Chapter 23: Nirvana

Lucy stared at the television as the credits began to roll, Asuka still asleep in her arms. She hadn't even paid attention to the last half of the movie she was too worried about Natsu. He said he was going to be right back, but that had been an hour ago, she had even texted him not too long after he left and he had yet to reply. She looked out the window and saw the rain was still coming down hard. Maybe he slipped on ice and couldn't get up? Or maybe the gas station was getting robbed and he had to go all Salamander on the robber? Or maybe...Lucy's face darkened. Maybe he lied about going to the gas station and went back to that diner to meet up with Jenny, and they were now at her house...getting all cozy and stuff. The thought made her sick, as she stared out the window into the rainy night she had a thought.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt to go to the diner and….investegate…" She didn't think Natsu was the type of guy to hook up or get cozy with someone who he barely knew, but she was just so concerned about him and couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. She glanced back at Asuka, and picked her up. She brought her into her own bedroom and put her on her bed tucking her in.

"I'll be right back Asuka…." She whispered quietly trying not to wake her, she picked Happy up and placed him on the bed to cuddle with the young girl before she got dressed in super warm clothes, including a hat and gloves, she grabbed her umbrella and walked out of the apartment. She stepped out into the rainy night and opened up the umbrella stepping under it. She heard the rain coming down hard on top of it. She made her way down the street to the small diner they had been at earlier that morning, and soon enough she saw it, the bright neon lights that were off in the morning had been turned on revealing the name of the restaurant, Blue Pegasus. She walked through the doors and was welcomed by the familiar smell of bacon, and syrup. She set down her umbrella and waltzed up to the counter, noticing there was nobody there she rang the small silver bell. A short man wearing an entirely white suit, with long red hair walked from the back area, followed by three waiters.

"Hello there lovely, and how exactly may we help one with such an intoxicating parfume?" He asked, Lucy cringed, slightly creeped out.

"My, my she really is beautiful!"

"Yeah! Hey can you be my big sis?!"

"Are you just gonna stand there or will you order something? If not you can leave….not that I care if you stay." The three waiters added, Lucy blinked a few times processing what just happened.

"U-umm, I'm just...looking for someone….I was wondering if you had seen him?"

"Aww...a him you say? How disappointing, I was hoping a beautiful lady such as yourself would be more...available." He then winked at her.

"Nonetheless, it doesn't matter to me, I'm fine sharing." Lucy's face turned a shade of pink, not because she was flattered by his words, but because she was creeped out.

"Silence Hibiki, you of all people should know that nothing can get in the way of the perfume of love….Come young maiden, tell me who is this man you are searching for." The redhead motioned Lucy to come around the corner to which she did somewhat awkwardly.

"Ummm, thank you Mr…."

"Ichiya! And these three here are Hibiki, Eve, and Ren!" The three men behind him smirked in a failed attempt of looking sexy. Lucy felt the urge to run out of this place and never come back the longer she stayed.

"...A...pleasure to ummm meet you, I'm….Ashley?" Lucy lied not really wanting to give them her real name so she went with the first name that came to mind.

"Ah, I see! A beautiful name for a delightful young maiden!"

"Man I would love to get a piece of that Ash, Ash!" Hibiki flirted in a sultry voice/

"Hey Ashley, I can be your little brother, if you'd like!"

"Big deal, there are a million girls with that name…..Who cares if you are the most beautiful one…" Lucy was thoroughly creeped out.

"Now then since introductions are out of the way, who is this man you are searching for, he must be important to you, your perfume eradicates love!" Lucy did have to blush at this, Ichiya saw right through her just based on her….perfume? Whatever that meant...She flushed out her cell phone and pulled up one of Natsu's senior pictures, that she thought was really cute. Ichiya grabbed her phone and stared at the picture, the three boys looked over his shoulder.

"Hey, I think that was that guy from this morning! The one Jenny had her eye on!" Hibiki stated, Lucy grew irritated at the mention of Jenny.

"Yeah, not that you mention it, he does look like that guy, but he left and we haven't seen him since. Poor Jenny was devastated that he left the paper with her phone number here." Eve added, Lucy smirked internally so maybe she didn't have any reason to worry that Natsu would be trying to get with her.

"She was indeed upset about being rejected, but what do I care about it's not like I think she's cute when she looks sad!" Ichiya focused hard on the screen.

"I have seen him recently...When I was picking up eggs from the grocery store an hour ago he was in line, yes I'm sure of it! I'd recognize that hair anywhere…"

"Wait, really?! That's perfect thank you! I'm just worried he slipped and hurt himself or something, he is on crutches right now…" Lucy explained hastily and turned to exit the building to check the store.

"It was my pleasure Miss Ashley! May your perfumes reunite!"

"Wow Master Ichiya you are the best!" Hibiki, Eve, and Ren all spoke in unison whilst Ichiya struck a pose. Lucy grabbed her umbrella and ran out of the building, so on the plus side Natsu was definitely not with Jenny, but on the down side he was still nowhere to be found. Lucy glanced back at the diner, a shiver running up her spine.

"We are never eating there again…" She muttered to herself totally freaked out. She continued running down the sidewalk to the store Natsu went to earlier, but she tripped on something and fell down into a puddle of mud.

"AW EWWWW" She sat up and wiped the mud off her face. Looking around she tried to find what she tripped on, and then her heart plummeted. A crutch that was bent in half, and stuck up had tripped her. She looked around and found another one as well as a grocery bag that contained three drinks, and a bag of potato chips.

"Natsu!" She called out into the alleyway next to where she was, there was no mistake, this was his stuff, but where was he? What happened? She grabbed her phone and turned on her flashlight, she looked around to see if she could find anything. She noticed a trail of red droplets that stained the sidewalk.

"Is this blood?" She asked herself, she looked harder, it was more brown then it was red indicating that it had dried up, but sure enough it was blood. She followed the trail of blood and found it led into the street. The blood trail stopped next to tire skid marks, her breathing hitched.

"Natsu's in trouble…." She dialed a number onto her phone and waited for the other person to pick up.

"Hey Lu! What's up? How's babysitting?" The voice of her best friend came through the speaker.

"Levy! Thank God you picked up! I need you to come to the apartment as soon as you possibly can, something happened…" Lucy hurriedly explained as she looked around for any sign that could tell her where Natsu was.

"Lu, slow down, what happened?"

"...I think Natsu's been taken…."

Levy had driven as fast as she could to Lucy and Natsu's apartment after she had hung up with the blonde who was on the verge of a panic attack. Levy had also contacted Gray, Erza, and Juvia, all of which had also shown up really quickly. They were all currently outside near the alleyway where Lucy had found the crutches. She was currently digging through the alley along with Gray in hopes of finding Natsu passed out there. Erza, Juvia and Levy were looking around at the trail of blood as well as the tire marks.

"This is definitely blood, unfortunately without a sample from Natsu himself...I can't tell for sure if it's his." Levy stated as she watched Juvia use her powers to pull the dried blood up from the sidewalk and put it in an empty plastic water bottle.

"At the very least we can test to see what type of blood it is, as long as we know what Natsu's is that is." Levy added taking the bottle of blood from Juvia and placing it in her bag along with the testing kit she had from a school project.

"A Positive…" Lucy answered without turning away from the pile of trash bags she was moving around in hopes of finding Natsu under one of them. Gray gave her a bizarre look as if to ask how she knew that of all things, but figured that now wasn't the time to ask. Levy blinked a few times at her blonde friend before shrugging.

"That's a start….It appears as these tracks are fresh, and based by their length they sped out of here in a hurry…" Erza noted as she knelt on the ground looking at the skid marks from a car speeding off.

"And based on the distance between the two marks the vehicle was most definitely a truck of some sort. Or something wide." Juvia added in walking over to join Erza. Erza began looking around for any cameras that may have been able to record something, but didn't see anything. The sound of glass shattering caused them all to turn their heads to where Lucy had thrown a glass bottle at the brick wall inside the alley. They watched as her fists were tightly clenched, and her body began to shake.

"Why would someone do this to him….." She asked quietly, Gray walked over and placed a hand on the blonde's shoulder.

"Hey, we'll find him, don't worry...Besides, this is Natsu we are talking about, he'll probably burn the people responsible to a crisp when he comes." Lucy nodded at him.

"I know...it's just….He hasn't done anything wrong….And…..People are still so mean to him….This entire city, the new Mayor, everyone treats him like garbage, and all he does...all he does is help people…" Lucy fell to her knees feeling defeated, how would they be able to find him? He could be anywhere in the city, or the world for that matter. Levy frowned, watching her friend so dejected, she pulled out her phone and found Jet's contact and texted him asking for a favor. His reply was almost instant, asking what she needed, she explained the situation and asked if there was any way he could run around the city and see if he could find a truck that had tires that would match up the marks. She took a picture of the marks on the ground with her feet standing next to it as a way to show the width of them. It was a long shot, but maybe they would get lucky.

"There's no point standing out here and risk getting a cold...We should head inside, and let Levy test the blood sample…" Erza took charge as usual, the others instantly agreed, minus Lucy, Gray helped her to her feet and they all walked back inside of Lucy and Natsu's apartment. Asuka was still fast asleep inside of Lucy's room which made things slightly easier, Levy set up the kit, and used the blood drops that were in the bottle. While she was doing this Lucy was sitting on the floor clutching Natsu's scarf close to her chest finding comfort in the fact that it smelled like him. Juvia, Gray, and Erza sat around silently brainstorming ideas for what their next course of action should be.

"First of all...who is strong enough to be able to overpower Natsu?...Even if it was raining and his flames weren't working, Natsu is quite skilled at normal hand to hand combat, so it would've taken more than one person at the very least…." Erza spoke up breaking the silence.

"Or maybe it was one person, but they had powers...Which opens a whole new can of worms…" Gray retorted, his girlfriend frowning at this.

"Juvia hopes Natsu is okay…"

"He is…Like Erza said Natsu is strong…." Levy tried to cheer everyone up, but Lucy frowned.

"But he is still handicapped...For all we know it was just one person with no powers...Natsu is at a huge disadvantage with his leg…." She stated bluntly, The others sighed having forgotten about his broken leg.

"So in other words….We have nothing….To go off of besides those tire marks….Levy has Jet found anything?" Levy shook her head in reply needless to say the room was filled with a combined feeling of helplessness. Levy dropped her kit in a huff everyone looked at her as she crumbled up the little paper and threw it away.

"It was A positive…." She explained quietly when she noticed everyone's eyes on her. Lucy stared at the scarf in her hands and she could picture it draped around his neck.

"...Natsu…."

A knock on the door interrupted their silence. They all looked around at each other wondering who it could be. Erza moved over to the door and opened it to reveal a small girl with long dark blue hair that was tied up in pigtails. She was standing next to a taller teenage girl with pink hair tied up in a ponytail.

"Wendy?" Erza asked confused as to why the little girl was here at the moment much less with whoever this strange girl was.

"Hey Erza, this girl showed up at our apartment asking to see you...I figured you knew who she was." Wendy explained motioning to the pink haired girl, unlike Natsu's hair that was darker and 'salmon' as he would always correct people. This girl's was hot pink, albeit a little bit darker.

"I have never met her before….With all due respect who are you?" Erza asked looking at the teenager behind Wendy, the others inside the apartment also tried to get a look at her, but none of them recognized her.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you Erza, Jellal talks about you quite often….My name is Meredy and I along with Ultear, and Jellal are members of the real Crime Sorciére…"

"Ultear? Like my cousin?" Gray leaned forward at the mention of Ultear's name.

"The….real...Crime Sorciére?" Juvia asked, confused.

"I'm not following…" Lucy stated bluntly.

"Yeah me neither Lu…" Levy agreed, not quite understanding what was happening.

"I can explain all your questions, may I please come in?" Meredy replied, Erza nodded and stepped aside allowing Meredy and Wendy to walk inside. Even though she was still unsure about this girl she wanted answers.

"Have a seat wherever, Natsu and I haven't bothered with furniture yet…" Lucy spoke in a small voice at the thought of Natsu. Meredy and Wendy gave their thanks and sat on the floor, Levy joined everyone and soon they were all in a large circle on the ground. After a second Meredy cleared her throat and began her explanations.

"As I mentioned before my name is Meredy, I along with Jellal Fernandes, and Ultear Milkovich make up a team known as Crime Sorciére." Erza and Gray looked at each other at the mention of Jellal and Ultear respectively, neither of them aware of this fact.

"We use our gifts to help people all across the world...If we hear word of person with powers causing trouble to innocents we show up to put an end to it, at the end of the day our mission is to help us live as equals, but it seems like things here are worse than anywhere else…"

"What do you mean by worse?" Levy asked, tilting her head.

"I take it you are all aware of the new Mayor? What's his name again?...Oh! Mard Geer, and his new taskforce for hunting down people with powers?" Lucy glared at Meredy at that question, it had been several hours since she had watched the broadcast and it still made her uneasy.

"Yes, the one that also goes by the name Crime Sorciére if I'm not mistaken." Juvia answered, Meredy nodded her head.

"They are members of the Balam Alliance….I don't know about Mard Geer himself, but the members of the fake Crime Sorciére are in reality members of the group known as The Oración Seis…" The atmosphere in the room grew tense, even Lucy whose heart wasn't really there at the moment leaned forward waiting for Meredy to continue.

"A few days ago we had heard something bizarre was happening here-"

"You mean when Laxus went rogue and turned the city to stone, right?" Gray interrupted her.

"Exactly, so we decided to check it out, unfortunately we were never able to make it here, because on our way we ran into The Oración Seis….We were gravely outnumbered. They had hundreds of people with them, not to mention the Seis themselves...Jellal told me to run away and come here to find you….Him and Ultear stayed to fight….They knew that we had a reputation of putting bad people with powers back in their place so it was the perfect cover they needed…..The one you called Salamander had become an enemy in the eyes of the public so something needed to be done…..They took Jellal, and Ultear, I've come to ask for help in finding them!" By the time Meredy had finished her voice was shaking.

"Please help, Jellal has told me about the strength of Fairy Tail, maybe together we can get them out…"

"We'll do it!" The circle whipped their heads to look at Lucy who stared at Meredy with a look of pure determination.

"You will?"

"Yes! Chances are those assholes who took Jellal, and Ultear…Also have Natsu! And nothing will stop me from getting him back!" Lucy stood up to her feet still clutching Natsu's scarf in her fist so tightly her knuckles had turned white. The gang gave Lucy a small smile. It was no secret how much Natsu meant to her, but it was nice to see her be the one getting fired up for once.

"I'm glad to hear it! Thank you so much Fairy Tail!" Meredy smiled brightly.

"We will go to the guild in the morning to talk it over with the rest of our guildmates, is there any lead you can give us towards the whereabouts of the Seis?" Erza questioned the pink haired girl.

"There was one thing I was able to hear as I was running away...They said they were taking them to a place known as Nirvana, I have no idea where or what that is though…."

"Nirvana huh? Knowing these guys it will probably be some kind of Supermax prison…" Levy racked her brain trying to think of where it could be.

"Well I say we talk about this more in the morning, you're probably exhausted." Meredy yawned and nodded in reply to Wendy's question. Lucy grabbed a bunch of spare blankets and pillows, she let Meredy sleep on Natsu's mattress, while the others camped out on the floor. Asuka was still fast asleep in her room so Lucy joined the others on the floor.

"When I get you back Natsu, the first thing we are doing is furniture shopping…." Lucy muttered to herself looking out the window. Her expression softened at the thought of him.

"...I hope you are okay, wherever you are…" She cuddled his scarf close to her as she closed her eyes in an attempt to get some sleep.

As she drifted off into a restless sleep, Natsu was slowly waking up in a pitch black room only a bare light bulb that hung above him was on. He was sitting on a really uncomfortable chair. He attempted to move as the memories of earlier came back to him, but he couldn't budge, his arms, legs, torso, head, and neck were all tightly strapped against the chair.

"...Where am I?..." He asked nobody in particular, still struggling to break free, his head still fuzzy thanks to the poison still running through him, he glanced down at his arm and the dark purple had spread going all the way to his elbow and hand now. His midsection also hurt like Hell.

"Ah...you're awake, good….I was beginning to think Cobra and Racer took it a little too far…" A low gravelly voice whispered from somewhere inside the dark room Natsu was in. His eyes danced around to try and find the source of the voice.

"Who's there?!" Natsu growled, he got no vocal response, instead a second later his eyes were blinded with all the lights in the room being flicked on suddenly. He shut his eyes trying to adjust to the sudden brightness. He squinted them open as a large figure with dark skin, white hair and tiny red eyes walked forward. He wore a dress shirt that had several of the top buttons left undone and a large white lab coat over it.

"Forgive my rudeness...allow me to introduce myself….My name is Brain…." The man stood directly in front of Natsu allowing him to see just how clearly bigger the strange man was than himself. Natsu struggled to break free of the straps again, but the man laid a heavy hand on his shoulder preventing him from struggling.

"...Woah, easy there Natsu...The more you struggle the faster Cobra's poison works. You gotta stay calm….If you do that then you will be able to survive the week…." He smiled a wicked grin that made Natsu's skin crawl.

"...Where am I? Why am I here?!" Natsu questioned the man, even though he wasn't trying to break the straps anymore he was still tense.

"You should know more than anyone why it is you are here…..Salamander…" The way he said Natsu's alias sent a shiver down his spine.

"As to where you are, I'm afraid that's classified….All you need to know is we call it Nirvana…And it is your new home, and future grave…." Brain smiled devilishly at Natsu, who once again tried to break free. He clenched his fist in an attempt to make his flames ignite, but nothing happened.

"What did you do to me?...Why can't I use my powers!" Natsu snapped, Brain smirked again and moved his hand to point at something strapped around Natsu's neck.

"That is thanks to this special collar, I have engineered it so that the ethernano in your bloodstream becomes…..well unresponsive….Albeit temporarily, and once that collar comes off it will return to normal…" He explained, but then smirked.

"But you don't need to worry about that, there is no way that collar will come off….And if by some miracle it does I will have already drained your body of all ethernano…" He explained calmly with his hands crossed behind his back. Natsu raised his eyebrow.

"What are you talking about?...What is ethernano?" He asked in confusion. Brain smiled again.

"I'm so glad you asked...Ethernano my dear boy is a mutation inside of your DNA that resides in your bloodstream...It is what allows you to be well….you. Ethernano is responsible for your gifts…"

"So that's what this is about? You just want to take away my powers?" Natsu connected the dots squirming a little in his metal chair.

"Oh no no no! Maybe that's the plan for the other prisoners, but you Natsu….you are special….Mard Geer gave me special orders for you…."

"So he is who put you up to this…..What were his special orders?"

"You see he was very specific...he wanted to deliver you to the citizens of his city completely broken, devoid of all hope, he wanted you to suffer….So that's exactly what is going to happen…" He walked away and grabbed something from the shelf next to him.

"The poison running in your veins will kill you in about a week if I had to guess….Which means I have six days with you Natsu….I am going to enjoy breaking you….I see you have broken your Fibula bone in your left leg...Did you know that there are still three more bones in your leg…." He pointed to places on Natsu's leg.

"There's the femur…." He moved his finger down to Natsu's knee.

"The Patella…." Again he slid his finger down.

"And then finally the Tibia….:"

"...Thanks for the biology lesson, what's the point of this?..." Natsu squirmed.

"I'm simply informing you of the bones that I'll be breaking…." Natsu's eyes widened in horror as Brain held up a large silver hammer. He struggled to break free, but it was no use. He shut his eyes tight as Brain brought it down. The screams that came from Natsu echoed throughout the entire room, and bounced off the walls of the hallway in the large building he was captive in.

Chapter 24: Prisoner 8