour's time."