The Job

POW!
The hard sound echoed throughout the guild hall and everyone began roaring with laughter.
All of the laughter was aimed towards Natsu who was slowly lifting his head from his table slowly, rubbing it as it throbbed in agony. He looked up at Erza, his eyes misty from the pain.
"Owww! What was that for Erza?" He whined.
"You're too messy when you eat. Look at what you did to the table." She pointed at said table where their team was sitting.
Chunks of food were strewn across it, most of it on Gray and Lucy, who sat opposite of Natsu and Erza. He looked at his friends confused as he put another piece of meat in his mouth.
"Mwhat happemmd to yu guys?" He asked, the food muffling his speech.
"You happened, flame brain." Gray said irritably as he wiped the chunks of food off of himself.
"Geez Natsu, why do you always have to go so overboard?" Lucy added also wiping away food.
Natsu smiled at his friends as he continued eating. "Heh heh sorry."
Erza smiled at Natsu softly and continued eating her food.
It was a usual day at Fairy Tail. Nothing particularly exciting was happening, but as always it was never dull. It had been a week since Natsu had been rescued by Erza and the others, and he was eager to get back to work. Erza stayed with him the whole time he was recovering and she felt that they had gotten closer, especially since they made their talk on the balcony. Things were finally back to normal and everyone was thankful for that.
Natsu walked to the job board to find something for his first official day back, as usual Nab was idling in front of the board.
"Geez Nab do you ever work?" Natsu said with a joking smile as he browsed the board.
"Aw come on Natsu." Nab whined.
"Pick a job Nab." Erza said not looking as she sipped her tea.
"Yes ma'am." Nab answered sulking. "Thanks a lot Natsu."
"Sorry." Natsu chuckled.
He continued to look through the job board. "Finding a lost bracelet? No too easy. Translating an ancient code? Not doing that again." his eyes continued to trail until he found the perfect job. "Got it!" He ripped from the request board and took it back to his friends, slamming it on the table.
Lucy jumped up from seat in surprise and anger, "Agh! Natsu what the…" she stopped yelling when she looked at the mission Natsu had picked. Her eyes grew wide in happiness, "D-Does that say what I think it does?" she looked up at Natsu who nodded and smiled wide at her. She then looked back down at the job request.
Wanted! Strong Wizards to run Dark Guild out of town.
Reward: 10 million jewel
Location: Lumina
Lucy squealed with joy at the sight of the reward. "Just think of all the things I could get if I had that kind of money." She began to hum to herself and thought of all the house wares and clothes she would buy. That is until Gray burst her bubble.
"I think you guys aren't seeing the big picture here." He pointed at the job post, "If the reward is 10 million, which means these guys must be insanely strong."
Natsu looked at Gray, "What's your point?"
"My point is that it will take more than us four…"
"Five!" Happy chimed in as he moved from next to Erza.
Gray looked at the little cat and sighed, "…Fine 5. It will take more than that to run these guys out of town, look at the city its in."
Natsu and Lucy looked at the paper confused, "Lumina." Natsu said aloud
"Oh I've heard of that place." She said patting her fist into her palm, "Isn't that one of the biggest cities in Fiore?" Lucy asked Gray who nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, it is. Which means there must be a whole bunch of these guys if they took it over."
"So, who cares? Sounds like fun to me right Erza?" Natsu looked at Erza with a look of anticipation and awaited her answer.
She put down the tea cup she was drinking from and looked at her friends with a smile on her face, "Yes it does sound entertaining. I say we go"
Lucy and Natsu jumped for joy at her answer and began dancing happily as Gray sulked in slight disappointment, but he eventually relented. "Fine, but we need at least 4 more people to go with us. Like I said Lumina's a huge place. We could cover more ground and get the mission done quicker."
Erza nodded, "Agreed, I'll leave the recruitment to you 3."
Gray looked surprised, "Wait, what are you going to be doing?"
She got up from the table and looked in his eyes sternly, almost intimidating him.
"I'm…going to get a piece of cake." She said smiling at him.
Gray almost fell out of his chair as he watched Erza walk away. "What?!"
She waved back at him and headed to the bar to order her food. "We'll leave later this afternoon, be ready by then."
"Will do." Gray looked back at Natsu and Lucy who were still dancing, "Do you guys have anyone in mind?"
The stopped dancing and turned to Gray. 
"Yeah we got it covered." Natsu answered, "What about you?"
"I have someone in mind." As Gray looked off to the left, Lucy caught where his gaze laid and smiled mischievously at him.
"You're going to bring Juvia aren't you?"
"Yeah so? Her water magic will help us out."
"Sure it will." Lucy said mockingly as she winked at him. "Come on Natsu let's go." She pulled him by his arm as he looked at Gray confused.
"What was that about?" Gray asked confused scratching his head.
They made it to the middle of the guild hall and split up, Lucy heading towards Wendy and Carla, who were sitting with Elfman and Lisanna.
Natsu frantically looked around the guild for someone to invite, his eyes then stopped wandering when he saw a table on the far left of the bar. He began to walk like a man possessed.
Meanwhile, Erza was sitting at the bar eating her strawberry cake. Each delicious bite made her smile wide. Mira approached her with a warm smile.
"So you're going on a job?" she asked.
"Yes, Natsu picked it out. It's just a simple clearing out of a dark guild in Lumina. The reward is 10 million."
"Oh Lumina? I've heard about that job. Apparently the guild there is pretty strong.."
Erza continued eating her cake, "It's nothing we can't handle."
"What about Natsu?"
Erza stopped eating, placed down her fork, and looked up at Mira. "What do you mean?"
"Well he just recently recovered. Are you sure he's ready for a mission like this?"
"Natsu can take care of himself. Besides-" She wiped the remaining pieces of cake from around her mouth with her napkin." Nothing will happen to him…" She then looked at Mira with a fierce look of resolve and determination, "I won't let it."
Mira could see the truth behind Erza's words and smiled at her, "You really care about him don't you?"
"We made a promise. I'm not going to break it." She then picked her fork back up and continued eating her cake. Smiling with each orgasmic bite.
Natsu made his way to the table where he saw Gajeel sitting with the members of Shadow Gear. Gajeel looked positively bored at the table, but Levy begged him to come so he there he sat. When he saw Natsu his attention was suddenly caught, but he looked at his fellow Dragon Slayer with the same look of annoyance he gave everyone else in Fairy Tail.
"What do you want Salamander?" he grumbled.
Natsu looked back at him, matching his intensity. "Me and the others are going on a job in Lumina. You wanna go?"
Gajeel scoffed at Natsu and looked away from him with a cocky smirk, "Now why would I go on another mission with you?"
"The reward is 10 million jewel."
Gajeel's eyes grew wide and he stood up fast, shaking the table and spilling the drinks.
"Ah! Gajeel." Levy said annoyed as the some of her parfait fell on her dress.
"Watch it man." Jet said.
"Come on." Droy said after but Gajell ignored them all.
"10 million jewel?!"
Natsu nodded silently.
Gajeel fixed his face to match Natsu's intensity, "Well…fine, I'll go with ya. But only because I got nothin better to do."
Gajeel then looked down at Levy, who was cleaning the scattered crumbs off of her that Gajeel caused to spill.
"Hey shrimp you wanna come?"
Levy looked up at him confused, "What? Come where?"
"I'm going with Salamander on a job. Do you wanna come or not?"
She blushed at him and looked down at her feet.
"OH…yeah, sure."
"Alright we're in." Gajeel said looking back at Natsu.
"Great." Natsu said smiling "We're leaving later today." Natsu walked off from the table back to his friends, Gajeel and Levy watching him.
Gajeel smirked and sat back down, "That guy."
"What is it Gajeel?" Levy asked confused by the look on his face.
"It's nothing. What happened to you three? How'd you get all messy." He asked not realizing he caused the mess.
All three of team Shadow Gear looked at him exasperated.
Lucy approached Wendy and smiled at her. The young girl looked up at her nervously. 
"H…Hi Lucy." She said with a smile.
"Hey Wendy. The others and I are going on a mission in a few hours and I was wondering if you wanted to join us."
Wendy's face turned red from embarrassment, "Really? You want me to join you?" she said with surprise.
"Sure, why not?" Lucy answered with a warm smile.
Wendy smiled back and nodded. She then looked at Carla who sat next on the table sipping tea. "Can we go Carla?" she asked expectantly.
"Hmm?" Carla asked looking up at her. "I don't mind child. I was going to tell you to find a job today anyway. You've been rather lazy as of late." The cat replied coldly, taking another sip of tea as Wendy began sulking.
"You didn't have to say it like that Carla."
Lucy giggled at the two. "Well it will be good to have you two, we're leaving in a couple of hours. Make sure you're ready."
Wendy looked up at her and smiled excitedly nodding her head "Right! We will."
"Good." Lucy then turned around and went back to her table. As they watched Lucy walk away images began to flash in Carla's mind: Erza lying in a bed injured, what looked like members of Oracion Seis, Natsu and Erza fighting one another outside the guild hall, Natsu being held by the throat by a mysterious man while Wendy and the others lie unconscious, and finally a young redheaded girl surrounded by fire. What was that? A premonition?
"Are you alright Carla?" Wendy asked noticing her friend's apprehension. "Did you see something?"
"Yes I did. I have a feeling this job request is going to set some dangerous things in motion."
Gray walked to the bar where Juvia sat. She was talking to Cana about random topics, although most of them usually ended with talks of men though.
"Hey Juvia." he called her name and Juvia's face lit up as she looked at Cana. She turned around quickly.
"Y-yes Gray?"
"My team and I are going on a job in a few hours, you wanna go?"
Juvia's heart almost burst from her chest from happiness. "Of course I…" her face suddenly turned bright red as she looked at Gray.
Gray looked at her a bit irritated, "You what? Do you wanna go or not?"
Juvia couldn't even speak, she just sat there frozen, her face red and her jaw dropped.
"What's wrong with you?" Gray asked her, placing his hands on her shoulders and shaking her.
Cana looked up from her mug of beer. "Gray, your clothes." she said looking apathetically at the now near naked Ice wizard.
Gray looked down and jumped in fright, he was once again in his boxers.
"How the hell did that happen? Hold on." He put his clothes back on and Juvia's face returned to normal, albeit she was still blushing.
"So you wanna come or not." He asked Juvia again.
She continued to blush as she nodded, "Y...yes, I will go with you. I'll go anywhere you want me to Gray."
Gray blushed slightly and scratched his head, "You didn't have to say it like that."
He then cleared his throat and continued speaking, "Well we leave in a few hours. So be ready."
She nodded again and answered him nervously, "Ok." She then smiled wide at him.
Gray turned around and went back his table. He regrouped with Natsu and the others back and they began to talk about who they had invited.
"So," Erza started "Who will be joining us on our mission?" she scanned her comrades before stopping at Lucy who was sitting across from her. "Lucy?"
"I picked Wendy. She hasn't been here that long so I thought it would be nice to bring her with us so so she could get to know everyone and get some more experience."
"Good point." Erza nodded satisfied "Natsu?" she said looking at the dragon slayer.
"I picked Gajeel and he said he's bringing Levy with him."
"Good, we could use her skills on this job." Erza then stood up and looked at her group determined. "It looks like we have a team ready. We should go prepare ourselves."
Natsu and Lucy stood up along with Erza and saluted her. As the three went to prepare, Gray was still sitting by himself confused.
"Wait, you guys didn't ask who I brought." As soon as he said this, Happy flew past him with a mischievous smile on his face.
"We all know you asked Juvia." He began laughing as Gray tried to swipe at him but missed. Gray then sat back down irritated, "Stupid cat."
A few hours later, the group was all assembled in front of the guild hall and ready to go.
Erza laid out the plan of travel. "Ok it will take us close to three days to reach Lumina, so we are going to take the train to Hargeon and from there it will be about a two day walk through the Tenru forest. Any questions?"
Gajeel raised his hand.
"Yes Gajeel?" She said as she pointed to him.
"Yeah um, why the hell did you bring all that stuff?"
The rest of the group looked up to see a mountain of luggage behind Erza. It was so tall it almost blocked the sun. Erza proudly patted her haul.
"It's a three day journey of course, so I had to make sure I packed plenty of clothing for myself. As well as food and supplies for us all."
Natsu's eyes widened upon hearing the "f" word. "You brought food Erza?" He asked as he began drooling
She smiled at him, "I did but it's only for our trek through the forest."
Natsu stepped back with a sad look on his face, "Aww man." He said sulking, "But I want some now. Your food is so good."
Erza blushed slightly, she had fed Natsu before but this was the first time he said it was good aloud. She then turned around. "Alright, let's get going. That dark guild won't eliminate itself."
"Aye!" Natsu and Happy said energetically as the large group began to move out. Natsu walking side by side and talking with Erza as they made their way to the train. station.