Chapter 2: The Salamander
Natsu Dragneel's appearance was pretty intimidating; any skin that was exposed seemed to have a scar on it, the place that had the least amount of scars was his face and neck which only had four in total. There was only one on his neck which looked like it should have hit his jugular on the right of side of his neck, which if it had it would have killed him in a few seconds. He had one scar that went from the middle of his forehead down to right under his right eye but somehow his eye was completely fine, the next scar was a small on that was right under the previous scar going vertically through the right side of his lips. The final and biggest scar was on the left side of his face running from his chin all the way back to right under his left ear. As mentioned before the rest of his body was riddled with scars but most of them were covered with his gear that he is always wearing.
The outfit that he was wearing could easily be seen as one that has gone through a lot of battles with Natsu and was very well worn, almost to the point that it looked like it was almost about to fall apart, with all of the fading and stains on it. He was wearing well-worn combat boots, that were black and went up to right under his knees, all of the steel plates were on the outside of the boots, one of the plates was on the front of the boots covering his toes. It also had a plate wrapping around the heels of the boot on the outside as well, the last plate on these combat boots were on the front of the boots completely covering his shins with the biggest piece of metal on these boots.
His pants were baggy grey cargo pants with numerous pockets on the sides of the legs, and they were made from some really thick leather. He of course had the legs tucked into the tops of his boots, and he seemed to always have the pockets filled with who knows what. The next part of his outfit was the tree belts that he wore; the one that actually went through the pant loops was made out of red leather and had a belt buckle the shape of a dragons head. Connected to this belt was a special sheath that held two daggers that faced opposite directions making it easier for Natsu to grab both of them from behind his back at waist level. The next two belts were identical even with the things that they were carrying. They were simple black leather belts with holsters carrying the same pistols in each of them, which at the bottom of the holsters were smaller straps that went around the leg to make it easier to draw the pistols quicker.
Now moving onto the gear that covered his torso, his first layer was a simple sleeveless red t-shirt, and over top of that was a very tight chain mail vest that looked like it was made of the toughest metal and obviously crafted by a master. Over top the chain mail he wore a custom created black leather tunic that was shaped like a muscular torso with a red dragon on the middle of the chest. On the top of his shoulders he was sporting metal shoulder pads that were covered by black leather and trimmed in red. Slung over his left shoulder was a cape that was clasped together by two dragon heads with a chain in between them. The inside of the cape was blood red like all of the other red objects, while the back was black with the guilds emblem on the back of it in dark grey.
The final piece of his outfit where his fingerless black leather gloves that went more than half way down his forearms and had steal plating on the back of his hands and forearms, and a little bit of extra metal covering his knuckles, to protect him when punching or hitting something. So over all he was equipped to handle pretty much anything that life could throw at him. His emblem was proudly being displayed on his right shoulder with a few scars going through it, which is probably why he always has his cape on the left side.
But by far the thing that stood out the most about Natsu was his spiky pink hair. He looked like he was around twenty eight years old, but if you ever looked into his eyes you could tell that they had seen many more than a normal twenty eight year old. Needless to say when he was walking, everyone got out of his way and made sure to give him his space, of course sometimes people would gawk at his emblem that was either on his shoulder or cape. And they would then make snide comments about him and his guild of monsters, in their opinion, when they thought that he couldn't hear him, not knowing about his enhanced ears due to being a dragon slayer. But he would always just let these thing roll right over him, not really caring what people think of him or his guild after listening to things like this for years.
So Natsu made his way to the client's house on the other side of town, kind of regretting that he went through town rather than going around it. But it was too late for that now, he decided to just keep his head down and try to get to the clients house without causing a scene, but it would seem that fate would have different plans for him. Because some blonde bimbo was asking very loudly if anyone knew where the Fairy Tail guild was, this caused Natsu to wonder what the hell was she thinking did she not know that mages were still looked down upon? Did she also not know that there could also be a Witch Hunter nearby, who now knows that she is a rogue mage, which would make her easy pickings since no one would help her if they tried to capture her.
And that was what was exactly happening right now before his eyes, he could see the two men who had flaming crosses on their cloaks, symbolizing that they were Witch Hunters, and advancing on the blonde who had no idea what was about to happen to her. So Natsu decided against his better judgment to help the poor blonde out before she got herself captured and then killed, he was then right in front of her in the next second, which startled her.
"Can I help you sir?" the blonde asked him.
"No, but I think that I can help you." replied Natsu.
"Really, you can tell me were Fairy Tail is?" she asked Natsu with stars in her eyes.
"Even better, I am going to save your life." said Natsu with a smirk on his lips now.
"What? How are you going to do that when I am not even in danger." she asked the strange man that just appeared in front of her moments ago. Now thinking that he might be a crazy person, she was pulled from her thoughts when she could hear shouts coming from behind the stranger.
"Freeze right where you are you filthy Mage, and you sir step away from her." shouted one of the Witch Hunters.
The blonde was now scared shitless, she was just found out to be a rogue mage by two Witch Hunters. She didn't know what to do; she thought about trying to fight her way out of this but then thought better of it because she still wasn't very confident with her fighting skills. She then started to think that she might be able to use her sex appeal to try and get them to let her go, and when she was just about to try that the stranger spoke up.
"And why would I ever listen to weaklings like you two?" asked the pink haired man with a huge grin on his face.
"Who do you think you are calling weaklings you pink haired freak, do you have any idea what we do for a living or who we are?" shouted the second Witch Hunter.
"I am of course talking to you two idiots, and judging from how you two are dressed I would have to guess that you guys are janitors, and for who you are I truly don't care because you interrupted my conversation with this fine lady here." he replied back to the Witch Hunters a little pissed off about the comment about his hair. It was the only thing that people could use to get under his skin, and strangers seemed to always make fun of it, oh well they should know better.
"That's it pinky, I'll tell you who we are, we are Witch Hunters and the bitch you are talking to is our target." replied the first Witch Hunter, expecting to see the pink haired man to be frightened about them being Witch Hunters.
"Well that is not how you are supposed to speak about a lady even if she is a mage, also do you think that telling me that you are Witch Hunters is actually going to frighten me, hahaha that is so rich. Man I needed a good laugh." said Natsu while holding his sides from laughing.
"Just let us take the girl, you pink haired bastard, or you will soon regret it." said the second Witch Hunter.
"Oh my god please stop making my laugh, your killing me here, I can't take any more of your jokes." said the pink haired man.
The blonde was sure that this pink haired stranger was completely nuts, did he not know that Witch Hunter fought against mages and were able to actually win. She wanted him to stop taunting and laughing at the Witch Hunters before he got himself hurt, she wasn't worth him getting the shit beat out of.
"We are not joking!" shouted same Witch Hunter who spoke last.
"Oh you were being serious, well I guess that means you don't know who I am then, do you?" replied Natsu.
"We don't care who you are, we just want the girl!" shouted the first Witch Hunter, clearly getting fed up with this whole situation.
"Well you can't have her; she is now under my protection so you will have to get through me to get to her. So I suggest you two run along and try to find some other person to prey on." said Natsu as stepped in between Lucy and the Witch Hunters.
"Well I guess we will then just have to go through you then, now won't we." both Witch Hunters said while one pulled out a gun and the other a sword.
"Well I warned you two, and technically you two are the ones who started it." replied Natsu while cracking his neck.
"Oh, you are just too cocky man, prepared to get your ass kicked." said the first Witch hunter.
The next thing the Witch Hunter knew, they both had been shot in the wrists, causing them to drop their weapons. They both turn to each other to ask what just happened to see that standing now in between them was the pink haired man with a pistol in each hand.
He then said to them, "You know what the problem is with you Witch Hunters? Well I can assume that you don't know because you probably haven't fought and killed as many as I have." That comment caused both Witch Hunters to start sweating and having second thoughts about messing with this guy.
"Well you see, you guys are so focused on protecting yourself from magical attacks, which I have to admit that gear that most of you guys wear really reduces the damage of my flames, but you guys completely forget that people can attack you with normal weapons like these here guns." the pink haired man said while twirling his guns in his hands. The next thing the Witch Hunters knew they were on the ground screaming in pain, while holding their knees where they both were just shot.
"Hey quit crying I just shot you in the knee caps, granted if you want to ever walk normal again you are going to have to have a shit ton of surgery. Oh yeah if you know a good healing mage they could have you up and going good as new in like a day, but silly me you two are Witch Hunters so there is no way a mage will ever help you two." Natsu said with an evil smile on his face. He then pushed his guns against both of the Witch Hunters still good knees, watching both of their eyes widen farther and start begin for mercy.
"Now why would I do that, weren't you the same guys that told me moments ago that you were going to kick my ass? Also tell me truthfully how many times have you let a mage go when they were in pretty similar situation as you two are in now?" asked Natsu.
This caused both Witch Hunters to really start to panic, but then decided to tell the truth that they never had let any go, thinking that it was probably a better idea to not piss this guy off right now.
"Well at least you aren't liars, man do I hate liars. Oh and I guess now is as about as good as any time to tell you who you decided to mess with." said Natsu as he pushed the guns harder into their knees.
"The Salamander" replied Natsu with a deadly glare directed at the two Witch Hunters.
They both instantly went pale after hearing that, and then they heard another gun shot, and felt the exact same excruciating pain that used to be in just one leg now in both. They both were now screaming out in pain as the Salamander just walked away from them, just like nothing had just happened, and walked over to the blonde who was too shocked to do anything during the whole ordeal.
"Hey you two are lucky I didn't just kill you, I mean you did come at me first, count your blessing that a lady was present otherwise you two would be pushing up daisies right now." replied the Salamander as he walked away with the sill shocked blonde.
End of Chapter
Author's Notes
Hope you readers enjoyed that chapter, and now that I have described Natsu's look I will be able to get to the action now. So feel free to leave a review.
Until the next Chapter
Digem Out!