Corder Cleeve, Assistant Stationmaster of Edelweiss Town, found himself faced with an impossible dilemma: should he get an early night, knowing he had to start work at an unholy hour the next morning, or should he go down to the bar with his friends? He paced, he dithered, he weighed the pros and cons of each and even asked his mother and still he couldn't justify going drinking. Finally, in desperation, he flipped a coin.

Here, it landed heads. Corder whooped, went to the bar and got utterly and incomprehensibly sloshed.

The next morning he found himself in someone else's bed, bombs detonating behind his eyes and his tongue like sandpaper. With great effort he toppled himself onto the floor and crawled across the room to a writing desk. On pink rose-patterned notepaper he scrawled TRAIN BOSS. CAN'T WORK BECAUSE DYING. YRS C. C. XOXO.

The window was cracked open just a little; he poked the letter through the gap and watched it waft to the street below. That done, Corder slid gently back onto the floor and closed his eyes. He thought his pants might be on the roof.

It had been a good night, he decided.

Outside, a helpful passerby picked up the letter, painstakingly deciphered the chickenscratch handwriting and bore it to the home of Stationmaster Aberell. The Stationmaster immediately recognised his subordinate's script, which was not actually that much better when he was sober, and snarled between his teeth. He dressed in a hurry, straightened his tie and stationmaster's hat, kissed his wife and three children (lined up in height order to wish him goodbye) and marched down to the station in high dudgeon. This was not the first time that Assistant Stationmaster Cleeve had done this, though had he not been the local area manager's nephew it would have been the last. He was a workshy layabout slacker brat, just as Stationmaster Aberell muttered to himself as he inspected the tracks that morning, and he certainly wouldn't have noticed that one of the joints in the railroad track was coming apart. Stationmaster Aberell did. There was a very small chance that this could damage one of the trains, so Stationmaster Aberell got straight onto the station's radio, shouted at the department of maintenance until they agreed to send someone over that same day, and then went to tell the waiting customers that the trains that day were all cancelled. Of course, nobody was happy to hear that, but Stationmaster Aberell didn't care. In his opinion, the customers were only an unwelcome distraction from the smooth running of the railway network.

"Is the train seriously cancelled?" a blonde girl asked plaintively. "I really need to get to Hargeon!"

"Walk," Aberell suggested.

The blonde pouted and leant over, hands on her knees, blouse gaping open. There was no chance that those were real, Aberell decided. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

Aberell informed her coolly that he was married and, moreover, had higher standards than that. The blonde piece of skirt could only fume and stomp away.

She boarded the train to Hargeon on the morning of the next day, twenty-four hours later than she might have done. It probably wasn't enough of a difference to matter.

Lucy was sprawled across two train seats, reading the new issue of Sorceror Weekly, when the train drew into the last stop before Hargeon and a squad of Rune Knights came aboard Lucy sat bolt upright with a squeak, trying to remember if she'd done anything illegal in the last month. Everyone else in the carriage had the same reaction.

The Rune Knights didn't descend on anyone with binding spells and handcuffs, though. They sat down, crossed their legs and waited. Maybe they really only needed to get the train. Like normal people. One of them whistled idly as the train pulled out of the station.

"Whistling is prohibited!" the sergeant barked.

Lucy peeked at the Rune Knight next to her. He looked back. Lucy looked quickly back down at her magazine, and then slid her gaze slowly back to inspect him out of the corner of her eye. The young man behind the imposing uniform went bright pink.

"I'm sorry," Lucy murmured, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "Is there something wrong? I didn't think the Knights usually travelled by public train."

"Uh," the young Knight said. He glanced at his commanding officer and then decided to risk it. "There's a problem in Hargeon and it was just quicker to get the train than wait for the transport office to get organised."

"Oh no! Is it serious?" Lucy asked, and fluttered her eyelashes.

The Rune Knight glanced at his commanding officer again and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Haven't you seen the papers? A hundred girls have been kidnapped by a gang of slave traders!"

"Oh, no!"" Lucy said. "What happened?" She turned her head to look deeply into his eyes, put her hands down on the seat and leant forward. The neck of her top gaped open.

The Rune Knight immediately told her everything.

"Yesterday a mage went into Hargeon claiming to be the Fairy Tail mage Salamander-"

"Oh, I've heard of him!" Lucy interrupted.

"I said claiming to be," the Knight reminded her. "Anyway he got a swarm of girls eating out of his hand and invited them to a party aboard the ship he just happened to have in port, and then they sailed away-"

"-and didn't come back?" Lucy guessed.

"Exactly," he said. "The thing is, before they unmoored, a different mage arrived at the harbour saying he was also a mage of Fairy Tail and boarded the ship. He didn't get off before it left, though."

"So he was one of the slave traders?" Lucy guessed.

"No," the Rune Knight said, "because Fairy Tail's already been asked about it, and they said that he matched the description of the mage actually called Salamander."

"So..." Lucy tried to work it out on her fingers and then said, "So he found out they were impersonating him? Why hasn't he stopped them already?" In Weekly Sorceror's rankings of Which Fairy Tail Mage Caused The Most Damage This Month? the Salamander was never out of the top three. He was hardly ever out of the top one. "Did he sink the whole boat?"

"We asked Fairy Tail about that too," the Rune Knight said, "and they think he probably got travelsick."

"Travelsick?"

"Travelsick," the Rune Knight confirmed, with a weary sigh. "One of them said that hopefully they'd thrown him overboard, but then he realised he wasn't wearing any clothes and left in a hurry."

Lucy laughed.

"It's not a joke," the Rune Knight said reproachfully.

"I'm sorry," Lucy lied, and shifted so that her thigh pressed against his. "They must be a lot of trouble when you actually have to deal with them... but if you get travelsick that badly, why would you get onto a boat?"

"I don't know," the Rune Knight said, shaking his head. "They're all mad – this whole thing is going to be a lot of trouble, though, because it's a naval operation, so we need to get the Caelum fleet on board and they're always uncooperative unless their own necks are on the line." He sighed. "We probably won't get out there for another six hours, at-"

"Sharing classified information is prohibited!"

The Knight broke off mid-sentence. Lucy ducked down into her seat. The commanding officer's stare seared into them for a few agonising seconds, but finally he moved on.

"Would you, uh, like a drink?" the Knight whispered. "Uh, with me, specifically? Later?"

Lucy cast a quick look out of the window. They were drawing into Hargeon station.

"Absolutely!" she murmured back, doing her best to look enthusiastic. The train slowed. "You can tell me all about how you took on those awful slavers!"

The Rune Knight went red again, and the train stopped.

"Squad! Disembark!" their commanding officer barked. It seemed like he was trying to make up for the lack of official transportation with increased volume. Lucy's Rune Knight scrambled up in double quick time and the whole squad followed after their commanding officer like a line of ducklings as he left the train. "Take care of yourself, now," Lucy's Rune Knight muttered to her as they left.

"I will!" Lucy chirped, and she was indeed very careful the whole time that she was running down to the harbour and hiring a motorboat. If they were slave traders, then they must be heading to Bosco, right? And if she defeated them and rescued the Fairy Tail mage, then they were bound to let her join, right? This was seriously the perfect opportunity!

The SE-plug boat cost a lot of money to hire. Lucy batted her eyelashes, leant forward over the counter, and said "How much is it really?"

The woman behind the counter looked at her funny.

"Oh fine," Lucy said, and paid up. Ten minutes later, she was flying over the sea, white spray breaking on either side of her bow. It was a tiny boat, barely big enough for Lucy to sit in, but that made it easier to run, right? It was still draining much more of her reserves than she had anticipated, though. She was starting to worry that it would wear her out completely and that she would be found months later as a bleached skeleton in a drifting boat, when she saw the smoke plume of another ship on the horizon.

She grit her teeth and forced the boat to go faster. The other ship on the horizon grew larger and larger, and then larger, and then quite a bit too large, looming over her like a solid wall. "Where's the brake on this thing?" Lucy wailed, hands skittering over the controls, but it was too late for that. In desperation she grabbed the wheel and dragged it all the way around to the left. The boat hit the ship side-on rather than powering into it head-first. The jolt still nearly threw Lucy over the side of the ship. She clutched at the wheel and hung on until the boat stopped rocking. Had anyone heard that? She craned her head up. Nobody was leaning over the rail looking down at her. Lucy grabbed the mooring tether, pressed it against the side of the ship and activated the magic to hold it in place, and then reached for her keys.

"Open! Gate of the Bull, Taurus!"

She regretted this decision about half a second after she made it, when she found herself jammed up against the wheel by Taurus's bulk. Taurus appreciated this a lot more than Lucy did, and he was just as happy to throw her up to the deck of the ship.

"It would be an honour to handle Miss Lucy's perfect body!"

"I know," Lucy agreed, exasperated, "but can we get on with it? I'm in sort of a hurry-"

She scrambled up onto the control panel, and Taurus grabbed her around the waist and threw her into the air. She barely had time to regret it before the deck came up to meet her.

"Ow!"

"Miss Lucy?" Taurus shouted from down below. She dragged herself to the rail and waved down at him.

"I'm all right! Thanks, Taurus!"

Taurus gave an appreciative moo which, after a moment, Lucy realised was because the rail was pushing her breasts up. She sighed, closed his gate and turned away.

"Wow," she said under her breath. It looked more like a cruise ship than a slaver, with a second deck raised over the first by high columns and wide glass windows. There were still tables set out on the deck. The cutlery rattled as the engines vibrated through the floor.

From where she stood she could see a massive door in the middle of the upper decks, but it was ablaze with lights and she could hear accordion music drifting through the windows, so there was no way she would try getting through there. Lucy crept down the deck to the stern, ducking under the portholes. Everything back there stank of smoke and was coated with a thick layer of soot. Lucy made a disgusted face and stuck out her tongue.

Almost invisible under the soot was a back door. Lucy tugged on it until it squeaked open and revealed a narrow staircase going down into the dark. She took a cautious step forward, feeling along the walls as she went. Her fingers brushed a light switch. She flicked it on. The electric lights buzzed, flickered and failed. Lucy blew out a sigh.

She followed the narrow corridors down into the bowels of the ship, tracing the walls with her fingers and listening for voices. It wasn't a voice that first warned her, though, it was that in the next corridor there was a light on. She paused at the edge of the circle of light, wiggled her toes in anticipation and peeked around the corner. A slaver was standing guard outside a locked room and smoking a cigarette. He was a big man, with a stitched-up scar running right across his face under his eyes and black hair that stuck straight up.

Lucy reached for her keys carefully, so they didn't jangle, and stepped out into the hallway. The slaver looked up. His eyes widened. He charged her.

"Open, Gate of the Crab!" Lucy shouted. "Cancer!"

Cancer's first swipe chopped the slaver's cigarette in half. The man stumbled, there was a blur of shining steel, and the slaver crumpled to the ground. His newly-bald head gleamed in the electric lights. Cancer stood over him, scissors poised.

Lucy wasn't sure how exactly Cancer incapacitated people by cutting their hair, but she wasn't going to argue with it. Instead she whooped and gave him a high five. "Good job, Cancer!"

Cancer murmured some polite thanks.

Lucy retrieved the guard's key, unlocked the door and pulled it open with a flourish. She was greeted by a confused babble of voices. "Who are you?" "Did you come to save us?" "What happened?"

Lucy pressed one hand to her cheek, modestly waved off all the praise and said "Oh, it was nothing, you don't have to thank me."

"Where are the sailors?" one of the girls asked.

"You don't need to thank me," Lucy repeated, more loudly, eyes narrowed into slits.

There was a long pause. "Thank you?" one of the girls said eventually. "Um. Did you come to help us?"

"Absolutely!" Lucy chirped. The girls were flooding out into the corridor, casting fearful looks around. "Do you have a Fairy Tail mage in there, with you, by any chance?"

"More like Faily Tail," one of the girls snapped. "He's done nothing but lie there and moan since he got thrown in here. He's completely useless!"

"That's not completely true," another one said hesitantly. "I was sitting on him. He's quite comfortable. For being a person and not a chair."

Lucy peered into the dark. Someone was lying on the floor, mouth open, wheezing. The real Salamander! Lucy was... actually not that impressed.

"Maybe we should try to take him up? He might come to in the fresh air," one of the girls suggested.

"Good idea! One of you carry him," Lucy said. "I'll lead the way!"

She scampered back up the steps with the kidnapped girls hurrying along behind her, two of them lugging the pink-haired Fairy Tail mage between them. Hee hee, this was working perfectly! Now she only needed to get all the girls into her boat – her boat – her tiny, tiny boat...

There was no way they'd all fit into her boat!

Lucy stopped dead at the top of the stairs, wailed and clutched at her face. The girls piled up behind her. A chorus rose up: "Why'd we stop?" "What happened?" "Is it a pirate?"

Lucy pressed both hands over her face while she thought about it. What should she do? Could she take out the other pirates and turn the ship back to Hargeon? How hard could that be? They were only pirates, after all...

While she was thinking it over, someone leapt over the ship's railing, stamped over to the front doors – the deck shuddered under their boots - threw the doors wide open and roared "SALAMANDER!"

The accordion music stopped dead with a squeal. Lucy goggled.

"What the hell was that?" one of the girls said. Behind her, Lucy heard a choked sound. She glanced behind. The Fairy Tail mage was struggling up the steps towards her, shoving through the crowd. His face was green and his strangely-sharp teeth were clenched with the effort, but he was still moving.

There was another crash from the front of the ship. Lucy started forward.

"Be careful!" one of the girls shouted. "He uses Charm magic!"

Lucy gave her a quick thumbs-up and raced down the deck. The massive front doors weren't just open, they were broken, thrown back so violently their glass panels smashed against the walls.

Inside, in what looked like a pleasant sitting room, dozens of slavers were crowded back against the walls. Two had been poking with their knives at a blue cat in a birdcage, but now they were just gaping openmouthed. Another slaver was lying in the wreckage of a lovely little coffee table. Lucy shrank back against the wall, clutching at the doorframe, but none of them spotted her. All their attention was fixed on the young man standing in the middle of the room, arms folded, massive steel-capped boots planted firmly on the planks. "Don't get in my way, trash," he growled. He sounded like he'd been gargling with iron filings. "Which one of you is Salamander?"

All the slavers looked towards the sofa opposite the door. The blue-haired man sitting on it brushed wood dust from his cloak and rose to his feet.

"I'm Salamander," he said. "What's your business with me? I don't take any pleasure in defeating loudmouths like-"

The intruder strode across the room, grabbed him by the front of his cloak, hauled him close and sniffed his head.

"What?" said Lucy.

"What?" said the fake Salamander.

"What?" said most of the slavers.

The intruder threw the fake Salamander back. "You don't smell like a dragonslayer," he growled. "You're lying, trash. That's irritating."

The fake Salamander raised one hand. His rings glittered. "What do I smell like, then?"

There was a long silence. "Uh," said the intruder. "...wha..." He took a stumbling step back. One of the slavers laughed.

"It's Charm, you idiot!" Lucy screamed. "He's using a spell!"

The intruder whipped around to look at her and Lucy caught a glimpse of a faceful of metal before he snarled and drew his fist back, and then his arm, his arm turned into an iron girder and he sent the fake Salamander flying. The fake Salamander crashed straight through the wall, and then through another wall, and then through the hull. Sea water gushed in through the hole. The whole ship listed to one side. Lucy shrieked. The pirate with the accordion started to play 'Orpheus in the Underworld'.

"Hey!" Lucy looked around. The Fairy Tail mage was right behind her, clinging to the doorframe as the ship pitched and yawed underfoot. The blue cat in the birdcage meowed something that sounded like 'Natsu!' but that would have been impossible because cats couldn't talk. The metal mage turned, and laughed.

"Gihihi! You're the Fairy trash, then?"

"I'm Na – uurrrrgk - Fairy Tail's Flame Dragon Slayer," the pink-haired mage rasped. He was ghastly white and hanging onto the doorframe to stay upright. Still, the stare he levelled on the metal mage was full of bloodlust. "Who the hell are you?" There was water washing across the floor. The slavers were panicking. Half of them had already fled through the other door, and from the yelling and crashing outside it sounded like they'd run into the girls they'd kidnapped.

"Can you both see that?" Lucy demandd, pointing at the water flooding in through the hole in the ship. They both ignored her. The metal mage approximated a mocking bow.

"Phantom Lord's Iron Dragon, Gajeel, at your service!"

Lucy'd heard of him! He was Phantom Lord's top mage, and he'd been ranked Weekly Sorceror's Worst Possible Boyfriend for the last four years running! That was a record. Manderley the Murdering Axemage had only made it three years.

"I don't care," Natsu rasped, and staggered forward. "I won't – I won't allow insults to Fairy-" Then he fell over. There was a long pause.

"Um, the boat is sinking," Lucy said, and was ignored. The stern was tipping up as the bow flooded. The blue cat's birdcage had rolled into the wall. It wailed "Natsu!" again. The tables on the deck were piling up against the front rail. The doorway was filling up with water. Lucy scrambled further into the room to get away from it, shrieking, and then wailed louder when she realised that she'd just trapped herself.

Gajeel picked Salamander up by one ankle and swung him in the air.

"This is boring - is this eriously the best you Fairies have got?"

Salamander snarled and tried to swipe at him. The electric lights flickered and died as something under the floors short-circuited. The cat's birdcage toppled over and slid down the sloping floor towards the icy water.

"Happy!" Salamander shouted, clearly delusional with seasickness.

"Wha?" Gajeel said. "What happened to the lights?"

"The boat's sinking!" Lucy screamed. "It's sinking! It's filling up with water, can you not see that? The boat! Is! Sinking!"

"Why don't you fix it, then, instead of just standing there?" Gajeel barked. He dropped Salamander and forged towards the door, shoving Lucy aside as he went. "I'm going to wreck the rest of these bastards."

Salamander was crawling towards the birdcage. Lucy clutched at her hair and shrieked. The water was almost knee deep! The whole room was tipped sideways and the sea was still gushing in! She couldn't even summon Aquarius today! "Why couldn't this have happened yesterday?" Lucy wailed. How was she possibly supposed to fix this? How would anyone fix this? How would the slavers fix this?

Lucy whirled around, searching for a maintenance kit. Purple light flared outside the windows. A trail of fire set the fake Salamander down back on the deck, soaking wet, his spiky hair plastered flat against his skull. He strode forward back into the room, purple fire seething around his hands, and then his eyes bulged out in slow motion as one of the girls brained him with a chair.

Lucy raced across the room, slipping and sliding and scrambling over Salamander, who was lying on the floor hanging onto the birdcage for dear life. The other door led to a narrow corridor. Lucy looked back and forth frantically. To the left, uphill, there were steps going down. To the right, where the water was pooling, there was a dead end – and, completely submerged and barely visible under the surface, a purple box fixed to the wall.

Lucy splashed into the water, squealing at the cold, and grabbed at the box. The lid popped open. The water was past Lucy's waist and getting steadily deeper. Lucy pawed hurriedly through the contents – healing items, binding charms, something spiky and labelled "The Chastiser" that Lucy squeaked at and threw away into the water – and finally pulled out a set of brass knuckles with a snowflake embossed on one end.

Would those work? She was a holder-type mage, so she could tell that it was a magic item. But was it what she thought it was?

She hauled herself up. She was standing more on the wall than on the floor now, but she grasped the doorframe, kicked like a mule and hauled herself up. The couch the fake Salamander had been sitting on had slid down into the water, but the end still stuck up above the surface. The real Salamander had either managed to get out onto the deck, or slid down into the water and-

Lucy scrambled onto the end of the couch, closed her hand into a fist around the brass knuckles, and dived at the water, screaming. "Lucy Puuuuuunch!"

The magic activated as her knuckles hit the water. Her knees hit ice. The ripples washed out across the room, and the water froze solid in its wake. Lucy scrambled to her feet, whooped and punched the air. "Yes! I did it!"

Then the ship tipped up the other way as the ice buoyed it up. Lucy tumbled over and rolled across the floor. "Ow!" She righted herself, rubbing her scraped knees and elbows, and then scampered over the ice – there was no sign of a pink-haired wizard with a birdcage frozen inside it – and out onto the deck.

To her eternal relief, the girls had just mopped up the last of the slavers. Salamander was flopped down in the bow. He was obviously exhausted from the effort of saving the cat, but at least while he was curled up there looking like a candidate for euthanasia he wasn't trying to challenge Gajeel to a deathmatch all over the ship, so Lucy couldn't bring herself to care. Gajeel had made a heap of unconscious slavers to lounge on as if he were a king of the dead pirates. The fake Salamander had pride of place at the bottom of the pile.

"You missed all the fun," he greeted her.

"Oh, no! I missed the fighting!" Lucy said, and pretended to be sad. "The boat isn't sinking any more, by the way."

Gajeel grunted and settled back on his throne of battered pirates.

"You can thank me, if you want to," Lucy prompted.

"I don't want to," Gajeel growled. "Are you going to get the boat back to Hargeon or not?"

Lucy bristled. "I'm not your own personal transportation service!"

Gajeel turned his head slowly to look at her. His eyes were narrowed. "What was that, girlie?"

"I said I'm not your personal transportation service!" Lucy snapped. "Get the ship back to Hargeon yourself!"

"Um," one of the girls said. "Are we going back to Hargeon? At all?"

Gajeel and Lucy both glared at her.

"I'm just saying, getting back to Hargeon is the only way either of you are getting paid."

"Um," Lucy said, and looked around. The ship was still canted over, and one whole side – Lucy didn't know if it was port or starboard – was a block of ice. "...Can we get back to Hargeon?" Were they going to have to wait until the navy showed up to get them?

"It's a boat, isn't it?" Gajeel growled. "Why's it matter if it gets wet?"

"Do you have no idea how ships work?" Lucy said, and then gave up completely on trying to explain to him how ships worked and turned back to the girls. "Do any of you know how ships work?"

"My father captains a steamship," one of the girls said. "I've sailed with him a few times. I could maybe do something?"

"I'm a naval cadet," another one chimed in.

"I have a Master's in engineering!" said one wearing a pink cloud of ruffles. "It's a standard triple-expansion reciprocating engine, right?"

"I have no idea!" Lucy said. Regardless, the girls hurried downstairs, chatting animatedly about... ship... things? Lucy had no idea. "Good luck!"

"You with that piece of garbage?" Gajeel asked, jerking a thumb at Natsu.

"What?" Lucy said, aghast. "No way! Why would you think we were-"

"Which guild you with, then?"

"Oh. Ohhhh. Uh," Lucy said. "I'm not in a guild." Gajeel screwed up his face. "Yet!" Lucy added hurriedly. She wasn't going to tell him that she wanted to join Fairy Tail. Though, looking at the Fairy Tail mage currently passed out in the bow of the ship...

"What's your magic?"

"I'm a Celestial Spirit mage!" Lucy said, and jangled her keys on her belt.

Gajeel snorted. "A summoner? No wonder you're so useless. Have you ever actually been in a fight, or do you just stand there while your summons protect you?"

"That's not fair!" Lucy snapped. "I don't treat my spirits as shields. I fight beside them!"

"Gihihihi!"

"And what sort of laugh is that supposed to be?" Lucy bristled. "I told you, I don't-"

Lucy was interrupted when the engines churned into life. She ran to the stern of the ship.

"Hey! Come back!" Gajeel shouted. Lucy ignored him, and instead hung over the stern railing to stare down. The ship had two propellors. One was still completely submerged but the other stuck up above the surface of the water. Both were turning slowly. Lucy watched them until they were spinning fast enough that the one sticking up above the water threw spray into her face, and then ran back to the bow. "We're moving!"

There was a ragged cheer from the girls.

"Hey, maybe you're worth more than I thought you were," Gajeel drawled. "Now find me something to eat."

"I'm not your cook, either!" Lucy snapped.

The ship chugged very, very, very slowly back towards Hargeon. Lucy did the sums and worked out that at this rate, it would take three days to get back to shore, and then she wailed a lot.

Fortunately, though, it wasn't too long before the navy caught up with them. They weren't happy to find out that they wouldn't be getting any of the credit, but still hitched the fake Salamander's ship behind theirs before they turned back to Hargeon. The three girls who'd fixed the ship's engine talked about knots and blah blah nautical things blah which seemed to boil down to that they were going like a train. Plumes of white spray were thrown up before their bow, and the SE-plug boat bobbed behind them like a cork.

Hargeon appeared on the horizon in the evening. As soon as the fake Salamander's ship was cut loose and tied up beside the dock, the girls flooded down the gangplank with cries of relief. Gajeel stretched and climbed off his heap of unconscious slavers. The Rune Knights descended immediately with handcuffs and binding spells. Gajeel slouched over to Salamander, picked him up birdcage and all, and threw him onto the dock, then vaulted over the side and landed next to him. He kicked Salamander in the side. "Oi! Salamander! Get off the tiles, trash!"

Lucy scrambled down the gangplank after them as quickly as she could. Salamander had pushed himself up, and now he was leaning on the birdcage.

"Hey! He's not in any shape to fight-"

Salamander gripped the bars of the birdcage. The muscles in his back and arms tensed. He yanked the cage apart like paper. The blue cat sprouted wings and flew out of the wreckage.

"Uwah?!" Lucy said.

Salamander dropped the fragments of the cage and looked up. "...won't forgive you..."

"You won't forgive me?" Gajeel repeated, and laughed. "Big words, Salamander! Have you got anything to back them up?"

Salamander rose to his knees and rasped "I'll back them up with... my fists..." The blue cat hovered around his head.

Gajeel made to slam a boot down on Salamander's back, but the blue cat shrieked a warning, and Salamander caught his boot and shoved him away. Gajeel stumbled back, and then grinned. "You finally ready to get started?" He stepped back and waited.

Salamander climbed to his feet and straightened, slowly. His stare was fixed on Gajeel and his lips were skinned back from his teeth. "I told you, I won't forgive insults to Fairy Tail!" The air was getting warm. Heat was streaming off his body. An updraft of scorching air ruffled his hair.

"Fairy Tail's garbage," Gajeel said. "From the old man to the newest little piece of trash." He squared up, held out a beckoning hand and bared his teeth in something approximating a grin. "Are you going to teach me a lesson now?"

In answer, Salamander's fists burst into flame. Gajeel's skin rippled and turned into iron scales. "I'll end you in one punch, Salamander!" His voice had risen to a shout.

Lucy squeaked and stumbled back until she teetered on the end of the pier. Should she dive from the end of the dock? Should she find them a ruler?

"Stop that this instant!"

The voice cracked like a whip. Salamander froze. Gajeel looked over his shoulder.

"Erza!" said the cat.

Lucy looked, and did a double-take. At the end of the dock stood Erza Titania. One hand was on her hip. The other rested on the hilt of her sword. For a moment her gaze lingered on Lucy, with icy contempt, and then passed over her to Gajeel. Lucy shrank back. Gajeel folded his arms across his chest and met Erza's stare. "You want to fight too, Titania?" His mouth curved into a wolfish grin.

"I'm not interested in battling," she said bluntly. "I've come to retrieve one of our mages. Natsu, come here."

"Didn't you hear what he said about-" Salamander protested.

"I heard," Erza cut him off. "But his opinion isn't worth anything." She lifted her chin and impaled Salamander on her stare. Salamander quailed. "That was reckless, Natsu. I had to leave a mission and travel a long way to come and rescue you. You shouldn't try to fight on a form of transportation. If I hear you've done it again, I won't be so tolerant. Still..." She sighed. "I won't say anything for now."

"I think you said a lot already," Lucy mumbled.

Erza extended a hand. "Come here, now."

"...aye!" Salamander chirped, and hurried to her side.

"Thank you for your help," Erza said. Her voice was so cold Lucy couldn't tell if she meant it. "Come on, Natsu. We don't want to miss the train." Salamander blanched, and wailed "Happy!" as Erza dragged him away. The blue cat flew along behind them.

Gajeel looked after them smugly. "Good to see that the trash know their place," he said, and strode away down the dock. There was some sort of official there, checking off the rescued girls on a list. As Gajeel stomped up to him, with Lucy close behind, he looked up at them wearily over his glasses and said "I suppose you both want some money?"

"Well of course I didn't do it for the money," Lucy cooed, flipping her hair. "I did it for the joy of helping my-"

"Good. I'll take all of it then," Gajeel cut in. "Show me to the money."

"What?" Lucy protested. "I wanted some too!"

"You barely did anything," Gajeel told her.

"I stopped the boat sinking!" Lucy said. "And I warned you about the Charm magic. If it wasn't for that you'd be pink and drooling in a cell on that ship right now!"

Gajeel gave it due consideration, then shook his head. "Nope. That's not right."

"Hey!"

"You want to be in a guild, don't you?"

"Where did that come from? But, yeah..." Lucy said, waiting for the trap.

"Phantom Lord's the strongest guild in the country. I'll put in a word for you."

"What?" Lucy said, completely blindsided.

"I'll get you into Phantom if you stop whinging about the money."

"...deal!" Lucy said. She hadn't been sure which of Phantom and Fairy Tail she really wanted to join, after all – they were just as strong as each other and Phantom was nearly as outrageous. Besides, Titania was scary. This was just as good. It wasn't exactly what she'd planned, but it was just as good.

"Good," Gajeel said, and gave her a wicked grin. "I won't guarantee that you'll survive, though. Weaklings don't."

For a moment, Lucy wondered if she'd made the right decision. She crushed the niggling doubt and followed Gajeel.