Chapter 7: Demon, Danger and Premonition
Natsu and Lucy head a safe distance outside the village for when Lucy summons Tianlong the Celestial Dragon in order to try and form a contract. They were told that on the first summons Tianlong is almost the size of Acnologia in his dragon form however once summoned the Celestial Dragon can take on a humanoid appearance.
Lucy was also warned that while normally summoning Tianlong would take as much magic as it would to simultaneously open 3 Zodiac gates at once the first-time summoning Tianlong before forming a contract requires nearly twice as much magic.
Lucy was in awe looking at the pearl white key in her hands. It was a beautiful sight. The handle of the key looked like that of a dragon's head with an eye made of Sapphire coming out of its mouth. The key itself looked like a thin stream of fire coming out of its maw and forming a small flame at the end.
Natsu nudged Lucy's arm and said, "Don't forget we have to stop the source of those monsters, or the people here won't be safe." This snaps Lucy out of it, and she begins the chant.
"Open Gate of the Celestial Dragon Tianlong"
What appears before them is a massive blue dragon with a pearl white underbelly its eyes piercing and gold as it looks at Lucy with its draconic slits it says, "Ah a Star born has once again come into possession of my key it's been a while since anyone has successfully summoned me here."
Lucy looks Tianlong in his eye and says "Tianlong, my name is Lucy Heartfilia and I would like to form a contract with you."
Tianlong responds "Your name is well known in the celestial spirit world for being a kind and caring individual who loves her spirits greatly. Very well i shall enter a contract with you. You may call upon me whenever you wish. I look forward to working with you, Lucy Heartfilia." As he fades back to the celestial spirit world Lucy falls to one knee the drain from summoning Tianlong for the first time taking its toll on her.
Natsu rushes to her side asking, "Hey Luce you alright?" Lucy smiles and responds saying "I'm fine Natsu just drained that took a lot out of me." Natsu smiles and says "Let's head back to the village, we can continue when you're well rested. "Lucy shakes her head and says, "We can't, we'll be putting the village in danger the longer this goes on." Natsu kisses her forehead and says, "Don't worry, I'll protect the village, you just worry about recovering your strength." And with that Natsu carries Lucy back to the village to recuperate.
Ethan greets them upon arrival and offers to let her rest at his place to which they gratefully accept. Natsu keeps guard over the village while he waits for Lucy to recover her magic energy.
Several hours later
Lucy has fully recovered and now is heading out with Natsu to resolve the village's beast problem. Natsu is constantly sniffing the air trying to pick up on the scent of those creatures that attacked the village with Lucy sticking close to him. They made their way through the forest to where the scent was coming from and when they got there, they were surprised by what they saw.
Standing several meters away was a humanoid demon with small black horns protruding from his head amongst a head of dark grey hair he was roughly six feet tall with clawed hands. Upon sensing their presence, he turns to look at the newcomers with his crimson eyes that had black sclera and a fanged smirk. It speaks in a maniacal voice "So the champion of fire and Celestial wizard come out to visit little Ol me, why, I'm flattered." it says with a hysterical laugh at the end.
Both Natsu and Lucy get into fighting stances with purple flames swirling around Natsu signifying his use Devil Slayer flames while Lucy dons her Sagittarius star dress and bow, she leaps back and gets ready to fire an arrow infused with Loke's power it's something she's learnt to do however so far, she can only utilize the powers of Sagittarius and Leo together at the moment and only for the arrows.
Natsu draws his sword he got from some of his teachers in slayer magic and asks, "Who are you and why are you targeting these people?" The demon laughs hysterically at this and says, "Who I am is of no importance to you and do I need a reason, little slayer." Natsu responds "I guess not but something about Ethan's reaction to us saying something else was behind the monsters tells me there's more to this than meets the eye."
The demon starts clapping and says with a sinister smirk "Bravo, bravo you got me there is something that village has that i seek. But that's enough of that I'm sure we're both very busy people and have places to be so why don't we get this over with?"
Natsu, sensing something amiss, jumps back just in time to avoid being impaled by a massive black creature that surfaced from underground; he then says to Lucy, "Stick to the tops of trees so that way you can provide cover fire and avoid those creatures easier when they surface."
Lucy nods her head and leaps up into the nearest tree and fires a volley of arrows at the demon to which the demon leaps back to avoid. However, Natsu was behind him charging up his attack "Fire Demons Rage" with no time to dodge the demon puts up a dark barrier that takes some of the brunt of the attack however he still screams in pain when it breaks through and hits him.
The demon slams both hands into the ground and summons 20 creatures seemingly much stronger than the last ones and he encases himself in a much stronger barrier. Seeing this Natsu and Lucy get to work fighting the enemies with Natsu slashing at enemies with his sword imbued with fairy slayer magic and Lucy firing several volleys of arrows infused with Loke's magic.
As they are dispatching the beasts, they notice that the demon is panting, and his creatures are weakening along with his shield. As they defeat the last creature the barrier surrounding the demon falls and the demon itself collapses from exhaustion.
Natsu then approaches the demon with his sword at the ready while Lucy aims a light infused arrow at the demon in case it tries something. Natsu stops a few meters away and pauses as he senses an unnatural presence coming from the demon. Natsu's eyes widen in realization, and he rushes to Lucy and calls out "Fairy Sanctuary" to contain an explosion of purple mist originating from where the demon was. As the mist starts eroding the spell Natsu uses his Nullify curse to try and get rid of it. It takes a bit, but he finally manages to after a minute of him maintaining both the barrier and the curse it disappears.
After a minute Lucy asks, "Is it over?" to which Natsu grins and says, "Yeah let's head back to the town and tell them the good news."
After arriving back at the village and telling Ethan the good news they claim the rest of their reward and the village throws a big party to celebrate.
Afterwards they stay at Ethan's house and Lucy remembers something Ethan said and asks, "By the way why did you say I should enter the contract before the fight we didn't end up summoning him." Ethan looks surprised by this and asks "How did you escape the purple mist then? "To which Natsu narrows his eyes and says "I contained and nullified it. But how did you know about the mist and why didn't you warn us about it?" Ethan sighs in relief before he responds, "That mist is a unique magic possession it possesses anyone with magic who gets caught in it the reason I had Lucy make the contract with Tianlong is that if he sensed the danger this mist poses then he would have intervened to protect his summoner and those nearby by extension."
Lucy asked, "How do you know so much about it?" Ethan heaves a weary sigh before replying "Because I was a victim of it. If it weren't for the fact that the one possessing me tried to use the power of Tianlong, I would have succumbed completely fortunately Tianlong noticed this and freed me from possession."
Natsu and Lucy stay silent for a bit before Natsu asks "Is that why that demon was attacking the village?" Ethan nods and says "I suspected it was the same demon who tried to gain the power of Tianlong all those years ago which is why I offered the gate key as a reward hoping it would draw the attention of someone who could protect it. Fortunately, my gamble paid off better than I could have hoped as now not only were the ones who came powerful, one of them was someone who could actually enter a contract with him." as he smiles at them towards the end.
Natsu and Lucy smiled a bit at that, and Ethan then said" Now I think you should get some rest, you have a long journey back to fairy tail tomorrow after all."
Natsu and Lucy go to bed. While Lucy has a peaceful sleep Natsu has a weird dream that seems so real.
The dream itself starts off normal with Natsu walking to the guild when suddenly the scene shifts to Ignis saying "You must return to Fairy tail something big is about to happen and they will need your help." Then a scene of Fairy tail burning to the ground flashes through his mind.
After that he wakes up with a jolt and wakes Lucy up too saying "We have to go. Write a letter to explain to Ethan that we have to head back to the guild. I'll go get our stuff packed."
After leaving a letter on the dining room table Natsu grabs Lucy's hand and their stuff and uses his Void rift curse to teleport them to the guild. When they arrive, they see the fairy tail guild burning so Natsu devours the flames as fast as he can while keeping an ear out for anyone who may have been caught up in the fire.
When he was done the guild was in ruins however fortunately no one seemed to have gotten caught up in it.
However, one thought ran through their minds 'Who could have done this.'