Chapter Twenty-One
Enter The Dragon
"This is good, go back to the others, little buddy," Natsu gave Happy the thumbs up.
"Good luck Natsu, make sure to bring Erza
back with you!" Happy's voice faded quickly as the Dragon Slayer fell toward the Tower of Heaven at an incredible rate. He just had to stick the landing…
Where was he aiming for? Hitting the top of the tower was something that he considered 'sticking it' but for all of the good parts of his plan, they mostly hinged on landing where Titania was, and he wasn't privy to that information.
As he neared the top of the tower, he could see through a crumbled alcove the sight of Titania hugging someone.
"Huh, don't suppose that means she's won?" he mused to himself seconds before his boots pounded against the roof. He saw the Fairy Queen look up through the hole in the roof but before anything could be said, Etherion had been fired, raining down death and destruction on the tower.
Natsu turned to face it, throwing his hands into a cross guard, forced to his knees from the seemingly infinite driving force behind it.
It was painful, just as much as he'd expected, perhaps even more so. Bit by bit, he opened his tightly clenched eyes to see sparks of magic flying away from his wrists, almost like friction from two magical sources.
The rope binds on his arms were working against the force of Etherion, creating a minuscule barrier that was warding the absolute worst of the damage away from him.
When the blast had stopped, everything had changed. The foundations of the tower had broken away to reveal the structure was an enormous lacrima crystal, bigger than anything Natsu had ever seen.
But he was seeing it, he couldn't believe that he'd survived the blast. He took a moment to stare at the binds in utter disbelief.
"That cat girl is fucking awesome," he said, a small sweat dripping down the back of his neck. He had taken the full force of Etherion and inadvertently survived because of her magic.
His attention was pulled into focus by the red-haired mage, her screams of pain invading every one of his senses. She had been pulled into a piece of the hypercharged lacrima.
"And now, you'll be sacrificed and the Tower of Heaven will activate for its true purpose of reviving Zeref!" Jellal shouted triumphantly, fists in the air.
Natsu leapt from the peak of the crystal beneath his feet, landing with a heavy thud right next to where the Requip mage was being broken down.
"No," his voice was full of something that she hadn't heard from him before. It was true anger.
He held onto the arm that wasn't encased in lacrima, punching the crystal so hard that the entire thing shattered around her and she was pulled free, falling into his body.
He held her close, his grip on her tight. She could feel the impossible warmth irradiate from him, it was… comforting. After all they'd been through in such a short time, this embrace from him made her feel safe.
"You have to get out of here, Natsu," she said, her voice raspy and full of broken emotions. "You don't know what's going on, he'll just use you as a sacrifice instead, and I…" she cut herself off, burrowing her head into his chest.
"I can't watch that happen!" she sobbed, tears beginning to fall freely down her cheeks.
"He's powered by the energy from Etherion, it was stored in the tower itself, and you…" she grabbed one of the magic binds, "You have no magic, you can't possibly hope to defeat him, you have to leave here while you still can." her head hit his chest again.
"I can't do that," he said at last. She looked up to see that his eyes were firmly set on Jellal. There was no sign of the normal humour that he sported, not even in the heat of battle like he had so many times before.
"I can't stand idly by and watch you die like that, I won't watch you fall for someone else's dream." he gently cupped her cheek, his eyes changed from deep black to an endless sea of gold.
"Forgive me, Erza," he whispered. She'd only had a second to realize that he'd called her by her real name, and then his fist collided with her stomach. The sensation was overwhelming. She took a step back, deprived of her ability to breathe, then collapsed, unconscious.
"You made her cry," Natsu's voice was calm, but cold, uncharacteristically for a fire Dragon.
"Shouldn't'a done that." he advanced on the bemused Jellal.
"I knew when I saw him in the guild the other day that there was something that I just couldn't stand. I hated that place, I hated everything about it, the smell of the air, the hatred and malice of the people, but most of all I hated the way that my magic was naturally inert, having to rely on power that makes the darkness inside me stronger," he explained, each sentence bringing him closer to Jellal.
"The thing that I couldn't stand the most about him was the fact that his face reminded me of yours. Siegrain, Jellal, whatever the fuck your name is. It's true that you aren't Mystogan but ever since I saw him I've had this feeling of anger starting to grow. Today you've upset someone that I care about, now you'll pay for every tear you caused. Magic, no magic, doesn't matter." Natsu closed the distance to the bewildered dark mage, swinging so fast that Jellal had barely managed to dodge it.
"Well then, you'll be the first person to taste death from my Heavenly Body magic," Jellal's body was covered in light, hovering a foot above the ground.
He moved faster than an ordinary human could see. Natsu could track him with ease, but catching him would be difficult without magic, and he couldn't use any curses because Erza could be affected due to being drained of so much of her strength.
Natsu ducked, dodged, and weaved around Jellal's attempts to strike, greatly irritating the dark mage, but the battle wasn't by any means one-sided. Natsu struck out a heel randomly, luckily catching Jellal in the ribs, sending the mage off course, and crashing into a crystal wall.
Debris fell and rattled as it hit the ground, vibrating with the groan of pain the blue-haired mage gave.
"Yeah, Heavenly Body doesn't like a kick from Hell, does it?" Natsu grinned, finally feeling like he was being given a challenge good enough to warm up for.
"Insolent fool!" Jellal spat blood. That kick had crushed at least one or two ribs. It might have been a random direction to strike in but it still had the weight of a Dragon behind it, something that few would survive.
"You're tougher than I thought," Natsu admitted as Jellal rose from the ground, once again covering himself in magic and shooting away.
He was faster this time, catching Natsu off guard, hitting him multiple times, strikes from all directions that drove the Salamander back, step by step until his back hit a wall of lacrima. More punches and kicks landed from every angle, beating the Dragon Slayer again and again until he relented to one knee.
"I'm impressed, even without your magic to defend you, you're far from an ordinary man. As a reward and sign of my respect, I'll allow you to feel the full scope of my destructive power!" Jellal backed up, circling the arena they'd carved out during their bout.
"Seven Stars, pass your judgement!" Natsu felt an eerie sense of familiarity from the spell but didn't have the time to figure out what it was.
"Grand Chariot!" the sky itself was torn asunder, stars burning against the dark canvas behind.
"Big Dipper?" Natsu asked, having no time to defend against the sky-sized attack that had come hurtling down upon him.
All seven of the blasts hit their mark in a horrifyingly fast sequence, forcing Natsu down through a layer of crystal.
Once the smoke cleared, Jellal watched in amazement as Natsu slowly rose out of the impression in the ground.
"Outstanding," he clapped, "That should have hit you with the force of a meteor, I'm truly impressed that your body is even still in one piece. I should remember to contain myself though, that attack did as much damage to the tower as it did to you. I can already feel the charge draining from it." Jellal muttered, looking at the Salamander who wobbled slightly.
"Oh?" Natsu grinned coyly, "Try not to damage the tower, you say?" he added.
"No promises," he wiped some blood away from his lips, "Better make sure that your magic keeps your fast, because I'm starting to enjoy this fight."
"You have no magic, you're being beaten bloody, what could you possibly hope to achieve beyond delaying your death by a few more minutes?" Jellal cocked a brow, looking down at Natsu from where he hovered.
"Big talk for a guy that dropped a meteor on my body and only gave me a split lip. By this time in my fight with Titania, she'd already managed tenfold of what you've done." Natsu taunted, enjoying the feeling of victory from the rage in Jellal's eyes.
"You're nothing but an ant in this grand plan! When Zeref is revived, bugs like you will be the first thing to become extinct!" Jellal yelled, pushing forward again to ramp up his attack. He'd gotten faster yet again.
Natsu ignored the threat, taking each strike head-on, once again rendered down to a knee.
"What's this, have you finally given up? Realized just how outmatched you are?" Jellal laughed maliciously.
He was offered no words in return, instead, still on one knee, Natsu slammed a fist into the crystal.
For an instant, Jellal could have sworn that he felt everything beneath him shake, but that couldn't have been possible, could it? How could a single man possess physical strength in such outlandish droves that without any magical power whatsoever, he was able to rock the foundations of a structure like that?
Natsu smashed a fist back down at the exact spot that he'd previously gone for, this time chunks of lacrima exploded outward, the damage doubling from the first attempt.
"What are you doing, stop that, you'll ruin everything!" Jellal screamed, closing the distance instantly. He lashed out with a knee that hit Natsu directly in the face, sending him sprawling, and tumbling to a stop.
Again, Natsu said nothing but slowly pushed himself up, the physical strain on his body already tremendous.
Again, another fist slammed against the ground. The shake was far greater this time around.
"Enough of this, it's time to die, Salamander!" Jellal summoned a huge amount of magical energy in his hands.
"Seven Stars, pass your judgement; Grand Chariot!" The spell came raining down on him, hitting with just as brutal ferocity as before.
He yelled in pain with each one, the toll becoming too great for him to ignore.
Erza's eyes started to flutter open, already overcoming the forced unconscious state that Natsu had tried to put her into. He was wary of overdoing it and hurting her, inadvertently pulling the punch slightly, but it still had enough force to knock her out for longer than that.
"If you won't stop for pain or death, then I'll just have to speed up my plan before you break all of my toys. It's time to say goodbye, Erza." Jellal strode over to where Erza was barely able to groan, still flat against the ground.
"Two hundred and seventy million edea of magical energy was stored in the tower from the moment Etherion hit. That power is leaking out with each chunk you carve away, so now, poor powerless Salamander, you can watch as the ritual is complete and Erza is sacrificed!" Jellal's mania reached new heights, grabbing Erza by the hair and dragging her over to a suitably sized piece of crystal.
"Oh yeah!?" Natsu yelled, teeth gritted, his eyes taking on a powerful hue almost as though they were glowing.
"You know what I think about that, Jellal!?" he said, punching the ground, "I think you can take your dreams and hysteria," he grabbed a big chunk of lacrima, "and shove them because now it's time for plan b," he said, rising to his feet, pushing through the pain to try and get to Erza.
"And what might that be?" Jellal hummed thoughtfully, greatly enjoying seeing Natsu struggle so greatly.
"Plan 'break the rules', once I do this, everything will change, enjoy reaping the seeds you've sown," he said, biting the lacrima hard, swallowing whole shards of razor-sharp crystal.
It hurt going down but it hurt even more as he felt a dozen different elements trying to diffuse into his body. They were hostile elements compared to the magic that was bound tightly at his core.
Biting that lacrima was like drinking a gallon of poison.
Yet…
"Natsu!" Erza gasped in horror, "You're a fire Dragon, you can't just eat the Etherion crystal and expect to be fine, spit it out, you'll die!" she screamed, tears blocking her vision.
Natsu screamed as the pain reached heights he hadn't felt in centuries.
'At last,' E.N.D's voice echoed around his head like thunder, 'You've finally decided on what's important. Let me out, Natsu! Let me be free, let me destroy, kill, burn!' E.N.D. had become unstable, clawing at the almost non-existent barrier between them, the Etherion breaking down every last bit of restraint the Dragon Slayer had.
One last blast of power erupted outward, rushing past Jellal and Erza like a hurricane in a volcano. His eyes had turned into a sickening shade of crimson, scales grew and jutted on his cheeks and arms.
The magical binds around his wrists went up in a blaze of fire.
Free.
Flames shot up around him showing a fearsome visage of a Dragon at his back, then it morphed into something far worse, something… Evil.
Only one step had been taken before Natsu disappeared, his body a blur. When they realized that he had appeared in front of them, his fist had been firmly planted into Jellal's stomach, sending the dark mage crashing through multiple layers of crystal.
He didn't stop there, he followed the attack with another, and another, repeating until a full circle of barrages had brought them back to the centre.
"You can't defeat me, I was chosen to do this, I am the only one who can revive Zeref, this is my right and mine alone!" Jellal screamed, pushing away from the ground.
Natsu grabbed Jellal by the throat, lifting him and slamming his body against a wall of lacrima. He leaned in close and whispered so quietly that Erza would not hear them, "You will never revive Zeref. You can't revive what isn't dead."
The words hit Jellal harder than any of Natsu's previous attacks, "You tried to revive a monster," his voice was cold and deep, gravely from the strain of internal warfare, "You were so deeply convinced by this false dream that you failed to see you almost unleashed something worse than Zeref, but that moment has come and gone, I am still in control." Natsu's eyes returned to gold, no longer a shade of crimson.
He spun on his heel, launching Jellal high into the sky above them.
"Enough! Your poisonous words mean nothing to me! If you refuse to stop standing in my way then I'll just have to start again, it will only take me another five years, I can do it with someone else!" he yelled, throwing his hands across one another, a huge mass of magic sprawling across the sky to come forward and mix.
"Natsu, he's going to destroy the entire tower!" Erza shouted.
Natsu slowly turned his head, enough for Erza to see that his eyes had returned to the promising gold they were before.
"How dare he do exactly the thing I was planning to," he told her with the iconic grin she'd become so fond of.
"Abyss Break!" Jellal's attack had morphed into a huge black and purple sphere.
"I will not allow you to harm her, she owes me a glorious death and you will not steal that from me!" Natsu bellowed, crouching low and gathering all of his power in his legs.
He unleashed everything all at once, belting past Jellal with a trail of fire in his wake. Reaching the apex of his jump he turned, his body aiming straight for Jellal and the magical sphere.
"Fire Dragon King's Destruction Bore!" A spear of fire rippled through the air, lancing Jellal's magic, piercing the tower, and rising high into the sky.
Natsu rushed down, grabbing Jellal by the neck, crushing his body through every layer of the tower until they'd reached the ground, firmly planting the defeated dark mage in a bed of crystal.
The magic dissipated, burning out among the stars. Most of his power was gone and the tower was crumbling, deprived of structural integrity from the Dragon Slayer's devastating attack.
He had only a moment to act, moving mostly on instinct as he bounding from large boulders of crystal that were falling as parts of the tower came crashing down around them.
After only a few jumps he caught Erza in his arms, altering course and plotting a way back down to the ground.
They reached the ground, Natsu's boots slamming into rock instead of crystal. He gently let Erza stand on her own before he fell to his knees.
His eyes were open but they looked vacant. He'd used an enormous amount of everything his body could muster to destroy Jellal's attack and as much of the tower as he could, and that was after the beating he'd taken with no magic to defend.
The scales receded, fading away completely as he returned to his normal state, unmoving as he kneeled there on the ground.
"Natsu, can you hear me!? We have to get out of here, you broke too much of the tower at once, it can't funnel out that much magical power safely, the whole place is going to go up in an explosion!" Erza tried to get him to respond but nothing was working.
"You were willing to face your darkness, now it's up to me," she rose from the ground, "I'm sorry Natsu, but I can't grand you this glorious death you wanted because I will do everything in my power to make sure that you live." she walked over to a large flat piece of lacrima that held her reflection.
"You win Jellal, after everything, Natsu beat you but you were still the victor, but know that I'm sacrificing myself for him, not for you," she stated, her voice jaded, tears streaming as she put her hand to the crystal.
It immediately welcomed the touch, pulling her in. She could feel the power start to swell within her body. It was agonizing.
Her screams pierced the air, resonating with the incredibly acute senses of the Dragon Slayer.
He jerked back into consciousness. "Er-" he held a hand toward her, "-za," he coughed, falling flat on his face.
"I will… Never… Forgive you, if you die… On me." he had nothing left, no reserves of strength or power whatsoever. He was beyond his limit.
"Natsu," she looked at him, more tears streaming down her face, "We could have really had some fun, you would have made one hell of a Fairy Tail mage." she cried.
"I will…" he said after a moment of quiet, fighting his disobedient limbs, "I swear to all of the Gods, I will become a member of Fairy Tail if you promise to live, I watched Anna die, I won't go through that again!" she could see the smallest trace of tears falling down the Fire Dragon's cheeks.
He'd found the strength to stand, crossing the distance in what looked like true pain. His bones could have been shattered from the strain of Jellal's attacks for all she knew.
"I'm sorry Natsu, but it's too late for me now. Don't go on living out of spite and anger, go on living because you mean something to us, all of us," she said, managing a smile just as the rest of her was swallowed by the lacrima.
Her senses had dulled, this was it… This was her last moment, the sight of Natsu Dragneel touching the lacrima before his vision faded to black.
She heard a gruff mumble, distant to her ears, then she heard a voice as clear as day, "I refuse," Natsu said.
She felt his warm touch pull her back, their bodies passing as he entered the crystal. Her sights came back in time for their faces to pass.
"We could have had fun," he agreed, planting a kiss on her lips before he forced her out of the lacrima.
Erza managed to land on her feet, already springing forward to try and get the Dragon back, but she fell through nothing, landing on the floor where the crystal had just been. The whole tower, all of it, was gone. Only a trail of magic was left, that too rising high into the sky.
Her Dragon was gone.
A/N: I had to start with the fluff at some point. Come on though, fifty thousand moderately quality words and not even fifty reviews, show some love?