Hey guys! Kytrin filling in again. Mslead and I were running a tad behind in prepping this chapter, and she had to go on to work, which will unfortunately put her home late, so I told her I'd update the chapter for her.

One little issue I wanted to address from the start... There was some, slightly hysterical, fear in the reviews from last chapter that we would abandon the story or something. Guys... we DON'T do that. Ever. It's offensive for us to even think about. Abandoned stories are pet peeves of ours, and even if the story was incomplete and it took us a while to update we would never abandon something. So don't ever think we would. Withholding the sneak peek does not in any way impact if we update. Alright? :)

That said... do enjoy the chapter! I think it's one many of you have been waiting eagerly for.

THIS FIC UPDATES EVERY THREE DAYS: Post, Break, Break, Post!

Bugbear

The Bugbear was said to be a frightening bear that lurked in the forest and preyed on disobedient children - this was likely used to try and discourage children from wandering off into the forest and getting lost or injured by wild animals.

Lucy smiled as she leaned into him, and they headed back to the nest. It was a shame that Sting had already left as she was pretty sure he would be interested in what they were doing, but she had a more than small suspicion that Sting's abrupt departure had everything to do with Gajeel and Natsu making up.

Which was kind of ironic considering what she'd been coaching Natsu through not long ago.

She let it go though. It wasn't her place to bash some sense into Sting's head. That would be up to him and the ones he was closest to.

Instead she leaned up and kissed Natsu's cheek, earning a goofy grin from her demon, and smiled, "Why don't we go visit the Exceed after this?" She suggested, "Happy was awfully worried about you, and since he's going to be your wings and all you two should probably spend some time practicing."

Natsu blinked in surprise, "Happy's what?"

Lucy sighed and rolled her eyes, "I should've known you'd stopped listening halfway through yesterday." She huffed, but there was no heat to it, "Since you and Gajeel can't transform on your own Igneel asked if there would be any Exceed willing to be your permanent companions and act as your wings in a fight."

She shrugged, "It's strictly voluntary, but apparently Happy and an Exceed named Pantherlily volunteered."

"Wow! I didn't even know they did stuff like that!" Natsu laughed, and Lucy couldn't help smiling, "That's going to be so cool!"

Natsu got a thoughtful look on his face as they walked together, occasionally bumping hips or shoulders. He chewed at his bottom lip, his eyes casting up to the sky and where he could see some birds flying overhead before disappearing behind the shadow of the mountain.

Flying.

Natsu hadn't thought of it before, but dragons were an aerial race. He should have remembered that they fought more in the air than anything else.

But in the back of his head, he couldn't shake the thought that he had wings.

At least when he fully transformed. Natsu knew, his transformations thus far had only grazed the surface of what he could do. He didn't know what his full power was, but... he suspected if he got into a fight now, he'd be able to figure that out.

It would help his case though, if he had any of his memory to reference. Sometimes it was frustrating just going into things with muscle memory to rely on. And thank all the old Masters at Fairy Tail for that, because Natsu had no idea how he would have even survived the early days with Lucy if he didn't have that.

So when he and Lucy walked into his parent's nest, Natsu was a little surprised to see Grandine already up and busily working in what looked like a small apothecary set to the side.

Natsu blinked and he glanced at Lucy, who merely shrugged.

Grandine was muttering under her breath and occasionally referencing a thick spellbook, her eyes flicking between the text, a lacrima, and his file.

"She looks busy." Lucy muttered to Natsu, "We should let her work."

Her muttering, however, wasn't quiet enough for dragon hearing as Grandine looked up abruptly and smiled, "It's alright you two." She assured them, "Porlyusica and I have been collaborating and we believe we may have a solution for you."

Natsu's expression lit up, "Seriously?!" He exclaimed eagerly and practically bounced over to join them, leaving a bemused Lucy to trail after him, "What is it?!"

"Don't get too excited just yet kid." Porlyusica said from the lacrima grumpily, "This isn't going to be fun."

Grandine nodded, "I'm afraid she's right. Once we start the process we can't stop it until the potion runs out, and while we can control the length of time out here fifteen minutes here could be an eternity in there."

"But it's not like Natsu will be experiencing this directly right?" Lucy asked, "That was the whole idea wasn't it?"

"Yes." Porlyusica replied with a hint of impatience that had Grandine's lips twitching, "But he's still going to see it. He's going to see himself do who knows what for however long he's under. That kind of thing is enough to break the strongest people."

Natsu frowned at that, "I still wanna do it." He declared fiercely, "I need to know my past, and what I used to be. I already know it's going to suck, and I can't change it, but me not knowing is going to bite us all in the ass one day."

Porlyusica sighed in annoyance, "And there's the Fairy Tail stubborn foolishness I've come to expect." She grumbled, "I swear, some things never change."

"He gets it from his father." Grandine replied wryly.

Lucy, however, was watching Natsu in concern, "Are you sure Natsu?" She asked worriedly, "I'm not gonna order you not to, but this could be dangerous. Really dangerous. I don't want to risk losing you again."

Natsu chewed his cheek, his eyes flickering between his worried mother and to his equally concerned mistress.

He didn't have the complete faith in himself not to jump off the deep end after getting burned last time. And he certainly wasn't going to expose Lucy to that sort of torment again. Certainly not his parents, who had already gone through so much.

"Strap me down before," Natsu said firmly, "Just in case."

Grandine nodded. She curled her shoulders inward and gestured at the stone slab that was just beyond her workbench. It seemed she had planned for their visit, and his eagerness.

"Please lay down Natsu," Grandine murmured, waving her hand over the lacrima. Porlyusica grunted a goodbye and a rough 'good luck' before her image faded.

Natsu squeezed Lucy's hand to reassure not only her, but himself. Now that he was faced with the sudden choice of being with his memories, he was a little afraid.

She gave him a shaky smile, which allowed him to scrape up enough strength for him to breathe out through his nose and approach the slab. Cautiously, he spread out on it, dropping his hands voluntarily by his sides.

Immediately, a magical spring seemed to register his weight, and an inscribed steel bar snapped out seamlessly from the stone.

It banded around the tops of his shoulders, across his chest, around his hips, and kept his ankles individually locked. Natsu's breath stuttered out of his lungs, and he wondered if the restraints were a bit on the excessive side.

Clearly, neither Lucy nor Grandine seemed to think so.

Grandine approached him with the potion and tipped it near his mouth.

"Now remember Natsu, once you take it... the effects will be immediate. There will be no pulling you out from this state. You will have to endure it," Grandine hesitated, pulling the flask from his face.

Natsu saw how her hand trembled, and he swallowed tightly.

"I'll be fine ma," Natsu reassured her, seeing how pale his mother was looking under her skin. It seemed like she was trying to hide her fear behind a professional demeanor, but he could practically smell her terror.

So before he could reassure her once again, Lucy surprised both of them by gently taking the flask from Grandine's hands. The dragon looked shocked by her initiative, but also a little grateful.

"I'll do it," Lucy murmured, her voice trembling just as much, but her hands steady.

She looked firmly at Natsu, and he smiled back at her, relieved beyond words she was supporting him. Even if she didn't like his decision.

He relaxed against the stone as Lucy cradled his cheek with her hand, his mouth parting to accept the potion.

"Good luck," Lucy whispered.

It was the last thing Natsu heard before he closed his eyes and the world went black.

-::-

He was floating in a pit of fire, comforting flames licking at his fingertips and along his calves. Natsu didn't know what was going on at first. At least not until the fires faded away to expose two eggs. One a pale, glossy yellow with golden lines etched over the shell...

The other was a matte black, with irregular red lines that glowed in time with Natsu's heartbeat.

Natsu frowned, not understanding where he was, and why he was seeing this. At least not until he caught sight of two lumbering reptilian forms approaching from behind. Igneel and Grandine.

They bent their heads, noses gently nudging at the shells, a quiet and happy clicking greeted them from the black shell.

It was him!

Natsu gasped and ran forward, understanding now why he was seeing this. He could feel it... the happiness and warmth of seeing his parents. Through a shell so thin, he was only a few days away from pushing through the red hot lines and cracking out into the open.

He wanted to meet them. His parents and his twin.

His heart thumped painfully in his chest as Igneel chuckled affectionately, "I think our little drake is ready to join us outside the shell."

"Impatient." Grandine replied in amusement, "Just like his father."

"I was patient enough to win your heart wasn't I my queen?" Igneel purred and nuzzled her tenderly, making Natsu's chest ache even more. The two dragons before him sounded so much younger than he remembered. Happy and innocent. This was what they were like before Zeref tainted everything?

They looked younger as well. It was subtle, but he could definitely see where the four hundred years of grief had taken a toll on his parents. They'd loved him that much?

The concept seemed almost alien. He wasn't used to anyone loving him except Lucy. Yet here was the tangible proof of what she'd said. Somehow seeing it made it all the more potent to him, and it suddenly dawned on him that he loved them too. Not like Lucy, not that he could ever love anyone like he did Lucy, but enough that he wished he could put his arms around the memories of them since he couldn't get to the real ones now.

"You know, we still have to pick a name for him." Grandine laughed after they'd spent a moment twining necks.

Igneel eyed his happily clicking son for a long moment, "Hmmmm... we could call him Igneel the Second?"

"You've been hanging around humans too much." Grandine huffed and also studied her son, "I like Natsu. He'll hatch in a few days on the summer solstice after all."

Igneel blew a gentle puff of smoke at her in retaliation for her comment and stretched his wings out, "Natsu is fine with me." He agreed easily, "It certainly beats the trend for long, difficult, names from a few centuries ago." He shuddered a little, "I still feel badly for Weisslogia and Skiadrium."

"As you should, but they are rather entertaining dragons, aren't they?" a new voice broke in. It was a cool one, dripping with composure and light with a friendly air.

There was something about it that weighed heavily over Natsu on an instinctive level. It was a man at the mouth of the cave. That much Natsu knew for sure, even if his face and body were obstructed in shadows.

It was only did Igneel turn around, his expression amused and open with welcome, did the man's face come into focus.

"I have to admit, I like the name Natsu. I believe it means 'summer' to us as well," the man, unassuming with his dark hair and soft eyes spoke up, "It'll suite his fiery nature well I think."

But Natsu could not see past the smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, or the way they looked past his parents and towards the egg. Towards him.

"Zeref!" Grandine greeted him like an old friend, "We didn't expect you to come here after you were healed."

She gave him apologetic look, "I fear we must ask you to wait outside. Natsu is close to hatching, and this is a birthing nest that is prohibited from those outside. We will be just a moment."

But the lingering look in Zeref's eyes made Natsu's stomach flip, unsettled.

The human let out a quiet laugh, his arms dangling by his side as he turned his chin down to his chest. Natsu knew he wasn't really there, but even he couldn't help but feel a slight tremble in his arms as the human went still.

"I wished to thank you for saving my life after I was injured outside of your nest Queen Grandine," Zeref looked up. But this time, the kindness in the human's face had all but drained away. Igneel blinked, stiffening up beside Grandine, his head lowering suspiciously towards Zeref.

His eyes had glowed red in an instant, a haunting color that seemed to make Natsu's heart twist in on itself.

"That is why, I have chosen not to complete my plans upon the body of your King," Zeref's eyes drifted towards Natsu's clicking egg, "The corpse of any dragon in your lineage will do."

Natsu could see the shock and anger slowly registering on his parent's face. The disbelief that Zeref would say such a thing to them. Igneel was already looming up over Zeref, fire and smoke blooming from the back of his mouth. It was such a terrifying sight, Natsu almost shrank back from the shock of seeing Igneel in such a fury.

But Zeref was calm in the face of Igneel's rage. Before his father could roar his fury over the human's words, Zeref nodded his chin forward, and a rush of soldiers bloomed in behind him, each one hidden and cloaked carefully.

They swarmed the two roaring dragons. And the last thing Natsu knew, were his parents fighting and struggling against a tide that attempted to clip their wings.

While his vision faded from the battle and narrowed in, only on the sensation of his unborn self, Natsu was helplessly dragged away from his parents. The images faded away until all he was aware of, was a filmy shadow of figures moving him further and further away from the warmth of his hatching nest and family.

The wrongness of it all stuck with him, even as he was carried far away into someplace very, very cold.

And the unfamiliar voice of Zeref whispered something outside of his shell, Natsu's gut twisting at the unfamiliar pulse of magic twisting over his egg.

When suddenly, there was an excruciating pain that stabbed through his shell, and he thrashed for just a moment before everything went dark.

Natsu growled angrily over both the pain and the darkness. The emotions he had felt so far from the memories were definitely muted, as his mother had promised, that didn't stop him from feeling fresh emotions himself. And he was pissed.

Unlike his younger self, which was confused and cold and hurting, he knew what had just happened and never had he wanted to get his hands on Zeref more for it. That bastard had destroyed his life, and a very primal part of him wanted to make him pay for that. Dearly.

He grit his fangs and took a deep breath to calm himself. He had a lot more, and worse, to go through. He was determined to prove that he was strong enough to deal with this. He'd promised Lucy. And his mom.

That didn't mean he liked what was coming up any better.

And sure enough, when the darkness passed and his past self blearily opened his eyes in confusion, his first reaction was to growl again.

He could sense his younger self's confusion and growing horror as he stared at the creature reflected in the glass tube he was suspended in. His younger self, so young and innocent, was afraid of it and wanted his parents. Natsu was just pissed off.

Though he was intrigued as well.

Staring back at him was himself as an adult, complete with tattoos, but also in his full demon form.

Black horns spiraled up through his pink hair while red scales rippled over portions of his neck, shoulders, and arms. He could even feel them traveling down his back. His nails were long and sharp, like claws, and he suspected they could do considerable damage if he was so minded. But the biggest things were the wings attached to his back.

It was clear his dragon heritage had forced itself through. The wings were dragon wings. Like the kind Igneel and the others sported in their partial forms. In fact, the more he looked at it the more he started to think maybe his demon form was his partial form. At least mostly. He could see the differences well enough after being around dragons for so long, but it pleased him that at least he had something of his heritage to call his own besides fire.

But the younger version of himself didn't understand what he was looking at. Natsu could sense his struggle as he tried to understand why the warmth of his parents wasn't there, and his fear over the creature staring blankly back at him in the glass.

And the mounting panic, when try as he might, he couldn't move.

At least not until the water levels dropped down and the case opened. No longer suspended, Natsu's younger self toppled out of the tank with jelly-like limbs unable to move. His vacant gaze stared out at the wall as he took his first, shaky breath.

It was like his soul was chained to his body, but not in the drivers seat. It was disconnected, frighteningly similar to how it had been while Natsu was 'asleep'.

But he was aware. Awake and certainly very much 'awake' to everything he was doing, or rather everything he wasn't doing. It was different than how he had been connected to Lucy. Which had been more akin to swimming through a fog until he could open his eyes for himself.

This was more like a cold wall was stonewalling him. And now, in this memory, he could feel that icy chill unlike anything else.

The magic that sustained his body was dark and unwelcoming. It was so unlike the gentle sparks and warm light of Lucy, the contrast was stark. This magic was like a wall, keeping Natsu's spirit from connecting truly with his body. It was like he was just a visitor. And he was trapped to this strange, adult body.

Natsu knew now his dragon heritage had forced its way through. But he also knew now, he had no real 'childhood' - not that it would really matter. He had been killed, and his spirit stolen.

His younger self's spirit stirred, even as his body laid limp and useless. Dark boots stood near his face, and Zeref once more made his presence known.

"Your parents named you after the summer month. Natsu. But you are now combined with the might of an Etherious demon, along with the fierce spirit of a dragon," Zeref forced Natsu to his feet. His head rolled uselessly on his neck until Zeref pinched his chin between cold fingers to force him to look into his eyes.

"Your new name is END," Zeref smiled at his creation, even as his spirit recoiled from the unwelcome touch. Knowledge bombarded his fresh mind, orders, instructions - a force fed education became present all at once. All of his master's will.

The young dragon cried out at the pain it brought his spirit, and Natsu's present self couldn't help but snarl in fury over the pain the hatchling version of himself had experienced.

"You should be acclimating to my needs now," Zeref said in a business-like matter. As if uncaring for the soul he had just tarnished, or the family he had ripped apart, "Excellent. It's time to get to work."

Special thanks to everyone who reviewed! I'm at work, and it's relatively busy, so I'll be here another two hours if I try to name you all lol! However, you guys know who you are, and we love you to bits! Please enjoy your well earned Sneak Peek! :D

30 REVIEWS EQUALS A SNEAK PEEK!

Lucy nearly jumped out of her skin as Natsu suddenly took a gasping breath for air, arching off the table a little and his eyes flew open.

She leaned forward, half frightened of what she would find and half eager, "Natsu?"

He blinked for a moment, re-orienting himself before his eyes landed on her, and a broad smile lit up his face, "You are the best thing to ever happen to me Lucy."

The bonds on his body loosened and snapped back into the table. He wasted no time sitting up, capturing his surprised mistress' arms and tugging her towards him.

He cupped her face, closing the space between them and heedless of the audience which had gathered. He brought her down to his level and closed their mouths in an eager kiss.