"Have you found anything out?" Lucy looked up from one of the books she was reading to see Luke walking up to the table. When they got back to the guild, Lucy took some books from the Celestial Spirit World's library to see if she could find anything out about Specters and the mysterious man that appeared to them at the lake. She had spent the next morning reading in the guild's café.

"No, not yet. These books don't mention anything about the Specters, or that guy. Seems like this has never happened before." Luke gravely nodded in understanding.

"By the way, did you get your mark yet?" He flashed a grin.

"Yep. Here, look." He held up his left hand, which now had a pastel blue Fairy Tail symbol on it. When he saw Lucy's pink marking on her right hand earlier, he figured that he might as well get one for himself, now that he was going to stay with everyone else. Lucy giggled as she grabbed his hand closer to inspect it.

"It's cute. Really." Luke furrowed his eyebrows for a second, unsure of what his sister meant with that giggle.

"Anyways, you should take a break from all that reading. Why don't you eat something? It'll be time for lunch pretty soon. And after you eat, you can watch me fight Erza!" Lucy was sorting through the books on the table, not really paying attention to Luke's words.

"Sure thing, just give me a sec..." She froze when the words finally sunk in.

"Wait, what!? You're fighting Erza!?" Luke nonchalantly looked at her as he settled in the bench across from her.

"Well, yeah. She's the one who asked me, actually. She said that she wanted to check my skills out by having a practice match."

"And you accepted!?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You know who we're talking about, right!? Erza's reputation is known even in the Celestial Spirit World! From what I hear, no one has been able to beat her in a match!" Luke casually shrugged.

"I'll be fine. Even if I end up getting smashed, it's not like we're fighting to the death anyways. And besides, I'm pretty strong myself." He gave a proud huff and puffed his chest out a bit.

"Well, I'll definitely go watch. I can't miss an opportunity to see my brother get humiliated and destroyed."

"Hey!" Luke glared at his sister, who was doing her best to stifle her giggling fit.

Everyone had cleared out the yard outside to give the two some room to fight. A huge crowd had gathered nearby to watch. Cana took bets on who would win between the two. Naturally, most of the members bet on Erza's victory, since none of them really knew what kinds of powers Luke had.

The two took their positions on opposite sides of the clearing. Erza smiled at Luke.

"Let's have a good match." Luke gave a small smirk.

"Let's. Good luck."

"Good luck to you as well."

"At your signal." Luke motioned for Erza to strike first. Not wanting to keep her opponent waiting, she lunged at him.

"Requip: Flight Armor!" In the blink of an eye, she landed right in front of Luke, and slashed. He barely dodged to the side, surprised at her immense speed.

"Star Suit: Scorpio!" He released a cloud of sand, obscuring all vision of the area.

"Tch, this again? Where could he come from, the left? The right? From behind?" She kept glancing around, hoping to find some sign of his location.

"All wrong, Erza." Her eyes widened as she realized where he was coming from. She barely stepped back as Luke emerged from the ground, now in Virgo form. He was wearing a butler's uniform with shackles on his wrists. He slashed forwards, hoping to catch Erza off guard. The redhead, however, brought her sword up and blocked his sword, leaving the two in a struggle of power.

Erza jumped back and requipped into her Lightning Empress Armor and began to shoot bolts of lightning at Luke.

He dodged and changed into his Aries suit. His shirt was now covered with a fluffy white wool sweater. He released some of Aries' wool magic, conducting Erza's lightning and preventing the redhead from doing any damage. He charged at her, intending to use her magic against her, but she deflected with a barrier. After another minute of struggle, they split and went back to their starting positions.

Erza gave a small smile. "You're better than I thought."

"Ditto." Luke returned the smile.

"In that case... Requip: Purgatory Armor!"

"Star Suit: Capricorn!" He was now wearing a twin-tailed suit with a white shirt and black tie, with a pair of shades completing the ensemble. Luke knew Erza was going for power in this match, so he decided to try outspeeding her to win.

She charged, swinging her mace in a wide arc. He had to bring both swords up to block the weapon, and even then he struggled to hold it back. Erza stepped back and prepared to swing again, this time hoping to overwhelm Luke so that he would fall to her strength. However, he dodged to the side before she could bring the mace down, and proceeded to unleash a barrage of slashes. She deflected most of the hits with her armor-clad forearm, taking minimal damage.

Luke jumped back and swung one of his swords in the air. He channeled his magic and summoned Loke to help him fight for a bit. After a brief pause, they charged forward.

Erza requipped back into her Heaven's Wheel Armor, and took up one sword in each hand. She fought both of them back with deft blocks and parries. She would dodge Loke's punch while sidestepping Luke's swords. She would glide over one of them while spawning swords to parry the other. The pair just couldn't find an opening in her defense.

"Erza's seriously tough.." The guild members quietly murmured among themselves as they began to fear Erza even more than they already did. She really was one of the most powerful members of Fairy Tail, and this fight only proved her prowess.

Natsu could feel his insides burning as he watched the battle. It took everything he had to control himself and prevent his body from igniting. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to join in on the fight and show the guild that he was strong, too. However, he still respected that they wanted this particular arrangement for practice, and forced himself to sit still.

Another few minutes passed, and Erza and Luke were at a stalemate. They were resting again, on opposing sides of the clearing. Luke stood straight and sighed, but gave a small smile. Erza furrowed her brow, unsure of what the blond was thinking.

"I can't believe you took both of us on like that," Luke said as he sheathed his swords. He deactivated his Star Suit and nodded at Loke, who disappeared at the signal. "I guess if even double-teaming won't work, I'll have to start getting serious." He closed his eyes and began to swirl his magic around himself. Erza could only watch as he continued focusing his power. It was true that she managed to hold him off for that long, but she was getting worn out from all of the requipping and fighting. And because she had no idea of what he was about to do, she couldn't come up with a strategy to fight him back.

"Star Suit-"

"Nullify." A small flash blinded everyone in and around the clearing. When the light faded, everyone looked around, confused. Erza looked up to see Luke, standing in the same place, but with no magic power surrounding his body. He gave a sheepish smile and shrugged.

"Well, guess my fun's over."

"You bet it is. You should know better than that." Lucy stepped out of the crowd and into the clearing, scowling at Luke as she did so. He shrugged again.

"Sorry, Luce. Guess I got too into it." Lucy huffed in response.

"Just be more careful in the future."

"Got it." Erza blinked.

"Um.." Lucy turned to Erza and gave an apologetic smile.

"Oh, sorry to interrupt! It's just that.. Luke was about to use a skill that's considered taboo for us. I had to cancel his magic out to stop him. And.. I'm afraid you can't continue with the fight either. Since I actually nullified his powers, he won't be able to fight anymore." Luke nodded.

"Sorry, Erza. I'm done. Guess we'll have to consider this a tie." The redhead requipped back to her Heart Kreuz Armor.

"Very well. We can always continue this later." He nodded back, smiling. The trio turned back to the crowd, which emitted a collection of groans.

"A tie!? That means the bets are off!" Everyone grumbled as Cana cleared all of the bets. Lucy laughed as she took her brother's hand. Everyone filed back into the guild hall to sit inside. Erza, Luke and Lucy all sat at the same table. Wendy, Gray and Natsu joined them. Wendy ran up behind Erza's spot on the bench, and held her hands out.

"Let me heal you, Erza-san!"

"Thank you, Wendy." Though neither of the two fighters landed any strong hits on the other, they were both covered with bruises, and were aching all over. Neither would openly admit their pain, however.

"I'll heal you right after I'm done with her, Luke-san!"

"I'm fine, just take your time."

"Yo, Luke, you're actually pretty tough. I haven't seen anyone match Erza so evenly in a long time now," Gray said.

"I really am impressed. You're an excellent swordsman. And your power resembles mine.." Erza thought about the similarities between his Star Suits and her own Requip power. Luke nodded.

"My sister and I both do that. We can fight with Spirits summoned, or we can fight on our own by borrowing their powers. We also have direct control over Celestial Magic, to a certain extent. For example, Lucy just nullified my magic power." The group nodded in understanding.

"But anyways, Erza, you're seriously way tougher than I thought. I can see why you're known as Titania, Queen of the Fairies." Erza gave a small smile.

"Thank you. I don't really care for the nickname, but I suppose I understand why I'm referred to as such. In reality, I'm only strong so that I can fight to protect my friends, my family." Lucy's eyes sparkled.

"That's beautiful!"

"Whatever! Luke! Erza! Let's fight!" Natsu jumped up on the table, unable to contain himself longer. He was already spewing fire in his excitement.

"Get down, bastard!" Gray yelled at Natsu and tried to tug him down, but the Dragon Slayer refused to budge. Lucy spoke up.

"Natsu, you can't be serious. They just had a fight, and they're worn out." Luke laughed.

"Yeah, sorry, but I really can't fight right now. I need some time to recharge my magic, and we still have the whole mess with the Celestial Spirit World to work out. But I'd be happy to fight you eventually." Natsu huffed and sat back down with a pout. Lucy sat back and smiled as she looked around the table at her friends.

...

Everything feels so nice like this. If only things could stay this way...

A/N: Aaaand the awful update schedule continues. I'm super sorry for my terribleness.. I guess I'm not cut out for writing a long story with consistent updates :X

But anyways, I hope this chapter was acceptable. I wanted to practice fight scenes a bit, to prepare for the big fights coming later. This one's short, but I'm still figuring out how I should write these scenes. Thoughts?

And as always, thanks for reading! I'm especially thankful since my update schedule's almost nonexistent at this point, so I'm sure that it's pretty painful watching me struggle through the chapters.. Thanks again, and see you soon (hopefully..)!