Muzzle flashes lit up the night sky as tracers shot across half-demolished streets or into the skies at passing aircraft. The screams and cries of the dying and grieving were cut short as jets screamed overhead and explosions ripped through the city.

"Fuck." Natsu murmured. He peaked out the lounge room window of a creaking two-storey house that had its entire top floor reduced to rubble. Around him were the last two members of the squad of infantrymen that he had been assigned to work with, both of whom were close to death's door.

"Commander… how bad does it look out there?" A man turned his head to the quiet voice. A bloody bandage was wrapped around his head, covering his eyes which had taken shrapnel from an artillery barrage.

"Looks like the average Monday in Newark." Natsu replied jokingly to the man, a smirk hidden behind his badly cracked and non-functioning visor. His armour had protected him from the brunt of the explosion and he had already healed what had made it past it. Though, his helmet was borderline useless now and his armour was littered with pockmarks. He'd need a new set if he managed to get out of this mess. "Seems like the Grannies have pulled in some of the other divisions from the surrounding areas to finally push us out of the city. There are fuck tonnes of them and more on the way. We'll need to find some means of exfil soon, otherwise our position will be overrun in no time."

"We aren't going to be of much use to you, Sir." The second man grunted. He was missing most of his left arm and had a tourniquet around it, just below the shoulder. His left leg was also mangled in the blast and was only functional thanks to the timber beam collected from the ruins of a building that acted as a makeshift splint. "Leave us behind."

Natsu glanced at the two wounded men and he let out a quiet sigh. Both were beyond saving and would only slow him down. He placed his rifle on his back and removed his helmet as he approached the two men who he had placed on the floor with their backs to the kitchen bench. He placed it on the marble top of the bench and he took a knee in front of them. "Are you two sure about this? You won't last much longer without my help."

The soldier lifted his gaze to look into the man's crimson eyes that emitted an ominous glow, but he didn't waver. "Joe can't see what he's shooting at and I can't hold my rifle anymore, Sir. Hell, my leg feels like it's about to fall off and I've been wavering in and out of consciousness from the pain ever since we got in here."

"You can still help us, Commander." Joe turned his head to the sound of the super soldier's voice. He fumbled with his uniform and pulled his dog-tags free of his neck. A jingle filled the man's ears as his comrade pulled his own tags free. "Take our tags back with you… and set us free of this pain."

Natsu took a deep breath and slowly let it out of his nose as he looked at the bloodied carpet under his boots. But he lifted his gaze and quietly took the tags and he placed them in a pouch on his left hip where the rest of the squad members tags sat. He drew his pistol as he rose to his feet. It had a round already chambered so he just took the safety off and cocked the hammer as the two soldiers struggled to stand before him.

Both men shakily stood before their superior, holding their right hand by their head as they gave him a salute. Both men said in unison, "It's been an honour fighting alongside you, Sir."

"Likewise," Natsu replied softly as he took aim at the blind man's head, aiming for the bandage covering his eyes. "You will be remembered. I'll see to it."

A gunshot cracked through the cold, still air and the man dropped lifelessly to the floor. His bandage split apart, revealing a nasty gash across the front of his face where shrapnel took his eyes and a new hole that was left behind from the 10mm bullet punching through the man's head.

The second soldier didn't flinch, not a twitch, when the back of his comrade's skull was blown out beside him. He watched on as the pistol was levelled with his own head and he stared back down the sights at the glowing red eyes on the other side of the weapon.

Natsu pulled the trigger and watched the man's head snap back from the force of the heavy bullet colliding with his skull. He checked how many bullets he had left in his pistol's magazine then he put the weapon away as he took a step forward, past the dead bodies, to grab his helmet. The already grimy piece of armour was covered in a fresh spattering of blood and brain matter which he brushed off the largest chunks before putting the helmet back on.

"Com… nel… pos… eva… so… eas…"

A crackle of static filled his ears, his communications system had been damaged in the blast. He wasn't sure if his transponder was working either because his left vambrace had taken considerable damage and his tactical computer was destroyed. The only way for him to reveal his position to allied forces was to lift the self-imposed cap on his aura and use it as a beacon. But this would also reveal it to hostiles too, and he'd have a nigh-unending fight on his hands. His armour could take a beating but it wouldn't hold out in the face of that kind of onslaught.

With his options limited, Natsu collected up the ammo from the two dead soldiers and left the house. He could sense familiar people in the distance but they were on the southern side of the city and he was in the north-west. If what he could make out from the static-filled transmission was correct, he had to make his way through the city and to the south-eastern side for evacuation but there was little chance he would make it in time. And with the Pergrande Kingdom's forces swarming the city, his odds of surviving were looking slimmer by the minute.

'I hope Luce is alright…'

The clouds opened up and a chilling rain fell across the battlefield. It quelled the fires blazing away in the ruins of the city and turned the torn-up streets and housing blocks into fields of mud.

Some of the water slipped into his helmet through the cracks in his visor and it dripped against his face. The helmet was in such bad condition that he considered completely discarding it, it was of no use anymore after all since his radio was busted, his HUD was offline, the physical damage meant that it was no longer sealed against chemical attacks…

"Fuck it." The man grunted. He pulled the helmet free of his head and tossed it aside. With all of his senses now able to work at full capacity, he stood a better chance at surviving.

His short spikey hair quickly became heavy with water and it flopped down around his head. He ran his hand through it to brush it out of his eyes and he shot a quick glare at the dark clouds before breaking out into a run.

The chopping of rotors grew louder as a small flight of attack helicopters drew closer. Natsu glanced up at the sky and quickly identified them as hostile, and he made a break for the nearest building to avoid detection.

He sighed as he strode through the long-abandoned home and entered the kitchen. He had been fighting in the city both with various infantry squads and alone for over three days straight with minimal breaks at this point for meals, lavatory, and sleep, and his fatigue was starting to weigh him down.

He needed to take a short break and find something to eat to regain his energy. There were ration bars in his pocket dimension but he didn't want to risk using the spell to summon them since he was almost certain that the Pergrande Kingdom would have deployed sensors to round up any stragglers, and he didn't want to become a prisoner of war. If they found out he was a super soldier, then at best he would become a test subject as they try and reverse engineer his enhancements, and at worst it would be a death sentence.

"I need to find a working radio…" Natsu murmured to himself as he rummaged through the pantry for canned food. He took out a few canned meals and rummaged through the draws for a can opener and cutlery then he sat down on the floor behind the kitchen bench so he couldn't be seen through the windows. It wasn't the first time he had eaten cold canned food and it likely wasn't going to be the last. "If I find a crash site or some abandoned vehicles and can get them operational enough to have a functioning radio, I should be able to contact Command…"

While he had a little bit of downtime, the soldier took out his magazines for his M7BR and his M12 pistol and started to restack them from the loose cartridges he kept in one of his pouches. A lot of it was ammunition he had scavenged from dead allies so he wouldn't run out and have to resort to his magic and curses which would put a massive target on his back.

Natsu let out a weary yawn and he ran his gloved hand down his face then up through his hair. He needed to sleep but didn't have the luxury of rest, not until he reached the extraction site or got out of the city. He blinked slowly and felt himself start to drift away, so he slapped his hands to his cheeks and shook his head violently to ward off the fatigue a little longer.

The soldier forced himself to his feet and rummaged through the pantry once more, searching for some ground coffee. Thankfully, he found a jar of instant coffee that was almost empty but contained enough to allow him to make a lukewarm cup of coffee. He couldn't risk heating it up beyond his own natural body heat levels thanks to the possible sensors sniffing out the use of magic, it was yet another compromise that he was used to for the sake of safety.

It wasn't much of a break but it was enough for him to recover enough energy to survive for a bit longer. Natsu checked over his gear and took his rifle off his back before heading out onto the sodden street. He leapt up onto the rooftop and looked out across the suburbs to get his bearings.

There was a consistent crackle of gunfire coming from the southeast quadrant of the city with tracers racing through the sky and pelting the encroaching aircraft and ground forces. Three corvettes with JNN markings were hovering low in the distance, providing fire support for the evacuation operation below with their cannons and point defence turrets.

Natsu's eyes drifted across the rooftop and he noticed the wreckage of an aircraft buried in the side of a two-storey house about two kilometres east of him. It was hard to tell what exactly it was but the tail section looked to be from an RAH-33 Kestrel, a Fiorian Reconnaissance and Attack Helicopter.

'I fucking hope that has a working radio.' He took a few steps then leapt to the next roof, then to the building across the road, closing the distance with the crash site. As he drew closer to it, he could hear voices talking about the crash and a dozen footsteps hurrying to the crash site. They were accompanied by what sounded like a tracked vehicle.

He landed with a soft thud on the roof of the building opposite where the helicopter had crashed and he looked down over the edge at the squad of soldiers with an APC, they were wearing the uniforms of the Pergrande Kingdom's army.

"Michael, Simons, Blackhurst; head into the building and check for survivors." The squad leader ordered as he pointed to three of the soldiers, one of which had a red cross patch on their left arm. "The rest of you; form a defensive perimeter."

Cones of light cut through the darkness, sweeping through the street and the windows of the nearby houses. Each soldier had their head on a swivel, ready for an ambush.

All, save for one.

She stood at the apex of the formation, her rifle falling from her grip and clattering against the driveway as she gazed across the road, stock-still with terror.

The sound was barely audible over the pouring rain but the squad leader noticed his soldier's despair and he walked over. "Pick up your weapon, Lockwood."

"Sir, look…" Lockwood's voice shook as she slowly raised her hand, pointing to the rooftop opposite them. A lone figure stood tall, looking down at them with crimson eyes that glowed like portals to hell itself.

"My god…" The man muttered, his eyes growing wider the longer he stared into the shadow's eyes. His rifle rattled in his hands as he took aim at the figure, illuminating it with his weapon light. "Hostile – Twelve-o'clock – High!"

The soldiers immediately snapped to the front and raised their rifles to the ceiling of the building opposite them, adding more cones of light to the figure above them. They all recognised the man's armour, a Fiorian Shock Trooper.

A murmur washed through the squad, uttered with raw fear and hatred, "Devil…"

Even though the armour looked to have taken a beating, the man was no less a threat. And with pink spikey hair and red eyes with a hellish glow, it could only be the most infamous of those monsters; Fiore's Devil, Salamander. A monster, who alone is capable of slaughtering entire whole companies of troops with ease. Who can summon hellfire and calamity even when the battlefield is engulfed by a Magic Suppression Field. One wrong move, and they would all be dead before any of them could react. They should already be dead…

"Well?" Natsu called out coldly. "Are you going to try and shoot me, or will you let me get at that wreckage?"

"We're checking for survivors." The squad leader replied loudly. "They're to the taken as P.O.W.s where they will receive further medical attention."

Natsu lifted his gaze to the house for a moment then dropped it back down to the man. "They're already dead. If they didn't eject then they probably died in the air, long before crashing."

"Then why are you here?"

The Shock Trooper sighed. He leapt from the rooftop and landed ten metres away from the Pergrande soldiers. He took his left hand from his rifle and pointed to his head, drawing attention to his lack of a helmet. "I got shelled by your people. It compromised my helmet and knocked out my radio. I had hoped to find a working headset in the wreckage."

The squad leader slowly shifted his eyes to his right, looking at the APC that had its 30mm chain-gun lined up on the Shock Trooper but the crewmen seemed to be waiting for his call to shoot. He shifted his gaze to the pinkette then glanced over his left shoulder. "Smith, fetch the others."

"Sir." A man turned and ran into the building. A few moments later, the four soldiers returned and trained their rifles on the monster in front of them.

Natsu looked each of the soldiers in the eyes, watching carefully for any sign that they might pull the trigger on their rifles. He glanced at the APC to his left and stared down the optics for what probably felt like the longest second of the operator's life before returning his gaze to the squad leader. "You never saw me, understood?"

The squad leader brought his hand up to the toggle for his radio which sat on his chest and clicked in the button. "Echo 3-4 to Control; we've checked the crash site in sector C13, no survivors. They look to have been hit by Anti-Air and died before impact." He released the button and glanced at his soldiers. "Alright, load up. We're heading out."

Natsu kept his attention on the soldiers as he walked across the road and over the lawn. Two of them seemed hesitant to moved and he could sense an unease greater than that of the rest of their squad who followed their leader's order and started to head to the APC.

"Sir, we're just going to let him go? He's the enemy!"

"Are you that eager to fucking die?!" The man yelled as he rounded on his subordinates, staring them down and silently telling them to move their arses. "He's a Fiorian Shock Trooper. He could kill us all before we even blink. Consider yourself lucky that we get to live to see another day in this godforsaken war."

"I advise you to do as your leader ordered." Natsu warned the two men as he spared them a quick glance. "The very moment you pull those triggers, your lives – and those of your entire squad and the crewmen in that APC – will be forfeit. Leave. Now."

The two soldiers put a little more distance between each other and kept their rifles trained on the hostile soldier's exposed head.

"But Sir!"

"ENOUGH!" The leader bellowed. "You haven't seen what these monsters are capable of first hand. And this damn Devil, the carnage he leaves in his wake is unlike anything I had seen before or since. I don't want to hang around to find out he gets ordered to purge the entire city, So Get Your Fucking Arses In The Fucking Vehicle."

Having enough of their squadmates' disobedience, the other members hurried past the super soldier and forcefully lowered their rifle and pushed them towards the armoured vehicle.

"They seem fairly green." Natsu remarked as he turned his attention to the squad leader. He noticed the woman next to him still hadn't picked up their rifle so he lightly stomped on the rear edge of the buttstock which caused the weapon to fly up into the air where he caught it in one hand by the barrel and held it out to her. "This one too, she hasn't seen too much of this war."

"I've seen enough to recognise your armour." She murmured as she took the weapon and slung it over her shoulder. "I don't know if it was you or one of the other Shock Troopers, but I saw an entire company of tanks be annihilated by just one of you while under heavy fire and without the use of anti-tank weapons…"

"Eh, couldn't tell you which one of us had done that." Natsu shrugged disinterestedly. "Something like that is child's play for us." The man turned his back to the soldiers and entered the building. From what he could see when he stood on the rooftop, the helicopter had lodged itself into the back of the second floor.

His suspicions were proven correct when he entered a kid's bedroom and found the cockpit of the Kestrel riddled with large holes. He looked through the bloodied glass and let out an annoyed grunt; the pilot and gunner had been reduced to chunks of flesh, barely recognisable as human. The canopy shattered when he tried to open it but he reached in and pushed the remains of the pilot forward before rummaging through the survival pack contained within the ejection seat.

"Bingo." He murmured as he pulled a headset free from the seat and checked it over. Thankfully it was still operational. When he turned it on, it immediately pinged an encrypted signal to the JNN comm net. He switched it the subnet he was using and placed the headset on his head. "Hellhound 1 to Control."

"There you are, Hellhound 1, what the hell happened?" A concerned man's voice boomed through the earcups.

Natsu's eye twitched and he quickly turned the volume down before replying, "Major Ostwyn. I had an artillery strike land on my head. It took out the squad I was moving with and it knocked out most of my equipment."

"Ah, Hellhound 2 was in a panic when we couldn't reach you and were no longer receiving your transponder data. I'll send someone to tell her we've made contact. Where are you?"

"I'm on the western side of the city." Natsu walked to the tail section of the Kestrel and pushed it aside so he could see the evacuation operation. "I can see the Evac site in the distance. What's the progress like over there?"

"We still have some groups are still yet to be picked up but we're about to be overrun and may need to retreat. If you don't think you can make it within the next five minutes maximum then you should find an alternate means of leaving the city."

"How much time will it take to get everyone out of the city?"

"We're looking at twenty minutes at the current rate."

"I can draw their attention away from you." Natsu took a few steps back and took a running leap from the building, landing on the roof of the neighbouring building and taking off at a sprint along the rooftops. "I can guarantee you enough time to get everyone to safety."

Major Ostwyn hesitated for a moment as he took in the Commander's words. "… and what about you, Hellhound 1?"

"I can find my own way home."

"Understood, Sir. Give them hell."

Natsu released the cap on his aura, allowing it to spill from his body and he ramped up the output. The ground began to quake and the air began to heat up as a wave of oppressive power raced through the entire city and the raging gunfire faltered momentarily. His demonic power was already well above normal levels due to the battle raging in the city but when he announced his presence, the fear only grew and it fuelled him.

The flight of helicopters that had flown over him earlier that night immediately banked and rerouted to the source of the aura. Flashes of light bloomed from their weapons pylons as they fired off a barrage of rockets.

Natsu focused on the incoming threat and the rain slowed to a crawl. He brought his rifle up and took aim, calmly sending a single bullet into each warhead of the rockets and detonating them in front of the helicopters. His M7BR flashed and was replaced by his SPSR-14.5.

In mere moments after the helicopters had engaged the hostile, the cockpits of each the aircraft were pierced by a yellow bolt of light and an explosion ripped apart the airframes, sending them the flaming wrecks crashing to the city below.

Natsu landed on the road and accelerated as he switched back to his battle rifle. Rain smashed against his body and hammered his face; it was starting to annoy him so he ramped up his aura's heat even further which instantly turned the rain across the city into a thick fog which hung low in the air.

While the fog would obscure him from natural vision, his constant output of his aura gave away his position at all times and he could sense a blockade being formed ahead of him with a combination of infantry and armoured vehicles.

His instincts triggered his Reflect mutation as a burst of fire bloomed in the distance. A large depleted uranium dart soared through the air towards his chest. The fog parted and billowed out in a wavey toroidal cloud that slowly followed the kinetic penetrator.

Natsu simply sidestepped the large dart and channelled his magic into his muscles, further increasing their strength and causing him to emit embers from his body. With an almighty kick off the ground, he blasted forward. It only took a second to cover the distance and break through enemy lines.

He landed feet-first against the slopped frontal turret armour of the tank and wrapped his arms around the barrel. The remotely controlled machine gun on top of the tank swivelled to aim at him but it was melted and warped by a torrent of fire released from the man's mouth.

Natsu grunted as a dangerous grin spread across his lips and he pulled on the cannon barrel. Metal creaked and groaned before the barrel threads sheered and the super soldier ripped the tube from the breach. He twirled it in his hands and threw it like a javelin straight into the side of a nearby IFV before wrenching the tank's commander hatch open and dropping a grenade into the cabin.

Thumping footsteps raced towards the pinkette and it caused his attention to snap up to the incoming threat. It was an armoured infantryman wearing a bulky but powerful exoskeleton that contained inertial dampeners to improve the survivability of the pilot during rapid, high intensity manoeuvres. The soldier raised the heavy machine gun he was holding and unleashed a hail of bullets at the pinkette.

Natsu's body blurred as he leapt from the tank just as the grenade exploded within. He placed his rifle on his back and drew his combat knife and pistol, slashing through the necks and putting rounds through the heads of the infantry around him.

One after the other, soldiers fell to their knees with either their throats slit, heads cut clean off, or shot straight between the eyes.

Natsu leapt past an IFV and spun on the ball of his left foot. He drove his right boot against the side of the vehicle and sent it skidding along the road, crushing the soldiers who were unlucky enough to be in its path.

As he slaughtered the Pergrande Kingdom soldiers and decimated the combat vehicles, he kept the Armoured Infantryman in the corner of his vision at all times. The computer system and its predictive targeting software allowed the hostile soldier to keep track of the pinkette even while he moved at high speeds. It made for a difficult target but it wasn't impossible to kill. He just needed to target the weakspots.

Natsu upped his speed and appeared in front of the armoured infantryman. He stomped his boot down on the HMG, overpowering the suit and driving the gun muzzle-first into the road. He jammed the muzzle of his M12 in the gap in the armour between the arm and the chest and unloaded a few rounds into the soldier's ribs.

Natsu twisted on the barrel of the machine gun and drove his boot into the chest armour of the soldier, delivering an almighty kick that sent the bulky man flying as yellow webs spread out across the suit.

The soldier was sent careening into the side of a lightly armoured vehicle and he detonated upon impact. The explosion ripped both the suit and the armoured car apart and eviscerated the occupants.

"Quake." Natsu murmured, triggering the Calamity Curse. The ground began to shake violently and cracks began to form. The small cracks wrenched open to thirty-centimetre-wide gashes that emitted a dangerous maroon glow from within. A gel-like flaming liquid oozed from the earth like lava and spread across the battlefield, setting buildings, vehicles, and people alight.

Panicked screams and pained shouts filled the air as the soldiers scrambled for safer ground, leaving behind those unlucky enough to be touched by the hellish flames. Some begged for mercy as they were burned alive, hoping to be given sweet release.

Natsu shot the fleeing soldiers through the knees and left those already on fire to their deaths as he walked through the thick gel as if it didn't exist, he didn't even leave a trail behind him as his legs slipped through the rapidly rising liquid. The ones that managed to flee far enough away had thorny vines latch onto their ankles and slowly drag them into the liquid fire, kicking and screaming.

He didn't bother wasting ammunition or the sharpness of his knife on those that his flames had already begun to kill, he just let them scream and beg while the heated air burned their throat and lungs as he passed by.

"Hellhound 1, we've completed the evacuation and are pulling out of the city."

Natsu lifted his gaze to a corvette that had detached itself from the rest of the flotilla and was flying over to his position. "Are there any survivors that couldn't make it to the Evac site?"

"Negative, Sir. The second you lit the beacon; the Grannies were thrown into a frenzy and focused their might onto you. It gave us the opportunity to send out Sparrows to pick up the stragglers."

"I see." Natsu put his weapons away and ran a hand through his hair. A nearby tank exploded violently, the fuel and ammunition within having hit the cook-off threshold. "Are there any further orders from higher up?"

"Nope. Time to get out of dodge, Hellhound 1. I've dispatched a ship to your position, get aboard before your missus tears it apart."

"Heh, understood. I'll try and calm her down."

(0=0=0=0=0)

"Natsu?" Lucy quietly called out as she poked her head into the master bedroom. "Are you awake? It's almost nine and you've got your demonstration today."

When the usually light-sleeping man didn't reply, she slowly approached him and leaned down. But the moment she placed her hand on his chest to gently shake him awake, his arms flew towards her. His left hand wrapped around her wrist firmly and locked her in place while his right hand came to a stop right at her neck.

She could feel something sharp pressed lightly to her throat and she gulped as she looked down slowly to see his combat knife. "N-natsu, please wake up."

"Luce?" Natsu asked groggily. While his eyes were open, he was unfocused. He blinked slowly and the blonde's face slowly sharpened and he noticed the panic in her eyes. His gaze dropped to his right hand where he noticed his knife pressed against her neck. "Shit, sorry…" He murmured and the weapon vanished, thankfully he hadn't drawn blood. "Did I hurt you?"

"My wrist might be a little bruised." Lucy whimpered, wincing slightly as a twinge shot through her right arm. "Your grip is a little tight…"

Natsu loosened his grip slightly and lowered his right hand to her hip. He pulled her towards him and a small smile of relief spread across his face when she moved with him instead of trying to pull away. "Sorry, my mind was still asleep."

"It's ok." Lucy hooked her leg under the sheets and slid under it. She laid down on top of the man and fold her arms atop his chest and rested her chin on her hands. "I'll talk to Lelyanna if the bruising gets too bad. Did you want to talk about it?"

"There isn't much to talk about." Natsu replied, shrugging his shoulders softly as he wrapped his arms around the woman's waist. "Just a dream of my old life; I was fighting to allow our forces to pull out of a city." He leaned his head to the side and looked down the woman's body, noting that she was still in her sleepwear but instead of her cotton shorts, it was a short skirt. "Did you just get up?"

"I've been up for an hour now, just been lying in my bed with a book. Oh, by the way," Lucy smiled softly as she brushed a few strands of her hair behind her ear and brought her face closer to the pinkette, giving him a soft kiss. "Good morning."

The man's smile widened at the woman's loving gesture. "What were you reading?"

"A book I borrowed off of Erza." The blonde admitted softly. She shifted her arms and wrapped them around the man's neck. "You're so warm and cuddly~."

"A book from Erza?" Natsu raised an eyebrow and his lips tugged into a faint smirk. "So it was a smut novel?"

"Yes." Lucy giggled, answering without hesitation. "I read them when I get horny, it helps me soothe the itch."

"I bet your fingers help with that too." Natsu's faint smirk grew wider and he grinned playfully at the beautiful woman.

"Hehe, they do." Lucy slowly sat up on the man's lap. Since she wasn't wearing any form of underwear, her slick labia parted as she rested against the back of the man's hardened cock. "Mm~ that's so hot! It gives me tingles." She purred seductively as she slowly drew a line down the man's chest then ran her hands up her body to her breasts which she squeezed while she rocked her hips back and forth, sliding along the man's shaft while gasping and groaning delicately. "I think I understand how Natsumi feels now, to be almost uncontrollably horny that you'd want to pounce on the man you've got the hots for and ride him. And she really wants to ride you."

"Yeah, I think I noticed that already." Natsu chuckled softly. He reached for his watch which sat on the bedside table and took a look at the time. "A bit after nine… If I indulged your lust then we'll be here all day."

"I had a feeling you'd say something like that." Lucy laughed and she leaned forward and hovered over the man on her hands and knees. "It would be a lie if I said that wasn't an appealing thought, but I can wait for a little bit. Though I am going to steal a few kisses and touches here and there to satisfy my cravings until then, maybe put this big boy in my mouth. I might even pull you into a storeroom in the guild hall for some fun~."

"Keep that up and I might just end up pinning you to the bed and railing you." Natsu growled softly. He quickly flipped their positions and knelt between her legs with the head of his cock nudging up against her womanhood. "I know you're a virgin, but considering you're fairly active – in more ways than one – you've probably already stretched yourself out enough that I don't have to worry too much about hurting you."

"Would you like to test that?" Lucy asked in a seductive whisper as she spread her legs wide and slid her hands down her thighs to her labia which she gently spread apart, inviting the man inside. "You can even finish inside me if you like. I'm dying to feel that too."

"I want to, Lucy." Natsu whispered softly but he pulled back slightly. "I want to make love to you so badly that it hurts… But I can't right now, I've got to get ready for the demonstration."

"It's a little disappointing, but you're right. My lust is one thing, but you've been holding in your longing for me for so long…" Lucy gave the man a soft smile and she caressed his cheek with her fingertips. "Go have a shower. I'd join you, but I don't trust myself around you right now. I'll go get Lelyanna to take a look at my wrist."

Natsu's eyes flicked to the darkening bruise that encircled her wrist and a pit formed in his stomach. He held her arm gently and a regretful grimace flicked across his face. "Please be a little more careful when waking me in future. I'd prefer it if you got into bed and snuggled up to my side for a little bit so I can pick up on your scent, that would calm me down and you shouldn't be attacked on instinct."

"I'll do that next time." Lucy gave the man a reassuring smile and she pulled the man into a gentle hug and she gave him a reassuring kiss. "Don't worry, it's not permanent. You didn't even break my skin with the knife, so I think part of you recognised me and stopped you before you did too much damage."

"Still, I could've easily taken your head clean off, Lucy."

"I would prefer that you'd take my clothes off instead." After a few moments, Lucy let the man go and she extracted herself from the bed. She took the man's hand and pulled him to the bathroom.

"I thought you said you weren't going to join me?" Natsu asked curiously.

"I need to pee. The dam almost burst when you frightened me but I managed to keep it inside. It's probably for the best that we don't have time to play with each other, otherwise I might have lost control of my bladder…" The blonde admitted with a tinge of bashfulness. She released the man with a gentle smile "So I'm going to use your bathroom before I go and see Lelyanna. Hm… maybe I'll stick around and enjoy the show."

"Well, since you're sticking around, could I borrow Cancer once I'm at least half-dressed so I can have him deal with this mess?" Natsu asked as he pointed up at the mess of long salmon-pink spikes that was his hair then he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "I'll also need to either shave completely or just trim it back down to a neat and presentable level but I can do that myself."

Lucy giggled softly and she pressed herself up against the man's chest and ran her hands through his facial hair. "I wouldn't mind seeing you clean shaven. But yes, we can give you a trim."


25th January – 10:48 AM (later that day)

A clean shaven Natsu stood by a line of tables out the back of the guild hall with his hair back to his trademark spikes. He had a few large boxes next to him which contained hundreds of individual boxes of ammunition from which he was filling magazines and speed loaders for the weapons in front of him.

"Do you have everything you need?" Makarov asked curiously. He was stood atop the tables and watching the man work with curiosity.

"I'm pretty sure I do… This isn't really something I've done before, so I don't have much of a clue to what I need and what I don't besides weapons and ammo, and the steel targets we've got set up." Natsu replied a little hesitantly as he slid the last bullet into the magazine he was holding and placed it in line with the rest of the loaded magazines. "Maybe some hospitality stuff."

"I'll speak with Mira and have her arrange some food and drink and work on serving the potential clients." Makarov hopped down from the table and started to head for the hall's back door when it opened and four women stepped out; one with a white religious garb, a blonde with a rifle slung over her shoulder and pistol at her hip, a pinkette with a fanged grin, and regal greenette.

"Moring ladies," Makarov smiled at the gaggle of girls and he gave a respectful nod to the Queen. "It's good to see you, Queen Hisui. Natsu is at the table with his weapons."

"Good morning, Master Makarov." Hisui returned the man's gesture with a warm smile. As the old man entered the guild, the monarch approached the tall man who turned to face her with a flicker of recognition in his eyes.

Natsu's right hand twitched as he fought off the habitual urge to salute Hisui and he politely bowed his head. "Your Majesty, thank you for coming but your arrival was a little earlier than I expected… I'm still in the process of setting up the weapons and making sure the sights are accurate."

"Yes, I had planned it that way. I wanted to watch you work, to see if your experience is authentic, and I wished to catch up with my friends in this guild." Hisui explained with a pleasant smile. She came to a stop in front of the man and gazed up at him with a faint curiosity. "I understand that you go by Báleygr but may I ask for your real name."

"Natsu…" The man hesitated for a moment and exhaled through his nose. "My name is Natsu Dragneel."

"Like Natsumi?" Hisui asked as her curiosity was piqued. She turned to the woman next to her and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, he and I share a name but we aren't related. But we coincidentally specialise in fire magic." Natsumi replied with a grin.

"I see." Hisui murmured and she turned back to the man. "May I see the weapons. I noticed Lucy has some with her."

"Yes, though Lucy's rifle is a little bit customised for her needs." Natsu nodded. He reached out to the blonde and she handed him the rifle. "Normally, the stocks are fixed stocks. However, this one has a folding mechanism to allow her to make the overall length shorter for transport." He pinched the catch for the mechanism and swung the stock around to the side of the rifle where it clicked into place. "As you can see, with the stock folded the profile of the gun is much more compact which allows her to store it inside her backpack. Bear in mind, this isn't a standard feature, though it is something I can work into the manufacturing process if it is decided that it's required."

"That's quite alright." Hisui smiled. "The information that was provided to us mentioned that these 'Self-Loading Rifles' can perform the firing cycle all by themselves?"

Natsu turned the weapon in his hands to show the selector switch to the woman. "This switch allows you to switch the firing mechanism inside the gun from Safe to Single or Semi-automatic, then Burst, and finally Full-Automatic. Safe blocks the hammer from hitting the firing pin; Semi means that for every trigger pull, the gun will fire the chambered cartridge, eject the spent cartridge and then load the next cartridge but will not fire until the trigger is reset upon which the user can fire another round; Burst allows you to fire a short series of three rounds before the stop is applied; and Full-Auto completely removes this stop, so as long as you have that trigger depressed and cartridges in the magazines, the rifle will keep firing."

"May I see the weapons in action? You did say that you still needed to ensure that they are set up properly, after all."

"I don't mind if you watch, but if you want to get your hands on any of the weapons and try them for yourself then I'll need to give you a quick safety rundown." Natsu explained as he turned his back to the women and removed his coat and he hung it over the back of a nearby chair.

Like normal, he had his combat knife and pistol strapped to his thighs, which drew the attention of Hisui who noticed that the pistol looked a little different to the one he manufactures. "Natsu, could I see your handgun?"

Natsu frowned down at the table but he nodded slowly and drew his M12 pistol, flipping it over in his right hand and holding it out grip-first to the greenette. "Alright, but don't take it off safe, and do not point it at anyone, including yourself."

"Hmm," Hisui carefully turned the weapon over and over in her hands and she walked over to the table and compared it to the P10s. "I am curious; why didn't you make more of these instead of having a different design?"

"There's a difference between weapons from my personal armoury, like that pistol, and those I make for the commercial market." Natsu glanced at the woman. He walked over to her and gently took the weapon from her grip and removed the magazine. He placed one of both his Hybrid-Case 10mm cartridge and his 10mm BA cartridge onto Hisui's hand for her to compare. "Notice the weight difference? My personal weapons are designed to fire a more exotic ammo which use an alloy of lead which is denser than that of standard ammunition, it also contains a different powder too. The two-part case style allows it to handle the increase in pressure. Overall, it's harder to make and fairly costly but they hit harder for the same velocities. From a general materials standpoint, my personal firearms and ammunition are harder to make compared to these ones, so it's currently more cost efficient to create these as a middle ground between what is currently available and what I personally use."

"I assume you have more of these personal weapons?" Hisui asked. She handed the cartridges back to the man. "Could I see them, even if you show me after the demonstration?"

"Yeah, I can. But I'm not tooled up to work on similar weapons and it will take me time to get set up."

"I understand." Hisui nodded gently. "Now, back to these weapons."

"Natsu, do you mind if I practice while you work?" Lucy asked curiously as she stepped up beside the man while he picked up an SLR Mk1. "I know you haven't quizzed me on the handbooks yet but…"

"Well, consider this a practical test." Natsu smiled at the woman. He shouldered his rifle and took aim at one of the three 50 metre targets. His eyes glanced right at Hisui and he turned his head a little to look at her. "Hisui, could you move either left or right of that place, I don't want to eject hot brass into your face."

"Oh, yes, sorry." Hisui replied quickly and she took two steps to the right. "Is this good?"

"Yeah." Natsu looked back down his iron sights and leaned into the rifle. He took the weapon off safe and put it on Semi. As he began to take slow, measured shots at the head of the steel target, a thought crossed his mind, 'I should probably build a short range attached to the factory to run a few hundred rounds through each gun before sending them out…'

"You seem like a natural at this." Hisui observed the man closely while he fired and made some minor adjustments to the weapon's mechanisms, her eyes narrowed slightly. "Far more than your average gunslinger. Did you used to serve in some nation's military?"

"Yes, but that nation fell apart, so I moved to here and took residence in Magnolia. I've only recently joined Fairy Tail, I was an independent contractor prior to that."

"He and I formed a team that was independent from the guilds." Lelyanna chimed in. "He was a pretty broken man when he stumbled onto my doorstep but I helped him back to his feet and in return, he ensures my safety when we go on jobs or I'm travelling to places outside of Magnolia to provide my services to someone."

"Do you trust him with your life, Archbishop?" Hisui turned to the veiled woman and saw her lips tug into a smile.

"Of course. And he has proven to be reliable at protecting me too. I had some trouble with a nobleman who stalked me and tried to make me his woman - forcefully, I might add – which Natsu witnessed happen first hand. He, Natsu, ended up training me so I could defend myself and has even provided me with weapons from his personal armoury-" Lelyanna lifted her arms to reveal the handgun and magazines that were concealed under her half-cloak. "-and he taught me how to use them. There was an incident on Christmas where this nobleman had hired a large number of thugs in an attempt to kidnap me… I managed to stall them and take a few down myself, but it turned into a bloodbath when Natsu turned up. As you realised, Natsu was a soldier before coming here and is very adept at killing hostile combatants."

"I see." Hisui murmured, though she sounded completely unconcerned. In truth, she had already had a report on the matter since it concerned two high profile citizens of her nation, and if they were all killed due to this man's obligation to protect the woman he was indebted to, then she saw no reason to press the matter. And so, she turned to Natsu and got back down to the business at hand. "So, you are using this business as a means to provide an alternate income? You are clearly a competent gunman, so I doubt you would stop going on jobs."

"That's correct." Natsu glanced at the monarch. He fired the last round in his magazine and removed it from the gun, handing it over to Henrietta so she could refill it. The pinkette turned his head to the Queen as he loaded a new magazine into the weapon and cycled the bolt. "Since I was doing it slowly, did you notice how the rifle didn't fire more than one shot even when I had the trigger depressed?"

"Yes." The greenette nodded quickly. "Could you tell me how the weapon initiates the cycle?"

"You would've seen me fiddling with the adjustment above the barrel. That's for the gas-block that regulates the gas vented from the port in the barrel. This actuates a piston that sits between the block and the bolt and it gives the bolt a sharp tap which unlocks it and allows it to cycle back and do its thing." Natsu switched the weapon to burst-fire and began to test the weapon once more. Thankfully, even though he didn't have a test range in his estate, the weapon seemed to function flawlessly aside from the minor adjustments that every gun needed in their initial set-up. He was impressed though no completely surprised as his machines were designed to achieve unparalleled precision. "As you can see, now it fires three bullets for every trigger pull before I need to let off and reset the mechanism."

"I'm already impressed. And it seems pretty accurate too." Hisui noted as she looked at the steel target which he had consistently been hitting right in the head. "Though, I assume part of that is due to your familiarity with these weapons."

"I'm familiar with many types of weapon platforms, Your Majesty. I'd more put it down to my ability to control the recoil through both my posture and build, and the weapon's internal mechanisms soaking up some of the recoil to operate itself." Natsu switched out the empty magazine for another fresh one and then dumped the entire load into the chest region of the target. "And that, was full-auto."

"My gods…" Hisui murmured, her eyes wide. "I can't believe a firearm could fire that fast…"

"That's not the fastest firing weapon he has, either." Natsumi laughed loudly at the stupefied monarch. "I'm sure you've heard of that guy over in Alakitasia who made that machine gun recently, the Maxima? Yeah, it's got nothing on Natsu's machine gun."

"My machine pistol fires quicker too." Lelyanna raised her hand with a bright smile. "Again, both are part of Natsu's private armoury so I need permission to show that one to you. But it uses the same ammunition as our pistols that Natsu, Henrietta, and myself use."

Hisui rushed to the man and politely demanded, "I wish to see these weapons. I'd sooner purchase weapons from inside our nation than resort to importing them from a potential rival or needing to license their production inside Fiore."

Natsu cleared the rifle and placed it down onto the table then checked his watch; it was 11:13 AM, so there was still time before the demonstration at midday and Hisui was the only one to arrive so far. "Alright, I can show you what I personally use. And if you're interested, we can talk about weapons of a different pattern that are made specifically for the Fiorian Military and Royal Guards that use the same ammunition as these rifles. So far, they are only designs, I don't have any mock-ups or prototypes."

Hisui looked up at the man with a little bit of uncertainty, yet there was a sparkle in her eyes that alluded to her desire for increasing her nation's strength. "You will have to show me after the demonstration. Now please, the machine gun."

"Right." Natsu's MG80 flashed into his hands and he rested it onto the table. He removed the quick-detach suppressor and pocketed the can then swapped out the armour-penetrating ammunition with regular FMJs so he wouldn't put holes in the steel targets. "Now, I've recently made a modification to this weapon – an adjustable fire-rate by means of mass-manipulating runes triggered by a switch on the trigger pack – so it won't be exactly as it normally would be. Normally I'd have to switch out the bolt and spring to reduce the fire-rate."

"Wait, that's possible?" Hisui blinked slowly. She looked around and even the women around her seemed surprised.

"It is, but you need specialised equipment to do it." Natsu replied. Once he had the weapon set up on the ground with his coat as a protective mat, he waved over the monarch with a small grin. "Would you like to do the honours?"

"Are you sure?" The greenette hesitantly got to her knees and then laid down on the man's coat. She looked down the length of the gun and felt slightly intimidated by the almost alien materials. "What kind of place did you come from? This gun is completely different from anything I've seen before, even the Maxima looks completely different to this and it is also a machine gun…"

"Natsu…" Lucy murmured softly from behind the kneeling man. She leaned down and brought her lips close to his right ear. "We should probably just tell her the truth. She's a dear friend of mine and I'm certain that she won't do wrong by you."

Natsu opened his mouth to say something but he slowly closed it and gradually let out a puff of air through his nose. He carefully thought over the woman's suggestion before addressing the monarch rather bluntly. "Hisui. Have you been informed of the inverted version of this world that is known as Edolas?"

"Yes." Hisui pushed herself up onto her knees and shimmied around to face the man. She was curious about the man's change in attitude so she paid careful attention to his mannerisms. "Lucy has told me about it before."

"Well, not only is there inverted versions of this world, but there are also alternate versions of the world too. I come one of these worlds. Like Natsumi, I am a Dragon Slayer raised by Igneel who had died and was resurrected by my brother, Zeref, as the Etherious known as END – Etherious Natsu Dragneel." He explained slowly, keeping his cold eyes on the woman's jade green eyes. "As you have no doubt realised from my knowledge and weaponry, my world was more advanced than yours. It was devastated by war, all population wiped out bar me, so I was brought here by the same goddess who bestowed a gift on a young girl who was incapable of magic and gave her powerful healing magic so that she could help others in her name."

Hisui slowly turned her head to look at the priestess behind her and watched in stunned silence as she lowered her hood, revealing her face and her eyes that held a divine radiance borne of the gift provided to her by the goddess worshipped by most of the people in Fiore. "Goddess Ceres…"

"Yes," Lelyanna nodded. She clasped her hands in front of her chest and offered the woman a kind smile. "When I said he stumbled onto my doorstep, a broken man. It was ninety-percent truthful. I was told by Lady Ceres to wait in the hall of my cathedral and to look after a man named Natsu Dragneel, to help him get acquainted with our world. He appeared before me in a flash of light, sitting on a pew while I was playing the organ."

"Why are you telling me this…?" Hisui turned her gaze back to the man but lowered it when he held out a picture. It was of a group of five people, one of which was the man kneeling before her, three who looked almost exactly like the women she knew, and there was another man who reminded her of another woman from Fairy Tail. They were all dressed in unusual armour and held helmets under their left arms, they were standing in front of an unusual city that seemed to have seen better days but one key feature stood out to her. She could see her home to the left of the picture, Mercurius. "This… this is Crocus, isn't it?"

"It was after the first attempt to take the capital by the Grannies," Natsu hesitated and spared the woman an apologetic grin, "Sorry, I mean the Pergrande Kingdom's forces."

"As for why we are telling you," Lucy crouched in front of the greenette and she flashed her a warm smile. "It's because I trust you, Hisui. Our families go back a long way and you and I have known each other for a long time too, since before you had even become the Queen of Fiore."

"So, the military you served in was…"

"Yours, Hisui." Natsu replied softly. "I am Commander Natsu Dragneel, a special forces soldier and part of the Shock Trooper Regiment consisting of chemically enhanced soldiers. I lead… led Hellhound squad, with Lucy Dragneel, Erza Scarlet, Gray Fullbuster, and Wendy Marvell under my command."

"Dragneel?" Hisui's ears perked up and she glanced at the blonde beside the man.

"He was married to my counterpart…" Lucy murmured sadly. "It's a little bit of a touchy topic."

"I won't press." Hisui gently pushed the photo back towards the man and took a deep breath to reset herself back to her formal persona. "Thank you for telling me this. I assume this means I can trust in the quality of your weapons and designs?"

"They are tried and tested designs that have seen combat many years before I could even hold a gun. You can be sure that they are tried and true weapon systems. I also use automated machinery from my world to create the munitions and weapons, which means there is an incredibly high standard of quality and consistency across the board."

"Hmm," Hisui nodded her head slowly. Her eyes drifted down to the machine gun beside her and she took a closer look at it. Now that she knew of the man's origins, his 'personal armoury' that contained advanced weapons and munitions now made sense. "I'll need to consider this more, but if you can provide me with schematics for weapons to arm my forces, then we can sort out factory locations and setting up munition plants at a later date. I just need something concrete to bring to my Ministry of Defence. Prototypes would be perfect. And if we go through with it, I'd like you to also design a training plan and potentially personally train up the first batch of personnel so they can instruct those following in their footsteps."

"I can show you the designs later, and can make working examples for you but I will need some time to do it."

"You'll have your time. If you can establish yourself as one of the nation's leading weapons and munitions manufacture first, then I'll have less trouble convincing my government to give you a chance. And if they are already thinking about contacting you about ordering some weapons for trials, I can mention that I've already been in talks with you about weapons specifically made for our military forces and put forth the idea of contacting you about those specific weapons." Hisui positioned herself behind the MG80 and clumsily pressed the buttstock into her shoulder. "Now, about this gun… am I doing this right?"

"Almost, you want to preload the bipod by leaning into it and bring your left hand to the buttstock like so." Natsu gently grasped the woman's hand and moved it to the correct spot. He then lightly pressed his hand to the back of her shoulder to give her some more support. "You've got two switches by your thumb. Flick the lower one to the 'Fire' position and keep the top one set where it is, that's the fire-rate control; it's on the original rate of 1200 rounds per minute. Which I believe would be double that of the Maxima machine gun. The switch lowers it down to 800 rounds a minute, for two reasons; it sacrifices suppression ability for controllability and it also makes the belts last longer. A siege belt, like what is loaded right now, holds 250 rounds but it was also fielded with 50-round assault belts and 150-round standard belts."

Hisui looked at the switches and took the weapon off safe. Having watched the man shoot earlier, she made sure to keep her finger out of the trigger well as she looked up at him. "I think I'm ready."

"Alright, time to ride the lightning. Hold down the trigger until you run out of ammo. Oh, and it's going to he loud so your ears are going to be ringing after this. We'll get Lelyanna to fix that. Normally I'd be making people wear hearing and eye protection but that isn't a common thing here so I've had to ignore basic safety measures aside from angling the targets downwards to send spall to the ground."

"Okay. Firing." Hisui announced as she put her finger against the trigger and pulled it all the way back. The gun roared to life and pushed hard into her shoulder. It was the second most terrifying thing she had heard in her life, right behind the roar of a dragon. Her eyes shot wide but the gun ran dry in just over twelve seconds of sustained fire and her shoulder throbbed from the beating it had received. "Oh my god!"

"How's the shoulder?" Natsu laughed loudly as he waved over the priestess and motioned for her to tend to the monarch. "A bit sore?"

"Yeah, a little bit." Hisui rolled over onto her back and held a hand over her heart as her chest heaved heavily. "That was loud, I can't imagine what it would be like to be on the other side of that thing."

"Fucking scary, trust me." The pinkette gave the woman a small grin and he lightly smacked her left shoulder. "You did pretty good; most of the rounds it the target but some of them hit the pile of railroad ties that I'm using as a berm to catch stray bullets."

Thanks to Lelyanna's aid, the ringing in Hisui's ears and the ache in her shoulder rapidly faded away. She gave the woman a quick word of thanks and allowed her to attend to the other women while she sat up and faced the man. "Yes, I believe you and I have somethings to discuss later today. Could we meet at your house, Lucy had told me she and Natsumi had moved in with you before we came outside."

"That's fine with me." Natsu nodded lightly. "That allows me to show you around the factory I have set up in the estate, so you know what to expect with the military models."

Suddenly, the back door to the guild opened and Hisui's royal guard burst out with their lever-action and bolt-action rifles trained at where the dangerous sounding roaring came from. Each man stood tall with perfect form, dressed in dark green military winter coats with black pants and boots.

"Your Magesty, is everything alrigh…t?" The leader asked quickly but he faltered towards the end as he looked down at the monarch and saw her sat behind the stock of a strange weapon with a pile of brass to the right of the weapon. "Was that you who made that racket?"

"Yes." Hisui gracefully rose to her feet and dusted off her coat, even though it wasn't dirty since she was lying on Natsu's coat. "I was testing one of Báleygr's personal firearms to see if it would be worth contracting him to manufacture it for my forces."

Natsu glanced at the pile of brass and quickly pulled it into his requip dimension to both clean up and also ensure that they couldn't be reverse engineered. He rose up next to the Queen and looked at her guards, eyeing their gear closely. "Hm, you'll need to update the pouches and holsters for the new equipment if you choose to go with my weapons. Like what Lucy is wearing under her coat."

At the mention of her name, Lucy parted her coat to reveal her harness and pouches underneath. Like Henrietta's, it conformed to her body and sat under her breasts but thanks to her form-fitting vest, they didn't get in the way of the harness. "This is compatible with the magazines used in his SLR rifles and pistols."

"Technically, they'd also be compatible with the magazines from the other pattern of rifle that I was planning on putting into manufacture." Natsu turned to Hisui then looked down at the machine gun at their feet. "The other patten of rifles uses the same roller-delayed action as that gun. It's a little tougher to manipulate the action compared to the SLR, but it is even more reliable than the SLR from a mechanical standpoint. When the SLR starts to falter, you just crank up the gas but that puts more wear on the parts and the user will get hit with stronger recoil. Which means both the user and the weapon would wear out faster and accuracy can suffer."

"Hm, I definitely will need you to bring prototypes of these weapons, preferably a few examples of the automatic rifle, precision marksman rifle, machine gun, and some of the P10 pistol and both variants of the SLR for comparison to the roller-delayed systems." Hisui informed the man but then lowered her voice to a murmur. "And anything else you believe would be beneficial to our forces."

"We can go over that later." Natsu collected up the spent belt and machine gun and loaded the belt of API/API-T ammo back into the gun before sending both away. "If you're satisfied, please allow me to finish making sure these weapons are set up for the demonstration."

"Alright, I have already ascertained that you are a capable weapon designer and manufacture, so I do not need to observe any longer. However, I will still stay and watch." Hisui stepped off the man's coat and picked it up. She gently dusted it off and inspected it, surprised at the sheer weight of it but she didn't question it and walked to a chair and she hung it over the back of it. She glanced at her guards and waved them away with a kind smile before approaching the pinkette once more. "The material used on the machine gun stock, what was it?"

"It's a synthetic polymer, nylon to be exact which is reinforced with fibreglass to increase its rigidity and strength to allow it to hold up to significant punishment. It's a perfect replacement for wooden parts on guns since it doesn't warp or swell, and it has a high temperature resistance."

"Interesting." The greenette murmured. "I understand that it would be difficult to set up though, right?"

"Initially, yes. But it's pretty cost effective once all the infrastructure is sorted. If you wish, I can publish a few 'discoveries' or organise for them to be done through the guild itself."

"I will leave that up to you, Natsu. I am sure you have your reasons for being cautious with the secrets you hold both personally and knowledge-wise. Do not feel pushed to bring what you know to the public., release it however you wish to release the knowledge."

Natsu quietly thanked the woman and ran through the line-up of weapons, ensuring each one ran flawlessly. By the time he was working on the last weapon, a P10 pistol, his guests had all arrived and was watching him work with a soft murmur of conversation coming from them. He rendered the weapon safe and placed it down on the table before turning around and addressing the crowd, gaining their attention with a short and sharp clap of his hands.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for taking time away from your busy schedules to come here." He said in a loud voice which carried around the crowd. He placed a hand on his chest and put on a warm smile, though it didn't reach his cold abyssal-green eyes. "I am Natsu, also known as Báleygr and I am the owner of Báleygr Arms. When I am not working as a Jaeger, I research and develop weapons and munitions."

He paused for a moment before turning side-on to the crowd and waving a hand across the tables beside him. "In front of you are a selection of my current inventory of weapons that are available for purchase as we speak; the SLR or Self-Loading Rifle in both the Mark One and Mark Two variants, the R10 auto-revolver, and the P10 pistol. In a moment, I'll demonstrate each weapon and provide a brief explanation of how to use them, as well as a little bit of a safety talk before you all can get your hands on the weapons."

A man wearing a guard's uniform with markings of a captain raised his hand. "Mr Báleygr, a question before you begin your demonstration."

"Yes?"

"How do these weapons stack up to what we use now?"

"Do you have a handgun on you, either a pistol or revolver?" Natsu asked the man while also glancing at the royal guards standing around Hisui. "We can do a quick comparison."

The guard took his pistol out from his holster and approached the man. He handed it over to Natsu and crossed his arms. "It's a Browns No.1, a commonly issued pistol to us city guards, fires .32 ACP."

"I see." Natsu turned the weapon over in his hand then pulled the slide back slightly to check if there was a round already chambered. He removed the magazine and placed the pistol down next to a P10 and picked up one of his pistol magazines, holding them up to the man for inspection. "A quick comparison. .32 ACP is 7.65x17mm Semi-Rimmed while 10mm BA is 10x28mm Rimless; a considerably larger and more powerful cartridge. Your pistol holds seven in the magazine with one in the chamber for a total of eight, the P10 holds fourteen in the magazine and one in the chamber for a total of fifteen."

"Why would one need that many rounds in a magazine?" The guard asked but instead of an answer, he received his pistol back and was instructed to line up next to the pinkette.

"Let's run a little drill, twenty rounds into the chest of the target, starting from your preferred ready position, you can't start pointed at the target." Natsu glanced at the greenette sat off to the side as he picked up a P10 and slotted the magazine in then placed an extra into the belt of his pants. "Your Majesty, on your call."

"On your marks!"

Natsu gripped his pistol with both hands and lowered it to a low-ready while the man next to him held his with one hand with the muzzle pointed to the sky.

Hisui's eyes shifted between the two men as she waited a few seconds, letting them wait a little bit before she called out, "Fire!"

Natsu's arms snapped up faster than the guard could bring his own pistol down onto the target. He began shooting but he wasn't pulling the trigger as quick as he actually could, instead he was doing measured shots that were just a little bit faster than the average professional gunslinger.

When he hit the thirteenth round, he instinctively lowered his left hand to his belt to ready the reload. On the fourteenth shot, he dropped the mag and slotted in the fresh one quickly and returned his hand to the two-handed grip in the same movement. Once he had fired the twentieth and final shot, he lowered he pistol and placed it on safe.

The guard captain was rushing himself to keep pace with the surprisingly quick man and fumbled his second reload, he was also haphazard with his shots and had missed some of them. When he finally managed to land twenty shots on the target, he cursed under his breath and holstered his weapon before turning to the pinkette with his hand extended. "I stand corrected. You should swing by the precinct some time and share some tips."

"It's mainly just extensive training and constant practice." Natsu replied and shifted the pistol into his left hand so he could shake the guard's hand. Once he had returned to the group, Natsu dropped the mag from the pistol and removed the round from the chamber then placed the gun down. He handed both magazines to Henrietta to restack and he turned to the crowd. "Since we're doing some comparisons, how about we compare an SLR Mark 1 to existing rifles. Your Majesty," Natsu turned his head to the monarch. "Could I borrow two of your guards, one with a lever-action and one with a bolt-action?"

"Of course." Hisui smiled kindly and she waved two of her guards forward. She flashed the man a knowing smile, having seen the weapons already. "Could I suggest that the drill be firing two whole magazines worth of ammunition into the chest of the 50m targets?"

"Sounds good to me." Natsu replied, but instead of grabbing one of the rifles for himself, he waved Lucy over to him. "Now, it'll be a little bit unfair if undertake this drill due to my familiarity with these types of weapons, so Lady Heartfilia will be my stand-in."

"Huh?" Lucy blinked rapidly and her eyes snapped up to the man. "But I haven't gotten a good handle on it just yet…"

"Just keep the gun of Semi-Auto and you'll be fine. It also keeps it fairer with the royal guards." The man smiled down at the blonde before giving her a gentle push over to the two guards who saluted the noblewoman. "Now, to my knowledge, there isn't a rifle capable of semi-automatic fire like that of the pistols we have just shot. However, there is a machine gun called the Maxima which is capable of fully-automatic fire with the caveat that the weapon system isn't capable of being used by a single person. My Self-Loading Rifles have the capacity of firing in semi-automatic and also fully-automatic, with an additional feature of a three-shot burst mode. This is all while containing twenty rounds in a magazine with the potential of expanding the capacity to thirty rounds at a later date."

Lucy stood to the left of the two guards and took a hold of her rifle, holding it at a low ready like Natsu had been when testing the weapons earlier. "I'm ready."

"Now before we begin, I'd like to point out a few features of Lady Heartfilia's rifle. Firstly, she has an optical sight mounted on top of her rifle, which has a variable power of 1-4x. She also has a sound suppressor, essentially a muffler, on the end of her rifle that muffles the rifle's sound signature and reduces or outright contains the muzzle flash which reduces the likelihood of her being spotted. These are accessories that come with every rifle, but her rifle has been modified with a folding stock instead of the regular fixed stock. This allows her to shorten the overall length to make it easier to carry in a backpack while travelling on missions."

Since the man had done a comparison with the pistol cartridges, the royal guard with the lever action took one of the loose cartridges from his pouch and held it out for the man. "Both of our rifles use .303, I believe that would be 7.7x56mm Rimmed."

Natsu took the cartridge and grabbed an 8.6mm cartridge from the nearby ammo box then took them around to each member of the crowd. "Aside from being larger and heavier – and also rimless compared to rimmed – I'd like to draw your attention to the shape of the bullets used in my rifles. I have carefully designed these bullets to have greater energy retention and a flatter trajectory which allows for greater stopping power that is sustained out to longer ranges. Both this and the pistol ammunition were derived from the ammunition I use in my line of work, only made easier to produce in larger quantities due to the simplified case and use of more traditional materials."

With a nod from Natsu, Hisui raised her voice once more. "Make ready! …Fire!"

Lucy quickly raised the rifle into a shooting position while flicking her thumb across the fire selector switch and feeling for the first click which told her the rifle was in single-shot. Gunshots rang out from her right but she tuned them out the best she could and placed the crosshair on the chest of the target. She let out a slow breath to calm her nerves and she eased onto the trigger, sending the first round downrange.

While the two guards had to manually operate their action, by either swinging the lever down or cycling the bolt, the blonde only had to pull the trigger. And as she fell into her rhythm, her pace quickened and she began to hit the target faster than the soldiers next to her who had been hand-picked to be on Hisui's royal guards.

As the final round flew out of the barrel, the bolt locked back and the woman glanced down. She hit the magazine release and pulled the next magazine from her harness and slotted it in then hit the bolt release. Beside her, the guards where still loading their rifles one round at a time or with a stripper clip.

"As you can see," Natsu raised his voice to be heard over the gunfire and he held out his hand towards the shooters. "With over twice the ammo capacity of the bolt action and five times that of the lever action with the detachable box magazine, the SLR is capable of laying down accurate semi-automatic fire while cycling faster than the manually operated rifles with the additional benefit of being able to be reloaded much faster." His smile took on a slight apologetic turn as he looked at the blonde's side profile. "And I must bring this to everyone's attention; Lady Heartfilia has only recently started using firearms so I requested that she read through the manuals provided with each weapon prior to using them just so she was familiar with the system. So, she's very new to this. But even so, she is still managing to outperform two highly skilled members of the Queen's Guard in reload speed and how quick she can follow up each shot."

Once Lucy had finished shooting, she flashed a quick smile to Natsu and walked over to the box of ammunition next to Henrietta to refill her empty magazines. The guards gently clapped her on the back and offered her a few quick words of praise as they passed by on their way to the Queen.

"Like I mentioned-" Natsu addressed the crowd once more as he approached the table lined with weapons. A harness appeared in a flash of light around his chest and he loaded a few magazines into it before picking up the SLR Mk1 that he had outfitted with both the suppressor and the optical sight and slotting a magazine into the weapon. "Lady Heartfilia is rather inexperienced with firearms in general. So, how about I show you what it is capable of when placed into the hands of a professional shooter."

"Would you like for me to call it again?" Hisui asked, her eyes glued to the man.

"Call hostiles." Natsu replied, his voice losing all warmth as his smile fell from his face and it grew just as cold as his eyes. He pulled the charging handle and took the weapon off of safe, holding it low.

"Hm?" Hisui raised her eyebrows in a faintly confused, questioning look but one of her guards whispered in her ear and she understood what the man wanted. "Oh, I see. Hostiles front, engage."

"Engaging." Natsu murmured coldly as he brought the rifle up and the very moment the crosshair landed on the first 50m target, he put two rounds into the chest then one to the head. He snapped across to the two targets to the left of it and put three rounds onto both of them before moving left and switching the rifle to burst to engage the 20m targets.

A murmur spread around the crowd as they witnessed the man's raw speed and the rifle's ability to keep up. Even as he snapped from target to target, his aim was perfect.

Natsu iron grip did not allow even a millimetre of movement from the rifle as he drilled the three-shot bursts into the heads of the 20-metre targets. On the third burst, he quickly grasped a fresh magazine and swapped out the one in the rifle as it only held a single bullet inside with the nineteenth round waiting in the chamber.

At the same time that he slotted a fresh magazine into the weapon, he flicked the fire selector over to automatic and the moment his hand returned to the handguard, he pulled the trigger and sent a long burst of seven rounds into the chest of each 10-metre target.

The bolt locked to the rear and he swapped the magazine once more then moved back through the targets, completing the course of fire in reverse order. Natsu placed the empty and almost empty magazines down onto the table along with the rifle and he turned to the crowd with a cold, passive expression while Henrietta busied herself with the magazines behind him.

"In the hands of a professional, or someone who has trained rigorously with the weapon system. One is able to utilise the full capabilities of this platform. They would be able to manage the recoil of the 8.6mm cartridge even when the gun tries to wrestle with the shooter due to said recoil." Natsu took a few steps forward before slowly giving the crowd a theatrical bow like a performer at a curtain call.

When he straightened up, his smile had returned though it still didn't reach his eyes. "Thank you for allowing me to demonstrate my weapons to you. If you would like to stick around, you are all free to get some time on the weapon systems and try them out for yourselves. Though I'd like to ask you to follow a few ground rules; treat all weapons as if they are loaded, even when they are not; do not point the weapons at anything you are not wanting to shoot, i.e. do not point it at another person, only downrange, to the ground, or to the sky; and finally, when not shooting the weapon, please keep your finger out of the trigger housing and keep the weapon on safe. Thank you."

A gentle clapping echoed from the man's side, drawing all attention to the Jade Queen who had risen to her feet and was slowly approaching the man with a kind smile. "Thank you for that demonstration, Báleygr." Her elegant dress rippled and billowed in the gentle wind as she came up to the man and stopped beside him. "We will definitely hold the trials with your weapons in the near future, but in the meantime…" Hisui's smile widened slightly and she gracefully gestured to the weapons with a wave of her hand. "May I?"

"Go ahead." Natsu replied with a quick nod. He walked with the woman over to the pistols and watched on as she picked one up and took a closer look at it. "You saw me using it a lot earlier, but if you have any questions then just ask away."

"It does seem fairly intuitive." Hisui murmured as she slotted in a magazine and pulled the slide. She levelled the handgun with the target in front of her and took the weapon of safe. The weapon was held firmly in both her hands in the grip she had noticed the man was using, but she wasn't completely sure of herself so she looked up at the man with a slightly cautious expression. "Does this look good?"

"Hm, you were paying close attention it seems." Natsu murmured. She was incredibly close and it was technically still a good two-handed grip. "You're good, take a few shots." Natsu gently patted the woman on the shoulder and moved past her. "I'll be back after checking on the other shooters."

"Alright, I'll call out to you if I need anything."


25th January – 6:28 PM

"I am surprised that you cook, Natsu. Considering you have android servants." Hisui noted as she watched the man preparing ingredients for dinner while herself, Lucy, Natsumi, Lelyanna, and Henrietta sat on the dining room side of the bench and watched the man work while the Queen's guard sat at the dining table behind her.

"The androids of your world have no sense or concept of taste; they only follow guides with no idea of whether it good or not." Natsu replied as he lifted his gaze from the wooden chopping board and looked at the young queen then pointed to the ashen-haired woman beside her. "The only android I know of that is the exception to that is setting right next to you; Henrietta Frost. And that's because her body came from my world."

"What!" Hisui's jade eyes snapped to the woman beside her and she stared at the ashen-haired maid in disbelief. "No…"

"It's true." Henriette replied calmly, a warm smile on her face which contrasted the guarded demeanour she had during the demonstration. "Though the core of my intelligence originated from the operating system that controlled my clockwork bodies. Master used it as a basis to write a compatible artificial intelligence to pilot this body and still operate the household servants. He did have to do some minor upgrades to the core though, to ensure that I can link to the collective mind."

"Everyone has the same reaction when they find out what she really is." Lelyanna giggled softly and Natsumi cracked a wide grin.

"Yeah. I can vouch for it too, her origins. Natsu and I found her in an underground lab inside the Magnolia in his world. She was completely naked within this pod, a pilot version that would've been the first unit in production of her line – well, apparently."

"His world is incredible!" Lucy chimed in with a bright smile. "It makes me sad that I never got to see it when it wasn't decimated by war, at least in person… Natsu has turned one of the rooms in the manor into a Cinema, where we can watch a bunch of things from his world."

"Wait, you all have been there?" Hisui stopped just short of prodding Henrietta with a finger to try and determine if she feels as real as she looked and she glanced around at the women, a little startled. "How?"

"The same way I got here," Natsu replied calmly. "Ceres. She seemed to have taken a liking to me and considers me a little pet project of hers. Though, she's been a big help so I don't mind being that for her."

"You have seen her in person?"

"All of us have," Natsumi got her answer out faster than the man. "So has everyone in my team, and Levy. But beyond that… I don't think she has shown herself to anyone else that we know of."

"She always replies in one form or another – physically appearing or as a voice in my head – but if she's busy, then she'll do what she can." Natsu placed his knife down and held up his right hand to show the monarch the ring sat on his ring finger. "I had decided that Lelyanna and I needed a way to contact each other when separated on a job, so Ceres gave us a matched set of rings with a blessing that allowed either of us to slip out consciousness into the other's body. We can't take control but we can experience the world as they are."

"It was a little embarrassing the first few times." Lelyanna admitted with a faint blush as she remembered the man's unbelievable warmth. "Not only could I feel what a man's body felt like from their perspective, I also felt Natsu's unnaturally high body temperature and also just how physically powerful he is; everything felt light, no matter what he held."

"I mentioned this before, but that's due to me being chemically enhanced." Natsu reminded the monarch. He crossed to the other side of the kitchen and put a pan down on the stovetop then set up a rice cooker beside the stove. "I can go on and on about what makes me different but I just don't feel like having that conversation."

"That is alright." Hisui waved away the man's remark but she still eyed him with curiosity. "Could I see those weapons you were talking about?"

"Hm? Ah, alright but you'll have to come over here." Natsu looked over his shoulder and he beckoned the woman over. "I can't exactly leave this alone just yet. And we'll go look at the factory once we have eaten." He placed his terminal down beside the stove and ran through the list of blueprints before finding the weapons he was after which he brought up in a number of holographic windows. "The two rifles are roller-delayed blowback rifles, which fall into the same groupings as the Mark 1 and 2 SLRs I currently make – so a Battle Rifle and a Designated Marksman Rifle. They're from the same era too, well the DMR came a little later. The machine gun is the progenitor of my own MG80 that you fired today, which uses a recoil-operated roller-locked system. That shotgun is pump-action, it'll be chambered in twelve-gauge due to those shells already being widely available, though I can produce those too if needed. For a sidearm, I'd suggest going with the P10 that I already make as it is more than adequate for your needs."

Hisui approached the holograms slowly, her eyes darting from one to another and shining with amazement. This man was the key to protecting her nation, even if he no longer fought on the front lines, his influence would strengthen their position on the global stage and hopefully put a stop to the threat that was Bosco and any others that may knock at their borders in the future. "How quickly can you build some prototypes?"

"That depends on how polished you want them?"

"I want the Ministry of Defence to be sold on them the moment they lay eyes on them." Hisui fought hard to keep her excitement from entering her voice but with a quick glance at the man, she remembered that he had the same empathetic sense as Natsumi and would pick up on her emotions. "Considering that; take as long as it is needed, within reason."

"There's a lot of prep work I need to do to create each weapon, maybe I can find some old dies and whatnot in my world that would speed up that process." Natsu started adding his ingredients into the large pan which caused various scents to fill the kitchen and dining room. He heard numerous rumbling stomachs so he glanced over his shoulder and saw the women watching on eagerly, even the guards raised their head to watch him cook. He let out a soft, amused snort and turned his attention to the woman beside him and the cookware in front of him. "Hm… Might be easier if I remake them though, since I can ensure compatibility with my machinery. I'll provide Henrietta with the schematics and have her task one or more of the units with their creation. That should cut down on the time needed to create the weapons since they'd be able to work around the clock. Give me about a month, I should have them sorted by then. If it looks to be sooner or later, I'll be in contact."

"Just give me a call once they are done anyway, since I have to organise the trials." Hisui replied. Once she felt satisfied with the information she had gained from the holograms, she returned to her seat at the bench.

A few minutes after the woman had returned to the bench, Natsu walked over with two bowls in his hands and move floating around him. Those that had been designated for the guards shot over the heads of the women and came to a gentle stop on the placemats in front of the guards along with cutlery. Natsu placed the bowl from his left hand in front of Lucy and his own on the kitchen side of the bench while the rest of the dishes floating around him landed in front of their respective consumer. "It's a chicken curry but it shouldn't be overly hot since I added some sour cream to it to tone down the spices and change the flavour profile. Though I did add some more chilli to mine and Natsumi's."

"Thanks for the meal." The women chorused which was echoed by the guards sat at the table.

Hisui shivered lightly at the deliciousness of the man's food and she curiously looked at Natsumi's bowl. "Could I try some of yours? I am curious as to how hot it is."

"Are you sure?" Natsumi asked hesitantly but she moved her bowl closer to the monarch. "If it's too much then just ask Natsu for a glass of milk."

The greenette dipped her spoon into Natsumi's food and ate it without hesitation but she immediately regretted her decision. Even though the heat didn't hit her right away, once she had swallowed the food, the heat gradually got stronger and stronger. Hisui's cheeks reddened and she began to pant, trying to blow out the heat as she rushed from her seat and into the kitchen, gunning for the sink but she was stopped when she ran into a very warm hand that rested against her breasts. "W-water…"

Natsu looked into the queen's begging eyes and he shifted his hand from her chest to her shoulder. "Water will do nothing. Like Natsumi said; you need milk." He told her in a gentle voice as he steered the woman towards the fridge. He poured her a glass of milk and held it out to the woman. "Take a small mouthful and swish it around to get all the capsaicin off then either spit it into the sink or swallow. Though I'd prefer if you swallow."

"Okay." Hisui nodded quickly. She did as the man instructed and swished then swallowed the milk. The relief wasn't instant but it did take the edge off enough and she started to feel better. She gave the man a small smile and a quick word of thanks before returning to her seat. "I can't believe you two can eat something that spicy."

"It's actually not the hottest thing I've eaten." Natsu replied. "Gray once gave me these really hot chilli sauces, bloody amazing."

"I love hot things too, so something like this is right up my alley." Natsumi added. The pinkette looked up at her counterpart with an excited grin. "You wouldn't happen to have those sauces here?"

"Unfortunately, no." Natsu shook his head lightly. "Though I might be able to find some in the warehouses in Hargeon, I'd just have to go poking around the docklands."

"Just how much hotter are they going to be compared to that…?" Hisui asked as she pointed her spoon at the bowls belonging to the two pinkettes.

"It blows them out of the water." Natsu chuckled and he gave the monarch a wide, fanged grin. "I'll try and find the challenge sets and take it to Crocus the next time I'm over there. Put you through the ringer."

Hisui hung her head and was about to plead for the life of her tastebuds but before she could say anything, she was cut off by Natsumi.

"Hell yeah! I'll come too, maybe we can get the old guy to have a drop too!" The woman cheered jubilantly and she threw her arms into the air but she faltered a moment later. "Wait, it'll probably be too much for him to handle… Eh, let's just fuck with Hisui instead."

"You two are too alike." Hisui muttered and she shook her head lightly before returning to her meal.

One by one, they each finished their food and Henrietta's clockwork units came through and cleaned up. As Natsu left the kitchen, he tapped on Hisui's shoulder and waved for her to follow him as he made his way through the dining room.

"Are we going to see the factory that you have built?" The greenette asked softly as she hurried after the man. She gripped her dress and lifted the hem so it wouldn't catch under foot and trip her up as she began to jog after the tall man. "Can you please walk a little slower?"

"Ah, sorry." Natsu glanced back at the monarch and he shortened his stride so she could catch up and walk beside him. "It's going to be dark out there, so stick close. I haven't done anything to the external lights like I have to the internal ones, just because I wanted the place to look normal from the outside. But that means the lighting quality isn't great by comparison."

"I will be alright." Hisui smiled at the man. When the reached the front door, she went to grab her coat but to her surprise, Natsu held it out for her to put her arms through. "Such a gentleman." She playfully jabbed as she allowed the man to help put the coat on.

"I have my moments." Natsu chuckled softly.

As the walked along the dimly lit path that led to the factory buildings, Hisui looked up at the man with an eyebrow raised. "Natsu, about your rank… In some places, it would be a navy rank, but I gather you were army?"

"Not quite. I was in a separate branch from the main three – Army, Navy, and Airforce – so we had our own command structure." Natsu looked down at the woman and noticed she was hugging herself and a slight shiver run through her, so he allowed his aura to seep out and he expanded it just enough to envelop the monarch in its warmth. "Yeah, we worked alongside all three sections of the military frequently, but yeah, we were our own section."

"Then your rank?" Hisui let out a gentle, content sigh and she moved a little closer to the man.

"You were spot on with the Navy guess in that regard, I was in line with that. The structure was; Second Lieutenant, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Commander, etcetera." Natsu placed his hand on the door to his munitions plant but before he opened it, he turned to face the greenette. "What got you curious?"

"After seeing you in action today, and how you handled the weapons that you are familiar with," Hisui looked up at the man with resolution in her eyes. "I am planning on creating a new branch of my military that is separate from my army and navy, a special warfare division. I want you to be a part of it, as the mould that those joining will be formed from. Not in a chemically enhanced way, mind you…"

"Are you planning on sending me to war?" Natsu asked calmly but all the warmth and kindness in his face had quickly vanished and he was coldly staring into the Queen's eyes. "Because if so; No."

"No, I do not intend to do that. I believe you have seen enough war already." Hisui shook her head gently but she didn't back down from the silent challenge contained within the man's deadly glare. She placed her hand over her heart and leaned in, rising to the unspoken challenge. "I want you to train the soldiers who will be under you. Train them to command their soldiers efficiently and effectively and be able to fight against impossible odds and come back alive. I want you to be an instructor, not a fighter, and teach those men how to survive even in the worst possible conditions. Commander Dragneel, I want you to be the head of this new division."

After a few moments of silent thinking, where Natsu raised his gaze to the stars above. He let out a breath through his nose and returned his gaze to the woman, softly replying, "I'll consider it. My life and my job as a Jaeger will take priority, but I understand that you see value in my expertise and knowledge and would like to capitalise on it more than just buying my weapons and ammunition. You'll have my answer when I notify you about the prototypes you requested."

"Right." Hisui smiled and pulled back slowly. "I will pick your brains about it later then, since I want your input on the matter anyway."

"If I say yes, then I want full control over every; training, equipment, selection, even the design of the uniforms." Natsu calmly demanded while opening the door. "I choose who gets in and what they use, how they train and what they specialise in."

"Granted. Give me the best of the best, and I'll give you whatever you need." Hisui flashed her perfect white teeth in a broad smile and walked past the man to inspect his factories.


Well, this turned out longer than I was planning… The flashback/dream alone was just shy of 5k words when I was originally only planning it to be 1k or 2k.

In fact, it wasn't even planned when I started this chapter as I was originally starting at the scene behind the Guild Hall – which would have made the chapter about 12k words – but I was unsatisfied with how I started it and ran through a few scenarios in my head before landing on Natsu accidently hurting Lucy when she woke him up from a dream of his past. Initially, her wrist was going to be broken by Natsu's powerful grip and for the knife to draw blood but while writing, I decided to just go as far as badly bruising it and the blade resting against her throat. And while she was a little frightened and sore, she still trusted the man and wanted to be around him.

I also played around with the idea of Hisui and the weapons for the Fiorian Military (which I'll go into more detail below), whether or not she gets informed of Natsu's true identity, his advanced weaponry, etc.

What I went with ended up having the knock-on effect of her deciding to take advantage of Natsu's knowledge and skills and broaching the subject about a special forces division of the Fiorian Military, which wasn't in my original thoughts for the chapter and happened as I wrote it. But it seemed like the logical thing she would do given the information she has about the man.

She, as the Queen of Fiore, would want to use every asset she has at her disposal to strengthen her nation. So, when she comes across a man who was from an alternate and more advanced version of her nation and who has experience in non-standard and asymmetric warfare, can outfit and train her troops with advanced weaponry, and has first-hand experience in fighting a brutal war, she decides to capitalise on it.

For the weapons that will be used by the Fiorian Military, I decided to go with the alternate option that I had in mind when originally planning for Natsu to go into arms manufacturing. The two contenders were the FN FAL and HK/CETME G3. So that puts the FAL into the hands of the Guards, Militia, and Civilians, while the Fiorian Military gets their hands on the G3, plus others.

These military firearms will follow the designation of M(model) #(Weapon Type) #(Version).
So they will be the following:
- M21 Battle Rifle - 8.6x66mm - Based on the G3A3 but with the wooden stock and handguard from the original G3, in Ebony wood. Uses 20 and 30 round mags. Has Safe, Single, Burst, and Auto on the selector.
- M22 Designated Marksman Rifle - 8.6x66mm - Based on the MSG90A2 which is the G3 DMR designed for military use. Has Ebony wood stock and handguard. Uses 20 Round mags. Only has Safe and Single on the selector.
- MG1 - 8.6x66mm - Based on the MG42/MG1. Uses 50, 150, and 250 round belts. Has an Ebony wood stock. Only has Safe and Auto on the selector.
- M31 Shotgun - 12 Gauge - Based on the Mossberg M590A1 with Ebony wood stock and pump and a 20-inch barrel. Capacity 8 plus 1 standard shells. Only has an on/off safety.
- M11 Pistol – This is the P10 pistol which will be adopted by the Fiorian Military, which as mentioned before is based on the SIG P210 Target.

That's all for this chapter. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter. It seems that the Traffic Stats on this site are still busted so if you could spare some time to write a review, it would be much appreciated. I know it was a bit long winded, but I wanted to hit the story beats I had already planned out.

Again, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you all in the next one.