The fight for Lucy Heartfillia.
It was a typical day in Magnolia, the townspeople hurried around doing various things and a cheerful mood was draped across the landscape, except for in Fairy Tail's usually ecstatic guild hall that is.
At the Guild
The guild hall was, probably for the first time since it was created, silent. Nobody was laughing, cheering or drinking, even Cana was sober! Why you might ask? Well its simple, the major guilds leaders from Fiore had all resided in Makarov's office. The guild leaders from Blue Pegasus, Lamia Scale, Mermaid Heel and Sabertooth arrived in the guild earlier that morning and a tense atmosphere had settled over the guild since. Even Natsu was quietly sat in a corner of the guild separated from everyone.
Natsu POV
Hmm I wonder what they want to talk to Gramps about. I hope it's a new dark guild alliance, beating the Ballam Alliance was awesome! I haven't had a fight as exciting since! Hopefully it's nothing too bad though or Lucy might get hurt again, ah well she's pretty strong now! I hear shuffling from above and wait for Gramps to come back, my ears pick up faint murmurs throughout the conversation and it seems pretty important, I heard Lucy's name mentioned a lot which is worrying … what could this have to do with her?
Normal POV
Makarov, Fairy Tail's master makes his way out on the balcony to address the guild, his face can clearly be seen red with anger and…nervousness?
"Listen up brats!" he yelled to his children, knowing that what he was about to say would definitely anger his guild to no limit. All eyes turned to him expectantly, he made eye contact with each person before his announcement.
"As you know the masters from associated guilds around Fiore have come to our home, and they challenged us"
"Challenged us to what? I'm all fired up!" Natsu shouted in response, guild members around him agreeing as they remembered their recent glory in the Grand Magic Games and looked forward to showing everyone who's boss.
"Quiet NOW!" Makarov silenced the guild. "This is no simple challenge, a few of you may not even know that it existed, and I personally think it shouldn't" he glared at the other masters. "However I must accept, we have been challenged to a game of Nusumu."
The guild exploded in uproar as most members had just heard rumours of such challenge, whereas some members, like Lucy, Natsu and Gajeel were just left clueless.
"Umm master, what's Nusumu?" Lucy asked, she was so confused at the reaction of the guild mates as she couldn't imagine something to outrage them so much.
"Yeah Gramps what's it all about? It doesn't sound very action packed" Natsu sulked at the prospect of being challenged and it not resulting in a huge brawl.
"How could you forget Nusumu Flame Brain? Are you really that stupid?" Natsu ignored the comment from his cold rival and stared at Gramps, it did sound quite familiar but he couldn't quite place it.
"Listen up then you two, I'll only explain this once, it's unsurprising that you don't recognise Nusumu as it's such a rare thing in current times. When guilds were first being formed, many guilds didn't see their fellow members as families, and so because of that Nusumu was born, it is a challenge that one or more guilds can place upon another, into the near future we will be faced with many battles, Nusumu is a challenge in which the very guilds strength is in question, the most powerful guild members fight in teams against the other members of the challenging guilds, the prize of this battle is discussed before the battle, and it is always a guild member of the challenged guild, which is in this instance, Fairy Tail."
"They're trying to take one of our members? I'll never let them!" Natsu cheered, truly fired up now at the idea of someone taking away one of his precious nakama and family from him. He'd be forced to die before that happened.
"As some of you know, the last time this happened was also against Fairy Tail, in that instance they were trying to take Gildarts from us. Listen well brats, they failed then, and we will not lose this time either!" Makarov exclaimed, bright smiles and grins covered everyone's faces, except for Lucy Heartfillia. She was thinking who they could possibly want as she couldn't think of anyone as powerful as Gildarts.
"Master, who is it?" She asked curiously, the guild master's eyes immediately softened and filled with sadness before hardening again into a glare.
"The prize mage of this challenge is you, Lucy Heartfillia." The master said, shocking all of the members in the guild, in their dazed state, nobody noticed the temperature of the room increase rapidly until they heard a deep, harsh voice filled with spitting lava say "They want Lucy?" Natsu asked once again, all sign of the cheery dragon slayer gone as the bottom of his stomach and his heart turned ablaze, the anger consumed at the thought of someone taking his Celestial Mage from him. The thought of hear not holding up her hand elegantly and flashing off her pink guild mark sickened him, as he knew that Fairy Tail was exactly where she belonged.
"WAIT WHAAATTT? ME? WHY ME? WHY?" Lucy cried out, she was still in a state of shock at hearing that she was the one to be the prize of a competition meant for such powerful mages, this had to be some mistake right? Wrong.
"They have not discussed that with me yet dear Lucy, but we must accept this fact and prepare a team for the challenge, the rules for Nusumu are quite complex so please listen up." He began "In Nusumu one or many guilds can challenge a single guild for a member, the challenges are all battles, similar to the ones in the final event of the GMG. A maximum of five and minimum of one player from each guild can participate. The member that is announced to be the prize, in this case Lucy, cannot participate in this game as it is made to see who will fight for her the hardest and win. We have to decide our team by tomorrow and enter it into the lacrima next to the request board. Any questions?" He sighed knowing the effect these events have on guilds and hoping that they will keep their precious celestial mage.
"Who other than me is fighting? Natsu asked in a serious tone that didn't suit his character. Eyebrows from a few guild members were raised at the Dragon slayers assumption that he was a member.
"What makes you so sure that you're 'gunna be fighting Salamander?" Gajeel grunted, looking for a rise from the pink haired mage. The answer he got surprised him and the rest of the guild.
"Because anyone who tries to get in the way of me beating those who try to take my best friend from me is going to get burned, got it?" He asked, addressing the whole guild, Team Natsu grinned at the determination he showed and Lucy specifically held a light pink brush fanning her cheeks over the way her partner spoke of her. Mira had stars in her eyes as her matchmaking side took over and she imagined mini Natsu and Lucy's running may think that Lucy should be more nervous, but she was in awe of the serious tone Natsu held and knew that nobody would be able to take her away from the guild she loved.
Makarov walked down the stairs and towards the lacrima that had 5 rows and 5 columns, for the 4 challenging guilds and Fairy Tail where they would fill in the names of the participating entrants. "I need time to think on who to choose because as soon as we lock in the teams we cannot change them. We have until tomorrow so we must sleep on this decision, it is late so all of you go home and rest, ready for tomorrow. Goodnight brats, lets show them what it means to challenge Fairy Tail!" He received many cheers from the members, but none of them could say that they weren't nervous.
Later that night
The old wooden doors of Fairy Tail's guild hall creaked open slowly, a head with a scarf wrapped around it peaked through the adjacent crack and surveyed the area. His eyes fell upon his target and he moved, muttering "nin-nin" after every table that he jumped over and every landing forward roll, honestly he could have walked over but that would ruin the fun right? The ninja man arrived at his destination and started typing into the Nusumu lacrima, after a short time the man pushed the button labelled "Enter", a soft bell chimed from the lacrima to signal the acceptance of the details and that they were locked in. As the figure left you could see his toothy grin poking out of his improvised mask. The room temperature dropped significantly as he left. The only thing on his mind was how he would show her how much she means to him.