Chapter 1
What we perceive to be our own world is a lie. We are only one part of an unbalanced equation.
"Hold him down, Loke!"
A pained grunt escaped said man. "Working on it, Princess." Loke tightened his hold around the black mass of fur in his arms. "Why don't we just sedate him?"
The black mass, which happened to actually be a black-furred wolf, did not take kindly to his words and thrashed harder. The ginger-haired man tightened his grip around the struggling wolf, attempting to pin its forelegs to its chest while keeping a watchful eye on the blonde at the wolf's flank.
A pair of surgical forceps in hand, Lucy ignored the other man in favor of prodding at the bullet wound in the wolf's side. A steady flow of blood had already begun to pool on her kitchen floor and stained the blue scrubs she wore.
"Hang in there…Coal." She murmured to the wolf. Seeing her seat herself on the animal's hind legs, Loke tightened his hold right before the ends of the forceps disappeared into the wound. To Loke's surprise, the wolf didn't as much as whimper, only letting out a pained grunt as Lucy twisted the surgical tool around, searching.
With a gasp of triumph, Lucy sat up from her hunched position, bullet removed. Dropping the bullet into a tin plate, she took little notice of the bullet's odd silver color before she began cleaning the wound with a warm towel.
Crisis averted, Loke couldn't help but chime in, "Coal? You couldn't come up with something more interesting? Like, blackberry?" Coal swung his head back into the unsuspecting man's chin, eliciting a cry of pain. Lucy rolled her eyes in exasperation as she began bandaging the wolf, wondering how things could have ended up like this.
10 Hours Earlier
Natsu was going to kill that stupid Ice Princess.
Never mind that he should have known better than to consume baked goods belonging to a particular red-head, but alarm bells should have been ringing in his head when he agreed to a dare from Gray of all people. What should have been an easy enough task to complete as punishment –traveling down to the human town, Magnolia, for a weird mix of herbs for Porly – was beginning to turn out horribly. Now he found himself being chased through the Fiore Forest by a bunch of Phantom Vampires. Speaking of which…
"Where you think you're goin' Fairy Mutt?" A figure dropped from the trees above in front of Natsu, halting his run. Natsu wasn't worried, in fact, he grinned when five other vampires moved in to surround him, cracking his knuckles in glee. All of them were dressed in dark garb marked with the Phantom emblem.
"Erza never said I couldn't bash some heads in while on this stupid shopping trip." He tightened the strap of his satchel so that it wouldn't slip off and dropped down to a fighting stance, fists raised. "I won't even need to transform to take down a bunch of grunts, like you. It'll be good exercise."
The one who first spoke, and leader of the group –dubbed Idiot #1 in Natsu's mind–growled in anger. "Tear him to shreds!" The vampires charged.
Natsu lashed out with a flying fist, ignoring the sound of someone's nose cracking, and dealt out a flying-spinning kick, knocking one to the snowy ground, unconscious. The glint of metal shined brightly in the mid-day sky, and his left eye was blinded for a moment before he was using the chest of the one whose nose he broke as a spring-board, back-flipping off the guy's chest to twist mid-air and land behind the two perpetrators who tried to stab him in the back. Natsu grabbed the back of their jackets and flung them through the air and into the trunks of trees meters away. They slumped to the ground, out cold.
Mentally tallying the number he felled, Natsu didn't hear the sound of the safety of a gun being released before a shot rang out.
Pain radiated in his side. He didn't need to look to know that the bullet was still lodged inside and that it was made of silver. It wouldn't kill him, but it still hurt like hell.
Pivoting, he found the leader of the group with a gun in hand. The sneer that adorned his face and gleam in his red eyes didn't hide that he believed to have won. His twisted smile soon turned shaky as Natsu began to walk towards him.
The hand holding the silver pistol shook in fear. "Th-that's not…POSSIBLE! You should be dead! I used a silver bullet! Wh-why aren't you dead?!" He screamed.
Natsu didn't bother answering him, the topic of what he was wasn't brought up often, if at all –not even with the family he had found in Fairy Tail. They had accepted him for who he was and continued to claim that his…genetics would never bother them or scare them away. He wasn't too sure about that.
The guy was so scared, he didn't even bother to move as Natsu walked right up to him, fisting the vampire's shirt in his hands. "I'm a member of Fairy Tail. We ain't easy to kill."
"Master Jose won't let you get away with this! Your pack's as good as dead once he hears about this!" He clawed helplessly at the hand clutching his shirt, fangs flashing.
Moving in until their noses were almost touching, Natsu's voice lowered to a menacing growl. "Bring it." Natsu head-butted the vampire, rendering him unconscious.
Natsu looked around at the bodies around him…one was missing. The sudden scream that pierced the bitter air and the familiar, but pungent, smell that greeted him made him growl low in his throat.
Turning, onyx eyes narrowed at the sight they met with.
Donned in only white balloon pants, the new arrival remained shirtless to show off a familiar tattoo on his right pectoral: Tartaros. He held the remaining member of the Phantom Lord hunting group in a headlock, remaining unfazed as she scratched at his forearms for freedom. "Well, well, well. How long's it been, brother –?"
"Don't call me that." Natsu snarled, fists clenching.
"–a hundred years? Thousand? You're getting sloppy in your old age." The figure perused the carnage around them, taking note of the merely unconscious Phantom Lord members.
"What do you want, Jackal?"
Jackal's mouth spread in a gleeful smile full of sharp teeth. "To send a message." He wrenched the girl's head to the side before sinking his teeth deep into her neck. In the span of mere seconds, her screams and struggles were reduced to mere gurgles and twitches. When he was finally sated Jackal punched a hole through the girl's chest, tearing out her heart before throwing the carcass aside. Natsu flinched.
Catching the movement, Jackal smiled wide before making his way over to where Natsu stood, face and chest splattered in red blood, before offering the heart up to his face.
Jackal frowned in mock disappointment when he was met with no reaction. "You still on your 'diet'? You're no fun." Taking a bite out of the organ like one would an apple, Jackal continued, "Zeref wants his experiment back." He cast the bitten heart aside and spit to the side with a grimace.
Natsu scoffed before turning to leave. "I'm not going back there. Tell your master to find another guinea pig."
If possible, Jackal's smile widened even further. "He also said we were allowed to drag you back."
Natsu wasn't able to move out of the way before the transformed wolf jumped on his back, tearing its claws through his clothes and into flesh. He roared in pain before dropping to the ground and rolling, hoping to dislodge the mustard yellow canine.
Rolling to his feet, Natsu threw his satchel to the side before discarding his vest. He barely felt the Change take over as his adrenaline and heart rate increased. The colors of the forest glowed and accentuated like illuminations, smells and sounds around him becoming that much more distinct and known.
He didn't have much time to appreciate the advantages of being in his wolf skin before Jackal was onto him again. The tumbled through the snow in a tangle of limbs and teeth. Jackal scratched along Natsu's underbelly only to rear back as teeth sank into his neck.
Even as Jackal kicked and scratched, Natsu refused to let up on his grip and only bit down harder. In a stroke of luck, Jackal kicked against the bullet wound in Natsu's side causing him to wince and loosen his hold for only a second. That second was the only opening Jackal needed and he twisted out of Natsu's hold and threw his body weight against him. The tackle took Natsu off guard and Jackal took the advantage to swipe at Natsu's face in an attempt to blind him. Natsu moved out of the way, but not before claws caught the side of his snout.
Jackal ducked under Natsu's retaliating swipe to sink his teeth into the black wolf's hind leg. The snapping of bone echoed in the surrounding forest followed by a pained howl.
The white of bone was a large contrast to the dark fur of Natsu's pelt as he lay in the snow, Jackal sauntering around him in a circle. "Jeez. Being among those pesky fairies has made you weak, brother. Are they all as weak as you? What does Zeref see in you, I wonder?" He stopped walking as a thought reached him before spinning to look the black wolf in the face. "How bout' you tell me where your little camp ground is, hmm? What do you think Zeref will reward me if I bring back you and the heads of your little pack?"
Natsu growled at the mere thought of this monster being anywhere near his family and lunged for Jackal's jugular. Holding down the yellow wolf's shoulders with his front paws for leverage as he latched on and pulled. Tendons and muscles snapped before the veins and arteries in Jackal's neck were torn and wrenched from his body. Blood sprayed in a miniature fountain from the wolf's neck as he convulsed, eyes wide.
Natsu stood above the body, blood dripping from his maw. 'Don't think you can ever threaten my family and get away with it.'
Satisfied, Natsu half-limped, half-dragged, his body back to his bag. He was too wounded to think about transforming back, the Change might cause more harm to his already battered body than good and he'd already caused Wendy and Porly enough grief from his previous scuffle.
Foregoing his discarded clothes, Natsu picked up his bag and continued on towards the human town. He could steal clothes to cover himself when the time came to change back.
Natsu was getting tired of walking. His left side, all the way from the flank to the end of the leg, was a bleeding mess. It didn't help that he had yet to stop and properly tend to it since his fight with Jackal, the bastard. He almost wished he could bring the stupid half-breed back to life and kill him again, slowly.
He was tired, thirsty, and hungry! Oh, so, hungry! The bottom of his belly chose that moment to make itself known once more with a large and unhelpful growl.
Shut up. He thought to himself.
As if fate was frowning upon him, the slope he was walking along decided to collapse beneath him. Snow swept down the side of the hill in a mini avalanche, taking the black wolf with it.
Tumbling end-over-end Natsu finally rolled to a stop at the bottom of the hill, his leg burning in pain and his irritation and exhaustion reaching a peak.
He righted himself with a pained grunt and was about to continue on when the sight ahead caught his eye. Situated innocently ahead, just past the edge of the Fiore Forest, was a logged cabin. The cabin itself was relatively large, being two-stories tall. The outer walls of the bottom story was made of mixed stone while the top story and balcony was made of polished wood. It was an overall nice-looking home; one that seemed to have been well-lived in, but seemed to remain well secluded from the rest of the human town.
Tired, and with limited options, Natsu headed for the back of the house: the side closest to the forest in the off-chance he had to make a run for it.
Reaching the back door, he was mildly surprised of the doggie door. Swatting at the back door handle, Natsu was disappointed to find that it was, as he suspected, locked. The doggie door on the other hand…
Nosing at the opening, the flap gave way and he stuck his head through. The immediate interior of the home held a small kitchen the led into a sitting area where the front door was and a set of stairs to the immediate left. Everything from what Natsu could see was neat and well-cleaned, but his ears told him that the owner of the establishment was not home.
At least…not yet. His thought to himself dryly. He really didn't want to deal with humans. Gramps was going to lose his hair with the grief the council gave him with Fairy Tail's 'constant need to expose themselves and endanger the well-being of the supernatural community to humans'. Not that annoying Gramps wasn't fun. But an upset council made for an upset Gramps which usually ended up with Natsu being more than thankful for his healing capabilities on numerous occasions.
Settling for facing Makarov's anger once again, just this once, Natsu began the tedious task of shimmying himself through the doggie door and into the warm household. After numerous instances where he feared he would get stuck and dragging his useless leg through the opening, Natsu was too exhausted to care about anything but flopping on his belly and closing his eyes for much needed rest, not caring that he was dripping blood all along the nice tiled floor. He was so exhausted, in fact, that he barely heard the turning of keys before the front door opened.