Alright so I quite literally wrote this in the two hours BEFORE I posted this chapter. No I didn't really rush it. I just had an idea and felt myself immersed. Anyways, this chapter kind of takes a dark-ish turn. Such as a bit of violence and blood. So if you don't like that kind of think. You are warned. Anyways hope you enjoy this chapter!

Reference:

Talking - "Quotations"

Thinking - 'Contractions'

Flashback - Italics

Spells, Important people or objects - Bold

A Return Worth Waiting For

Chapter 9

Emptiness…that's what the rose haired mage felt. Where was he? He felt…heavy. He searched around and saw nothing but the faint echo in the air. 'Naaaaaaaaaaatsssssuuuuuuu….' The echo sounded familiar. He just couldn't place it.

"Who's there? Show yourself!" Natsu yelled out. The only response he got was his own echo. The dark setting was annoying. Not even able to see his own body. He tried to raise his hand up to ignite his fire magic, but he noticed he couldn't. "What the…?" Natsu looked down and saw he was tied to a chair, with his arms being bound behind his back. "Heh, silly old rope can't hold me down." Natsu smirked as he began to try to cover himself in fire but nothing happened. "Eh?" Natsu questioned, quite dumbfounded. Never has he be unable to summon any fire at all, even at peak magical exhaustion he could at least manage a spark, but here he was, perfectly fine, minus the situation he was in, and couldn't even manage that.

"Come now Natsu. Don't you remember? You said I could do this to you. After all you do have to go through with this punishment I've yet to give you." A sweet feminine voice rang out. Natsu could not tell from which direction the voice came from. It was as if the voice originated from everywhere.

"Who was that? Show yourself!" Natsu was slowly losing his nerve. He could deal with not having his magic, quite confident in his physical prowess, but being bound, quite well in fact, negated any chance he'd have to escape.

"What? You don't recognize me? It's only me. You're childhood friend." A scarlet haired woman started to come into view, revealing herself as Erza Scarlet.

"Erza? What's going on? What punishment do you mean? I never agreed to anything." Natsu questioned, completely confused about his whole situation.

"Oh Natsu, how you're so cute when you're so helpless." Erza said in a sultry tone that was foreign to Natsu.

Natsu started to panic. No longer questioning his situation. The way Erza was talking instantly gave him the impression of something bad happening. He started squirming around, only succeeding in tipping the chair back and crashing on his head. Dazing him.

A sweet laugh rang out from Erza. "Oh how I'm going to enjoy giving out your punishment." Holding out a whip, she started towards Natsu with a wicked smile on her blushing red face.

Natsu's face went white with terror. "No. Please don't Erza!" Natsu pleaded comically. "I'll buy you all the cake you can ever want!" Erza didn't stop, only smirking more at his pleas. "No. Please no! AHHHHH!" he screamed as Erza starting to give out her 'punishment'.

Natsu woke with a start, falling off the bed. "Ow!" He yelped feeling the cold hard floor. "That's a first, I've never fallen out of bed like-….wait a bed? How did I get in here?" He wondered.

"Ah! You're finally awake then Natsu? Good. I made some Dinner." Erza's voice rang out from the doorway of his room. "I made some fried fish and some eggs. Not much but you had little other food that would make a good meal."

Natsu looked at Erza, instantly remembering the dream he had. Erza with a whip…whipping him…despite his pleas to let him go. Erza noticed he instantly disappeared from the floor and appeared again at the other side of his bed clutching his pillow and knees to his chest with a comically scared look on his face.

Erza simply blinked in awe at Natsu's expression. "Um, Natsu? Are you feeling alright?" She asked, quite confused what brought this on to the normally fearless fire mage.

"S-s-stay away! No more! Please don't whip me anymore! I said I would do anything!" Natsu comically screamed.

Erza couldn't hold it anymore, she laughed at this. Not an evil laugh, not a fake laugh, but a genuinely hearty laugh. "I wouldn't do that to you. You have my word." She said instantly calmed again.

Natsu began to calm down, slowly stopping the sever shivering of his body, and the return of color to his face. "Come now, food will get cold if you don't hurry up." Erza said softly. Natsu got off the bed and walked to the kitchen with Erza.

As the two got to the kitchen and started to eat, Natsu decided to bring something up.

"Hey Erza." He began

"Yes Natsu." I think I'm going to take a mission.

"That's good! Want me to accompany you?" Erza asked with glee

"Ah, no thanks. It's been a long time since I've went by myself." Natsu explained.

"Oh. I see. Well how long will you be gone?" Erza asked, now a bit gloomy.

"Should be no longer than two to three days. Maybe earlier if I'm lucky." Natsu answered with a grin on his face

"Alright then. Two to three days. No longer." Erza stated. After eating the two of them got up and began to head to the guild when Erza reminded Natsu of something.

"Natsu, about your dream earlier..." Erza began.

"Huh?" Natsu stopped and looked back at her.

"If you are into that kind of thing, I won't mind obliging to your desires." Erza finished, now holding a whip in her hand while watching Natsu turn white again in fear.

"I-I-I think I'm j-j-just going to go on my mission now." Natsu said shivering in fear. Once he made his 'not-so-suspicious-retreat', he then ran for dear sanity. This caused Erza to giggle to herself with much joy; how she would enjoy to continue doing these kinds of things to him more often.

Time skip: Two Days.

It was mid-evening. The exact time of day? Not important? What was important? Survival, run away or take them all down. That's what Natsu was trying his hardest to do. Take them all down. 'How could this mission turn out so bad? It was a simple escort mission with low-end pay!' Natsu's mission was quite a simple one, simply escort a man through a 'dangerous' part of the woods to a small town he never heard of near Hargeon. The part where it went to hell was when Natsu arrived at the edge of the woods where he was to meet with his client and saw no sign of him. He simply wandered intro the woods and soon found the corpse of who was to be his client. Then he noticed he was quickly surrounded.

"FIRE DRAGON'S ROAR!" Natsu shouted towards his ambushers, taking one down out of the seemingly infinite numbers. At least in Natsu's current condition it seemed infinite. He had been fighting and running away for at least a couple hours now. He couldn't keep this up.

*Huff* "Damn, *huff* they just keep coming. *huff*" He panted, he was exhausted, even for him, taking on a seemingly army of mages was too much, no matter his or their strength. Numbers can overwhelm, and he was slowly, but surely being overwhelmed. The mages in particular held no substantial power, but one after the other kept coming, slowly wearing him down.

"Damn it!" He snarled and covered himself in his flames again to prepare for the next wave of attacks. One of the mages charged at him, a man of middle height and appeared to be in his late 20's. Held a standard long sword, but what caught Natsu's eye was it was imbued with lightning. Natsu sidestepped it and delivered a flaming foot to the man's head, knocking him out. This was all it took however, for Natsu to be swarmed all at once by his pursuers.

'Shit! I can't dodge in time!' Natsu thought quickly and tried to dissipate himself into flames to escape the damage. He started building up his power but it just left him. He miscalculated the amount of magic power he had left in his reserves. He could only stare, helpless, as he was pinned down and one particular woman ran him through the right side of his stomach with a katana. Not fatal but it brought him down for the count.

Natsu hacked up blood, struggling to remain conscious. 'N-no! It can't end here! I can't….I….can't…' Even thinking was too much at this point as Natsu slowly lost consciousness and could only hear:

"Good job boys! It looks like we got him this time. Not so tough without the Titania by your side are ya?" A big guy taunted, raising his foot and bringing it down on Natsu's face; making everything go to black for the Salamander.

Two Days Later

Erza walked into the guild, though not in the usual way she would. She entered like normal, yes, but immediately went to Makarov's office to ask something that's been on her mind. She reached the door and proceeded to knock on the door.

"Yes? Who is it?" Came the gruff response of the Master.

"It's me Master!" Erza responded.

"Erza? Fine, come in." He welcomed.

Erza opened the door, proceeded to enter, shut it behind her, and promptly stood in front of Makarov's desk waiting for him to speak.

"What can I do for you Erza?" Came the master's polite question.

"Master, could you tell me the mission that Natsu has taken? I ask because no matter the mission he should have been back by the end of the 2nd day he's been gone. It's going on 5 days now. I'm starting to become concerned." Erza voiced her concerns.

"Yes, well. I can understand that, you two have been near inseparable since you're return. However, I ask you remain patient. Natsu is one of our top wizards. It will take something big to bring him down. Have some faith in his abilities, after wall, he's always yearned for you to acknowledge his abilities." Makarov spoke sternly but with compassion at the same time.

Erza didn't want to buy into this. She did in fact have great faith in Natsu's ability, but with his destructive tendencies and overall power, he should have been long done with his mission. She'd understand if it was an S-Class mission but no other S-Class mages other than herself ever go on missions with him. Something was off, and she knew the Master knew it as well. If he was delayed he would send word. "I understand. Thank you Master." Erza said solemnly, turning to walk to the door to the main guild hall.

"I know you're worried, and I am too, but we can't jump the conclusions for something that may just be a small delay. Don't worry, he'll make it home." Makarov reassured.

Erza just kept her back turned and walked out, heading to the main guild hall and took a seat at the bar. Mira assumed Erza would want what she always got, which was her Strawberry Cheese Cake. Erza wasn't hungry. Not anymore. She was more worried than anything else. She wasn't sure what, be she knew something was wrong. She just had to-.

"Erza you alright? You seem out of it." Mira asked as she came to Erza.

"Just curious as to where Natsu is at. He should have been done with his mission by now." Erza replied.

"Oh. I bet he is just buying you some of your favorite strawberry cheese cake you so love, but just has to go out of his way a bit to do so." Mira finished with a smile. She knew the two had interest in each other, but did not belief in what she said. She simply wanted Erza to cheer up to some degree at least."

The doors to the guild hall burst open revealing a messenger. "I have an important notice for a Makarov Dreyar! Is he present!?" The messenger voiced loudly.

"Yes I am here, what is it you bring?" Makarov asked as he was finishing his trek down the stairs.

"I was not given details but the people who asked me to deliver it told me it's about the Slamander, Natsu Dragneel."

Erza's face lit up and she snatched the letter away and tried to open it as Makarov strolled up behind her, jumped on a stool and looked over her shoulder to view the letter. What they saw was…horrible.

A Couple Hours Earlier In An Unknown Location

"…but we got him didn't we?" A light male voiced questioned mockingly.

'Who…..said that?' Natsu thought as he started to regain consciousness.

"Yes, we did, but we should have exploited his well-known weakness of motion sickness. We would have lost less of our guys." A low toned male retorted.

"Hah! They were weak. They got what they deserved. I did basically bring him down." The light voiced male spoke with disdain.

'Bring….me down? I had nothing…..left…' Natsu mentally retorted to the light voiced male's bragging.

"Fool! The salamander would have wiped the floor with any of us, even the master in a one on one fight. He just wasn't lucky that the numbers were stacked against him. Know your place. You got that hit in because he had no way to defend himself." The low toned male growled, getting annoyed. Sure he was an enemy of the Salamander, but that didn't mean he didn't have respect for the man. He knew fairly well that the dragon slayer was much stronger than him or anyone in his guild and took down almost two thirds of their numbers before finally dropping.

"Feh! Fine! Don't bathe in the glory of taking down one of Fairy Tail's Mightiest mages." The light voiced male stormed off.

"Heh…you're basically….my enemy…yet I… like you already…" Natsu slowly said, still quite weak.

This took the Low Toned Male by surprise, the enemy heard his conversation. Therefore hearing his praise of the Salamander. "You heard that, did you?"

Natsu got a look at this man, he had a fair tan, slightly more muscular than himself, but just as tall. The way his eyes stared sharply were as if emotions were not meant for his face.

"Heheh. Yep." Natsu managed a smile, even in his condition and situation.

"Hmph. This guild of ours is quite new, though in my time here I find that many here have no respect or honor for their opponents. Stooping so low as to outnumber a man 100 to 1 just to capture him and use him for ransom." The Low Voiced Male explained.

"Ransom. I see." Natsu simply stated and soon found himself lost to unconsciousness.

'My place is not here. That is made clear to me now. Now what do I do?' The Low Toned Male thought.

Back At Fairy Tail

"…now if you want the Salamander alive, you will give us 100,000,000 Jewels! That or he is as good as dead!" and the imaged faded away, with the letter itself crumpling to dust. The air now getting dense in a now mindlessly angry guild.

I hate cliffhangers, but I find enjoyment in writting them. I'll be blunt. I did not really plan for Natsu to be captured. When I got the to part where I came up for what would happen with Natsu during his 'mission' I just started writting out a fight scene that would end in capture and then I found no difficulty in continuing with it, so I went with it. So tell me, do you like I how iterated these two 'new guy's the Light Voiced Male and the Low Toned Male? What do you think will happen next? Don't worry. I don't either.T ell me what you think of the chapter. Leave a review. Even if you don't like the chapter, tell me why. I shall see you guys later!