Grace and Gajeel were out on a two week long mission to harvest berries for an old medicine woman. The forest was too dangerous for her to travel through, so she requested some guild wizards to do it.

They were now a few days in, already having collected all the common berries on their list, with the help of Gajeel's nose. The rest of the berries had to do with timing, meaning they only grew at a certain time of day or only on a certain day. Luckily they hadn't met anything dangerous yet, unless you count how many times a thorn bush "grabbed" Gajeel, as dangerous.

They came to a large clearing and saw the bush with their next berry on it. They arrived just in time since the berries had just started growing because of the sunset. Grace opened the magic basket that would keep them from going bad and they began picking the small purple berries. When they finished collecting what they felt like was enough, Gajeel stated, "Let's just camp here for the night. The next berry won't even be available until tomorrow."

The red head nodded and followed the male to the base of a tree. Grace chanted, "Shapeshift! Bengal Tigress! Fire mode!"

She glowed a gold light that changed shape and size, soon dying down to reveal a Bengal Tiger. The big cat laid down under the tree, curled up. Gajeel put the berries right next to her and sat down with his back against her furry chest. They had done this for the past few days, Grace's fire mode kept her body warm and when Gajeel rested against her the heat spread to him to keep him warm as well.

They were close to falling asleep when the loud crash and thud of a tree being knocked down shook the area. They bolted up, ready to fight. Soon a large creature with purple fur emerged from the trees. It roared and looked around the clearing. When it spotted the two, it squinted its bright green eyes at them then looked to the ground next to them. Their berry basket.

It suddenly roared in anger and charged for the pair. Grace quickly chanted, wanting this to be a quick fight, "Shapeshift! Black Leopardess! Poison mode!"

She transformed into a black leopard and chanted, "Black Leopard's Poison Needles!!"

She aimed her tail at the creature as it kept charging. Small but sharp needles coated in deadly venom shot from the tip in a barrage. They all hit the creature, causing it to roar in pain and collapse. It groaned as it writhed in pain on the ground. Grace and Gajeel thought it was done for until it stood up and suddenly started growing bigger. They stared in awe not knowing what was happening. Gajeel suddenly remembered what those purple berries were. Some type of poison was within the berry. He assumed the monster must have come looking for the bush to eat them. That must have been why it was purple and why Grace's poison attack did nothing but make it stronger. He quickly shouted, "It feeds off poison! I would try something else!"

Grace growled, "No shit, Sherlock! Shapeshift! Bengal Tigress! Fire mode!"

She transformed into a Bengal Tiger and said to Gajeel through her telepathy, "Lets kill this thing with our roars."

Gajeel nodded and stepped next to her as he chanted, "IRON DRAGON'S..."

Grace following suit, "BENGAL TIGER'S INCINERATING FLAME..."

"...ROOOOAR!!"

Their attacks shot from their mouths and combined into a swirling vortex of fire and metal shards. The attack hit the creature head on. It screamed in agony as it was sliced and burned from the combined roars. They stopped attacking and watched as the smoke cleared and the creature slowly collapsed to the ground, shaking the ground on contact, dead. They both sighed and Grace stated without moving her mouth but with a smirk, bearing her sharp teeth, "Well, I guess we know now why that old lady wanted guild mages doing this."

The iron dragon just nodded and yawned. They settled back down by the tree. They laid there with their eyes closed for a minute before Gajeel broke the silence, "I've been wondering, how come you can stay in your shifts while you're asleep?"

Grace answered without opening her eyes, "I can stay in a form as long as I want, forever if I wanted to. If I were to get knocked out in a certain shift then I would stay in that shift until I came to and could change it."

The male nodded and closed his eyes again. They both soon fell asleep to the calming sounds of the forest.

The rest of the mission was relatively docile, only having to fight a few small animals trying to eat their berries. They collected the reward from the old woman and set off for the train station to catch the train back to Magnolia.

Time Skip

They got back to Fairy Tail and opened the doors to find everything as it usually was, fighting, drinking, and loud conversations. Gajeel growled in annoyance, causing Grace to smirk at him, "You really don't like this guild do you?"

He just grunted in confirmation, to which the red head laughed and shook her head. She stated with a smug smile as she elbowed him in the side, "Who knows though? You might end up liking it here. It's never boring."

The iron dragon just rolled his eyes with a scowl. Grace walked over to the bar, with Gajeel in tow. She greeted the take over mage with a small smile, "Hey Mira. We're back from our mission."

The white haired woman turned and looked down to see the little red head climb into a bar stool, "Hi Grace. It's good to see you're not hurt."

Said girl just waved her off, "Nothing we couldn't handle. We didn't really fight much anyway. Not that I couldn't handle a lot of fighting."

The she demon giggled before she suddenly remembered, "Oh! You have to meet the newest member! She's your age and she's a dragon slayer!"

Grace smiled a bit even though she was nervous, she didn't like meeting new people too much unless she did it at her own pace. Mira suddenly called out, "Wendy!"

A shy girl with dark blue hair came over to the white haired mage with a light blush and stuttered, "Y-yes M-Mira?"

Said woman smiled widely at the girl and gestured to the red head, "This is Grace. You two are the same age, so I thought I'd introduce you."

Grace waved a bit at the shy girl with a small smile, "Hi."

The young dragon slayer looked down shyly and twisted her foot on the floor as she greeted back, "Hello."

Grace wasn't sure what to say since she wasn't good at small talk. Mira suddenly stated, "Oh! How about we have a sleep over at Fairy Hills?! And we can all get to know each other! No one really knows much about you Grace, even though you've been with the guild for a few weeks now."

The red head thought about it, she supposed it would be nice to make some friends, "Sure, but I'll have to ask Gajeel if it's okay so he doesn't throw a hissy fit if I suddenly disappear."

"Awwwwe. That's so adorable that he's so protective of you."

Grace shrugged, "I'm just as protective of him. Probably even more so actually."

Mira squealed a bit but regained her composure quickly.