Chapter 7: Friendship Transcends

Fairy Tail was in the middle of their daily party, the girls avidly avoiding their Mira-appointed charges, that is until she noticed and force them to associate with the poor boys, when the doors swung open. The guys' mouths dropped when the teams from pretty much every other guild participating, with the obvious exception of Mermaid Heel and Twilight Ogre, stood outside the door.

"Oh dear god," they heard a mumble from behind them, turning to see Lucy's face firmly planted into her palm before she plastered on a smile. "Hey guys! What's up!"

"Lucy, you are looking particularly lovely today," Hibiki said, going to kiss her hand.

"Yes, I can't believe how much more beautiful you grow each time I see you, not that I notice or anything," Ren said moving to her other side.

"If you would give me the honor, I would be your younger brother," Eve said, falling to one knee in front of her and picking up the hand not currently being held to Hibiki's lips.

That's when Ichiya walked up, nostrils flaring as he took in the smells filling the room in the creepiest way he could possibly manage, before sauntering up to Erza in such a flamboyant fashion that there were literally sparkles falling from his body to the floor.

"Erza, it's so wonderful to see you again, you have such a lovely parfum," Ichiya said, taking her hand and, flaring his nostrils, sniffed it, complete with loud inhalations of air through his nose that the boys all inwardly cringed at.

It was as if the two Fairy Tail maidens had coordinated their movements, because as Erza's fist plummeted into Ichiya's face, the Trimen all got a quick flash of Lucy's underwear as their bodies were thrown across the room by a well-placed round about Lucy Kick. The floor landed in a heap in the corner, and Erza and Lucy shivered and then sighed.

"Uh… what just happened?" Murasakibara said, looking from the girls to the four men in the corner of the room and back to the girls. However, no one answered him before Bacchus came into the room.

"WILD!" Bacchus said as he approached the group, lifting his mug in the air.

The entire guild called out their answer "FOUR!"

Bacchus smirked and finished his journey in front of Cana, who was sitting next to Midorima, teasing him and ruffling his hair.

"Hey Cana, wanna have another go?" Bacchus said, his words slurring together, as he held out his mug for Cana to take.

"Hell yea!" she yelled, taking her own barrel and pushing it against his in a toast before the both of them began to chug down the last of the liquor in their respective containers.

"Yo Mira, get some more over here!" Cana yelled, pink tinging her cheeks. In the corner of the room, Gildarts was mourning over his own drink, staring at his little girl with tears in his eyes.

"Natsu! Fight me!" Sting said, smiling wide as he came in, Rogue following on his heels, albeit somewhat unwillingly.

"Yea, let's go!" Natsu said, getting up from the table to approach his fellow dragon slayer and rival.

"Oh no Natsu, you don't. Sit down and don't destroy anything!" Lucy said, pulling him by the scarf before depositing him back in his chair. Aomine smirked at the action. It was hilarious how much control she had over the rowdy dragon slayer.

"Sorry, Natsu," Sting said, sliding an arm around Lucy and pulling her close, "Looks like I'm gonna be playing with Lucy tonight." Aomine's smirk fell. For whatever reason, he didn't like that guy. Mira was passing by, bringing the two drunks their booze when she saw the look on Aomine's face. Her grin worked its way up, and her eyes had lights in them.

"Actually Sting, Lucy was going to play with Daiki tonight," she said, smiling sweetly. She then turned to Cana, "Don't forget that you need to make sure Shintaro feels welcome here, Cana. Why don't you introduce him to Bacchus?" The two gulped and immediately went to their assigned partner. They may not like it, but there was no way they were going to challenge Mira right now.

"And Erza, I brought you and Atsushi some cake to share, come eat it with him," she pointed to a solitary seat at the table, where the cake and sweets were sitting innocently, despite Mira's ulterior motives. "There's only one chair though, so you'll have to sit in his lap. After all, you don't want to have to separate him from his friends by moving to another table, would you?" she smiled sweetly, promising a slow and torturous death for those who opposed her rule.

Erza gulped, looking at where Murasakibara had already sat down and was eating the cake. She slowly made her way over to him, her face soon matching her hair before she stammered out, "Um… Could I… Would you…?" she never finished her sentence, though, because Murasakibara simply wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her down to perch sideways on one of his legs and held up the cake to her mouth. She opened her mouth just wide enough to let the cake in, her face staying a very prominent shade of red.

The girls were looking on with sympathy, while the boys still seemed confused over the entire thing. They got Mira was partnering them up, but if the girls were so against it, why were they just going along with it? They weren't overly surprised by Murasakibara's actions, he liked Erza well enough, and she shared her cake with him, which meant he would share cake with her, and if she needed a place to sit, it wasn't like she was heavy, so he would offer his lap, no doubt having no idea how intimate a position some might consider it.

"Juvia, my beautiful Juvia," they heard a voice say, and they turned to see Lyon, who had approached Juvia with hearts in his eyes. "I must ask of you again, leave Fairy Tail and join Lamia Scale, so that you may be by my side forever."

"Juvia is happy at Fairy Tail-" she was interrupted when a half-naked Gray walked in, pushing her behind him slightly to step between her and Lyon.

"Oh, sorry Juvia," he said, realizing she had stumbled and fallen into Kise's arms, which he still had wrapped around her. She was blushing, but he was too wrapped up watching Gray and Lyon to figure out that he still had his arms wrapped around the woman.

Gray, seeing Juvia was okay, turned to face Lyon, "She's part of Fairy Tail, stop trying to steal our members!"

Lyon, to the boys' surprise, then began to strip, in almost exactly the same manner as Gray. As he was subconsciously stripping, he said, "I'm not trying to steal anyone other than Juvia, for she is my love."

Juvia's blush grew, both from Kise's continued grip on her hips and from Lyon's comment. She had made her peace that her and Gray wouldn't be a thing, but she didn't like Lyon like that. It seemed Kise was still preoccupied with watching Gray and Lyon, so, from Kise's arms she answered him.

"Juvia's sorry Lyon, but she's not interested in you. Juvia is happy where she is and she would appreciate if you wouldn't keep asking her to leave her family," she said it as nicely as she could, but with determination in her voice. She would never leave Fairy Tail.

Lyon and Gray both looked over at her, in Kise's arms, and Lyon's face dropped and he walked away, assuming she was with the man behind her. Gray simply looked confused. Kise looked down at her when she spoke, and then suddenly realized she was in his arms.

"Oh, sorry! I didn't realize I was still holding you," Kise said, smiling down at her after he released her.

Juvia blushed and smiled, "It's alright, Juvia knows you didn't mean it"

Meanwhile, Mira was watching the whole thing from the sidelines, grinning maniacally. Juvia was finally starting to get over Gray, and how perfect was that situation. Everything was going excellently, except, he head swiveled around.

"Hello, Levy," Rufus said, smiling down at the short blunette. Somehow the two had become friends over the past year. Mira shook her head, that wouldn't due. Maybe if Levy and Kagami didn't work out… but right now, Levy and Kagami were the priority.

"Kagami," Mira said sweetly. He looked over at her, his eyes wide. He didn't understand what was happening, but he knew enough from what he saw that maybe it would be better to just go with it and worry about it later.

"Um… yes, Mira?" he said as slowly as he could, as if he was approaching an angry tiger.

Mira produced a meal for him and Levy, to share apparently, "I made this meal especially for the two of you, why don't you go bring it to her and you can share?" she said, the same sweet voice, the same smile dripping in poisoned honey. He gulped and nodded, quickly taking the meal and walking over to where Levy was.

"Um… Mira asked that I bring this to you. Apparently we're supposed to share it. She had this creepy smile on and I couldn't say no, so I'm sorry for interrupting you're conversation, but-" Levy interrupted him with a finger to his lips.

"Shhh… don't worry, I know, she can be terrifying, lets just get this over with and eat it. That's the easiest solution," she said.

The night wore on, party in full swing, and Mira somehow had the five of their guests in chairs, with their 'partner' sitting in their lap, although she, of course, was exempt, somewhat to the relief of Akashi, who was actually finding the entire display to be quite hilarious.

Then, Lucy had a bright idea, and of course, her ideas always spelled mischief, especially when she got that look on her face. Somewhere in the distance, some of the dragon slayers heard a little blue cat cry out 'Demon Lucyyy'.

"Hey, Mira. Since we have to sit in our partners' laps, don't you think it'd only be appropriate that you sit in your partner's lap? After all, you want him to get the full experience right?"

The girls all looked at Lucy. She was trying what none of them dared, 'She's going to match make the matchmaker.'

Mira, however, was oblivious. She didn't think the girls actually knew about her little scheme. It was one of her only draw backs, she thought she was stealthy and sly, but in reality everyone could read her intentions like a book. So Mira thought that Lucy was just being thoughtful for Akashi, and did as Lucy suggested, moving over to sit on his lap. She smiled down at him. She didn't want to single him out, that would be rude, and she also didn't want the girls catching on to her plans, so she had to play along at all costs.

The girls snickered to themselves, oh my god, she actually bought that.

"Awwww, Lucy, why don't you sit in my lap?" Sting whined from his spot at the table, looking over at her with puppy dog eyes.

"Cause Mira told her to sit in Daiki's lap," Natsu said, "Besides, if she's gonna sit in anyone's lap not on Mira's orders, she'd sit in my lap?"

"Why you're lap?" Rogue questioned; he could see what Mira was doing, just like everyone else, and he wanted to see how the match maker responded to this. He turned his head to see Mira silently fuming at the oblivious pink haired boy. He smirked to himself before continuing, "Are you implying that you're interested in Miss Lucy?"

Mira's face went cold, and then stopped. She looked back and forth between Natsu and Aomine, then started mumbling to herself about threesomes and pink haired babies with brown eyes whose siblings had blue hair and brown eyes.

Lucy's glare went from Rogue, who had made the comment, to Mira, who could be seen mumbling under her breath, looking from Aomine to Lucy to Natsu back to Aomine. Lucy knew the girl well enough to know where her thoughts were going and she had no intention of letting Mira get that idea any further ingrained into her head.

She slid her eyes back to Rogue when she heard him chuckle. That asshole, he planned this! And now he was laughing at her anger! She put her hands on Aomine's thigh, planning to get up and show Rogue just how pissed she really was.

Before she was able to get up, though, strong, and very, very defined arms, she noticed, wrapped themselves around her, dragging her but back down onto Aomine, albeit slightly different from before. Earlier, she was sitting sideways in his lap at his knees, barely any contact, but now, her butt was firmly planted on his thighs, her back pressed to his chest and his arms still wrapped around her.

She glared back at him, but he was staring at Mira, whose face had turned to a truly incredible version of creepy. She gulped and collapsed into him, not willing to fight Mira.

It was then Natsu decided to finally open his mouth, even if it had only been a few seconds since Rogue's question, it seemed as if an eternity had gone by, "What are you talking about? Luce is just my friend."

Lucy sighed, and she sighed again when the creepy look on Mira's face was replaced with a disappointed one. At least Mira wasn't gonna try to go down that road again. All of the women at the table let out little exhales of release.

Then Kuroko spoke up, attempting to get off the topic of relationships so that the poor girls wouldn't have to worry anymore. He poked his head around Lisanna's shoulder, asking, "I thought you guys were all enemies or something, but now you're all acting like old friends. I don't understand." Some of the people at the table jumped, they had almost forgotten he was there.

He thought it would be one of the Fairy Tail mages who answered, but instead it was Jura from Lamia Scale, "We've fought together more than we've fought against each other. That's actually how most of us first met."

"Oh yea, the Oracion Seis Take Down Coalition. Wow, that was a long time ago. It was how I ended up finding out about and joining Fairy Tail!" Wendy said, looking up at Jura and the others with a happy face.

"Yea, that's when Hibiki taught me the Urano Metria spell so we could take down Angel," Lucy said happily, her previous bad mood gone in favor of happy memories.

"Yea, good times. I'm so happy you've managed to master it so well," Hibiki said, winking at Lucy, who rolled her eyes. Then she looked down, was it just her imagination or did Aomine tighten his arms slightly?

"Not to mention, Gray and Lyon grew up together, they had the same mentor, and that's why they both have their stripping habit," Mira giggled. The boys looked at each other and scoffed, but the boys could see that their rivalry was rooted in their sibling relationship.

"What are you guys talking about?" Akashi asked, curious.

"Well, when there's a particularly difficult missions, sometimes we'll form a coalition of guilds to accomplish it," Erza said, eating a bite of cake off the fork Murasakibara held for her. She was still slightly uncomfortable, but hey, at least she got cake.

"So you guys work together?" Kagami said. He could understand that, being rivals and enemies unless there was a common enemy they both wanted to defeat.

"Well, we play together too," Bacchus said, his voice dripping with alcohol as he said it, winking at Cana.

Midorima didn't really like Bacchus, he was extremely vulgar, and he kept hitting on Cana. Couldn't he tell the woman wasn't interested?

Cana smiled back, but didn't flirt, she didn't want to be on the receiving end of Mira's wrath. "You mean we party together!" she said, raising her glass. "Our guilds get together all the time just to party and have fun."

"Lucy and I hang out a lot, too, outside of work and the parties," Yukino said, smiling at her idol. Lucy smiled back, enjoying reminiscing in the memories.

They talked for the next hour, telling the boys of their adventures, the missions they'd been on, the things they'd seen and done, embarrassing moments for everyone, even Jura, and the boys realized that even these people, some of the most powerful people in this world, had quirks and odd behaviors, things they did that were weird.

"But, how can you all be friends and still fight each other?" Aomine said from behind Lucy. He had always thought he was the best, and since he was so strong, no one else could compare, and so he didn't need anyone else.

Lucy just turned back and smiled at him, "Simple. Friendship transcends. We can fight, because we know that we can give it our all, but not kill each other. We know they're strong and that they'll survive. We know that no matter what we have each other, and that's all we need really, is each other."

The guys looked at each other. They had all played together before, with the exception of Kagami, but Kuroko was on his team, and Kise, Midorima, and Aomine had all played with him, even if they were on different teams. They had left each other in the past, but… maybe, maybe one day, their friendship could transcend as well.

...

Okay guys! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, no action, but a little bit of humor and some cutesy stuff with the guys and the girls, oh and Mira being Mira :) If you can't tell, she's one of my favorite characters! Anyways, tell me what you guys think! Love you all, thanks for sticking with this story!