The Golden Exceed

Chapter 3 - Lucy's unexpected encounter

Sunlight hit Lucy's window, Lucy woke up hoping she would be back to her normal self. Sadly, as she pulled her covers off her she saw she was still an exceed. Lucy got off the bed to do her daily routine as she got to the bathroom door and she remembered she couldn't reach the bathtub to clean up. Disappointed, she turned back towards her room to find Natsu entering her window. "Hey Lucy" Natsu said to Lucy, totally oblivious that she was mad that he didn't use the door.

"What did I tell you about using the door?" Lucy asked, Natsu just had a look of frustration on his face, obviously trying to think. Lucy sighed saying "just forget it Natsu" "Ok Lucy" Natsu said forgetting what they were talking about. "Oh, Lucy I thought we could go on a job since you need money for rent this month?" Natsu asked sitting on her bed. "Great! I am a little behind with my rent" Lucy replied as she walked over to Natsu, "awesome! Let's go!" Natsu said picking her up and jumping out of her window. Natsu placed Lucy on his shoulder and ran towards the guild getting there in record time.

Natsu kicked open the guild doors. "Hey everyone!" Natsu and Lucy greeted Fairy Tail and the Fairy Tail greeted back, "hey Lucy and Natsu!" Natsu, carrying Lucy, walked over towards the table the rest of Team Natsu was sitting at. Happy looks up at them asking "hey Lucy did Natsu tell you we are going on a job?" "Yes he did, so what job are we doing?" Lucy asked while Natsu placed her next to Happy on the table.

"The job is tracking down some bandits that are attacking travellers and villages near Wass Forest" Erza explained the request to Lucy. "Sounds easy enough, how much is the reward?" Lucy asked to which Gray replied "100,000 Jewels split between us." "That'll cover the rest of my rent!" Lucy said excitedly.

"Since we are all in agreement, I propose that we all sleepover at Lucy's place and leave tomorrow" Erza stated to which Lucy asked "why my place?" "Natsu told us that you can't use magic, and since you are in that form you're too short to reach the things you need" Lucy couldn't argue with Erza reasoning "you're right Erza" Lucy replied. "Then it's settled, we'll meet you at your place this afternoon" Erza stated then left the guild most likely to pack her 'trailer' of stuff. Gray left after her to go pack as well "see you later Lucy" he said as he left.

Most of the day, Lucy was talking with Levy about a book she was obsessed with lately. Natsu and Happy were being crazy around the guild as usual, at one point Natsu and Gajeel were at each other's throats. "You're disturbing my meal, Salamander" Gajeel said with distaste, "so what, iron head" Natsu replied in the same tone. Lucy and Levy sighed while looking at the two boys. Soon it escalated to the two dragon slayer fighting with their magic, tables and chairs flying around the guild.

Luckily, Master Makarov stopped the two by using his strict demonic voice, the two stopped immediately and turn away walking in different directions. Gajeel walked towards a dark corner of the Guild and leaned on the wall, Natsu walked towards where Lucy and Levy were seating. "Hey Natsu what's up?" Lucy asked, "hey Lucy, I'm going home to pack, Happy can walk you home, see you later," Natsu said before running out of the guild.

An hour later, "see you later Levy I'm going home" Lucy said to Levy "ok see you later Lu" Levy replied waving goodbye. Lucy walked out of the guild and onto the streets of Magnolia on her own.

While walking through the streets, Lucy bumped into another exceed, both exceed fell on the ground. Lucy looked up to see who she bumped into, she saw a green exceed in a pink frog costume. "I'm sorry I wasn't looking, are you ok? My name is Lucy" Lucy asked the other exceed "I'm ok, my name Frosch" Frosch replied.

"Frosch!" Lucy and Frosch heard, turning to find the owner of the voice, a man with black hair, red eyes and a black cloak was running towards them. He was followed by a blonde haired, dark blue eyed man and a maroon coloured exceed.

"You shouldn't walk away like that, you know you can't find your way back to the guild. You scared me half to death" the man with black hair said, "sorry Rogue" Frosch apologised. "Who are you?" the man called Rogue asked turning to Lucy, "my name is Lucy Heartfilia" Lucy replies. "Isn't that the name of that blonde Fairy Tail wizard?" the man with the blonde hair asked, "yes that would be me and who are you?" Lucy asked. "I'm Sting Eucliffe, the emo is Rogue Cheney" Sting said to which Rogue said "hey" before continuing, "this is my exceed Lector and you've met Rogue's exceed, Frosch. We're from Sabertooth." 'Sabertooth! Natsu is going to be furious if he knew I talked to them' Lucy thought.

"How did you get turned into an exceed?" Rogue asked Lucy. "I went on a job with my partners, Natsu and Happy. The job was to defeat a dark guild and the Master turned me into this" Lucy said before continuing, "I better get going it was nice to meet you all" Lucy began to hurriedly walking away when suddenly Sting picked her up "hold up, we want to get to know about you more" "I'm meeting up with my team right now to go on a job, I can meet up with you after the job" Lucy replied nicely.

"What's your job and how long will it take?" Sting asked again still holding her "we are defeating some bandits and it will probably take 2 weeks, also can you put me down" Lucy replies. Sting puts Lucy down "how about this, we meet here in front of 'The Pearl' again in exactly 3 weeks 12 o'clock midday" Sting explains to Lucy. Lucy sighed before answering "sure, see you in three weeks" she waved while walking away without being stopped again.