"Oh thank you, Natsu! But our Princess is in another castle!"
Natsu's brain took a few clicks to catch up to that statement, he was so focused on melting the shackles holding Juvia to the castle wall. "Wait. What?"
Juvia massaged a wrist absently as she replied, "Our Princess isn't in this castle, Natsu-san. Juvia is sorry Natsu-san had to go through all that trouble. Juvia guesses Loke is trying to make everything as much of a pain in the ass as possible."
Natsu blinked and processed her words. Dimly he recalled a journey through a strange, blocky country-side, dodging fire-ball breathing plants and jumping over little waddling mushroom headed dudes until he had reached this castle. A castle. Wait.
"Wait. This isn't the first castle I've beaten?"
"Is Natsu-san asking Juvia for this answer?" Juvia appeared equally confused.
"No." Natsu shook his head. "No, I just, I'm not sure if this is the first castle I've beaten. I swear I remember beating Gajeel and freeing Levy, beating Laxis and freeing Mira, and beating Sting and freeing…wait, was it fucking Rogue? And there was that Dan dude in the armor…what the fuck is going on, Juvia?"
But while Natsu had been recalling his adventures thus far, Juvia and the castle had both disappeared, leaving Natsu in the middle of a…well…a blocky country-side.
"Are you fucking kidding me!?" Natsu erupted, flames shooting from his mouth and immediately destroying a little waddling mushroom headed dude who was moving toward Natsu.
"Wait. That's a thing?! Oh man, this is about to get really good."
—
One scorched earth later, Natsu found himself standing outside of another castle, exactly like the previous…howevermany… he had already stormed. Kicking open the front door (he'd gotten sick of waiting for it to rise), he found himself forced to climb along a weirdly oriented fence, punching little turtles in the face or kicking them so they fell off the fence (he'd tried to be polite but they kept biting him; fuck that noise). After stopping to inhale some fireballs that kept leaping up at him, he passed through a white tape (a little high pitched squeal accompanied his move) before stepping through the door.
The wall behind him immediately began moving.
"What the fuck!" He pushed against it, trying to stop its inexorable slide forward. Directly ahead and above, he could see a large stone pillar slowly sinking downward, moving to block the area ahead. "That fucker is trying to crush me!" he growled, stepping backward against the moving wall until the pillar dropped, then immediately began to rise again. In the intervening time, he ran beyond it's reach. The wall ahead was receding at the same pace as the wall behind, keeping him to a slow pace. Snarling softly, he looked up to see another pillar dropping and, in a last ditch attempt, dove into a small divot in the ground, covering his head and hoping.
As soon as the pillar receded again he took off running, jumping up to punch the flying block above his head and grabbing the fire flower, shoving it into his mouth and chewing noisily as he leapt across an open crevasse.
"This whole thing would be easier if there wasn't that creepy-ass organ music playing," he groused as he just barely skirted past the pillar that came down over the crevasse.
After running full tilt across a bridge of blocks that were constantly moving (and dodging ANOTHER fucking pillar) he finally stood face to face with a red door shaped, weirdly enough, kind of like a coffin. He kicked the door in and found himself perched precariously on a turtle shell (of all things!), face to face with Loke.
"Well, Natsu, looks like you finally made it. I've been expecting you for quite some time and have been forced to…entertain….Lucy in your absence." Loke smirked and pushed his glasses further up his nose.
"You asshole," Natsu snarled, throwing a wild flaming punch at Loke, who lightly flipped back out of the way, landing on the far side of the shell, which immediately began to tilt back and forth, threatening to dump one or both of them into the lava surrounding them.
"The only way you're going to get past me and to Lucy, Natsu, is to push me into this fire. I'm not going to make it easy for you!"
Growling, Natsu began breathing fireballs at Loke, who occasionally bounced them back or ducked them, or more happily, got knocked backward by them. Natsu got into a rhythm and began aiming kicks at Loke while he was distracted with dodging the fireballs. Eventually, Natsu succeeded in pushing him into the lava and was rewarded with heroic sounding music echoing through the cavern. Above his head he could seem to see words but before he could read them he was distracted by the vision of Lucy which appeared before him. She looked exactly like the princess he always saw her as.
"Natsu! You saved me! I'm so grateful!" She ran toward him, but just before they touched, she tripped and the echoing shout of "FUCK" that rattled his ear drums made the world seem to melt around him.
—
"Fuck! Goddamnit, Iggy, I fucking hate you!"
"Argh!" Natsu yelled (it wasn't a shriek, he swears), and flailed, throwing himself right off the couch he had apparently fallen asleep on.
"Natsu! Oh I'm sorry! I completely forgot you were here!" Lucy threw down the controller she'd been holding and ran over to Natsu, smoothing his pink hair back from his sweaty forehead. "Why are you sweating?"
Natsu blinked several times, looking carefully around the room. "I'm in your apartment."
"Yeeessss…."
"Where's Loke?"
"Uh, in the spirit realm I think. Do you need him?"
Natsu jumped up. "NO! No. Ahem, I don't need that pansy cat for anything. I, uh, I was just dreaming…"
"Dreaming?"
"Yes." Natsu nodded emphatically.
"About?"
"About…uh…working out. With Happy. Yeah. To get fish. Gotta get a drink!" Natsu took off running for the kitchen, leaving Lucy staring bewilderedly behind him. For a moment, there was silence, which suddenly became slightly more full, and then,
"You think we should-"
"Nope. Let him dream."