Author's notes: zomg I'm back from the dead! not really, just from the holidays :P Now, I fail at being original with this story since the subject had been already used by others on this site and also for this couple so yeah, I blame my procrastination skills :3 but I hope you guys will still read and hopefully like it

so as usual, I do not own Fairy Tail because if I did, I wouldn't give them holidays! I would make them produce more manga chapters to feed my addiction. Rated T for a couple of bad words :3

The Spell Incident

What did he do to always end up in these situations? Which greater being he didn't even believe in did he pissed off to have such bad luck? Ever since he joined that crazy guild, Gazille seemed to attract not only trouble, even more that he used to, but also all the weird things that could happen were just bound to happen to him. May it be a spiked potion or a spell gone wrong, if he was in the vicinity of said thing, it was his unavoidable fate to suffer from it.

As he glanced in annoyance at his foreign reflection in the mirror, the iron dragonslayer was more and more convinced that Fairy Tail was a cursed guild.

The day had went well. Gazille and Lily had just came back from a big mission in the north that had lasted two weeks and they were making their way back to the guild, exhausted but glad to be home. The two of them were dying for a real bed, a hot shower and decent food. In the iron dragonslayer's case, he was also impatient to drop by a certain female dormitory and sneak into a certain blue-haired young lady's room where he would probably spend the night. Probably? Nah, scratch that, he wouldn't leave her side except in the case they make too much noise and have to flee from an angry Erza.

If someone had told him that he would miss Levy like crazy only after a couple of days, he wouldn't have believed it. But that was exactly what happened, not even half way through the first week he was regretting not bringing her along. Lily had mocked him when seeing him sigh and groan over and over, calling him addicted, to which the black-haired man had gladly answered with a punch.

The team was almost at the guild when someone emerged from an alley on their left. A fat man in his late forties, dressed in dirty clothes, was running for his life in the almost deserted street. Not long after, another person exited the same alley at full speed, this one, obviously younger. With bright orange hair and an unmistakable hat and coat, Gazille and Lily had absolutely no problem identifying him:

" What's Speedy doing?"

The black exceed shrugged. The young Fairy Tail mage, Jet, was sprinting like crazy while yelling at the man to stop running. His black-haired friend, Droy, was nowhere in sight and there was even less traces of the female member of their trio, Levy.

" Want to help him out?"

The iron dragonslayer scoffed at the question, his answer was predictable.

" No way, he wouldn't want me to, anyway."

And it was true. It was a secret for nobody that Jet and Droy didn't like Gazille, even after everything that had happened since he had joined Fairy Tail. They might have calmed down a lot since the iron dragonslayer had saved Levy more than once but he was far from being in their buddy list. It also had a lot to do with the fact they liked the blue-haired woman in a more than friendly way and Gazille had pretty much stolen her from them without much work.

Not that he gave a damn about that part.

The two of them resumed their walk but kept watching. They were really curious of the reasons one of the weakest guild mage they had was chasing an old man. That was when the person in question seemed to grow tired of running because he quickly stopped and turned around with a strange grin. A piece of paper appeared in front of him and he yelled a couple of words while touching the paper with the tips of his fingers, making a magic circle rise like a shield in front of him. A golden light flew out of the paper like a bullet and hit the speed mage, who was too close to avoid it, right in the chest, sending him flying backward.

The magic beam didn't stop there, tho, it continued its course like an arrow and struck the nearest person in its path.

Gazille admitted that he never saw it coming. In spite of his dragon senses, maybe because he was tired of his previous mission or he just didn't expect it at all, he couldn't do much else than getting hit by the magical beam. Immediately, his legs felt like jelly and he got the impression that a huge magnet was pulling something outside his body. As he heard Lily's voice call his name, everything got foggy and he landed on the ground in a dull thud.

The tall man was falling like a stone on the ground as Lily rushed at his side to check on him. The exceed placed a paw on Gazille's neck to check if he still had a pulse and he let out a breath when he confirmed that his friend was still alive. Grinding his teeth, he raised his head in the direction the old man had been and unsurprisingly, there was no one in the street beside the collapsed body of the Shadow Gear mage.

Lily was about to go check on the orange-haired young man when he heard someone come running behind him. Looking over his shoulder, the black cat met the panting form of the other male Shadow Gear member.

" What happened?" he asked while trying to catch his breath. " Where's Jet?"

Lily pointed at the other man:

" He's over there. The old man shot him with magic and it hit Gazille shortly after."

The plant mage ran at his friend's side to check on him:

" He's alright, just unconscious." Droy confirmed after a moment.

Lily frowned at the unmoving body of the iron dragonslayer, lost in thoughts. Who knew what spell had hit them and what it could do to them?

" Let's bring them to the guild. They need to be checked."

The black-haired man took hold of his friend, balancing his body on his shoulder, while the black exceed morphed into his huge form to do the same with his partner. They made their way slowly toward the guild, Droy and Jet walking ahead slightly since the plant mage was, at the moment, in a better shape physically than Lily and the speed mage was probably less heavy than the iron dragonslayer.

Cursing softly his partner for being such an heavy eater, Lily concentrated on the task to put one feet in front of the other without tripping. He was feeling the tiredness of the previous days and his stomach was complaining about a serious lack of attention. After a while, Gazille's body moved slightly and a groan escaped from his long wild mane. The black exceed quickly stopped to watch his friend come back to himself, glad and worried at the same time.

" Take it easy."

Gazille's head raised slowly, the dragonslayer's eyes unfocused in front of him. He blinked a couple of time, trying to understand what was going on and where he was, then he looked at Lily with the same lost expression. He croaked:

" Pantherlily?"

The exceed nodded, smiling warmly in spite of his feral jaw. Gazille blinked again:

" What are you doing?"

He explained in a slow voice, to make sure that the man would understand:

" I am bringing you to the guild. You got hit by a strange magic earlier that knocked you out cold."

" Oh."

Lily started walking again, glad that Gazille was seemingly helping him walk. That was one less weight on his shoulder even if he didn't let go of him completely. The dragonslayer was silent, looking around him in a daze. The magic must had hit him harder than it looked.

Gazille didn't say a word for a while until they passed in front of a little shop with a huge window. The black-haired man looked at the window and jumped in fright at what he saw.

The black cat also jumped at the sudden movement, looked at his friend, then, at what he was looking at.

" What's wrong? It's just books."

But Gazille was not looking at what was on display, he was looking at his reflection. He checked his face with his hands, fingering every little studs on his eyebrows, nose and chin. The guy looked like he was seeing an alien.

" Don't tell me you didn't know how scary-looking you were?" Lily said with humour at his friend frozen face.

The black-haired man didn't react at his taunt, too preoccupied studying his long hair or his arms. The exceed was beginning to feel something was wrong.

" Gazille?"

His friend turned the head toward Lily's, not really sure how to answer. He finally whispered:

" Gazille..."

" Yes, it is your name." stated the black cat carefully. " Isn't it?"

That magic had shaken his brain, Lily thought, Gazille looked more and more like someone with amnesia. He was hoping it wouldn't be permanent.

Fortunately, the iron dragonslayer blinked and understanding showed on his face. He seemed to have woken up from a trance. He even smiled a little bit:

" Yeah. It's my name."

Lily let out a relieved breath.

" Damn, you scared me for a minute. Well, since you seem to be able to walk..."

The exceed changed in his small form with a pop, exhausted from using so much energy while he had almost none left.

If he had had any, maybe he would have noticed how un-gazille-ish his friend was acting, looking left and right with a huge goofy grin on his face, while they were walking toward their goal.

When the black cat arrived at the guild, he was faced with the second strangest thing he had seen that day. Right in front of the door, Jet and Droy were arguing. Jet seemed to be in a good enough shape, even if he was a bit pale.

Lily could hear them well enough to catch some bits of the discussion:

"...like hell I'll stay calm, you're not the one stuck like that!"

" Hey, it's not my fault at all, don't take it out on me, ok?"

The exceed was torn between the desire to use his experience at authority to calm them both or to just laugh at the two best friends and their fight. He chose the first.

" How about the two of you calm down."

They both turned around to face him, their faces showing some kind of relief and apprehension. The orange-haired youth was standing with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his feature that made him look a couple of years older.

" Glad to see you, Lily. I'm in deep shit, thanks to those morons."

Droy looked like he wanted to argue on his friend last comment but he chose to speak directly to the cat:

" Pantherlily, we have a problem."

" Can't it wait after a meal? We're hungry."

Lily looked behind him for approval from his partner:

" Huh? Where's Gazille?"

" I'm right here."

The exceed turned around to face Jet, who had spoken.

" What?"

Droy gestured toward the annoyed orange-haired man:

" Yeah, that's the problem: Gazille is right here."

Lily looked at the human with a seriously confused expression on his feature and snorted in disbelief:

" You're kidding, right?"

" Damn, no. I woke up in that dumbass body!"

The cat looked at the mage from head to toes, trying to see how that scrawny guy could really be his dragonslayer and not just attempting at a lame joke. He really was not in the mood for a lame joke.

" Prove it."

Jet looked surprised by the question but he grinned in a familiar manner:

" Alright." he answered with crossed arms. " When there's a thunderstorm, you hide in a ball under your bed with a blanket over your head."

Pantherlily's eye twitched: it really was Gazille.

The exceed took out his wings, flew toward Gazille's head and gave him a good kick behind the head.

" Argh! What the hell, bastard?" the man asked while clutching his skull and growling at his partner.

" One: I wanted to make sure it really was you, and second: that was for mentioning my weakness in front of somebody."

Gazille growled at his cat while the exceed landed on his shoulder, apologizing for his methods even if his smile was kinda ruining the effect.

" Anyway," Lily spoke to gain the others attention, " if Gazille is here, that means that Jet is somewhere in town, who knows where and doing who knows what."

" With my body."

" And it's quite obvious that he and you," Droy pointed at Gazille, " need to be together if we want to try to switch you back. The master will know what to do."

" Didn't you see him leave?" Gazille asked Lily. The cat shook the head:

" I didn't even realize he wasn't there before I arrived."

The three men took a moment to think where they could find the mage. They knew he wasn't in the guild or they would have seen him and they knew that Jet didn't know where Gazille and Lily lived so he couldn't be there.

Gazille growled at the horizon in frustration, he really had no clue where Speedy could have gone with his body.

" He's your friend, Plant-boy," Gazille pointed a finger at Droy, " you know him. If Speedy had my face, where would he go?"

The black-haired man scoffed at the nickname but he stayed calm. Quite the most zen of the two of them, the iron dragonslayer thought.

" Yeah, he's my friend but I'm not in his head, I can't really-"

At this moment, Droy's face froze with his mouth slightly open, eyes unfocused with the look of someone that just got the answer.

" Actually..." he started slowly, " I'm pretty sure I know where he is, right now. But you're not gonna like it."

End notes: Where is Jet? How is that Gazille/Levy related? Why can't I read Japanesse so I could hack some raw version of the next chapter? Beside the 3rd question, next chapter will answer them all :3