Chapter Four

Now, the sun is going to rise in about an hour and a half. If I had any Idea that Wendy was as impossible to wake up as Natsu then I would have asked Charle how she wakes her up in the mornings. I've tried screaming in her ear, plugging her nose, tugging her cheeks, shaking her, telling her that the breakfast was ready, tickling her, everything but a bucket of water. Deciding that was the only way, I picked her up, set her in the bathtub, turned on the shower to ice cold, and sprayed her. Let's just say she has an extremely high pitched squeal. I swear I might have gone deaf in one ear.

"Sorry, sweetie, but you wouldn't wake up. I had no choice." I started, handing her a towel, "We've got fifteen minutes before we leave. The mayor sent the maps while we were asleep, I've already looked at them. Seems the mage has been staying in one area of the city, so we'll start there."

"O-k-k-k-k-ay-y-y." Didn't think the water was that cold. Next time I'll go for the hot water.

"I'll go get your bag, okay? Just wait right there." I could have sworn I heard her mumble something along the lines of 'Ya, 'cause I can go so many places.'

*Time Skip*North Dracholt City*

The North of the city was completely abandoned. It was full of buildings that were probably beautiful at one time, but now were just crumbling down, the pillars of one such building fallen across the ground. The darkness of night only making the place all the more creepy.

"Are you sure this is where he's been showing himself?" Wendy said walking a little closer to me.

"I get what you mean. But this is where the maps said." I was being cautious through here, I'm responsible for not only myself, but Wendy's safety as well.

"There isn't anything here though. Grandine told me about this city a few times, and everytime she did she said that the northern part of the city has been abandoned for years, mostly because of small earthquakes making the area uninhabitable, but also because of something in the earth that can warp a person's magical abilities."

"Why would your dragon tell you about a regular old city?"

"You don't know why this city is so famous? Why so many tourists come here?" She looked at me completely astonished.

"No, I'd never heard of this city before yesterday, so I only got basic information on it."

"I suppose that makes sense. The 'Drac' in 'Dracholt' comes from the constellation Draco, which I'm sure you know about."

"Of course. It's the dragon constellation, which was supposed to be tied to a different kind of Key for Celestial mages like me. One rarer than the Zodiac Keys. But that's just a myth."

"Well, before the war that Zirconis told us about, the city actually used to be a place where dragons gathered. Every fifty years the dragons would gather and stayed for a few months and humans worshipped dragons during this time period, so there was always festivals and other celebrations whenever the dragons were here. It was like this for many millennia.

But then, there were some dragons that let the power go to their heads and they made the humans their slaves. The other dragons taught the humans dragonslayer magic to fight back. Unfortunately, the humans became selfish and turned on their saviors," Wendy looked like she was going to begin crying any second, but refused to let the tears fall.

"The humans became selfish and never let the dragons come back. If a dragon ever came back the slayers would attack it until it either flew away or was dead. It didn't matter if the dragon was only a baby, adult or elder." I heard a sniffle and saw the tears going down Wendy's face, finally broken free of their prison. I rubbed her arm in what I hoped was a soothing touch.

"It wasn't until many months later that the humans began to notice. The northern area warped their abilities. They could no longer control them and the humans began gaining dragon-like features, more than just our claws, fangs or senses. The humans were gaining tails, snouts, scales. At first, they were overjoyed, they thought it was just their powers advancing, but in fact, it was killing them. Their human bodies could handle the changes, and started to deteriorate.

After a few deaths, the ones who weren't too far into the change left to search for the dragons. They found the dragons and begged them to help, but the dragons, angry at being betrayed and having their families killed, refused. The dragons, however, didn't want the deaths to be their fault gave them one piece of advise. 'Stay out of the north.' The people followed this. Those who hadn't changed much lived for a long time afterwards. It for that reason that the north was abandoned. That is the story, though, most people don't know the entire thing. I don't think even Natsu or Gajeel do." Wendy finished and had stopped crying, though I still had my hand on her arm.

"Maybe this mage is wanting whatever is in the ground that changes peoples magic?"

"That's possible, but wouldn't it affect him, too?"

"Maybe not. If its a device, then maybe that's how the dragons in your story knew to tell the people to stay out of the north. Or it's possible that his magic can control whatever it is so that it doesn't do anything to him."

"But didn't the mayor say that he had either air magic or shadow magic?"

"Well, you and Chelia can use your air magic for healing, and a shadow magic user I once met could use his shadows for shields. Or maybe it's like that guy from the GMG that could nullify magic the magic around him, or Luka from Lamia Scale that created shields that nullified the magic before it hit him, it worked as a good physical barrier as well." I didn't take notice to the fact that Wendy had stopped walking until she called for me in a whisper.

"Wait, Lucy! I smell someone up ahead."

"Do you smell anything else?" She took a few sniffs and gasped.

"The people from yesterday are to the east of us, and I think they're coming this way."

"Shoot. If they're more enemies we're going to be in big trouble. We need to finish this guy fast." Wendy agreed and we both moved as quickly and quietly as we could.

We got to the mage in a few minutes. He seemed to be chanting some sort of spell over a magic circle. I didn't recognize the book he was reading from, either. Soon the circle got an ominous glow to it and so Wendy and I decided to attack. Wanting this done quick, Wendy started off with an air dragon's roar and I caught the guy as he was twirling through the air with my fleuve d'etoiles before he got too far and sent him crashing back to the ground. We heard shouts behind us, so we quickly braced ourselves for another attack. However, once we could see the people, they looked as shocked as I'm sure we did.