Replaced
Lisanna's back and Lucy feels left out. Natsu wants Lisanna back on his team, what about Lucy?
Sorry, I couldn't come up with a good title for the chapter. Oh well. I guess there has to be at least one stupid chapter title in every story. Anyway, here's this week's chapter. Enjoy!
Chapter 28- Target Found
For two whole months, he'd followed the scent southeast and then South. The reptilian scent had disappeared about twenty-five miles after he'd found it, and he hadn't smelled it since. It was gone, but it was still troubling because it smelled like something he'd encountered before. Something dangerous. Shaking his head, Natsu pushed those thoughts away and kept pushing forward, following Gray's scent. He'd lost it a few times due to rain, but found it again with the splashes of blood along the trail. It was a good thing, because it kept him on a trail, and an even worse thing, because it meant that Gray was injured, badly.
Natsu ground his teeth every time he found a bit of Gray's blood, which was a lot, and pressed forward with renewed vigor. The ice mage was bleeding this much, but he was still moving. What bothered the dragon slayer was the fact that Gray hadn't iced over the wound, wherever it was, like he normally would. He suspected that the fear he kept smelling in his friend's scent had something to do with it. He couldn't remember a time right off the top of his head when Gray was ever this scared. Heck, he didn't think there was ever a time when Gray was this hysterically afraid.
The only times he'd stopped, was for the necessities: food, drink, sleep, and the other pressing business. The rest of the time, he'd pressed on, tracking the scent without stopping. Lately, the scent had gotten stronger, which meant that he was closer to the real thing. The pinket didn't know how far he'd traveled, or exactly where he was, he just knew he was still in Fiore.
It was about midday when he came to a place where ice encased everything. He'd noticed Gray going more skittish and jumpy as he progressed, but it looked like Gray had finally gone off the deep end, attacking anything that even twitched. Closing his eyes to heighten his senses, Natsu inhaled Gray's scent. It dripped of fear and stank of rotten flesh. Wherever Gray had been injured, he hadn't taken care of it. He clenched his fists. That's what Lucy'd been there for, to bind everyone's wounds.
Really, what had he been thinking when he replaced Lucy with Lisanna? Yes, he'd teamed up with Lisanna a few times before she'd disappeared, and they'd been an okay team, but Lucy was better because she could do a lot of things that Lisanna never could do. What and idiot, Natsu told himself, smacking his head on a tree. He had to focus if he wanted to find Gray, not wallow in well deserved self-beatings. Again, he inhaled to find the direction Gray had been going. Opening his eyes, he looked down and grimaced. There was a clear blood trail. He followed it up onto the road and blanched.
There was a giant bloodstain that no one had bothered cleaning up in the middle of the dirt road. So then, where was the body? Shaken and trembling, Natsu forced himself to go over to the bloodstain and inspect it. From the way the blood was pooled and dried, it looked like he hadn't been hit, but maybe fell over? He frowned. The tire marks indicated differently. Where they dug in and seemingly stopped was too close for Gray not to have been hit.
Conversely, had the vehicle actually hit him, there would be a bloodstain elsewhere where he'd have been thrown. At that thought, Natsu searched around him for any other bloodstains and found none. Now, thoroughly perplexed, he returned to the bloodstain to examine it again and possibly figure out the fate that had befallen his friend. Whatever the circumstance, the fact remained that the body was missing and he had to find it. Dead or alive. Preferably alive.
Natsu was crouched in front of the bloodstain and inhaling the scent, trying to find which way the body went, when an SE carriage came around the corner. Headlights blinded him and the last thing he felt was the impact of the vehicle as he moved his arms to shield them from the light.
'WUMPH' was the sound of both Lucy and Hisoka as they collapsed onto their backs, limbs spread wide to try and cool off better. Happy was nearby, flopped on his belly. Lila was the only one not panting and sweating. She was still sitting on her rock, holding her crystal ball in both hands and staring at seemingly nothing.
"Why is it so hot today?" Lucy whined, trying to fan herself with her hand and giving up quickly.
"You think you're hot Lucy-chan?" Happy panted. "Why don't you try wearing a fur coat."
"No thank you." was the blonde's reply. After a short silence, she asked, "Hisoka, are you okay?"
There was a groaning reply that she took for a yes.
"Okay. What did you think of that session? Did I get it right that time?"
"We still aren't getting the transitions very well. It needs to be faster if we'll be doing this on the battlefield. The opponent won't give us five minutes to switch." Hisoka said, shifting into a more comfortable position on the ground.
"Right."
"What about me Lucy-chan? How am I doing?" Happy asked, pawing at the ground before giving up.
Lucy tried to turn her head so that she could see Happy, but gave up the effort because it was too much work and way too hot. "You're doing great Happy. With some more practice, you'll be able to hold your form longer than Pantherlily."
Even though Lucy couldn't see Happy's kitty grin, Hisoka could and smiled too. Happy had been inspired watching the two try and improve their skills, so he'd decided to train too. They all heard the approach of footsteps and turned their heads in that direction to see who it was. It was Uma.
"Uma, why is it so ungodly hot today?" Lucy asked.
Uma's face was grim and pale, which was saying something, because she never looked pale. "Uma?" Lucy asked again, sitting up.
"I'll tell you why it's so hot." Uma called as she got closer. Lila gasped and said along with Uma, "The jungle is on fire."
But Lila kept going, adding, "And this tribe's enemy it waiting in its wake."
He was swimming in colors. Lots of colors, and smells. Then, he blinked and everything was in order and making sense. Surrounding him were trees, very big trees and thick foliage. Screeches from above made him look up and he fell over in shock as the big and littler animals leaped from tree branch to tree branch. Human screams then broke through the animals and the ones making the noise came crashing through the greenery.
"Uma!" someone shouted. He looked for the voice. "Get everyone to the pond! There's not enough water for me here to use Aquarius!" Now he'd spotted the speaker. But it was too late because she ran right. . . through him? As if sensing him, the blonde looked behind and widened her eyes. The boy next to her stared too.
Quickly, the girl turned to her partner and called, "Send him back." The boy only nodded, still staring. Natsu then felt a hard shove and he was sailing backwards, out of that jungle. It was falling away from him. He only realized too late who the girl had been. She'd changed her appearance so much he'd had to look a lot to recognize her. She even smelled different.
He blinked and he was suddenly in the real world again, or at least, he thought he was. It was hard to breathe and every movement hurt. As he tried to inhale, a sharp pain stabbed his chest and he coughed up blood. Every movement of his torso caused him even greater pain and sent stars into his vision. Between the lights in his eyes, he saw faces and a white ceiling. Someone was calling his name. A little voice was saying that it was familiar, but he was in too much pain to remember whose it was.
He definitely awake. There was no pain in dreams. As horrible as it was, this was reality and he was dying. Suddenly, someone grabbed his face and made him look at the face in front of him.
"Natsu Dragoneel, this is Hibiki Lates from Blue Pegasus. You need to stop moving or else you're going to die." The blonde said every word slowly and pronounced every syllable with precision so that he would understand. "Do you understand me?" Natsu nodded as best he could and Hibiki nodded with him for encouragement. "Good, now calm down. I know it hurts, but you need to calm down so we can set your bones again. Stop fighting us." And he was gone from Natsu's sight.
He wasn't sure if he'd removed his hands from his face either, because he'd lost all feeling in his body. The high pitched ringing in his ears drowned out most sounds from his ears. His eyes felt heavy. He was so tired, and wanted nothing more than to go to sleep at the moment. Strange thought when he was in the midst of dying.
Hibiki was suddenly in his line of vision again, patting him on the cheek enough to keep him awake. "Come on, stay awake Natsu. Lucy would kill me if you died now. So would Gray for that matter."
At the mention of Gray's name, Natsu struggled up through the black water that he'd been sinking in and back to consciousness. "Gray." He managed to croak. Where was Gray?
"He's right here Natus." Hibiki turned his head to the side so that the dragon slayer was able to see Gray lying in the bed beside him. The ice mage looked paler than usual and a thick bandage was wrapped all around his shoulder and part of his chest.
"Gray's fine, now it's your turn." Then he turned his head away and spoke to someone else. "Rayu! Come on, he's dying! I can't keep him awake for much longer so hurry up and get on with it!"
"I'm doing this as fast as I can Hibiki! You can't rush these kinds of things very well without making a mistake. I'd rather not make one if you please, so shut UP!" Natsu didn't recognize the voice at all. Trying to see who the speaker was, Natsu shifted up the slightest bit. The movement was regrettable as he coughed and blood spurted from his mouth. "Shit!"
A chill sunk deep into his body and his muscles started spasming out of control. The movement shot pain through his chest and more blood found its way up his throat and out of his mouth. It was hard to breathe because the liquid was blocking his air passageways.
"Rayu! He can't breathe!" Hibiki shouted as he tried to clear Natsu's mouth of blood. He held the pinket's limp head and turned it sideways to empty it out.
"Hold him down or else he'll suffocate." Rayu instructed, latching down on the dragon slayer's upper body. "His body is going into shock. I was wondering when it would happen." There was then a spasm so violent, it force Rayu's arms up and Natsu's back arched off the table so fast they heard something crack. "Ren! Eve! Get his legs!"
The two pinned down the rest of his body and were able to contain the rest of the shakes. Without wasting any time, Rayu put a palm on Natsu's chest and resumed the healing spell he'd begun before the seizure with more intensity and vigor than before. Hibiki was grateful for his guild member's determination not to let any patient of his die.
"Come one Natsu, stay awake." Hibiki smacked Natsu in the face several times, not hard, but enough to annoy him and keep him awake. "You're going to be fine Natsu, you just need to stay awake." Hibiki urged. All he got was a gurgled groan and Natsu's eyes fluttered as he struggled to keep them open.
"You're doing great Natsu, just don't fall asleep." Hibiki encouraged. He never looked away from the dragon slayer and held his eyes as much as he could. After another hour and two more grueling seizures, Rayu finally got him stabilized.
Rayu collapsed onto the floor, exhausted. "They should put a sign around that bend saying 'FAIRY CROSSING AHEAD'. This is the second one." Then he glared at Ichiya who'd been sitting in a chair the whole time. "And you shouldn't be speeding. How did you ever get clearance to drive an SE carriage anyway?"
"It's a simple case of being a man Rayu, you wouldn't understand being as you're not at that stage yet." Ichiya said.
Hibiki saw Rayu's eyebrow twitch. "You want a bet?" Rayu's voice was deeper and had a growling tone in it. There was fire in his eyes and he was cracking his knuckles.
The one thing no one ever mentioned to Rayu was his age and the questioning of his manhood. Yes, he had feminine features and long-ish hair, but he always had it tied back and there was nothing really he could do about his face. It wasn't his fault he looked like his mother.
"Calm down Rayu. In any case, Ichiya is never driving again. We're all older than sixteen, so we can drive instead." Eve assured.
"You are sixteen Eve." Ren pointed out.
"So? I'm still able to drive." Eve childishly stuck his tongue out.
"I don't care who can drive and who can't, just don't let Ichiya drive again and GET OUT OF THIS ROOM!" Rayu yelled, shoving them all in the direction of the door. "You're fouling the clean air of my patients. Don't come back until I say so." And he shut the door before they could protest.
Hibiki smiled crookedly at the shut door before walking off to think. Why were Fairy Tail guild members showing up out of the blue? And where exactly was Lucy?
Next week's chapter probably won't be posted because Mon-Wed I have my school finals and for the rest of the time I'll either be at my sister's helping her house vomit all over the front yard, or in Orville with my grandma visiting my great uncle and aunt. Point is, I'll be busy. But now it's summer which means swimming, and sleeping in, and hanging out with friends, and writing more chapters, and forest explorations, . . . and hay season, . . . and weeding, . . . and hot weather. Well, you get the point. Happy Summer Break everyone!
REVIEW PLEASE!
