20
Blankie
Zeref was sitting by his window, looking down at his locket. The picture contained both him and Natsu when they were little. They stood side by side, with Natsu wearing a giant grin. Zeref smiled at how happy the two looked.
Zeref looked out the window, seeing a moonless sky. New moons always scared Natsu when they were young, causing Zeref to be the awesome big brother he was to tuck his little in for bed and sit by his side until Natsu fell asleep. Warmth spread in Zeref's chest at the memory. He missed those days the most.
With a sigh, Zeref stood up and walked to his desk. A magazine was laid on the dark brown surface of his desk, displaying the many new things being sold at the shops worldwide. One of the items on the cover showed a colorful blanket for little girls. If Zeref had a sister, he would have gotten it for her. That was when an idea struck him.
Zeref glanced at the calendar above his desk with dark eyes. It had been a week since he had played a prank on Natsu. With a sinister, shark-like smile, the black wizard returned his attention to the blanket.
"I'm going to need Brandish's help with this one," Zeref said with a dark chuckle before turning around and heading for bed. He will set his plan in motion tomorrow.
Zeref waited for Brandish to return with his order the next day. He felt like a child, resisting the urge to bounce in place.
"Your Highness," Zeref heard Brandish's voice say next to him. He turned to see her holding a colorful package. "I got what you ordered, but may I ask what this is for?" Brandish asked.
"It's my latest prank for Natsu. Do you think he'll like it?" Zeref asked with a smile, taking the package from his trusty spriggan.
"He will certainly react strongly to it," replied Brandish.
"That's all I need to hear. Thank you for your help, Brandish. Excuse me, I have a little brother to prank." Zeref teleported away from his kingdom with his package and entered Natsu's room, where he found him sleeping.
It was early morning, so very few people were up, but he would have to be careful. Natsu likes to sleep in, but at this time, the dragon slayer could be woken up by the slightest threat. So, keeping his emotion in check, Zeref tiptoed next to Natsu with the colorful blanket.
Gently, Zeref removed Natsu's worn white blanket and replaced it with the one he carried. He froze when Natsu shifted in his sleep, but he didn't wake. Zeref didn't release the breath he was holding - Natsu could hear that. To prepare for chaos, he quickly cast a spell on the colorful blanket and teleported out of the house.
Natsu yawned and stretched his arms high above his head. After a satisfying pop of his joints, the dragon slayer reached for his blanket. He attempted to pull it off of him so he could leave his hammock, but where the blanket touched him was like powerful magnets.
Confused, Natsu sat up and looked down at his blanket, only to see an abomination had replaced it. Where his once white blanket had been, now laid a pink, blue, and yellow blanket with flowers, stars, unicorns, and rainbows all over it. He recognized the monstrosity from Lucy's magazine. It was a new product for little girls who admired magic so much that the images on the blanket could move. There was the sound of the stars twinkling and a smell of something girly clinging to the material. The scent made Natsu cringe. It would take ten baths to wash the smell off.
With all these new realizations, Natsu frantically tried to pry the blanket off, only to get the thing more tangled and twisted around his body. The more he struggled, the more the covers seemed to stick to him.
'What the heck? Did Zeref super glue this thing on me?' Natsu thought as he growled. He tried to burn the colorful blanket off him, but it did nothing - not even a scorch mark could be seen.
During Natsu's fight with the monster blanket, he fell out of his hammock. He landed on the hardwood floor with a grunt, forcing him to pause in his battle.
"Natsu, are you okay? I heard…" Happy flew into Natsu's room and froze at the scene before him. Natsu felt his face heat up when he realized his best friend saw him wrapped in a girly blanket like a burrito. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Happy fell out of the air and crashed to the ground with tears streaming down his face. He started to lose his voice because of a lack of oxygen.
Natsu could see steam leaving his body as his embarrassment grew. "Happy, this isn't funny!" Happy ignored him in favor of getting air back into his painful lungs.
"Zeref got you good this time, Natsu!" The exceed said between laughs, causing Natsu to grind his teeth and look away. He looked toward his hammock and saw a note by the foot of it.
As slowly and carefully as he could, Natsu stood up. The blanket unraveled but still clung to his back, much to the dragon slayer's disappointment. He picked up the note and read it.
"I cursed the blanket to stick to you like glue. It will fall off when midnight strikes.
Oh, and don't try to burn it off. There's a fireproof spell on it. -Zeref"
Natsu was horrified. Zeref made the blanket fireproof, explaining why he couldn't burn the thing off. He decided he wasn't leaving for the guild. The last thing he needed was for his friends to laugh at him.
Natsu grabbed his hammock, planning to climb back in, but he paused when he noticed something. "Why is it quiet in here?" The dragon slayer turned to where Happy once was, only to find an empty space. Natsu felt the blood leave his face, knowing where his best friend had taken off. "Happy had gone to the guild to tell them, didn't he?" he questioned, but his voice was a few octaves higher.
Not wanting to be seen with the girly blanket, Natsu left his house and ran deep into the forest. He needed to find a different way to destroy the thing because he knew Happy would bring at least one dragon slayer with him. Knowing Gajeel, he would want to see Natsu in this embarrassing predicament.
Natsu tried to find a mud puddle, but there wasn't any because of a drought. So he ran to the lake and jumped into the cold water. The wave crashed onto the bank, making some mud. Natsu kept splashing until it was soft enough to roll around like a farm pig.
"I need to hide my scent, and the mud will keep me from sticking out like a sore thumb," Natsu muttered but froze when he heard voices in the direction of his house. He knew them to be Gray, Lucy, Wendy, Gajeel, and Erza. He could also hear the three Exceeds. They were calling out his name, wondering where he was. It was enough for Natsu to know they had already checked the house and were looking for him in the forest. 'I need to move!' he thought as he got up and ran in the opposite direction.
Natsu was hiding behind a bolder when his friends caught up. He would have picked a better hiding spot, but the blanket had other ideas. While he ran trying to get to the best hiding spot, he tripped on the corner of the blanket, forcing him behind the giant rock.
'Please don't see me. Please don't see me!' he chanted mentally as he saw his friends enter his view.
"I smell him, but it's faint," said Gajeel.
"He must have tried to hide his scent," said Wendy.
"Well, there was that mud pile by the lake. He probably made that and rolled around in it," said Carla.
"That blankie must be embarrassing if he's putting this much effort into hiding," said Gray with an annoying grin.
"Well, from what Happy described, the blanket sounds like that new one they released just a few days ago," said Lucy.
"The colorful one for little girls?" asked Erza.
Lucy nodded. "Yeah, that one."
"I can understand why he's hiding. No man would ever allow themselves to be seen with that stuck to them," said Pantherlily.
Natsu was about to sneak away when he noticed Gajeel coming closer. He froze for a second, not knowing what to do. He spun his head around, looking for something to distract his friends. Next to his foot was a small rock. If he threw it fast enough, it would go unnoticed by his guildmates.
Picking up the small, brown rock, Natsu got ready to throw it. Once Gajeel was close enough, Natsu threw the rock as hard as he could, causing it to sail across the trees and slam into one ten meters away.
Everyone was silent for a second but heard nothing else. Natsu feared that they weren't fooled.
Gray held up a finger to his lips and shushed everyone. "He's trying to get away. Let's follow him quietly so he won't hear us," he whispered before leaving to go after the source of the sound. The others said nothing but followed close behind the demon slayer. Natsu could hardly hear the sound of their footsteps, which made him very nervous.
'I hope I'll hear them when they approach again,' he thought but turned around and crawled under the growth.
Natsu lifted his head when he made it to a clearing. "There it is!" he whispered excitedly when he saw a giant tree in the middle of the clearing. The trunk was as thick as the cathedral in Magnolia, with tangling roots spread across the open space in the clearing. Vines wrapped around the tree's trunk in confusing patterns, and the branches reached high into the heavens with bright green leaves the size of Happy's body.
Natsu had climbed this tree many times, especially when he wanted to be alone. Among the branches was a hollow, big enough for one person to fit in comfortably. He needed to get there before his friends reached this area.
The dragon slayer climbed the tree, using the vines as footholds. He was about halfway up the tree when he smelled his friends. He nervously looked down and saw them enter the clearing. He knew he should move, or else he'd risk them seeing him. The mud had dripped off the blanket, so they would see the bright colors against the dark brown tree. So with that in mind, Natsu resumed climbing, praying his friends won't notice him.
He reached the lowest branch, but it wasn't the one with the hole. That was a few more branches up, but now that he was among the leaves, he was harder to spot.
"THERE HE IS!" Natsu froze when he heard Wendy call out. He snapped his head around and saw her pointing up at him. The mud-covered dragon slayer felt his body tense. He refused to be caught now, so he spun around and flung himself higher into the tree.
"Oh no you don't, Salamander!" Natsu heard Gajeel say but didn't stop his ascend. "Iron Dragon's Club!" Natsu ducked under the gray metal limb that smashed part of the tree above his head. However, the shockwave that traveled through the tree caused him to lose his grip and fall.
Natsu braced for impact but felt wind gather beneath him, slowing his descent and softly landing on the ground. Natsu heard silence, meaning his friends were already in front of him. He didn't dare look up, knowing they sported shocked expressions.
Three seconds passed before the silence was broken by pails of laughter and bodies crashing onto the ground. This made Natsu's face become so hot steam was coming off of him again.
"How that heck did you guys see me? It's the middle of the night!" Natsu hissed in embarrassed rage.
"You should know the answer to that, Natsu," said Wendy as she wiped a tear from her eye. "We dragon slayers have great eyesight."
Natsu growled at this, but just as he was about to retort, Gray and Gajeel grabbed him by his arms and pulled him along with them.
"Hey, what are you DOING?!" Natsu protested.
"Bringing you to the guild, what else?" said Gray.
"Hey Lily, Happy, lift us up so we can get to the guild faster. It'll be midnight in about…," Gajeel looked up at the sky, "20 minutes."
"Aye, sir!" said Happy as he grabbed Gray.
"Roger that," said Pantherlily as he grabbed Gajeel. The two exceeds lifted the three mages off the ground and flew toward the guildhall.
"We'll meet you guys there!" Natsu heard Erza say before he lost sight of her, Lucy, Wendy, and Carla.
Natsu began to struggle. "If you think I'm going to just allow you to kidnap me, you are dead wrong!" he shouted, but Gray used his ice magic to stop his movement.
"Stop struggling, ash-for-brains. We're going to the guild so Mira can take pictures and sell them to Witch Weekly*."
Natsu's face would have shown his horror, but being frozen in ice prevented that from happening.
'No, I can't let this happen!' he thought as he tried to melt the ice, but thanks to the fireproof blanket, his fire couldn't touch the ice. 'This can't be happening…." Natsu whined and cried mentally because it was the only thing he could do as he got closer to his doom.
Just as they reached the guildhall, Natsu wondered how the girls got there first for a brief second. But that question left his mind when he noticed Gray had removed the ice from him. Natsu dug his heels into the ground, refusing to go anywhere near the guild with the evil blanket on him.
"Stop being difficult, Natsu, and come on! We only have 3 minutes left!" exclaimed Gray as he and Gajeel pulled the dragon slayer.
"Then I will fight for three minutes!" shouted Natsu as he continued fighting, not knowing that Erza had gone into the guild to get Mira. As Natsu almost freed himself, a flash of light stopped all his struggles. His eyes turned to look at the source of the light and saw Mira standing there with a camera.
The she-devil took another picture, temporarily blinding Natsu, but it snapped him out of his daze. With a roar, Natsu tore away from his friends and used his teeth and claws to rip the blanket apart. Soft white cotton flew through the air as Natsu tore the colorful material to shreds. By the time Natsu was done, the blankie was dirty strips of cloth and filling.
The dragon slayer panted as he grinned darkly at the thing. He started to giggle, but the sound caused dreadful shivers to run down everyone's backs.
"Oh, Zeref. I hope you're having fun because, by the time this is over, I'll be the one who has the last laugh," Natsu said as he continued giggling with a dark aura whipping around his body.
Well, Natsu lost it. I'm surprised it took this long.
* It would be Witch Weekly they would sell pictures like that, right?
Zeref: His reaction looked familiar.
Enj/Dark: That's surprising because I took that from an episode of D. Gray-Man.
Natsu: D… what now?
Zeref: -Man. It's actually really good.
Enj/Dark: If you like action, mystery, dark, war, supernatural powers, and funny moments then you should check it out. Although, the manga has more info in it than the anime.
Zeref: Yeah, but that's because the anime stopped.
Enj/Dark: Sadly. :( Please review! ^-^
