Still nothing to do.
Arriving in the clearing where he had sensed the presence of the others, Natsu was treated to a fairly odd sight. Weiss was sitting on Jaune checking her nails while the boy in question was face first in the dirt. His sisters were standing around with Blake, Nora and Ren doing nothing, and Pyrrha was jumping away from a Deathstalker's snapping claws, also landing on her face. That explains why Jaune wasn't with Pyrrha at least.
Running up to the others Natsu waved and called out, "Yo! What'd I miss?"
Turning her head to look at her younger brother, Yang couldn't help but remark "Great the gangs all here, now we can die together!" She sarcastically exclaimed.
Ruby gained a determined expression on her face, "Not if I can help it" she said before charging the scorpion shaped Grim with a battle cry. Natsu watched as she unfolded her scythe and pointed it behind her before unleashing several rounds to propel her forward at an increased rate. Flipping the blade upwards, the red cloaked girl tried to strike the Grim in the eye with its point. Unfortunately the Grim was faster than it appeared and smacked her away. Landing on her back Ruby slowly climbed to her feet while calling to the others, "Don't worry, totally fine" She did not sound convincing.
While she was returning to her feet, the beast had stalked up behind her. Luckily Ruby chose that moment to turn around, catching sight of the beast and reacting quickly hit the Deathstalker with two potshots to the face neither of which had any effect. Seeing she could not damage the Grim, Ruby turned around and began to run back to the others, refolding her scythe as she went.
Seeing their little sister in danger, both Yang and Natsu ran forward calling out to her "Ruby!" Yang cried in panic. The caw of a Nevermore drowned out any reply that might have been given. How the hell did I miss that? The flying Grim opened its wings wide and puffed out its chest, to Natsu it looked like how Igneel would appear before unleashing a roar, however instead of a deadly elemental breath attack the raven looking Grim thrust its clawed wings forward and sent several dozen of its own feathers out like projectiles intent on impaling the young Rose.
Fortunately it seemed that the Nevermore wasn't a very good shot as all the feathers managed to hit was the ground and Ruby's billowing cloak. However this had the effect of not only stopping Yang in her tracks, but pinning Ruby to the ground with the Deathstalker still chasing her.
"Ruby get out of there!" Yang called out as Natsu continued rushing toward his little sister who herself was struggling to release her hood from the feather pinning her to the ground.
"I'm trying," Ruby grunted, still pulling on her cloak. She paused however as a shadow loomed over her, the Deathstalker was now right in front of her, its stinger poised to strike.
Seeing his sister in immediate danger of death ignited Natsu's fire enhanced rage and anger clouding his mind and judgment. Never breaking a step Natsu griped the cuff that sealed his powers and commanded it to loosen its grip. While he would need to remove the seal in order to access his full power, he was able to loosen it to the point where he could access roughly sixty percent of his full might if he so chose.
Feeling the rush of power that flooded his veins upon the loosening of his seal Natsu once more sent a burst of concentrated fire from the soles of his feet, blasting him forward at speeds that rivaled Ruby's semblance. With his fist cocked back, Natsu let loose a cry that sounded more like the roar of a beast than anything meant to come from a human mouth, and just as the Deathstalker began to bring down its golden stinger Natsu buried his burning first into the Grim's bone covered face the magic circle of the Fire Dragon Slayer briefly flashing at the point of contact.
The result stunned those gathered beyond words. Not only was the Deathstalker's whole head incinerated in an instant, but its body was sent flying across the clearing and deep into the woods, carried by a wave of flames so intense Ruby would swear she felt them from where she sat sprawled on the ground. Natsu himself stood there breathing heavy, with his left leg forward and body twisted to his left, his right arm across his torso and near the ground clenched hand smoking from the now extinguished flames that had covered them. It was not that he was tired or out of breath from the assault, but partially unleashing his powers did put a slight strain on his body. He likened it to opening a straining door part way and having to keep it from slamming wide open from the force of what lay behind it, only letting a sliver through.
Straightening back up again Natsu turned to a shell shocked Ruby, "You okay?" he asked her. Receiving a nod in turn Natsu wasted no time in dragging her to her feet and began running back to the others, "Then come on, we gotta move before the Nevermore comes back for another try." Ruby once again nodded, this time with slightly clearer eyes and followed her brother to where the others still stood too stunned to move.
"Come on guys, before that thing makes another pass." He told them, quickly grabbing a relic from one of the temple's podiums- the golden king piece to be precise.
The sound of her brother's voice seemed to snap Yang back into reality, where she immediately broke the others out of their stunned states as well with a loud, "What the Hell was THAT?!" she exclaimed. She knew her little brother was strong, but the power that he just showed was unreal. Natsu was quiet for a moment, giving Weiss the time to start talking to Ruby, about what, Natsu didn't bother to listen.
"Talk later, move now." Was his short reply after another few seconds of silence. Damn it, how am I supposed to explain that? Someone of my sealed power shouldn't be able to do something like that without a seriously strong weapon, I guess I could say I palmed one of my dust crystals and set it off along with a big chunk of my Aura and Semblance, but would they believe that? Shit, shit, shit.
Fortunately for Natsu, the others seemed to accept his stalling and after Jaune and Ruby grabbed their relics, a rook and knight respectively, they took off into the forest in the general direction of the starting cliff.
As the group of Beacon hopefuls ran through the forest, the Giant Nevermore was never far behind, though it never unleased another feather storm it also never showed any signs of leaving them be and returning to its nest. Weiss was the first one to speak up, "I don't suppose you have any way of taking down that Nevermore like you did the Deathstalker?" she asked Natsu.
"Does it look like I can punch the damn thing from here?" He asked the heiress in turn. Sure he could hit the Grim with a fire dragon's roar seeing as he had yet to retighten his seal, but the girl didn't know that.
"Well then does anyone have any other ideas?" Weiss asked, slightly ticked at how she was mocked.
It was Pyrrha who spoke up, "Natsu, do you still carry around a bunch of Fire Dust crystals?" she asked the cherry blossom haired boy.
"Yeah, I used one back there to take out the Deathstalker, why?"
"If I can get you high enough do you think you could do the same with the Nevermore?"
"No," he told her turning his head so that no one could see his face, "I had to use a good chunk of my Aura for it to have the effect it did, I won't be able to do it again this soon." A complete and total lie, but for the sake of his secret he had to do it. If there was no other choice he would step in again, but unless such a time came he would sit this fight out, no matter how much it pained him to do so.
Spotting something ahead of them, Jaune spoke up from his spot at the back, "If we can make it to that old temple, we may be able to get on the same level as the Nevermore, from there Natsu could throw some of his crystals and you guys could shoot them, setting them off like grenades." He suggested.
The others looked at each other skeptically before Nora surprisingly spoke up, "It could work, if we can hit the crystals with live rounds it should set them off like fireballs." She may not know much about weapons or dust in general, but she did know how to blow things up.
"Grenades with no shrapnel won't be able to do much damage to something like that." Ren said, playing the devil's advocate.
"He's right," Weiss said, "it may be able to give it a few burns, but chain activated dust isn't as strong as directly activated. We'll need something with more power to take it down."
Natsu inwardly cursed, so much for sitting it out. "If you guys can distract for a few minutes I may be able to pull something off that could take it down." He told them making sure to sound uncertain.
"What do you mean by 'may be able to pull something off'?" Blake asked.
"If I do it right, I should be able to hit the Nevermore with a blast that makes what I did to that Deathstalker look like a Sunday barbeque." He told them.
"And if you don't do it right?" Ruby asked this time.
"I'll tell you afterwards."
"That doesn't sound to convincing." Yang pointed out.
"Yeah well, right now it's the only plan I've got." He told her, once again making sure his tone sounded unsure of himself.
"Let's do it," Pyrrha spoke up before Yang could retort. She had faith in her rival and friend, if he said he had a plan she would follow it.
By that point they were crossing the bridge that separated the large temple from the forest, the Nevermore still above them. Halfway across the chasm the bridge spanned, the Grim seemed to realize the opportunity that was presented to it. Swooping down, the bird shaped Grim prepared to smash the old bridge with its colossal wings, hoping to send the nine young huntsmen to their death.
Having just received a crystal from Natsu, Pyrrha saw the incoming beast and decided that now was as good a time as any. "Go, go, go!" she called out to the others as she turned to the approaching threat and cocked back her arm. With the Grim now less than twenty meters away, the Minstral champion threw the apple sized crystal into its face, and just before it connected with the monster's masked vintage shot it with her weapon's rifle form causing an explosion that nocked the Nevermore off its previous course and forced it to pull up, least it ram into the Cliffside.
As this was happening the rest of the group made it into the temple and began climbing the stairs, everyone but Jaune and Nora holding Dust crystals similar to the one Pyrrha had just used on the Nevermore. "How do you afford so many crystals?" Ren asked, Dust rounds and powder were fairly cheap, but full sized crystals like these would each cost as much as a full restock on the ammo he used for his Storm Flower.
"I do odd jobs and don't use rounds." Was Natsu's quick reply as he took out one more crystal for himself.
Reaching the top of the stairs everyone with a gun took aim at the still circling Grim and began peppering it with bullets. "How long do you need to set up?" Ruby asked her brother even as Yang was forced to use her crystal to force the Nevermore back, never taking her eyes off the sky.
"About fifteen seconds should do it." He answered her, bringing his own Dust crystal to his mouth. Back in Earthland, Natsu was able to eat lacrima of his own element to replenish his reserves, and while there were no lacrima here on Remnant he found that Dust worked very similar to the magic crystals.
With his seal still loosened, he really didn't need to do this, but for appearances sake he bit down on the hardened Dust and began grinding it into powder with his teeth.
Halfway through the crystal, Weiss saw what he was doing from the corner of her eye, "What are you doing you dunce!? You'll burn yourself from the inside out!" Hearing what the heiress said, both Yang and Ruby stopped in their assault of the flying Grim to look at their brother.
"If I do this right that won't be the case." He told her calmly even as he made a show of taking a deep breath, as if taking the powdered Dust into his lungs when in truth he had already swallowed it during the white haired girl's screaming.
Holding his breath, once more just for show, Natsu turned his head toward the once more approaching Grim. Fire Dragon's Roar. Releasing the energy he had gathered in his lungs, Natsu unleashed a burning vortex just shy of six feet wide at the Nevermore, hitting it dead center in its chest. Upon contact, the vortex pushed the Grim away at breakneck speeds, even as the fire ate away at its chest, turning it to ash even as the bird was pushed higher and higher into the sky by the force of the attack. Just before breaking the cloud barrier the concentrated blast of fire burst through the body of the beast and continued onward into the sky.
Ending his assault Natsu made a show of bending over to regain his breath, even as he retightened his seal. Meanwhile the Grim, now missing a large part of its torso fell into the abyss under the temple, dissolving as it did.
Continuing to fake his panting, Natsu decided to make a comment, "Guess he couldn't take the heat." He joked. The others just stared at the red eyed boy, stunned.
Well here is the second half of initiation, hope it wasn't to bad. The others got to see a bit of what Natsu can do and everyone gets out of the Forest safe and sound.
Don't expect another chapter anytime soon, my grandmother is coming in this afternoon and well she's batshit.
Pole on my profile on how I should deal with Lemons, you have until the next chapter is posted to vote.
Read and Review,
Wingd Knight out.