"How many times do I have to tell you, it wasn't me woman!"
"You are the only dragon who can burn my forest, who else could it have been!?"
"Um... mind telling me why I'm still here?"
On one of the floating islands that was covered in forestry, three dragons stood at a clearing. Two of them were in a heated argument while the other wanted to leave and mind his business. Not too far from them was a group of trees that had been on fire not too long ago, their leaves completely turned to ashes while scorch marks rested on the surface of the trunk. It had been long since put out, but the caretaker of the island was completely pissed at the dragon responsible.
"This is honestly ridiculous, I don't even know why I'm still arguing with you." The red dragon said, rolling his eyes.
"Funny you should say that because you just refuse to acknowledge your mistake!" The green dragon retorted. "Kai had to wash away your fire when he was supposed to prepare for her majesty's arrival!"
Kai, in his blue-scaled dragon body, just sighed before he enveloped his body with a bright light and shrunk down as he transformed into his human form. He desperately wanted to leave the two dragons to their argument and wished nothing more than to spend with his empress' adorable daughter. Of course, he hadn't had the chance to inform the two of their blonde ruler's arrival due to their argument and it was only a matter of time before the peach haired girl came to search for her beloved grandfather.
Noticing that Kai was leaving, the red dragon turned to the dark haired man. "Where are you going Kai?"
"Since the both of you want to waste time arguing over something that I know you can easily fix, I'm going back to the castle to see milady and Miss. Nashi." Kai said, shrugging. "After all, I only came here to inform you of her arrival."
"Eh?" The two asked, completely forgetting their argument. "She's here?"
The dark haired man just facepalmed, completely giving up on the two as they stared at him blankly. It hasn't even been ten minutes since he went to get them after leaving Lucy with Weisslogia and Skiadrum in the council hall, but he was already exhausted just having listened to the two argue it out. He was grateful that a certain iron dragon wasn't present, but that was only because he knew that same dragon would also be picking a fight for no reason with both of them.
"If you had allowed me to interrupt your stupid argument this wouldn't be an issue." Kai reasoned, slouching in surrender. "She had arrived probably half an hour ago and probably gave up on waiting for you at the council hall."
"AND YOU'VE JUST DECIDED TO TELL US THIS ONLY NOW!?" They yelled in anger.
"Hey! Don't go pointing fingers at me!" Kai replied, pointing his finger at them. "You oldies were so into that argument of yours, I didn't even get to tell you that milady's-"
Kai immediately stopped himself from explaining further as he began to sniff the air. The two dragons noticed this and followed his actions, smelling a few familiar scents and a couple of new scents headed their way. They looked at Kai for any explanation and they only received a sigh as he transformed back into his dragon form, clearly to his displeasure. The water dragon forcing himself to shed a tear, mumbling how he just wanted to play with Nashi and nothing more.
"Hold on Kai... who's that approaching-"
"Dad!"
Igneel's mouth closed instantly, his eyes widening as he turned to look next to him and met eyes with a familiar head of pink hair. Ava, the nature nature dragon, stared as Natsu's eyes were only focused on his dragon parent. He was being held by Happy, the two had been riding on Skiadrum's back with the rest of the Team Natsu and Nashi to the the forest island until he had caught Igneel's scent. He had heard Nashi calling for him, but thankfully Lucy stopped her and let him go.
So now being face to face with his dragon parent after seven, technically fourteen years, Natsu didn't know what to say. He was happy and angry at the same time. He wanted to just hug Igneel but also yell at him for leaving without a word all those years ago. The fire dragon just stared at his son. Lucy had told him that she was friends with the pink haired boy and he had heard that the core members of Fairy Tail had returned, but he didn't that he would meet the human whom he thought of his son so soon.
"Natsu..." Igneel finally spoke. "You're... here?"
The pink haired slayer continued to stare. The sound of his dragon's voice. His smell. It was all real and there. Once he got to terms with that, he hid his eyes beneath his bangs and gnashed his teeth while his body shook. Happy looked at his best friend in worry, but then Natsu looked at him with a side glance. After locking eye contact for a second, the exceed knew what Natsu wanted to do and took a deep breath as he suddenly charged at the fire dragon.
Igneel was still too deep into shock to even move, but he was immediately woken up when Natsu's head clashed with his forehead, it feeling as if it was a flick to the forehead. The fire dragon looked at his son in confusion. But then he heard sniffling come from the dragon slayer and his gaze softened. Natsu didn't know anything about the reasons of why he and the other dragons left and having been a child when they disappeared... it must've scared and hurt them like hell.
"You... I can't believe this..." He muttered loud enough for his ears to hear. "You jerk... how could you do that... to your own son!?"
"I had to Natsu, I didn't have much of a choice..."
"Oh so you just up and leave without a word, just like Gajeel and Wendy's dragons, and in the end I find out that you're here having arguments with some other dragon!?" Natsu shouted, his eyes practically blazing with anger. "I searched for you, you know!? I've been looking all over for you so that we can be together again! How could you have no choice!? TELL ME!"
"It's because you, as well as your fellow dragon slayers, would have turned into dragons if we hadn't disappeared." Skiadrum spoke up as he and Weisslogia landed on the island in their dragon forms.
On Skiadrum's back were the rest of Team Natsu, Nashi, Makarov, Juvia and Gajeel, the others didn't really think that they were needed with Natsu's reunion with Igneel and that they would all meet the fire dragon when they get the chance. Wendy and Gajeel looked at the shadow dragon with wide eyes at his words and then turned to the fire dragon, all three having the same sorrowful expressions. Meanwhile, Ava and Kai stayed silent as they greeted Lucy and Nashi with a bow.
"We'd have... turned to dragons!?" Wendy exclaimed in disbelief.
"That is correct." Igneel replied. "You all would have been victims of dragonification like Acnologia. We went and placed ourselves into your bodies in order to create defenses against dragonification and thus remained dormant within you."
"Dragonification? Acnologia!? What in the world is he talking about, Lucy?" Makarov asked.
The blonde empress, realizing that the Tenrou Team didn't know the truth about the chaos dragon, just met eyes with Weisslogia. The white dragon nodded and turned to face the three dragon slayers. None of the dragons liked to recall the existence of Acnologia, but they were willing to bring him up just once for the sake of explanation to Natsu, Wendy and Gajeel. Lucy, for obvious reasons, also winced slightly at the mention of the evil dragon.
"As a dragon slayer, the more one uses their dragon abilities and merge with their dragon-like qualities... at one point their skin will turn to scales and they will begin to lose your humanity... as was the fate of Acnologia." Weisslogia said, the mages' eyes widening at the revelation.
The fairies had known Acnologia to be the dragon who had wiped out an entire country all by himself. His strength and power so powerful that he had slayed both humans and dragons alike. It didn't matter who was in his way. His name struck fear to anyone who had heard it. No one but the dragons and Lucy knew of this truth, that Acnologia was once a dragon slayer like Natsu, Wendy and Gajeel. But now the truth was revealed to them.
"That's... unbelievable..." Juvia said after being left speechless.
"But you're here now, so why wait until we came here to see Natsu?" Carla asked for the pink haired slayer.
None of the dragons replied and just looked to Lucy to explain the rest of the situation. The blonde knew that and just sighed as she slid down Skiadrum's wing with Nashi in her arms and gestured for Happy to bring Natsu back to the ground, which the exceed complied. Once the dragon slayer stood next to the blonde, he immediately looked to Lucy to help him make sense of the situation, since she was always good at explaining things to him whenever they were complicated.
"To make things simple, Natsu, Igneel would've completely died if he were to just go and leave your body." She said bluntly, making the entire group of mages' eyes widen at the news. "Long ago, Acnologia had stripped their souls from their bodies and staying in your guys' bodies extended your dragon parents' lives."
"Okay, so you guys went into your bodies to stop us from turning into dragons and dying. If you were in our bodies all this time, then how the hell are you here now?" Gajeel asked, crossing his arms. "And if you're here where are mine and the kid's dragons?"
"That would also be her majesty's doing." Weisslogia said. "While observing Tenrou Island's area, she was able to build a connection with your dragon parents thanks to her bonds with you and was able to summon - or extract - a fragment of their souls and bring them to this realm. The very fact that they lived meant that you were also alive as well."
"So that's how you came to your conclusion, I assume?" Makarov asked.
Lucy nodded as she looked at Igneel. "This place serves as a way to preserve your dragon parents' essence. The day they complete their task in preventing dragonification, so long as they stay here to heal, I hope that their souls slowly meld with the new bodies I've given them. The same with Metalicana and Grandeeney who should be on their way here from their islands now."
"That's just... amazing..." Erza said in admiration.
"Who would've thought of such precautions..." Juvia muttered, impressed that the dragons even thought of such a method.
"By the way Lucy, who're the two dragons over there?" Gray asked, glad all the explanations were done and pointing to Ava and Kai.
"I'm surprised you don't recognize him, Gray." Lucy said, acting as though Gray has seen many dragons before that moment. "The green one is Ava, who is in charge of this island as the nature dragon. The blue one is Kai."
"THAT'S KAI!?" The fairies cried.
"You guys just noticed us?" Kai thought acting as though he was crying.
"I'm sorry that I was unable to welcome you all earlier, my name is Ava." She apologized before glaring at Igneel from the side. "This idiot of a fire king decided to burn down my trees."
That instantly annoyed Igneel and the fairies could swear that a tick mark appeared on his forehead while he turned to the nature dragon. "Do you honestly want to continue picking a fight with me when Lucy's present, you woodwork?" He asked.
"Oh go right ahead!" Lucy replied for the female dragon, her expression darkening. "I, too, have business to speak with you later Igneel so consider this a calm before the storm."
"What did I do?" He asked genuinely, actually not having the slightest idea.
Lucy looked at him with an unconvinced look as she brought Nashi down to stand on her own and gestured for her to finally greet the fire dragon. Without a seconds delay, she did just that, hugging him by the foot. "Grandpa!" She shouted with a smile.
Igneel couldn't help but smile at her cuteness and brought his head down slightly. "How is my beautiful granddaughter?"
"Super happy now that you and Papa are reunited!" She said, making Ava and Igneel freeze at her words. "You must've missed Papa a lot right? Now he can visit whenever he wants!"
The fire dragon had to refrain from choking on his saliva and cleared his throat. "Papa?" He asked slowly.
Nashi ignored his question and stood up straight so that she could go run to Natsu and raise her hands so he could carry her, which he did. "Papa, your face is a mess from crying!" Nashi teased, Igneel's jaw dropping at the revelation.
He looked to Lucy who was already planning how to punish him. Kai, Weisslogia and Skiadrum were staring at him with teasing eyes. The fairies only smirked and/or laughed at the fact that they were doing this conversation again. Ava just kept her calm composure and Natsu just looked at him with an utterly clueless face, making Igneel's mind go over the place since he had a feeling what Lucy accused him of... and he was definitely not looking forward to his interrogation.
"Oi vey..." He thought.