Chapter 2; What Goes Up...
Natsu was definitely, one hundred percent, absolutely without a doubt not lost.
He just happened to be taking his time, that was all.
"Natsu~~" Happy whined, flying behind him with his tail hanging low and letting his wings take his entire weight. "We've passed that tree three times…"
"No we haven't!" Natsu grumbled back, folding his arms across his chest as he stubbornly kept walking forwards, ignoring the growing shadows and the setting sun in the background. "Why don't you fly up again and see how much further we've got?"
The Exceed sighed. His wings were already exhausted, but despite his limited magical energy draining he let out an "Aye…" and once more dashed up between the foliage, disappearing into the thick overhanging leaves.
Natsu's fists tightened as he watched his companion leave his side, frustration growing inside of him. He didn't feel lost. He felt like he was completely in control of his movements, like he knew this forest as well as the back of his hand, but Happy was right - they had passed that tree three times. Try as he might he couldn't form a straight line, struggling to focus on the scents and getting nothing but a strange background hum rippling across the air. It echoed around him like a voice echoed in a deep cave, nearly impossible to pinpoint and driving him slowly insane. Every time he felt they were growing closer his footsteps took him yet another step away.
The worst parts of his failure were the Ice Maker's gritted teeth and equally frustrated jabbs.
"I can't fucking believe this," Gray growled, throwing down his shirt and onto the ground. "'I know where we're going, Gray! Only pansies like you need maps, Gray! I grew up in the wilderness, Gray!' HA! Freaking knew you'd get us lost."
With the last dying streaks of sunlight filtering through the treetops, the ice mage could feel his annoyance catering off into the anger category. Day one, ZILCH. Nada. A whole big pile of nothing. All because- "I thought you said you'd be able to track this thing no problem?!" he glared accusingly at the pink-head.
Natsu, already at the edge of his own nerves, jumped forward to defend himself, feeling the angry heat growing around him. "I told you that I can track it, so I'm gonna track it, alright?! If you wanted to use a damn map so much then you should have - except, oh wait! You can't because you who put it in your damn jacket, which is god knows where!" he yelled back loudly, his voice carrying high across the treetops and sending birds scattering in all directions.
"Oh don't worry, I won't think twice about keeping it if it means I don't have to listen to you, dumbass!" Gray snapped, teeth lashing and a wrinkle popping over his nose, like a mutt just a few shy barks away from biting. His fingers curled into fists and the ice mage could feel the first hints of cold air lingering on his skin. He got into the Salamander's face, raising his voice just enough to outmatch Natsu's. "So if you're gonna do it, then do it and STOP LEADING US IN GODDAMN CIRCLES!"
Natsu gritted his teeth. The opposing element crackled around him and made his own magic flare spitefully in answer. 'If you're gonna do it just do it'? Oh that very much sounded like an invitation if he ever heard one. His fists lifted, ready to accept.
"Oh, don't worry, I'm gonna-" he began, his fists blurring into a bright red flame.
"Natsuuuuu!"
Suddenly they both stopped, eyes flickering up to the treetops. The sudden squeal from the Exceed was somewhere high above, echoing off into silence. They could see no flicker of blue within the canopy.
Natsu took a staggering step back, staring up for a sign within the leaves. "Happy?"
There was no answer. Even with his heightened senses he could not make out a single movement or sound.
"Happy!" they both shouted in unison, throwing each other a look of concern.
Mocking and stifling silence. "Shit! What the hell happened?" Gray stepped back, gritting his teeth and looking over the treetops in search of movement or a hint of blue or- or something, damn it! "Natsu, which way?"
A look of determination flooded Natsu's eyes as he continued to stare into the canopy. Nothing, nothing!, came between a Dragon Slayer and his Exceed. "Up," he said finally, as if it should have been completely obvious. That was the direction that the small cat had gone and it didn't take an expert tracker to know that that was the best direction to try and find him. He'd heard his voice only moments before, and prayed he couldn't have gotten far.
He grabbed onto the nearest tree, intent on climbing. If Happy needed his help then he would do all he could to reach him. He had barely reached the first branches, however, before he heard the familiar chant from his companion.
"Natsu!" Gray called over as just as he gathered his magic power and directed it to the ground, "Ice-make: Platform!"
A circle of ice materialized underneath the Ice Maker's feet, and with a jerk it grew, rising up into the air. The surge was slower at first, and Natsu wasted no time in grabbing onto the platform. He instantly felt uncomfortable. The growing ice was... somewhat like a moving vehicle.
As the Dragon Slayer doubled over the flat surface, it gained speed, breaking through the branches and stopping just above the treetops.
Gray looked around the greenery, but the growing shadows weren't helping his eyes. A growl thrummed in the base of his throat. "Goddamn it... Happy?!" he yelled, eyes and ears on high-alert for any sign of a response.
Natsu groaned. Telling himself that the ice structure would not move and his stomach had no more reason to flip, he pushed himself up from the cold platform. He sorely wished that he could punch Gray for putting him through that, even if it had just been for a split second. There was no time for that now, however. He had to focus on Happy. He had to make sure that the Happy was safe. "Ha-"
"Natsu!"
The cat's voice strangled with terror, vibrating with levels of fear that had both mage's breaths caught in their throats. They stared in its direction, towards the shadowy and still canopy waiting for-
A sudden flutter of wings broke through and into the night air. Only, they weren't the wide white wings they had expected. The moon was blotted out by large and powerful wingspan, darker than the night, sharp claws wrapping around the tiny blue creature with every flap.
"Happy!" Natsu called back, eyes pinned against the demonic creature. "Goddamit, it can fly!?" he cried out angrily, seeing only a beast that needed to be stopped while it clutched the tiny Exceed in its grasp.
"What the hell," Gray muttered at the disadvantage, feeling the skin on his back tighten in caution as they were being stared down. It had the upper hand. It had flight, formidable size and Happy in its grasp, none of which boded well. Taking a deep breath, the Isvanian straightened up, eyes glaring at the beast as he brought his hands up into his signature stance. "Natsu, get ready. I'm gonna lure it here."
Natsu gave a sharp nod in reply, tightening his fists as he felt the familiar heat of his magic build up. The power of his determination radiated off in pulsing waves, eating away at their cold foothold.
With a flare of the light blue magic circle, ice danced along Gray's fingers, growing and taking the shape of a bow. "Ice-make: Arrows," he shouted and pulled a thin, near-invisible line of magic back. A trail of ice followed behind his hand, forming a blunt arrow. Eyes trained sharply onto the monster, the mage bit on the inside of his cheek, aiming along the upper-body area to minimise the risk of hurting Happy.
With a twitch of his fingers, the arrow flew, shattering against the monster's skin before it could move away. The griffin-like creature screeched at an ear-bleeding pitch that made them all wince.
At least they had its attention.
The monster flapped its wings threateningly, once, twice, before diving for them.
It screeched again, the huge flap of the giant black wings creating a gust of wind that threatened to push them back and off the slippery platform. A giant mouth - or beak or whatever it was - glinted like a spear's edge as it opened wide towards them.
Eyes flickering with anger, Natsu glared back at the beast.
"Natsuuuu," Happy whimpered.
"I've got this!" Natsu yelled loudly, waiting until the very last moment.
He threw himself forward. With an angry roar the Dragon Slayer sailed through the air, meeting his opponent head on. His fists raised in anger, flames erupted beneath his feet giving him both power and terrifying speed as he prepared to attack.
Suddenly the creature swooped upwards. Natsu's eyes grew wide. With the ground far, far below and his target and best friend climbing higher, he was forced to react quickly. He reached out and instead grasped onto the thick feathers, latching on.
The winged beast craned its neck, staring down at the stowaway with wide black eyes. With an angry huff it spun around in air, beating its wings harder to lose the man that gripped onto its side. When that didn't work, it flew up higher, and higher, circling wildly and screeching, frustrated while trying and failing to shake off the Dragon Slayer.
Natsu growled in his own anger, and in that anger his hands subconsciously sizzled with fire that caught onto the feathers. The stench of char that followed spread quickly through the air and the shriek from the monster that followed sounded too much like a scream. The bird-hybrid began to trash in the air, violently and desperately. In a moment of panic and blind fury, its priorities changed from predator to prey. The sharp talons snapped open, glinting against the moonlight and the Exceed was dropped.
Survival came first.
Arrow notched, Gray held his weapon steadfast, eyes trained onto the beast and feeling a slight tremor in his arms. Happy may have been freed, but Natsu still held onto the damned thing and he wasn't getting a clear shot. It would have been pretty stupid to shoot down a thing of that size when it was so high above the ground with his teammate in tow. The risks were endless.
"Fuck," he hissed out, a bead of sweat going down the side of his face as he tried to figure out what to do. The griffin-like creature was moving too fast, too radical and getting too out of reach for him to make a precise hit. He spared a quick glance towards Happy, waiting for him to fly up and catch Natsu so Gray could take the shot.
Only he didn't.
A burst of magical wings spluttered into existence- only to disappear in a poof of smoke. Happy felt the wind hurling past his face. The pressure around him was gone and he opened his eyes to see twigs and leaves coming at him at a frightening speed.
He was free-falling.
"Ahhh-!" the Exceed flailed his paws, breath catching in his throat at the realisation that he had no magic power left. He screw-shut his eyes, curling up and forcing every last drop of his magic power out. His wings sputtered in and out of existence the closer he got to the sea of green.
"Happy!" Natsu shouted out, his attention dropping from his own flight.
With a gasp, the white feathers finally spread open and caught wind, but not quickly enough to stop him from colliding through the foliage. Branches cracked, vines ripped, all under the speed of his small body. He cried out in pain, trying to grab onto something around him to stop the fall, but everything in his way shredded and broke.
At the same time, high up above the canopy, Natsu found himself a similar situation. His attention had been divided and his opponent took full advantage of this. The creature twisted around mid-air in dangerous saumosaults, jerking the Dragon Slayer into finally losing his grasp on the singed feathers.
The sound the monster let out was near victorious, it echoed through the forests as it swooped higher, leaving the mangy human to its fate.
There was no time to curse or shout out as Natsu fell. There was very little he could do to brace himself from the harsh fall, the jagged branches and what awaited him far below.
Gray watched helplessly and wide-eyed on his perch as his teammates disappeared out sight and into the cluster of leaves. The shrill cawing of the monster reminded him of laughter as it ventured off into the distance with each flap of its wings.
For a trembling moment, silence reigned.
Like the world was put on pause and mute.
Everything around him was suddenly too still compared how it had been just seconds earlier. Nothing moved. The echoes of battle disappeared in the distance, leaving this place void like nothing had happened there. Like there was no monster. No fight. Like he hadn't stood uselessly and just watched Happy and Natsu being hurled in two separate directions. Peaceful. Serene-
"... Shit!" Gray bit out.
Quickly releasing his magic, the pillar and weapon half-sank, half-disintegrated. The whole descend to the ground seemed to take too long, seconds trickled too fast and in sync with his adrenaline driven heart.
'Shit! Fucking shit!' the strings of curses seemed never ending in his head. 'I shouldn't have hesitated- I fucking should've known-! I should have- Goddamn it!'
The moment his feet touched the earth Gray took off running.
There were unwritten and unspoken rules that were set in place well before Team Natsu even existed. Rules that were never to be questioned or disregarded.
The ice mage took off in the direction where Happy disappeared. Leaving the youngest of them to fend for himself, so soon after what had just taken place, was as wrong as it was unacceptable.
Natsu would never forgive him if Happy got hurt. He'd never forgive himself if he got hurt.
With that drilled into his mind and body, Gray's eyes roamed the dark overgrowth above and around him.
"Happy!" he hollered, hands pushing at thick bushes and plant-life that got in his way. The woods were far too silent, too dark and cluttered, for him to make out what sounds and shapes were real and which he imagined. "Happy! You hear me?!"
Happy let out a soft grumble as he rubbed at a sore spot on his body. His wings had beat desperately through the twigs and branches as he fell, leaving a wide round hole in the canopy above. Although they hadn't been able to catch the wind, they did help in breaking his fall and taking the worst of the impact. That much he had to be grateful for.
He sat up, trying to access the damage. There were multiple superficial scratches against his fur, and thankfully no injuries that needed immediate attention and care. Lucky.
While trying to open his wings fully, however, he found flexing them awkward, requiring a lot more strength than it usually did. Broken twigs and shredded leaves stuck between his feathers and Happy frowned at the sight. He reached out and rocked backwards, trying to pick them out.
And then Happy slipped.
He gasped, his claws sunk into the bark on instinct as he held on for dear life with all four paws. With a small gulp, he craned his head over the side of his branch, squinting through the darkness to get a better look. He wasn't nearly as close to the ground as he had hoped.
His ears twitched then.
Someone was calling for him. "Natsu...?" he murmured, carefully listening again.
No, it wasn't Natsu. What's more, his Dragon Slayer would have never forgiven him if for making the simple mistake.
"Gray!" he corrected himself, voice shaking a bit while he tried to spread his wings again. They refused. He would need to replenish a good amount of magical energy before he could attempt to fly again. Reluctantly, Happy let them disappear and pouted. He sat helplessly on the branch, arms crossed and waiting for Gray to come and rescue him.
This was what he was reduced to. A cat stuck in a tree.
Several moments later, a figure finally appeared stumbling through the dark. Happy felt his fur bristling, hanging close to the tree-trunk, staring through the darkness and trying to decide who, or what, had found him first.
Eventually, the figure looked up and spotted two small reflective eyes blinking in his direction. "There you are," it said in a familiar voice, staring up at the feline.
Both the ice mage and Exceed breathed a sigh of relief. Gray made his way over, feet hindered by unseen tree-roots and shrubbery, and cursing mother-nature silently with every fiber of his being.
From where he stood, Gray could see the Exceed looked a little battered up. He had fur sticking out at odd angles with twigs and leaves that caught on his fall, but other than that, he seemed relatively okay. The adrenaline coursing his veins finally shifted gear and dialed back. "You okay?" he asked, relief evident in his voice as he extended his hands to catch him, "Are you hurt?"
Happy looked down at the distance between him and the Ice Maker below, unsure whether he should trust his judgement and jump. If this had been Natsu, then he wouldn't have hesitated. The Dragon Slayer would have rather broken every bone in his body than see his companion hurt. But Gray? Well, he wasn't quite so convinced.
"I'm OK," Happy said, hesitantly creeping closer to the edge of the branch before taking a deep breath. His claws dug deep into the wood, testing the safety of his lifeline before taking one last look down.
Swallowing his hesitance, he let go and took a leap of faith, successfully landing into the Ice Maker's hands.
He peeled one eye open, and then the other. And only then he breathed out a quick gasp of relief. "I made it!" he cheered, a wide grin on his face as he stared up at Gray, both somehow amazed and surprised by this. "Wait," he frowned, looking around quickly. "Where's Natsu?"
Gray sighed, partly in relief now that he finally had the Exceed safely in his arms, partly troubled as another issue presented itself. "I don't know," he shook his head, "The monster was all over the place before Natsu let go."
Happy looked back at him in that confused and wide-eyed way he tended to have whenever separated from Natsu in less than favorable terms. Gray could already feel the worry gnawing at the little fellow. With another sigh, Gray readjusted his hold on him and he let him to sit atop of his shoulder. "Let's try and find him."
"Aye," Happy murmured in agreement, curling himself around the side of Gray's head and keeping his ears pinned up for any signs of their friend.
Looking around and not really managing to orient himself in the dark, the Ice mage pressed his lips tightly for a moment. Every direction looked the same, caked in shadows and thick shrubbery. If there was a silver lining here it would have been that Natsu could hopefully sniff them both out like this. Eventually anyway.
"Come on. Knowing him, he'll probably find us way before we find him," he tried to say comfortingly as they started their journey, walking in a random direction. It was as good as chance as any in this darkness.
He just hoped that they would find one another before morning. Or before something else big and angry found them.
Meanwhile, some distance away and spitting out leaves, Natsu was less than impressed. In fact, he was furious.
He had been thrown across the forest, separated from his Exceed, and not only did he have a giant stupid monster to beat up, he now also had to teach another one a lesson about taking an Exceed from their Dragon Slayer!
Of course, all of this was the stupid Ice Princess's fault for encouraging this stupid mission in the first place. No doubt about it.
The Slayer rubbed his shoulder as he stood up and tried to ignore the pain that flared up. As he took his first step, his ankle also ached. With every new movement he had to grit his teeth harder, using the trees around him to push forwards. It didn't look good, but hell, he wasn't about to be knocked out by a tree. Or gravity. Or some ridiculous stupid bird for that matter. He was limping, dazed and in pain, but he could push past it.
He tried instead to focus on the smells around him and the quickest route to the monster and his friends, but that was proving no easy task. As he'd noticed before, the forest was coated in a strange, oily scent. Though it had been a warm, dry day, the wet and putrid smell lingered all around him which he now recognised as that of the flying beast. It was quite unlike anything he'd ever smelt, reminding him of more of marshlands than lush forests and wide canyons, and thoroughly distracting him from his tracking.
At least now he knew that with this knowledge, mixed with the distinctive smell of burnt feathers, he would easily spot the creature if it returned for round two. He was quickly starting to realise that that may not have been the worst threat of the forest, however. There were many more overlapping scents, all of which had created the dizzying maze that had gotten him lost in the first place, each one with the same musky dampness to it. This place must have been some kind of beast safari that may have even rivalled Edolas.
There were too many questions with this revelation. In a land surrounded by beasts, did the villagers not have their own way of protecting themselves? Were they aware of the threats of the forest before hiring the Fairy Tail mages? Did more than one beast make its way from the canyon? And most importantly, could they use this information to get a larger reward?
He wasn't going to get any answers standing around, that was for sure. So, latching onto the only familiar scents, Natsu began limping in the direction of his friends.
Hope you enjoy and thank you for all your support so far! :) Reviews are always appreciated by both xMissFortune and myself!
(Seriously. She almost murdered me for not telling her about the last review. Please save me. o.o)