Sting awoke to the smell of burning... burning what? He had no idea. He quickly shot up, into a sitting position and looked around. Rogue and the Exceeds were all missing. That's when shouts from the kitchen reached his ears. "Natsu! You're supposed to be cooking the eggs, not burning or roasting the eggs!" He heard who he assumed was Rogue shout.

"Well not my fault! You insisted I help!" Natsu shot back.

"I insisted you don't!" He heard a loud clang after, assuming it was something important or funny, he got up and walked over to the kitchen entrance. After taking a peak in he saw one shadow dragon slayer covered in cut vegetables... and Natsu's hand on a now elevated chopping board. "Natsu! Out of the kitchen!" The ravenet ordered.

"It's my kitchen!"

"It's gonna be no one's kitchen when you burn it down!" Both of their attention turned to Sting laughing in the doorway. The way they looked made it even funnier and soon Sting was struggling to breathe through the laughing. "What's so funny?" They both ask in unison, their tones were a mix of angered and concerned which just made the White Dragon Slayer laugh even harder. Eventually he found himself lying on the ground of the doorway.

"I'm s-sorry. I d-don't know why I c-c-cant stop l-laughing!" Eventually he wasn't even laughing at what happened in the kitchen but just at his own laughter and situation.

"You don't have any adult beverages anywhere inside, right?" Rogue asked.

"Nuh Uh" Natsu insured.

After about thirty minutes of Sting curled up in a ball on the floor laughing his head off for absolutely no reason he finally calmed down and was catching his breath. Lector, Happy, and Frosch returned from an apparently desperate grocery run. Rogue cooked a filling breakfast for the six of them, the cats had fish and the dragon slayers had eggs, toast, and some tea. Natsu nearly burnt the kitchen down twice that morning alone, apparently he liked his toast extra crispy. It took him two loaves of bread to make the 'perfect' piece of toast. After breakfast they all had to change and get ready using a single bathroom, luckily they weren't in a desperate rush so they were able to get ready without, much, screaming. Lector and Happy had somehow gotten into a fight about Carla already, even though they haven't even seen her yet. 'Great two romantic rivals living together- who are both entirely hopeless when it comes to their crush...' Sting sighed thinking about how painful it'll be to live with those two fun sized idiots. It was already eleven by the time they left the house, Natsu lived pretty far from Magnolia, at least a twenty minute walk to the edge of town, and another fifteen to the guild hall. It was already clear they were walking into a war zone once they came into earshot. Shouting, breaking glass, and the smell of alcohol filled the air. Of course the dragon slayers were the only ones who could hear or smell any of it, but from experience the townsfolk already knew what was going down.

After reaching the door Natsu turned back and gave them a big smile before almost kicking the door down and yelling "!". Surprisingly enough for Sting and Rogue they yelled back.

"Hey Natsu, Sting, Rogue!" They said chopely, they still had to get used to the two arriving with Natsh it seems. The three walked up to the bar.

Rogue almost made it but was dragged away by Erza. The redhead was scary in her own right, but regarding her crush she's terrifying. 'I wouldn't approach her if my life was on the line if she was with Rogue' Sting thought to himself while watching the scene of Rogue basically crying while being pulled away. After turning back to the bar Mira was standing scary close to his face.

"So- Sting, do you have a girl-" suddenly she was interrupted by a flying chair. Sting yelped as he looked at the unconscious Mira on the other side of the bar muttering something he couldn't hear. It sounded like 'or bowl fend' but it could've been anything.

"Hey! Pyro!" A, mostly naked, guild member yelled. Sting recognized him as Gray Fullbuster, the Ice Make Wizard.

"What you want, ice princess!?" The Fire dragon slayer yelled back at his rival.

"What'd you call me flame breath!?"

"Exactly what you heard, Elsa!"

"Boys!" The requipt Wizard appeared with shocking speed. "You're not fighting, are you?"

"No Ma'am!" They both yelled in unison, putting their arms around each other's shoulders.

"Good to hear it, now move it!"

"Aye!". With that they both ran away... dancing? Sting shook his head and sighed, he stood up from the bar and approached the request board. There were tons of jobs listed, ranging from 'finding books' to 'slaying monsters'. Sting wanted to find one he could complete by the end of the day, hopefully without transportation so he doesn't miss training but he thought some money would be nice. Suddenly Rogue appeared next to him and was also looking for a job. Of course he was quickly dragged away again by the redhead.

'I feel so bad for him' he giggled at his best friend's poor, inescapable fate. 'Now a job-' his thought was quickly interrupted by someone he didn't recognize entering the guildhall. The mystery person looked around the hall and then like a rock it struck him. 'Yukino'.

Lucy was the first to make a move and shot out of her seat at the bar and ran over to the Celestial spirit mage, "Yukino!" she pounced on her. After a few seconds of hugging she released her and pulled her over to the bar. "It's so good to see you, I was worried when we couldn't find you in Crocus after the Eclipse mess."

"Oh, I-i'm sorry I didn't mean to worry you." she repeatedly bowed with misty eyes.

"No problem!" Lucy said trying to comfort the near crying mage.

"B-but I had to think about what you said!" She finished, going back to her more cheerful personality but her breathing was still a bit shaky. "And I think.." She stopped herself, and calmed her breathing. "I think I want to join Fairytail." Wide eyes stared at the sudden confession in the conversation between the Celestial Wizards. After a few seconds of staring, the guild erupted in cheers.

Yukino was startled by the sudden roars and cheers from the surrounding guild. "Looks like they think it's also a pretty good idea too" Yukino turned to Lucy who was smiling, and she realized she was too. "So come on! Let's get you stamped!"

Sting watched the entire scene unfold from his spot next to the job board, he couldn't help but smile and cheered alongside the rest of the guild. He turned his attention back to the job listings and decided to choose one that involved helping a store in town move crates. 'Should be easy enough, just a few crates'. He ripped the job listing off the board and left the guildhall, but not before mocking Rogue by sticking his tongue out. Oh, what a bad idea that was... Erza chased him out of the guildhall after tying the Shadow Dragon Slayer down. "I'm sorry Erza, please don't kill me!" He screamed while running from the angry red head through the streets of Magnolia. Suddenly an idea popped into his head, "Oh no! That man's cake is being stolen!" he flails his arms in the direction of an alleyway. 'This is gonna get me killed later isn't it...'. He continued running down the street only to turn around and see in fact... the requip mage was fighting a cake mugger. "What the- you know what. I'll just ignore that." he whispers to himself before turning around and heading to his job.

As it turned out it wasn't 'a few crates', it was two hundred and fifty crates filled with heavy merchandise. He still had around thirty left when someone dropped by. "Oh, hi Sting.". That someone being Lucy who he was startled to see when he turned around. Nearly dropping a crate he gasped.

"Ohh, H-hey Lucy. What are you doing here?" He asked, trying to regain his balance with the crate in hand.

"Oh just walking home, the road along the canal I usually walk on is being repaired after a... mishap."

"I'm gonna guess someone in the guild did some major property damage?" He laughed.

"Yeah" she laughed along with him.

"Do you need any help? I'm sure Virgo and I can give you a hand if you want." She asked.

"Oh, thanks but I got it from here. It's getting late. I wouldn't want to bother you." He replied with a hint of nervousness.

"Oh it wouldn't be a bother, it's not like I've got anything better to do." In truth, he was terrified of the spirit 'Virgo'. After seeing her take down Natsu in a few seconds, even if he wasn't fighting back, he was scared of even the name Virgo.

"N-no I insist I'm fine. I'm almost done here anyway, just a few more crates!" He said all too eagerly.

"Hmm, fine. See you at the guild tomorro- oh wait, your training with Natsu, never mind." She paused, "Goodnight, Sting"

"Night" he waved as she walked away down the alleyway. 'Now back to these crates...'

"Ehh emm..." someone cleared their voice behind him, he turned around to see the owner of the shop and his employer. "You aren't gonna let a young lady walk home all by herself, are you?" She asked in a quiztive but cheerful tone.

"I mean I still have thirty cra-" he replies before getting cut off by a cane hitting his leg.

"I know how many you have left," sounding slightly angrier but in a grandma way, "but it seems like a certain someone," she gestures in the direction the celestial wizard went. "needs some company" she winked with a smile.

"Huh-" Sting was very, very, confused.

"You're hopeless!" She sighed, "Go follow her so she doesn't have to walk home alone. You FairyTail wizards are hopeless..."

"But-"

"No buts! Now go!" She yelled while whacking him with her cane.

"Okay, okay!" He yelled back as he ran away from the short old woman. It didn't take him long to catch up to the blond, she was only two blocks away by the time he caught up to her. He cleared his throat getting her attention, "Hey Luce.".

She smiled at him, "Hey, thought you had to unload more crates?".

He laughed at the weird memory of the old lady threatening him with the cane, "Yeah, funny story. My boss chased me off and told me to not let you walk home alone." He was blushing slightly but she wasn't able to tell in the light.

"That's weird... did you get paid at least?" she asked.

He was about to reply 'No...' until he remembered that the lady paid him before he started. "Err- yeah I did actually...".

"That's good, it's getting kinda cold so let's hurry if possible." She said while starting to walk again.

"Okay!" He said while he started to walk behind her. They didn't talk for a bit but ended up talking about how he's excited to start training with Natsu, and how he's a bit worried about the nature of the mission they're supposed to go on. Before they knew it they were at her apartment.

"Well this is my stop, good luck training Sting." She smiled, and then headed to the door to her complex.

"Goodnight." He replied before watching the door close. He walks off towards Natsu's house. When he finally gets there he sees a note on the door.

Sting!

When you get home, go to sleep, we start training early. Goodnight!

~Natsu

Of course the handwriting was awful, and half the words were spelled wrong, but it worked well enough. He went to bed after grabbing some jerky from the fridge and changed into his required pajamas. Rogue refused to allow anyone to sleep half naked for the sake of Frosch's innocence. He flopped onto the bed, hugged a pillow close to his chest, got comfortable under the blankets, and drifted off to sleep.

This time when he awoke it wasn't to the smell of anything burning, or shouting. It was to what felt like an earthquake. He and Rogue immediately shot out of bed and the cats were already flying above them. "What the hell!?" He yelled.

"I do- AHH!" Rogue yelled as he tried to stand but fell back down. The cats were flying in circles above them screaming about the end of the world, when all of a sudden the earthquake stopped. Sting and Rogue looked at each other before standing up and making their way around the house looking for Natsu and any property damage. After finding no clue to his whereabouts and concluding that the house is almost one hundred percent safe they decide to change and then go out and look for him in town.

After changing, they leave the small cottage only to gasp at Natsu, in dragon form, waiting outside. 'Well now we know what caused the earthquake...' The white dragon slayer thought to himself.

"" He whined.

"You nearly took the whole house down! We were checking to see if it would fall in on itself!" Rogue retorted, angrily.

"" The dragon smiled, which was absolutely terrifying as it show'd all of its sharp teeth.

"Yeah! Cause we thought we were going to die!" One of the exceeds yelled.

"" It was obvious that the fire mage was really excited to start training. So they did. It was gruesome and tiring, they started with physical training involving boulders, trees, carrying carts of fish for a certain blue exceed... And magic training. The latter of which was just as exhausting. Meditating, draining all of their magic power just to be forced to replenish it as fast as possible, and using the same move over and over again to build up its strength and speed were just a few activities.

"Come on, you can do better!" Natsu cheered, in his human for now, as Sting and Rogue were sparring against each other. They've been training for just over a month at this point, but it wasn't that bad as both Sting and Rogue were excited. Natsu had been refusing to teach them the very spell they've been preparing for, but finally he agreed they might be ready to give it a go. But that was still a week away.

"Easy for you to say you're just sitting there!" Sting yelled.

"You guys haven't moved in like five minutes!" Happy called.

"Well- Umm-" Sting was interrupted by Rogue who had appeared behind him and hit him with a Shadow Dragon Claw and proceeded to try and hit him again.

"" he roared and proceeded to kick Sting in the gut. It wasn't very powerful as both were tired and panting but the White Dragon Slayer refused to lose.

After taking a large inhale of breath Sting attacked back, "". Rogue was unable to dodge and was hit head on, after it subsided both Dragon Slayers looked at eachother smirking. But alas both ended up falling over at the same time from exhaustion. They both heard footsteps coming from the direction where the others were sitting moments prior.

"Looks like I'm gonna have to carry you back" the third dragon slayer sighed, but you could tell he wasn't annoyed. "You guys carry Rogue, I'll get Sting.". The fire dragon slayer hoisted the blond up and put him on his back. Sting instinctively hugged him as he always sleeps hugging a pillow or something fluffy, or a person apparently. Sting was drifting into unconsciousness when he heard the fire mage mumble "he's kinda cute when he's sleepy".

"W-what?" he asked, wanting to know if what he heard wasn't just his imagination, but he still blushed a bit.

"N-nothing!" Natsu stuttered out getting a bit of a pink tint on his neck. Sting would have teased him about it if he wasn't so tired, he buried his head into his shoulder.

"Oki, I'm gonna take a nap..." He said before once again succumbing to the pull of sleep.

"Goodnight." He heard Natsu whisper.