Both a short update and one that is very late. Explanation at the bottom.
Blake watched in horrified denial as the monster who wore her friend's face stalked towards her. "W-who are you?" Blake stuttered.
"How rude, to think that you would forget the face of your friend so fast. It's only been ten minutes!" The creature exclaimed with mock hurt in its voice, a voice that sounded so much like her friend's but not.
"I don't know who or what you are but you are not my friend." Blake told it, trying her best not to sound scared. She wasn't fooling anyone.
The horned demon gave a predatory smile at the cat Faunus' frightened tone, "What a perfect choice of words there little kitten. What, am I." The monster's grin widened, "I am the one you know as Natsu, but not the Natsu you know." It's grin looked positively terrifying at this point, "I am the darkest part of his soul, the Curse bestowed upon him by his own Flesh and Blood. I am the spawn of hate, rage, sorrow, and death. I am the Demon that the Dragon keeps at bay. I, am E.N.D." The monster exclaimed with obvious joy, like it had waited centuries to proclaim its existence.
"Now then kitten," E.N.D. continued, "how about you join me for a bit of fun?" it questioned Blake, "After all" it told her, "what could be more fun than crushing some self-righteous bugs?" the Etherious asked her, gesturing to the cowering forms of Dove, Russel, and Thrush. Cardin was unresponsive, but Blake was able to see the rise and fall of his chest so at least he was still alive.
I have to stall him until Ms. Goodwitch and the others get here, Blake thought to herself. If she could keep the demon from hurting- or Monty Oum forbid- killing team CRDL until the others were able to make it to the clearing the nine of them should be able to subdue the monster.
"Natsu," she began, only to be cut off.
"E.N.D." The creature interrupted her, "My name is E.N.D.. The one you know as Natsu is not me, nor am I him. He is Anger and Passion. I am Rage and Hatred. He is the son of a dragon king; I am the brother of a demon emperor. You would be wise not to mistake the two of us again." it warned her. It really didn't like people assuming that just because he and the Dragon Slayer shared a body they were the same person, other than their element they had almost nothing in common. Well that and the whole 'kill Zeref at all cost' thing, but he was already dead so that was moot.
"If-if you're not Natsu… what are you? A split personality?" The cat girl questioned.
E.N.D. smirked at the raven haired girl's question, "No, I'm much more than just the result of a fractured psyche." it told her.
Blake waited for the demon to continue, but it just stared at her with crazed, hungry eyes and the same insufferable smirk it kept using, taunting her, silently telling her that it saw her as a mere plaything, if that.
However, before Blake could continue to question the demon, the sound of snapping twigs and crunching leaves broke through the air, accompanied by the calls of her team along with team JNPR and Professor Goodwitch.
The demon frowned, obviously upset at the interruption, "It seems we are out of time little kitten." It told Blake, "If you want to know more you will have to ask Salamander. Until next time." And just like that the horns on top of Natsu's head turned to dust (Capital D means energy Dust, lower case d means dust dust), his hair lightened back to its bright salmon hue and fell flat, the black lines on his arms faded away while the red of his closed eyes brightened from the dried blood color they had taken on and returned to their brighter crimson color.
As soon as the transformation was complete, the now restored Natsu's eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward landing in Blake's arms, he was conscious but in some form of shock.
What the hell, Blake thought to herself, what the hell was that thing? What happened to you, Natsu?
"Blake! Natsu!" Blake heard Yang call.
"Over here sis!" the boy in her arms called back, bringing himself back to his feet.
As the others made their way into the clearing Natsu gave Blake a quick glance, silently conveying that he would tell her about what she had seen later.
She would hold him to that.
Entering the clearing behind her students, Glynda Goodwitch quickly looked around the area to see just how much damage had been caused during… whatever the hell happened that caused four teenage males to scream like prepubescent little girls.
Spotting three members of team CRDL huddled together on the far side of the clearing, looking at one of her most troublesome students with crippling terror and their leader's prone but breathing form in the middle of the field she didn't know whether to be glad that they were still alive, or to share in their fear thinking about what the fire user had to have done to get such a reaction out the three and to cause the state of the ginger haired teen currently lying face first on the ground.
Curiosity winning over fear, the blond woman turned to face the fire user, "Mr. Xiao Long-"
"Salamander."
"-what happened here?" She asked him, ignoring the interruption.
"I'm guessing someone already told you that they're the reason that Ruby is like that?" He asked in turn, nodding toward his little sister currently sleeping in his twin's arms.
Casting a glance over at the girl herself, Glynda turned right back to… Salamander and nodded her head.
"Well," The secret wizard continued, "As you can guess I was… upset about that. So I tracked them down and politely told them that what they did was wrong and convinced them to never do anything like it again." He explained.
"*Cough*Bullshit*Cough Cough*"
"Shut up Yang, that's what happened."
Sighing Glynda silently agreed with her fellow blonde's analysis, that was bullshit. "Oh? And what about Mr. Winchester's state of consciousness?" She questioned.
Looking over his shoulder at the racist teen, the Salamander shrugged his shoulders uncaringly, "Don't know, maybe after seeing the errors of his ways he had an identity crisis and blacked out from the shock?"
"*Cough*BULLSHIT*Cough Cough*"
"Knock it off Yang, it could happen."
Again, Glynda sighed, "Yes, well while that could have happened I don't suppose you could tell me what else may have happened?" She asked him.
"Well, hypothetically, I could have threatened the jackass, who then possibly could have said something that may have been racist and demeaning that made the situation worse, I then may have, if I had been so inclined, punched him really hard and set him on fire… possibly."
By this point the greened eyed professor was starting to develop a migraine. Translation: That's exactly what happened… I wonder if I can convince Port to give me some of his brandy when we get back, I have a feeling I'm going to need it. "I see. Well then Misters Lark, Bronzewing, and Thrush, please carry your leader back to the school and drop him off in the medical wing, and do be careful, with how loud he was there is a good chance that there are several creatures of Grimm heading this way."
The three males, more than willing to take any chance they could to get as far away from the one that defeated their leader in such a brutal fashion quickly collected Cardin's messy but suspiciously unmarred form and hightailed it out of the clearing as fast as they could in the direction of the school, casting fearful looks over their shoulders every step of the way.
"Ms. Xiao Long, you may as well bring your sister in as well. As for the rest of you, just go back to the assignment. Not you Salamander, you and I need to go speak to the Headmaster about what happened here and about how two of my students have ended up needing to go to the infirmary during what should have been an easy field test."
The teen in question turned to face the woman, and nodded his consent, "You're right, after all I am a witness to an attempted murder." He told her, bluntly telling his professor exactly what is was Cardin had done no matter what he or anyone else may later say.
"Yes, that you are."
First off, the reason for the lateness of this chapter. My computer- that is just short of a year old at this point- unexpectedly died on me out of nowhere on the seventh of this month and it took all this time for it to be checked by the computer repair store- who claimed it was beyond saving- and later for a family friend who is going to school to study nuclear power to drop by to visit and offer to fix it himself. It took him ten minutes. F*ck computer repair shops.
Now to address the shortness of this chapter. I had the first half written before the crash but by the time I could work on it again I had forgotten where I was going with it- which by the way is also the reason E.N.D.'s character changed partway through.
Next chapter will include Natsu's talk with Ozpin and Goodwitch about what he did to Cardin and why and may get as far as Natsu's bullshit explanation to Blake about what exactly E.N.D. is.
On another note: THERE IS A FUCKING THIRD DRAGNEEL NOW?! What the Fuck?! First the protagonist is one, then one of the two big bads is one, and now the trump card of the Empire is one as well. What is it with this family and producing insanely strong wizards that are titans above all others in their insanely strong magical armies? What's next, is Acnologia going to be revealed as being their Uncle or something? I mean COME ON!... Actually is this new guy a third brother or is he Zeref's kid or what? I NEED ANSWERS!
Now for some other stuff:
1: Another poll for the fan constructed story/ publicity stunt I'm doing is up, please check it out, the first chapter of it will be up soon.
2: These past few weeks that I couldn't work on my stories lead my ADD addled mind to wonder and I came up with like ten different story ideas that I want to do, so while there may soon be several opening chapters of new stories coming out some time soon don't expect updates that are anywhere near frequent. My priorities for stories stand as such 1)Reborn Dragon 2)Fan construct 3) Dragon of the Hearth and 4) everything else I may later post.
And finally, for those who want to know, here is the current Harem plan for this story please note it could be subject to change.
Pyrrha, Blake, Velvet, and Coco. If you want any other girls to be added there are two things you can do: 1) Give her name and the reason why you think she will be a good addition (just giving a name will not help your case whatsoever) and 2) Wait and hope I decide to add them.
That's all, and please be sure to-
READ AND REVIEW!
Wingd Knight out.
PS: Again only the first part of this chapter was Betad because I wanted to get this out as soon as possible and my beta (who is awesome by the way) is inconsistent with how long it takes for him to get back to me after I send him a chapter to look over... so yeah I pulled a bit of a dick move and just posted this without his input.
I really need to work on that.