Chapter 29

Kitten's Paradise

Natsu

Despite how serious our situation was, I couldn't help but gawk in awe at the sights before me. Thanks to Juvia and Aquarius, we all had a water bubble around our heads to allow us to breath underwater. At first, we couldn't see much, and we needed Juvia, Aquarius, and Lisanna to lead us forward. When we reached closer to the Tower, the sea around us became illuminated by the search lights. It was beautiful. The ocean floor, all the fish, even the seaweed. It was all so beautiful.

Wally lead us almost half-way around the island before we found the entrance he spoke of. We traveled in through a dark cave. Once again, we relied on our water mages to navigate us through this cavern. Finally, we reached a small lake at the base of the island.

We broke the surface and Lisanna kept her hand over Wally's mouth to keep him from potentially calling out for help. The area we were in looked like it was still under construction. There was scaffolding everywhere and nothing but dirt surrounded us. Once we reached land, I flared up some fire to dry myself off and offered the courtesy to everyone else. Meanwhile, Gajeel was putting an iron muzzle on Wally. It amazed me the things Gajeel could do with his magic.

Once we were set, we slowly inched up the slope towards where the Tower really began. Looking around, I found a dock where the others must have sailed in from. There was only one boat at it.

"Hey, who's there!" someone yelled.

A group of guards in robes wearing masks with an odd crest-moon shaped symbol came running towards us. Wally began to struggle against Gajeel, who was holding him. The block-like mage succeeded in throwing Gajeel off of him and dashed towards the guards.

"Oh no you don't!" Gajeel shouted, "Iron Dragon's Club!"

Gajeel's arm transformed into a pole which shot out at Wally, throwing him at the guards roughly.

"Water Slicer!" Juvia drew her right arm up to her left breast and threw said arm to the right. When she did so, a wave of water launched forward at the guards, knocking them back.

Wally's body began to transform into blocks, causing the iron to fall uselessly to the ground. He ordered the guards to stop us and then headed to the large staircase leading into the Tower proper. I ignited my fists in flames and rocketed myself forward and over the guards.

"Animal Soul: Cat!"

From behind me, Lisanna darted forward and scratched at a guard who attempted to hit me as I flew over him. She successfully kept him off me but chose not to further engage him and followed me towards the stairs in pursuit of Wally.

Wally was making good distance to my surprise. I was forced to rely on nothing but my nose as we climbed the Tower. I took one look back and found Lisanna and Happy following close behind.

"Can you smell Erza?" Lisanna asked.

I took a whiff of the surrounding area and picked up her scent. Wally's scent cut off from hers and went down a hallway while hers went further up.

"Erza went further up. Wally went down one of the hallways on the next floor."

"I'll take care of Wally. You get to Erza."

I smiled back at Lisanna as I reached the corridor Wally ran down. Just as I was about to run past the doorway, an orange tube wrapped around my ankle and pulled me into the hallway. I hit the doorway as it dragged me down the hallway into one of the rooms. The room I ended up in was mostly pink with an unhealthy amount of cat-like décor. Standing in the middle of the room was Wally and a brunette girl with a cat-like appearance.

"That one's Natsu, Millianna." Wally informed his friend.

The girl, Millianna, gave me a cold glare, "So you're the one whose been lying to Erza!"

"Lying?"

It was at that moment that Lisanna, still in her cat take-over, and Happy reached the room.

"Natsu, are you okay?"

Millianna gawked at the two newcomers, "K-kitties?"

Her eyes seemed to sparkle in excitement as she clapped her hands together. She began doing a little dance in complete contrast to her earlier attitude.

"Do…do you like cats?" Happy asked.

"Oh no." Wally muttered.

"YES!"

I looked back at Lisanna and smiled deviously. She returned my smile in kind and fully transformed into a small blue cat. Unlike Happy, the fur on this cat was a very light shade of blue and stood on all fours. Lisanna meowed at Millianna.

"Oh my god, so cute!"

"Ugh, Millianna they're the enemies!"

Millianna shook her head and slapped her cheeks and faced the three of us with a renewed determination.

"Natsu, you get Wally. Happy and I will deal with the cat lover."

I slammed my fist into the palm of my hand, "You're going down blocky."

I launched forward at Wally and swung at his face. Wally sidestepped away from me and shot polygons at me.

"Polygon Attack!"

The blocks hit me in the stomach and launched me across the room. He fired more at me which locked my arms and legs to the wall. His arm then transformed into a gun.

"Prerendering Polygon Shot!" Light began to emit from the barrel of the gun.

"Wally no!" Millianna cried.

I looked over to the cat-girl and found Lisanna, now in a partial takeover, pinning her to the ground.

"You'll break my kitty mask!"

"We can buy you a new one. This is the guy who's been lying to Erza remember!?"

"Oh," Millianna was probably going to follow that up with a 'yeah', but Lisanna socked her in the face and seemed to have knocked her out.

This bought me enough time though to break free from my bindings. I rushed over to Wally and made to punch him once again. Same as before though, he dodged out of the way. This time by transforming his whole body into polygons to get out of the way.

I roared at Simon and gathered fire in both of my hands, "Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!"

Wings of flame erupted from my hand. I swung these wings at Wally and hit my target. An explosion of fire engulfed the room, burning pretty much everything. Wally was left slouched against a scorched wall.

I marched over to Wally and grabbed him by the collar, "Where is Erza."

There was no grin on Wally's face, all I could see in his eyes was fear, "I don't know. I just got here!"

I threw Wally to the side roughly, hopefully knocking him out in the process and walked over to Lisanna and Millianna. Lisanna was now in a more reptilian take-over, most likely to protect herself, Happy, and Millianna from my attack. Lisanna rolled off Millianna when I turned to her.

"Natsu, she's unconscious."

Ignoring her, I grabbed Millianna and shook her violently. Fortunately for me, it did the trick and woke her up.

"Wha? What happened?" Millianna asked.

She looked around and a look of horror grew on her face.

"My…my stuff…" Her eyes began to fill with tears.

"Where is Erza." I questioned.

Millianna was fighting to hold back tears, "Wh-why?"

"Where is she!" I yelled angrily.

"Natsu!" Lisanna grabbed my shoulder and pulled me towards her, "You need to calm down!"

I was about to snap at her when I realized she was bleeding and had burn marks. I looked to Happy and saw that he too had some singe marks on his fur. I was quickly brought back down to a calmer state as I realized what I had just done.

"I…I'm sorry." I said as I dropped Millianna on the floor.

Lisanna pulled me in for a hug, whispering in my ear, "I know, and I know that you want to find Erza, but you need to keep a level head."

Millianna was crying on the floor as Happy approached her, "Excuse me, where's Erza?"

Lisanna and I looked to the blue cat and the crying Millianna. Millianna dried her tears from her eyes and took one look at Happy. The girl bounced at Happy and hugged him crying, "She's at the top of the Tower with Jellal and Siegrain! Please don't leave me kitty!"

Lisanna gave Millianna a confused look, "Wait, Siegrain's here?"

Millianna only continued to cry into Happy.

"Miss, why's Siegrain here?" Happy asked.

"He's the sacrifice," she cried, "And my name's Millianna, kitty!"

"My name's Happy!"

"Please don't leave me, Happy!" Millianna once more cried.

"What happened in here?" Came the gruff voice of Gajeel.

We looked to the door and found the rest of our group waiting outside.

"Looks like Flame-brain got a little too excited." Gray noted.

"We found out Erza's at the top of the Tower and Siegrain is also there. Apparently, he's going to be a sacrifice."

"Wait, what?" Lucy pushed to the center of the group, "What do you mean sacrifice."

Millianna had calmed down to just a few sobs as she answered, "Jellal and Erza are going to sacrifice him to revive Zeref."

"But how'd you even get Siegrain! There's no way he'd just agree to that!"

"Jellal kidnapped him."

"How do you kidnap a Ten Wizard Saint?"

Millianna looked nervously at all of us, especially me, "Jellal's his brother. He's at least as strong as Siegrain."

Everybody visibly gulped at that. We all knew how powerful a Ten Wizard Saint was. For our enemy to be on the same level as that, we really were in a lot of danger.

"Let's go. We shouldn't waste any more time here." I turned back towards the door and began walking away.

"Wait, no don't go!" Millianna cried.

"Let me go!" Happy cried.

I snapped around to see Millianna crying as she held onto Happy.

"Let him go." Lisanna and I both glared daggers at the girl holding onto Happy.

Millianna loosened her hold on Happy and looked at us with a scared expression. Happy flew over to Lisanna who held him tenderly. I watched Lisanna's face relax. I could see relief but also sorrow in her expression. Millianna looked totally defeated, and Lisanna was most likely feeling bad for her.

Lisanna looked back at us with a conflicted expression, "Maybe we can bring her with us? We could use a guide?"

Millianna perked up at that, "Can I?"

"No way we're bringing the enemy with us." Gajeel told her.

"Hate to say it, but he's right." Gray said in agreement, "She could easily lead us into a trap that way."

"She can come, as long as she keeps quiet and leaves Happy alone." I said, "We can't leave her alone anyways. She might call for backup."

"Well, what about him?" Juvia pointed at Wally, who was slumped over on the floor unconscious.

I picked up Wally and threw him over my shoulder, "We take him with us too."

With that, we left the charred room and continued our ascent up the Tower of Heaven.

Thank you for reading

Please Review!