Hello everybody, here is Tc bringing you all another chapter of The Moon's Flame.
For those who were asking to add more people to the pairing, I have not decided yet, so just be patient.
With nothing more to say, I hope you all enjoy it.
Beta: Pixie Duck
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The Moon's Flame: Chapter 02
Smoke—that was all that she could see.
The first thing that Selene saw when she opened her eyes, was smoke. Also the second, third, and fourth thing.
The last thing she remembered was lying down on that hammock and falling asleep. The next thing she knew, she was waking up in this place.
She tried to look around her but all that smoke covered her sight. All that she knew about the place was that the ground was rough terrain, that it was covered in smoke, and that it was hot. Extremely hot.
Fortunately, she was a dragon. Even in her human form and still severely weakened after her battle with Acnologia, she was able to resist this level of heat.
With nothing else to do, she started to walk.
"Hello?!" She yelled, trying to see if there were any other living beings in this place but getting no response.
Fortunately, the more she walked, the more the smoke seemed to be dispelling. Unfortunately, the more she walked, the more the heat seemed to be increasing.
She kept walking for around ten minutes until she arrived at what appeared to be a lake of lava. The heat had increased so much that it was starting to hurt her.
While she observed the lake, she started to feel something. A presence inside it. A dragonic presence.
"Hello!" Selene yelled once more, calling to whatever dragon that was residing inside the lake.
At first, nothing happened. The lake seemed to be undisturbed, except for the occasional lava bubbles that emerged from it.
Then, all of a sudden, the earth started to shake as if an earthquake was occurring. From the lake started to appear more and more lava bubbles and a shadow started to get close to the surface.
Until finally a male dragon covered in lava emerged.
He was a gigantic dragon whose body was majorly covered with dark, red scales. His lower body, specifically his stomach, the inner portions of his long tail, and his legs were beige. He also had noticeable scars on his stomach and neck, with the largest one, which was X-shaped, located around the center of his body. His back had numerous black spikes, reaching down from the back to the end of his tail. He had a triangular head with horns, a pair of large, round eyes with yellow sclera, and a sharp horn pointing upwards just above his nose. He also sported very sharp canine teeth and had claws with long, sharp, red nails. His large bony wings resembled a bat's, with rippled tips.
This was Igneel, The Fire Dragon King, and the last hope of Selene.
"Igneel!" She called him, euphoric. He was alive! He was alive and in one piece! More scarred than the last time she had seen him, but that was to be expected after having survived his fight with Acnologia. Even so, he was still alive and together they can find a way to finally surpass that monster.
"Selene," he said, as he expulsed smoke from his nostril. "What are you doing here?" Igneel asked, with a serious voice.
"I came looking for you, I need your help!" she responded. "By the way, where are we?" She asked, looking around her. "I remember falling asleep in your lair and then waking up here," she said.
He looked at her, bewildered.
"My lair?" He said, clearly confused. "What are you talking ab..." He began saying before but stopped himself. He glanced her up and down for a moment before a look of recognition appeared on his face. " Ah, I see," he said.
"What?" She asked.
He pointed one claw in her direction and said.
"You are not really here, only your mind is," he explained to her. "You wouldn't normally be capable of appearing here unintentionally, but your power over other dimensions must have unconsciously brought your mind here," the red dragon said.
She looked at him, confused.
"What are you talking about? Where are we?" Selene said, exasperated. She was starting to get annoyed. She was looking for him to get help, not to solve riddles.
"We are inside my son," he responded.
She opened wide her eyes.
"Your son?" She said, looking at her surroundings. "Of course your son's mind is a volcanic region," she said, clearly amused. Still, a doubt appeared in her head. "Although I didn't know there were other dragons in whose veins flow your blood, other than Ignia," she said.
"There aren't," he responded.
"Uh?" Selene said, cocking her head in confusion. " Then how..." She began saying.
"Never mind that," he interrupted her. "Tell me, why are you looking or me? What are you even doing on this continent? I thought that you, along with several other dragons, run away to the northern continent of Guiltina," he said.
She felt that he was hiding something concerning this son of his, but she let it go. It was not of her business, and besides, she had other things to worry about.
"I came looking for you because he is back," she said, and seeing his inquisitive look, she clarified. "The dragon of magic and King of Dragons, Acnologia," she said with a grave voice.
He narrowed his eyes at her.
"Do you mean that he has gone to Guiltina?" He asked with a grim voice.
"Yes," she responded while hugging herself in clear fear. "He came to the continent, to our new home, and he started slaughtering us once more," she said.
Selene tried to maintain her composure, but she failed. She started shaking. Just remembering that monster and how insignificant he made her feel, filled her with terror.
"Some of us tried, you know?" she said looking at him, with a hopeless smile. "Once we arrived in the continent, some of us started training, training like never before so we never taste defeat again. And we did it. We became stronger, so strong that even we couldn't believe it, especially five of us," she said.
Tears started falling from her eyes while she raised her head to the sky. All the terror that she has ignored all this time has started to resurface.
"For centuries, the five of us governed over our own territories, and nobody dared to challenge us," she said with nostalgia in her voice.
"And little by little, our fears and depression disappeared. Until we arrogantly called ourselves The Five Dragon Gods of Guiltina," she lowered her face, her hair obscuring her expression.
"We thought ourselves stronger than that monster. That, even if he returns, we will be able to kill him this time," she whispered.
Her body began to shake. A sound started to escape her lips.
"Selene?" Asked Igneel.
All of a sudden, she raised her head and covered her eyes with her hands. The sound, too low to identified before, was clearly heard now.
"HAHAHAHAH," she laughed, hysterically. "What amazing lies!" She screamed, still laughing uncontrollably.
"Selene, control yourself!" Igneel yelled, seeing her lose composure like that.
She kept laughing for a few more seconds, before regaining her bearings.
"Ignia was the first," she told him, in a more subdued tone of voice. "He went to confront him alone and that monster killed him, wiping him from the face of the earth."
Igneel narrowed his eyes at the mention of his son.
"Then it were Aldoron and Viernes. They teamed up, but they too were too weak to do anything about him. And finally..." she said, giving him an empty smile, "It was Mercphobia and me," she said.
She closed her eyes, remembering all the plans and effort she and her allies put in order to defeat that monster. But in the end...
"It was all for nothing," she said, desolate. "All that we accomplished was add more numbers to his body count," Selene said.
"I could barely escape, thanks to the sacrifice of Mercphobia. With a little luck, Acnologia will think that I am dead and I could go unnoticed"
Selene opened her eyes and looked at Igneel's.
"You ask me why am I here. I am here to ask for your help to destroy that monster and once and for all be free to live without fear," she finished saying.
Igneel remained silent, just looking at her. Selene, still trying to recover her bearings, hoped that he would see that their only chance of surviving was to work together.
After all, if they didn't, Acnologia would come looking for them and he would finish the job this time.
Finally, Igneel spoke.
"I can not help you," he said, much to her dismay.
"Why?!" She asked, yelling at him. "Don't you see that if we don't do something, he will exterminate us?!" Selene said, angry.
"I have a task to do that can not be interrupted," he said with an irked voice, clearly annoyed with her shouting at him.
"What can be more important than this?!" Selene continued yelling. "Don't tell me that you are afraid," she teased him. "Is that it? The Great Fire King is afraid of challenging that human again?" She let a mocking laugh. "I expect better than th—" she said before she was interrupted.
"You will not speak to me like that!" Igneel shouted at her, lifting and throwing her several feet in the air before landing on the ground with nothing more than his voice. "Unless you want to challenge the great and powerful Igneel!" He finished saying.
Selene stood up and remained silent, not wanting to anger him again. She needed him as an ally and she won't achieve that by insulting him.
A part of her recognized that it was the fear inside her that made her speak to him that way. Another part of her, a more prideful part, wanted nothing more than to transform into her dragon form and attack him. She was the Moon Dragon God of Guiltina and she would not let anyone tre—
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Once she had calmed herself, she opened them again. She tried to put her pride aside and think rationally.
Attacking Igneel now would be pointless, because not only would she not achieve her goal of gaining an ally but she would also lose that fight. Even if she was one hundred percent healthy, she still would not be able to win against him.
Now, with her body severely debilitated, she wouldn't stand a chance.
Trying to mend bridges, she swallowed her pride and said.
"My apologies, that was rude of me," she said.
Igneel remained silent for a moment, before saying.
"What I was trying to say before you started yelling at me, was that I am busy helping my son, Natsu. As we speak, I am doing all I can to stop the dragonification from taking rot in him," he said. "And even if I wasn't..." he added. "I doubt that I could defeat Acnologia, not in my current condition," Igneel said.
Selen digested everything that he had said. So his son wasn't a dragon but a dragon slayer and he was busy preventing his transformation. That made sense, she thought. After all, the last thing the world needed was another Acnologia.
But what did he mean by his 'condition'? He seemed fi-
She stopped. Selene closed her eyes and opened her magical sense. After a moment, she felt it. Cold, she felt cold which shouldn't be possible. Igneel was a fire dragon, the only thing that she should sense from him was fire. So wh...
And then she realized. She opened wide her eyes to him and said.
"You- you already are..." she couldn't finish her sentence.
"Yes," Igneel confirmed her fears with a grave voice. "Do you now understand, why I can't help you?" He asked.
Selene lowered her eyes and closed her fist. What was she supposed to do now? All her hope was in him, and with his state...
She began trembling once more but she managed to stop herself.
No, there had to be something that she could do. She refused to lie down and wait for her death.
While she was having these thoughts, Igneel was having similar ideas.
While there was nothing that he would like more than to battle Acnologia once more, especially now that that bastard had killed Ignia, the remaining strength that he had left would be used to save his other son, Natsu.
But that didn't mean that they couldn't help each other.
Looking at Selene, a plan started to form in his head.
If they could work together, they could both accomplish their objectives. Selene could help Natsu from the outside, while he helped him from the inside. And if all goes right, maybe Natsu will get strong enough to...
A smile started forming on his face. Yes, this might just work.
He cleared his throat and said.
"Selene, listen to me," he said.
She raised her eyes once more.
Having her attention once more, he said.
"I may have a solution to our problems," he told her.
Selene blinked in confusion at his words.
"You mean you have a plan? You?" She asked with a puzzled voice. "I thought that all your ideas were 'destroy everything in sight and let the gods decide' type," she said, amused.
He narrowed his eyes at her. 'This fucking brat,' he thought.
While some may say that he wasn't the wisest of dragons, nobody had dared to tell him that to his face.
"But oh, well," after sighing a little, she continued talking. "I don't have many choices at the moment so let's hear it, this so-called plan of yours," Selene said with a smirk, making his eyebrow twitch in irritation.
He contemplated roasting her, just a little, to cure her of that arrogance. That was the problem with dealing with other dragons. They were all fucking divas, thinking that they shit gold or something like that.
He quickly extended his arm and grabbed her between his claws, trapping her in them.
Bringing her closer to his face, he said.
"If you could stop being difficult for the time being, listen to me," he said in a no-nonsense tone.
Still smirking, she listened silently.
When he finished speaking, Selene, still in his grasp, had a pensive look on her face.
"Do you really think that will work?" She asked in doubt. "Do you have that much faith in him?" she asked.
Igneel nodded his head.
"I do," he said, firmly. "He has great potential, and with your help, he will become one of the strongest in the world," he said with confidence.
With a still doubtful face, she said.
"Very well, I will help him," she said. "I still have my reservations but, as I said, I don't have many choices at the moment," Selene finally agreed.
Igneel lowered her to the ground and tilted his head to the side as if listening to some faraway sound.
"Ah," he said pleasantly, "It seems that our time has come to an end, Selene," he said.
She tilted her head in confusion, "What do you me––-" she started saying before suddenly disappearing.
Igneel laughed at her fading for a moment before started returning to the lava lake.
"Get stronger Natsu," he said to the wind, as he slowly started to sink in the magma, "Get stronger enough to leave me and Acnologia behind," Igneel said as he fully submerged.
The only proof that he was ever there, were the lava bubbles that began emerging once again.
Selene's awakening this time was rather abrupt.
One second, she was talking with Igneel in some kind of mindscape, and the next one she was flying in the air before harshly landing on the ground.
Looking around to know what was happening, her eyes first started observing her surroundings before finally settling on the only human in the room.
Medium height, muscular body but not terrible so with spiky, pink hair, and a handsome face. He was looking at her with suspicion.
She could feel the heat emanating from his body in a way similar to Igneel's but at a lower temperature.
'So this is Natsu,' she thought.
Looking at the hammock lying on the ground, she realized that he must have flipped the coy, throwing her to the ground.
How incredibly rude. Kids these days, no respect for their guests. She grumbled.
Before she could say anything, the dragon-slayer yelled.
"Who are you lady, and what are you doing in my house?!"
She thought of what to say to him, before letting a playful smile.
She stood up from the ground and, without losing the smile, she looked him in the eyes and said.
"Hello Natsu Dragneel, my name is Selene," she said, putting a hand on her naked chest. Seeing him follow her moment and lingering his eyes on her breasts for a second, made her smile even wider. "And I have come to your house looking for you to challenge you to a fight," she said, still smiling.
Seeing his eyes narrow, she thought.
'Just like Igneel, never backing from a battle,' she said to herself. 'This is gonna be fun,' Selene thought with mirth.
Hope you liked it.