Wow... I loved the last chapter. I tried to do my best, to the depths of my writing ability, to make it very fun to read.
Also, I now work with children... I might throw a child into later chapters...
Chapter 15: Revenge Plans Only Take A Month
The wind swept back his pink locks. He sat on the ground, training as a warrior of the fifth rank now - soon to be sixth.
It's taken him awhile to get to this point, but his magic didn't feel close to the fifth rank. And, from what he had learnt from Makarov, it wouldn't for another year or two; this felt too long for him.
He began skipping classes more often; missing out on team meetings for the last two months. It was safe to say Erza wasn't happy about it because when she found out, she pounded Natsu into the ground. But, now they were equally matched; Erza couldn't outrun him when he had fourth-ranked wind magic on his side.
The thing that interested him the most wasn't that Gray had brought Juvia to their room, or that Gajeel tried to keep the small blue haired girl, Levy, away from him and Gray. It was that Bora hadn't been seen - this intrigued him a lot.
Natsu pulled out the dragon scale that hung on his neck by a single piece of rope. It swung from side to side in front of his face in the gentle wind as he eyed it with his onyx eyes.
"What do you think, father?" He whispered, taking in a deep breath of the chilly wind while sweat dripped down his face, "Is Bora planning some sort of revenge? On me for taking away his giant ego? Or Gray, who talks to his girlfriend too much?"
"Or me for saying 'no' to dating him," He recognised that voice anywhere, and felt two arms wrap around his neck in a hug, "You've been gone for almost two weeks, Natsu, what have you been doing?"
Blonde hair fell over his head, and he sighed, "Sorry for worrying you," he said softly, grinning largely as Lucy dropped a bag in front of his face, "I was training here, and then I suddenly thought about how Bora had vanished."
"Don't worry about it too much, he's probably training," Lucy sat beside him, taking in the breathtaking scenery.
In the distance, there was the Mountain Range of Beasts, where all the magical beasts tended to lie in wait. But, before that, there was the city. You could easily see the largest buildings in the back, and the smaller buildings dotted around the city. And, when the sun set all of the city was shadowed in a golden glow.
"Training for what..." Natsu muttered to himself as he opened the bag and saw Lucy's home-made sandwiches, "These look so good!"
He chowed them down, his mouth growing wider than a cannon ball; Lucy said, "How long has it been since you've eaten?"
"Maybe a week?" He hummed, taking another slice and eating it whole, "Maybe since I came here? I honestly don't remember."
She sighed, hitting him on the head for his ignorance, "Anyways, Lisanna's been looking for you all over. She even tried to venture out of the city. She kept saying something about how she was your girlfriend, and you just left her!-"
Natsu began to choke, a slight blush coated his cheeks, "I would never date her! I've got more important things to do than thinking about dating some girl who has an addiction to me!" he pushed that thought aside, and then turned to Lucy, "Want to train with me?"
She nodded and then proceeded to get into a neutral, taking a hair-tie and tying back her blonde locks. Natsu watched her, finding her movements slightly elegant, and then prayed that he had poured enough spiritual energy into the pendant for it to work.
You see, before Lucy had arrived, Natsu had poured over half his spiritual energy into the small, red scale; it had absorbed it. As far as he knew - which was what Igneel taught him - the scale would increase the efficiency of training and help someone to breakthrough quickly.
Lucy began training, and just from the glow that surrounded her, Natsu could tell that Lucy was training her light magic. He watched as the light shifted around; then it became a bolt of light and shot right past Natsu head.
"Train, Idiot," Lucy said plainly, not even opening a single eye.
"Got it, boss!" He quickly arranged himself, then prayed silently, "If this thing works, in a few months I should be able to reach the fifth rank in all my elements, and a sixth-ranked warrior."
He closed his eyes and began to focus on the red and brown dots, and taking these dots to encompass his two fists, which were balled by his sides.
He'd been doing this for awhile, straining himself to train two elements at a time to make his training more useful - and it was working! He felt significant improvements, and now, with this pendant, he felt it increased tenfold.
Lucy trained with him for a few hours, and then Natsu felt a sudden powerful energy coming from her. He propped open one eye and looked at the blonde how was enclosed in a blinding light. He smiled knowingly - Lucy had just broken through to the third rank.
Slowly, Lucy opened her eyes, a giant smile plastered on her face. Natsu saw how giddy the girl looked; her expression was a bright star in the night sky. Her smile reminded him a little of Lisanna's, always bright and big.
"I think that's enough training," Lucy moved towards Natsu, then bent down and hugged Natsu, "Come back soon, okay?"
"I'll be coming home soon, Lucy," he gave her his signature, toothy grin, "Keep your eyes open for Bora if he turns up you know where I am."
Lucy left, and Natsu began his training again, he planned to go home today. He didn't fancy being beaten by Erza again for not turning up to their meeting; he didn't think he could survive it either...
Natsu jumped off the edge of the cliff, plummeting down through the air.
Anyone would think that he was a child prepared to take their own life, but Natsu wasn't planning on that. Instead, he was planning on running through the small woods with Happy to get to campus faster. The little cat had ranked up, but he didn't know what rank Happy was, and Happy refused to tell him.
The woods were so small that Natsu and Happy cleared it within in a minute, even with Natsu bad sense of direction he managed to come out on the side of the woods where his room was.
He began running a little faster, then using the wind he pushed himself off the ground, soaring over the school students - who gave him weird looks - and landing on the balcony of the room he, Gray and Gajeel lived in. He opened the sliding door and slung his bag onto his bed.
"Gajeel, Gray!" He yelled, taking off his white shirt and walking into the seating area. Only to be met with a small blue haired girl, "I either have the wrong room, or you do, which one is it?" Natsu questioned, towering above the small girl, who came up to his nose.
"We both have the right room, I'm waiting for Gajeel," The girl replied, he nodded knowing this girl was Levy now.
"Ah, well," He cleared his throat and moved to put his dirty in the shirt in the washing, "Make yourself at home."
After a few minutes of sitting in an awkward silence, Lisanna crashed into the room. There was blood on her clothes; sweat dripping from her face and cuts all over her arms. She held a look of worry, shock, anger... fear. Natsu blood ran cold as he jumped from his seat in nothing but shorts that reached his knees.
"It's Bora!" She yelled, panting as she did so, "He attacked Gray and Gajeel; then Lucy began fighting too. She's... they're struggling against Bora and his friends."
Natsu dived out the room, grabbing the sword that was placed conveniently at the door. He practically jumped down the stairs, Levy and Lisanna running behind him.
"Are you in love with him?" Levy asked as she ran with Lisanna, who was blushing underneath the redness of tiredness, "You can tell by the way you look at him, and he seems to be comfortable around you too."
Natsu had vanished out of their sights, so instead of talking, they continued running.
Natsu was already at the scene, lots of people had gathered and were watching the fight. Natsu jumped above the crowd, unsheathing Dezeus, which immediately began to drink Natsu blood to feed off his spiritual energy. He covered the blade in wind magic, and as he fell he prepared to slam the sword onto the ground.
As the sword hit the floor, the wind dispersed forcefully, pushing Bora and his friends backwards. Some of them fell onto their backsides, while some staggered backwards.
The dust from the ground began to fall again and Natsu became visible to the crowd. A large sword swung over his shoulder and his bare chest, that was evenly muscle was shown to the crowd and Bora.
"Looks like the cavalry has arrived," Gray joked, a large gash on his face that Lucy began to heal from the back lines.
"Finally," Gajeel grunted, his fists were cut, but they also held other people's blood on them, "Thought you weren't going to show up."
"Well," Natsu chuckled, his pendant waving in the wind, "I couldn't let you guys get your asses handed to you." Natsu then growled, snapping his head back to Bora, who had finished recovering from the shock, "Ready for round two Bora? This time I was thinking of killing you for hurting my friends, but then I could just break your will to do magic. Hey, Lucy, take a break for a couple of minutes; I'll deal with this."
He pulled the large sword off his shoulder, pointing its black blade, with a hint of red from Natsu's blood. He then vanished, or they thought he vanished, but he was moving too fast for their eyes and was moving into their blind spots.
He hit one of Bora's 'helpers' with the butt of his sword, knocking him out almost instantly. He then jumped back as another one of Bora's friends went to punch Natsu, but then another hit him in the back and him didn't even flinch.
"You guys are annoying as flies..." He sighed, then spun around with his sword, moving the wind to knock two of the lackeys into the air.
When they flew up, Natsu jumped above them and punched one in the stomach, causing him to throw up a significant amount of blood and sent him like a comet into the ground. The other was on the other side of Natsu; his sword was in the same hand that the lackey was on. He turned the sword around to the blunt side, then spun in mid-air and slammed the blunt aspect of the sword into the boy's throat.
Another one shot a ball of the wind at Natsu, which hit him on the side. This caused him to fly back to where Lucy was, who looked a little more alive than before. Lucy put her arms up to begin healing Natsu, but he quickly grabbed her waist and dived to the side with her - a trail of fire scorched the floor.
"You can hit me all you want," He seethed, grabbing Lucy's waist a little harder, which caused her to wince, "But touch Lucy, and I'll kill you... I mean it."
Lucy saw the pure rage on Natsu face, and it reminded her of a dragon.
He let go of her waist, and then put his sword on the floor near Lucy, covering one of his fists with fire, and the other with destruction magic.
"Ignis!" A few of Bora's lackeys flew backwards, ending up with painful burns as Natsu destructive fire tore through the air and collided with them.
Natsu then walked forward to the last person, Bora, who had been firing balls of air at Gray and Gajeel. Natsu grabbed his collar, his pupils and eyes were tiny from his blind rage. He threw his through a gap in the crowd into a wall, and within the blink of an eye was on the wall, punching Bora with a fist of the earth.
Bora used wind magic to push Natsu off, then pushed Natsu to the ground using the air. Natsu suddenly felt all the air being sucked from his lungs and Bora jumped on him; pinning him down to the ground and punching his repeatedly with a fist surrounded by air.
Natsu reached his hand backwards, pointing to the sword. It flew to his hand, But, he already felt his head spinning; his eyes were going to roll into the back of his head. He thrust the sword into Bora's leg causing him to scream in agony.
Natsu lungs filled with oxygen again. He gasped and coughed, then fell back towards his group of friends.
Bora regrouped with his friends.
"Enclose," Natsu breathed, and the ground closed around Bora and his friends, causing them to cry in shock, "Collapse."
The roof of the enclosed area fell on them, and they were all depleted of spiritual energy; their physical wounds gave them so much agony they couldn't move.
Natsu smelt blood; he picked it up relatively fast and turned to Lucy, "Lucy!" everyone yelled together, watching her fall limply to one side.
Natsu dived to her, grabbing her body before she hit the floor. He scanned her body for wounds and found a large gash on her leg, but the light magic inside her had already begun healing it; now she was just low on spiritual energy.
Natsu lifted her and carried her to her room.
Natsu, Gray and Gajeel sat in their room. They had allowed their friends - their family - to be hurt; they couldn't forgive themselves for it.
"Two years," Natsu said, breaking the silence that hung like death in the room, "Two years and I'll reach the fifth rank, maybe the sixth, with my magic. I'll train more as a warrior and break through to rank eight; I won't let anyone be hurt again."
In the fight, Lucy had been injured, gaining a nasty cut on her leg. Lisanna and a few broken ribs and she had found it hard to breathe for awhile; Levy had just finished getting healed for her burns.
"Juvia," Gray sighed, "She was hurt by Bora," he seethed out the name, "before the fight began."
"Let us come train with you Natsu, put down one of your training fields and we'll train and become a powerhouse before we reach seventeen," Gajeel said through gritted teeth.
"Let's do it," Natus nodded in agreement.
Natsu would find a new place, that no one would find, not even Lucy, and they were going to train until they were completely exhausted.