Chapter 5
disclaimer on chapter 1 (still)
Natsu and Lisanna were heading out to forest to get some training in before Gildarts returned that afternoon, Happy had opted not to join them considering last time he went he got caught between one of Natsu's fire dragon roars and a Gildarts' patent crash.
"Hey Lis?", Natsu asked breaking the silence
"Hmm?", she responded
"Y'know that game Mira made us play the other day?", Lisanna shuddered at the thought, yes she remembered.
A couple of days ago Mira had forced everybody who was in the guild at the time to play truth or dare with her, most people were oblivious to this fact but Mira was an obsessive matchmaker and Lisanna figured out quickly that this was just one of her schemes
Her older sister's main targets were Natsu and Lisanna as well as a pair of gun slingers that had joined recently called Alzack and Bisca
Alzack was a shy boy only slightly older than her and Natsu with long hair that covered his right eye but despite this he had proven to be deadly with a magic pistol and in his two months of being in the guild no one had seen him miss a shot. He always wore a brown poncho in a similar reverence to Natsu and his scarf and when asked about it he said it was his fathers and that it had been passed down to him
Bisca was a short girl of a similar age to Alzack, her short lime green hair was almost perpetually covered by a western style Stetson hat, she used requip to pull guns out of thin air and while right now her collection was quite small she had the potential to be versatile and adaptable. By far her favourite weapon was her sniper rifle; her accuracy with it was astounding and like Alzack, had never been witnessed to miss. She had been in the guild a couple of months longer than Alzack but before he joined she hadn't really made an effort to get to know anyone.
Mira's game had been clunky and awkward (Happy certainly hadn't helped with his constant input of "he/she liiiiiiiiiiikes you" or similar) and after about an hour she simply gave up, as it was obvious almost no one was enjoying themselves, to her credit though she did manage to drive Alzack and Bisca off together under the excuse they were going to do a mission
"Yes I remember, what about it?", Lisanna replied
"Well … I thought we could do something similar, but without the dare bit.", Natsu said
"Like twenty one questions?", She asked
"sure.", He responded
"Ok, shoot" Lisanna said with a smile
"Ok. Why do you always use Arctic or snow themed animal souls?", Natsu asked in an intrigued voice
"Uhh … what do you mean?", Lisanna asked with an eyebrow raised
"Well I mean you always use snow animals, like instead of just using a tigress takeover you use the snow tigress and instead of a grizzly bear takeover you use the polar bear one instead, and even animals that don't have arctic variations are coloured white and light grey. Why?", He explained
"Uhh I don't know, I just do.", Lisanna said, she laid a finger on her chin and looked thoughtful
"I guess I've always just liked animals that are to do with snow, and just snow in general and besides Arctic animals are usually tougher are and stronger than other animals"
"Hmm I suppose.", Natsu said, accepting her answer
"Now it's your turn!", He said breaking into a grin
Lisanna out the finger back on her chin in her thoughtful pose
"Now what to ask? … I know!", She looked at Natsu who was walking beside her
"Do you like any other magic other than dragon slaying magic?"
"That's easy!", Natsu exclaimed
"I like all magic, but to use, not really. I mean I kinda want a secondary magic just in case, but none of them are as strong as dragon slayer magic and I can't really be bothered to learn a new magic from scratch"
"Makes sense", Lisanna said, by this point
"Now it's your turn again", she continued
Their game continued for their entire walk, they asked each other pointless questions, sometimes questions they knew the answer to already, like "what's your favourite colour?", or "what's your favourite animal", that sort of thing. They quickly reached their usual training ground but the two were enjoying their little Q and A so didn't really notice
"It's my turn again! Hmm… I don't know if you know the answer to this one but I figured I'd ask anyway … Do you know why your smell is weird" he asked before looking shocked with himself "WAIT! Not weird! You smell fine, kinda nice actually, it's just faded like it's old or being dampened by snow or rain…", Natsu paused after noticing Lisanna's face which had gone completely red from the high compliment among dragons that Natsu had said to her
"Why are you blushing? ... You shouldn't know that was a compliment! How do you know that was a compliment? I haven't told you that!", Natsu rushed beginning to blush himself
Lisanna briefly considered lying to Natsu but quickly realised that she and him knew each other to well to be able to lie about something like this, she sighed in defeat, resigned to tell him before her cooked up some farfetched theory
"Ok Natsu, you got me", she said sounding defeated
"Got you?", He said sounding confused and apprehensive; slightly dreading as well as looking forward to her reaction to his untended compliment
"I'd been meaning to tell you anyway, I suppose now's a good as time as any…"
"Tell me what?", Natsu complained, confused and flustered, lisanna sighed and silently vowed to get it over with quickly
"The reason I know that that was a compliment, the reason my scent is different and I suppose the reason I use Arctic animals as well, is … Is", she petered off once again losing her nerve, She looked at her feet which she shuffled nervously
"Is?", Natsu said gently coaxing her to tell him. Lisanna to a breath sharply
"Because I'm a dragon slayer!", She said quickly looking up to stare him defiantly in the eye, Natsu's mind promptly went blank while it processed this information and he intelligently said
"You're a what?", Lisanna sighed again and looked back at her feet
"A snow dragon slayer to be specific", she said timidly, irrationally fearing Natsu's reaction for keeping this from him for so long. Natsu's eyes widened slightly then he straightened as if hit by lightning
"THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!", he exclaimed loudly, Lisanna looked back up at him oddly, regardless Natsu continued
"That explains why you were always so interested in Igneel, why your scent is muffled, like it's snowing and why you always use snowy animals, because it reminds you of your dragon!", At this revelation, Natsu looked ecstatic, it explained so many of the small questions he had about his best friend
After his outburst he quieted down, "I guess that's also why you wanted to come on that mission with me and Elfman the other week", he said softly what mission?, Lisanna thought oh that mission
-Flashback-
"Hey Elfman", Natsu called from the request board
"What!?", Elfman called back, bringing his nose out of a book he was reading
"There's a mission here that might make a good beast soul!", Natsu yelled, continuing the exchange
"Well bring it over then!", Elfman finished
The mission was a simple one: find and eliminate a large winged creature that was terrorising a snowy mountain village, the creature was nocturnal and looked to be about the size of a small house from the minimal sightings of the animal. The pay wasn't bad either
"Y'know Natsu" Elfman said
"You might be right, this animal sounds like snow wyvern and I could certainly use the power of a snow wyvern", Lisanna who had been sitting at the table with Elfman and so had heard the entire conversation thought it probably is just a snow wyvern, but what if it isn't? What if it is mother? I need to go and check
"I want to come with you", Lisanna suddenly exclaimed to her older brother and best friend
"Huh? Why? Me and Elfman can get it done by ourselves in no time, there's no point another person going, besides, aren't you like, two months ahead of rent right now?", Natsu said in response
"I don't care about pay, I just want to go!", Lisanna stated firmly
"Why?", Elfman asked narrowing his eyes in suspicion
"I … uh I want to go see the mountain.", Lisanna said
"Oh?", Elfman replied still in a suspicious tone
"Yea, I've never been and I hear they have some wonderful scenery out there, as well as animals I can't find around here to use as animal souls.", she explained, expertly lying as she went along
"I don't know that we'll be there long enough for you to create any animal souls", Elfman said, starting to believe his younger sister
"Well if there are animals I want souls of, I can just go back out there later to make them.", Lisanna finished her argument and hoped it would be enough to convince them, otherwise she would just have to sneak along
"Ok fine, you can tag along", Elfman finally conceded
"Well there's the mountain" Elfman said as they stepped out of the train station into a rustic little town covered with a layer of snow about an inch deep
"Wow", Natsu said in awe, standing straight having previously been leaning heavily on Lisanna due to his motion sickness
"You were right mamma, the scenery is amazing here", Happy said looking around at everything in wonder, Lisanna, who was in a similar state of wonder to Natsu and Happy just nodded in agreement.
"Come on you three, snap out of it, let's go find the guy who sent in the job", at that the trio plus Happy set off toward the centre of the town
As they entered the town hall, they were greeted by a short man with receding black hair and an out of place handlebar moustache
"What do you kids want!?", the man asked rudely, they all scowled and Lisanna who was probably the most civil at the moment answered
"We're the fairy tail wizards that accepted your job"
"I don't believe you! You're only children!", The man exclaimed angrily, all three's scowls deepened and Natsu turned to the left showing the red guild mark on his right shoulder, Elfman removed his jacket and turned around showing his blue guild mark on his shoulder blade and Lisanna lent her hips to the left so her guild mark on her leg was visible through the slit in her dress
"Oh!", the man exclaimed, astonished
"Forgive me!", He said bowing in apology
"I've been having a stressful week and I didn't expect them to send children", he continued
"Pfft, believe me, the three of us are more than enough to deal with your problem", Natsu said arrogantly
"I'm sure", the man said bowing again
"I am the mayor of this town and I sent that request out", he then continued
"What can you tell us about this monster?", Elfman asked
"Nothing more than what I put in the job application, we do know that it has a nest up on the mountain", the mayor said
"And it's been attacking every night?", Elfman asked
"Yes, it's putting a terrible stress on the shepherds"
"Thank you for your time", Lisanna said to the short man, she then turned to her comrades
"We may as well see if we can sort this out now, while it's still asleep", she said to them
"Yea that's probably a good idea", Elfman said
"Yea! Let's go!", Natsu yelled excitedly followed by an "Aye!", from his blue companion
Half way up the mountain, well into snowed in areas, Natsu caught the scent of the monster and was currently leading them in the direction the scent leaded, Lisanna had caught the scent in the snow covered town but chose to keep that fact quiet since Natsu would have found it eventually
It was Elfman that loudly stumbled across the wyvern, which was very much awake, and very violent
A short scuffle ensued, Lisanna turned into her polar bear takeover: turning her hands and feet into the paws of the animal, she grew a pair of small white ears on the top of her head and her teeth lengthened, her outfit also changed from the light blue and white dress she always wore for combat (A/N think her Edolas outfit in the anime) to a pair of heavy white combat trousers and a large white winter jacket that covered her completely and made her look larger than she was.
Lisanna used the strength the transformation gave her to toss Natsu high into the air, just as they had done during training many times, where Natsu used a 'fire dragons iron fist' to clobber the winged beast in the head, knocking it explosively to the ground with a crash, stunning the large animal which allowed for Elfman to easily use an absorption takeover on the felled monster
"Well that was easy", Elfman said
"Good work you two", he praised them as Happy brought Natsu down after catching him from Lisanna's throw
"Let's head back and tell the mayor the good news", Elfman continued, Turing to head down the mountain
"Wait, what's that noise/smell?", Natsu and Lisanna said at the same time, looking over a ridge the wyvern had seemed to be guarding they both got their answer: over the ridge was the wyvern's nest and in it were two small wyvern Cubs, they looked to only be about two or three weeks old but they were still about three times the size of Happy they look just like small dragons, but nothing like Neiberosa., Lisanna thought
"These two must be the reason that the wyvern started attacking the town", she said, then putting a finger on her chin
"I wonder if I can make a takeover soul for these two?", She thought out loud
"Uhh Lis, we have bigger concerns", Natsu said apprehensively, breaking Lisanna from her train of thought. Looking up, she saw what he was talking about, a massive snow storm (roll credits) was rolling towards them in a similar fashion to that of sandstorms, a massive wall of snow and ice was hurtling towards them at a frightening rate
"At that speed, it should be here in the next five minutes at the most", Elfman predicted and ran over the ridge and down to the town followed by Happy
"We need to get off this mountain. Now!", Natsu said, turning to follow Elfman
"No! We can't leave these two!", Lisanna exclaimed
"Well just use an absorption takeover on them and let's go!", Natsu argued back
"What! No! I won't! Let's just bring them and I'll make a soul for them later", she said
"I can't carry both of them and get off this mountain in time!", Natsu said eyeing the approaching storm warily
"And besides, I doubt they would willingly let me remove them from their nest when their so young"
"Well then just stay here and keep us protected with your magic then we can bring food up to them later when the storm passes", Lisanna asked desperately
"I may be the son of the fire dragon, but I'm not immune to the cold, my magic isn't enough to keep me, you and these two cubs warm enough to survive in a storm that big!", Natsu explained
"And besides do you know how much these two are going to need to eat in the next couple of years!? We can't physically get that much food up here without wings!", by this point the blizzard was very close to them now and so Natsu lashed out an ultimatum
"Look Lisanna we have two choices, you absorb them and let them live on as an animal soul or we leave them to this storm where they will most certainly die without their mother to protect them", he said desperately
"I won't leave them!", Lisanna said, starting to cry
"I won't let you risk your life for a pair of wyvern Cubs that are probably going to die anyway!", Natsu yelled, at that Lisanna broke down crying in defeat
"Come on Lis", he said softly
"Absorb them and let's get out of here", Lisanna nodded quietly and slowly moved between the two confused animals
She placed a hand on each of their snouts "I'm sorry", she said crying before the three of them were engulfed in white magic, when the light died down only Lisanna was standing there, with tears streaking down her face, before she fell to her knees and bawled her heart out
The storm was practically on top of them now and so Natsu quickly but gently picked up Lisanna bridal style and sprinted down the mountain, yelling he engulfed himself and Lisanna in a warm fire that didn't burn but instead warded off the cold just as the blizzard caught up to them.
-Flashback end-
"You wanted to come to see if the wyvern was your dragon, didn't you?", Natsu asked, Lisanna just nodded in response
"The scenery was nice though", she said lightheartedly
"Do you train? With your dragon slayer magic that is.", Natsu asked
"Not really, I mean I do sometimes when you and happy are away doing longer jobs, I come out here and train a bit but snow dragon slayer magic is more for support that for attacking"
"That can't be true.", Natsu said
"Huh? Why?"
"Well how are you supposed to slay a dragon with just support magic? It's probably got attack spells, you just haven't mastered them yet!", He encouraged
"Yea! That must be it!", she said excitedly, having thought of that point before
"You should tell Gildarts then he can train us both to use dragon slayer magic", Natsu suggested
"No! You can't tell anyone", Lisanna exclaimed
"Too late", Gildarts said coming out from behind a nearby tree
"I was planning to ambush the two of you to see how you did in a surprise situation, but I guess I got caught up in your conversation", he explained
"I had even gone through the trouble of magically concealing my scent"
"But anyway, Lisanna, Natsu's right, we should probably work on training up your dragon slayer magic to at least Natsu's standard now. I won't tell anyone and I'm sure Natsu won't either", Gildarts said looking pointedly at the pink haired teenager
"But if you don't mind me asking, why don't you want anyone to know?"
"I... Uh... Well I don't want anyone to think that me, Mira and Elfman aren't related, since Neiberosa left they were the only family I had and I don't want to lose that because of my magic", she explained timidly
"But the whole guild is your family now, no one will mind", Natsu said, sounding confused
"Yea I know but Mira and Elfman are special to me, they're like more that everyone in the guild is", she replied, hoping that the two of them would understand
"I don't understand but whatever, it's your choice", Natsu said, shrugging
"Thank you!", Lisanna cried out, enveloping Natsu in a hug, which consequently caused the young man's face to turn as pink as his hair.