Chapter Eighteen…
(Lucy Heartfilia - Part 6.)
11th of February 783 - Afternoon:
It was the following afternoon, and Natsu and his group was making their way to Wendy's guild, the Cait Shelter Guild. Now the group was walking it as Natsu didn't want to travel by carriage, which meant it would take a day or so instead of a few hours otherwise. Not that the group minded, as they prefer walking, so they could stop and rest or train if they wanted. It would also mean that they could get a bit closer.
Now it was afternoon, and they decided it was a good time to have some lunch. As they ate, Natsu had to wonder what happened to the to Wendy, as she was red faced that morning. When asked she said it was nothing, and she and Minerva was bonding the night before and it got a bit embarrassing but wouldn't get more out of her. When Natsu asked Minerva later, she just told them that it was nothing to worry about and it would be beneficial for him in due time.
As for Carla, she seemed to be acting strangely, mainly around him and Happy, when Natsu asked the white Exceed, she said it was nothing. But when he asked Happy, the blue Exceed told him that he and Carla had a talk the night before, where he warned her not to miss with the two of them and alter the way she treated him or she would regret it. This was something Natsu didn't want, as he wanted to keep a low profile, and not scare them away. But Natsu could understand why he did it, seeing that Carla was being a real bitch at them and yet they had done nothing wrong other than saving hers and Wendy's life. He just hopes Happy's actions won't come back to beat them later on.
Now as they were eating lunch, Wendy pip up as she asked her new friend, "Natsu, you said you knew what happened to our parents."
"Yeah I do," Natsu admitted darkly, "and what I found out isn't' all that good. If you want I can tell you now, or we can wait until we get to your village, where you can be with your Guild."
Wendy thought about it carefully, and after a few minutes of thinking about it, she said, "Please tell me, I want to know what happened to them, I have for a few years."
"Well if that's what you want I'll tell you, but I should warn you it isn't nice, and I am still angry at them." Natsu inform her bitterly, before asking the young girl, "What was the last thing that you remember with your mother?"
"Not much to be honest seeing it was so long ago," Wendy admitted sadly, with a sob, "but I do remember at the time she was teaching me the Sky Dragon's Roar and a few Healing Spells. And then I went to sleep, and the next day I awoke and found myself alone and by myself."
"That's more or less happened to me, I was training with the bastard Igneel, and when I went to sleep and woke up the next morning I was in the forest alone." Natsu inform Wendy, with anger and hate in his voice for Igneel, "Now what if I told you that all this happened over four hundred years ago, and that the day we woke up was the day we were sent into the future."
Wendy could only look at Natsu in disbelieve, she couldn't believe that this could happen, why would their parent send them into the future for. Why won't they with them now? There were so many questions in her head, she didn't know what to ask first. So she went with the basic first three questions, "How is that possible? Why would they send us in the future? And what happened to them?"
"Well how they did it is that they used a powerful artefact, called Eclipse Gate to send us into the future." Natsu informed her of the basics for now, "As for why they did it, and where they are, those two questions are connected, and harder to explain. And these are the reason why I hate them." Natsu's eyes darkened as he thought about the information he had about them, something he couldn't forgive them for.
"Now let's start off with the reason of why first, and that's because they were selfish bastards." Natsu informed her and the others darkly, who were listening to what he was saying, as he hasn't told them this yet. "To explain better I need to start of from the start. I don't remember this, maybe they used magic or they kept us away from the war for our own good, but there was a huge civil war between the dragons. One where some dragons believed that dragons should rule over the humans, whilst other dragons believed that they should go into the shadows and allow us humans to look after ourselves.
"Because some dragons thought that we should look after ourselves, they believe that we should be in the fight too. So they taught some humans their magic, so we can fight alongside each other. At first that seemed to be the right thing to do, and the humans helped fight against the other dragons using Dragon Slayer Magic. At first things were going well, but for whatever reason a few of the Dragon Slayers were those who got corrupted by their power and disregarded the cause their comrades fought for, killing every Dragon they could, and bathing in their blood.
"One such Dragon Slayer was Acnologia, or that's what I know him by, if that's his real name or not, I don't know. Whoever he was, he was the reason why we were sent to the future." Natsu explained, amazing, other than Happy, those who was listening to this. This was a history lesson unlike anything they heard before, and don't believe they would ever hear again. Some wanted to ask why Acnologia was the reason he and Wendy was sent to the future, but suspected that
After taking a few deep breaths and think about what he was about to say next, Natsu continued with his story, "Now due to the overuse of his Magic, Acnologia's physique eventually turned into that of a Dragon's, and he proclaimed himself to be the Dragon King. Now here is where things get complicated, first off, Igneel, your mother Grandeeney, and a few other dragons, fear that their children would become Acnologia.
"You see, from what I was able to find out, a side-effect of using Dragon Slayer Magic, is that you gain a plant-like organism within our body that the dragons call Dragon Seed." Natsu explained, shock Wendy by this news, who was wondering what this got to do about where her mother was, and why they were sent into the future. But for now held back in asking, as she was interested in this story. Natsu went on to say, "Now this plant-like organism forms inside one's body and is the reason that allow us to use Dragon Slayer Magic.
"However, should we abuse this magic, and use it too often, it begins the process that the dragon's call Dragonification, starting with our bodies producing dragon-like features such as scales. And if not combated, it could turn us into dragons and never be able to become human again, or so that's what the dragons believe. I don't think so though."
"What do you mean you don't think so?" the blunette Mage asked in interest.
"Until today, have you or the rest of you heard of Acnologia or even heard that a dragon is still alive?" Natsu asked Wendy and the others.
"No, as far as we were aware of, until now, we thought that dragons went extinct hundreds of years ago." Minerva admitted, as the others nodded in agreement.
"And if I didn't know better I would agree with you," Natsu told his friends, "but the thing is if that was the case, we wouldn't be here today, and we would have our parents still with us. No, I think that Acnologia was able to transform back from dragon and human at will, and over the last few hundred years used that ability to keep a low profile. Otherwise we would have heard more about him. No, I think they sealed this power to stop us from going mad like Acnologia, and in doing so have the side-effect of becoming a dragon. Although, in my personal opinion, I think that Acnologia went mad not because of his power, but for more personal reasons. I could be wrong, just a feeling I have.
"Either way, back to the matter at hand, to combat this Dragonification, they had to use an ability they called Dragon Soul Technique." Natsu informed them, and as he went on to explain, his face darkened once again, "This technique is the reason why we don't have our parents, why we're in this time and why I think they were selfish bastards. There was another reason they used this ability other than combating the Dragonification, and that's so they could defeat Acnologia themselves."
"How would that work?" asked Rouge, "How would this spell would help them to fight Acnologia, when you would be in the future, unless they placed their soul into your bodies." seeing the dark look from her Master's face, she realized that this was what happened and she covered her mouth at this, and said in shock, "That's what happened isn't it, they are using your body on a container."
"You're right, that's what happened." Natsu said with a sneer, unhappy about this, "To create the antibodies to stop us from going mad and transforming into a dragon, they placed their souls into our bodies and send us into the future, so they could fight Acnologia."
"Why do that for?" asked Carla, wondering why the dragons couldn't defeat this so called Dragon King in their own time, q "Couldn't they defeat Acnologia in their time?"
"You would have thought so, but no they couldn't." Natus told them, "From what I was able to find out, they tried once to battle the Black Dragon, but failed and got hurt badly. So to heal themselves, they decided to not only seal themselves into us to stop this Dragonification, but also hide themselves within us and send us to a time where the concentration of magic was high. Here I'm just guessing, but until which point we come face to face with Acnologia, or that they have healed enough that they can leave our body and kill the Black Dragon themselves before dying, seeing that they don't have a body for their souls to go into."
"That's a bit stupid," Minerva told them all, as she couldn't believe that these stupid lizards thought that their plan would work, "for one, how would they know if this Acnologia would be around after all this time. Not only that, but even if they are all healed up, do they really think they would have any chance at defeating this Black Dragon."
Wendy sobbing a bit here, as she couldn't believe that her mother was inside her all this time, any she didn't even knew it. Why didn't her mother tell her this? It would have saved her all this time thinking that she was abandoned and wouldn't have wasted so much time looking for her now that she was old enough to do so. However, a small part of her still held hope, that her mother had some sort of plan or something. But still to think that her mother with the other dragons wouldn't have a chance to defeat this Acnologia, she didn't believe it. So she asked, "Why do you think that they don't have a chance at defeat Acnologia?"
"Because do you really think that this Black Dragon would be doing all this time, twiddling his claws?" Minerva scoffed at this, "No he would have trained, just in case the dragon race reappeared of someone with Dragon Slayer Magic reappears, he wouldn't want to be caught off guard, so he would have trained."
"And that's why I hate them," the pink haired Mage said with a sneer, "first off they didn't have the courtesy to warn us that we were been sent into the future. So that we would be prepared for it. If I knew that I was been sent to a place where dragons were no longer around, I don't think I would have told people I was raised by a dragon, I might have come up with another story. So that I wouldn't have made fun off, for Wendy, they would thought she was using her imagination that she was brought up by a dragon.
"And whilst I didn't know the age of the other Dragon Slayers, I was made fun off because I couldn't read or write, as the language from then and the language now are completely different, it was no wonder I couldn't read and write. I had to learn the hard way to read and write, which in turn until recently not to be bothered to read and write. For Wendy, she could have paid it off from being young and wasn't taught it."
At this, Minerva, Rouge and even Carla could see why Natsu hated the dragons, as those who meant to protect him, had in the long run done more harm than good. Sure his dragon might have taught him how to defend himself, but he didn't prepare him for been sent into the future. As much as Wendy hated to admit, she too could understand her friend's reason for hating his father.
"The other reason that I hate them is that they left us weak," Natsu told them darkly, "as when I came to the same conclusion as Minerva, I realized that it would be down to us to deal with the dragon. But the thing is that we would only win by dumb luck, as Igneel didn't even leave any training material for me to learn from in case the worse came and I had to deal with Acnologia. At least my bastard of my father trained me in the basics of taught me how to fight, if the worse came, I might have been able to come up with something to defeat him, some sort of risky one shot move. But I might have been to be unable to. Unlike Wendy's bitch of a mother, Grandeeney, who didn't even bother to train her for combat or even leave her any sort of training material to learn to fight from."
"But, but…" began Wendy, trying to find a way to defend her mother, but she wasn't able to, why didn't she leave some notes on some combat skills other than the Sky Dragon's Roar. Apart for the Dragon's Roar, all her skills were to heal or boost hers and others abilities. Whilst useful in helping others, she useless in defending herself. It wasn't until now that she thought about it, and so she began to cry. Here the girls and Carla began to hug her.
As she was crying, the young Dragon Slayer asked the older Dragon Slayer, "What, what did you do when you found all this out?"
Natsu had the decency to look bashful at this, as whilst what he did what part of his plan to get stronger, it was also mainly out of anger and wanting to get revenge on his so called father. "To be honest, I was so angry at him that I merged his soul and power into my own, so that I can become powerful enough to fight Acnologia if I have to."
Wendy was shock and a little bit horrified at what Natsu did, but at the same time she understood why he did so. He was angry and wanted to pay his dragon father back in some way, and in a fit of anger, Natsu merged Igneel's soul and power into his own. Merge what was Igneel into him so that Natsu could have an even standing in fighting Acnologia. She wondered if Natsu suspect her to do the same with her mother, and so asked, "Are you suspecting me to do the same? Have me merge my mother's soul and power into myself?"
"Not unless you want to no," admitted Natsu, "but answer me this, what is stopping you not doing so? It's not like you can speak to her at any point you want to ask her for advice, or just speak to her. And whenever she does appear again, it'll only to fight Acnologia. She might not have much power to talk after the fight, and so her soul will pass on. And what would give you in the end? But if you did merge with her, at least you'll have her power to become stronger and fight Acnologia if you have to."
Whilst horrified at the idea of 'killing' her mother, as she hoped that she might be able to talk to her one last time, but what Natsu seemed to make sense. In the end, she would be left with nothing, and maybe not long enough to have a decent talk with her mother like she would have liked to have. So in the end was what would she would want, to have something that was part of her mother, or have a few meaningless words and be left with nothing.
Seeing the conflict in the young girl's face, the Fire Dragon Slayer said, "You don't have to make the same decision as me, just think about it."
"I will." the blunette told her new friend, unsure what she wanted to do.
"Now that is done with, what do you mean that become powerful enough to fight Acnologia if you have to?" asked the green haired, "It sounds like you're not planning to fight the Black Dragon."
"Because unless I am forced to, that's the plan." Natsu admitted, "Acnologia has over four hundred years of experience, I would have no chance at fighting the Black Dragon, so I would like other some other way to deal with Acnologia before fighting the Black Dragon."
The small group of new friends could see the logic in it, this self proclaimed Dragon King had hundreds of years of experience, and they had only a few years. They would have no chance in defeating the Black Dragon should they be forced to fight the dragon, so it would better to avoid or have another way to deal with Acnologia than fighting.
As they were thinking over what was said, the black haired Mage asked, "Why do you keep calling Acnologia by name or Black Dragon, never him or her?"
Natsu sort of blushed at this, as he said, "It is sort of a personal thing. Whilst most everyone thinks that Acnologia is male, there's no real record of him being male or female, so I never call Acnologia him or her."
"Why though?" asked Carla, a bit confused why this Dragon Slayer would do such a thing.
"I don't want to piss Acnologia off," the pink haired admitted to the group, "should we ever meet up, I don't want Acnologia learn that I called him a male or female unless I am forced to. As I don't know how Acnologia would feel about being called male or female when he isn't one of the other, and should meet face to face, I don't want to get Acnologia mad at me for calling him a sex he wasn't. I would like a good opening to the talks, so I won't call Acnologia a sex until I know what it is."
Now in a strange way, it made a lot of sense. Whilst normally this wouldn't be a problem, there were a few people who took offence to being called one sex when they were another. And if Acnologia was indeed alive, and as powerful as Natsu believed the Black Dragon was, and was senterive about being called being female when he was male and vice versa, they didn't want to piss off the dragon by calling it the wrong sex. If they did, well, getting out of an unneeded fright would be impossible.
For the rest of lunch, the small group ate their food quately, thinking what was said during their meal. Once they finished, they started of to Wendy's guild.
And Then…
It was a few hours later, and Natsu, Wendy and the others were about an hour or two away from Wendy's guild, and the sky was getting dark. None of them were talking right now, as they were still thinking about what was said that lunch. Wendy was in two minds about what to do about the news about her mother being in her, she was upset and a bit angry at her mother for not telling her. But a small part of her, thought that Grandeeney might have had a reason for not telling her everything. It was a small part, seeing that the rest of her believed there was no reason at all for not telling her, but it was there.
She wasn't sure what to do about merging her mother's soul and power into her, there was the fact that should her mother appear to fight Acnologia, afterwards they could have at least one last goodbye. Something she would have liked the first time round. But then there was the fact that her mother could be killed by Acnologia, as Minerva pointed out, although it would have been second to them for when they were sent into the future. For the Black Dragon, it would have been years and would have trained to become stronger. And in the end, she wouldn't have the chance to say goodbye to her mother.
So the chose was with hope that one day she could say goodbye to her mother, or have her mother killed before they could say goodbye, or merge with her mother and get even stronger. Out of the three options, the last one seemed to be appealing to her, as out of the other two options, the first one all she would get was a goodbye, with a possibility that she wouldn't get her answers answered, the second one she would get nothing at all but a dead mother. At least with the third option, as horrible as it sounds doing so, at least she would have part of her mother in her forever and would become even stronger in doing so.
Wendy was so confused as to what to do, and so didn't talk much about what was said. She had to admit though, it felt good to have Natsu there, it felt like she had a big brother looking after her. He was willing to tell her the truth even it hurts, instead of hiding it so to protect her. But was there to comfort her when she learnt the truth, making sure she was ok, listening to her should she need him to, or just hold her and not say anything but to hold her.
Like he was doing now. It only been a short while knowing each other, but this what she felt having a big brother was like. Although with spending time with Minerva, it just confused things, and she tried not to think like that and put it in the back of her mind. As at the moment she needed a big brother, more than a Mate.
As for the others, they couldn't believe that Natsu's and Wendy's dragon parents would do that to them without letting them know what was going on. Sure do it if they thought there was no other way, put themselves into their children and send them into the future, but at least tell Natsu and Wendy. That way they knew what was going on, and don't let them think that their parents just abandon them for no reason. They had to think what the dragons were thinking.
As for Acnologia, they were happy that Natsu was acting smart about it all, and not trying to run after it and trying to defeat the Black Dragon. If it was as strong as Natsu said the dragon was, it would be his death, and counting the years experience it had. And to think that the foolish Natsu's and Wendy's dragon parents wanted to do this foolish plan, did they really think it would work when they couldn't defeat the Black Dragon in their own time?
They were amazed at how they were thinking of the so call Dragon King, by it or another name instead of him or her. But Natsu was right, they didn't know if it was female or male, and if they wanted to deal with Acnologia, it was better not to call it female or male until they knew for sure. Otherwise if it was sensitive by such subject, they could be dead before they could say anything to make any kind of deals.
But as they thought about if the Black Dragon was male or female, they were wondering what they human form would be like. As Natsu was right, if it didn't have one, there would be rumours about it by now. Natsu admitted as they were walking, that if there were rumours, before he learnt the truth, he would be looking for it thinking that it could have been Igneel. So they were talking about how they might look like, joking that Acnologia might have scales.
Now it was getting dark, and they were about an hour or two from their destination, and the group was walking along a field when the skies darken. What was once a clear evening, was now a dark cloudy sky, it looked like it was going to rain all of a sudden. As the group looked up to see what was happening, they saw the clouds moving closer and closer to the centre, until they were spinning around forming some kind of vortex.
In the centre of the vortex there was a flashing bright white lights, and a sound of thunder. Then after a few seconds, the flashing of lights stopped, and now there was nothing but a bright light in the centre, with lightning coming out of it, some lightning was hitting the ground. Then the air felt as if it was being sucked into the vortex, and some of the earth began to suck up into the vortex for a few moments, and other than the Dragon Slayers and the Exceeds, Minerva and Rouge seemed to be getting sucked up in the vortex too.
But suddenly the air changed, as the group felt they were been pushed into the ground, as Minerva and Rouge dropped and pushed into the ground. And out of the vortex, four lightning balls came out it, and hit the ground nearby. And all of a sudden, as fast as it appeared, the vortex disappeared the sky was once again clear as if nothing had happened.
As Minerva and Rouge was getting up, Natsu helped them up and asked, "Are you two alright?"
"A bit sure but I'm ok." Rouge told him, as the younger girl nodded in agreement.
"Now what the hell was that about?" Natsu asked them, confused as hell as what happened.
"Anima…" the Exceed whispered softly in fear, so softly that normal people wouldn't hear it. But there sadly for her, there was two people who had greater hearing than normal people. So Natsu asked, "What is this Anima?"
"Yes Carla, what is this Anima?" asked the Sky Dragon Slayer, "I heard of this once before, before I dropped off at Cait Shelter, and I always wondered what it meant. As the person I was looked afraid when he said it and took me to Cait Shelter before disappearing."
"I don't know," acknowledge Carla, "it's just a name that popped into my mind as I saw it. All I know is that it is something real dangerous to this world."
Natsu looked at the Exceed strangely and wondered if she had a power that Happy didn't, to see things that none of them could. It would explain why she seemed to know about this so called mission when Happy didn't. Could this Anima be something to do with Edolas? If so, he needed to see what landed, as it might answer the question to how to get to Edolas and rescue HIS Lisanna. So without showing any signs he was after anything else, he said, "We should see what came from that vortex, we might learn more about this Anima."
The group could see reason for this, if it was as dangerous as Carla and Wendy thought it was, they needed to learn everything they could about it. So the group went to where the balls of light landed. As they got closer, they were four people, two male and two females, where the lights were, each having magical weapons on them, one male had an axe whilst the other had a sword, and one had a spear, whilst the other had a sword.
"So this is Earthland," the male swordsman said as he looked around, "I can sense the magic here. The king was right about draining the magic here for Edolas, this area alone would make it so we won't be without magic for a few years."
Apart for Happy and Natsu, the others looked shocked at the news that this man was talking about magic from their world to take it to another. But they knew better not to say anything, or else they would be discovered. "Yeah, but we'll need the magic here to repower the Anima, as it takes so much to power." admitted the spearwoman.
"Damn Princess Jellia," cursed the axeman, "why would she want to do this to us? Doesn't she care about our world? We need the magic here, or we run out of it within a few years."
"I know Kou," admitted the swordswoman, "we can ask her when we find her. For now, we have to find her and stop her from closing the Anima and bring her back home."
"You're right Aiko, we need to stop her, so we can carry on with our mission to take the magic from this world." acknowledge Kou, "We better get going and find clues as to where she could be."
And with that the four them left the area, not knowing that they were overheard. Once they were gone, Natsu said, "So Anima, that's how they are taking our magic."
"You know about this?" the white Excced asked in shock.
"Yeah, we know someone from their world that informed us that their king was stealing our magic," admitted Natsu, "but they didn't know how he was doing it."
"I see," Minerva said thoughtfully, "but who is this Princess they were talking about? It would seem that she is stopping her father from stealing our magic for some reason."
"I don't know, but we need to find her before those people do or our world is doomed." Natsu informed them.
"Yeah but how?" asked Happy, "We don't know what she looks like or where she is."
"True," admitted the Dragon Slayer, "and whilst we don't know what she looks like, we have the advantage of knowing the land and our world better than them. And I don't think they find this Princess any easier than we can?"
"Why do you say that?" inquired the Gun Mage.
"If it was me, I would hide who I was by hiding my looks and changing my name." the Fire Dragon Slayer told them, "And so with so many people hiding their looks, and going by another name in this world, is she did what I would do, it won't be easy to find her."
The group had to admit that Natsu had a point, as long as this Princess Jellia hid who she was, it would be hard for them to find her. Which would give them time to take Wendy back to her Guild, and find the girl Natsu was looking for, before they look for this princess. With nothing else to be said, the group continued they journey to Wendy's village. Little did Wendy knew it than, her life would once again be turned around by shocking news that she'll soon learn, news that her heart couldn't take. One that would make her make a decision that would change her life forever.
To be Continued!
Author's Note: Here ends Chapter 18 of The Dragon Overlord, and I want you to thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter and hope you'll review. Whilst I got most of what I wanted, but the main problem that I have is how to write the next part. And that's to how to deal with Wendy's Guild. I know what I want to happen, Wendy finding out about the truth about the village, but I'm not too sure how to put it into words. So if you got any ideas, I would like to hear them.
Now I'm planning to add a few OC Dragon Slayers, and I would like to hear any you might have, the best ones I'll add to the story. Next I would like your thoughts about Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney, who'll appear in the chapters soon. Now I know for sure that Sting Eucliffe will be male, but I was wondering if I should make Rogue a male or female, and so I would like your thoughts about it. I would like your thoughts about what should happen afterwards.