Chapter Thirteen
Intention
Iron filings and licks of flame erupted throughout the space between the two Dragon Slayers as they went blow for blow with one another across the streets of Magnolia, the destruction to the city going off the charts.
Natsu had told Mira that he was going to try and keep the damage to a minimum and for a while he'd really tried, but it became inherently clear that it just wasn't possible to keep it in any way contained.
Two Dragon Slayers clashing was never going to end in any way other than pure carnage.
There was also the other side of it, the draconic instincts that Natsu often had to actively suppress, but right now, in the heat of battle against another Dragon Slayer, there was nothing that could stop him from appreciating the moment.
"Iron Dragon Roar!" Gajeel bellowed, filling the air between them with iron. This one was definitely no push over. Natsu couldn't help but wonder how he would fare against some of the Fairy Tail mages.
Natsu pulled a wave of fire from his fingers and swept upward, creating a wall between him and the shout, redirecting the attack toward the sky as it waned the further it went.
"Those stories about you aren't all that exaggerated I see." Gajeel grinned, looking slightly worse for wear than Natsu but overall still hanging on and fighting back with an impressive amount of strength in his attacks.
"I'd say the same about you, but…" Natsu began, shrugging slightly, "There aren't any stories about you, you've not exactly used that power of yours to do anything worth talking about." he added, seeing the twinge of ire ping in Gajeel's eyes.
"You think that you're so much better than I am." Gajeel sneered.
"That's because I am better than you and I don't prance around like a little studded punk bitch." Natsu shot back quickly, appreciating the brief moment between their physical exchanges.
"What, you don't like my look? I thought it was pretty fitting for an Iron Dragon Slayer." Gajeel defended himself with a genuinely hurt expression.
Natsu simply stared at him for a moment, unsure if he really wanted to continue down this path of insults, lest the Iron Dragon could hold a grudge.
"Karyu no Hoko!" Natsu bellowed, his voice deeper and richer than when he would normally speak, this was something that materialized more powerful than it would have ever done before due to him not simply using Dragon Slayer magic, but rather the dragons magic itself.
The roar split the street in two as it barrelled across and hit its mark, forcing Gajeel into the ground and further away before it fell to nothing, leaving the scorched Iron Dragon Slayer struggling to recover.
"Years ago, I was promised by someone that one day a handful of Dragon Slayers would appear, my own people would join me once again even after I'd taken the long way round, so now imagine my surprise at seeing such a pitiful excuse for one. Damn, even Titania would have a field day spanking you around." Natsu told him, crossing his arms in disappointment.
"Although, on second thought, that feels more and more like it would go without saying. That redhead is definitely into the kinky stuff." he mused, unsure if anyone around him would likely relay that comment to the Fairy Queen herself.
"What the fuck are you yapping about? Don't get distracted now Salamander, this is where it gets good." Gajeel told him, showing a sharp grin that exposed his canines.
"What are you-?" Natsu looked around to see what had caught Gajeel's attention so quickly.
Gray and Lucy had run through an alleyway into the main street that the two slayers were fighting in.
"Snowflake? Wow, did not pin you as that kind of guy, but that's something I wouldn't judge you over… The piercings are kinda making sense now though." Natsu told him, another shrug to show that he cared little about it.
"I wasn't looking at the nudist," Gajeel's voice reached his ears at the same time as his body had already closed the distance and pushed past him, zoning in on Lucy who looked nothing more like a deer in a spotlight.
"Hey, we're not done yet!" Natsu yelled, bringing out a huge wave of pressure that had just caught Gajeel, throwing him down to his knees.
"We're done when I say we're done, and sadly for you, you're not the reason I'm here, blondie is!" he yelled back, fighting against the pressure with everything he had, pushing through while Natsu ran to catch up.
"Oh no you don't," Gray lurched forwards, the air growing immediately cold around them, "Ice-Make Lance!" the spell burst into existence alongside a dozen frozen spears that all shot towards Gajeel who had accepted the challenge with a crazed smile.
"You will not touch her!" Natsu erupted, his fire forcing Gajeel to turn back to the Fire Dragon King. The heat of Natsu's anger caused Gray's ice attack to immediately evaporate.
"I told you to fuck off!" Gajeel yelled back, both of them using their heads to literally headbutt once another.
"Oh, damn, motherfu-" Natsu fell to his knees, clutching his head in immense pain.
"What in the hell is your head made of Salamander!?" Gajeel too had relented, grabbing his head, the skin on his forehead briefly shining as it had turned to iron.
"That's what you get for trying to hurt my Anna," Natsu almost stuttered through the pain shooting through his head. How the hell was Gajeel's skin so tough? He knew how strong iron was, the Dragon Slayer was far denser than that.
"Still not Anna!" he heard Lucy call out, her voice fading as Gray tried to drag her away from the fight.
"Still immensely hot!" he shouted back, turning his focus away from his head and back to Gajeel who looked unimpressed with their result.
"We'll finish this another time Salamander, the blondie has gotten away, and I don't feel like playing with you anymore." Gajeel told him, thrusting iron pillars into the ground, dozens more sprouting all around causing Natsu to jump across the floor to avoid being impaled by them.
When he looked up, Gajeel was no longer anywhere to be seen, only a brief scent still hanging in the air. He knew better than to try and follow him if he didn't want to be found, even Natsu couldn't beat a sneaking dragon like that.
"Hah," he huffed, crouching down and focusing on his breathing, having to take extra steps to reign his power in. So much destruction had been left in the wake of the duelling dragons but he didn't think anyone had gotten seriously hurt, and he could tell that no one had been killed.
Mira must have gotten the people to shelter down in time.
Gajeel was gone but that still left Natsu with a huge problem. Lucy was their target, but why?
They couldn't possibly know anything about her lineage, what would they even want with a strong line of celestial mages?
"How dare he leave me out here like this." Natsu grumbled. That iron skull of his had definitely given Natsu more trouble than he'd had in quite a while, he couldn't remember the last time his brain had been rattled that badly, save for Titania and Mirajane.
"Salamander." the scarlet mage's sweet but stern voice reached his ears, causing him to turn his cold gaze toward her. He could see the small blush in his cheeks, realizing that he hadn't quite calmed himself back down to an appropriate level. With another deep breath and heavy focus, he managed to bring his strength and power back down to a normal level, his enchanting golden eyes turning back into the smouldering onyx colour they normally were.
"Hello Titania, did Silvertop ask you to come out here?" he queried, raising a brow at her. He'd relenting to squatting on his heels, resting his chin against a hastily propped up elbow, sulking somewhat at the predicament he found himself in.
"She did," Erza nodded slowly, looking around the street with a grim expression, "She had everyone available in the guild mobilise to try and minimise the damage but I didn't think it would be anything like this, even with two Dragon Slayers on the loose." she admitted with a long sigh.
"I tried not to break everything around." he told her quickly.
"Really?" she asked calmly.
"Well, to begin with at least." he answered, "Black Steel Gajeel, the Iron Dragon Slayer. Metalicana's son just like I had expected." Natsu confirmed with a glaring nod.
"How many dragons do you know by name?" Erza asked with a quirked eyebrow.
"A few, why do you ask so many questions about dragons?" he looked up, watching her through unsure eyes.
"How often do you think people encounter dragons or Dragon Slayers? I couldn't even tell you if I've ever met another lost magic user. It's… Fascinating." She admitted honestly, no longer feeling any way uncomfortable around him.
"Understandable." He nodded slowly.
"Phantom Lord are after the celestial mage. I don't know why, just yet." He explained, seeing her face grow concerned at the new information.
"It's most likely because she's from a very prestigious and wealthy family. My understanding is that she left her home behind, much to the disappointment of her father, but that's not my business to tell you." Erza told him, still occasionally scanning their surroundings to see any signs of Phantom Lord coming out of the woodwork.
"So be it," Natsu sighed, rising to his feet and stretching out somewhat. The sight almost reminded her of how Happy would do it.
"Your concern is remarkable, given that you pretend not to care. I know that you've been hanging around Magnolia waiting for something to happen, so why did you so adamantly reject the master's offer?" She asked, determined to get a real answer out of him.
He'd been expertly avoiding her for the last couple of days, something that only seemed to stoke the fire within her that much more.
He'd claimed that he had business to settle with Phantom Lord, and so he did, but it hadn't gone unnoticed how he'd make sure to keep an eye out for the mages of Fairy Tail any time they'd go through the town alone.
"I don't play well with others," he said.
"It almost seems like you actively want that to be the case, but… Why are you really hovering here if you don't intend to join the Fairy Tail guild?" Erza peered over at him.
"The kid with the blue hair." he whispered, barely audible.
"Levy?" Erza asked in surprise.
"Sure? The one Black Steel had strung up on a tree. That kind of cruelty, I can't simply allow a Dragon Slayer, one of my own kin, to have committed something that horribly depraved. Gajeel will know punishment for what he did to that kid and her friends, and that was my reason before I knew that he was targeting Anna's descendant." Natsu's determination had almost turned tangible as the heat began to rise around them.
'Kill him. Break the Iron Dragon and the others will know their place.' the dark voice of E.N.D echoed around inside Natsu's head, catching the Dragon King off guard. He hadn't been vocal outside of battle since nearly the beginning. Was he becoming stronger, pushing through his prison more than before?
"I won't let that happen." Natsu said, choosing his words carefully so that it could apply to the conversation with Titania as well as a response to E.N.D.
He knew that Mira had seen the demon, but she hadn't gone into detail by the sounds of it, otherwise Titania wouldn't be this civil with him, he knew that much. Why were the Fairy Tail mages giving him this much respect after all that he'd done?
He spared a glance toward the all but finished guild hall, standing taller than it was before.
"The cost of materials to rebuild weren't all that much at all, a few hundred thousand jewel at most, so given that you gave master Makarov over fifteen million, we used almost all of it to have the guild built from specially infused materials, it would be very difficult for you to accidentally burn it down again." Erza told him, smiling somewhat at the foresight the master had.
"Why go to all that trouble? I already told all of you that I won't harm any of you and I'll be gone once my business here is done." he asked, surprised by it all.
"This wasn't done to prevent you being an aggressor, it was done because the master is adamant that you'll become a member of Fairy Tail. We don't want to lose our home again because of your… Enthusiasm." Erza told him, deliberately trying to find a word that wouldn't offend him.
He gave her a soft laugh that showed exactly what it was that the master could see in him. He was no dark mage, he had a terrible reputation, one that he certainly hadn't gone out of his way to fix, but beneath it all Erza could see that he was a good man.
A good, powerful, and very attractive man. She never thought she'd meet someone who so easily rocked salmon pink hair. She'd been so temporarily caught up in her thoughts that she almost missed the fact that Lucy and Gray had returned from wherever they'd run off to.
"You didn't have to melt my ice like that, it would have stopped him where he was." Gray said, looking at him with anger in his low hanging brow.
"If your ice wasn't so pitifully watery then that wouldn't have happened, Snowflake." Natsu shot back, already feeling like he had an interesting sense of rivalry with the Ice-Make mage. It wasn't something born of power, but rather of a similar personality that conflicted in their personal viewpoints.
"You know that my power has nothing to do with it, Smokey." he shot back, both of them advancing on one another, their auras flaring up as they stopped only inches from one another.
"Ooh, nice." Lucy said, watching the two with more interest than she realized.
"Mood killer." Natsu huffed, breaking away from the confrontation angrily, "If you came here to gloat that I lost Gajeel then get it over with." he told them, crossing his arms and staring anywhere but where they stood.
"I…" Lucy shifted uncomfortably, looking down to where her hands were fidgeting with an overwhelming sense of anxiety rolling around. "I actually came to say that I'm sorry about whatever happened to Anna, she was obviously a really important person to you, but that made me then think… Are you… Is it possible that you're a part of my family line?" she asked, unable to take her eyes off of the ground, a furious blush crossing her cheeks.
Natsu could feel how uncomfortable they all were when he realized they'd all suddenly clung onto what Lucy's question had really been about.
He gave a soft sigh, eventually taking off his cloak, revealing a long white scarf that had been well concealed from a deep pocket on the inside. He threw the cloak up, incinerating it before it ever got the chance to fall back to the ground, now instead showing them the garb that he wore underneath.
Baggy white trousers that met a long black undercoat, one that looked like it had once been the same piece of clothing at the gold trimmed waist coat that did nothing to hide the unbelievable body underneath. They could all see the edge of the scarred patch on his cheesy. He wrapped the scarf around his arm and held it up, covering the whole thing in a pillar of flames that looked like it shot through the clouds above before disappearing.
"No," he said at last, "The love that Anna and I had for one another was something that came from a time when I was not in control of my power. I was once feared throughout the lands as a demon of destruction, fancy titles and all that, but she fought against me on several occasions, eventually drawing out the sane part of my brain. She is the reason that I am what you see today, and she even went so far as to weave this scarf out of a few of my father's scales." he told them all, wrapping the scarf around his neck, letting it drape down his back.
This was already a totally different man than the one that Erza had fought against at the guild hall.
"I've wasted enough time here today." he sighed, heading away from them and into the heart of Magnolia. He needed some time to figure out a defensive plan, something that would catch even Gajeel off guard, otherwise he was going to be in a predicament that would mean Fairy Tail would have to fend for itself.
If he managed to get to Gajeel and there wasn't anyone around then it would be an easy fight, one that would mean bringing down the sky on him. The wrath of a Dragon King was something that few had ever experienced and even fewer had survived.
Their fight was nothing more than scratching the surface, a little scrap for both Dragon Slayers while they tested the waters with one another.
Their next confrontation would determine whether or not the Black Steel could survive the heat.
He had his doubts.
A/N: Took a bit longer for this one, I got a bit lost in what my intention was. Review?