Destiny's Demise

Chapter 4:The Misunderstood

Sleep circles hung heavily from under the dragon slayers dark eyes as he trudged tiresomely through the trees. Occasionally, long tired sighs would escape his lips, kicking the odd pile of leaves now and then and watching them flutter to the floor before moving on. Looks passed between the guild members as they gave the dragon slayer their own curious looks, but none of them brought themselves to speak to him, which would have provided that they knew what to say.

After about half an hour of walking through the cold forest, damp with the after-storm rain without the humidity from the day before, they reached the sight of Natsu's earlier explosive rage. Before arriving, they had stopped to check in with Madam Charlotte and have been walking ever since.

"Is this it, Natsu?" Happy called from ahead. Dull eyes looked up from his self-pity gaze trailing along the floor and caught the cat's face. They moved passed the small feline and spotted the tree with a concave hole in the middle of it. Beneath it was a pile of black and grey ashes, confirming their location. After nodding to the group, he found his eyes moving to the tree across from the scene. A long flexible branch reached out with another small twig still balanced on the edge. At first, he had expected Desmond to still be sat there, waving his little twig like a wand again, but of course, he wasn't.

Gray and Erza's feet stepped careful around the scene, their eyes sharp and calculating with their eyebrows furrowed together. Every few moments they exchanged worried glances and carried on.

After sniffing around the scene a little longer they decided there was nothing much of use there and carried on. Natsu wanted to go check out the charred hole of the fireball but it would take too much time as a detour. Besides, Gray and Erza gathered all they needed just from the long line of knocked down trees.

Everyone engaged in mindless chatter through the duration of the walk with the dragon slayer and the cat lagging a little further behind, chatting about the silver fire ball. Wendy talked about Madam Charlotte to her own exceed, and Erza and Gray discussed information they had gathered on the earl when they returned to the village while Natsu was throwing his tantrum. Natsu argued from behind, saying it wasn't anything like a 'tantrum' as they called it, but they both dismissed him with a simple sigh.

"What do we do if we get to the Earl's mansion and the fire troupe is there?" Gray hypothesised, running a hand habitually over his short black hair and dusting it on his shorts.

"You mean, what will Natsu do?" Erza countered, raising an eyebrow at the ice mage. Both their eyes peaked over their shoulders at the glum and irritable dragon slayer sluggishly carrying the feline on his head. A certain sense of worry plagued them with the unpredictability of the dragon slayer as it did for the every mission they had been on for the past three years.

"Yeah, that's what I meant..." Gray mumbled, his gaze falling back onto the route ahead of them. Once again, his eyes pretended to look interested in his surroundings, but the equip mage knew they were too deep in thought to really take notice of them.

"Who knows what he'll do or how we're suppose to handle him." Erza shrugged, brushing a stray red hair behind her ear, following its silk thread down to the same inch it had been for three years. Her hands paused at the tip, thinking Gray might have been right about her hair; maybe she should try to change it for once. If her heart was ready to move on after Lucy's death, maybe her hair should too.

"You know, with the whole kidnapping children for two and a half years, and being nearby to that place...you don't think..." Gray's voice drowned out into the whisper of the breeze, leaving his suggestion hanging in the air. Erza caught the end of it immediately. Dark eyes snapped onto him with surprise, but at the same time they hid the old understanding. Apparently, Gray hadn't been the first to think of it.

"...that Natsu and Lucy were attacked by the Earl?" She finally finished, purposely keeping her voice lower than she knew Natsu could hear. Even after three years of growing deeper into his dragon slayer senses, Erza was still well aware of his hearing limits.

"We never did find out who they were." Gray added. Sharp eyes fell onto the ice mage's as she noticed the old Fira of hope beginning to resurface in his eyes. It reminded her of the painful weeks of searching when Lucy had first gone. It was the same small piece of hope that caused so much pain and disappointment so long ago. A small pang echoed deep in her heart, uncovering her own hidden part of her emotion that still felt so raw. "What if Lucy is alive?" Gray continued. "Do you think she found out about the Earl and joined the fire troupe? What do we tell Natsu?"

"Nothing." Erza answered bluntly. The hope that sparked in Gray's eyes slowly began to fade back into their own little holes of darkness inside. "We're just baselessly guessing; we can't be sure any of it is true."

A quiver passed over the ice mage's lips as he hesitated to speak. At first, it seemed like he was ready to argue, but the spark had already been smothered. "You're right." The ice mage sighed, his dark eyes turning to the front of him again. Erza hadn't wanted to distinguish the ice-make wizard's hope so harshly. It wasn't like his theory was groundless; in fact, Erza had thought exactly the same thing before. However, it would be wrong to let the boy go racing down a path they couldn't be sure lead to even more pain.

Dark eyes glanced back over her steel-plated shoulder towards the pink haired dragon slayer arguing passionately to the cat about not having lost to the girl from the day before. A little ache of guilt withered its way into his heart curling around the lock that kept the old emotions hidden deep within her chest. It was cut off sharply as she realised they weren't alone.

"Who's there?" Erza bellowed, her gauntlet jumping to the handle of her sword. Its blade hissed as it slid from its sheathe, turning into a very, very dangerous weapon. Alert shot through the rest of the team as they all geared up for a fight.

Sudden winds surged up between them, as their eyes caught the indigo blur darting through the tree tops. It landed on the path ahead of them with long lilac hair with blue and purple clothing and a handful of glass needles.

"You!" Natsu glared, flames instantly cloaking his hands with gloves of fire. They rippled and jumped from his hands as his irritation and anger peaked at her face.

"It's not 'you'! I told you, my name's Mana, the 'Whippet'. Use it!" The girl whined, showing a devilish and toying smile on her small face. However, between her eyes there was still that little bit of fear from the day before that she hadn't quite managed to hide completely. "And I'm surprised you're so feisty compared to your friends." The girl, Mana, continued, holding her knowing smile under the sadistic one.

"What?" Natsu snapped, turning on his heels. He realised everyone had been very quiet and very still until that point as his eyes fell on his team members. All their bodies lay unmoving against the forest floor with their eyes closed and their breaths shallow. "Oi! Get a hold of yourself!" The dragon slayer yelled, dropping down besides Gray. Handfuls of the ice mage's clothes were squeezed into Natsu's fists as he violently shook his limp body. "Oi!"

"Don't worry." Mana shrugged, leaning against the thick bark of the tree. Five glass needles pointed in his direction with the slow flip of her wrist with an exaggerated yawn from her tree. "They're just unconscious."

"HOW DARE YOU HURT MY FRIENDS!" Natsu roared, fire launching from his feet, propelling his body through the air. Dark eyes narrowed on the girl with a hungry glare, lips peeling back over his sharp fangs into a snarl.

"MOON!" A voice yelled. Natsu instantly recognised it as the mysterious voice that interrupted him yesterday. "Steel Io!"

Before Natsu even got chance to react, a huge steel ball appeared in the air above him from what seemed like nowhere, and crushed him in a second. His hard built body slammed against the ground into a man-made crater, sending burst of hot pain through his body. A roar of pain was smothered by his own dying gasp for air as the giant steel ball dissolved into dust above him.

Two legs straddled his back, a hand pressing his head roughly into the earth. Whoever it was felt so much lighter in comparison to the steel ball but the pain that flushed through his bruised body couldn't tell the difference. A sharp piercing prick pushed under the skin of his neck, squeezing a cold, chilling liquid into his veins. It managed to hit the only point in his body that could be penetrated by a needle; anywhere else on his body, his body would break the sharp point of the needle before it could even break his skin. Whoever was pinning him down knew where his weak point was and used it to their advantage.

As they let go, slipping the needle free, Natsu had a split second chance to opportunity to look up into the face of his attacker. Dark eyes snapped upwards as he felt the flood of the cold foreign liquid spreading through his veins. Bright red hair the colour of a blazing fire danced in the air, as a blurred right hand pushed it back behind their ear, baring their fire troupe tattoo with the number '2' written on it. Before he could see anything else, darkness the swept in and smothered the rest of his struggling consciousness.

Sharp ringing whistled in his ears with the dull throbbing radiating down his spine. As the dragon slayer slowly peeled his eyelids apart, a blurred film fading in and out of focus with his head seemingly rolled around his shoulders. A sharp prick pierced his neck yet again sending a sharp bite through his nerves. His vision rapidly cleared, the aching throb relaxed and the ringing in his ears dazed out into the faint sounds of rustling trees in the distance. Pink hair jerked back as his head shot up, followed by a chorus of relieved sighs all around him.

Dark eyes flashed to either side of him, catching the other sets of eyes all on him. Everyone was staring at him, lined up either side of him, strapped to a wooden chair with rope. Their and ankles and hands were all tied together too, just as his own were when he looked down at his own tied up self. "Why are we all tied up?" Natsu grumbled, still feeling a little groggy, despite the waking prick in his neck.

"We were captured, idiot." Grey growled irritably, two chairs to his left with poor Wendy stuck in between. Unfortunately, three years of growth had put her at the disadvantageous height at the level of both boys' glares.

"Say what, Ice princess?" Natsu snapped. Their eyes met and electricity seemed to spark between their intense glaring, and menacing snarls. A small whimper came from the air dragon slayer as she tried to keep her head down and out of the way. Eventually, it was Gray who turned away first with a grumble of irritation, leaving the dragon slayer to feel misplaced victory. "I'm breaking out!" The dragon slayer declared, tensing all the muscles in his body, ready to burn the rope to a crisp in a second.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." An all too familiarly cheeky voice appeared from behind a curtain. Dusk's dark navies and greyish-blues were visible in the sky through the momentary gap as a small purple-haired girl walked through the doorway. It seemed as though they were in some kind of tent with pale, thick cotton walls and a pointed roof cascading up above them. Small candles stood on the ends of posts with little white paper sheets cocooning around them, blocking out the wind. There was also small glass lids sat over the top of them with little holes that were big enough to let oxygen in, but too small for Natsu to suck the fire out.

"Muppet!" Happy squealed from besides the dragon slayer on his right. Dark eyes fell onto the small cat tied to the oversized chair next to him. It seems their captures hadn't been able to tie the cat to their chair as well as they had with the other human wizards. It seems his little legs couldn't reach beyond the edge of the seat, the same went for Carla too who sat on Happy's right.

"It's not Muppet!" Mana exclaimed with a crimson cast of frustration to her eyes. "It's whippet!"

"Why not?" Natsu argued, ignoring the girl's desperate cries to be acknowledged. Raw anger still hadn't settled as he glared at the girl that always seemed to bring the worst out of him. It made it all worst as he realised he had been captured by the fire troupe that made him so frustrated.

"You see that rope." The girl pointed to his chest at the place where he was pinned to the chair. Pale rope wound around and around his body and around the back of the chair with frayed, worn edges and a few red blotches absorbed by the material. Blood stains, Natsu thought with absolute certainty, which hadn't enlightened as much as the small girl probably hoped.

Attention returned to her again as she lifted a short piece in display from her hand. "This rope is a special kind of rope from the west. It gets tighter each time you try to use your magic." Her hand wrapped it in a loose loop around her other wrist a few times and knotted the ends. A gust surged up in the centre of the room with the flickering image of the girl disappearing and reappearing a second apart.

Once the winds settled, and the wobbling light stabilized, the girl lifted up her wrist again. "Look," she said, displaying her arm for them all to see. Colour in her hand had paled into a soft purple as the rope squeezed around her wrist, showing that the rope had gotten a lot tighter.

"Mana, if you keep doing that your hand will drop off." Another voice cut in; the voice of the other fire troupe member. A tall figure moved past the corner of the dragon slayer's vision, carrying a long needle in hand. Her presence had completely vanquished and he hadn't even sensed her standing right behind him. There were looks on the others faces that seemed surprised, except of course, Erza's. Her dark eyes narrowed on the woman as she moved into view, openly expressing her caution. It had seemed weird to the dragon slayer when Gray was the one to have backed down, instead of having the reequip mage make them cut it out like usual. He finally realised what had made her so quiet.

"You!" The pink-haired boy hissed bitterly, with the sour taste of defeat as he put together his earlier waking prick and the needle in her hands. Sharp black eyes focused on her with a poisonous glare as she walked calmly and confidently into view. She was tall, about the same height as Erza with a slim figure and a big chest. Chalk white skin contrasted her keen emerald eyes staring through the high black collar of the long cloak wrapped over her fairly broad shoulders. Fire red hair fell down her back in waves, fading from a deep red to a ginger orange and flaxen gold like a burning flame. From the angle of Natsu's chair he could vaguely see the familiar fire troupe symbol he saw before on her right hand with the number '2' written clearly in the middle.

"It seems there are some misconceptions between us, dragon slayer." The woman reached out, pulling an empty chair from a stack besides Carla and straddling it. Two black knee-high boots wrapped around the back legs of the chair, resting her arms on the supporting arch. Green jewels watched the dragon slayer with distaste and a fine line on her lips that could frown at the slightest utter.

"You mean the fact that you're happy to tell someone to leave their loved ones behind?" Natsu growled, reminded of the old, helpless woman left to leave her only son in grips of the Earl. It made his blood boil at just the thoughts of them even suggesting it. It wouldn't even surprise him if they were in cahoots with the Earl and wanted to keep the old lady quiet. A slight flinch shuddered through the woman's spine. Emerald green darkened as the straight line instantly bent into a frown of irritation.

For a moment, she stayed quiet and thoughtfully, letting her emotions calm and her eyes take on their reflective lenses over her emotions. "My name is Fira. Obviously, I am a member of the fire troupe and we did tell Madam Charlotte, whom you speak of, to forget her son." She finally admitted, staring the dragon slayer levelly in the eye without even a hint of remorse. "Was I happy about doing it? Of course not." The woman added with a bitter bite in her words, just daring the dragon slayer to react. Which, of course, he did.

"If you weren't happy about it, then why did you say it?" Natsu argued, leaning so far forwards he could feel the press of the string squeezing against his ribs.

"How else do you tell a mother her son is nothing more than a shell?" Fira snapped, vaulting so fast out of her chair that it went flying across the room. It collided into the other chairs with so much force it shattered into pieces, knocking over the other stack along with it. Silence fell around the room as the others stared at her enraged face. The unseeing glass in her eyes shattered, revealing her true and totally irate emotions in turmoil in her jewel-colour eyes. Bare fists coiled at her sides as her whole body shook with the urge to hit the dragon slayer so obviously visible on her face.

"Flare?" Mana soft voice reached out cautiously to the girl. But apparently, the woman wasn't done. Built up frustrations and rage began to pour out at the dragon slayer as her voice reached to the very peak of its volume.

"We do not tell mothers, or fathers, son, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers...lovers," Her voice softened only slightly for a moment with a tiny glint smothered under her eyes. It shifted almost a second later, taking a stern, intense edge that weighed heavily in the atmosphere. "...that they should forget the person they love. We tell them to move on because they are gone!" As the anger and frustration finally settled, her voice became softer and quieter. "Our fire troupe was created to stop ourselves from having to say that. We are here so that we can say 'we brought them home safe' instead!"

Natsu and everyone else fell quiet as his onyx eyes stared at the woman with guilt and empathy before he finally hung his head lower. A shameful emotion smothered his anger almost completely as he realised he had prejudged the group and their feelings without ever trying to understand.

"I know who you are, dragon slayer. And I can see her in your eyes." She spoke again with a calm level voice that, rather than threw her anger upon him, instead tried to reach to his, but with the same level of cold detachment when she had admitted her actions earlier. "Maybe you should move on as well." Fira said no more and left, with Mana following in tow, leaving them to their heavy silence.

Daylight swept in and out as the night came rolling in as Natsu found himself drifting in and out of sleep. No one had said anything since their conversation with the second fire troupe member, but each still tried to break free of the ropes without magic to no avail.

It was several hours before Mana appeared again in the tent doorway, catching the dragon slayer's attention. Pink hair ruffled as he lifted his dark eyes to the small girl looking sympathetically at the tied up group. It seemed as though she was still indecisive about whether she was coming in or not, and by the unreserved expression on her face, Natsu could tell she probably only came on a whim. It felt slightly odd seeing the obnoxiously loud girl stood so quietly in the doorway. In the end, it was the dragon slayer who spoke first.

"Why did you capture us?" He grumbled, showing a slight sense of interest and curiosity through his still present guilty mask. It was only made thicker after he spent the past few hours reflecting on how horribly he had treated Mana as well. Seeing her scared face in the woods and the slight fear in her eyes when they ambushed him earlier, only made him feel shameful as a man; scaring such a young girl.

At first she seemed hesitant to speak, keeping a close eye on her surroundings, but once she certified that no one else was listening, she decided to answer. "We didn't want you going into the Earl's castle without Natsu-sama's permission." Mana answered, moving further in. Everyone else seemed to be asleep as the girl made her way into the room. From the shards of wood she managed to salvage a useable chair and set it a safe distance away. She sat on it sideways, making Natsu believe that rest of the fire troupe probably sat on their chairs in weird ways too. Maybe they just didn't understand the right way to sit on it.

"Natsu-sama?" Natsu questioned in surprise, feeling very odd saying his own name with an honorific.

"Yeah, she's got the same name as you. Weird, right?" She chuckled softly, keeping her voice quiet so she didn't wake any of the other sleeping members. "She's on a recon mission with a spy inside the Earl's close circle at the moment. We'll consult with her on what to do with you guys after she gets back." Mana explained, twirling one of her thin glass needles in her hand. Natsu hadn't seen her holding one before and there were none on display on her clothes, so it made him wonder where it suddenly appeared from. On the other hand, his mind was also curious about the fore mentioned 'Natsu-sama'. It was rather surprising to find out that they were in fact a 'she' and that she had a spy and was on a recon mission made him suspect that whoever she was, was probably a very smart woman.

There was a long moment of silence as Natsu drowned in his thoughts before Mana spoke again. "The girl Fira saw in your eyes... who was she?" Pink hair jerked back again so sharply it made the girl flinch. In her small brown eyes he saw no malice or negative intent, just mild curiosity. A sigh faded from his lips and his intense focus relaxed again into the distance of the floor at his feet.

"She was my best friend." He smiled softly. Once Mana realised she was allowed to listen, her small body settled back comfortably into her chair, watching the dragon slayer with the same story searching eyes that were common to someone else he knew. However, Natsu didn't find himself looking at them; instead, he was looking into the past. "She was noisy, aggressive, greedy and vain, but...she had a great smile, was funny and kind. I met her several years ago when I got into a fight about Fairy Tail and we were together ever since." It was the first time he had spoken to anyone about Lucy ever since she disappeared. He hadn't meant to say so much but the words had just kept coming. "We were always fighting alongside each other, always having each other's back. I would always end up going to her apartment when we were on mission and she got mad whenever I would sleep in her bed. But, I kinda felt lonely when I wasn't there." A small nostalgic smile curved the flat line on his lips as a light hearted feeling made him calm and relaxed.

"What happened to her?" Mana asked softly, noticing the past tense and the fact she wasn't with them, that made her almost certain something had occurred. The small smile on his face disappeared, replacing it with dark sorrowful eyes. Pink eyebrows pulled closer on his face, causing a crease in the skin above his nose, making his expression look very pitiful.

"I couldn't protect her, and she ended up dying because of me...because I didn't protect her." Natsu whispered. "I left her to die there."

Mana watched him silently, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks. There was moment where she noticed the change from 'couldn't' to 'didn't' but she decided it would be best not to ask. Instead, she quietly wiped the tears from her damp cheeks, sniffling back her pity for him.

"Mana!" Fira voice yelled from the outside of the tent, startling the young girl. "Natsu-sama's on her way back!" From the neutral tone of her call, it seemed that Fira didn't know exactly where she was, and by the girl's shock it was even more obvious Mana didn't want her to know. Mana quickly stood up from her chair, moving like light to place it quickly back with the others and flickered to the exit.

For a moment, she hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the dragon slayer, before giving him a polite, sympathetic nod and disappearing with the gust of the wind. A short silence was left behind in her absence as Natsu's eyes moved from the door, puzzled by the girl's gesture, back to the ground at his feet. It seemed he had been looking down at it for such a long time but not quiet seeing it, which was when he noticed the small burn mark on his sandal; probably from when Fira had sent him flying through the woods by her giant fire ball. It made him wonder what kind of magic she had. It also reminded him of the fact he had wondered so much it could do him for a lifetime, especially when he wasn't a thoughtful kind of guy.

"Idiot fire-brain." Gray grumbled, slowly opening his eyes.

"So you were awake, ice queen." Natsu growled back with an unsurprised tone, as if it was wrong to ever suspect that he was asleep, or Erza for that matter. It was idiotic to think that the reequip mage had even slept for one second during their whole time as captives, but for the moment, she made it clear she wasn't going to enter their conversation.

"Of course I was." The ice mage retorted with a dull hiss and a hint of offence, lifting up his stiff neck and rolling it over his shoulders, trying to work out the knots. Dark eyes caught the edge of the flipping tent as he shrugged of his stretch and gave a little wriggle of his ropes; they didn't budge. Once he accepted his attempt at breaking free was futile, his dark eyes glowered at the dragon slayer for a moment before turning back to the tent door, as if it amused him. "You know it wasn't your fault Lucy got killed, right?" He spoke aloud like it was directed at no one and everyone at the same time. Yet ultimately, the dragon slayer knew it was meant for him.

"Sure." Natsu shrugged half-heartedly, letting his head roll onto the back of the chair and his eyes fall close. The soft rise and fall of his chest hinted that the slayer was trying to sleep but with the warning of 'Natsu-sama''s arrival, it was more likely he would stay awake. Gray moved his eyes onto the dragon slayer again, changing his phrasing.

"It's not your fault." He repeated, purposely changing his words from a question to a statement. "Lucy wouldn't blame you."

"Yeah..." Natsu whispered after a small while. "I know that."


Next Monday; Chapter 5; The Beginning
At long last, Team Natsu finally meets the mysterious leader of the fire troupe, but it's not the only shocking secret uncovered...


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-A-ccentric