Magical night of Christmas (gratsu)

Christmas with Gray and Natsu

Ok so here's the thing, I feel really bad for not updating my other story and since it's x-mas and everything, I thought maybe I should give at least a small gift to my readers and followers so here I am!!! I hope you enjoy this chapter and Merry Christmas everybody :D

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It was during a snowy night where the city of Magnolia was unusually shining with its many colorful lights and a festive mood was engulfing the whole of Magnolia. Many children were out playing in the snow while others were sitting in the warmth of their parents' home enjoying the holiday meal that was prepared for this purpose. It was like some kind of magical spell was flowing in the air-making the people happy and thrilled on this very day. Even the grumpiest of them all was enjoying this special day that comes only once a year.

This brings us to the middle of town where a very well-known guild was standing tall and, as usual, was emitting most of the noise and laughter that can be heard from the town. Although, this time, no one can blame their boisterous nature since it was, after all, Christmas day and if being noisy makes the guild members happy then so be it. After all, the town's people owed a lot to Fairy Tail so this is the least they could do to repay them. As long as their noisiness does not transform into petty fights that is...
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Inside the guild, Gray was sitting next to his team on a table far away in the corner but still close to the bar where Mira was. In front of him were sitting Erza and Lucy while on his right side sat Wendy. The exceeds did not bother taking a bench, they contented themselves by sitting on the table in front of the youngest member of the team. The ice mage was staring around at the guild hall looking for the missing boy he was looking forward to seeing the most today. It has been a few hours since the party started but there was still no trace of the pink headed boy which caused Gray to worry since the fiery mage would never miss out on such a huge event, especially if there's some food involved.

"Have any of you seen Natsu today? He still hasn't showed up yet!" he said as he stared at the front doors of the guild expecting said boy to show up at any moment now.

His question got Erza's attention to be directed away from her amazingly delicious strawberry short-cake to the raven head. She hummed as she started searching the perimeters with her eyes only, but it was no use, she could not find her youngest childhood friend anywhere inside the building.

"He doesn't seem to have entered the guild since this morning and I must say that, that is weird...," said Erza with her fork in her mouth.

Lucy took the opportunity to intervene and said, "Maybe he's still sleeping, the mission we were on yesterday was somewhat tiring and it did take a toll on us. So maybe he slept in this late, I mean, he did do most of the hard-work yesterday..."

The blond celestial mage's voice lowered with each word as she reached the end of her sentence. Embarrassed to no end, she did just admit that she was completely useless during the mission they took on Christmas Eve with Happy, Charle and Wendy. The bandits they were supposed to catch ended-up being stronger than what they seemed and they were dark magic users to boot! So can anyone blame her or Wendy if they hid behind some conveniently placed boulder while they left the task of beating and catching the bandits to Natsu alone? He did like a good fight and a good fight he got. Besides, no one came out injured from the battle so there was no need to worry about it. Wait...Maybe Natsu did get injured but tried to hide it from us...He wouldn't do that would he? , thought the busty blond teenager.

Worry etched on her features and she directed her gaze up to Wendy's to make sure her thoughts were just erratic but the nervous look and the constant fidgeting she got in return was not helping her to diminish her worries. She abruptly got up from her seat, making the others direct their gaze at her as she said, "I have a bad feeling about this, I need to confirm something so I'm going to check on him!"