Break Him

Ch 3

Princey

It had happened so fast and so unexpectedly—Natsu hadn't known he'd been hit until he found himself gasping for air. Something had slammed into his abdomen—hard. Winded, Natsu felt slick, cold stone on his back and realized he had been kicked back through the entrance in which he had come, slamming into the hard wall of the corridor. He fell to the ground, his eyes wide and confused. The roar of battle cries erupting from the giant room filled his ears, and, distantly, his sensitive hearing found Lucy and Happy's voices.

"What the heck?" The fire mage panted, and he lifted his head to see a figure in a deep blue robe. Their face was hidden by a blue hood with golden designs near its edges, and Natsu could feel magic pulsing from them. They smelled of something earthy and sour. The pink-headed man stood, his olive eyes glinting dangerously.

"So it was you, huh? Lucky hit," Natsu growled, and clenched his fists, feeling the heat on his hands as flames formed around both of them. His eyes darted behind the figure in front of him and he caught a glimpse of a black and white mass swinging an axe around at the wave of people that had charged after them—Taurus. Lucy was fighting all those people out there. Natsu growled, his lips curling back and revealing his canines.

"Outta my way—I've got a dad to save."

The figure in Natsu's way responded by raising a hand above his head and sticking his other arm out to the side. Natsu tensed as a large magic circle formed mid-air in front of the figure. The markings were black, outlined by a dark blue glow. Faster than Natsu's eye could see, spheres of blue energy the size of base balls burst from the magic circle, hitting the fire mage before he could even blink. He grunted as he leapt to the side, wincing as sharp stings pierced his body where the spheres hit him.

Growling, the flame on his hands grew brighter and bigger before he jumped on the side of the wall, using his momentum to spring off of it and hurl himself at his attacker.

"Fire Dragon's—" He shouted as he swung his fist, catching the figure in the jaw, "Iron Fist!"

The wizard was sent sideways into the opposite wall made of stone, and, Natsu, without sparing his target a glance, rushed back into the giant room. Natsu ignored the brief double-vision he gained, as well as the aching in his fist, shaking his head as it cleared and brushing it off. Lucy stood with her back to him, with Happy flying near her head while Taurus fought off the wave of people charging the stairs that led up to them. Natsu ran past Lucy and up to Taurus, ignoring the blonde as she shouted his name. The fire mage sprung into the air just behind the giant bull, flipping before landing on his shoulders and balancing on the celestial spirit's shoulder on one hand. The cow spared him a glance, too busy in holding off their attackers to pay the fire mage his whole attention.

"Think you can give me a lift?" Natsu smirked at the surprised bull, and the cow's face gave him a confident grin before nodding.

"You got it, Natsuuu!" Taurus bellowed and grabbed the mage in a fingerless-gloved hand, and wound his large arm before pitching Natsu towards the center of the massive room's ceiling. The fire mage couldn't help but laugh in exhilaration as he shot like a rocket towards the peak of the room, and, as he turned his feet to meet the ceiling, he felt his body pulse in heat as he called upon a spell. His hands flared to life as he crashed into the stone ceiling.

Natsu steeled himself—'Here goes!'

"The flames of my right hand and the flames of my left," The mage shouted as he started to descend head-first towards the entire mass of people below him, feeling the exhilarating pulse of his heart hammering adrenaline through his body. Attacks were fired at him—a few small ones made their mark, but the dragon slayer paid them no attention. "Put 'em together and you get—!"

Natsu slammed his fists together, aiming at the ground. Many of the dark group started to shout in alarm.

"Fire Dragon's—" Natsu bellowed, and his voice seemed to rupture any other sound in the room. The mage brought his fists over his head—he was ten feet away from the ground. "Brilliant Flame!"

Natsu slammed his fists downwards just as he met the earth, and fire erupted from the wizard's body.

Screams tore through the room as an explosion shook the entire chamber, the fire reaching well over two-thirds of the giant cavity. People were thrown into the walls by the sheer force of the explosion—pieces of the walls and ceiling started crumbling down. The ones unlucky enough to be nearest to Natsu were thrown backwards as flames enveloped them, crashing into their own people and taking a few of them out. Once the light from the explosion faded, Natsu was left standing in the crater he'd created in the stone when he'd landed and then fired off a giant detonation. There were at least a hundred people piled around him that were either dead or unable to move, and Natsu glared at them without remorse.

The group now surrounding him started to panic.

"He's stronger than we thought!"

"Th-That mark on his arm! That's—!"

"Don't be scared! He's just one guy!"

Natsu's expression was deadly as he scanned the room to locate Lucy and Happy—they were holding their own at the top of the staircase. Although, Natsu noticed that Taurus had been replaced by Leo—or, Loke, as Natsu preferred to call him—and Lucy was fighting beside him with her whip. They could put up a good fight, but Natsu knew they would not last long under the continuous onslaught of mages. These guys were not the usual minions that could be taken out in one punch—they were each trained well in magic. Natsu knew that just by how dense the magic in the room was.

The fire mage was snapped out of his thoughts when something slammed into him again, and Natsu caught a whiff of the earthy scent he'd identified earlier. The pink-haired man was thrown to his knees from the force, where he quickly got up and felt heat surge off of him in anger.

"You again." Natsu growled as he saw the hooded figure from a minute ago standing calmly before him. "Tell me where Takao is!" The mage shouted, and threw himself forward at his target.

His opponent simply made hand gestures that created a magic circle, and Natsu's sensitive ears picked up the low murmurings of a spell being cast. The now-familiar sphere attack was fired at Natsu, and he dodged the projectiles with ease before charging at his attacker.

"Fire Dragon's," Natsu yelled as flames enveloped his body once again. He charged with a speed greater than any man could run, heading directly for the figure before him. Natsu bowed his head forwards, ramming head-first through the rain of blue spheres and into the other wizard's abdomen. "Sword Horn!"

With a blast of fire, the attacker was sent flying across the room, leaving a trail of smoke in his wake as he landed somewhere in the crowd of people packed into the room. Natsu stood with his fists clenched, panting.

"That's for earlier," Natsu chuckled, but he paused when his vision blurred again, and he rubbed at his eyes. Suddenly, pressure built in his head and he found the top of his noggin pounding painfully.

'What the—? It feels like my head took a beating,' Natsu thought, and couldn't bring himself to react when the people around him readied attacks and drew closer. He put a hand to the area he'd rammed into his opponent with, vainly trying to blink away his hazy vision.

It was then that pain erupted on his back, and he yelped as he stumbled forward a few feet. He turned, and glared in the direction the attack had come from, watching as a white magic circle faded, before Natsu's ears picked up the sound of chuckling.

Though his eyes refused to focus, Natsu charged forward, anyways, his feet setting ablaze as he jumped into the air.

"Fire Dragon's—" Natsu called yet another spell, flipping and slamming his foot into his attacker with crushing force. "Talon!" The attack resulted in another explosion, and, although it was considerably smaller than the previous one, it still sent quite a few troops flying. Natsu landed on his feet clumsily, sticking his arms out to his sides to try and regain balance.

'What the crap?' Natsu thought as he tried to shake away his blurry vision again. 'Why can't I see straight…?'

"Natsu!"

The fire mage turned his gaze above him to see a blue blur flying over the crowd. Something yellow-orange danced in the figure's hands.

"Happy!" Natsu replied to his partner, and the item in the feline's hands started to fall towards him. Natsu didn't need to see the thing to know what it was. The dragon slayer leapt into the air, dodging another attack as he did so, and grabbed the item in the midst of its descent. Feeling the singeing on his hands made him smile, and, as he fell towards the ground again, he started to eat.

Happy had dropped the mage one of the many torches that were hanging on the giant walls of the stone chamber. The flames dancing on the end of the light source disappeared in chunks as Natsu impossibly bit through them. The pink headed mage continued to eat the flame even as he landed on the ground, baffling some of the enemy near him. Natsu swallowed down the last flickering flame on the torch, almost shuddering in satisfaction at the burning in his throat—similar to that first drink of ice-cold soda stinging the throat. That, however, is a very large understatement in comparison to what Natsu felt when he experienced that almost-painful, yet, almost-addictive, sensation of flames traveling through his body.

Blinking hard as he threw the now dull torch over his shoulder, Natsu wiped his mouth with a fist. His vision cleared. Olive eyes took in bewildered faces around him and their owner smirked.

"Oh, yeah; now I've got a fire in my belly," Natsu chuckled to himself, "Thanks for the snack, Happy!"

"Aye, sir!"

The fire mage felt his lungs burn like two hot coals as he called upon another spell.

"Fire Dragon's—" Natsu yelled as he put his hands up to his mouth, curving them as if they were about to form a blow-dart gun. "Roar!"

A stream of fire wide enough to stretch from wall-to-wall of the chamber erupted from Natsu's mouth, shooting through his hands and enveloping any sorry soul that dared to stand in his way. When the flames cleared, Natsu saw that he hadn't taken out as many people as he'd intended. Magic barriers seemed to be in front of random groups of people, fading as the flames dissipated.

"Defense magic, huh?" Natsu observed, giving them a toothy grin. "Can't say I'm impressed," He said, shrugging his shoulders. His expression darkened again quickly. "I'll ask ya' again; where's Takao?"

The crowd shifted nervously and began to back away, casting each other glances.

"Heh, I'm 'fraid we cain't tell ya' that, Rosy." A gruff voice snickered, and Natsu shifted his eyes to see a man bearing a rather large stomach with the beginnings of an unkempt beard poking from under his nose and jawline. He wore a cloak like everyone else, but his hood was off of his head, and his dark brown eyes glared in arrogance, coupled with a menacing grin. Though his stomach poked out in an obvious beer-gut, his arms were large and crossed over his chest.

"Oh, yeah?" Natsu said, and shifted his feet in a ready position. "So you do know where he is. Guess I'll have to beat it out of ya'," He threatened, and his voice rumbled with a faint growl from his throat.

However, the southern drawl of the large man rang in laughter, and his hands went to his hips. "I wouldn't do that, if I's you, boy."

"Yeah, and why's that?" The fire mage snapped in irritation—this guy was starting to remind him of that crazy cowgirl that had made that robot dragon. Ugh.

"Well, see," The man's grin—which was missing a tooth, or two—grew, and he shrugged offhandedly "yer in a bit of a pickle, Rosy. That purty lil' thang you brought whi'tcha', 'member her? Or did'ja forget about 'er?"

Natsu's eyes widened. Lucy.

He swung his head around, his eyes searching frantically for his teammate. She was there, at the top of the staircase—unconscious. A figure in a cloak held her by the neck with a black-gloved hand. The figure had burned areas on the front of his clothing; it was the one that had first attacked Natsu—the one with the weird smell. She was bruised, blood was smeared on her knees and arms, as if she had fallen on the hard stone. The shoulder bag she had brought with her was nowhere to be found.

"Lucy!" Natsu called, but the blonde gave no response.

"Now, listen here, Rosy; we gon' take you 'n blondie, here, and put'chee in our dungeon. You gon' tell us how ye' fount us, and yer gon' do it without complainin'. If yee' don't, then miss thang's gon' be in fer one heck of a night with me, hoo-yah!" The man with the southern drawl whooped, causing some of the other cloaked figures to hoot and holler and whistle.

Natsu felt his chest tighten. His eyes widened, his pupils narrowed to slits, and he felt his lip curl and his nose wrinkle in anger.

"You're not gonna lay a finger on her," Natsu hissed, and his voice was laced in venom. "I won't let you!"

With that, the fire-mage charged at the redneck in front of him, his fist behind him and prepared to strike. He gave the man a right hook, which sent the almost tubby dark man stumbling to the side. He spat, and glared at Natsu.

"Now, listen, here, boy—"

Natsu gave him no time to recover, and felt his feet ignite in flames. He kicked the man in the chest, before assaulting him with punch after punch. Yelling in anger as he continued his onslaught of punches, Natsu vaguely realized that none of the other members of the mysterious group were offering to land a hand to fight the fire mage.

With a final, blazing punch, Natsu caught the southern man in the jaw, watching as he fell onto the stone ground.

"Sorry, but I'm not good at following directions," Natsu smirked darkly. However, his eyebrows creased in confusion when the redneck shakily rolled and got on his knees, lifting his head and giving Natsu a twisted grin.

"You done did it now, boy!"

"Natsu!"

The fire-mage turned his head to see Lucy with one eye open, the chocolate iris looking down in Natsu's direction.

"Drain…Magic…" Lucy gasped, her limp arms twitching. "Can't tou—"

But Natsu unintentionally interrupted her when he yelped in pain, falling to his knees as his hands and feet were subjected to a bone-shattering pain. He tried to move, but found his feet numb, as if they had suddenly fallen asleep, and his eyes widened in horror.

Drain magic—he had heard of it before, but had never encountered it. With every touch the wielder deemed a physical attack, the attacker was then to pay the consequence for it—pain.

"Yer girl's right, Rosy," The gruff voice of the man chuckled. "See, Ah'm one'a the leaders in this, here, organization. The name's Spud—y'know, like the tater? Yeah, mah parents wain't the smartest."

''Wain't'…?' Natsu couldn't help but think, and he gasped as his arms started to throb in pain. 'Why's it spreading?!'

"Now, I gave yee' a chance, ya' hear?" Spud growled, and started towards Natsu. The fire mage watched, his knees numb and his thighs starting to follow suit as he swayed and struggled to stay on all fours. His shoulders shook with the effort to keep his unresponsive muscles working, and his breathing grew labored. How had the tables turned so easily?! "Looks like yer girl's gon' be mine for the night, hoo-hah!"

"Lucy…" Natsu managed, and strained to turn his head up to the blonde, his eyes wide and angry—angry at Spud, at himself. The celestial mage hung lifelessly from her captor's grasp, her brown eyes scared and silently rooting and pleading for Natsu.

He had to get her out of here—now.

Natsu steeled himself, and he growled as he sat up shakily on one knee. Pain shot through his limbs, and he grunted and ignored it. Lucy.

"Hoo-hah, what's this, here, now? No one's ever done been awake this long after landin' hits on me, Rosy. 'M impressed, hah!" Spud laughed haughtily, and loomed over Natsu as he struggled to stand.

"You ain't…touchin' Lucy…" Natsu gasped, and heaved himself shakily to his feet, one of his eyes screwed shut in pain, and the other boring into Spud's dirty brown eyes—he couldn't feel his legs.

Lucy.

"Hoo-hah, you think yee' can just—" But he was cut off as fire enveloped him. Shouting in alarmed agony, Spud backed away frantically, and dispelled the fire with some sort of defense magic. However, when the flames dissipated, Natsu was gone. Spud swung his burly head and eyes locked with the figure charging up the stair case many feet away. "How'd ya'—?! Grah, get 'eem!"

Natsu ran—or, rather, stumbled numbly—up the staircase, his eyes wide and enraged. Fire surrounded him, and every attack launched at him was burned away by the intense flames. When three steps separated him from the impassive figure holding Lucy, Natsu faltered and gasped as pain shot up his spine.

Lucy.

And for the first time, the weird-smelling figure spoke to Natsu in a voice floating on silk, classified as neither feminine nor masculine.

"You have no hope. Surrender. You have lost."

Natsu stayed knelt on the ground for a moment, gasping for breath as he fought off the fogginess in his head. The figure remained unfazed by the flames dancing dangerously close to them. The fire-mage grunted, and started to push himself up, only for his hand to slip on the edge of a stone step, and his chin met the hard surface painfully with a 'crack'.

The figure lowered Lucy and let her drop to the ground. They took a step towards the weakened Natsu, and held their hand out, a magic circle forming there.

"This ends now."

Natsu vaguely felt himself be lifted from the ground.

An explosion rocked the room, and the crowd of hooded people gasped and shrieked. The floor shook, and the walls rumbled as the white energy the figure created pierced the air with a deafening roar. When the light faded, there was a blackened stain left where Natsu had knelt, and the figure gave a 'hmph' of satisfaction.

"Fire Dragon's—"

The cloaked figure's gaze snapped upwards, their hidden eyes widening as they saw the fire mage suspended in the air by a blue cat—by Happy. The feline released him, before darting down out of range of Natsu's trademark attack. He snatched Lucy up from the ground by her green blouse before the figure Natsu was targeting could comprehend what was happening, and shot through the entrance to the big room of which they had entered.

"Roa—ar!"

And as the flames rocketed from his mouth, and even allowed him to remain in the air a moment longer, Natsu felt his body go limp, and his vision swam between spots of color and black as he descended. He thought he could hear Lucy shouting his name.

Natsu was unconscious before he even hit the ground.

"Natsu!"

Happy clenched his teeth, trying to ignore Lucy's shout as he flew with Lucy in his arms. They rocketed through the tunnels of the dark, heinous fortress they had so stupidly charged into. Happy's wings flashed green, illuminating their path, as he charged forward with maximum speed, flattening his ears and blinking away tears.

In all the years, in all the adventures and the hopeless situations, Happy never could have thought that—

"Happy, turn around right now!" Lucy shouted, and started to thrash weakly in his grasp. "Natsu—Natsu's back there!"

Happy made the final turn of the hideout, and spotted the stone staircase they had previously used. He flew impossibly faster.

"Happy!" Lucy cried out, and she reached up and grasped what she could of him. Happy ignored the pain of her tugging desperately at his ear and his cheek.

"I had to!" Happy finally screeched, and briefly turned his pained eyes to glare at her and wrinkle his muzzle in pain. His face was released, and the hands that had inflicted pain on him now covered Lucy's face as she sobbed.

And then the cramped, stone tunnels gave way to a dark night, and Happy kept flying. He did not ascend, but weaved in and out of the trees and shrubs in their wake. This went on for another minute, or two, and Happy felt his magic falter; he needed to land. Happy ignored the warning his body gave him, and flapped his wings in determination.

"We've gotta go back for him," Lucy said, and Happy could feel her brown eyes on her as she spoke.

Happy shook his head, "We can't ."

"What?" Lucy snapped, "What do you mean?! We can't just leave him—"

"Natsu made me promise to get you back to the guild," Happy explained, and his speed decreased as his wings started to ache.

Happy's eyes widened, his arms dropping the many torches he had gathered for his partner as he spotted the fire-mage on the top of the stone staircase in which his team had used. He ignored the exclaims of pain as the torches landed on the people below him, and he flapped his wings frantically to reach Natsu before the attack being aimed at the wizard could hit him. He snatched the teenager in his paws, hauling him into the air just as white energy blew them even farther away.

"Happy."

The cat's ears perked as Natsu spoke—he sounded weak.

"You've…gotta get Lucy out of here. Take her to the guild."

"What?" Happy exclaimed, "I can't just leave you here, Natsu! Are you crazy?"

The attack previously fired started to dissipate.

"I'm stayin' here…'gonna find Takao…" Natsu breathed, and Happy could tell he was losing the last bit of his strength.

"But—"

"I ain't arguing with you, Happy! Now, go! I'll be fine! Take care of Lucy!"

And with that, Natsu suddenly twisted out of the cat's grip, and started to descend towards the figure that had attacked him.

"We're gonna go to the guild, and get some backup," Happy said. The blue cat's lips curled back in anger, and he met Lucy's brown eyes from underneath him. Her face held trails of tears, but her eyes were starting to shine in determination.

"Don't worry," He said, "We'll be back."

Me: Mwahaha-MWAHAHAHAAAAAA!

I mean-ahem-Until next time!