Big news! The wonderfully nice LadyKeyes is now the official beta for this story. If you still don't know her go check her profile: she's really talented and I'm kinda sorry that she has to fix my crappy writing (oh my gosh, the horror of my errors! I got goosebumps just reminiscing them XD).
Ok, now without further ado, here's the second part of the NaLu chapter! I've put a little "easter egg" inside, a tiny reference only the most hardore-geeky-nerd Mashima fans will be able to catch.
Still not owning Fairy Tail or its characters.
"Oh no..." Lucy whispered, finally overcoming her horror enough to get back the power of speech.
She looked down at Natsu.
Or, at least, at what appeared to be the miniature version of him.
He was wearing the exact same outfit he had on before (his trademark waistcoat, baggy pants and scarf), but shrunken to adapt to the size of his now small body.
His face, although basically unchanged, seemed to have lost all its angular and hard features gaining instead a certain soft roundness, very child-like.
"Oh no, oh no, no, no-no-no" she continued, frantically circling him several times. The kid was gazing at her worriedly, turning his head to follow her movements. She kneeled in front of him to stare at his face.
Into his big eyes.
Very big.
Wait, were they this big before?
"Umm, Miss, you're creepy."
The soft, high-pitched voice somehow managed to free her from her stupor.
"Oh Mavis, Natsu are you alright? How do you feel?" she asked, voice etched with worry.
"Miss do I know you?"
That simple question caught her off guard. She raised her eyebrows, startled "Wha-? Yes, yes of course you know me! It's me, Lucy! I'm your friend, your teammate, don't you remember?"
A feeling of anxiety was beginning to seep through her. Things could even be worse than they seemed.
"What are you talking about? I don't have a team. Don't need one: I can do very well on my own." he chuckled raising an eyebrow and looking at Lucy like she was a complete nut.
Then peeked back at his palm.
"Hey! Where's my bug? What happened to it?" he cried, finally realizing that he was holding out an empty hand. "Did you steal it?" he accused, squinting his eyes distrustfully at Lucy.
"Of course not, why would I? " the girl retorted outraged.
Mini-Natsu shrugged his shoulders.
"Dunno. It was a pretty cool bug, maybe you collect them." he proposed.
In Lucy's heart, fear and anxiety for her friend's well-being were quickly being replaced by annoyance and a strong urge to spank him. Very strong.
"I don't collect bugs, stupid!" she exclaimed, exasperated.
"Hey, you're the stupid one! Bugs are awesome. And it's not nice for adults to pick on kids you know." he accused, crossing his thin arms across his tiny chest.
"You're not a kid Natsu, you've been transformed by the Glaucus." the blonde mage grunted, trying to calm herself. No, she couldn't lose control now and be swept into the kid's pace.
"What's a Glucu?" he asked frowning, struggling to grasp the foreign word.
"A Glaucus...it's the bug from before..." she clarified, waving her hand dismissively.
"Ah-aah, so you DO know about bugs!" he said pointing a finger at her. He smirked, proud of himself for having outsmarted the strange busty girl.
"No, I'm not Elie! Listen, that wasn't a bug at all, but a magical creature. Very rare and powerful I must add." Lucy tried to explain to the lively child. She was hoping that putting emphasis on these two words could calm him down or al least get his full attention, but his blank stare made her quickly discard the thought. "I can't imagine what could have been its reason for doing so, but it turned you back into a kid." she finished.
"How could I have been 'turned back into' something I already am, Miss? I've always been like this, as far as I can remember." he contradicted her. This lady sure was saying strange things.
"No no no no. You see, you are under a spell...until a minute ago you were a fully fledged adult, I swear! You were tall, strong and and and..." Lucy fumbled to find the right words, "you were well built...but it's not like I was ogling you or anything, it's just that you always go around wearing that damned vest and showing off your biceps and abs so much that I think you are doing it on purpose, actually..." she trailed off.
Wait, what the hell was she blabbering?
"Miss, you're scary." the kid said, backing away cautiously a little bit.
She shook her head, trying to clear away those strange thoughts, coming from heaven knows where.
"Please, Natsu! Try to focus! Don't you remember breaking into my apartment with Happy a while ago?"
"Who's Happy?" the little boy asked with a quizzical look.
The blue Exceed had been silent up until that very moment, still too shocked by the sudden turn of events to speak. He had witnessed the transformation of his dragonslayer, too terrified to do anything to help him. Then Lucy had hurried into the kitchen and instead of helping she started to act like a madwoman, saying confusing things and generally making matters worse. Typical.
Hearing his name being said out loud somehow managed to de-petrify him and he rushed over his friend's side.
"It's me Natsu! How can you not know who I am?." he wailed desperately. "I mean it's ok to forget about Lucy..."
"Hey!"
"...but I'm your super best friend ever!".
Natsu turned and looked dumbfounded at him for several seconds...before exploding.
"THIS CAT JUST TALKED! AWESOME!" he cried excitedly, tackling a heart-shattered Happy "Can I have it?! CanIhaveitCanIhaveitCanIhaveit?! Please Miss, pleaseeee!".
He was so loud that Lucy had to actually cover her ears to not have them shattered.
"No!" she hollered, trying to talk over the noise.
"Why?! It's not fair, you stole my bug, the least you can do is give me your cat." he pouted, clutching Happy tighter to his chest.
"I did not steal your damn bug. And Happy is not my cat.".
"Ok, so I can take him, right?".
"No, you can't...".
"Why not?".
"Because I said so!" Lucy blurted out, throwing her hands in the air. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply as she tried to collect herself.
"No, wait, that's not it, I'm starting to sound just like my father...what I meant to say is that Happy doesn't belong to anyone, he is his own. You can't treat him like a thing and simply take him, he's your friend and friends deserve to be respected." she told him in a tone that she hoped sounded calm and sensible.
The little boy turned to the Exceed in his hands. The cat was rigid and lifeless like a doll; his wide white eyes and mouth hanging open due to the hard emotional blow.
"It's not like I can ask him if he's like this" the mini-Natsu complained, still unconvinced.
"He-he doesn't...remember...m-me..." muttered Happy in a faint voice "I'm j-just like Lucy..."
"You are definitely not helping, stupid cat!" the blonde mage said angrily, snatching the Exceed from the boy's grasp and throwing him into the couch.
"Tch, you're no fun, Miss" Natsu grumbled lacing his hands behind his head.
"And stop calling me 'Miss'!"
"But Igneel told me to be respectful toward the elders..."
Hearing this, Lucy throw him a withering look. "We're the same age!" she spat poisonously.
"...I think!" she added grudgingly. She had always assumed that they were more or less close in age, but she couldn't be sure. Nobody at the guild, not even Natsu himself, knew his birthday and back during the Fantasia incident Freed's rune barrier had sparked rumours that he could be over eighty.
Anyway, at most he was the older one. Certainly not her.
"Oookay, if you say so..." he looked around a bit, curious, finally taking notice of the messy kitchen and even messier living room.
"Wow Miss, your house is really dirty, you know?" He said with an impressed whistle "You should clean it sometimes. Otherwise no man is going to marry you."
Lucy had to physically stop her hand from tightening around his neck. 'I'm gonna murder the little impudent brat' she thought, but managed not to say it out loud.
"For your information, my house was sparkling clean before your arrival. It's all your fault." she snorted, instead.
"Oh, yeah. Why did you bring me here?" he asked, hopping into the living room and then turning around to look at her.
"I didn't take you anywhere, you came on your own! Without telling me."
'Like you always do' she added in her head and suddenly the very thought of this now ritual intrusion not happening again made her insides churn with fear.
"Why would I enter the house of an unknown woman?" he asked unconvinced, taking a step back and casting a suspicious glance towards her "Hey, are you perhaps one of those scary adults that kidnap defenceless children and sell them as slaves?".
"Of course not! Don't look at me like I'm some kind of maniac!" she said offended.
"Good. Because I'm anything but helpless, I'm a mage of Fairy Tail!" he said cockily, flashing her a toothy grin.
"I know, Natsu."
"Oh, by the way, I should probably go back to the guild now. I have to make that new Gray guy understand who's the strongest!".
He turned around and hopped nimbly on the window sill, pausing to wave a hand at a stupefied Lucy.
"What...no, wait for me...you can't walk around the town in this state!" she said hurriedly.
But he wasn't listening.
"It was nice meeting you, creepy Miss! Thanks for having me!"
"Natsu wait!" Lucy wailed, but he jumped out of the window.
"Damn idiot!" she cursed under her breath, leaning out the window frame in time to see a small shape speeding through the street below.
She shoot out the apartment, chasing after the little boy. Damn, he was fast! She had already lost sight of him.
'Well, nevermind,' the blonde mage thought as she pushed through the late afternoon crowd. She knew exactly where he was headed. The main problem was trying to get there as fast as she could.
If she was already dead tired before reaching her house, now she could practically feel her muscles screaming in pain and agony. She ignored her body's protest as she run towards the guild.
So much for her relaxing evening! Natsu had managed to disrupt her plan once more. Typical.
It was just like that hothead to just do what he wanted without caring about the others!
To be fair, this time it wasn't entirely his fault: the Glaucus had done a great deal of the work. But Mavis bless her she couldn't think of any good reason for its odd behaviour.
But she didn't want to be fair. She wanted to be angry, upset with her friend who, even mini-sized was still a big idiot.
Because anger made her blood boil in her veins, causing her legs pump like pistons to catch up with the little twerp. It kept her mind clear and focused and, above all, it kept at bay that feeling of pure, unadulterated fear which threatened to overwhelm her with each passing second.
Fear that something, anything, might happen to that child.
Fear of not being able to feel again that warmth, that feeling of safety which, despite all his rowdiness and silliness, Natsu could inspire in her heart.
Yes, this one is actually a 3 part chapter XD
Feel free to say how much you liked it/hated it.
And chibi-Natsus will be handed to those who guessed the little Easter egg ;-)
