I now have a Wattpad account, and I'm posting this story on this story on there too.
If you guys want, you can find my account under the name 'JxzzyRocks.' I'm also going to be posting a new story on there if you guys want to check it out!
Enjoy the latest chapter!
Chapter 22: Revelation
Erza began pacing, while Jellal watched Lucy for any signs of consciousness.
"Natsu should be back by now," Erza stopped her walking abruptly, it had been hours. "He cannot be lost because he is the one who sent us to Lucy, so that is not an option. He must have had a setback, maybe the beast over powered him."
Jellal sighed, he understood why Erza was so frantic. If Natsu and Lucy had come together than them being split up would be terrifying for her to wake up to, especially considering the immense amount of time they had spent away from each other.
"Erza, the best thing you can do now is to be here for Lucy. When she wakes up she'll be in a state of panic caused by her head trauma; she'll be even more confused about what is going on because you and I are here and Natsu isn't. I am sure he'll turn up eventually, as you've told me before, he always does."
Jellal looked to his side, watching as Lucy's chest weakly raised and fell, and how Happy was devoted to staying by her side. Jellal checked Lucy's pulse every-so-often to make sure Lucy was healing; her pulse was getting stronger every time he checked.
He then glanced over at Erza; he admired her for some reason. She was strong, yet beautiful; she was a born leader, a talented swordswoman, and a caring person. Her loyalty to her friends was unwavering.
"You are worried about him?" Jellal questioned, fiddling with the chain of his sickle.
"He has ten minutes." Erza forcefully said, "If he isn't here within ten minutes we place Lucy onto Happy's back and head back the way we came."
Jellal scratched the back of his head, why was this woman such a rough diamond? It's a question even he can't answer, even after the four years they had known each other.
"You never told me where you came from; we were rudely interrupted by a pack of deadly wolves." Chuckled Jellal as he gestured for Erza to sit in front of him.
"I come from an island south of Fiore, though it may not have been on the continent it was still classed as a part of the mainland," Erza sighed, taking about six steps to then sit down in front of the blue-haired male. "The island was attacked by a hoard of Magical beasts that flew from the Forest of Darkness on the mainland, slaughtering most of the people. The warriors of the island tried to stop the attack, but the beasts kept flooding onto the island."
"At the time I was seven years old, my father, the chief of the island, led the remaining people that lived through the attack on a cargo ship. His second and fifth wife survived the attack and were the first of the people to be led on the ship. My mother, his first wife, used magic to save the people but... she lost her life in their place. My father, to this day, still blames himself for her death, and to mourn her he refuses to take another wife, or bear another child."
Jellal placed his hand on hers, squeezing it to reassure her it was alright, "So, are you an only child?"
"Yes, I am," Pride overwhelmed Erza, and it shocked Jellal to see her smiling so widely and brightly. "When we came to the mainland, a company offered my father a job at a large corporation they run, and he soon inherited it from the head of the company, who passed on about five years ago. I always told him I would become a strong warrior."
Jellal nodded his head, taking in the vast amount of information that Erza had just said to him, then he gave her an offer, "Would you like to hear my story?"
"If you do not mind sharing it," Erza gave Jellal a small smile, which he returned gratefully.
"I was raised in the Forest of Darkness..." Jellal hung his head, refusing to look at Erza, but he could tell that she was a little taken aback by what he said because of the grip she had on his hand. "My parents gave me up as a 'sacrifice' to the deity beast. Apparently, they gladly did it. The creature, who is practically my father, was named Tenebris."
"When I had just turned eight, there was a group of beasts who tried to overthrow Tenebris. They called him a 'human sympathiser' or 'weak' because of my existence within the Forest. But they were only low ranked beasts, and my father swiftly took care of them, expelling them from the Forest, which means they were probably the ones that attacked your island."
"I'm sorry," Jellal spoke weakly, causing Erza to watch him slowly, "It was my fault your mother died, I'm sorry."
"Your existence is not the reason why my parents died, Jellal," Erza whispered softly, taking his hands into hers. "The problem was the rebellion of beasts that thought they had power."
Jellal and Erza sat in silence for a few minutes, staring at each other. Jellal, despite what Erza said, still thought it was his fault, and promised to devote himself to making Erza's dreams reality.
"Ten minutes is up, shall we go?" Jellal asked; Erza only nodded her head.
They began preparing to find Natsu.
Adrian, now on the ground instead of a branch, stood rigidly and wide eyed.
His fingers were clenched around the handle of a knife, looking ready to fight. But, Adrian's body betrayed him as it turned to the side, and his feet that were planted firmly in the ground were ready to dash off with the flick of a trigger.
Natsu calmly walked forward, his large wings slightly spread as his eyes wandered upon his clawed and scaled hand. His other hand was out to the side of him, and when his fingertips came into contact with the butt of his sword, he pulled it out of the ground with little effort.
"I'd forgotten," Natsu began, his eyes wandering upon Adrian, whose body had broken out into a sweat, "What it felt like to be in this state. It increases my original power, or rank, by two ranks."
Adrian raised his hands up, flinging one knife towards Natsu. The hand that Natsu eyes had just been inspecting came out in front of him, directly to where the knife was flying to, and he swatted it out of the air like a mosquito.
"Let us not be hasty, boy," Adrian gleefully said with a masochistic grin. "I have still got a lot more experience than you."
Natsu nodded slightly, what Adrian said was true, but Natsu was far more stubborn than to admit defeat over something as trivial as experience this quickly. He merely shrugged his shoulders and vanished in mid air.
Adrian turned over and over, trying to sense where Natsu had gone. But he couldn't, it was like Natsu existence had vanished completely. Adrian turned once more, his long, slicked back, crimson red hair flowed behind him as he snapped his head forward, only to be eye to eye with a human in beast form.
Natsu took his fist and firmly planted it into the side of Adrian's face. The punch sent Adrian tumbling through the air like a rolling barrel until he stopped from colliding with the sturdy trunk of a tree.
Blood dribbled and cascaded like a small waterfall from Adrian's bottom lip and forehead. The once large and delighted grin that Adrian had was now nothing more than a distasteful look of annoyance.
Natsu cracked his fingers, his emotionless face simply staring at Arian's face. Natsu, rather amused with the sight he saw, flickered from his spot, which was a good 15 paces from Adrian, to appear right in front of his face.
Adrian smirked and lifted his fist rather quickly into Natsu face, but did not touch it. Instead, Adrian threw dirt into Natsu's eyes, hoping to blind him and make a swift get away.
When Natsu managed to get the dirt out of his eyes, he shook his head and looked down at where Adrian used to be. He lifted his nose into the air, sniffing like a wolf. Then, after finding out where Adrian was hiding, he raised the earth that Adrian hid on.
Adrian jumped off the moving earth and made a beeline straight towards Natsu, taking a knife and throwing it straight between Natsu eyes. Natsu, unprepared for the speed that the knife was hurled at.
He grabbed the knife in mid air, causing it to cut through his scales and cause his hand to bleed. Then, he hurled it straight back at Adrian. The small knife flew straight into Adrian's leg, effortlessly breaking the skin and sinking into the muscles.
Natsu moved forward slowly, then picked up Adrian by the throat.
"Wait, hold on!" Pleaded Adrian as he shook his hands crazily, "I know something about where you father might have been taken!"
Natsu raised one eyebrow, causing Adrain to sigh in relief, Adrian continued, "I'm not an Assassin sent here to kill the blonde. I've been following and listening to every conversation you and the blonde have had. I was sent here by The Black Mage to kill you; you're a problem in our current situation."
Adrian sealed his lips, no longer talking. Natsu seethed, "Tell me what else you know!"
"Not unless you take me to Gildarts," An insane laugh escape from the maniacs lips. "I trust my life in his hands more than yours, and I know he has been looking into this 'case'."
"Natsu..." His eyes darted over to a red-haired girl, a blue-haired male and a cat carrying a blonde girl. "Is that you?" Erza asked, her eyes wide in shock and fear.
"I'm not done with you," Natsu growled, he place Adrian down on the floor and then proceeded to break both his legs, "How's Lucy?" He questioned, moving quickly to her side.
"Natsu, what are you?" Erza managed to mumble out, causing Natsu to feel her fear and also her rage.
"I'm half human, half Magical Beast," He said monotonously, never taking his eyes off of Lucy's unconscious body, "But right now I need you to take Lucy back to the Academy, I'll be back there later this month. I will then explain to all of you what is happening."
"Natsu-" Erza began speaking but was cut off by Jellal.
"I'll make sure they get back; I'll transport us through the darkness now." Jellal picked up Lucy off of Happy's back, and soon he, Lucy and Erza were wrapped into a black abyss and had gone.
"So, let's visit Gildarts so I can get my father back." Natsu spread his wings and picked up Adrian.
Soon they were soaring over the forest, towards the Clive household...
Natsu was not happy.
When he had brought Adrian to Gildarts, Gildarts was waiting for them on the front lawn. He had a whole squad of the King's Assassins with him, the ones that he led, all armed to the teeth with weapons and such. As soon as they touched down, Gildarts sent in a handful of the men to take Adrian and chain him up.
After that the group of Assassins left, leaving Adrian tied to a chair in an empty room that Natsu was prohibited to go into.
So, he was not happy.
Now, in his human form, he stood pacing outside on the corridor while Gildarts was trying to extract any information he could from the masochist assassin. While Natsu was pacing, he failed to notice that Happy had been quiet ever since they had met up again. And he only just realised at this very moment.
"Hey, buddy," Natsu said, walking over to Happy and stroking his blue fur, "What's wrong?"
"I couldn't protect her as you asked me to," Happy said meekly; Natsu could already tell that Happy felt depressed because of it.
"No," Sternly, Natsu looked at Happy and leaned against the wall, "She didn't die, so I class that as you protected her. What happened out there?"
"When we were separated the wolves split into two packs, one pack followed you, and the other pack chased us away from you," Happy began. "I knew that if I tried to jump over them, I'd risk putting Lucy in danger. So instead I decided to turn and run, I thought maybe I could try and out run them. And I did, for an extended amount of time, but then all of a sudden the wolves were shot and killed, and now I was running from some mid levelled assassins, and there were about eight of them."
"I knew that I could probably take them on, but Lucy was on my back, what else could I do other than run? But when we got to the clearing one of the assassins fired something at my paws and I tripped over and Lucy went tumbling off of my back. One of the assassins grabbed her before she could get up and move and hit her on the head with the butt of their sword, I managed to kill him before she killed her. Then I defended Lucy's body, and that is when blue-haired guy and Erza showed up and helped take out the remaining Assassins."
Natsu nodded slowly - the Assassins had purposely set them up so they would be separated.
He petted Happy's head, then told him to rest as he'd been through a lot. As he did that Gildarts came out of the room and beckoned Natsu to move forward and into the chamber with him.
It'd been almost three years since Natsu had last laid eyes on Gildarts, and nothing about him had changed because upon entering saint rank you begin to stop ageing. Usually, only a handful of ninth level mages and warriors become saints, and it was even rarer for them to become a deity. Many reached saint rank at the age of forty, but some went even beyond that.
"Here's the information I had before you brought Adrian to me," Gildarts spoke openly with his arms crossed, "Your real father has split into two beings, one that conceived you with your mother, and Igneel, who lived in a deep crack in the earth to conceal himself from being found. Your mom was the child of the archangel, who is the Universe creator, and was a human. I don't know your mom's name, nor do I know if she lives now, but I do know that the people who took your father have a bigger plan than this."
"Are you trying to tell me I'm more important to this scheme than just finding Igneel?" Natsu probed.
"If they do not kill you, your original father won't be able to be at his full power-" Gildarts was rudely interrupted by Natsu, who was already heading for the door.
"Then we better go get him!"
"You idiot!" Gildarts grabbed him by the collar and pinned him against the wall, "These people are not people you can simply walk up to and hurt, they're more powerful than you and me, and one of them is more powerful than Makarov! It'd be a death sentence, and then they'd get what they wanted. Throwing away your life so easily won't help Igneel Natsu!"
Natsu and Gildarts glared at each other for awhile, while Adrian smirked at this fight.
"But there is a way to become just as powerful as your father, but you must reach saint rank first," Adrian giggled, shaking his head like a madman, "Have you heard of The Floors of Hell? Once every ten years they open and a group of Saint ranked individuals go inside and train to level up, but usually none of them seem to make it out alive, although there have been a few cases where some people have."
"Your point is?" Natsu snapped, his icy glare no longer directed at Gildarts.
"It recently just opened again, so if you use that excellent little scale you have around your neck and train for the next ten years, you might have a shot of getting into The Floors of Hell." Adrian seemed to be on the brink of insanity or sanity, but even Gildarts could tell that Adrian spoke the truth.
"I'll do it," Natsu said indignantly while turning on his heels.
"If you do it, you'll be coming with me." Roughly, Gildarts pulled on Natsu's collar once again. "You'll be training with me and working with me for the next ten years, and you won't see Lisanna or Cana for ten years, and you won't see Lucy or your team for the next ten years."
"Then I'll train with you, but Happy will stay with Lucy to protect her, seeing as armed assassins are after her," Natsu sighed, knowing he had no other choice, "Do you think she and Lisanna will reach said rank by the time I'm 25?"
"Lucy - she might. But Lisanna wouldn't have a chance to get that far. You have a talented team who are all from different back grounds, Natsu. All, just like you, seem to be born to someone who is powerful or isn't fully human. But none of them are half and half like you."
"Okay, we have nine years!" Natsu yelled, pumping his fist in the air.
"Why nine?" Gildarts asked, he moved to his desk and began writing a letter, it was probably for someone to come pick up Adrian as soon as possible.
"I want to see Luce and the team before heading into The Floors!"
Thus, was the beginning of the Ten Year Training Program.