Of Majikku and Renkinjutsu
Chapter 1: Lost
Everybody on Team Natsu was getting ready to go out on a quest. Natsu was the next person to choose the mission to go out on, so he chose one that seemed mysterious and strange, but it had a very large reward. 10 million Jewels. Erza was surprised that the person offering this didn't make it an S Class quest. The quest was to go and investigate a cave in the middle of a forest outside of Oshibana. According to the client, several people have entered the cave but never came back out. When search parties were dispatched into the cave, they found the cave to be empty and there to be no trace of any humans ever entering it. The client, being the mayor of Oshibana, was very concerned that it might be a dark guild or something far more sinister. After reading over the request, Erza decided that it was probably best that she and the rest of the team accepted this job. Since they had taken out a few dark guilds in the past, she figured it would be pretty easy to investigate the cave and put an end to whatever was happening inside of it. They decided to leave Magnolia the moment the sun arose the next day.
The following day, Lucy awoke to the sound of Natsu yelling at her to wake up. She opened her eyes and rolled over to face the window and saw Natsu hanging outside and banging on the window. Lucy had forgotten that she locked the window last night. She was really tired of always waking up and finding Natsu either in her kitchen with a face full of food or curled up next to her in her bed. She got out of bed and opened the window.
"What do you want, Natsu?" she asked as she rubbed her eyes. She opened them back up to see Happy flying through the window. Natsu just stared at Lucy.
"What's wrong, Natsu?" she asked.
"Oi Lucy, that's sexy," said Happy as he put his paws over his mouth to muffle his laughter. Lucy looked down at herself. She was wearing a see through white tank top and black panties. Her face flushed red. Lucy had completely forgotten that since she locked her window, she decided to sleep with practically nothing on knowing Natsu wouldn't be in her apartment when she woke up. She was completely embarrassed. After she shook off her redness, she noticed Natsu was still staring at her.
"Natsu! Turn around, dammit!" yelled Lucy as she threw a pillow at his face. "Why are you still staring anyway?! GET OUT." Lucy started pushing Natsu back out the window in which he came in through. Natsu tried to shake off his thoughts about what he saw before he said something.
"Ah! Wait Lucy! I'm sorry! I'm only here because we are already late for our mission! Erza wanted to leave at dawn and it's already 8:30," said Natsu while waving his hands in front of him to signal he was sorry and that's all he went there for.
"Oh shit!" said Lucy when she realized that today was the day they were going on this weird quest that Natsu had picked. She immediately ran over to her dresser and grabbed her usual blue skirt and yellow and blue top that Virgo had given her from the Spirit World. She didn't care that Natsu was still standing there. She ripped off her tank top, threw on her black strapless bra that was on the floor, threw on the rest of her clothes, grabbed her keys off the kitchen table and ran out the door with Natsu's arm in her hand. She knew that if she made Erza wait any longer, she would be in trouble.
Natsu was still a little in shock when they were about to arrive at the guild from witnessing Lucy change that quickly and also that she had completely stripped in front of him. He saw Lucy naked. He couldn't shake that image from his head. Yeah, he had seen her that way before when he walked in her bathroom while she was in the bath, but this time the image was sticking around and he wasn't sure why. Why am I thinking about that now?, he thought.
When the trio arrived at the guild, Erza and Gray were standing out front waiting. Erza had with her, her usual cart of luggage and Gray was already not wearing a shirt.
"What took you so long, flame brain?" asked Gray impatiently.
"You wanna go, ice princess?" said Natsu as he jumped in front of Gray while butting heads with him. Erza just shot both of them a death glare and they both shuttered in fear.
"Lucy was snoring like a dinosaur this morning!" said Happy while letting out a chuckle.
"Shut it, cat!" said Lucy as she shot Happy an 'I'm going to feed you to a giant fish' glare. She turned to Erza and said, "I'm sorry I over slept!"
"Don't worry about it," said Erza. "Let's just quickly board this train. It's supposed to leave in 10 minutes." With that, Team Natsu set off towards the train station running just as fast as Jet.
XxXxX
"I can't wait to receive this reward! I won't have to worry about my rent for months!" said Lucy as she sat back in her seat and let out a relieved sigh.
"I can't wait to go buy new armor!" said Erza with a glitter in her eyes. "Maybe I will even upgrade my sexy armor I bought a while back. It doesn't seem quite up to par for use with Jellal," mumbled Erza to herself.
"What did you say, Erza?" asked Gray.
"Oh, nothing!" said Erza as she turned her face to hide her pink cheeks. Both Lucy and Gray smirked at her defensive response. Natsu just rolled over in the seat. His face was blue.
"I –urp– hate –urp– trains," stuttered Natsu in between trying to hold back his breakfast.
"Don't worry! We will arrive in Oshibana soon!" said Lucy in a cheerful voice while smiling at Natsu. She was lying, of course. Oshibana was still over 2 hours away. They had only just left Magnolia. Poor Natsu, she thought.
XxXxX
Team Natsu arrived in Oshibana a little after noon. They had to switch trains at Onibus because the one they were on had broken down. As soon as they got off the train, they immediately headed toward City Hall to meet the mayor of Oshibana. Naturally, Natsu and Happy wanted to go stuff their faces, but seeing as how late they already were to meeting the client, Erza had tied rope around their waists and dragged them along.
"So mayor, would you mind explaining the mission in more detail? I only understand a brief part and would like more information before we head out there to investigate the cave," said Erza.
"Well, you see, several citizens entered the cave to try to harvest a particular type of mushroom that grows there. They are very valuable and rare, you see. Since the cave is on the outskirts of Oshibana, it is a 2 day journey there and back. When a week had passed and the citizens still weren't back, I dispatched a search party you see. When the search party entered the cave, they found baskets of mushrooms knocked over but not a trace of any of the lost citizens. The search party decided to bring back some of the mushrooms but then apparently a beam of light lit up the cave and all of the search party had disappeared. Only one person survived, you see. He is now being watched because of the sight he witnessed," said the mayor.
"Well," said Erza as she turned to her companions "We should go and immediately investigate this and get to the bought of it." With that, Team Natsu set off to find the cave and investigate it.
XxXxX
It was a little before sundown when Natsu, Erza, Lucy, Gray, and Happy reached the area where the cave was located. The forest had lost almost all the light due to the over grown canopy of trees. The group could not see more than 4 meters in front of them.
"Where the hell is this damn cave? I can't see anything!" said Gray.
"According to the mayor, it should be round here somewhere," said Lucy. Just then, Natsu, who was leading the group because of his excellent sense of smell, stopped in his tracks. This caused Lucy to bump into him followed by Erza and Gray.
"Oi Natsu! What are you doing?! Don't just stop short like that ya bastard!" said Gray.
"I can smell the cave nearby," said Natsu who appeared to pay no attention to Gray's remake. Everyone immediately followed Natsu to the cave's location.
When the all entered the cave, a feeling of great pressure came over them. Their bodies felt heavier than usual and the air appeared to have a thinner atmosphere. The cave was no more than a few feet wide, just barely enough for two people to walk past each other without grazing shoulders. Natsu used his dragon slayer magic to illuminate the cave. After searching and investigating for a while, Erza finally broke the silence.
"Well, there doesn't seem to be any sign of foul play here," she said.
"What happened to the citizens I wonder," said Lucy as she continued to the back of the cave. Natsu followed behind her. "Hey Natsu, do you think those are the mushrooms the citizens were trying to collect?" asked Lucy as she pointed to a corner of the cave that had baskets scattered about. Natsu shrugged as Erza walked over to inspect the mysterious mushrooms.
"They look very strange," said Erza. The mushrooms were red with yellow spots on them and were approximately 5 inches long and no more than 2 inches wide. The stalks were solid black and the whole mushroom appeared to glow when light was near.
"I wonder what makes these so special?" questioned Gray.
"I wonder what they taste like," said Natsu and Happy in unison while drooling. They were still quite hunger from their journey.
"Well they look pretty weird. I wouldn't touch them if I was you, Natsu. Remember what happened to you Happy and Gray the last time you guys ate weird mushrooms?" said Lucy while she remembered the time when those 3 sprouted mushrooms of various sized from the tops of their heads. Lucy shuttered at that memory. It was definitely one of the weirdest one she had since she joined Fairy Tail. As she looked back at Natsu, he was in the midst of bending down and picking up a mushroom to eat.
"Natsu don't!" shouted Lucy as she slapped the mushroom out of Natsu's hand. Just then the cave became illuminated with a blinding blue light.
"What's going on?!" shouted Erza.
"Natsu! I told you not to touch those mushrooms!" screeched Lucy.
"Now you did it you flame brain!" said Gray.
When the blue light subsided, only Gray, Erza, and Happy were left in the cave.
"Where did Natsu and Lucy go?!" asked Erza. She had now become extremely worried.
XxXxX
The sun was high in the sky when Lucy awoke in the middle of a field and lying on top of Natsu, her face in his crotch. As she opened her eyes, a splitting headache came over her. As she came back to her senses, she realized how she was lying on top of Natsu and immediately scrambled away, her face flushed bright red. Then she realized that Natsu was still out cold.
"Oi Natsu! Wake up! Are you okay?! Answer me!" shouted Lucy while violently shaking Natsu by the shoulders. Natsu coughed and attempted to sit up.
"Where are we?" asked Natsu as he rubbed the back of his head. Lucy shook her head.
"I'm not sure. I don't see Gray or Erza or Happy anywhere. Plus, it's daytime and I'm pretty sure it was almost dusk when we entered that cave," said Lucy. Then her eyes widened as if she realized something. "The cave!" She jumped to her feet and looked around. She saw no cave, no trees, just empty grasslands with a few houses off in the distance.
Well, let's look around a bit and see if we can find something," suggested Lucy as she smiled and out stretched her hand to help Natsu up. He accepted her offer and returned the smile, his cheeks tainted pink.
The both looked around while rubbing their sore joints and limbs. They felt like they had fallen out of the sky. As they left the field, Natsu and Lucy started to make their way towards the houses. Lucy thought that was the best plan because she knew if Erza was in the area, that what she would do first. They knocked on each of the doors to the houses they came across but no one was home.
"Well, what should we do now?" asked Lucy as she let out a heavy sigh. Natsu looked around for some sort of sign to point them in any direction.
"Oi Lucy, there's a train station nearby, we can go there and see if we can find out anything," suggested Natsu.
"But Natsu, you hate trains! What if we have to ride one?" asked Lucy. Natsu shuttered.
"Well, I will just have to suck it up this time, I guess," he said.
As Natsu and Lucy made their way to the train station, they passed a sign that read "Welcome to Resembool."
"Resembool? I wonder how we ended up in another town. I don't even know where this town is located in Fiore," said Lucy.
When they arrived at the train station, they asked if anyone there had seen a red-haired, armor wearing woman with a shirtless black haired man and a flying blue cat. The only responses the got were either crazy looks or people telling them to go to Central City and as a "State Alchemist", whatever that was. After receiving zero help, Lucy decided that they should broad the next train to Central City and look for one of these "State Alchemists" she keeps hearing about. Maybe they will know where Gray and Erza and Happy are, she thought. Natsu grumbled at the thought of boarding another train when he still hadn't had anything to eat. They bought their tickets and boarded the next train heading towards Central City after the ticket salesman told them to see the Fullmetal Alchemist since he is from Resembool. Natsu and Lucy decided to look for him first once they arrived in Central.
A/N: You will see Ed and Al in the next chapter. Also, this takes place during Brotherhood because I liked it better and they way that the characters were portrayed was amazing. So that's what I will be following. Thanks for reading!
~Aeroniel