I'm having a week of non-stop writing because I have a lot of plans for the summer.
I wanted to thank all of the people who have been reviewing; following, and favouriting.
You're all awesome! Keep doing what you are doing!
Chapter 18: First Day In The Mountain Range
Natsu shifted himself in the thin sheet of cloth.
He had been leaning against a tree, while Lucy had been sleeping on the floor with Natsu's bag used as a cushion.
Yesterday, after the attack that had been unexpected, it had become late night. And, because it was so late at night, it caused Natsu to request they stop and sleep for the evening, and then they'd continue on their way to the Mountain Range the next day.
Lucy agreed. She took the comfy spot that Happy had found for himself, and Happy rested on her stomach.
Natsu stayed up till late morning; he was training at the same time as keeping watch. When he finally went to sleep, Happy had woken up and mentally spoke to Natsu, saying that he would stay up while Natsu went to sleep.
Now, Happy and Lucy were the only two sleeping.
The birds chirped their early morning calls, and the soft breeze that caressed Natsu was slowly beginning to fade. He moved away from the tree trunk and stretched out his legs and arms while yawning slightly.
After letting himself wake up properly, he decided to survey the area. He used his wind magic to scan the area around them, only to find certain animals, like a rabbit or a hare, scurrying around randomly.
He grabbed his sword, hoisting it onto his shoulder like a weighted sack. The issue Natsu was in was a little thorny, and he didn't feel it right to leave Lucy unprotected, but he didn't want to keep moving forward without knowing any possible dangers.
He decided to settle with only going to the bushes, but even then, even with his surveying using the wind; he felt like it wasn't enough.
After giving the area another once over, he sat back down against the tree and waited for Lucy and Happy to wake up, slightly drawn towards the way the sun was hiding behind the tallest peak of a mountain. He grabbed a random stick and, using a single finger, set it on fire while waving it around aimlessly.
He snapped out of his coma-like state when he heard Lucy say his name, "Natsu," she said, slightly sleepily, "you're going to burn the whole forest down."
Natsu snapped from his daydream, looking at her as the stick began to burn out, "It won't burn the forest down," Natsu said very quietly, finding the dwindling flame attractive. "The grass and the soil are wet, and the flame has barely any fuel left because I dampened the end of the stick, so I don't burn myself."
He watched as little flecks of burnt wood created a small heap of warmth on the floor, he dropped the stick and put his finger and thumb in his mouth. Lucy watched as he lowered his, now wet, fingers to the weak flame; then he pinched it. It went out within seconds, but Lucy thought it was interesting to watch.
"Are you ready to get moving?" Natsu asked, standing up and holding a hand down to Lucy.
"Yeah," Lucy prodded the still sleeping Happy, then took Natsu hand and he picked her up again. "I can walk myself; you do know that right."
"I do," he replied bluntly, looking down to Lucy in his arm. "But, you're too slow for me; it's a hindrance. I'll let you down when we reach the north point."
Lucy huffed a little, "I don't need a man to look after me, or do things for me, I can do things myself."
"I didn't say you couldn't, Luce," Natsu began moving, Happy bouncing along next to him. "I only believe this is a more efficient way of getting more time in the mountains. I can't wait to see what happens if you get married, and your husband takes a second wife."
Lucy and Natsu laughed, leaving Lucy a little speechless. So, she said the only thing she thought of at the time.
"What if you get married to, say, Lisanna, and you take a second wife after that, what do you think would happen?"
"Well..." Natsu pondered for a second, his eyes wandered to the sky and then back to the path ahead. "I had been raised with only a father and no mother, and when I moved in with Gildarts and Cornelia, that was the only time I had a mother. I'd like to think that, like Gildarts, I will be able to devote myself to one woman."
"I thought Gildarts was your father," Lucy said, confusion laced in her voice, and a bewildered look in her eyes.
"Gildarts took me in when I was rather young after my father was kidnapped in front of my own eyes and his," Natsu vaguely remembered the look of hatred in Gildart's eyes. "He took me into his home; he cared for me, as did his wife, and as did their daughter. They treated me like their own family. So I'd like to start a family where I take to anyone in need of help and aid and make them feel as though they have a family."
"Who was your father? What did he do?" Natsu smiled.
He hadn't talked about his father for years, and although he still thought about Igneel every night, it felt nice to be able to speak about him with Lucy openly.
"My father was a dragon," Natsu jumped over a large, fallen tree, and spoke very slowly so that Lucy would be able to understand him. "He was also a mighty mage."
"If your father was a dragon, and your mother had to be human to give you a human body..." Lucy looked up at him, her fingers scratching her cheek slightly. "Does that not make you half Magical Beast and half human."
"Lucy," Natsu gave her clued-up look, "you know as well as I do that a half Magical Beast and half human being is impossible. Their magical structure isn't the same which would mean that a half breed wouldn't be able to do magic, which I can do. And, even if the Magical Beast were to be in a human form because it's a deity the reproduction of both the human and Magical Beast would be different."
"You're right," Lucy said knowingly, Natsu's words all made sense and held science behind them. "What was I thinking..."
Gildarts took a long breath in.
He stayed far away from the building he was scoping out. But he used a magical hearing device, which made things from hundreds of meters away sound clear, and an enhanced eye piece, that made things easier to see. The man he was following was no man; it was a beast. A very powerful Magical Beast that Makarov had saved him from, but he still pursued it with a passion.
He watched as the black haired male, wearing a black and white cloth over his shoulders, approached a dark red-haired man, Even from here he could sense that the man was an Overgod, but the black hair male now seemed to be a Highgod.
Maybe, Gildarts thought, maybe that black haired man was carrying the object on the day that made him seem more powerful and increases his power? That would be a sovereign rank artifact.
"Do they still refuse to give you the power of a Universe Creator, father?" The black haired boy bowed down before his red haired father.
"Yes, but that is not what makes me weary," the man stood from his chair, moving over to a window and gazing out of it. "What has me weary is that we have my other half, that I have yet to fuse with, Igneel, but it appears he was looking after a child. I believe that child was mine."
"You mean my younger brother that you damned to that pit?" The boy stood, turning to face the strong back of his father. "Why does he matter, he was only my half brother? He was not even a child of my mother. Instead, he was a child of an imperfect human, and you, you, my grand and mighty father. If he has that woman's blood coursing through his veins, he is obviously not as strong as me - a pure blood of our kind."
"No, that is quite right," the man said; Gildarts could see the knowing smirk on the man's face. "Only his mother wasn't a 'weak human,' as you put it. She was an arch-angel of the Universe Creator at the time. That arch-angel was the Universe Creator's human child, making that boy the first ever Magical Beast and human half breed."
"And, if we cannot find him..." the man nodded knowing of what his son was thinking.
"If we cannot locate him, he will kill you, and I will have been fused with Igneel and will hold that boy in a special place in my heart, so I will not be able to kill him. But in my current state, I will also not be able to look at him as he is the bane of my existence. And the one thing that stops me from becoming a Universe Creator."
Gildarts' magical devices burst quietly, meaning that their magical power had drained.
But, he had got enough.
The sky turned dark and grey as he turned and hopped down from the massive cathedral, his thunderous expression never left his face as he dashed toward the Magnolia Institute. He would need to report to Makarov right away and explain his findings.
He now knew who Natsu's mother was and his father.
He also knew what Natsu was.
Natsu and Lucy arrived at the north point.
In front of them were two guards wearing the uniform of the magic school. They were currently checking Natsu and Lucy's school ID's and quietly talking amongst themselves about work and other things.
After they finished, they handed back the school ID's and parted for Natsu, Lucy and Happy to walk through onto the outskirts of the mountain range. In truth, the north point was only for students so that Makarov knew that any students who went there knew they had arrived safely. Anyone else could just walk in at any time they wanted.
Lucy and Natsu continued on the walk through the outskirts, here it was like a clearing. There were a few trees and bushes, but there were no Magical Beast until you reached the outskirts of the Mountain Range's forest.
The whole forest that belonged to the mountain was like a semi-circle around it, and the closer you went to the central mountain, the higher ranked the beasts would be. The outer circle held one to three ranked beasts, the middle ring held four to seven ranked beasts, and the inner ring held eight to low-saint ranked monsters.
Natsu knew that the seventh ranked Magical Beasts would be near the border of the inner ring, so he didn't think they'd be much danger venturing into the boundary of the middle ring and outer ring.
They walked for another ten minutes before reaching the thick part of the forest.
Natsu looked a Lucy, "Are you ready?" He asked, taking her hand into his.
"Yeah, it just feels like this would never happen. I did not think I would ever come to this place," Lucy smiled, slightly proud of herself for coming this far.
She and Natsu made their way through, finding different berry bushes and pricking themselves on all sorts of plants. The undergrowth in the forest was a little dense, and lots of plants and small bushes covered the ground.
Natsu heard a rustle, and suddenly a little creature jumped out. It readied its claws, a nasty snarl plastered on its face. Natsu quickly unsheathed Dezeus and swung the sword sideways towards the beast. He cut it straight in two, watching as both halves fell from the sky to the floor with a dull thud.
He made a small hole in the head of the beast, only to find no crystal, "It was either a rank one or two because it doesn't have a crystal."
Natsu looked down at his shirt, realising it ripped. He looked at cross-guard of his blade, seeing the other part of his shirt on it. He made a sound of annoyance and ripped off his shirt and tore off the piece connected to his sword.
"I didn't even bring a spare top..." Natsu huffed.
Lucy laughed a little, and soon, after being attack by several rank one and two beasts and a few class three creatures, the two decided it would be safer to sleep in a tree than on the ground.
It was early evening when they found a tree tall enough to stop the attacks, but before going up, Lucy decided she would like to train a little and Natsu wanted to find food and create a fire to cook it. Lucy made herself comfortable on the ground, her legs crossed and palms gently placed on her legs. She entered a deep state of concentration and Natsu went to find something to eat.
He didn't wander too far from Lucy, and soon enough he found a boar. He made a sharp piece of rock raise up into the air and then proceeded to line it up with the unsuspecting boar's neck. He fired it with high speed, but it was deathly silent. Before the boar even registered it had taken a needle of the earth to the neck, it collapsed to the floor, dead.
He picked up the carcass, aimlessly tossing it over his shoulder and heading back to where Lucy was.
When he emerged from the thickness of the bushes into small clearing Natsu and Lucy had found, he saw that Lucy was still peacefully training. He dropped the dead boar onto the ground and began gathering small bits of dry wood and some straw bits that grew on the plants.
He tossed them into a pile in the centre of the ground, making sure that the straw-like bits went on the bottom, then set them on fire using the tip of his index finger.
As the fire grew fiercer and fiercer Natsu made a makeshift spit. He stabbed the carcass of the boar with a long piece of clean metal, that Lucy had brought with her, and then began turning it on the fire.
"Something smells good," Lucy hummed happily, she felt like she had made good progress in her training, "What are you cooking?" She asked opening one eye.
"Boar, is that okay?" Natsu asked, scratching the back of his head.
Lucy nodded, then went back to her training, but was more interested in eating more than anything right now.
After a few hours the food was ready. Natsu shook Lucy's shoulder and told her that it was ready to eat; then he proceeded to used a knife to cut half for him and a qauter for Lucy and Happy.
They sat and ate, Lucy and Natsu talked and laughed. They also arranged what they would do the next day, which ended with deciding that they should stay in the outer ring for another few days and collect some low ranked crystals. Happy also talked to Natsu, who actually wanted to talk to Lucy, so Natsu was playing messenger for awhile.
After eating, they climbed the tree and chose different branches to sleep on.