Chapter Five
He Who Leaped Through Time
~Fiore | Mercurius Palace~~~
"Princess!" Natsu yelled as he rolled down his sleeve and vigorously climbed up the stairs from the Abyss Palace to catch up with the princess.
"What is it? I don't have much time for you!" Hisui snapped as she turned around to face Natsu. Her expression immediately changed from annoyed to shocked when she saw the unconscious king in his arms. "Wh- What happened to my father? What did you do to him?"
"Er- Wait, um, he just passed out from exhaustion. You know these stairs that come from the Abyss Palace and lead to the Palace's basement are incredibly long. I don't think his old body could take it and he just fainted," Natsu lied. He was not going to tell this girl his true identity and have her freak out. Good thing the Princess of Fiore had never visited Alvarez before, at least that's what he thought.
Hisui rolled her eyes. "Whatever, just give him to me," she said as she offered to carry the old man.
"Are you sure? Your father is pretty heavy. I wouldn't want you to collapse out of exhaustion too."
"Fine, carry him until we reach the end of the stairs."
Natsu nodded, and the two proceeded to run up the stairs.
After five minutes up climbing the stairs in an awkward silence, Natsu decided to initiate a conversation. He knew it was good to be on good terms with royalty of other countries, so it would good to start now, even if the princess didn't know he was a prince.
"Excuse me for asking you questions, but… About this man you entrusted with the Eclipse Gate. Why did you trust him? Like, he must have been very trustworthy if you trusted him enough to let him use a magical device that enables one to travel through time." To make himself sound like he never knew anything about the Eclipse Gate prior to this conversation, he added, "You called it the… Eclipse Gate?"
Hisui narrowed her eyes at Natsu. She seemed like she was the type of person who didn't like to talk about her mistakes.
"...Nevermind."
"No, it's fine. If you pledge to help me in this crisis, I'll tell you," Hisui said.
"Uh, sure."
The green haired princess inhaled deeply. "The man I trusted to use the Eclipse Gate, well I didn't really know him. He used to be a guild master that I really looked up to because he was always known to be a really great man. And he was never afraid to stand up against the council. I wanted to be like him, a kind person who could stand up for their beliefs, no matter who opposes them."
"So he was like a role model to you?"
"More like he reminded me of my father, just braver. One day, news spread that he had died. I was really sad until he suddenly showed up at one of the Palace Gatherings. It was a shock when I learned who he was, and it was an even bigger shock when he told me he knew of the secret Eclipse project going on and planned on going back in time to defeat kill Zeref."
Natsu flinched again. He still had no idea why anyone would want to kill his brother.
"I was still a bit young and naive for my age. I was really just a teenager, but I really thought that I was mature enough to handle things like this. So I gave him permission to help us in the Eclipse Gate plan. I suppose I didn't even distrust him because of all the good rumors about him," Hisui's voice trailed off into the empty air.
"But rumors were just rumors. I heard him speak to himself about turning time back to Year 777. Why he was talking to himself, I have no idea. But I did know for certain, that the Black Wizard was still an immortal at that time. So I tried to call the guards, but that man spotted me. He then threw me into the Abyss Palace… You know the rest of the story."
"Hmm…"
"Now that you know this, I'm telling you that if you capture the man that is impersonating my father, please do not unmask him no matter what happens. As said before, he was famous for being the guild master of a very famous guild. If they learn that their former guild master was alive and being treated as a criminal under all the chaos of the Eclipse Gate, I fear that they may take some irrational actions. I would like to avoid that at all costs."
"I see…" Natsu said. "Okay. If I capture your father's impersonator, I do not unmask him. Got it."
Hisui grumbled with a depressed look, "I'm actually surprised you believe all this stuff."
"There's nothing wrong in believing in something. Although… Coming to this place has convinced me that literally anything can happen. But I think you should be more concerned about telling secrets or important information to people you don't know. First the king's impersonator, now me? Man, you've still got a lot to learn before you get crowned queen of this kingdom. Haha."
"Like you would understand anything!" Hisui snapped as she quickened her pace up the stairs.
"I think I'd understand a lot," Natsu quietly chuckled to himself as he also started to quicken his pace.
~~Some time later~~~
Natsu and Hisui finally reached the end of the stairs, where they were greeted by the ground suddenly shaking violently. The lacrimas that lit up the palace flickered a bit. Natsu figured that the Eclipse Gate just opened, as he could feel a high pressure of Zeref's magical presence flooding the area.
Suddenly there was an ear blasting scream and a few loud thumps that echoed throughout the whole palace.
A horrific voice echoed throughout the whole palace. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" it screamed.
"Were we too late?" Hisui whispered in horror, as she quickly pushed herself to go forward.
Natsu followed her lead and he wearily looked behind him, as if expecting someone to suddenly appear out of nowhere.
They reached closer to the celebration room, where all the mages were supposedly celebrating a successful end of the Grand Magic Games. Instead of cheers and civilized chatter, they heard more screaming and the sound of a lot of magical attacks.
The duo quickened their pace, until they finally entered the celebration room. The room was a complete mess. It seemed like most of the mages fled. The mages who were still in the room, however, were fighting a giant gray scaled dragon that stood in the center of the room.
"A dragon?" Hisui gasped in surprise. "Did it come from the Eclipse Gate?"
"Lightning Dragon's Roar!" one of the mages, a blonde and well built man with a lightning shaped scar on his face, yelled. A large surge of lightning exploded from the man's mouth and struck towards the dragon in blink of an eye.
Natsu took note that there was yet another dragon slayer in this capital. But this dragonslayer smelled like he had a dragonslayer lacrima inside him, so this one was probably not one of the original five 'real' dragonslayers. Like Sting and Rogue who also smelled like they had dragonslaying lacrimas.
The dragon took a direct attack from the lightning mage, but only appeared slightly wounded. It just shrugged off the attack, as it prepared its own roar attack on the remaining mages in the room.
"Get Out!" Hisui screamed at the mages, as she didn't want to see anyone get obliterated by the dragon.
Natsu, not wanting to see anyone obliterated either, made a move. He knew a dragon's attack was devastating and could fatally injure a man. With no time to hesitate, Natsu thrust the king into Hisui's arms, then ran and leaped towards the dragon, about to attack the dragon with his own dragon slaying magic. "Fire dragon's..." he yelled as he engulfed his whole body in flames. "Sword horn!"
His head clashed with the dragon's scaly head, and the flames transferred from Natsu's body to the dragon, igniting the dragon's whole body in fire. The headbutt was able to push the dragon against a wall. A wall that hopefully wasn't an important wall.
The dragon dug its claws in the floor and roared in agony, it wasn't a fire resistant dragon, as it spread its wings and started to flap. It seemed like it was trying to blow out the flames with the wind it created from beating its wings. Everyone in the room tried to stand their ground from the strong winds.
However, instead of blowing out the fire, an opposite effect was taken on the flame, and the flames grew larger than before, and continued to eat away at the dragon's scales.
The Dragon kept roaring in agony until its roars turned into sad wails. Hisui even felt pity for the dragon, for she knew that burning to death was one of the most painful deaths for any creature. It soon collapsed, with its whole body charred black.
Natsu extinguished the flames that engulfed the dragon with a single snap of his fingers. He didn't really like killing things, even dragons, but Irene and Igneel had taught him that Dragon Slayers existed for a reason. They may have told him different reasons, but both reasons included killing dragons.
He was quickly confronted by the lightning mage with a serious, and weary, look. "What are you?"
"A mercenary, hired by the princess over there," Natsu pointed to Hisui. He also sweatdropped about his second quick, made-up lie. Being a prince meant getting into politics. And getting into politics meant becoming a liar.
A white-haired girl popped up from behind the lightning dragonslayer. "Princess?"
They turned their gazes to see Hisui, who unsurprisingly looked like a homeless person since most of her clothes were torn from being in the Abyss Palace for so long. It seemed like Hisui didn't notice that most of her body was exposed. They looked like they didn't believe she was the princess.
"Well… she does have a crown…" the blonde spiky haired man sweatdropped.
"What's the surprise? The king is a pumpkin, I think it's an upgrade to have a future human ruler… despite her… appearance," the white haired girl carefully chose her words.
Hisui's face grew red like a tomato and tried to cover her upper body with her arms. "DON'T LOOK!"
The white haired girl sighed, "Typical women…" She turned her gaze to Natsu. "My name is Mira, the scary looking blonde man is Laxus. Who could you be?"
"Natsu."
"You're pretty strong, Natsu." Mira looked at Laxus with a smirk. "Stronger than Laxus."
"Shut up!" Laxus looked away to hide his frustrated look.
"Heh, if Ivan was still in charge, he'd—"
"It's too soon to joke about that," Laxus growled.
"My bad."
Natsu confusedly looked at the two. "Can you tell me the situation here?"
Hisui nodded in agreement, as she saw the remaining mages in the room lie down and rest.
"I don't really know much other than that a dragon suddenly crashed into this room and destroyed about almost everything. Many of the mages escaped while I tried to handle the dragon. I would assume most of the mages are trying to evacuate the people in the city. I did hear another dragon, though…" Laxus was interrupted by the sound of an explosion, a dragon's roar followed.
"What was that?!" Hisui screamed.
"You should just worry about getting new clothes," Natsu said as he turned to look at Mira and Laxus. "Do you guys happen to conveniently know any Celestial Mages in the area?"
"Y-yeah…" Mira trailed off.
"Could you bring one here? You can ask questions later."
To Natsu's surprise, Mira complied… "Satan Soul." Her appearance suddenly changed drastically as her body looked like she merged with a demon. Bat-like wings sprouted from her back and she flew out of the room. If Natsu recalled correctly, that must have been take-over magic she used. Probably.
"That Mira, so easily rushing into doing what she believes what could help people," Laxus sighed. "I need proof other than a dragon slayer and a princess I never knew existed til now, to believe what you're doing will help this situation."
Natsu smirked. "Well, I'm not going to give you any proof. You can just sit back and relax while I slay all the dragons," Natsu started walking towards the back door, where he felt the presence of the Eclipse Gate somewhere behind those doors.
"Wait," Laxus yelled as he closed his eyes and tried to resist the feeling that Natsu just might be bad news. "There are four other dragon slayers, and they're probably tag teaming to fend off some other dragons."
"Thanks," Natsu said as he pushed open the back doors. "You know, if you don't want to feel left out, you can always tag team with me."
Laxus face-palmed, he already knew this fire dragon slayer was going to be annoying as hell.
But he couldn't just sit back and do nothing. After all, his guild... his family was in trouble.
"I'm in," Laxus sighed in defeat.
"Cool, let's go dragon slaying!" Natsu grinned.
~Fiore | Somewhere in the Capital~~~
The ground had been shaking a lot recently. There were also some questionable sounds the echoed the sky that sounded like a beast's roar. However, that didn't stop Mest in trying to fix the whole mistake of accidentally teleporting the prince of Alvarez to Fiore. It shouldn't be considered kidnapping though, Mest thought he himself was the victim in this situation.
"Where's the prince?" Mest demanded of Happy, in an interrogation kind of way.
"I told you, I don't know! And even if I did know, there was no way I'd tell you! Who are you anyway?" Happy yelled, but the sound of his voice was compressed because Mest held his hand over the cat's mouth.
"I'm the fool who accidentally brought you and the prince here," Mest hissed quietly.
"Really?" Happy turned his head to look at Mest. "Thank you so much! Thanks to you, I got to meet the love of my life: Carla."
Mest rolled his eyes.
"Her name is so nice, it rolls off the tongue so easily," Happy exclaimed.
"Shhhhhh," Mest growled.
"Carrlla."
"Shut it!"
"Carrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllla~"
"Shut up!" Mest yelled, which got the attention of the nearby civilians. They looked at him, wondering why a man would tell a cat to shut up.
Suddenly, the ground started to shake hard like an earthquake, which caused Mest to lose his balance and fall down. During his fall, he accidentally let go of Happy.
"I'm finally free!" Happy exclaimed as he sprouted his wings and flew to the sky away from Mest. "See you, sucker!"
And the Exceed left, soaring to immeasurable heights of the sky.
"Get back here!" Mest yelled in irritation. He cursed to himself about how he keeps screwing things up. Then he noticed Happy was flying back to him.
"DRAGON!" Happy cried as he flew back into Mest's arms.
"Huh?" the teleportation mage was confused until he saw a giant shadow of a winged creature covering the sky, and it was flying towards their location.
"WHAT THE HELL?" his eyes bulged out.
The civilians nearby were, however, not panicking. It seemed like they thought this dragon was some projection by the capital to celebrate the Grand Magic Games. Mest would have believed that too, if he hadn't noticed the dragon was preparing a breath attack, as its jaws were opening wide and some certain type of energy was building up in its mouth.
Dragons were not creatures to be reckoned with, so Mest prepared to teleport himself out of there until he heard, "Sky Dragon's ROAR!"
A giant blast of wind blew at the dragon's face, and startled the dragon. It didn't seem to do much damage but the dragon did stop its breath attack. Mest looked at Wendy, who seemingly appeared on top of a water fountain.
"Wendy! Carla!" Happy cheered.
"What? Happy?" Wendy exclaimed. "Glad to see you're safe!"
"Focus on the dragon, talk later!" Carla yelled.
"Oh, right!"
In the sky above the dragon, there was a figure of a human. "Iron dragon's…" The human, most likely Gajeel, extended his arm into a steel pole and swung it downwards toward the dragon's wings" "Club!"
With the added gravity of swinging the steel club downwards while falling in the sky, Gajeel was able to muster enough power to damage the wing and push the wing downwards. The dragon roared in surprise, and since one wing was unable to support the dragon in the air, the dragon landed into the ground, not so gracefully.
"Wow Gajeel!" Wendy cheered as she jumped to where Mest was at. She was greeted by an applause from a crowd of citizens who still thought these dragons were all part of a simulation. "Ah, t-thank you. But you should all get away from here, those dragons are actually real!"
At that, the whole crowd dispersed in panic and ran away from the scene.
Carla face-palmed sarcastically, "Good job Wendy…"
"I'm s-so sorry," Wendy cried. With teary eyes, she looked at Mest. "Are you okay?"
"Uh… Yeah," Mest replied awkwardly.
Gajeel spun in the air and he turned his arm into an iron sword. "Iron Dragon's Sword!" he yelled as he was planning to stab the dragon in his fall.
Unfortunately, the dragon roared a beam of fire at Gajeel as he was falling.
"Lily!" Gajeel yelled, and immediately, his trusted Exceed caught Gajeel in the air and flew away, to avoid getting hit by the roar attack. They were lightly grazed by the attack, but not too hurt.
Pantherlily sighed in relief as he carried Gajeel to the ground next to Mest.
"Finally, a real challenge!" Gajeel smirked.
"You've never fought a dragon before, have you?"
"Nope, well, other than Metalicana— but that doesn't count."
"I can't believe we're actually fighting a dragon…" Wendy whimpered as tried to heal the small wound that Lily and Gajeel caught.
"Aye!" Happy cheered.
"Wait, wait!" Mest interrupted the two dragonslayers. "Just what's going on here?"
Gajeel crossed his arms. "Hmm… I don't really know. I just know these dragons suddenly came out from a large gate."
"WHAT?!" Mest exclaimed. First, he accidentally kidnaps the prince. Now Fiore's kingdom is suddenly having a Dragon crisis? The world seems to be falling apart!
"No matter," Gajeel smirked. "Now it seems I can actually earn the title 'Dragon Slayer'. Right, little girl?"
"Uhh… Umm… I- I don't really like fighting… But I'll do whatever I can do to support you!"
The Iron Dragonslayer sighed. "Well, that's better than most responses I got from you..."
~Fiore | Mercurius Palace~~~
After running out of the palace, they finally found the Eclipse Gate. It was really just a giant gate that sat in the backyard of the palace.
Natsu noticed how there was a giant bunch of mages trying to close the gate manually, by pushing the doors of the gate to close. Some tried to destroy it with magic, but none were even able to scratch the gate.
"What's that?" Laxus asked.
"The Eclipse Gate. It's a magical device that connects two time periods together. It must be connected to a time approximately four hundred years ago…" Natsu said, while pondering about the user's intent of this gate. If dragons were coming out then the gate could be malfunctioning, or it was the user's intent to release dragons into this time period.
Despite all the mage's effort, another dragon stepped out of the gate, into this time period. The dragon seemed to be of the fire type. Fire based attacks wouldn't work well against it, no matter how strong the fire. Natsu knew any of his fires wouldn't really work great, and he knew Laxus wasn't exactly strong enough to actually defeat the dragon. It wasn't just Laxus though, it seemed as though this whole kingdom was falling behind greatly in terms of power compared to Alvarez or certain other countries.
"We should merge our attacks onto that dragon," Natsu suggested to Laxus. His fire could strengthen Laxus' electricity enough to do some significant damage to the dragon.
"Like a Unison Raid? Don't we need like strong bonds or something?"
"Meh, I know how to cheat the system," Natsu smirked. He lived with Spriggans who knew cheat magic, surely he would discover some ways to cheat magic. "Of course, this attack won't be as strong as an actual Unison Raid. Come on, there's no time to hesitate, we're just going to push that dragon back through the gate. If we're lucky, we might even scratch that gate."
If the dragon would be pushed back through the gate, then Natsu's assumption that the Eclipse gate was malfunctioning would be correct.
"...Let's get this over with," Laxus sighed.
The two both inhaled deeply, as they both prepared their roar attacks.
"Lightning Dragon's…."
"Fire Dragon's…."
"Roar!"
A giant swirl of fire combined with a giant surge of lightning, creating a sort of a blast of fire and electricity. The combined roar headed to the dragon at an incredibly fast speed thanks to the lightning. Within a blink of an eye, the roar attack blasted the dragon and the gate… and unfortunately caught some people near in an explosion that consisted of embers and lightning.
"Oh… Whoops," Natsu sweatdropped.
"Idiot!" Laxus growled as he ran towards the explosion to retrieve any injured.
The smoke from the attack cleared, to reveal a non-damaged Eclipse Gate. The dragon however, was gone. It was probably thrusted back through the gate. The people who were caught up in the attack? Well, they were going to be out of commission for a while.
Natsu smacked his own head for his idiocy. "Don't tell me Zeref built this gate with some magic resistant metal," he sighed.
"I'm going to get you for this!" Laxus threatened in the distance as he picked up the injured and brought them inside the palace, where it was hopefully safer.
"I don't think I made a good impression on this nation…" Natsu depressingly sighed to himself. He then spotted a certain pumpkin mascot near the Eclipse gate, who seemed to have been caught up in the explosion. That had to be the imposter of the king.
"Laxus! I know you probably hate me or something, but do me a favor and tie up the pumpkin mascot! He's the one in charge of activating the Eclipse Gate!"
"As if I'd keep listening to y-!" Laxus paused. He realized there was something familiar with the person inside the pumpkin costume. The scent strangely made him feel nostalgic, but he couldn't remember whose scent this belonged to. He picked up the the pumpkin mascot. The costume was still intact, Laxus was about to tear off the pumpkin helmet, but a voice yelled.
"DON'T REMOVE THE HELMET!" Natsu found wheezing Hisui standing in front of the Palace's back door. She wore new clothing: a dress that made her look more like royalty. "That's an order!" she huffed and glared at the lightning mage.
Laxus stopped himself from removing the helmet. But his curiosity didn't stop.
"Natsu!" Natsu recognized Mira's voice. The white haired girl was flying in the air in her Satan Soul, and she carried Lucy. The two landed on the ground, a few meters away from Natsu.
"It's you?" Lucy gasped in surprise.
"Great, now we can close the gate!" Natsu smiled.
"How so?" Mira inquired.
"The gate can only be open, and closed, by a celestial mage who wields the twelve golden keys. So we have a celestial mage *points at Lucy* and the twelve golden keys *points at golden keys scattered across the floor*." Natsu guessed that the celestial mage who opened the door may have dropped the keys when she realized that dragons were coming out of the gate.
"But I-" Lucy muttered. Her pupils shrunk when she saw the golden keys, like she was terrified of something.
"Hmm?" Natsu looked at the blonde girl who easily resembled Anna Heartfilia. He noticed how she had been looking at the ground the whole time. He looked to Mira and Laxus for any answers for Lucy's behavior but they both avoided his gaze.
"I can't do it…" Lucy's lips were trembling and she closed her eyes. "I… I'm not strong enough!"
The fire dragonslayer narrowed his eyes at Lucy. "You may think you're not strong enough able to do this, but the fact is: you're the only one here who CAN do it."
Lucy sobbed, "I really can't…" Tears formed from her eyes.
"Can't you just try?"
Mira grabbed Natsu's shoulder and she held a stern look. "That's enough," she whispered. "I had forgotten that Lucy's… well, she's emotionally unstable when it comes to her using her magic…"
Natsu looked at Lucy in silence. She was clearly in no state to close the Eclipse Gate, let alone able to push herself to perform any magic. And he couldn't just force her to close the gate… last time he forced a girl to do something, he ended up being the size of an atom for a few minutes. He could sarcastically thank Brandish for that punishment.
Natsu looked at the Eclipse Gate, knowing that another dragon could pop out of there any moment now. Not like he wouldn't be able to take care of it.
"I'll do it," Hisui volunteered, to everyone's surprise. "I am also a Celestial Wizard… kind of. The only key I've ever wielded was a silver key that summoned a weird snowman puppy thing, but if by any chance I can close it… I'll do it."
Natsu nodded but wondered, "But shouldn't you watch over your father?"
"He's resting in a bedroom," Hisui said as she gathered the golden keys.
Lucy stood in silence, in shame.
Suddenly, everyone froze in place for a second. Natsu felt it, a sinister, powerful aura from within the Eclipse Gate. Something else was now going to come out of the gate. Laxus and Mira must have noticed something dangerous was about to appear, as instinctively, electricity surrounded Laxus, and Mira transformed into a different, higher class demon.
Natsu gulped. "Hisui, start using the keys. The keys should respond to the Eclipse Gate and be able to close the gate on its own."
"Right!" Hisui sweated as she stepped in front of the Eclipse Gate.
Natsu quickly realized this task would be nearly impossible if Hisui had barely any stamina and didn't have any contracts with any of the keys.
The heavy presence within the Eclipse Gate grew more dark and filled the air with a very powerful magical pressure. The earth started shaking to indicate another creature was to appear out of the gate. Dark clouds started to roll over the darkening sky above them. The weather seemed to be chilled about what was about to appear from the gate.
Was it a Dragon King?
Was it some Monster that only existed 400 years ago?
Oh god, Natsu wondered. What if it was Irene from 400 years ago?
Soon, they saw a figure step out of the Eclipse Gate. There were no loud thuds that were usually created when a dragon took a step on the earth. No, this wasn't a dragon. The figure stepped out of the Eclipse Gate was the size of a man.
Laxus whispered in shock, "A human from a different time period?.."
"Can one human truly exert so much magical power?" Mira gasped.
This was a man with long spiky hair, with a silver bluish color. His skin was tanned. He reminded Natsu of a certain history lesson where Zeref drew a picture of a man that resembled a lot like the man standing before him.
The man shot glares at only Natsu and Laxus, as if they were the only two who interested him. "Dragonslayers…" Natsu heard the man whisper.
"I take it that you're Acnologia?" Natsu asked the man, raising some confusion and surprise among the others.
"Do you mean the dragon of apocalypse?" Hisui gasped, but tried to steady her focus on using the golden keys.
The man licked his lips and with a menacing tone, he said, "And what of it?"
Natsu narrowed his eyes. This was no easy opponent. According to Zeref, he would need the power of some forbidden magic to defeat this dragon… or dragon slayer.
Judging by how his skin was scaly and his hands were just a bit claw-like, this Acnologia might have not gained the ability to transform into a dragon yet.
Which would mean this could be the only time to fight him at his weakest.
This could be the best time to kill the dragon of apocalypse.
~Pergrande Kingdom~
"I can't believe we were able to search the entire kingdom of Pergrande in just a few hours," Brandish said. "I guess I underestimated our abilities."
"Starving…" Dimaria sighed.
August looked at the sky. He could feel some sort of powerful magical energy in the far west.
"What's wrong August? You look like you have something on your mind," Brandish narrowed her eyes at the direction August was looking at.
"You notice that magic too, right?" the old man scratched his beard. "If I'm not wrong, I'm sure that magical presence belongs to Acnologia. It appears to be mixed in with Emperor's magic though."
"Acnologia, as in the dragon that the Emperor wants to kill? Is the Emperor there too?" Dimaria tightly held her stomach. She didn't bring any money with her on this mission.
"That is precisely who I'm talking about. But I doubt the emperor is there, he's not one to let his magical presence be easily found."
"Should we go check it out?" Brandish asked as she laughed at Dimaria's suffering state.
"No, our objective is to find the prince," August said.
"Hmm… But my gut tells me that Prince Natsu is like a magnet to danger. I wouldn't be surprised if he was picking a fight with that dragon."
"Heh, you're actually right for once," Brandish chuckled.
"I don't want your praise, I want your food," Dimaria groaned.
"Quit complaining. Let's just go to… where are we going?"
"I would assume Fiore," August looked at the map.
"To Fiore, and to get this thing over with."
~Magic Council Headquarters~
"There appears to be a powerful magical presence in the Capital of Fiore."
"It's probably just some special event from their 'Grand Magic Games'."
"No, the presence seems to hold a heavy black magic. It resembles the magic of the Black Wizard, but it mixes with a magic similar to dragonslayer magic."
The meeting room of the council was hushed.
"Seriously? At a time like this? We're just about to hold a conference with some of Alvarez's shields regarding that spy and God Serena's defection!"
"He's right. The matters with Alvarez are our utmost priority. If this magical presence in Crocus is threatening, then just send some of the Wizard Saints there to resolve the issue," a man who appeared to be the chairman said.
"Who else agrees?"
Everyone raised their hands.
"Then it's settled, send notice to the Wizard Saints immediately."
Mini Chapter 4
The Glass Making Company
~Alvarez Empire~
"Sandman! Are you here?" God Serena called as he walked to a beach. There was a small building that looked like a factory placed on a convenient plateau above the sand of the beach. God Serena could hear electric saws buzzing from the factory, so he assumed that the factory was for cutting wood.
"In here!" Ajeel's voice called from within the factory.
God Serena walked into the factory to find that the factory wasn't for chopping wood, but for creating glass. There were many small raging fires in furnaces. It was cooking sand and slowly turning it into glass. He found Ajeel and Wahl standing around a round table.
"What's all this?" God Serena asked.
"It's my own personal glass making factory," Ajeel smirked proudly.
"I'm here fixing some of the machinery," Wahl said with one hand holding a hammer and the other hand holding a screwdriver. Of course, those tools were probably just props.
"That's a lot of glass…" God Serena sweatdropped. "I knew you were crazy but I didn't know you were such a glass fanatic."
"Call me whatever you want, but I'm not the only one into this. Wahl and the prince Natsu is also part of this glass business!"
"The prince too?"
"Sweet yeah! It all started like—"
"Ajeel, no. Don't you dare have a flashback!" Wahl growled. "We have matters to attend to."
"Don't worry, I'll just tell him the gist of how this glass making company started," Ajeel smiled.
"You and your tendencies to tell stories…" Wahl sighed.
"The prince once challenged me to a battle a few years ago, and of course, I wouldn't refuse. His fire against my sand. We fought and realized that every time our magics clashed, it would create glass. After our fight ended —it was a tie by the way, just saying— we had created a battlefield full of some pretty sweet glass sculptures. Seeing the masterpiece, the prince and I came up with the same goal at the same time: To create a tunnel of glass in the ocean."
"Doesn't that goal sound a bit too random and pointless?"
"No, it's every man's dream to build a tunnel."
"I concur," Wahl smirked. "That's why I joined them on this project."
"I don't really think so," God Serena muttered to himself.
"So, my sand, prince Natsu's fire, and Wahl's ability to create a factory and machines that can automatically put the sand and fire together, we were able to create this glass making company."
"However, since prince Natsu is gone, the fires here are dying down. Soon, we won't have an infinite source of fire, until he comes back."
"Now we're just trying to figure out how to make fire without burning too much coal," Ajeel sighed as he stared at some blueprints for some invention.
"Well, I have Hellfire dragonslayer magic, if that helps," God Serena suggested.
"Hellfire? Hmm… I don't know…" Ajeel hesitated.
"I'll just try it out," God Serena said as he lit one of the furnaces up with his hellfire.
"Wait!" Wahl panicked. "Remember when the prince used his demonic flames in one of the furnaces?! Everything—"
"SHIT!" Ajeel yelled as he remembered a past tragic event involving hellish fires. "Serena! STOP!"
KABOOM!
The furnace blew up, which caused all the machines around it to blow up, which caused everything in the factory to blow up. The whole factory went crumbling down in ashes. All the glass that was created just shattered into millions of translucent pieces.
The man's dream of building a tunnel of glass, just exploded like that.
Wahl looked at their destroyed factory in depression.
"SERENA! I'M GOING TO F***ING KILL YOU!" Ajeel screamed as shards of glass rained down.
"Wait, wait! I have to finish my training first!"
"DIE FIRST!"
Hmm... It's been about 68 days since I last updated...
I guess that means I'll update every 68 days then? I'm just kidding :P
Thanks for being patient, and for still reading this.
Don't follow this story, it makes me nervous XD
But feel free to review :D