Burn
Natsu wasted no time in lunging on the person who hurt his guardian, his fists lit ablaze. The cloaked figure, seeing this, clasped his two hands together and as Natsu reached him, the pinkette ended up going right through him.
Natsu stumbled forward, trying to get a good grip on his footing. "What in the…"
Lucy's throat burned with an unsaid warning for her friend to watch his back as his opponent, swung their elbow backward toward Natsu's face. He sensed it in the nick of time and leaned until his head was nearly touching the ground, dodging the attack.
Natsu took the momentum from his position on the ground to catapult himself upward and landed a devastating uppercut right on the person's jaw, sending them sailing across the room.
"COME BACK HERE YOU BASTARD!"
As the blonde observed the fight, she was still trying to wrap her head around what exactly their attacker did to his body earlier in the fight when Natsu's body went right through him. What was that? She mulled.
Natsu, racing through the flames towards the figure in the black cloak, started to throwing incessant punches with both fists, left then right, at lightning fast speeds where even Lucy couldn't keep up. Despite this, his opponent dodged them all with ease, almost as if he was toying with him.
"Oh, come on," they say. "Is this really all you can do?"
This time, she did manage to get a shout out of her throat, "Natsu look out!"
Before Natsu could even see what happened, the figure is behind him mid-air, and by the time Natsu turned his head, all he could see was the smirk planted on their face before a kick to his own cheek sent him crashing into the floor creating a crater.
"Natsu!" She screamed.
Natsu, who shakily tried to hoist himself back up, was desperately trying to ignore the pain from his own wounds he had received prior to; but was struggling in vain.
Their enemy, with smirk long wiped off their face, stood above Natsu, looking at him with threatening red eyes.
"How pathetic."
Natsu, with sure willpower and adrenaline alone, made it on his feet and was now at eye level with his adversary glared back.
"Who said I was finished yet?" He taunted, wiping the blood from his mouth with his sleeve. "We're only just getting started here."
Suddenly, a thundering crash interrupts their match as a large chunk of the roof, engulfed in flames smashed into the ground. At this point, the fire engulfing the building is at the point of alarm as the fire eats away at the walls, the roof, the old equipment, and just about everything. With every passing second the atmosphere became cloudier and cloudier with the choking black smoke making the atmosphere damn near impossible to breathe in. Natsu looked over to where the villagers were still chained and noticed how they were covering their mouths and coughing trying their hardest to breathe. He looked over at Lucy, who despite not choking as badly as the others, still had to put one hand over her mouth as she watched them.
Natsu realized that only he and his foe weren't being affected by the smog and blistering heat inside the burning building.
Another resounding snap, crackle and fizzle resounded as an old generator on the second floor combusts with a mixture of fire and electricity and everyone's attention is turned there too.
The red-eyed antagonist notices that the end of his cloak has caught on fire and he waves it off trying to put out the fire.
"What a shame," They say coolly. "It looks like this place isn't going to hold out any longer."
Natsu snapped out of his daze staring at the destruction he caused and turned his attention back to the person who kidnapped him.
"Huh?"
But in that split second, all Natsu could see is a wave of black across his eyes and by the time his vision is restored, the cloaked fellow is long gone.
"Sorry to cut this short," their voice rang out, despite the body being long gone. "But rest assured, I'll give you a better fight next time."
Natsu looked up to try find them and was enraged when he realized they're gone.
"Coward! Why that sonofa-"
"Natsu!" Lucy's shrill voice called out to him and immediately all angry thoughts of the fight before are relinquished and replaced with concern as he rushes over to her side.
"Lucy are you o-" He starts to inquire, helping her get up.
"The villagers!" She cuts him off. She lets out a small cough. "Natsu you need to get the villagers out of here, now!"
As if to prove her point, one section of the ground on the floor they were standing on suddenly caves in and a chunk of wooden floor falls to the second floor in screeching flames.
"Shit, you're right," He panics. "But will you be alright?"
She coughed a little whilst getting on her feet. "I'll be okay. Go!"
Casting one more concerned glance to his blonde companion, he took one mighty leap, from the third floor to the second floor where his attempted rescuers were still being bound up, and landed with a groan to the ground. He found an older looking brunette man in a black sweater and green vest struggling to find a way out of his handcuffs.
The second floor was barely recognizable as fire had eaten away at most of its contents and blistering waves of heat mercilessly attacked the innocent people of St. Peter's Town.
"Hey! Aren't you the Elder's grandson?!" The man shouted, towards him.
"Huh, well yeah!" The boy shouts back, rushing over the townspeople and trying to lose the big chain they were all held in.
"Well help me find a way out of here!" He shouts. "I am not going to die here today! I have my daughter to see again!"
After a bit of violent hacking, another man in the giant chain speaks. "K-kid, you've got to get the elder out of here. He- he won't last much longer."
"Gramps!" Natsu immediately turned a horrified gaze over to his grandfather lying unresponsively in Serlique's arms with a pained expression on his face and sweat dripping out of his pores.
"He needs air!" Another villager shouted.
Natsu looked around, struggling to find an exit of any kind amidst all of the flames. "Damn it!" He hissed. "Damn it all!"
"Natsu…" The voice of chocolate skinned beauty whimpered in his direction in desperation, splotches of black adorned her face from all of the ash and soot.
"Hey, stop making that face." He says to her. Her face contorted with grief but Natsu's eyes stayed looking at her, strong.
"I'm not going to let anyone die."
There's another deafening crash as the already burning generator, combusts once more, this time, the explosion, blows enormous gaseous flames right towards Natsu and the townspeople. He quickly jumps in front of them, hoping his imperviousness to flames will make his body a makeshift shield.
Once the waves of heat receded, the sound of another voice filled the air.
"Help us!" Another man shouted. Natsu disentangled himself from the townspeople to see the ruffians in that motorcycle gang that kidnapped him trapped, on the first floor in between hellish flames, fallen debris and a makeshift a broken slab of metal they were using to fan off the flames.
The pinkette groaned and rolled his eyes all the way to back of his head.
The situation on the first floor was direr than on the second. After abandoning their captives on the second floor, the biker gang made a swift escape to the first floor to leave through the big, metal double doors. However, the flames had made the door impossible for them to touch. In addition to that, burning chunks of hot ash, sheetrock and wood kept falling from the roof all around them, restricting their walking space with every passing moment. Finally, the combusting generator on the second floor fell through the tile flooring and landed on the first floor sending a wave of explosive fire around the circumference of the room, burning them all with the heat.
"Help us!" The man trying to fan the flames screamed out in desperation. "Help us please!"
Natsu had just released the chains holding the townspeople hostage and was looking at the ocean of flames pooling at the first floor realizing that the thugs weren't going to last much longer.
He could try to jump down there and carry them to the second floor, but he alone wouldn't be enough to carry them. On top of that, there was no way to help them out of there without carrying them through the flames.
"Give 'em the chain!" Natsu turned around and saw the man who was trying to claw his way out of his handcuffs earlier. "The names Brave, by the way!" Brave found himself speaking above the sound of the roaring flames. Another crackle and pop was heard, but this time, no one saw anything happen. Honestly they didn't want to be around to find out.
Without sparing a second, he threw the long, thick metal chain to the first floor over the ledge.
"Grab on!" Natsu shouted. "Brave, I need a few of you guys to help me pull them up." He shouted over his shoulder preparing for the weight on the chain. There was a pause as the people panicked about trying to save the enemy when it was yet to be determined if they could save themselves.
"NOW!" Natsu barked. Brave and the older men started scrambling behind him.
"I want the rest of you to look for a way out, I don't care if it's a window or a door or a hole in the wall! Just find something!" He said as he and the rest of the guys started pulling. "And don't worry if it's in flames, I'll make a way out for us!"
And with that, they started tugging after a hurried shout from below to bring them up.
Serlique was slumped against the wall, passed out from too much smoke inhalation with Gramps passed out in her arms with her.
"Hey! I can't see anything!" The man on the lookout cried.
"Just keep looking!" He hissed over his shoulders. All the men are pulling with all their might.
The sound of the many around him groaning to pull the bikers from the first floor evolved into the sound of the smoggy air entering their lungs, then exiting. Then he heard the sounds of heartbeats and blood rushing through veins.
"What… what the hell?" He found himself saying through the struggle for about the hundredth time that night.
Then in his ear, Natsu heard it… the faintest sound of a wire popping. Then, the sound of many wires popping and some melting poured into his ears.
His eyes widened in horror at the realization.
"Kid, what's wrong?" Brave coughed from behind him feeling his body tense up.
"Nothing, we just need to hurry and get out of here!"
A loud resounding crash is heard as a thunder storm of glass comes raining down from busted windows on the third floor. As it rains down, it covered the men on the first and second floor in slight and slightly deep cut wounds.
"Come on man, tell me you found a door or something!" Natsu shouted over his shoulder again to their lookout.
But to no avail. Finally, a pale hairy hand reached out to Natsu and he reached back for it helping the man up while the men behind him helped lift up the others.
Another deafening burst rang out as more windows burst, except this time, on the first floor.
"Looks we got you out of there in the nick of time…" Natsu said looking below him.
"Thanks, but now we gotta find a way outta here!" The biker man said to him. "All the exits are blocked!"
At this point, all the windows on the third floor have burst open and smoke had been escaping in blinding puffs out through the top of the building. The smoke carried big slabs of hot ashes with it and completely clouded the third floor with a choking smog that would make it impossible for anyone to breathe.
Then he remembered Lucy.
Shit, how could he have forgotten she was still up there?
He hopped up from where he was sitting and tried his damnedest to see her on the third floor
"LUCY!"
"Natsu!" He turned around to the familiar voice calling from above him.
It was Lucy, hovering above him with her wings.
"I found an exit! It's a stained window on the second floor!" She coughed into her elbow, her face was red and splotchy from all the heat, and black and covered in soot. "I'll see if I can get it open!"
For a moment, everyone in that second floor gazed in awe as the blonde spread her wings and flapped them over to the window and began the crusade to their freedom.
"Okay everybody," Natsu bellowed above the flames. "Here's what we're going to do!"
The flames had already claimed the first floor and the smoke had overtaken the third. Now all that was left was the remains of the second floor and even then, there wasn't much left. With the sound of wires popping still in his inner ear he began working on the clock.
"Window's open!" Lucy called.
"Good! Now look outside and tell me what you can see!"
Although she was a bit confused, she listened to his instructions. Her heart leapt at what she saw when she looked out of the window. From the way the building looked from the outside, it was a wonder how they were even still alive.
"Uuuuummmm a lot of smoke is pouring out the windows!" She called. "The fire has spread to the surrounding grass in the immediate area!"
"What else do you see?!" Natsu shouted from inside, however she didn't hear him.
"If we dropped from the window now, our bodies would land in flames! There's fire covering the entire building on the outside!"
"Lucy!" Natsu called with more aggression than before.
At last, she stuck her head back inside.
"It's no good!" She looked at him with a look of fear and trepidation swelling in her eyes.
"Lucy, I need you to stop freaking yourself out." He said sternly but calmly. "Stop thinking about the fire. Look outside and tell me what you see!"
The blonde tried once more and stuck her head out of the window bearing the weight of everyone's lives in the building on her shoulders.
"Um o-okay," She said shakily. She was trying her hardest not to cry. She looked back at the hopeless situation that awaited them outside and focused her vision a little ways farther. She saw a tree.
"I see a tree! A big, thick looking tree a little ways off and its safe from the fire!"
Natsu gave his partner a small smile when she stuck her back in the window. "Thank you, Lucy."
"A tree?!" One of the bikers suddenly asked outraged. "A tree?! How is a tree supposed to help us?!" He shouted.
"Quit bitching and you'll find out!" The pinkette retorted as he picked up the big chain that saved the bikers earlier and tied one end of it to a column in the room. Lucy fluttered back down from the window and he quickly passed her the chain.
"Lucy," he grabbed her by the hands and stared at her intensely in the eyes. "I'm going to need you to use your wings and tie this end of the chain to the base of that tree you saw. Do you think you can make it?"
She tersely nodded at him and shot up into the air, ignoring the pain that wracked her body as she did so.
"Alright everybody," Natsu shouted. "Get ready, because you're going to have to zipline out of here!"
Slowly, with groans and pains the multitude started rallying themselves up and about and started gathering at the base of the window. Brave and two other of the town's men made their way over to Serlique and the Elder, and one of them crouched down and told the other to put Serlique on his back while the other two helped the Elder on his feet with each of his arms wrapped around one of their shoulders.
Natsu made his way through everybody, making sure they were on their feet in preparation for Lucy's return, no matter how hot and dizzy they may have felt.
"We're probably going to need something to glide on the chain with huh…" he muttered under his breath.
Then he remembered the old crowbar that their hooded attacker used to harm Lucy with. He flinched at the thought of even touching the tool again.
So quickly, he decided to make a dash for the stairs of the third floor, running straight through the flames, hoping that his immunity from burns would extend to be immunity from dying via total immersion of flames.
As stupid as he thought it was, he still had a hunch that he would be fine.
And he was right.
As the flames licked at his body, they merely felt warm as they touched his skin. It was weird. After he made it to the third floor, the next issue was seeing. The smoke didn't bother his lungs like it bothered the others, but the nonstop flow of smoke made it impossible to see.
Somehow… he smelt it.
The smell of that bastard's hands lingered all over the tool, in addition to wisps of Lucy's blood. He followed the smell to the metal object and once it was in his grasps he raced down the stairs, knowing that Lucy had returned.
"Natsu!" She cried when she saw him. "It's done."
Making a dash through the flames over to her, he passed her the weapon.
"Lucy," He placed his hands square on her shoulders looking her in the eye. "The villagers are going to use this to zipline on the chain out of the building. Your job, and this is important, is to fly with them as they do this and act as a safety net. Make sure nobody falls and make sure that if the chain breaks or anything like that, you are able to get them to safety."
"Can. You. Handle this?" He said, giving her a slight shake at every point he wanted to make.
Despite her trembling hands giving away her fear, she put on a brave face and nodded her head in affirmation.
"Okay, now HURRY!" Natsu yelled.
With a quick nod, she handed the crowbar over to Brave who had Serlique slouched against his back. "You guys go first. I'll be right here if you feel something going wrong."
"HURRY UP!" One of the bikers shouted as the ground they were all standing on began to tremble.
"Okay, Serlique, I need you to wake up and hold on to me," Brave said giving her moderate taps to her face. She groggily rolled her eyes and finally looked at him confused.
"Hold on tight, we've got to get out of here!" And with that, Lucy helped them hoist up to the window pane and with his two hands on the opposite ends of the crowbar, he jumped off.
They zipped out fast with Brave being sure to lift up his legs to avoid the soaring flames that were towering from the lawn outside the window.
The chain made their descent bumpy, and the friction of the crowbar scrapping that quickly against the chain links made sparks fly.
However, the duo made it to a safe enough distance away by the big oak tree.
Serlique, despite how foggy her mind may have been, held on to the man for dear life until they made it to the end.
Their landing to the tree wasn't a smooth one, with Brave and Serlique colliding into bushy tree branches. Lucy, who was soaring underneath them flying, tried to stop them from crash landing by pulling on Serlique and using her wings as a parachute. This only resulted in Lucy joining the duo in crashing.
I mean, Lucy knew she liked trees, but certainly not that much.
Afterwards, Lucy took Serlique off of Brave's back while Brave jumped down from the tree on his own.
"Here you go," the brunette passed the crowbar to her like it was a baton.
Lucy took the slender object in her grasps, but before she took off, she looked Brave in his green eyes and smiled.
"Thank you Brave," she said. "For everything."
She turned around and broke out into a sprint back towards the building and flapped her wings taking flight.
When Lucy came back, it was time for Gramps and the man carrying him to go.
They continued this buddy ziplining system until almost all the villagers and biker men were out.
Some village men even paired up with some bikers to go down the zipline.
The last pair were a pair of bikers, who were both drastically overweight.
As the first one took hold of the crowbar on the chain, the link dipped more than usual under their combined weight. The chain on the end tied to the tree was beginning to loose, but Brave and two biker members were holding it steady.
As Lucy was preparing them to glide, she saw vehicles with blinking lights in the distance.
"It's the fire department!" One of the men cried.
"No, it's the ambulance!" The other cried.
"I think its… both," Natsu said slowly, squinting at the far away vehicles. "Anyway Lucy, I need you to get them out of here."
"What about you?" She asked.
He smiled at her. "I'll be fine," he then turned around and gave an inquisitive look at the burning building. "There's just something I still need to take care of."
She followed his gaze but didn't see anything but towering flames. "What?"
"Come on!" The man holding onto the crowbar urged. Hesitantly, Lucy broke her gaze away from Natsu and helped them jump out of the window.
"Okay!" The tired teenager shouted after they landed safely to the tree. "Now I'm going for Natsu!"
But as she turned around to make a sprint for the building, the third floor slowly crashed within itself, which in turn made the second floor collapse and the crumbled debris from both floors colliding into the first. The impact sent a wave after wave of hot air, ash and dust across the grassy plains that was even felt by Lucy and the others by the tree.
Lucy covered her eyes from the debris and when the impact subsided. She looked at the fiery remains of the building in pure shock.
"…huh?" Was the only thing that could come out of her mouth at the moment.
And then all at once, the building completely tore apart in an enormous gaseous explosion.
"Lucy!" Brave called running to tackle her from the oncoming bellowing flames.
The collapsed building exploded once, then twice then the third time, everything was completely obliterated. Nothing was left.
A/N: I got one really kind review last chapter, but no one else did so I was kind of discouraged. Although I was just really inspired to write this chapter! Hope you all like it!
Also, I have a poll on my profile page and I'd love if you all could vote on it!
Anyway, until next time!
Next Chapter: Apologies