Chapter 7
Disclaimer's where it always is, also just wanted to put a heads up, the idea of sending Natsu to Edolas was coined by darkfire1220 in his story 'the lost dragon slayer' (which I would give a hearty recommendation)
By the time any of them woke up Lisanna's attack had melted and even in her grief ridden state Lisanna managed to tell her sibling what had happened since Elfman couldn't remember anything beyond absorbing the monster and Mira had passed out from exhaustion part way through, as had Happy. She told them that Natsu had taken Elfman out but had taken a nasty hit then disappeared.
"Y-you mean N-Natsu's dead?", Mira choked out once Lisanna had finished her story, she felt so useless, what kind of S class Mage passes out half way through a fight and leaves it to two children!, She thought dejectedly . Lisanna violently shook her head in response to Mira's question
"No, he … He just vanished!", She exclaimed
"there was this light and …", She was cut off by Mira suddenly enveloping her in a hug, her big sister was crying on her shoulder, something Lisanna had never seen Mira do, ever, she realised with a start that Mira didn't believe her, her sister thought Natsu was dead and that she was making up a story to try and make it better
But he's not dead, Lisanna thought as she hugged her sister back
Natsu awoke with the mother of all headaches, he scrunched his eyes closed and tried to form coherent thought, he attempted to move his arm and a searing pain assaulted his brain causing him to cry out in pain
Ok let's do a damage report. Left arm's broken, righty's dislocated. Got four broken ribs, the rest are definitely bruised luckily the don't seem to have pierced my lungs, I think my left shoulder blade might have a crack or two in it as well, Natsu thought as he opened his eyes…
Only to be confronted with the sky having a greenish tinge and a river flowing free … Directly above him, oh great… And a concussion, he thought sarcastically before passing out again
The guild did not take the news well, for the first time in recorded history the fairy tail guild hall was silent, there was none of the usual merrymaking or fighting, everyone was dealing with Natsu being gone in their own way but no one cried, no, mere tears couldn't tell of the grief enveloping fairy tail
It was a full day until noise began to invade the hall again but even then, it was muted and respectful, if it didn't need to be said; it wasn't.
Weeks passed, they held a respectful funeral for Natsu and everybody attended, hell, in the following days almost everybody in magnolia came and paid their respects, even Laxus. The guild began to return to some sort of semblance of what it was but it didn't seem as colourful, this was as much due to Natsu's absence as Lisanna's
Before the funeral she hadn't spoken to anyone bar Happy and even then she only gave one or two word answers to questions and after the service she and Happy had disappeared, no one knew where they went or why and they all silently prayed that they would come back
Lisanna had been thinking, hard, about Natsu's last moments, about what he had said and about what to do
"We've survived worse injuries than these ones", he had said and he was right, both of them, on multiple separate occasions had sustained and recovered from injuries far more serious than a few broken bones
After the funeral she and Happy went to magnolia's forests, more specifically to the clearing and the hut she and Natsu had raised Happy's egg. Once they arrived they were flooded with a torrent of memories, of all they good times they had spent with Natsu as a family
One particular memory stuck out to Lisanna: in the time before their training with Gildarts and during their raising of Happy's egg, she had been kidnapped by a forest Vulcan, she at the time had been terrified, but Natsu found her and beat the Vulcan down, rescuing her
At that time they made a promise to each other that if one of them went missing, the other would look for them and bring them home. Lisanna realised that he wasn't dead, he couldn't be dead, he was missing, something had taken him and she was going to find him
She was going to bring him home, back to fairy tail. Back to me.
When Natsu awoke again, he was in considerably less pain and instead of a green sky and floating rivers his vision was met with the ceiling of a quaint lodge, finding that his right arm was popped back in its proper place and his ribs seemed to be mostly healed he sat up and looked around, he saw that his left arm was in a splint, his right in a sling and his chest and forehead were covered in bandages
He was in a very comfortable bed, across from him there was a window with its curtains closed, significantly dimming the room, Natsu could only tell that it was day time from the sun light filtering through the curtains, the room was small and the wall were simple log and wood structures giving it an earthy smell and a rustic feel
"Hello", he called and found his throat parched and rough, he saw a glass of water on a bed side table and, removing his right arm from its sling greedily drank. With his thirst quenched he tried again
"Hello!?", He called again, louder this time. A woman stepped into the room and Natsu gasped in surprise
"Lisanna!?", He asked. The woman who looked like Lisanna glared at him sharply
"What do you know of my daughter?!", She asked roughly
"Daughter?", Natsu asked with a bewildered expression on his face, he took a moment to scrutinise the woman before him, she was not, in fact, Lisanna, she was older, taller and her eyes were a startling green as opposed to Lisanna's sky blue
"Who are you", Natsu finally asked, the woman humphed
"My name is Neiberosa", she said with a scowl
"Neiberosa? That's a dragon's name. That's Lisanna's dragon's name!", the boy exclaimed, pointing
"Dragons?", the woman mumbled before looking at Natsu, shocked
"Tell me boy! What is Lisanna's last name?", she suddenly asked
"Huh? Umm… She didn't have a last name but she took the name Strauss", he answered truthfully
The woman looked at him with a shocked expression before she schooled her face back into her permanent scowl that eerily reminded Natsu of Porlyusica, fairy tail's resident healer
"You're from Earthland, aren't you boy?", She asked in a harsh tone Natsu simply began to associate with her
"What?", Natsu asked, genuinely confused
"Earthland! Ugh … Can you use magic?!", She asked agitatedly
"Yes", he said plainly before raising his right hand and igniting it in flames
Or at least he tried to; the pink haired boy donned a look of extreme concentration that looked quite comical but still no fire "come on!", He almost yelled
"Perhaps I should rephrase the question. Can you normally use magic?", Neiberosa asked with an amused expression, Natsu turned to glare at her
"What's wrong with my magic!?", He demanded
"You can use it here", she replied plainly
"What do you mean I can't use it here?! Where is here?", He said calming down
"Here is Edolas", the older woman responded
"Edolas? Is that like a country? How do I get to Fiore from here!?...", as the dragon slayer fired off questions Neiberosa grew steadily more irritated before her glare finally managed to shut Natsu up
"Sorry", he said sheepishly
"It's just … Well I need to get home", the woman's face softened a bit at Natsu's downcast expression
"to answer your questions, yes Edolas is a country, no I don't know how to get to Fiore from here or anywhere for that matter and finally the reason you can't use your magic is well because you're here", she said simply
"What's that got to do with anything?", Natsu asked, Neiberosa sighed
"This will take a while to explain boy, so listen carefully…"
It was almost a month until Happy and Lisanna returned to the guild and many people were beginning to think that they weren't going to come back, so, needless to say the upon their return a party was held in the true fairy tail fashion
The party raised everybody's spirits but those who were close to the silver haired girl noticed that even throughout the festivities Lisanna didn't smile, her lips would turn up at particularly silly antics but it never reached her eyes
Lisanna noticed a number of differences around the guild, first and foremost Gray seemed much tamer and laid back and was keeping his clothes on much longer than he normally would and secondly, a number of people were missing namely Mira, Laxus and the Master
When she asked, she found out that Mira could no longer do her satan soul takeovers for whatever reason and she and the master had headed out to find an expert to help her, no one on the other hand knew or cared where Laxus was
Neiberosa explained that Edolas was a parallel of Natsu's world, called Earthland and that the reason he couldn't preform magic was because magic worked differently in Edolas, in Earthland everything has a specific amount of replenishable magic energy either stored inside their body in someway or making up the bonds that hold it together
In Edolas on the other hand magic was a resource and didn't replenish itself and no living thing, besides the exceeds which Natsu was surprised to find out Happy was one of, had a store of magical energy inside their body and that the bonds making up the smallest structures were just different and hard to understand
The magic in Edolas permitted the air which caused the floating islands and rivers, to use magic required a specific machine made with or of a lacrima that took magic out of the air to power itself, it was a easily accessed resource, but according to officials, it was a resource that was running out, so in an effort to conserve magic the king of Edolas banned all magic guilds and forced them to disband, unfortunately many guilds refused and a war against Mage guilds was being waged and had been waging for almost 4 years
Natsu also learned that in Edolas there was another person just like you, but in every way, different or in other words a parallel you, it turned out that Edolas Neiberosa was the parallel of Lisanna's dragon and that she was the birth mother to this worlds Lisanna, who was fighting in the Mage war against the government in this world's fairy tail
After all this was explained Natsu had but two questions
"Do you know how I can get back to Earthland?", He asked firstly in earnest
"I'm afraid not, I had heard of the government experimenting with stealing magical energy from Earthland and I expect that's how you got here, but I have no idea if they work backwards"
I guess I'm joining the army, Natsu thought with a serious face
"Thanks for healing me and explaining that old lady", Natsu said cheekily as he got up and began walking towards the door, the woman in question looked insulted and opened her mouth to berate the oddly cheerful boy but he beat her to the punch with his second question
"Say… Do you know a man named Igneel?"