PLEASE READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END!

Chapter 6

With Livi and Natsu…

"Yeah, however he says he likes to live with humans." Replied Livi to a shocked Natsu.

Natsu sniffed the air, "Yeah, I guess it does smell a lot like a dragon here." However, as he was absorbing the different scents in their air, he caught something else. He made his way over to Livi as he sensed something similar from her, "Wait, so does that mean…" he circled around her, causing her to blush, sniffing the air and noticing a similar aroma, "That you're also a dragon?!"

Livi scratched the side of her head nervously, "Uh, yeah… I just can't transform into one yet. According to dad it's because mom was human, so I have to wait until I'm older." Livi held up her hand as it got covered in a mix of red and black scales and claws formed at the end of her fingers, "However I can do this. Guess it comes with being half dragon."

Natsu grabbed her hands and yelled in excitement, "That's amazing though! So one day you'll be able to turn into a giant dragon and fly around like my dad, Igneel!" He held his arms straight out to his sides as he walked around in a soaring motion imitating a dragon's flight.

Livi, as Natsu got excited over her being a dragon, had thought about Natsu's earlier statement back in the alley and what he said now, prompting her to ask, "Did you say Igneel, as in THE Igneel?! You know, the Fire Dragon King?!"

Natsu grinned and puffed his chest out in a proud manner, "Yeah! He's my dad. He taught me fire dragon slayer magic." Natsu held up his hand and engulfed it in fire to proudly show it off as he did a few tricks.

"That's impossible! You really expect me to believe that your dad is Igneel? He was declared dead ages ago!" Replied Livi in an annoyed and accusatory tone. Her reaction was warranted though, because as far as she knew the fire dragon king and died in battle.

"Yeah, because it's true. How else would I have learned my magic?" Asked Natsu nonchalantly.

"Oh?" Livi smirked. "You know, it wouldn't be that unbelievable, however you don't have the scent of a dragon." She glared at him, "in fact you have the scent of dragon's blood all over you." She glared accusingly at the fire dragon slayer, "I get that you're a dragon slayer, but apparently, they have managed to figure out how to make artificial dragon slayers. I wouldn't be surprised if you are here to try and kill me."

A dreaded expression crossed Natsu's face as he thought of the implications from his being a dragon slayer, tears brimming at the edges of his eyes, "Wait, I w-would never. I love dragons! I just had to k-kill… Genrok because I had to!" He pleaded with Livi, "I would never do that!"

Livi's cheeks bulged out before she broke out in laughter at Natsu, "Oh, you should have seen your face! It was so hilarious!" As she grabbed her stomach and hunched over, pointing a finger at Natsu as she continued to laugh.

Natsu stopped crying as he asked in sad confusion, "W-what do you mean?"

"Of course you wouldn't be here to kill me! I just thought it would be funny. The scent of a fire dragon is all over you. I just want to meet him one day after you leave here if you're telling the truth." Replied Livi as she continued to laugh.

Natsu stood up, as a smile edged its way back onto his face, still a bit confused as he scratched the back of his head, "Uh, sure." However, he slammed his foot on the ground a bit in frustration, "But that wasn't funny! You seriously had me worried you were angry at me or something!"

The young dragon walked over and put her hands on Natsu's shoulders to try and comfort Natsu, "Oh come on now, it was just a bit of old fun. Don't worry about it. How about I make it up to you by showing you around the weapons shop!"

Natsu smiled as he wiped the last tears from his face, his classic smile returning, "Ok!"

With Thale…

Thale watched as the batch of dragon scales melted down into a liquid inside of the crucible, turning into a reddish brown bubbling liquid. He walked over to a tower of cabinets and started pulling out different metals and ingots, carefully weighing the ratios between all of them on a scale to measure a proper solution as he heated up a second crucible. He was creating drakium, one of the strongest materials ever discovered. An alloy of multiple different species scales and feathers that were required to turn the dragon scales into a forgeable material. He places the different ingredients in the second crucible as they melted down into a bubbling pool of liquid metal.

Thale sighed as he watched the two solutions, "So tedious." He looked at the metal door, "May as well see what he wants me to make." Thale walked over to the door and pulled it open like it weighed as much as a feather despite its actual heaviness.

He walked out the door to see Natsu putting on what appeared to be two gauntlets, one for each hand. They had three larger plates going up the forearms that truned into smaller segmented plates as it got closer town to the back of the hand, turning into smaller plates the segments went down the fingers. The plates were a dark reflective gray color with a golden trim equipped with golden rivets holding the gauntlets together. The gauntlet was equipped with lacrimas on the three larger plates making up the forearm connected with magic circuts that met up on one larger lacrima on the back of the hand. The hand had large golden spike on the knuckles giving them a rather menacing and ganergous look.

Thale walked over to the two kids and asked, "And what are you two up to?"

Livi helped Natsu slot the guantlets onto his hands as they were oversized, so his dexterity was severely limited in them, "I'm just showing Natsu around the shop!" She turned back to Natsu as she tightened the leather strap around his forarms to hold the metal gloves on, "Use your magic on it. The armor will shrink to fit the size of your body."

Natsu did as she said, and the piece of armor shrunk to fit his smaller hands. He held out his arm and balled his hand into a fist as he did some air punches, "Fits me quite well, doesn't it?"

Thale saw this and his eyes went wide, "Wait, don't do that-!" But it was too late. The lacrimas in the gauntlets amplified Natsu's magic power and shot out a massive blast of fire through the roof of the building burning the straw hatching that covered it over. Thale face palmed as he mumbled, "Kids can be such a pain…" Thale yanked the armor from the fire dragon slayer's hands "Are you an idiot?"

Natsu scratched the back of his head as he looked down nervously as to not make eye contact with Thale, "W-well Livi was showing me the stuff here and well…"

Thale sighed as he turned to look at Livi, "Livi, didn't I tell you to be responsible with the weapons here? They're very dangerous."

Livi replied sheepishly as she mimicked Natsu's nervous movements, "Well I just wanted to show him the incredible work that you make…"

"You should ask me in the future." Thale let out an aggravated sigh, "You've grown up here and even knew what this did…" Thale shook his head as he put a hand to his face as he slumped over and sat down on a wooden stump, "Just… be more careful next time." Thale at heart just thought to himself, I really should invest in a roof that isn't flammable. He looked up from his slumped over depressed position, "Do you like these gauntlets?" Asked Thale as he looked at Natsu.

"Uh-Yes! Very much!" Replied Natsu excitedly.

"How about I make you as set of your own?" Asked Thale.

Natu's eyes brightened as he looked back up at Thale, "R-really? But I kinda messed up your place…"

"Yeah, however it may be more defense oriented as Genrok's scales are more study than powerful like a fire dragon, so it's a better use of the materials." Thale took out a long thin piece of cloth with a bunch of black lines going across it, "Here, Livi. Get the measurements for the gauntlet while I finish getting the material ready."

Livi replied nervously, "Y-yes! I'll take care of it."

Thale stood up and turned back towards the forge, "Good. I'll need a bit of time to get everything ready." He turned back to Livi, "Try not to blow up the shop while I'm away." Livi scratched the back of her head sheepishly. Thale walked back through the heavy metal door to the liquid metal in the red-hot crucibles.

He covered his hand in scales and picked up the crucible with Genrok's scales in it and poured it into the other crucible. He extended his index finger and mixed the two molten solutions together to create a homogeneous alloy before pouring it into a mold to make a solid block of metal. After the block began to cool Thale tipped the mold over into a bucket of water to quench it so he could begin the forging process.

Hey guys, sorry for the massive delay between chapters. I have had a lot of work with college and other obligations because I am pursuing a dual degree so I haven't had much time to write and have had a bit of writers block. I know this chapter is not that exciting but I hope to be able to have something exciting happen in the next chapter.

I really wish I could release these chapters faster but I have lost a lot of passion I had for this story, but I know there are people that enjoy my writings so I'm trying to keep going. I wish I could have someone take this over more than anything but I don't know if there are pople that would share my vission, especially because someone plagarized me in the past and did some really stupid POV stuff that just was generally bad writings practices, so I don't know the quality of others' writing. However, if you wanna colab on this project just DM me and we could maybe set something up over Discord to work together on this and communicate or I could just pass this off to you entirly and trust your guys' instinct. I just know that I won't be able to keep this up forever, but it would be better for someone else to keep writing it than for the story to just die off. I am really sad to be writing this but it's what has to be done sometimes.

Sincerely, The Muncher.