Fairy Tail 1. Chapter I: Protect him!

**RELENTLESS**

**Chapter I: Protect him!**

In a far end corner of Fiore there was a village, hidden by the many mountain passes and valleys that obscure it from outsiders, only a few hundred called this place home, life was harsh in this place and the winters equally so, still the villagers fought on with their various jobs and duties. A peace full life was all they wanted, for life free of the eternal stress of the larger cities, even so the younger generation of the youths in the village didn't want any of this, they wanted jobs and education something the village could not possibly offer to that extent. Today was the day, though the cheering of the youngsters with nothing more than some bread, cheese and around twenty four winters under their belts they were going to face and head out in the big vast world, on their own, no longer could their tongues taste buds dance with the leek soup that their mothers would make on the harshest of winter nights, when darkness loomed outside the warm heaven that was in the four walls they called home. Nor listen to the vastly romanticized epics of the village elders. They were big boys and girls now, ready to make it on their own.

A group of around fifty or so, was headed towards the village gates, getting the blessings of the people that went about their morning routines, some with their children in hand walked towards the daycare of the village, as the children and their respective families walked the main street the group of youths couldn't help but to wave back at the exited children as a pang of well needed nostalgia rushed their minds. Soon they past the gates, having bid their farewells on the guards men of the village which they all knew, not really surprising since everyone knew everything about each others in the village of few hundred.

The sun shone down on the vast fields outside the village. A pure white sheet of snow, delicately glistening and twinkling in the rays. They could almost taste the ice as it formed the land around them into a beautiful heaven.

Branches laced with a formation of icy crystals, sparkling and glittering, like sequins on a party dress. The fence borderline to the uncharted wilderness was buried in a velvety layer, disturbed by the tiny foot prints of the common birds of the area. The berries the trees are barely seen and the flower beds have become frozen. A bitter breeze gently caressed the face of a certain rose haired woman in the group, none other than the village heads daughter. Many disputes had been fought over her permission to leave the village, her father didn't find her reason to leave sensible at all. She was almost twenty five year old and carried a child! By the gods they thought she was an idiot. She paid no mind, obviously. Many in the leaving party were very concerned with her well being, as she was nearing giving birth to new life.

The bulging roundness of her stomach was a dead give away, as fun as it could be to joke about the matter and call her 'fat' like the children of the village used to do, however this was an utterly serious matter. The daughter of the head was leaving on a voyage for god knows how long and is nearing child birth, but all the pleas of understanding went unheard as she was really determined of bidding good-bye to her life at the village.

She was really smart, and therefore she was always misunderstood by others, giving her a said cold attitude. But in reality she was always there for her friends and family, showering them with undying love. She was also always at peace with her self giving her a big magic wielding potential, and when hitting the age of ten she was thought the ways of the villages ancient Restoration magic, while not yet completely dead it was still considered a form of lost magic by the world magic council, not just the Fiore branch. The Restoration school of magic requires an excellent state of mind, which very few posses.

The magic is centered around nature and its original elements, earth, wind and water. One has to learn all of these forms of elemental magic, to later truly be able to utilize restoration. The tricky part is to conjure and merge all of these basic elements in perfect harmony, and not let any of them out weigh each other and create instability. This required a great deal of natural talent too which the girl happened to posses. Only then is one able to call forth the healing power nature herself, thus becoming a white mage. With all of this accomplished she was now a full fledged healer, searching for proper guild to join, so what if she carried a child, everything would be just peachy, that was the plan she had in mind.

While passing through the forest clad in white, everything seemed so peaceful, she could feel the hidden powers of nature surge through her body.

The wild-life was as silent as the grave, yet so immensely daunting and inspiring. Yet it seemed that the rosettes presence brought surroundings to life as she passed along with her party of fifty. Her fair complexion and snow white skin along with the auburn eyes of hers would captivate any man, her body was so delicate it seemed that if you squeezed it hard enough it would snap in two, her pink hair flowed freely into flawless ringlets, and fair smile finished off her look. One thing was pretty obvious she was to cute to be single, but truth to be told she was. Even though how false that sounds it was the truth. The man in her life was an enigma to the folk of the village, they hadn't seen any man pretty enough to be her supposed partner in crime, as she now was eight and a half months into her pregnancy, yet still unmarried, many have tried to win her heart but to no avail, she was only loyal to the man she had spent that faithful night with. Did she regret it? Not in the slightest, she was overjoyed to be a mother, actually.

She was clad in an ordinary knee long violet skirt, with black stockings going up to her thighs keeping the cold out and the much appreciated warmth in. A white turtle neck sweater was the what she had picked to wear on her upper body as well as a beige vest whit fur details along the edges. What really finished her look was her long white scaly shawl or rather scarf around her neck, she looked stunning, as in everything else she wore.

The only information the villagers had on him was that he was a damn lucky bastard and apparently a rather powerful mage, as he had saved her from the clutches of a wisp mother, a vile and cunning ethereal being that with her siren song put lone wanderers into slumber while sucking out their magical energy until they ran out and got their life force ripped out of them until they meet their doom.

'Crunch, crack!' Beneath the leaving parties feet the snow let out a crisp crunching sound a they paced towards the nearest town. The crisp autumn, leaves and broken twigs lay forgotten under the white layer of the season, however they aren't unnoticed as they made their best attempt at tripping some of the party members. The soon to be mother, could not help but to smile, while she did so her left K9, was being exposed to the world resembling some sort of fang. The elders had tried with everything in their power to stop her from leaving while having a second life to worry about. She didn't understand what the big deal was? She could just give birth to her child in a city hospital which had much better standards than the villages hospital. Why would they deny her happiness? Getting frustrated with her own thoughts she kicked a clumped up pack of leaves like a ball to the side.

The slippery path became harder with the new layer of morning frost, naturally leaning downwards at each side into a snow covered grass bank, forming a fun slide for the children! The rosette smiled at her everlasting memories of a child. Gazing around her for new untouched snow, she could literally spend all day to find unmarked ice and snow. She always like to be the first one to leave her mark.

Leifur's old chestnut clad horse in the field nearby, neighing, dancing and prancing playfully throughout the field, making interesting patterns in its trail. He only was this playful when it snowed.

'Gasp' The soon to be mother clutched her left shoulder with her right hand to ease the pulsating life in her down-below regions. Everyone quickly rushed to the rosettes side and let her support her weight on their shoulders. It was time it seemed she was entering labor.

**-ooo-**

Against her will she was taken back to the village and was now under the stern eyes of the elders and under the loving ones of her father. Every since her twentieth birthday when her late mother passed she and her father had gotten closer to ease the sorrow of the passing of the woman they loved.

She had guessed wrong. The place she would give birth was not in some cramped village hospital, they were currently located in the main wing of the village heads house and she was placed on a large bed were she used to came and sleep with her parent whenever she was plagued by nightmares as a child, now it seemed that this was the place were her own child would open her/his eyes for the very first time.

Six pain staking hours later a baby boy was born, after receiving the blessing, courtesy and tradition for the newborns of the main family. Giving birth to a child was a very tiring experience she thought when thinking back on a few hours of her life, but now the happiness of having a newborn child in her embrace made all the small details fade away and only pure ecstasy remain left. It was like having your own heat pack, he was so warm and cuddly, innocent yet somehow knowing. He was going to grow up into a fine man in few years. Now suddenly all of the sweet stories that was told to her about how fast children seemed to grow up seemed very daunting to her. She didn't want her baby to grow up, she wanted him to remain the cute and innocent baby he was, yet untouched by the cruelty and hardships of the world. In the mead hall of the village everyone had thrown a big party in her honor, mead and ale was being inhaled instead of drunk and roasted lamb legs was parading in on silver platters, as the maids carried them in. Her father was unexpectedly generous today it seemed.

He was blessed under the god of prosperity; Halone. Having been brought to this world under the last astral moon of the year, he possessed the right to the blessing upon opening his eyes for the first time in the world. He had inherited his mothers hair, and nose, while having the eyes of the father, that was currently the most logical answer to his onyx colored eyes. A healthy young boy, as there were no complications during his much anticipated birth, he had quickly become the elders pride and joy.

She still had to come up with a name for her son, being unable to come up any fitting name under her pregnancy she was starting to feel stressed. But on the other hand she had made sure to stock up on cute baby attires.

Having abandoned her traveling gear and put on a far nicer red dress perfectly suited for such festivities. It made her heart warm to see her loved ones in such a jolly mood.

**-ooo-**

_As the merry company continued on with their vast party, completely drunk with joy and happiness thus making them ignorant to ever so rapidly approaching danger on the horizon._

Wings of darkness soared through the skies casting a looming shadow over the blurry scenery below, the wilderness withered away as the majestic beast made of scales and muscles flew past. A dark void was trailing behind it. The dark menace had bright blue patterns running along its body. This was Acnologia the dragon king and lord of chaos, and he wasn't happy.

If it wasn't for the sudden outburst of dragon magic located in this village, Acnologia would not have bothered to even appear in this pitiful realm. But there was something or someone out there who had piqued his interest immensely. To say he wasn't exited would be a severe understatement, it had been centuries since he had felt this kind of magic before and he was making sure he could secure its source before any other of the dragon kin would appear, the others would come he was sure of it, dragons were after all greedy at heart, even if they whole-heartedly disagreed with that fact.

**Above the dark clouds...**

The darkness, to a normal being being where I am would be frightening, however, to me the darkness was my only friend. It would always listen to my lonely cries and never judge me for what I had done. As my wings kept me soaring, i saw a light on the horizon. A small human village at the edge of the mountain. Such timid and bothersome creatures and as my wings subconsciously drew me closer, it happened.

A loud roar carried by the wind amplified its insensitivity, as it hit my eardrums it was that my instincts were right, one of my brethren was after the source of the magic as well. Another roar was sent my way, however only to be withered away by a powerful gust of wind formed from my wings. I could feel the insensitivity of the magic growing but now it wasn't just the source from the mountain side village that was nearing but something on the east horizon as well. As I was approaching from the west I could see the sun rising already, as the previously dark sky is being illuminated by a auburn light.

Such insensitivity! It is becoming rather hot for a winter morning, and I am stupid. The eye of heaven never rises from the west, but from the east and thats were I am approaching from, and the auburn light isn't produced from the sun, obviously it is a very malicious dragon fire. The dragon whose element is fire is none other than Igneel, seems like he just like me was interested by the abnormal amount of dragon magic coming from this village and wants to just like me grasp it for himself. Now I am in proximity of any of his attacks, I'll just wait for him to make the first move, this is going to be fun, after hundreds of years we meet again Igneel...

**Central village, **

_'Ding, dong, ding, dong' The church tower bell was ringing in full effect warning the people of the village from the imposing threat of the two colossal dragons._

"Keep your calm! Don't panic, we are evacuating all towns folk into the cathedral, everyone this way!" A few guards men was shouting out supposedly calming commands for the panic struck villagers, well one can't blame them, the most dangerous thing they had seen in their life was probably a wolf or two, but now when the village faced two very real reptilian monsters they had every right to get scared.

Amongst the ongoing anarchy the villages heiress was cradling a new born baby to her chest while being escorted by a few lancers to safety and refuge. But it was proving rather hard as the hordes of people thrashed about and flipped over fruit stands and various carts had been kicked to the side, the once prosperous merchant square was a war zone, literally! It was as if someone had dropped a cluster of bomb lacrimas down onto the square and put everything in disarray. Some guards even got so struck by fear that they threw of their helmets and took of in the narrow alley ways. The baby hadn't cried out even once since opening eyes to the world soaking in everything like a sponge, even things a new born shouldn't see...

Archers rushed up the guard towers in order to get a better field of view of the dragons and possibly get a shoot on them. Even if the arrows were on the right path to be on target, they were reduced to nothingness as they were a few meters from their target. The insane magic aura being produced by them was simply to strong and potent for measly arrows to even hit.

**Fire dragons: Brave flight! **The voices of the dragons boomed up above, after being echoed through the mountain pass. There was a blood red colored dragon whose body now was coated in a crimson fire and it charged the big black one head on. Giant sparks flew as the two beasts collided and the rosette could not help but to stare up in awe to the destructive display of fire works.

The dragons seemed rather unscathed from the violent collision that occurred just now, now it turned out to be the black dragons turn to retaliate. **Chaos dragons: Dark void! **An obsidian black beam of dark matter was hurled towards the red dragon who didn't have any time to avoid and got brutally punished due to that. Vapors of smoke were left trailing after the red dragons body as it came crashing down from the sky like a meteor.

Rows of houses, small and big alike were thrashed as the red beast skidded to a halt after destroying the family district of the village, retaliation was quick to be handed out.** Fire dragons: Heavenly destroyer! **An immense pillar of pure orange flame was shot towards the black being in the midnight sky, but to no avail as strange blue markings all over its body started to shine, while a large amount of light blue energy was being gathered in its mouth. **Chaos dragons: Barrier! **As the attack was announced in before the initial attack with a loud roar, the blue energy shoot out and formed a hexagon shaped shield and as unlikely it was, the mighty pillar of burning inferno got reflected into smaller pillars who homed in on the village blasting away the debris from the fire dragons crash landing. The town was set a flame, a wildfire had formed and was eating away the village at rapid speeds, the night sky was lit up with such a intense light the other wise visible night stars weren't visible anymore.

The rose haired mother along with her child had lost their escort and were now lost in the raging inferno that was once a peaceful village, the dead littered the streets and blood ran down the alleys, as the battle above them on continued. The rosette mother ran down the alleys, as fast as her legs could manage, the fear of losing her newborn was to great for her to care about the dying villagers on the streets. The hellish burns on their bodies seemed unreal as if taken from another world, what in the name of the gods could scar someone so heavily, well, now they knew that dragons could. They were constantly screaming out of agony not being able to muster enough strength to resist the pain, she felt bad not being able to help any of them but her sons safety would always come first, even if they only had been together for about two hours give or take, she felt a strong love towards him, although it probably was the unconditional love of a mother, suddenly a large chunk of debris blocked of the path to their escape, she couldn't let it end here, the things she has yet to experience with her flooded her mind and brought tears to her eyes, she had unconsciously started to cry. The dragons were still at it neither one of them seemed to be backing down as of yet.

Her resolve started to crumble, little by little as the debris caught fire from the blazing surroundings. **Chaos dragons: Banish!** A blue light flared in the sky, blinding her while the initial attack started to cover the red fire dragons body rapidly, it seemed its body were being torn apart in...Then everything went black for the rosette, as the aftermath shock waves hit her body.

**Up in the sky, earlier.**

"**Acnologia, I will not stand idly by as you corrupt this world with your hate!" **The mighty fire dragon roared.

"**You feel it too, brother? There is a strong force of magic, just like ours, I know you want to grasp it just as much as me, isn't it so _Igneel_?" **The last word uttered by the dragon king was dripping in malice and soaked in poison, aiming to agitate the fire dragon so he goes on the offense while his guards is down, that was the plan Acnologia had in mind. Would the great red dragon fall for a trick that simple, well it seemed so.

"**How dare you call me brother, you traitor! After everything you did? You are bloodthirsty self proclaimed king, nobody of our kin supports you! You damn _king slayer! I should have killed you when I had the chance, now DIE! Fire dragons: Brave flight!_** The fire dragon had snapped, boiling over with compressed anger and grief, his scaled body became covered in a crimson flame as he charged the black dragon, aiming for his exposed gray colored under body.

"**Igneel my dear _brother_, now isn't the time to bring up some four hundred year old grudge? I know you are better than that!" **Acnologia mockingly said, as he swiftly avoided the crimson comet of fiery death by doing a barrel roll to the side, then continued his mockery of the fire dragon. **"You are still the same Igneel, so very rash and impulsive, while always playing the wise front you are a raging inferno on the inside! Chaos dragons: Dark void! **A black beam of dark matter was shot towards the fire dragon who had no chance of evasion. The attack hit violently on the blazing dragons spine and his momentum was lost as he slided across the village as if it was some sort of carpet, completely tearing it asunder!

"**If you get your hands on this new power we are all doomed and I will be damned before I let you turn Earth land to your personal play ground! Fire dragons: Heavenly destroyer! **An orange inferno was called forth from the fire dragons lungs angled towards Acnologia!

"**Is that all? Then I am sorry to say I have to end this now. Chaos dragons: Barrier! **Many blue hexagons created from the dragon kings breath formed a shield and successfully reflected the flames into smaller shards who flew into the village setting it on fire, a great deal of blinding flashes occurred as the shards rained down onto the village. Acnologia knew he couldn't finish off Igneel anytime soon so decided to put a great deal of his magical energy behind one attack, not to incapacitate but to simply buy himself time to collect the new source, even though both of them didn't know what the magical power actually was.

"**Igneel, I don't have anymore time to spare for our little spar, after all I have to collect whats rightfully mine!"** The fire dragon was just about to prepare another attack but was cut short by Acnologias sudden announcement. **"Chaos dragons: Banish!" **From the sky a pillar of very bright turquoise light started to wrap itself around the great fire dragon, his body started to blur and fade, however the dragon was very calm for being stuck in situation like this one, he then proceeded to speak with the same calmness. **"How? What is this?" **Igneel was perplexed about how a dragon could learn such an advanced form of mortal magic.

"**Oh, don't worry you are just being transported through time and space."** Acnologia casually said while flashed his razor sharp teeth in his mouth, there had been too long since he had this much fun, this even beat the time at the civil war.

Igneel stared at him with blank ice cold sapphire eyes that gleamed and blurred in the night sky, his last words were; **"...I will find you...!" **Before being completely wrapped in blue magic and dissipated into nothingness, Acnologia knew he wasn't dead, it would take so much more than than to kill off a dragon, he just got warped in time and could appear at any given time period in history, this was a truly dangerous magic, messing with the flown of time could be the undoing of every last living dragon, as of today. But Igneel wasn't stupid, if he dares to change anything in the past, no one will know what the consequences will be.

Ancient dragon slayers used this form of magic to banish dragons, that was a time way before him or Igneel, Actually Igneel was way older than Acnologia, but that is irrelevant. These were times which dragons ruled the skies and the lands, ruling over both Earth land and Edolas with an iron fist, naturally there were those who openly resisted them and sought salvation from those with magical prowess. They also sought help from mythical beasts such as phoenixes and Wyvern, the human race with their trivial alliances actually fought back the dragons.

Then there were smart humans who cast their dignity aside and bowed down to dragons to become dragon priests. Thus learning extremely powerful dragon magic spells. Seen as traitors and corrupt individuals by the human and its allied races, and useful feudal lords by the dragons, the dragon priests would keep everything in check with the humans by enforcing the dragons ideologies onto the regular people, be it with sweet words or brutal violence. This was a time when brothers spilled their own kins blood under the dragons gaze from above. It was only natural in times of distress like those that a party of heroes rose to defy the dragon rule, there were four of them in total, all wielding close to legendary magic, a war followed, a war that was known as the bloodiest campaign in human history, until _that _happened. With mighty dragon slaying sword; Ascalon, the party of heroes paved a way through the battlefield killing all the lesser dragons that were dispatched there.

The dragon priests were quick to abandon their oaths and turn against their masters, they were not welcomed but were undoubtedly a power full asset to the humans and her allies. Only the dragon priests of fire, sky and metal stood their ground trying to protect their masters but obviously were killed off almost immediately by the rest of the dragon priests. There were twenty great elemental dragons, after that incident only twelve left the turncoat dragon priest, the dragons had dug their own grave, by teaching them their own magic, which of course is very effective against themselves, as the only thing that can truly kill a dragon is a dragon. Not literally but in the form of magic, items like Ascalon which are sealed with humongous amounts dragon magic, or simply the dragons own magic could be used to kill dragons.

The dragon priests, were soon forgiven for their former actions, because of their so called 'bravery' and were now called dragon slayers. All the dragons were banished by the heroes and either willingly allied themselves with the humans and thought them dragon slayer or got killed. Even the mighty king of dragons at that time willingly submitted to bond with humans.

Thus ended the dragon rule of the sky and the lands. Leaving the world as it is today. That was about one and a half millennium ago, most of the dragons went into constant hiding. 1100 years passed and generation after generation of heroes came inherited the previous heroes abilities through tutelage, but with every generation the heroes become more and more battle starved and bloodthirsty, and when the hidden dragons tried to rise back up from the bitter ash of their defeat and take back their rule with their newly crowned dragon king, the allied dragon slayers and their masters who were some of the former elemental dragons, utterly defeated them. But this time victory wasn't as sweet as they had thought. The real dragon king was slain and all that was left was sorrow for the dragons that were allied with the humans. They no longer had anything left to fight for. They left the humans with a promise that every generation a dragon would come and take a child or newborn to train them in dragon slaying arts, in case of a new conflict.

Acnologia however wanted to bring the dragons back up to their long lost throne, by reviving the world eater, the one that is rumored to be the very earth itself that Earth land is based upon. In the northern countries the world eater is rumored to have his body snared around the world in an endless circle.

But that was an infinite amount of steps ahead of Acnologias plan, first he needed to find the source of this new dragon magic.

**-ooo- **

'Those puny humans, they are nothing more than ants, were could they be hiding this source of magic?'By closing his eyes Acnologia started to pin point were the source was coming from and soon found out it was in the former merchant district of the village. Swooping down and landing down on some burnt debris, he started scanning the surroundings, and soon spotted a human who was alive, it seemed to be a woman, upon closer look one could see that she was impaled by a sharp metal shard and was bleeding profusely, without stop, he had to hurry if he wanted to get some information out of her.

"**You human, were are you hiding the dragon magic? Speak!" **he said in voice full of authority. But she just ignored him and started to crawl to the left all of sudden. **"There is no use in running as you can see you are currently bleeding out , and dying so speak and I shall make it as mercy full as I can!" **He really hated dealing with humans they were so single minded.

She just continued to crawl to the left. Turning his head to see why she was crawling Acnologia spotted a small bundle one meter to her left, it turned out to be a baby. She had left a crimson smear on the ground as she crawled towards the baby, but she didn't quite have the strength to reach it so Acnologia pushed the newborn baby closer to her with blunt side of his talon. It seemed a pang of relief hit the supposed mother as she cradled the baby tightly to her chest.

The moment his talon touched the baby the black dragon felt a strong sensation of magic from the baby. He was sure of it, the baby was the source of the dragon magic.

The rose haired woman and mother was losing her life force, trying to hold back her coughs that brought up loots of blood from her ruined inner organs. Suddenly her auburn eyes were locked with Acnologias own, she suddenly formed such a commanding aura around her it was actually scary, continuing to look into his eyes with a judging expression, after a few moments she just nodded to herself.

Giving up her last powers to ensure her baby's safety she gathered some nature magic from the earth to the palm pf her hand, emitting a warm green light. She tenderly placed it on her baby's right shoulder forming a mark of some sort, it was colored blue. Then she proceeded to gaze upon the dragon once again with a stern expression, just like a parent scolding a child. Then she spoke the words; "Protect h-him!" A few trickles of blood began tracing from her mouth down to her chin, signaling that she don't have much time left.

Acnologia couldn't find any reason to decline, this baby was the item he was looking for, and by taking a human baby as foster son his plan would greatly escalate.

"**I shall, do as you ask, human!"** In response she just nodded again being too weak to do anything else, the rosette then proceeded to reach for her neck to unwrap her white scaled scarf, and wrap it around her baby, gently. Kissing him on the forehead for the first and last time, as the tears ran down the womans cheeks, Acnologia felt disgusted by himself for feeling some thing for the pink haired woman.

"S-show him relentless l-love and affection!" The stern look was back and Acnologia just nodded this time, not bothering to say anything. Her weak bloodied arms lifted the baby up and slowly gave him to Acnologia, who scooped up her baby with his claws.

There was something the woman wanted to say, one last thing before she left this plane. "H-his name i-is...Nnn...Aaa...Ttss...She didn't get to finish her sentence as her human body gave up and her heart stopped beating, however Acnologia instantly got what she was trying to say...Natsu, his name was Natsu, as in summers day, how ironic as he was born on winter day. Acnologia scoffed, although the baby was human he had already taken a liking to the little thing. Not once had he cried, instead he was reaching his hand trying to touch Acnologias face, but to no avail. He had very big magical reserves for being a baby which was good, because the black dragons style of magic was very consuming for humans. This boy was special, if not for his pink hair, then because of his magical potential, one day he would grow up to become a fine sorcerer, a sorcerer who would do his bidding...

**AN: And done, I really enjoyed writing this because of all the small details I mixed in from other lores, I am hoping to be able to update weekly, if not I am terribly sorry! I haven't decided on a paring yet but I am open to suggestions when we get to the point in the story when pairings are being possible.**

**Until next time bye! **

**Please leave a line or two, it means the world to me! **


	2. Chapter II: Why can't I let him go?

**Relentless**

**Disclaimer (I forgot last time!) Fairy tail. Me. No. Own.**

**R and R**

**Chapter II: Why can't I let him go?**

What curious sight, is this the early form of human behavior? He is inhaling the food I gave him like some starved animal, I have raised the brat better than this! I have made sure he eats everyday, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Why did he suddenly change like this? Its the first time I have witnessed him eat like this, its disgusting! Food is flying everywhere and he has his mouth open while he is munching to. "**Stop eating like some wild barbarian and behave like a proper human, or I'll swallow you in one bite!" **As Acnologia said that he smacked the blunt side of his razor sharp talon to the back of his head. The hit had so much unintentional power behind it, Natsu's head was smacked forward and into the food plate, splattering his innocent face with meat juice.

"Ow, why did you do that dad?" The pink haired boy said with a childish yet fitting pout on his face. He still called him 'dad' Acnologia thought that was a habit long forgotten but no, every once in a while he would call him 'dad' such an unfitting name for the dragon who is training him in the arts of dragon slaying. Only when he was really focused at his training exercises or just in a grumpy mood, Natsu would actually call him the much more fitting title of master or simply Acnologia, yet the black dragon somehow missed the warm clang his words had when the summer day boy called him 'dad'. On the outside Acnologia seemed unimpressed with his student, but in reality the dragon king was actually proud of his foster son, he had accomplished so much in the eight years he had stayed with him. His magical potential was fearsome for a mere child and while he wasn't the brightest of people, Natsu was by no means stupid, he just took a slightly longer time to process things. Yet one thing annoyed Acnologia to no end, the brats personality was to _lively_.

Since he was four years old, Acnologia had tried to discipline him to hide his emotions, but to no avail, he just always bounced right back into his cheery mood, it was annoying! Acnologia was an serious individual and his attitude was unacceptable for a warrior under his tutelage. But aside that he was a natural fighter, he _never_ gave up once, even if he was severely wounded and bleeding he just wouldn't quit! He took his training very seriously, and therefore was always up to the tasks Acnologia would assign him to.

They had many fond memories together, although Acnologia always put up a grumpy facade, and played uninterested for the most part. One of his dearest memories was when Natsu had started his training to vastly improve his natural senses and stealth, Acnologia had told him to go hide in the forest and wait, then try to sneak up on him and try to surprise him, at first he seemed reluctant but when he was told that his lunch was on the line he quickly followed suit, and darted of into the lush forest.

_**Flashback, four years ago...**_

"So all I have to do is hide from you then jump out and say boo! Right?" Natsu was pondering why this was such necessity and why Acnologia insisted on this exercise being good for him?

"**More or less, yes, you are correct! Now go and hide, don't come back until you are sure I have let my guard down!"** This was going to be amusing, Natsu was not a very patient type of person and would probably only last about five minutes before trying to 'scare' him.

"Okay, then I am off, I wanna eat when I come back, alright!" He finished off his sentence with his annoying wide grin and left. Now all Acnologia had to do was to play the waiting game, a short one if he may add...

Five, ten, twenty, several minutes had passed along and there were no signs of Natsu, it seemed the brat has some patience as well. The minutes turned into hours and still no sign of Natsu, Acnologia was actually worried now, but hell had freeze over for him to ever admit that. The food Acnologia had placed beside him to lure Natsu out had been a futile attempt, he was being vigilant, although way to much his taste, the sun had started to set and night was approaching fast, Acnologia couldn't help but to think about all the foul creatures that lurked around when darkness fell over the region as a velvet blanket obscuring them from the untrained eye.

But no, his student and foster son would know better than getting himself into after all he, Acnologia had raised him...To hell with it this was getting way out of hand, as he prepared himself mentally to go search for his foster son, the black dragon heard a twig snap behind him, he knew it was Natsu due to his smell, which was mixed with his own. Acnologia pretended to be asleep, not mowing a limb encouraging Natsu to come closer, while on the inside Acnologia was immensely relived that his student had returned safe from harm, he was slowly starting to get himself disgustingly attached to the brat.

Natsu was looking around him with great precaution in case of snare or traps set up by his dad, he couldn't help but to be really paranoid. His stomach twisted and churned painfully, Natsu was starving this was the first time he felt this way, as his dad used feed him when he craved for it. He was so close to accomplishing his task now, nothing could stop him now! Walking up close to Acnologias head, Natsu flicked his finger on the black dragons temple, 'waking' him up.

"Ha, got you, I did it, see I can be patient!" He exclaimed jumping on the spot out of the anticipation of the dragon kings praise.

**'This boy...Waited six hours on an opportunity to surprise me...i have underestimated him, a mistake I shan't repeat.' "Natsu, you did well, you actually got me, I have to reward you for your excellent patience!"**

All of a sudden Natsu's mood took a one-eighty degree turn and he angrily muttered; "You don't have to pretend that I succeeded, it only makes it more obvious..."

**'Are those words the ones of four year old? He seems so innocent, yet so knowing.' "Natsu, I prepared some food for you but its gotten cold, anyhow thats what you get for being stubborn."**

"You actually did prepare my food, thank you! I am starving!" Natsu was being exited over mere food, thats was pretty amusing.

"**...Just start eating..." Acnologia didn't now how to respond, as this was his first ever 'thank you' or be it any form of appreciation, and with Natsu he was sure he would have to stand many more...**

_**Flash back end, present time...**_

A juice stained Natsusated at the black dragon king, wondering why he has spaced out all of sudden. "You know, you owe me a new peace of meat..." Was that all he was thinking about now? With a dirty face that had to be cleaned, he only thought about more food? And why did he eat in that barbarian way anyway?

"**Oi, Natsu? Why were you eating like starved mongrel earlier, I thought I have raise you better than that!" **Upon hearing these words the pink haired boy gave Acnologia a stare as if he was the most stupid being on the planet, as if Natsu knew a whole lot more than the dragon.

"Isn't that obvious? I was trying to copy you dad, because I saw you eating like this before!" He finished off with a wide innocent smile only he could produce.

"**Well, you shouldn't copy others, its no good!" **Acnologia was amazed on how much the boy trusted him to even start eating like him, it seemed they had a special bond together, if the black dragon didn't sever it in the near future things would go downhill regarding his plan. Yet he found this action to try and copy him somewhat amusing. But now the brat had dirtied himself and needed a wash in the nearby lake to get all cleaned up.

"**Natsu, come here we are heading out, hurry if you want to catch up to me." **With that said Acnologia flapped his feather like wings and took of in the sky, out of their little cove.

"You bastard! Wait up!" And so Natsu began running after his foster father, with the intention of not losing line of sight of him.

**-ooo-**

The duo of human and dragon were currently located in the highlands in the west, were nobody lived for miles and the valleys obscured by clouds and mist.The mist rests softly on the mountain peaks like a cloth draped over a pillow. The sun tries to break through the clouds as you trek through tall, green grass wet with morning dew. There are so many valleys and glens that one could walk in and never walk out. This is the ancient land of the dragons and you can feel their presence in the very earth beneath your feet. It's amazing how small you feel in the presence of the breath taking expanse known as the Fiore Highlands

This was the place Natsu currently called home. He trained, ate and slept here, sure the climate could be cold, but thats nothing some laps around the lake could fix, courtesy of Acnologia. The lake they were headed to was in the center of the valley they lived in, surrounded by lush forests which were filled with wildlife, it was summer, yet Acnologia had Natsu wear a yellow turtle neck to keep his body heat, otherwise he would grow sick and start sneezing...Another memory flooded his mind this time a rather unpleasant one, truth to be told he didn't mind Natsu being undemonstrative because it went with his ideals and principles, the dragon king was after all the dragon of chaos, apocalypse and anarchy, but when he was being ignorant and naive thats when Acnologia would set down his foot, just like the time when he tried eating his own magic, that fool just because he thought that similar magic of disorder would power him up, it didn't necessarily mean he could go around munching on his own magic like its some midday snack...

_**Flashback, two years ago...**_

"_**You got to focus more thats not nearly enough effort to bring out your dragons roar!"**_ The boy just didn't grasp that the technique to get the roar to expand was actually a matter of much magic one had compressed in your lungs, and if Acnologia would tell him that the brat would soon forget about it, and sometime in the future get himself killed thanks to that. No, he would have to figure it out himself, for it to truly stick inside his head, and not just temporarily stay in his short time memory.

"But what am I doing wrong? I gather so much magic in my belly, but it just flies out of my mouth like...like soup, you know when it tastes gross!" 'Well that was a strange comparison, but good enough, the idea behind the soup is probably how his magic just quickly flares up and immediately dies down and just floats down to the ground and dissipates, even if he is using a sum of magic well beyond the approximate amount required, without compressing the magic, it is not going to work!

"**Try again let me see how far you have progressed, as of yet!"** Acnologia knew what the initial problem lied but then again practice makes perfect.

"Okay, but don't expect anything flashy, I have yet to get it to work properly." Natsu said wile rubbing his back in a awkward manner a habit that he had picked up. The pink haired boy emptied his lung before filling it with as much magic he could muster, he pushed on to the point which his arteries popped up on his forehead, after all his 'dad' was watching him perform this technique! "Chaos dragons: ROAR! The build up went fine, lots of light blue magic appeared around him creating a fierce aura, as his checks were swelling up Acnologia got an idea, just as the magic was readied in his mouth the black dragon used two of his gleaming talons to pinch the naive rosettes gum, effectively silencing and preventing any 'soup' like magic to flow freely. Natsu's grew redder and redder for every second that was passing, then suddenly it grew into a sickly color of blue then gray, he was being suffocated, thats when the dragon king let go of the brats mouth before he had to scrape his head off the walls, and just as the dragon had suspected a mighty stream of pure 'compressed' turquoise magic flowed out Natsu's mouth, the rose haired boys eyes grew wide in amazement, he finally managed the Chaos breath!

Acnologia who standing in front of the brat this whole time was now faced with a Chaos dragons: Roar equal in size with some of his weaker breaths, no make that 'yawns' but anyhow the dragon was quick to inhale Natsu's breath well before it hit him.

"**That actually tasted good brat, but don't aim those at your allies, if you intend to stay allied with them." **

"Oh, my bad, but did you see it?" His eyes were sparkling, he probably was dazed his human body could produce so much magic, while he had amazing magical resources his manipulation his atrocious, to put it simply. He used way to much magic required to perform the spells, the dragon king assigned him to perform. Maybe if he was some what more efficient in magic control he wouldn't be fresh out of magic by the end of the day all the time, and this was just a theory he would consume less food. But a theory is a just a theory and differs from reality, the brat is a monster how much does his six year old stomach fill?

"**Oh, I did, I did, well done, now do it again!" **With the thought and belief that he could do it again, Natsu collected his magical powers in his belly and instantly vented it up to his mouth were he didn't immediately let it but actually c_ompressed it, _and the result was the same as before. A majestic blue beam of light blue magic flew directed to the left of Acnologia and not towards him this time.

"See, I nailed it, yes! Jumping up and down and pumping his fists in the air, as if he really did something mayor Natsu was ecstatic about his new supposed victory. Not knowing that the dragon king had helped him in his own way. "but man, I am really tired!" Once again over usage of his magical resources has left him dried out in terms of magic. He was panting, and sweating because of his constant straining on his magical limits, in away this is good training for his body, as it will evolve to be able to adjust to the brats needs. Need has always been the reason for evolution, and when you evolve your abilities you obtain power, and with power everything is possible.

_'Rumble' 'groan' _Natsu's stomach was making sounds out of hunger and need of new energy. "Will you make me some food? I am starving?"

"**With the manners you have I think you will have to starve!"**

"Could you please mind making my dinner, as I am to tired to do it myself, please?" Since when did he make his own dinner? Rude brat, might reconsider not having him as lunch...

"**That's better, I will notify you when the food is ready for digestion."**

"Why are you using such big words all of a sudden? I don't understand what you are trying to say!"

"**To translate my language to the language you apparently speak, I simply said, go away brat, will tell when food ready!" **This should make him_ understand. _Why is the brat still staring?

"You are not fast enough, I am hungry now!" Such insolence will not be tolerated!

"**I said wait! Be patient, and stay quiet!"**

"_Fine_, you meanie!" And with that he shut up and went away to do something else, Acnologia really taught about smacking some manners into the boy but that was second priority to his magical training. He would need the strength later on when... he was on his _own..._

Suddenly the black dragon king felt a strong spike in the brats magic potency, which worried him greatly, what if...**'Is the boy crazy? If he is doing what I think he is doing then...' **The dragon was growing worried over his students well being, as the black dragon paced towards Natsu, who was hiding behind a rock formation some meters away from where Acnologia currently where. His worries turned out to be right, that ignorant fool, just what does he think he is doing?

Natsu was currently in a meditative sitting positionand had flared some blue magic in his right hand, slowly bringing it closer to his mouth, Acnologia was quick to react and expertly whipped hid tail at Natsu's wrist catching off guard and dissipating the magic. Natsu was so surprised he he let out a small shriek out of shock.

"**Natsu, what you were about to do was utterly stupid, you tried eating your own magic! That is taboo, I am so very disappointed in you!"**In the heat of the moment Acnologia didn't realize he was yelling and startled the rosette boy to the point of shedding tears, tears the size of pearls and as innocent as as child's, which he were a child and nothing more, how should he had known? The dragon king felt guilty about what he did, but did not regret them in the slightest, this was a lesson Natsu would have to learn, one way or another.

"I am sorry, I just wanted to, to eat magic too since you did it and it seemed tasty, and I was hungry, sorry, sorry!" Natsu said through his hiccups and sniffles, his nose had started running too, his eyes were misty from all the bawling, ugh, it was a horrendous sight. Now was the hard part, to apologize, the dragon king had never done such a thing before, this was going to become a pain.

"**No, Natsu it is I who should be sorry for yelling, will you_ ever_ forgive me?" **There, the dragon managed to utter the words required to fix the situation...if only his pride...

"Daddy, I wont to do it again, I swear, I am ready to make a pinky promise too! Look you hold out your hand and then.." Natsu was however cut short mid rant by his foster father.

"**There is no need for a...what-ever-it-was-called-promise, I am just content with your forgiving, okay?"**

"Its called a pinky promise! Its okay, you are forgiven!" The boy was ever so resilient and wouldn't dream of giving up. He was smiling now, thats good!

Acnologia was utterly disgusted with himself for being about to actually do this. **"Natsu, come here!" **The dragon king also gestured with his talons for him to come closer, and that was what the pink haired boy did, and was now standing face to face with the black dragon, while looking away, Acnologia gently proceeded to pat the boys head. Natsu however just used Acnologias hand as a napkin and dried off all the snot that adorned his face. Much to the dragons spite.

"**Don't...wipe your self on me, sigh..."** Acnologia sometimes wondered if it was even worth all the trouble.

_**Flashback end...**_

"**Natsu, make sure you wash your face properly alright! I will check."**

"Sure thing, pops!" They were currently at the lake, it was a sunny, yet cold day. Natsu was undressing and throwing his clothes on a rock a few feet to the side, the water from the mountains which formed the lake was so clear you could see the bottom as if the water never even existed, there were a healthy amount of fish in the lake, which was what Natsu mostly ate, fish was good for the boy, the nutritious fats and oils in the fish was good for his brain and health.

"Okay, I am done!" He cheerily said, while looking at his own reflection in the water, making stupid grimaces to amuse himself, even though Natsu was an unruly boy he still obediently waited for his foster fathers reply.

"**Don't face me when you don't have your clothes on, please!"**

"Ah, okay!" The brat has no clue what decency is it seems. "Whoa, the water is ice cold! How am I supposed to bath in this?"

"**I'll figure something out, don't worry..." **And with that the dragon king sneakily picked Natsu up with his talons and threw him in the freezing water, with out any care in the world, the pink haired boy was flailing and cursing, but Acnologia paid no mind, how else would the brat get himself cleaned up? "I-it's c-cold, w-why did y-you do that?" Was the water that cold, it should at least be over zero degrees but oh well, what is done is done! **"Natsu scrub your face!" **The black dragon king said with a tone of irritation in his voice. "No!" Was the rosettes answer. **"You sure?" **Acnologia wasn't going to back down on a challenge from a child! "Yeah!" Natsu proceeded to splash some water at the mighty dragon for extra emphasis on his decision on not scrubbing his dirty face clean. **"Suit yourself, **_**kid!"**_ At that very moment the fist of the dragon king collided with water surface creating a massive geyser like blast of water up in the air, and back down again on Natsu who could only watch in awe of his foster fathers demonstration of strength.

From head to toe the pink haired boy was soaked, and his face seemed to have lost some of its color, but nonetheless, it was now clean. "Okay, you win this time..." And there he goes again, such a stubborn brat, that has the guts to stands against the might of a dragon, only a fool would do that, a _very _brave fool.

"**Come, lets start the training I have scheduled today." **He always did brighten up when training and power was brought up in sentences, he was crazy about learning new techniques and memorizing new spells, even at eight years of age, he would give some of the lower B-class level mages a run for their money, Natsu was a fighting genius, but fighting isn't everything that matters in life and there is a lot he needs to polish, like his spelling, oh god, he is a lost cause in that department, maybe someone will one day smack it into his thick skull...one could always hope. But on the bright side he read a lot of books, which were mostly grimories and other spell related books, but were still legitimately counted as actual books, one would think that by reading these books he would pick up a few things about how the letters should be placed for a word to form but he was a _special_ case. Acnologia however would try his best to sharpen his academical skills as much as he could, the rest was up to himself, after all Acnologia wouldn't always...be there for him...

"Finally, something fun, this whole day has been boring so far!" The rosette said while rolling around in the grass, trying to dry himself.

"**Put on your clothes, will you, and hurry, we haven't got all day!" **It wasn't an issue time wise, quite the contrary, the real thing lurking in Acnologias mind was to prevent the brat from getting sick again which wasn't a pleasant experience at all.

While smiling, Natsu was happily putting on his clothing articles, starting with his boxers. When he was done the pink haired boy, stood in front of Acnologia clad in a yellow turtle neck shirt, a pair of khaki colored pants and some standard boots, all in all, the boy looked presentable, the clothes Acnologia had bought himself when on his secret trips to the city, in which he takes on a human form to make the business smoother, who in the right mind would try to the consult a dragon about what size his human foster son had!

"All done!" The brat exclaimed out to Acnologia, if only he would have put on his shirt in the right way, the front of the shirt was on his back.

"**Good, could you just remove your hands from the shirts sleeves?"**

"Okay!" Dragging his arms back inside his shirt and keeping them there made it available for the black dragon to smoothly turn his shirt around do it was worn correct, it was like handling a doll, the human body was so fragile and petty, so insignificant. But Natsu had a very exceptional magic potential, yet to be discovered, Acnologia had tried figuring it out but to no avail. Even when teaching the boy advanced dragon slayer spells, his body wouldn't transform permanently into the one of a dragon, or _similar_ to a dragons, it would only be temporarily turned when ever he needed to perform his spells, this temporary transformation was a very impressive feat, to be switching from human and dragon bodies takes years to master but the brat just naturally possessed that skill, but however, to be able to enter the tier one dragon slayer ability; Dragon force, to be able to withstand the extreme toll on your body, one hast to transform into a dragon like state, and if Natsu can't ever enter dragon force, he remain weak, not in that literal way, Acnologias magic has the most potency out of all the dragon slaying schools of magic, the reason was because, chaos magic which is made unstable with a intention of hiding its real strength, therefore when an individual is hit by chaos magic there will be an attack with a varying aspect of destruction and damage. It seems rather bad on paper but will fool everyone to think your magic is specialized in for an example area of effect attacks when the chaos caster has many more types of attack in his arsenal, thus the enemies will lower their guards. Its quite simple, rock never wins over paper, paper never wins over scissors and scissors never win against rock, thats an universal law, but chaos dragon magic will adapt.

"**We are going to train on entering dragon force again today, furthermore we are doing what we did last week." **Acnologia wasn't after Natsu initially entering dragon force, he was interested in why it didn't work, but this time he had a came up with a plan, in order for Natsu to synthetically enter dragon force he needed a small push.

"Yup, on it, just let me gather some magic first." He was always awfully cheery, it was most definetly connected to his annoying personality, not even Acnologias harsh and torturous training methods would shape him into mindlessness.

"**Face that tree, and start!" **There was an Elm tree some meters in front of Acnologia and Natsu, while the boy was facing the tree with the same determination he always had when training, the thing was that Acnologia was going to let some of his high powered magic flow through Natsu with out him eating it, nullifying the risks. The boy was so single minded into gathering his magical energy he probably didn't even notice his foster father flare up his own magic too.

"Okay, lets do this!" Natsu began releasing his magic slowly from his various pores around his body, letting his magic form a thin coating around him, he had nailed the first stage down to perfection but at this rate everything would end up the same if Acnologia didn't interfere. Slowly raising his talons which were all glowing out of the constant magic flow from the black dragon. He used one of the gleaming razor sharp claws of his to tear up the rosettes shirt, then he proceeded to place his palm on Natsu's now bare back, letting his magic flow freely into the boy's body. Slowly the amplified dragon magic started to take effect, scales started forming on Natsu's body, the boys muscle mass seemed to expand too. Everything was going along just fine, but that took a one-eighty change of course.

"MAKE IT STOP, MAKE I-IT STO...AGHH!" The brat was clutching his head out of extreme agony, was this some bizarre bi-effect of dragon force? Nonetheless it was fascinating, why just Natsu reacted to dragon force like this was an unsolved enigma, well looking at things now not so much...

Just as the pain seemed to escalate and go far beyond bearable levels, a strong green light wrapped around Natsu, it was so warm and friendly, Acnologia didn't think for a second that it would do the brat any harm...After all it was _her_ magic! She still watched over him after all these years, and thats the reason, that mark, that blasted mark of a blue bird with a fairies tail, the mother had marked him, after all it seemed strange for a _mage_ of her caliber to just die all of a sudden, no, she had poured all of her remaining powers into her child, the mark seemed familiar but that didn't matter at all, Natsu was crippled of his astounding potential, because that damn mark.

Acnologia didn't often get angry, but when he did he was full of rage. Punching a big rock formation to his side making debris fly around thanks to the impact with the dragon fist. Acnologia was so close to just ripping off the pink haired boys arm just to get rid of that damn mark, but something inside him made him come to his senses, there was something inside him that deeply cared for the boy, even if it disgusted him to no end, there was nothing the dragon could do about it. Just by looking at the boys chest falling and raising when he was asleep made him want to take him under his wing, protecting him from all harm.

Out of frustration Acnologia muttered to himself: **"Why can't I let him go..."**

**AN: And done, phew, I really enjoyed writing the flash backs, they were fun to think up, by the way concerning pairings, there are many good suggestions, Erza, Mira, Ultear,** **Kagura etc, but as much as I can go on personal preference, I would like to hear my readers out, so when writing a review please state why, you think a pairing is more preferable than the others!**

**Until next time, bye and have a nice week! **


	3. Chapter III: The final hurdle

**Relentless**

**Chapter III: The final hurdle**

"Wha, hah, just how long is it to that mountain you speak of, dad? And why am I carrying all the stuff you wanted to bring with you? It's heavy~!" Natsu complained through his rattling teeth, the cold was getting to him, as it would to any mortal up here, the tallest mountain in all of Fiore, The throat of the world! Acnologia was surprised on how long the pink haired boy would last in the severe lack oxygen at this altitude, but Natsu prevailed his expectations laid claim on the black dragons admiration, he may be the best pupil he ever had taken under his tutelage, while sometimes being insubordinate, Natsu was a real natural, his impressive determination to come out victorious in all circumstances, just like fighter, and everybody knew the world loved a fighter, who didn't give up no matter the what.

Currently they were on their way up the this treasonous mountain in order to train and meditate, peace of mind were a just as powerful tool to mage as mighty spells, after all it takes a peace full mind to even think about learning new spells. The narrow path was very small and slippery, Acnologia who was hovering carelessly at the side of Natsu who were struggling with the vast amount unnecessary equipment Acnologia had brought with them on the trip to the mountain, only individuals with dragon related magic could travel this mountain, violent current and wild blizzards hid in the misty mountain passes and could sweep up and led careless wanderers astray from their correct path. So all in all Natsu was carrying a twenty five kilo bag filled with rubbish, in a snow storm while being forced into walking up a mountain, yes, he was progressing well, he was quite the exceptional human, capable of great deeds. But the place they were headed would require Natsu to focus that much more, on top of the throat of the world there is an ancient site filled with a great deal of secrets and forgotten tomes, while it mostly was for Natsu's training, Acnologia had his own reasons for visiting that site, no humans had set for there for nearly 1100 years, The pink haired would be the first mortal to behold the ancient mysticism the site held.

Approximately six months ago when the pink haired boy was eight years old, Acnologia had tried to forcefully make Natsu enter dragon force, a unique ability available for dragon slayers, the result was far from desirable...Everything had backfired and Natsu nearly went berserk. But now, after some months of research Acnologia had found an answer to the enigma that was Natsu's inability to enter dragon force, as a matter of fact the black dragon king felt very stupid for not realizing this earlier. That blue mark on his right shoulder was the cause of it all, it was embedded with Natsu's late mothers magic, and the magic was the cause of all the failed attempts at entering dragon force had been foiled because the blue mark simply didn't let it happen. The mark had been programmed with not letting evil or malicious magic alike course through Natsu's body, so his mother thought that Acnologia's magic was evil? Fair enough, it was, and it was no secret. But when Natsu entered or _tried_ to enter dragon force, he used his own chaos magic, and as long as his heart doesn't truly hold any evil or malicious intent his magic will be as innocent as a child, as the child he is. It is truly strange, yet logical at the same time, because When Acnologia had let his magic flow directly through the brat's magic circulation system, it had backfired, because the mark or the mother had detected that his magic was evil. Even though when Natsu was trying on his own it still didn't work when it should, the brat under normal circumstances should already have been learning the basics of the next level dragon slayer abilities. It seemed as if the mother didn't want her son to learn Acnologia's type of magic...anyhow the solution was clear, there is some remains of his mother's magic circulating around his body, preventing his cells to transform to the ones of a dragon, and therefore disabling the learning of dragon force. In the ancient site above the dragon slayers of old used to train their minds into utter calmness, there was a vial, a vial of an old, forgotten magical substance, called dragon tears, they were of course not real dragon tears but instead a special potion that was used to get inside the sub consciousness of the person that consumed the potion, by doing that Acnologia would get access to Natsu's mind, enabling Acnologia to find the disturbance in the pink haired boys magic.

But one might ask how the black dragon king would get transported into Natsu sub consciousness and not Natsu himself, the answer was simple, Acnologia just had to make some of his evil magic flow through the rosettes body again upon the potions consumption by the brat, in theory the mark would react to Acnologia's magic, as it is supposedly a bigger_ threat _to the boy than good, the potion should instead get lured into believing that Acnologia's magic is Natsu's true magic and drag that magic into Natsu's sub consciousness instead of the rosettes own, thus making Acnologia get inside Natsu's head.

"Hey, I am still talking to you, yeah?" Natsu was still complaining about how tired or how extremely starved he was.

"**Shut it kid, I am trying to think!"** Natsu would have to cope with his hunger in some way or another, the food that Acnologia had packed would only last them if they began eating when they had arrived at the site. It was just a few hundred meters left as the initial compound was located somewhere hidden in the mountains midlands, and when they were inside, or rather, when Natsu was inside he would have to make his way up alone to the top from the inside. It wouldn't be easy, the initial venture from inside the site would probably take him around a day to complete and meet up with Acnologia at the summit, where he would drink the potion, in order for the dragon king to fix him up.

"I hate, snow and ice, it's so annoyingly cold and freezing!" Natsu said through his even more rattling teeth, lucky for him they had just arrived at the entrance of the ancient site where he would spend the remaining of his day scaling the dungeon. "**Oi, Natsu, we are here!"** The black dragon said while taking the big pack from Natsu. The rosette reacted just as expected; "Hey, that's my lunch you got there, give it back, now!" Balancing with one foot on the narrow, slippery ridge while flailing his hands towards the pack, trying in vain to lay claim on it. **"Sorry brat, but I will be waiting at the top for you to appear, if you don't then this is good-bye, right, if its food you want then you better hurry up to the summit, or it may be all gone." **Acnologia said while grinning teasingly at Natsu, flashing his razor like teeth, to the boy, who only got more frustrated with the whole situation he was in. "You can't do this to me, I haven't even had breakfast yet, This brat had so much stamina yet some mentioning of some food randomly disappearing would get him begging on his knees, was food simply what he had on is mind all the time? Why was food such a great deal to the pink haired boy? Acnologia would never know.

"**Guess what kid?"** Acnologia was tired of his whining on how he was going to starve in various ways inside the dungeon; therefore he decided to hasten his leave. "What? You wanna say something?" Natsu said sheepishly while looking kind of surprised that Acnologia hadn't left already. **"I just did!" **Acnologia then proceeded to fly off, while flapping his feather like wings to gain altitude. "Whoa, wait, no, you stupid overgrown lizard!" Why would he just leave like that? So heartless…Acnologia's booming laugh could be heard echoing through the mountain passes and various valleys. Natsu didn't have any choice but to find him inside the old dusty compound, if he didn't want to freeze to death outside were the violent snow currents raged.

With Acnologia out of the snowy picture, Natsu now stood alone in front of the two large iron doors guarding the site from the cold outside, it seemed peaceful, a bit to peaceful, it also smelled kind of strange too, it was probably incense, but nobody lived inside, probably…At least that's what Acnologia said earlier, that no human had set foot inside for over a millennia, well he would just have to step inside and find out. While stepping closer towards the towering iron doors, Natsu noticed two giant iron handles, they were probably there to open the humongous iron doors, upon closer look the doors were engraved with some weird pictures, they could also be some kind of markings, but there was no apparent way to distinguish the illustrations.

As the rosette wiped off some of the powdery snow that had settled down like some thin blanket over the iron doors. While taking a closer look on the weird illustrations Natsu felt a strange hum, a hum of power that stirred his insides and made his blood run cold, it felt as if his veins iced over and the circulation completely stopped. There was some sort 'thing' inside…but only time would tell exactly what.

It seemed carefully pulling at the big iron handles wouldn't make the doors budge, getting irritated at the two obstacles in front of him Natsu, he thought kicking the doors were a good idea…

**At the mountain summit…**

On top of a big rock formation sat the mighty dragon king in patiently in wait for his young student. The view was simply magnificent; the snow storms were several thousands of meters under the peak. The air was thin yet extremely pure, crystals of ice shimmered thanks to the sun dotted sky, but it was nonetheless cold, the mountains around the throat of the world were covered with a rug of trees, green, yellow, scarlet and orange, but their bare tops were scarfed and beribboned with snow. From carved rocky outcrops, waterfalls drifted like skeins of white lawn, and in the fields we could see the amber glint of rivers and the occasional mirror-like flash of a mountain lake.

For a normal mortal this kind of climate would be exhausting, the obvious lack of oxygen would make breathing tricky. At this kind of altitude the air pressure is at its lowest, the air moving upward from the sea level will expand, but for that to work energy is needed to move the surrounding oxygen molecules, thus leaving the air energy less at end of the process, the low energy levels in the air will leave the molecules in a much less mobile state and the lack of activity will leave them cold. But Acnologia who was a dragon didn't have to bother with small details like that, a dragons lungs is much more effective at drawing in oxygen. Natsu's lungs would have those characteristics too, if not only...Acnologia was extremely frustrated with this whole situation, that damnable mark had set them back six months in term of training, six months they would never gain back, however, if one would look at the bright side of it all, Natsu now was extremely potent with chaos magic, he knew the many ways of using his magic in his various body parts, fists, legs, head, elbows etc. But without dragon force he is an incomplete dragon slayer, dragon force is the base building up to the more advanced forms of dragon slaying, if Natsu can't master it, then he will be severely lacking in terms power to meet the conditions of Acnologia's plan. Let's just hope Natsu's hope Natsu's mother was co-operative…

Suddenly Acnologia felt an insanely small spike of dragon magic; it was very familiar, as Acnologia was very well acquainted with the other dragons and their various forms of magic. As he turned his head Acnologia saw a small orb of the familiar magic levitate towards him, it seemed pretty docile, and even so, one had to be careful with _Gardeeny._

"**State your business Gardeeny!" **Now that Natsu was down in the dungeon making his way up towards the summit, the black dragon king could act and react freely, like he used to before he meet Natsu. Acnologia was far from pleased seeing that Grandeeny was her to squeeze some information out of him, she was_ rude_ fellow to be honest, always aiming for other dragons weak points during conversation, although one had to be brave to try that on the black dragon king.

"**Oh please, is that how you greet a friend you haven't seen for...let's see here, hundreds of years."** Acnologia would be damned to ever have called Grandeeny a friend, she was annoying, to say at least, her magic equally so, she has the best healing magic out of all dragons.

"**I cannot help but to be suspicious at the fact that you are here even though you and all the other dragons are in constant hiding, isn't that so **_**Grandeeny?**_**"** She was probably here to get information on the dragon kings student, the fact that he actually takes one still sounded mildly fishy.

"**Don't be, I won't steal your little prodigy, however I would want to know what you are doing here?" **Acnologia almost had forgot, this place was the place where the sky dragon priest called home, that site, or more elegantly called a temple, was were Krosis and his followers were gathered for a about a millennia ago, this would surely stir up some old wounds as wells as scars on Grandeeny's past. _If_ she got to curious...

Acnologia didn't bother to answer; he only proceeded to answer with a menacing grin showing of his gleaming teeth to Grandeeny's little communication bubble.

"**Okay, I take it, you are here to cleanse his magic!?" **Oh, she wasn't that clueless after all these years? Well after all Grandeeny was one of the more deceptive types of dragons still alive, a well-known _liar_.

"**Your curiosity amazes me, but pray tell, aren't you the one being rude? Here I am minding my own business and then then you suddenly decide to come and interrogate **_**me? **_** And on top of it all, you don't even bother to show up in person to ask the questions?" **Acnologia's words were so filled with mockery they could be considered toxic, Acnologia had on several occasions been called the silver tongued dragon, but he only took it as a compliment, after all it only showed how much of a superior mind he had. Verbally mocking other dragons was fun...Especially prideful ones like Grandeeny and _Igneel._

_**Please forgive my excessive rudeness**_**, I only have one more question, why are you here on my territory, and why is your student roaming freely around the catacombs? Ah, I should have guessed, you want to rid him off, aren't you? After all the dead down there aren't really **_**dead**_**, so to speak..."**

"**Speaking of the devil, it seems that my student has**_** woken**_** someone from their eternal, **_**Grandeeny?"**_The sky dragon had simply taken it too far...therefore she would pay!

**Earlier, in the dungeon...**

"Man, why are there so many cobwebs around every corner I pass?" The place was incredibly gloomy, probably due to extend period were little to no life existed here...But the place were decently lit, bonfires and torches adorned the walls, illuminating the vast illustrations around the place, similar to the iron doors. Upon entering the place Natsu had let himself have the pleasure of checking them out...As wells as adding some _minor_ details to them, making them far more pretty, all though that thought came from the Natsu.

If one would concentrate they would see that the markings represented a man with a swirling ring of some sort of magic around him, there were other people illustrated on there as well, they were all bowing down to the magic man in the middle, looking back at the main man again it was clearly visible that he was wearing some really fancy clothes compared to the rest of the bunch, the illustration in stone wanted to make that fact clear, he also wore a crown, which represented administration and rule.

Having taken the liberty of grasping hold of a lone torch, Natsu now held it in front of him waving it in front of effectively burning the cobwebs. "WHA, I already have passed along this corridor? Why am I here again?" His sudden yell of surprise echoed through many hallways and corridors, his voice repeated itself...four times before dissipating into oblivion, how freaking large is this place?

"Damn it! At this rate I'll never...Whoa" He didn't get to finish his line of thought as the exiting sight of an untouched lever came across his now sparkling eyes. How the hell had he missed this fine piece of mystery? Right, if that damn lizard didn't refuse to share some of the food inside the pack earlier, maybe he wouldn't be too starved to think of anything but his constantly rumbling stomach...

Gently the rosettes fingers surrounded the lever; his hand was sweating with excitement while his eyes still remained in the weird sparkling state. Anyhow he didn't know if pulling the lever yet, was this something Acnologia would approve of...? Hah, screw that, Natsu was a person learned through doing stuff, and then he would learn his lesson.

With all his might Natsu pulled the lever, but not a corn of the ancient dust adorning the place was moved, everything was quiet, in an ear deafening way, not even the quietest of sounds of ongoing mechanisms was heard. Letting out a annoyed groan Natsu was just about to abandon the lever until suddenly there was vague sound of some stones grinding at each other, that must have been the mechanism, he only heard the faint sound because of Acnologia's _Spartan_ ways of teaching different stuff, why would there be a need for violence when the black dragon thought stuff to him never really got to him? Natsu never thought of himself as stupid, he just took a longer time to process things...At least that's what Acnologia would mutter to himself during some of the training sessions.

The pink haired boy darted with haste towards were he thought the sound was coming from, if he wouldn't hurry the sound would most likely stop and then he would be lost again. A few minutes later the rosette was standing in front of area of the dungeon he didn't recognize, the wall had turned a one-eighty turn revealing a new secret passage, the same sort of aura was present in the passage, if only a tad gloomier, and the worst thing out of it all was that even more cobwebs were present in the new tunnel, however, there was also a new torch, as Natsu had accidentally dropped his old one back when he was pursuing the strange sound. The wind was being extremely louder than usual, one could say that the wind almost was howling, as Natsu proceeded to take one small step into the tunnel, the wind intensified greatly and a sudden gust of wind and dust pushed the unaware pink haired dragon slayer further into the passage, to the point where his whole body was beyond the entrance.

Just as Natsu had finished coughing and hacking out all of the old dust from his air ways, the previous seemingly innocent stone wall slammed shut and effectively closed him in. "HEY, open up! HEEY, I am serious, who the hell closed it? OPEN UP, DAMN IT!" Kicking and punching at the stone wall, trying futilely to barge it from the inside. Natsu wasn't the most patient one around, so one would expect him to take it to the next level within a matter of seconds, and that's exactly what he did...**Chaos dragons: Coercion! **As the rosette leveled his bare palm towards the stone barrier, a black magic circle with blue ancient dragon language runes inside it, but that wasn't the most gripping part, the crest of the black dragon king was embedded in the middle officially identifying Natsu as the Chaos dragon slayer. An immense amount of light blue magic started gathering at rapid speeds inside the rosettes palm only to strangely get more and more compressed together forming a tiny ball, but that was only the prelude to the initial attack, a mere second later the ball exploded and created a _very_ powerful blast of air towards the stone formation ahead. The result however wasn't expected. Four light bluish green magic circles appeared and lit up the area, upon seeing this Natsu realized that he was stuck, this place wasn't normal at all, he kind of realized that back at the big iron doors, but now he just knew there was something further down that corridor, something with the intent to harm...

Another howl of wind hit his face, whipping his rose hair around like it has got a life of its own. The wind was no normal wind, these gusts were there to lure him further down the dark passage, Natsu knew that, yet he proceeded to travel deeper and deeper down the passage, well it wasn't like he had anywhere else to go. With brisk and equally firm steps towards the unknown that lurked in the thick darkness..._waiting. _After a good while of pacing forward relentlessly, the pink haired dragon slayer had reached the main chamber of the place, or so he thought, but it was most likely to be the master chamber because of the big monument like upstaging of the room, were a big coffin lied.

The room was probably the most well lit room, candles small and big, graced the site, illuminating the silver adorned markings on the coffin. The thing itself was made out of black steel, on the exterior the coffin was decorated with the same markings as the ones Natsu had studied earlier, but now they were much easier to see thanks to the expensive silver engraving, this person must have been really powerful, to have this whole temple dungeon place as a grave site. The most eye catching thing there would be the walls, they weren't really walls to even begin with and that was the creepiest part! There were bodies, no; corpses neatly placed on shelve like spaces carved out of the cold stony walls of the place. They had probably lied there for thousands of years, never once allowed to rest in peace, they had been cursed with immortality, sort of, and Natsu could feel it in his very bones.

They were dead, their bodies didn't function as normal living organisms should, as their hearts didn't beat, well at least Natsu couldn't hear them beating. The skin on their bones had dried to the point of crumbling and their muscles were entirely gone, only sinew and the tendons of their former bodies remained somewhat intact.

However they were watching him, with cover of shadow and death they observed silently, from their eternal slumber. Anyhow, Natsu didn't care in the slightest about that, what really piqued his interest was what was inside the big coffin with the ugly silver markings, slowly adjusting his angle so he was trekking on the correct way towards the steel coffin the rosettes excitement level started to rise rapidly, he had to make sure he remembered to thank Acnologia for bringing him here in the first place, the rose haired boy hadn't had this much fun since..._forever!_ Without any care in the world Natsu placed his arms on the edge of the coffins heavy lid, making an effort in shoving the piece of nuisance away as quick as possible! He wanted to see what's inside already!

The lid quickly gave in to the strength Natsu possessed in his arms, for a nine year old he was quite strong. "AAAAAAAAAHH, w-what in the world, is that!?" His horror struck yell thundered in his eardrums, as it was quickly echoing around the place, what was inside the coffin was far beyond Natsu's guesses, the rosette thought it would be some treasure containing of gold and valuable gems, or an ancient tome, or something, but he didn't quite expect another one of those skinny corpses to rest inside, actually he really should have expected that there would be one inside, as _coffins_ usually contained corpses...

But there was one cool thing about the corpse, even though it was similar to any other old and crumbled corpse, it looked vastly different. The clothing was torn but still quite respectable and inside the sockets on the head where a hollow emptiness should be, strange lavender light emitted. "Eh, quite the odd fellow" Natsu said out loud, as he felt like the ominous atmosphere would shatter along with the silence. Just when the thought of just leaving crossed Natsu's mind, a light caught his eye. Above the right shoulder of the skeleton was a key, or at least that's what Natsu's mind made out of it. "Guess I need it to get out of here" he reassured himself as he reached for it and felt a chill right above his elbow. He slowly, slowly twisted his head towards the face of the skeleton and to both his horror and amusement, his counterpart did the same.

As he once again felt the chill, which he had realized was the not so dead man's futile attempts to breath, he asked "Uhm, and who would you be?" This statement was answered with **"Sky dragons: Piercing Roar"**. Before Natsu's mind could even comprehend what happened next and he could feel the granite wall be smashed into the back of his head. As Natsu attempted to stand once again, all skeletons in the catacombs had begun to rise. The overwhelming power of the roar had left the coffins with half of its surface visible, and the other half buried deep within the celling of the room**. "I AM KROSIS, PRIEST OF GRANDEENY, and WHO DARES TO DISTURB MY ETERNAL REST!?"** as the skeleton spoke, he destroyed all other skeletons in his path as he staggered towards Natsu. When the rosette's mind had cleared from the impact, Horace had already dragged his body across half of the rooms span.

"The one to disturb your sleep, huh?" As the summer days boy shot a challenging grin towards the pile of bones, a great deal of chaos dragon slayer magic started gathering around him, in a fierce aura that was starting to crumble the very earth under the rosette. "That would be me!"

"**Sky dragons: Javelin!" **A spear of the sharpest wind was produced and thrown at the boy at unbelievable speeds; the speed of wind magic was astounding. Having no time to dodge Natsu prepared his counter spell. **"Chaos dragons: Barrier!" **The hexagon shaped shield of the black dragon appeared and with relative ease repelled the javelin of wind. "Hah, your wind stick didn't even leave a scratch!" Celebrating in his new found victory over the sky dragon priests wind spear, Natsu was oblivious to the fact that Krosis was preparing yet another attack…

**At the top of the mountain…**

"**What do you mean Acnologia?"** Grandeeny was playing it cool headed, she knew all too well what the black dragon meant, but he wouldn't' have the pleasure of seeing her react in any way.

"**Oh, come on now, Krosis? Your **_**first**_** student? Don't you remember?"** Acnologia knew that the sky dragon was just trying to suppress her own memories; there was no way she could have forgotten.

Just as the two dragons conversation was getting deeper, they both felt an unnatural spike of massive amounts of magic, while it felt very familiar to the dragon kings own, it felt rather emotional, too emotional. Acnologia therefore drew the probable conclusion that Natsu was behind the immense amount of released magic, if one said that the magic was familiar to Acnologia it was no understatement, actually it could pass as an overstatement, the magic was his very own, and it was dragon force. The black dragon king felt a feeling of dread wash over him, slowly but surely, the feeling was growing stronger filling the dragons mind with bad thoughts. This wasn't a part of the plan! If there was one thing Acnologia really despised it were spontaneous happenings, the dragon king always planned in advance in order to have complete control over the situation at hand, this was sickening what could have happened?

But then it hit him, _hit him hard_. The emotions! They were the answer, Natsu was a rather emotional fellow, and those emotions would most likely have functioned as a catalyst for the pink haired boy to enter dragon force! But Acnologia wouldn't know for sure until the boy would arrive up at the summit, as thoughts like those started to fill the dragon kings head instead of those evil and self-loathing ones, Acnologia could finally feel relieved. Why he felt relieved was probably his disgusting bond toward the brats fault. It still seemed strange that the dragon king actually could feel something, _feel _emotions he thought he had abandoned an eternity ago; the thing was that Acnologia only felt this way when Natsu was around, it was hard to admit but the reason for that was _the past_, the time when Acnologia wasn't…

"**Acnologia that's quite a dangerous type of dragon slayer magic you have thought the brat, it could potentially lead to his demise."**

"**Grandeeny, the thing that's currently on my mind is that my student just beat yours!" **If the obvious lack of Krosis magical power being almost reduced to nothingness didn't convince the sky dragon, then the dragon king didn't know what would…

"**It seems so, **_**congratulations,"**_ Grandeeny didn't of course really mean to thank the black dragon, it was just common courtesy. **"But please take the fact into consideration that Krosis was literally walking **_**dust."**_

"_**Thank you, **_**Grandeeny!**_**" **_Now that the dragons little verbal spar was for the most part over, Acnologia could focus on more important matters, like how Natsu wouldn't need to drink the vial of dragon tears, it would serve much better as means to meet his mother in the future…

Acnologia felt kind of bad thinking back on how he had plotted to use it to get inside the summer boys psyche…Almost…

**AN: And done, pairings are still being decided, please motivate why you would think for an example Lisanna would be perfect for Natsu. Please leave a line or two means the world to me!**

**Until next time!**


	4. Chapter IV: Out of the nest

**Relentless**

**Chapter IV: Out of the nest**

**R&amp;R**

"**You moron, do you have a death wish, if so wouldn't it be a lot easier if I put an end to you?" **The question with death was an enigma to Natsu, now many thousands of meters up in the air on top of a mountain, at a significant loss of oxygen, listening to his 'dad' go on and on about why he is so _reckless_, Natsu truly wished to be classified as dead, yep, dead. When the rosettes foster father got started with his various lessons about life they were most likely to end at least two hours later or more! They sucked, and to make it even sweeter, Natsu already knew most of the stuff his 'dad' told him about, like how to not just rush in and kick some ass, when the chance of a tactical 'retreat' or whatever his foster father said it was, to be blunt it means to _run..._

"**Are you listening?" **Acnologia said that as he smacked the blunt side of one of his talons, preventing an accidental decapitation, it was hard nonetheless, and it hurt. Right Natsu hadn't had his lunch yet...what time was it now, one can't really see from up here since the clouds obscure the line of sight, but the black dragon king guessed the time to be somewhere around dusk.

"Yeah, I am, but as I told you earlier I am fine," He wasn't fine...His whole body was covered up in bandages... "But I require food as every other living being!" And of course hunger was what occupied his mind, he nearly got every bone in his body broken still he can whine about the temporary lack of food.

"**I shall give you the food you hold so dear if you tell me exactly what happened down there!" **The fight between Natsu and Krosis still was an unclear subject, Acnologia was curious to exactly what the ancient priest had told the rosette to make him angry enough to successfully obtain dragon force.

"I already told you once, he was bad mouthing you, spouting crap like how weak you really are, and stuff, but I know you are the strongest out of all dragons!" Natsu was very certain that his 'dad' was the strongest being he had ever been with, well, it wasn't like he had been with someone else to be able to compare the monstrous strength his dad possessed, but that 'Kriso' guy down at the catacombs really spouted some weird crap, like how Acnologia hasn't always been a dragon. A dragon is a dragon, how the hell would a dragon not have been a dragon before, wait, this was getting way to complicated and deep for Natsu's taste, anyhow the fight was interesting at least, Mr.-I-like-to-sleep-in-dusty-coffins actually was a tough guy for just consisting of skin and bones.

"**NATSU! That is what you said earlier! I want details!" **This was some very crucial information about the evolution of dragon slayers, dragon force that's controlled by emotions is an unique ability only Natsu has achieved as of yet, and emotions are the easiest to stir up, yet it was pretty inconsistent to have this as an ability, when Acnologia would be done training the rosette he would not stay the same, for the sake of the wellbeing of the boy, Acnologia would have to have him take after some of his traits, to survive Natsu would have to learn to hate...

"Details, huh, I don't really remember!" This brat, he really was an insolent fool; he has yet to realize the dangers of not knowing the enemy. What if the priest wasn't in such a weakened state, what would have happened to the rosette? The black dragon king hated to admit it but somewhere deep inside the dark abyss that was his heart, he held some very vague _parental_ feelings for the brat; it disgusted him to no end, made the dragon want to hurl. The kind of relationship that Natsu thought he had with dragon king was sham, a lie, many lies piled upon each other, right from the beginning Acnologia knew that the brat was the bonding type, when Acnologia…would leave, Natsu would probably come looking for him, but to no avail, there would be a time when Natsu would have to cook his own meals…read for himself…make a living for himself, if Acnologia would stay with him for an extended amount of time the brat would turn spoiled. It was for the greater good, in order to grow as an individual one would have to experience pain and suffering as much as happiness and hope, they were all the same side of a coin.

In about two years the dragon king would have to sever the relationship between them, by then the summers day boy would be an adept dragon slayer, the chaos magic would serve him well in this world of hard ship and cruelty. During those two remaining years the black dragon would turn Natsu into the ultimate weapon against other dragons, the fires of war loomed closer and closer, if everything went as planned.

"Stop spacing out! I am still hungry, you know!" Natsu's 'dad' was being strange again, he used to act like this sometimes, not very often but every now and then this happened, maybe Acnologia had something important on his mind. "Dad, you know that you can tell me if something is bothering you, right!"

Such an innocent child, always thinking about the people he held dear, Natsu wouldn't make it far in life if he kept going like this, being 'nice' had its limits, and the dragon kings patience ran thin, Natsu had to be disciplined.

"**Natsu, will you never learn? I am not your dad! Somebody else is!" **In the heat of the moment Acnologia had gone ahead and said something inappropriate, Natsu's parents were a thing that Natsu shouldn't have got to know yet, well, on a second thought maybe it wasn't all that bad? The longer Acnologia waited, the harder it would get to explain exactly why his parents weren't around.

"Then who is?" Natsu gave the black dragon a blank stare judgingly, it seemed that Natsu was oblivious to the fact that he was an orphan, or was made an orphan.

"**Do you really want to know?" **This very question could save many of the dragon king's brain cells from taking suicide, everything past this line wasn't his fault, for Natsu was doing this by his own free will.

"If I ask you isn't it obvious that I want to know?" This kid is gutsy, openly challenging Acnologia like that, the black dragon wouldn't back down, as the dragon let out an irritated sigh, Natsu just continued to stare while resting his fist on his cheek, seemingly pondering about something.

"**Natsu, you know me, I won't sugar coat anything for you!" **Natsu wasn't dumb; he would know that asking the black dragon about anything like this would end up in a very blunt and equally direct answer.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you!" The boy had the resolve it seemed, more and more clouds had moved in over the sky, wiping off the colorful scenery bellow, the trees that previously were visible were now hidden behind the clouds, the sun was dotting through the layer of clouds where ever it could find a blue opening, the snow clad ground gave out an annoying shimmer when the sun was shining down upon the ground, right here Natsu would know of his origins.

"**Natsu," **Acnologia began slowly. **"Your parents are dead." **This wasn't how Acnologia imagined how Natsu would learn of his parents, or to be precise mother, since the black dragon king really didn't have any idea were the father was holding up.

Upon hearing this the boy was seemingly close to breaking, but he didn't, summoning all the strength inside of him, he suppressed the urge to openly bawl, it somehow seemed that he was expecting this, that was clear sign that indicated Natsu's maturing mind.

"I-I see, do you think they were good people?" The poor brat had not the slightest idea, what his parents were like, well, he is an orphan. So it's pretty obvious...

"**Yes, they were! Anymore questions?" **If Natsu's parents were good people was an alien question to Acnologia, the dragon hadn't socialized with human for hundreds of years, knowing whether or not the rosettes parents were good people Acnologia had no idea, but if one took the summarized first and supposedly last impressions of the brats mother Acnologia, could draw a vague conclusion that his parents, or at least mother was a good person, the father was a mystery, the black dragon didn't know what was up with him, he probably died at the village attack along with the rest of the villagers. _"Show him relentless love and affection!" _That very line still haunted the dragon king to this very day, the mother was very serious, and the blue mark on Natsu's right shoulder was proof of that, however upon finding out that Natsu's dragon force wasn't really affected by the mark, but by his emotions the dragon king had learned to ignore it, but the fact remained that amounts of the pink haired mothers magic remained in the brats magic circulation system was slightly troubling, but with time they would also vanish.

"That's nice to hear, were they also dragons like you?" For the love of god, what kind of question is that? As much as Acnologia found the sole question dumb, but there were no dumb questions only dumb answers, well, that's how the saying goes but the dragon king wasn't so sure anymore. While letting out an even more tired sigh, Acnologia proceeded to answer with the following: **"What do you think they were?"**

Natsu took his time, first looking at his own bandaged body, then gazing upon the dragons gargantuan body, when he was finished the brat furrowed his brows and said: "That's easy they were humans!"

"**How did you know...?" **The voice which grazed the dragon's words was monotone and sarcastic, now that the question of which race his parents belonged to was over, they could proceed onto more important matters!

"So who killed them?" The way this very line was pronounced sent chills down Acnologia's spine, never had he heard Natsu speak with this level of hateful intentions, was the situation really turning into what the dragon thought it would lead into? But before anything else Acnologia needed confirmation.

"**Why do you ask?" **The dragons eyes were scrunched together effectively narrowing his eyes at his student, this whole situation could get defused depending on the brats answer. Actually this whole situation was playing out just as the black dragon wanted; Natsu was asking questions which allowed Acnologia to manipulate him to the fullest.

"Isn't it my right to know?" Somehow the dragon king wasn't surprised, yet one part of him actually was quite surprised, the boy who just barely some days ago was complaining about how little his food plates could hold and why he was forced to eat with cutlery, was now fighting a war between his heart and mind, things had taken an interesting turn. "I want to find out why they were killed, and then I'll tear the killer apart!" After his previous remark had gotten completely ignored Natsu went ahead revealed his true intentions?

"**Stop being naïve Natsu, even if I told you have no chance of beating said person!" **Especially when the 'person' isn't a person but a dragon instead, Natsu had positively no chance of beating Igneel, _yet..._Acnologia would teach him everything he knew about dragon slaying, and since the dragon king himself was one, or to be exact were formerly a dragon slayer with the chaos attribute. Natsu was the perfect tool to use as the perfect living weapon only serving to make the grand scheme that the black dragon had planned com into reality.

"That's not true, I am the chaos dragon slayer, student of Acnologia, and I will beat anyone!" It was good Natsu was confident, but this was just simple ego boosting, he still had a long way to go, after all only a dragon can kill a dragon, or a dragon slayer with powers equivalent to a dragons might. Natsu was a fast learning pupil. the pink haired brat probably make a name for himself, after all he was the black dragons pupil, just that would make some individuals legs tremble and their hearts doubt, but names wouldn't win battles, skill and wit would, Natsu was the holder former but lacking in the latter, anyhow he had improved. But not nearly enough.

"**Natsu, you have come along a long well as a dragon slayer, but to become truly powerful you still need to learn much more!" **The power Acnologia had to offer the boy was no joking matter, with that power the brat would bring out change into the world, with that power Natsu could obtain everything, what he chose to do with said power was absolutely up to him, as long as he obeyed the black dragon's words without fail.

Natsu didn't answer, but instead responded with a nod, upon a closer look one could see that the brats face was sickly blue, never had the dragon seen Natsu in such a bad state. "Hey, do you still have that food pack around?"

"**Well of course! Eating your food was a joke, human food is distasteful!"** Even though the dragon king was a former human his palate had changed into one of a dragons, as well as the rest of him, human food wasn't as appealing as it was some hundreds of years ago.

"I think I am going to..." No more was said from the brats tongue as Natsu collapsed from the combined exhaustion of the thin oxygen levels of the mountain and his starved stomach. The fatigue got the better of him, nonetheless Acnologia was proud of him, and defeating Krosis was a great deed for a nine year old boy, even if the sky dragon was right about the fact that the dragon priest was nothing more than dust.

From this day on, the summer days boy would have to work a lot harder, in order to survive on his own...

_**One and a half year of restless training later...**_

"**Natsu, you are pathetic! Why is this forest still standing? I thought I told you to decimate it!" **Since that day at the throat of the world Acnologia had intensified the brats training on several levels, the time of easy assignments and laps around the lake were over, this training was for Natsu's own good, this was the final preparations for the brats debut in the vast world outside this hidden valley in the mountains misty shadow, the lakes warm currents were constantly being disturbed by the reappearing ripples created by the chunks and splinters that flew like around in the calm wind currents, it was spring, the exotic birds, splattered with all the colors of the rainbow were flying over the sky as the last grey cloud flew past, allowing the relentless attack of the sun to seep past.

Beads of sweat ran down the pink haired boy's forehead, effectively re-moistening the previous sweat trails that were by now sticking to the rosettes skin. He was exhausted, bruised, bloodied, the sharp tree splinters had dug themselves neatly into the pink haired boy's fists, making them bleed. However they were not the important thing that was on his mind, how he could get rid of the lush lake side forest was the pressing matter on his mind at the moment. "Hah, ugh, ngh, I-I don't have any more magic left, my powers won't activate any longer…ugh…" He was at his limit, however, that was not a valid excuse to Acnologia, in order to evolve as a mage the exceeding of ones limit was a must, only when over exhausting one's body would the body develop so that the limit would be increased, and that's what Natsu was trying to achieve.

"**Natsu, how can you call yourself my student if some petty trees will defeat you?!" **Natsu was making pitiful excuses, to achieve great power one had to suffer in equal worth to that power, that's the simple truth.

"For your knowledge, the trees you are talking about are in reality a FOREST, and they are 2 meters thick, damn it!" Natsu was tired of his foster fathers constant nagging about trees, they were at least one thousand year old, at first it was kind enjoyable punching holes in some random trees but when two hours had passed and there were still a good amount of said trees left, the rosette felt weak, weak for not being able perform his dad's bidding, weak for not being able to do anything about his father's mockery, it was mostly pent up frustration that was getting on his nerves and not this training exercise, still he kept on going at it, he wasn't giving up, he just wouldn't, it went against his principles.

"**Save the details for somebody that cares, now focus!" **The black dragon said. Truth to be told Acnologia was aiming to make Natsu angry, really angry, in that aspect he would with relative ease demolish this entire forest. **"Natsu,"** The dragon king began. **"I thought you said you were strong? Didn't you? From what I have seen today you are quite the opposite!" **With that the rosettes rage boiled over and in all his anger he entered dragon force, this was the kind of training Natsu had went through with, this wasn't exercises that was there to quicken Natsu's anger but to make his body familiar dragon force, soon he would be ready to learn how to tap into the dragon force power at will. That would benefit him greatly in the next stages of his training. However, Natsu would have to train on his own behalf in order to achieve the next levels of dragon slaying; Acnologia only left him with the tools, or rather the fundamentals that could be used as stepping stones.

With his veins bulging out on his forehead and the dragon scales forming on his body Natsu entered dragon force, a new surge of magical power ran through his body like a warm breeze, it felt refreshing, now he could achieve the task at hand. "How Many times have you called me weak already? I AM NOT WEAK, DAMN IT!" An ear deafening blast of air that was produced by Natsu's sudden release of humongous amounts of magic, azure colored currents of dragon slayer magic started circulating the area, tearing the surrounding woods, but this was only the prelude to the summer boy's rampage.

The black dragon king didn't look that impressed if one were judging from the facial expression he wore, the bored facade Acnologia wore was only a means to further agitate Natsu, to see were his power limit lies, and by the looks of things it is pretty high. The emotions running wild in the brats mind was exactly what Acnologia wanted, if he now proceeded to destroy the forest to then the dragon would consider it a bonus. Natsu's training was rapidly pacing towards its end, to the point where Acnologia wasn't needed, it was true that Acnologia now days saw him as the strict but fair father figure but anything more than that was damaging, damaging to his own and the boys feelings. It was something they couldn't possibly have...

"**Apocalyptic Roar!" **Now this was interesting the brat was using some very advanced spells, although Acnologia felt disgusted with the amount of spit that flew out as he said the name of the attack, the Apocalyptic roar was quite different from the normal dragons roar, firstly it could only be used in dragon force and the modes that surpassed it, so to say it was still early for Natsu to go around using said move, nonetheless it was impressive, it seemed he had accomplished some personal training recently.

As the azure magic shot out from the brats dragon lungs, it formed a pillar that drilled right through the forest, pulverizing the rest of the wildlife surrounding the area, it was hard to notice due to the excessive light that blinded one's eyes but the pillar was growing in a cone like shape, effectively tearing down more and more forest with it. A few seconds later a great deal of forest that mere moments ago was filled with lush and bolstering wildlife had been turned into a vast no man's land, the ground was cracked and the trees ripped out from the ground with their roots above the earth, it was magnificent display of a dragons supreme might and prowess.

The boy was no longer conscious, having over worked his body by pushing his anatomical limits to match the ones of a dragon, that was no small task any average dragon slayer could achieve, Acnologia was truly proud of his foster son, even if the dragons stern facade didn't show it as much.

_**Sometime later...**_

A great shadow loomed over the soundly sleeping boy, he didn't snore at least, and although every time Acnologia tries to pull the sheets over the brat he just kicks them away half an hour later. Natsu had been asleep for two days now, the black dragon was starting to get really frustrated with the brat, who the hell slept this long!? But just watching Natsu's chest slowly rise and fall in a seemingly perfect rhythm was all that was required for the black dragon kings frustration to completely wipe itself from his mind. Natsu a severe case of magic exhaustion it seemed, well, if it wasn't that what could explain his ongoing sleeping marathon, but he had done well, that was the dragon's sincere thoughts.

A great deal of thoughts raced through the dragons mind, as in the near future he was going to leave Natsu's side. Acnologia wondered if Natsu would miss him when he was gone, what his goals were for the future. The dragon had noticed that Natsu had completely forgotten his quest for revenge about a year after the reveal of his origins at the top of that mountain, the restless pursuit for power had left him without a goal in life. Natsu was blank, as blank as freshly fallen snow. However Acnologia would give him a goal, which was the least he could do...

Right, Acnologia had almost forgotten, it had been so many years since that day among the rubble and ruins of the village Natsu's mother resided in, when she had handed over the small bundle that was Natsu at that time, as he took the baby from the mother Acnologia noticed that he was delicately wrapped in a white scaled scarf or shawl, Acnologia didn't really know, it was too thick to be a scarf, while lacking the length department to be a shawl.

Whatever that piece of clothing was, it was going to be handed over to Natsu on this very day, but the problem with Natsu still sleeping remained, if he wasn't awake then nothing would be given to the brat. Using the tips of his talons to get a firm hold of Natsu's clothing Acnologia proceeded to shake him around like a ragdoll, till he woke from his two day long slumber. After a while it was obvious that it wouldn't work, therefore another method had to be exercised.

The black dragon figured that some cold spring water freshly collected from the river would wake the summer's day brat once and for all. Quietly stepping out of the cove and making sure no unnecessary sounds were made Acnologia spread his massive feather like wings and took of soaring down towards the mountains side lake at the center of the valley. Acnologia didn't bother touching down, instead just flew over the water surface of the lake while scooping up some water with his claws. Now loaded with some lake water the black dragon flew back with great haste towards the cove in which the rosette slept soundly. Acnologia's charge towards the cove stopped just ten meters away from the entrance of the cove, the momentum of his previous flying still remained, and as he opened up his palm the water shot off towards the cove, effectively washing out Natsu.

"Pfftsht, what the hell, why am I wet, what did you do?" The results were astounding to say at least, Natsu was wide awake. Even though ended up being a bit soaked from the cove 'cleaning' earlier. Natsu was currently continuing to spit up the huge amount of water he had swallowed.

"**Natsu, I have something for you!" **This was the dragons first time giving a gift to someone, even if this scarf wasn't initially from the dragon, it still felt really awkward doing this, what was he supposed to say, what if the brat started asking questions? Humans were so particular about these things. It really mattered to them.

"Oh, really? Then hand it over!" This brat, was being a freakishly rude about things, Acnologia really started to regret ever considering giving something to the brat, what he really needed was to get going and destroy a few more forests.

"**Here you go, you ungrateful brat!" **Acnologia didn't really bother striking up an argument at the moment, it was for the better, taking into consideration that the black dragon kings time with his pupil was up, it actually wasn't as sad as Acnologia had imagined, now finally the dragon could have a few quiet years of meditation, but Natsu was going to be missed that was for sure, how long has it been already, twelve years, twelve years of headaches and frustration, now the black dragon could look back at it and amuse himself, the other dragons like Grandeeny and Metalicana, would only keep their students for about ten years, Acnologia was currently one year over that mark. But did he regret it, no, his student was now able to enter dragon force at will, that was no small feat, and besides, Acnologia was no ordinary dragon, he wouldn't bother with petty activities such as going into hiding from the rest of the world, it was pathetic to hide from humans, after all they were nothing more than appetizers, with a few exceptions of course.

With that Acnologia took a quick look at his foster son, he looked like he appreciated the scarf, as his cheeks had changed color from his ordinary skin color to a unusual shade of red, was the kid blushing? The dragon king couldn't help but to snicker at his students antics, he was so innocent and unknowing.

"Thank you, Acnologia!" The dragon hated being thanked for something that was as trivial as this, but the Acnologia part was surprisingly fulfilling, of all the thank you phrases the dragon had received from the rosette, this was the one with the most thought behind it.

"**Wear it and stay warm, so you don't get sick again!" **Even after all these years Acnologia still remembered the horrors of Natsu getting sick, it was pure hell…

"And you say that after soaking me to the bone, how considerate of you!" The brat was giving one of his trademark grins; even if they were becoming less and less frequent Acnologia knew that they still held the same meaning behind them.

"**You are welcome brat!"** It was nice being able to have a decent conversation once in a while, but there still was one thing the dragon wanted to ask his foster son.

"**Natsu, will you miss me if I suddenly left you?" **There, the words were said, the dragon king sure hadn't been kingly with the time he had spent with the summer's day boy, and it disgusted him to no end that these tragically sentimental words were even leaving his mouth.

"Nope!" It was as simple as that, the dragon felt relieved that there would be no extra bonds that had to be severed, the good bye was going to be quick and simple, Acnologia would leave in the night and their paths would separate, Acnologia would be able to roam the world freely again, without any more concerns, he now had a successor to his title as the black dragon slayer.

There were still a few more sentimental words that had to be said. **"Natsu, the shadow of the black dragon will always loom over you, remember that." **The brat had no idea what that meant Acnologia meant, it was quite easy to tell from the perplexed look Natsu was giving the dragon king, but sooner or later he would understand the dragons words, in the meantime Natsu would make his debut in the vast world of opportunities that awaited him, he would have to be strong, mortals had a tendency to try hiding their weaknesses, and create small social circles called guilds, or creeds or whatever. The purpose of guilds were pathetic to Acnologia, but Natsu's well-being was the dragons concern and to be honest it didn't really matter that Natsu used some guild as a shelter, till he was ready to move on.

"Huh, what's that supposed to mean?" Natsu really had no idea what his mentor was talking about, shadow? Wasn't Acnologia the chaos dragon?

"**Don't worry about that, it'll come to you soon enough."**

"If you say so…" Natsu always didn't like when Acnologia was…let's just say 'complex' when he instead just could be straight about it. Well whatever he would just have to ask about it tomorrow, right now Natsu wondered what he was training on, maybe a new spell, well, he just had to wait and see.

That very same night, in the year of X777, Acnologia disappeared…

**AN: And with that the training arc is done and over with, next chapter will be about the plot build up. Pairings are still an open question, I'll try to narrow down the potential girlfriends Natsu can be together with, to two, max three otherwise it will be too complicated. I already have two candidates Mirajane and Erza. With that I'll go ahead and say se you guys later.**

**Thanks for all the reviews and follows, I really appreciate it; I hope you guys keep enjoying my story!**

**Leave a line or two, mean a lot to me! **


	5. Chapter V: The company we keep

**Relentless**

**Chapter V: The company we keep**

"**Meteor: Eclipse!" **A Violet colored magic circled around his palms and set off with great haste towards his opponent, who was oblivious to the fact that this attack was a coax designed to cover up the real magic circle under him. The attack hit and the scarf clad boy froze, effectively putting him under the horrible terror of the illusion magic, this was not an one sided fight, the battle had been initiated by the pink haired boy and one could see that something just wasn't right with the way he talked, behaved and reacted. Therefore the mage thought it would be interesting to pry inside the rosettes mind.

**-ooo-**

It had been one month since that day, when the black dragon left behind his student. The summers day boy had woken up to an empty cove, filled with the ear deafening silence which only reminded him of how lonely he was now, the only individual he had ever known on a personal level had disappeared from his life. The eight of June in the year X777 Natsu allowed himself to cry, no, bawl like a lost child. But one could argue that the boy was truly lost, without the black dragon king as a mentor what would Natsu do? With no goal, no dream, no hope what could there possibly be done? The passionate decision to devote himself whole heartedly to avenge his parents death was a long forgotten promise, in the recent years Natsu had completely lost his way in the dark path that was set for him to tread, and him only. This path of continuing to obtain powerful spells and abilities had devoured him whole, no longer was that trademark smile that irked his foster father so much plastered on his face, now there was only a blank stare waiting. The reason for that is the continuing cycle of thoughts running loose inside his scattered mind. The countless theories of how and why the dragon had left him were the main theme. The self-loathing had come to an abrupt stop since then, that very same day Natsu had concluded that his foster fathers leave was built upon his obvious lack of strength, what else could it otherwise be?

With the mind set on power, the rosette had wandered all around the country side in search for worthy opponents, but to no avail, all of them were inept in regards of using magic offensively, even so they would pick up on the pink haired boys challenge and accept. With the belief of a sure victory in mind one after one another they would fall broken and bloody on the gravel covered ground. There were no real roads in the Fiore midlands, thus the ground would serve as an exceptional pummeling position, for the rosette. In the case of a victory, Natsu would as _penalty _relieve the opponent of his belongings such as wallets, jewelry and other trinkets that he happened to find in the pockets of his opponent. They called him a monster, but Natsu simply didn't care enough to retaliate, he just wanted to fight...

When he fought he could temporarily forget about the pain of and betrayal his foster father had bestowed upon him, the rush of adrenaline and the thrill of the merciless combination of attacks, temporarily brought Natsu back to his old self, but not for long, at most maybe five minutes.

That's why he decided to travel deeper into the heart of Fiore, in the relentless search for a worthy opponent. That eventually brought him to the southern more tropical parts of Fiore, with bolstering heat and the humidity of the air, the strange sounds of rare animals while being constantly attacked by the sun. The climate to say at least was not made for weak people that are what Natsu thought, here there had to be some strong mages the rosette could face. To his surprise Natsu had encountered a young boy, around the same age as himself, wandering around aimlessly in the lush jungle, Natsu had spied on him for a while but expectedly got detected and questioned about his business with the boy, to that he answered with a magic fist...Which leads up to the current situation at hand.

_**Inside the illusion...**_

Wooden beams and crushed debris from the surrounding homes had caught fire and was spreading the wildfire, inside the ongoing inferno a woman was trapped under an iron pole while a sharp shard of metal had impaled her chest. The shard was probably from the destroyed buildings in the area, the wound was deep and the shard went all the way through her body, she coughed up huge amounts of blood defiling her clothes crimson red. Natsu stood right in front of her passively watching her die, it seemed one of her lungs had been punctured, she couldn't be saved without the proper healing magic.

The blood that she previously had coughed up had dried in the heat of the ongoing fires, painting thick crimson lines around her mouth and jaw area, she raised her left hand slowly waiting for Natsu to grasp it and help her up, but the rosette was frozen in place, even if he wanted to move, to rush over to the injured woman before it was too late to do anything for her. The nearby building started to crumble and chunks of bricks and smoldering wood started to rain down around the duo, Natsu really wanted to help her, somehow she seemed familiar, they had the same hair! But even if every cell in the pink haired boy's body wanted to move, he wouldn't. No matter what he did or thought he was stuck right in front of the young woman, unable to do anything.

Every fiber in Natsu screamed _"Help her!"_ but he couldn't and that made him feel like the worst scum on earth land. The veins on the boy's forehead popped up from the amount of effort the rosette put in trying make his own damn body move. But it wouldn't. Before he knew it big drops of warm tears were falling in streams from his cheeks down onto the charred ground with thick splashes, Natsu didn't like to cry, it was the worst feeling of all.

Majestic wings of darkness soared down towards Natsu from the midnight sky. The boy immediately recognized the feather like black wings of the dragon that had raised him. Acnologia used his razor sharp talons, and scooped up Natsu, while proceeding to fly away from the area, the black dragon didn't say anything, and Natsu didn't know why the black dragon didn't do anything to help the woman, it felt so wrong to just leave her like that. It seemed that Natsu was unable to speak as well, not even a single word could leave his throat, and only a sickly wheeze was heard. While being unable to do anything, Natsu could only watch as he and Acnologia paced further and further away from the burning settlement.

They were so far away from the burning inferno that the earth was replaced with a vast sea, the vibrant shine of the moonlight being reflected by the water surface gave Natsu an impression of safety, on Acnologia's back nothing would happen to him, but that went surprisingly short lived. Right in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight, Acnologia's body started to dissolve into shadows, in an instant the dragon's whole body was dissolved, only leaving behind a void of darkness. Natsu was falling, falling rapidly at the sea surface. With a crash he had dropped down and was sinking into the blue abyss. Soon the oxygen levels in Natsu's lungs started to diminish, the swallowing of water followed after. The deeper the rosette sank, the less moon light would be able to illuminate the dark sea, afraid of being devoured by the bottom of the sea, Natsu used the knowledge and experience he had collect during his and Acnologia's swimming lessons at the lake, but the air in Natsu's lungs wouldn't be able to bring him up to the surface, he would simply drown. While waiting for the last pluck of his heart, the pink haired boy thought back on the words his foster father had uttered the day before he left. _**"The shadow of the black dragon will always loom over you, remember that."**_

NO, he still didn't know what those words meant and Natsu wasn't going to die any time before he found out exactly what those words meant, he had to see his dragon again, be it with any means possible! His anger started to boil over, all the pent up feeling and the relentless frustration finally got to him. What he was going to do now was kicking that blue haired mages ass that was priority number one right now. Natsu's magic was still on optimal levels, by releasing huge amounts of chaos dragon slayer magic from his palms and feet, the rosette rocketed himself up to the moon lit surface again, with a violent splash Natsu was out in the clear, but he didn't stop. His magic brought him high up in the sky, above the grey clouds a world of eternal night awaited him, and with no clouds in sky one was able to see the vast midnight black atmosphere. It was dazzling. Natsu had never felt so calm before, the adrenaline from the previous traumatic incidents being pumped away, Natsu's heart beat could finally slow down, before he knew it, sleep had taken him.

_**Outside the illusion...**_

"So you are back, didn't think you would manage to escape my illusion!" The blue haired boy was smirking, this rouge mage before him was nothing, and he hasn't even used any of his magic. This was the end for him. It didn't matter that he succeeded in escaping the illusion; after all it wasn't that strong to begin with.

Natsu was feeling nauseous; his body was in an uproar, the magic that the tattooed mage used was way to deceptive for his taste. "W-what did you do?" That was all he managed to utter out without throwing up, the magic had really left him in a bad condition to fight. Nonetheless, the mage with the tattooed face was going down for putting the rosette in such a pitiful state.

"What does it matter, your end is inevitable!" This guy was cocky, way too cocky for his own good; he would be quite surprised when Natsu revealed his dragon slayer powers. Up until now he had used basic spells that were commonly found in magic stores and such. To make it more challenging Natsu had convinced himself that weaker spells would make his opponents last just that much longer for the dragon slayer to feel the intense rush of the battle. But this guy was different, way different. Natsu liked the fact that the blue haired mage wasn't some halfwit using magic for selfish reasons. The dragon slayer fought for a greater cause. To one day find his foster father was the primary goal inside the rosettes mind. To achieve that Natsu needed great adversaries that could push him to his very limit and make him evolve as a mage and person. The mage a few meters in front of him was one of those adversaries, he could make Natsu 'evolve' therefore he must be defeated.

"What happened, first you attack me then you can't even speak the words of surrender, if that's so then please die!" A bright yellow aura started taking form around the tattooed wizard, it shone a beautiful golden light which effectively blinded Natsu, making him close his eyes and collect his mind and spirit. To defeat this guy the rosette needed to focus.

"**Chariot!" **What was this guy spouting? Chariot, isn't that a star sign, if so what kind of attack was this? Natsu couldn't see he was too busy focusing his magical energy to intercept the incoming attack; he wouldn't have any time to dodge that was for sure. Natsu's opponent was clever; he had launched his attack from the air, effectively placing it right above the rosette. Natsu was fully charged. While opening his mouth a small sum of chaos magic started gathering inside, he was preparing a dragon's roar to parry the golden chariot.

"**Chaos dragons: Roar!" **A bright azure flow of chaos dragon slayer magic shot towards the incoming hostile spell, with an explosion canceling it out. As a result of the increased amount of dragon slayer magic inside Natsu's body, his now open eyes resembled the ones of a dragon. Creating a very intimidating aura around his body, which grew larger and more violent for every passing second. The pink haired boys opponent was smirking even more now, it could be mistaken for a mocking grin but Natsu was better than that, this guy was now just about to get serious, what else could explain all the golden magic gathering around the tattooed boy.

"I knew it, you harbor some _very _interesting powers don't you, luck see-" No more words were spoken as Natsu used the uttering of the stupid speech to catch the bluenette off guard. Natsu had revised a small plan inside his head. His opponent seemed to favor combat over a distance, but the pink haired dragon slayer was about to bring the fight to him. The plan started off in a well manner, the rosette launched him while the tattooed boy was mid speech and landed a chaos powered right hook to the unknowing bluenette's left cheek. The attack had so much power behind it; it left hot air vapors in its trail. The tattooed boy was flung to the right with great force, violently crashing into a tree. Splinters were dancing in the air as the mage recovered and proceeded to stand up. He was bleeding from his lips; Natsu's punch had burst them open. While ignoring the pulsating agony in his cheek, the blue haired mage spoke: "You are powerful, and I respect that. But let's see how well you do now!" The dazzling aura from before returned and surrounded the bluenette. The ground under him gave in to the intense pressure from his magical power and cracked, small rocks and dust hovered alongside the magic surrounding the tattooed boy. "Let's see if you can keep up or not!" this time he grinned at Natsu, a toothy feral grin, it seemed that he was just as battle starved as Natsu, if not more.

"**METEOR!"** The sudden announcement of his next set of moves was still being registered inside Natsu's mind as the first hit landed. Natsu wanted to throw up once again, a straight punch to the solar plexus, Natsu could feel his diaphragm retracting and pushing out all the air from his lungs. Leaving him gasping like a fish on land. How the hell was this guy so fast? However, Natsu was not given any time to recover and take some breaths to refill his body with oxygen. The next hit was as merciless as the former, this time a crushing blow to his temple set him airborne just as the tattooed boy previously was. Skidding to a stop after a few meters of flights Natsu regains his composure and get up fast enough to block the incoming round house kick to his collar bone, if he had failed the bone would have broken and the fight would end, but luckily for the rosette, the blue haired mages momentum was totally lost after the block and he was stuck in Natsu's grip on his ankle.

Gripping tighter and tighter, Natsu was near to break the other mages ankle, the blue haired mage was frowning deeply and wheezed out a gasp of agony. The fight had taken an awkward turn, with tattooed kid upside down and Natsu gripping his ankle. It was time to end this. Mustering up enough strength to speak, Natsu announced his decisive spell. **"Chaos dragons: Arrow head!" **The amount of chaos dragon magic gathered in Natsu's heel could very well function as an arrow head, piercing his foes with great velocity, well; it was kind of blunt though.

The blue haired mage saw this coming and used his superior speed to just narrowly avoid getting split in two. He then proceeded to swing his one free leg around Natsu neck creating a spinning friction that freed him from the pink haired dragon slayers grip. Now that he was free he could continue to pummel the rosette with even more furious kicks and punches. This was truly an interesting fight.

"**Meteor!" **With the same spell from before he was going to end the chaos magic user for good. In a matter of seconds the bluenette was right in front Natsu trying to break his guard with bone crushing out lashes, It seemed like Natsu's plan had backfired, this guy like close combat just as much as the rosette. With no other option left Natsu had no choice but rely on dragon force in order to properly retaliate against his opponent. Using his blocked kick as a spring board the blue haired mage launched himself with a sense of elegance, up in the air. When airborne he activated his spell: **"Chariot!" **The chariot star sign was materialized in a vibrant golden magic above Natsu. Threatening to erase his existence from the face of earth land.

The pink haired dragon slayer didn't bother to dodge, instead ha patiently awaited the impact of the chariot spell. The moment the spell made contact with ground it exploded, debris and flying dirt obscured the mages line of sight effectively losing sight of Natsu, however Natsu didn't bother to do anything in the meantime, after all he still had an ace in the sleeve to use.

"Hahahaha," Catching his breath after the outburst of mocking laughter, the bluenette continued with his sentence. "What a shame, I though you would last a bit longer, but oh well!" He then proceeded to laugh even more at the fallen dragon slayer.

A mediocre sized crater had formed were Natsu had stood only mere seconds ago. As the vast cloud of sprung up dirt and dust settled down, an empty crater was all that was left to be presented to the Heavenly magic user, this was strange. There should be a skewered corpse down there, well; it seemed he had overdone it again.

But the thing was that Natsu was very alive at the moment, while currently out of the tattooed kid's line of sight, the scarf clad dragon slayer was approaching from the air with unseen velocity. Not until announcing his spell name was Natsu noticed by his opponent. **"Chaos dragons: twin lance edge!" **During his short term absence from the fight Natsu had produced two whip like wings made out of his chaos magic, this was one of the two long range spells he had in his arsenal, with the other being his mighty dragons roar. The heavenly magic user reacted, but in vain as the spell already was approaching him with incredible speeds. In a final desperate attempt to save himself from getting hit by the dragon slayer spell, the bluenette brought up his arms in a cross guard to protect his face and chest from serious internal damage.As expected the attack hit him with full force, his petty arm guard not being able to withstand the brunt frontal force of the dragon slaying attack, the backlash created flung the tattooed kid outside the small clearing that was created during their earlier skirmishes, and into the forest edge. Having crashed into several trees, the blue haired boys arms was heavily scraped and cut due to the sharp tree splinters that had pierced his skin. Thin trails of blood ran alongside the sweat drops of exhaustion, both of them had suffered injuries in this fight, and none of them intended to lose it either.

"Well, that is some exceptional show of strength; I think I have underestimated you, _dragon slayer_!" The tattooed boy said as he took some steps towards Natsu who now had entered dragon force, the scales of a dragon adorning his face, his menacing azure chaos magic aura was back up. The force of the magic was constantly being spiked to its limits causing bits of stone and debris to crumble into dust. However the blue haired heaven magic user wasn't daunted at all, instead his big tooth feral grin was back and he seemed very excited for some reason, the tattoo on the left side of his face started glowing crimson red and just as Natsu did earlier released the last remnants of his magical powers into his golden aura, matching Natsu's.

"Let's end this with one final spell!" The scarf clad boy said between his pants, while trying to maintain the magic aura his reserves was being constantly drained out magic, they needed to settle this before that. "Agreed!" The heavenly magic user replied his grin gone and replaced with a serious facade.

Both boys were ragged and tattered, this battle had undergone a drastic change from at first being a somewhat normal fight, to a skirmish were the life you hold so dear is on the line. Without a moment's notice they both sprung to action, taking fast brisk foot steps towards each other, only to seconds later begin a full-fledged charge while charging up their respective magical powers. The tattooed boy cancelled his heavenly body magic spell also called Meteor, as it was very draining. They were both planning something big to quickly wrap things up, this had dragged on long enough, they both could agree on that.

Natsu went ahead and took the slight risk of announcing his decisive spell first; the previous punches impact areas still hurt a fair amount. His breathing had been messed up from that first opening punch, as he hadn't had the chance of tightening his abdomen muscles; therefore the punch had dealt a lot more damage than it should have thanks to the solar plexus being a central for the radiating nerves of the body. In between his ragged breath Natsu gathered enough strength to yell out the following: **"CHAOS DRAGONS: SAVAGE PIERCING BROADSWORD!" **This was one of the secret dragon slayer techniques that Acnologia had though him over the past years, it would shred any opponent to tiny pieces, this was the ethereal sword of a dragon, used to kill dragons. Gathering chaos magic in both his left and right hands Natsu proceeded to clasp them together, effectively compressing his magic. Only to release it all moments later release it all with violent burst, the magic eventually took the daunting shape of sword which with great acceleration paced towards the blue haired mage, ready to pierce through his very soul and send him to the afterlife.

The heavenly body magic user was fast to retaliate before the attack impacted. The same golden shine from his previous spell grazed his body, but in a much more compressed form, that indicated that his spell would be just as or even stronger than Natsu's own. **"GRAND CHARIOT!" **It was same chariot spell but much more powerful than the former versions.

With both spell taking the same route towards each other, the initial clash was inevitable. Creating two half-moon shaped fronts of brute force, the mighty spells grinded and clashed for some brief seconds before giving in and exploding. An orb of pure white magical force was created, with only one half above the earth, the other half dug its way downwards creating a large crater and a fair amount dust and dirt clouds. Many trees had been dragged into the clash of the spells, as the only thing left of them was the vague outlining of the sticking out roots which were to firm to go along with the rest of tree. The once lush southern forest clearing had been transformed into a no man's land in a matter of minutes.

As the obscuring dust clouds settled one could see that in the bottom of the crater there was two boys passively lying down. The hasty ups and downs of their chests indicated that they were both alive, suddenly the blue haired boy with red tattoo started chuckling, with no signs of stopping Natsu couldn't hold back his curiosity and went ahead and asked him what the amusing matter was: "Hey you, what are laughing at?" With one eyebrow raised higher than the other Natsu let the other boy know that he was making no sense, why would he just start laughing all of sudden?

Finally the chuckling came to a stop, the heavenly body magic user proceeded to stand up and dust of his clothes from the fight between him and the dragon slayer, well, what was left of them anyway. "Why were we fighting anyway?" He said as he slowly walked up to the other still downed pink haired boy. "Didn't I attack you?" Natsu shrugged, it didn't really matter now. "Oh right, but it's a tie, just so you know, _dragon slayer_." Even after they both have over exhausted their magical powers the fighting spirit was just as frisk as when they started. "It doesn't matter I had tons of fun, let's do it again sometime!" In between the their exchanged sentences Natsu had switched to a more relaxed sitting position and had his feet out stretched before him, he finished off his sentence with the trademark grin he hadn't used for so long, the tattooed boy could only watch in awe as the pink haired dragon slayer smiled at the very same person who had tried to kill him only a few moments ago. The blue haired boy could only snicker at that.

"You are one of the very few who have pushed me this hard, you have my salutations." With that said the heavenly body magic user stretched out his hand towards Natsu who still was stuck in a sitting position. A few seconds passed before Natsu accepted the offered olive branch and grabbed onto the blue haired mages hand in a show of good sportsmanship. "I could say the same about you, that punch earlier really was an eye opener!" Eventually the small chit chat came to an unfortunate end and both parties proceeded to part ways but there was still something Natsu wanted to have said.

"Hey, what's your name?" This was vital question for the rosette; after all he wanted to have a rematch in the future.

The azure haired boy slowly turned around, making only the right side of his face visible, as well as his red tattoo. His chestnut eyes shadowed over by the awkward angle of his head, he then spoke: "My name, huh? Give me yours first!" This felt reasonable for Natsu, after all it was ill upbringing to ask someone's name before revealing your own, that's what Acnologia had thought him. "My name is Natsu! I am a dragon slayer of the chaos element!"

"Ah, that much I figured but what's your last name, there might be others named Natsu as well..." The pink haired dragon slayer was quick with his reply this time. "I don't have one!" It was as simple as that, the black dragon king hadn't given or named him a last name.

"I see, well, and your pink hair will suffice in case we have multiple Natsu's around." Judging by the blank stare the rosette was giving the heavenly magic user it didn't seem likely that Natsu had grasped the idea behind the said humor. "What is wrong about my hair?" He said feeling semi insulted.

"Nothing, nothing, it's just that I seem to befriend people with unique hair colors, be it red or pink." With that the dragon slayer felt a little bit better, but there was no way he was admitting it. After a brief pause, while having processed the blue haired boys last sentence a heavy frown played out on Natsu's face.

"Well, anyway what's your name?" The blue haired boy seemed pleased that Natsu didn't delve further into that subject it, he let be known by letting a cunning smirk take form on his face.

My name is Je-Siegrain, just plain Siegrain, nice to make your acquaintance!" That was a close call he almost spoiled his cover, Natsu didn't have any need of hearing his real name, the dragon slayer also didn't seem to be that bright, while not being by any means stupid.

"Oh, okay!" With that the boy walked away, that was quite a brief good-bye, oh well, the tattooed boy had other pressing matters to tend to other than brooding over pink haired dragon slayers.

**-ooo-**

Tufts of azure hair could be spotted through the endless sea of tree crowns; it was dusk, the sun bidding its farewells to the people of Fiore while leaving behind a scarlet painted canvas in the sky, small splotches of grey being the few clouds in the evening sky. The blue haired mage was carrying on a medium sized satchel and in his hands were his tattered cloak, which he didn't want to wear since the climate was way too hot. It was the end of the day, that much was clear, if not the died down volumes of the chatter of the exotic birds of the south would indicate it. It was very peaceful he liked that, his only companion was the few lonely breezes of the timid spring winds. They were more than welcome, functioning to cool him down.

However this heavenly melancholy came to an abrupt stop as a loud crash could be heard and the snapping of a few branches caught his ears. Something had fallen out of one of the trees.

"Ow, ow, ow, that hurt!" Right in front of him a rose haired bow was rubbing his head in agony, as he apparently landed on it.

"Why are you here?" Siegrain liked games and mysteries very much, but this was just plain stupid. Why was he here now, it didn't make sense, unless he had a motive...

"I...got lost..." All the thoughts of doubt in Siegrain's mind vanished without a trace, although he was quite a bit skeptical about his vague reason.

"I see." The azure haired boy said that as he walked over to the boy to lend him a hand.

Natsu seemed uncomfortable, he tried to get a hold of his scarf but his hand only hit an empty void were his scarf should have been, the rosette was really worried! It was the scarf Acnologia had entrusted him with, maybe it had blown off during his fall? Anyhow he had to find it.

"Are you looking for this," said Siegrain as used his thumb and index finger to feel the soft fabric of the woolen scarf. At first Natsu got a bit angry about the fact that Siegrain had his scarf but it quickly subdued as it was handed to him. "It's quite the scarf you got there, you should be more careful with it!" Said the azure haired mage.

"Yeah, thanks by the way!" Natsu was grinning again, after their fight a lot of things had occurred inside the rosettes mind, topics such as friendship had been redefined.

It didn't take a genius to puzzle together why Natsu was here of all places, he said that he was lost, that may be true but in reality Siegrain knew that the boy was in fact lonely and needed a _friend. _Besides it wouldn't be that bad to have him as a companion, he was a capable fighter and with some polishing he could become a fine partner, after all the path Siegrain was taking wasn't going to be easy, so an extra man wouldn't hurt, but there was something that he needed to be made clear...

"So Natsu what would you say if I wanted to be your friend, or rather partner?" Siegrain didn't know the rosette that well, in fact he didn't know anything besides what he saw inside his illusion magic and the boy's name, but he was certain that Natsu would take him up on the offer.

"Sure!" With that the deal was struck and he had a travelling partner.

"It's going to be dark soon let's keep moving and set camp in a save area further down the road!" Siegrain always like to plan in beforehand, as it always let him fall back on something in case something backfired.

"That sounds like a plan!" Not only was the rosette supposedly lost, he was tired of sleeping under trees as well. It wasn't that uncomfortable, it was just the animals of the tree that bothered him.

"Let's get moving then!" Siegrain said as he gestured with his hand to make Natsu follow.

_**After dusk, at night...**_

The fire place the duo had set up was crisply crackling, the small embers of the fire illuminated the camp site enough for them to be able to see the surrounding forest edges, this way they could detect any bandits or other hostile beings that could emerge from the uncharted forests of southern Fiore. Siegrain was brooding again, he thought of the rosettes possible motives, the questions why, when and how swirled around his psyche. After a while of dead ends he found his resolve to directly ask the dragon slayer.

"Why do you fight?" The question wasn't intended to be this blunt but that's what happens when one takes something directly from the mind.

Natsu seemed untroubled as he rested his palm on his cheek to think. It was a full moon, on nights like these many necromancers would ascend from their gloomy caves and sacrifice human offerings to the various vile demon lords they worshipped as gods. The angle Natsu's head was in enabled the moon light to perfectly reflect its light upon his face, giving him a much more pale impression.

"I fight to get stronger, so one day I can meet someone and prove them wrong." Of course Siegrain knew that the dragon slayer was talking about his dragon, the one that left him some months ago.

"You know that's quite the petty cause!" Siegrain knew that right of criticizing his goal was a bad idea, but this was the quickest way of giving him a real goal that was worth pursuing.

"What do you mean?" Natsu didn't get what his friend was trying to say, why was his goal so bad?

"I mean that goal is not worth all the trouble, if you want convince one person that bad, then that will only affect him and you respectively. Why won't you take on the same goal I have in mind, we could achieve it way faster by working together, and the best thing is, that it is built upon the same fundamentals of your goal, by that I mean power, obtaining power!" It wouldn't get much simpler than this; it was literally the same goal, just with different results, way different _results..._

Natsu didn't quite get what this new and better goal was, but the power part seemed interesting. As a response Natsu nodded his head slightly in approval, and uttered the phrase: "Go on."

Excellent, now for the hard part. Well now that they had the same goal it wouldn't be so hard.

"Natsu," Siegrain began slowly as he built up the anticipation level for the rosette, "have you ever heard of the magic council?"

**AN: And done, this was the longest chapter as of yet, 6k words. Nonetheless, the same deal with the pairings, as we progress further into the story, they will become more relevant, but now their aren't, so much. Still keep on motivating in the reviews as I read them all. What else can I say, oh, right, Jellal isn't the one with Natsu its Siegrain, as you can tell by the personality, Siegrain is bit more less evil, and have been 'programmed' by Ultear, and the other half of Jellal to infiltrate a certain place.**

**Please leave a line or two, it means a lot to me!**

**Thanks for all the feedback!**

**Until next time, bye!**


	6. Chapter VI: Becoming legend

**Relentless**

**Chapter VI: Becoming legend**

**WARNING: There will be a slight suggestive theme in this chapter; I have marked its start with the scene break mark that looks like this: -ooo- It's avoidable though. Its no were near a lime or a lemon so yeah, don't get your hopes up.**

"Natsu, I Gran Doma, hereby utilize my power as the magic council chairman, to grant you the title of seat holder in the Fiore branch magic council, after having heard the willing commendations of Siegrain, holder of the seventh seat, Ultear Milkovich, holder of the eight seat and Yajima, holder of the sixth seat, I cannot but to agree whole heartedly with the choice of letting your voice be heard in this council, rise! With said chairman Doma, reached for the exclusive looking parchment that was handed over to him delicately by one of the many amphibious servants of the magic council. It was a hot summer's day in the city of Era, which served as the fabled and feared magic council. A huge mass of the magic worlds reporters, journalists or just simply fans, had gathered from all over Fore for this ceremony, after all this was quite the phenomenon, for a seventeen year old boy to suddenly become a council member was not something that happened often, with exception of Siegrain of course.

"Please came forward and place your signature in this parchment, which holds the muriatic deeds of eras long passed." The initial ritual started now, it was very simple, when the signature was written on the parchment with the arcane pencil, Holdir, the parchment which was enchanted open up a new file, so to say, and start recording the deeds and accomplishments of said person, who in this case was Natsu.

A few swift strokes with the pen Holdir and the registration were done. Natsu was assigned the eleventh seat of the council, which was the 'hot seat' if one would look in to things a bit more clearly. The eleventh seat didn't serve as a permanent place within the council, it was merely a testing place for newcomers to prove their worth, if they failed to do so, the seat and title would pass on to another mage who had passed the councils prowess test in regards of magic capabilities.

After all, a council member needed to be not only clever, but strong as well, that is the reason most of the members are wizard saints. And of course this where the case with Natsu started to _differ_. Natsu wasn't as smart as Siegrain, but in terms of strength they were more or less equal. The azure haired council member didn't like to share 'himself' on personal levels, but instead would attend to minor interviews and such, but that didn't mean he wasn't popular, and to say he was popular with the members of the fairer sex, would be a severe understatement, Siegrain's devilishly god looks and the sense elegance and mature behavior, made him the number one candidate for many girls perfect boyfriend lists.

However Natsu per say, was just as god looking as his partner, with a well-toned body musculature, an unique yet exotic hair color, Natsu was also on many lists himself. But the thing was that the council members were afraid, all of them. They were afraid of getting old. Not in the literate way but in a more media oriented sense, that's were Natsu came in, he was the 'star' to put it bluntly, because of his lack of concentration and excessive talkative nature it had been decided that he was to be the _new face!_ The face which the children, teen agers and other youths, would admire. Being known as the Dragon of the magic world, by sending the pinkette to many dangerous jobs he had time after time shown the world that he was a force to be reckoned with! Be it dark guilds or demon worshippers, he would take them all on and come out on top. Effectively giving the council a new fresh facade to the world, not only for the citizens of the magical nation of Fiore, after all even the magic had superiors to look up to, formally known as the world council of the arcane arts, located far away in the Pergrande kingdom in the east.

They appreciated the new image of the council being more fresh and appealing. And not something that seems unnecessary strict or in need of scapegoats, Natsu was both their new face and show of power, in any case, the pinkette dragon slayer was their enforcer...

Chairman Gran Doma continued: "Behold the newest addition to the council Natsu Acrophia!" The Audience went into a mad cheer, the clapping and various whistles combined with countless flashes of the camera lenses showed to be an annoying spectacle, nonetheless the ceremony was now over and things could proceed in a somewhat normal manner.

Now it was Natsu's turn to speak, if not the fans and masses of reporters would think something was wrong, that would be nice to avoid, and there is a limit to how many magazines and agencies they could put in check. From the great podium at the front of the sole council building Natsu would speak, it was the same place he was located now with Gran Doma and the other council members who stood in a line behind them, giving them their full attention. The only thing that remained to be done now was for Natsu to take the speakers stage.

This was something quite new and different for Natsu; he had no problems what so ever speaking in groups of fifty or so, but almost a thousand people? The dragon slayer couldn't help but feel a bit nervous, it's only normal to feel that way. The chairman continued on with his old yet steadfast voice: "Now, our newest member would like to share a few words with you all!" It was now or never, the moment of truth was approaching ever so quickly. Natsu had actually practiced on this speech in his chambers for a few days now, it was his first impression to the world as a council member, he still had his old loyal fan base, but it wouldn't hurt to gain some more, yes?

Natsu went ahead and cleared his throat as Gran Doma stepped down from the stage and gestured for Natsu to take his place, taking a few breaths to calm himself and his nerves, what was wrong with him today? He hadn't felt this way before; it was a completely new sensation. He had to get his composure straight in order to deliver a speech of the expected quality his admirers wanted.

Natsu began with the following; "first of all I would like to thank everyone who has supported me, new and old fans alike, I sincerely thank you! The journey has been long but I was determined to change, change the magical world we live in! The dark ones are forming alliances with one and another, preventing us from striking them with the holy spear of justice, we won't falter, I as the newest council member has an ambition and a flaming passion to put an end to all who use magic selfish and dark purposes! Every single one of you out there," Natsu said with great seriousness as he pointed his index finger at the big mass which was the audience, "are all as equally important as any of us council members, for it is you who make out the magical body of Fiore, without you there would be no point in having a council to govern over magic in the first place, so thank you, for being there!" The crowd got rowdy once again as the thundering sounds of the sea of applauses hit Natsu's sensitive ears,

It was time to leave the stage and hand it over to chairman Gran Doma again, it seemed he had something to publicly announce.

The crowd were still going at it as the chairman took the podium, the sea of the previously clapping fans got silent in a matter of minutes as the chairman cleared his throat to begin speaking: "Thank you for attending at our little ceremony, for those who are invited, the banquette will be held in two weeks advance." With that said the daily duties of the magic council once again began.

The mass that was the audience started to scatter in order to fully enjoy their visit to Era, there were many tourist attractions and souvenir shops spread neatly around the vast city, and hopefully most of them wouldn't return empty handed.

**-ooo-**

Inside the pompous council compound, the daily routine had been re-established, in the midst of the commotion a seemingly young woman with dark purple colored hair which went down to her waist area, she was looking for someone. Soon the person she was looking for appeared in her sights.

"Ultear, I was looking for you," Siegrain passively exclaimed, without showing any emotion. "Walk with me!" She obeyed her master and they set off in a quick pace towards Siegrain's chambers. It had only been only a few hours since Natsu's instigation ceremony, and most of the council members were at the meeting hall discussing about the upcoming council meet in the evening, the topic was weapons of mass destruction. The magic satellite Eathherion and the Arma Ultima project were the two main competitors, as the council couldn't afford having them both live, it was simply too expensive. The banquette was only partly a celebration for Natsu's promotion, in reality they were going to 'lobby' for investors.

"Say, Siegrain-sama, Natsu-sama's speech was quite thrilling wasn't it?" They had been walking in complete silence; the situation was turning queer so Ultear decoded to 'defuse' it by bringing up Natsu. After all he was quite the hot topic at the moment.

Now that they were closing in on his chamber door Siegrain slowed the pace of his brisk stride and proceeded to answer, Ultear's question. "Well of course! I was the one who wrote it!" Not really caring if anyone heard that Siegrain, abruptly put his pacing at a stop, since they had already arrived. Fiddling around his pockets for the appropriate keys in order to gain entry, Ultear only smirked and continued to watch with profound amusement, noticing that the shimmering shackle of keys had dropped out of his pockets, Siegrain seemed stressed for some reason, well, she just had to find out exactly _what?_

"Ahh, god, why now? Ultear have you-" He didn't get to say anything more as the sounds of keys being lightly shaken got picked up by his ears. As he turned his head, the scene that got presented to him was Ultear gently gripping the key chain with her thumb and index finger, but the detail that piqued his interest on _many_ levels, was the fact that Ultear had a very suggestive pout painted on her face, also, her snow colored short kimono was suspiciously more revealing in the bosom area, effectively revealing her very _generous_ cleavage, with a supposedly aroused voice she spoke: "Here are the keys..." With another teasing jiggle of the key chain, Ultear made her master even more irked.

"This is not the time for games, Ultear! Hand them over, we have important things to discuss about Natsu's installation to the council!" But his words of reason went unheard as the unruly woman continued her teasing. "No~! That would be the boring way to go!" What was this woman playing at? Trying to shove her womanly vile in his face like that, well, Siegrain wouldn't say it wasn't working, he was in reality quite aroused, truth to be told, he was a man after all...

Walking at a slow pace just enough to trace her milky white hand along his muscular abdomen while chuckling suggestively, surprisingly enough, the scarce clad woman unlocked the chamber door and stepped inside, without switching on the lights Ultear proceeded to stand in the door way, a cunning yet teasing smirk played out on her lips. "If you want the keys, you will have to come and get them!" Then it happened, Ultear went ahead and did the sexiest act she could think of. She slowly started to play with keys in her fingers, showing of her dexterity, just as Siegrain tried to snatch them off of her hands, Ultear swiftly evaded and with a slow and mocking motion, which indicated that he had lost the battle for the keys, the way which the keys were headed did in fact surprise the azure haired council member, yet in a way not so much, this kind of play was the thing one expected from Ultear, if you knew her on _personal_ levels.

The keys had been lost in between her impressive bust, meaning that she had made the cunning move of placing them 'inside' her cleavage. "Now, now, don't be shy please come inside!" That was the point of no return for the heavenly body magic user; he was too aroused to restrain himself. While being driven by lust, the azure haired mage, planted a gentle kiss on her neck, and then continued to passionately trace a pattern of caressing kisses down to her collar bone. Under this time it seemed that Ultear had held breath in, as she was very flustered, and was taking some fast paced small hitching breaths, this was gold to Siegrain's ears, hearing this heavenly sounds, he proceeded to initiate a passionate French kiss, further preventing her to breath, yes, he was something of a sadist.

After some time their passionate kissing came to an end, as they both were too flustered to keep on standing in the hall way of the council. Ultear took the initiative and took a gentle hold of Siegrain's hands and slowly reeled him inside his own chamber. "So that's what was on your mind, fine, Natsu can wait..." With that said the azure haired council mage went ahead and closed the door, after all, it wouldn't be nice if somebody walked in on his and Ultear's 'relaxation' session.

Little did he know that he was the one that was played, and not the other way around...

_**At a certain guild hall in Magnolia...**_

"GUYS! SHE IS BACK! BRACE FOR IMPACT, STOP FIGHTING! LOOK AT THE MESS, GOD, WE ARE TOAST!" The one relying this message for the entire guild was Macao and Wakaba, the two senior mages of the guild didn't fear many things in their lives, but one thing was indeed very scary, that was losing your life which you had held safe and sound four many years, the fury of one woman that had recently passed the S-class test of the guild, her hair resembling both the color of passionate love and sheer might. Scarlet, that was her name, Erza scarlet, the one sole female of the guild that brought the males down to their knees begging for the sparing of their lives, well, there was another female tempest in said guild but she was currently out on a job, a ten year quest, if the rumors around the place was anything to go by, as the other s-class mages wouldn't say a word, nor would the master under the name of Dreyar.

Wooden tables and stools were flipped back into place as the fear of the scarlet tempest grew more intense by every heavy 'clank' of her armor clad steps, they were nearing, which indicated that soon somebody would at least break a jaw or two, she wasn't very sociable on the early mission reports, nor would things get any better by the fighting that had been taking place some mere minutes ago, the initial fight had been started by Gray and Cana, they had gotten into an argument about Cana's card magic being obsolete against Gray's ice make, with the former being a stripper extraordinaire and the latter being the constantly stoned by her frequent alcohol intakes, they both had very bad reputation's to begin with...

"CRAP, SHE IS HERE, EVERYBODY STAND IN ATTENTION!" Macao was serious, however it beat him and all the other males of the guild how a seventeen year old girl could scare them witless. Well, they were about to be 'reminded' any way so it didn't really matter.

The footsteps came to a stop as every sign of breathing stopped; she was probably _very_ pissed, as Erza didn't triumphantly barge in the swing doors at the guild entrance. Something was wrong, very wrong, and that would affect the others in a very bad way, if not the situation was handled correctly. Erza didn't take nicely on people talking back at her.

Suddenly a steel plated hand was placed on the top of the right bar door, this scared everyone making them yelp in terror, the force applied when the hand touched down was immense, many small cracks were formed around the area which were held, threatening to break the whole thing if not let go instantly.

Soon the rest of the female knight followed suit, and there she now stood, passively judging, evaluating and analyzing the males that were now standing in the most disciplined and fine row, no signs of the previous fight were visible. When faced with a common threat even the males of Fairy tail would use the alien term called 'team work' Such was the intensity of Erza's wrath, standing before it alone would result in a swift perishing from the mortal realm, well, she wouldn't kill them of course, almost...

"Erza, y-you are back!" The ice mage said, trying to hide his stammering as much as possible, it didn't work, even if it did, the beads of sweat running down his fore head would work against his favor. In the midst of the cleaning and organization it had been decided that Gray would be the one to _handle the _situation. After all he had started the fight, and he was the one that was on best terms with Erza at the moment, as he hadn't stripped in front of her in a while. So letting Gray take the aggression of the Scarlet haired woman was the plan. In the end it always came down to every man for himself...

"Yes, I am back, now, where is the master, I need to report about the mission!" Erza was unusually down at the moment, this meant that she would explode at any miss guided sentence, but what could have made the Scarlet knight so pissed off? What if the unthinkable happened, what if Erza, the mighty Titania, had failed her mission? Carried by sheer curiosity Gray went ahead and asked about the mission's results, not knowing he had stepped on land mine…

"So Erza, did you fail your mission or did you-"He was unfortunately cut short while being mid explanation, Erza mood had just gone from bad to even worse! With a fiery temperament Erza replied with the following to Gray's remark: "What exactly do you mean failed, why I would fail a mission and bring shame to Fairy tail's name? And for the last time don't present yourself to me without any clothes on!"

"S-sorry, Ma'am, it won't happen again!" Gray really had screwed up this time, why did he ask such a stupid question to the Titania? Damn, did he feel ridiculed right now! Erza wasn't done with Gray yet, she was going to take a few practice swings at his head for ruining her day! "Come back Gray, did you think I would let it slip that easily, ready yourself for the punishment that is awaiting you!" As Erza swung her blade, Gray noticed that her blade was broken; it was literally shattered in half! Why was it in such a bad state of condition? Needing an answer to his damned curiosity Gray went ahead and asked Erza mid sprint why her blade was broken.

"I am sorry, forgive me I won't strip," Erza just continued to chase him around the guild; she was the number one follower of the guild laws, when they were broken Erza was sure to retaliate with 'punishment's'. "Erza, w-why is your blade broken? Did something happen or-"His surprise got the better of him and the ice mage, just stared at the mighty Titania with disbelief. Erza had gotten all gloomy in an instant upon hearing those words leave Gray's mouth. Did he say something wrong?

"On the mission, it happened, just as I had made my one hundredth kill with my favorite blade, it…it…broke, shattered! And when I went to the black smith to get my refund, he told that I was too harsh and rough with my blades, on top of that I didn't get my money back! Do you….UNDERSTAND HOW THAT MAKES ME FEEL!?" Gray nearly shat a brick, Erza's temper tantrums were horrid, and why was it his turn to deal with them? The crimson flames engulfing her presence like a menacing aura was scary, her hair seemed too had gotten a life of its own too; it was flailing all over the place! Her eyes had turned blood red, indicating that her wrath was near being unleashed upon the world!

The youngest member of the Strauss family had been passively watching this whole ordeal, with a coy smile plastered on her face, Lisanna Strauss, was preparing Erza's favorite food, or rather, snack. Namely known as strawberry cheese cake, Erza adored the dish with her whole being and would purr like a kitten when the cake touched her delicate taste buds, Lisanna had taken some of her free time to master the dish, after all, it would be pretty bad if one of the guild members had to get injured or worse…

"Erza, would you prefer your cheese cake with or without strawberry sauce on, say?" Like nothing had happened the scarlet haired knight completely forgot about Gray and angled her steps towards the bar counter where Lisanna was cheerily waving at her. Taking the closest and best bar stool in the proximity of her reach, Erza sat down with a sigh. "I'll take mine with straw berry sauce on, please! A normal cheese cake just won't cut it today…" Lisanna was a very compassionate fellow and lent her ear to listen to all her problems, Erza must have had a very bad day if the usual order won't suffice.

"Here you go, hope you enjoy it!" Lisanna had put the plate with her cheese cake in front of the downed knight, who used the cutlery in front of her and dug in on the dish. Only a few minutes passed until the guild once again called forth on their Titania, this time it was Makarov who wanted a word with the fairy queen.

"Erza dear, come inside my office, I have some words I need to pass on to you, please hurry!" Erza was far from pleased to have been interrupted in only real pleasure in the world; even so, she did what the master told her.

_**Inside Makarov's office...**_

"Erza, I figure you already know why you are called here, don't you?" Erza had her suspicions, though not really sure about the specifics, it was a no brainer that she was to embark on another mission.

"Yeah, it's probably about another mission, S-class I assume?" Erza was fabled for her outstanding thought process, it was but inevitable that she had already figured out what the master was going to say.

"Hmm, that's not quite right, there is no mission to speak of instead you are to go to a banquette!" Half way through his sentence the master had taken an unnecessary turn of cheeriness, a banquette? The Titania hadn't heard about a mission like that.

"What do you mean banquette? There is no request in the guild that has a banquette as its parameters!?" Erza was very strict in regards of mission files and specifics, she always needed the info in beforehand to be able to judge and analyze her opponents.

"I know, just see it as a request from me, you need some rest, after all we can't have you be burnt out from excessive work, can we?" Aw, that was just so sweet of him, but Erza didn't appreciate lies, if Makarov didn't want to go that badly then he could just said so...

"Thank you master," With that being said, Makarov handed over the invitation, having been hand written by Makarovs old friend Yajima, Makarov didn't want to leave Fairy tail out of the picture so he decided that Erza would represent Fairy tail in his place, that was for the best, because in exactly two weeks he was to be _terribly _sick, and unfortunately unable to attend! "W-Wha, the magic council! In Era, it's a banquette in Era?! Why didn't you say so? If that's the case I must decline! I am not worthy!"

"Stop that gibberish, if I say one of my mages is taking a break they are, Period! Now go buy a nice dress, because you are going!" This woman doesn't have any confidence in her looks does she? Makarov could only disagree, she was gorgeous! And got breasts! What was there else to have?

"Yes, master!" Erza said apologetically, while Makarov nodded in approval. "Go and have a good time, I have noticed that you have been putting amusement aside lately, that's bad for your heart, you know!"

'Leave it to the master to cheer you up; he is truly the best master!' Erza thought fondly as she walked out of Makarov's office in a considerably better mood than before!

_**Two weeks have come and gone, in Era...**_

"Am I doing this right? It's really tricky but I think I got it now!" In a slow paced Waltz Natsu and Ultear was practicing the last small details on Natsu's dancing skills, he was to be the supposed star of the banquette and before all the food, Natsu had to be social and mingle away with everyone. It wasn't a secret that Natsu felt slightly out of place at the banquette, all the top tier elite people from all over Fiore would show up, and Natsu would have to talk to them all, no, correction they would want to talk to him!

"Yes, yes, that's it, you haven't trampled my feet since yesterday, if you keep this up you will get every woman there to sleep with you." As she said that Ultear gave Natsu a suggestive wink, but as dense as the dragon slayer was, he didn't notice, of course. "Yeah," He said as he grinned. "But it's not my fault if I end up kicking them out of the bed though!"

Siegrain who had been leaning on one of the highly decorated walls of the room they were currently in found Natsu's choice of words very amusing to say at least. Kick them out of the bed? That was a good one! While catching his breath after his sudden burst of uncontrolled laughter, he spoke to the dancing duo: "Natsu try to not to just hold Ultear's waist, most women appreciate it, though don't get to frisky! Or you'll get slapped!" What Siegrain was saying was true, Ultear found it pretty dull that Natsu didn't make any moves on her, not in an obvious aspect of course, but why didn't he trace his hands along her back and butt? It was okay if the dancing pair had known each other for a long time, Natsu had been with Siegrain since he came to the council and soon after she came along, what the problem was didn't come to Ultear.

"Natsu, use your left hand and wrap it around her back, then proceed to put your right hand on her left shoulder, things will be a lot smoother this way, and of course any woman that Natsu might dance with, thanks to the slightly closer proximity of the dance. Siegrain knew this thanks to him being a veteran when it came to socializing and manipulating, as his job as council member. But it would prove to be a challenge, Ultear was wearing an open up front and back dress, colored in a dazzling violet color. Her front and back were open revealing a fair amount flawless milky skin.

"Natsu, you are quite good at dancing you know! Come over to my chamber, we could dance some more! After all the banquette is starting soon and practice makes perfect!" Siegrain snorted at her last remark, practice was for the weak! Individuals like himself and Natsu were already gifted with strong magic and skill, they needed no brute training, but to only refine and master their magic. Training was brutish and laid back!

"Your chambers? Why don't you come to mine, as they are the closest to the ball room, which we later will trek to eventually?" Ha, it seemed he still was as thick headed as ever. What Ultear was suggesting didn't have anything to do with convenience! She simply wanted to get in his pants.

"That…Could also work, I'll come over then!" Ultear didn't understand why was Natsu so hard to work with? He just didn't get what she was getting at and that frustrated her, Siegrain was as good as snared around her pinky finger, now all that were left was for Natsu to get reeled in too! For everything to work that was needed…

_**A few hours later**_

A flash of red crimson hair trekked by the various visitors, they were lining up to take part in the fabulous banquette that was hosted by the magic council. As a part of a guild which had connections with council Erza Scarlet could bypass everyone else as she was considered a 'VIP' the mere though was ridiculous, what was so significant about her?

For the upcoming evening of festivities Erza was sporting a one piece onyx colored dress, with no laces around her shoulders. It was far more comfortable this way, as the laces tend to make her skin itch and become sensitive. Also the added risqué of the dress made the men stare and the members of the fairer sex envious. It had an explanation though. Erza was a natural, her body was one many women would literally kill for, the perfect curves and the impressive bust were tightly hugged by the onyx dress, but didn't quite pass as indecent as the initial dress part didn't reveal any of her thighs or legs, the dress went down all the way down to the high heeled shoes, to put it simply she was dazzling. Her choice of clothing was giving her the spotlight as she paced towards the entrance where she would show her invitation. She couldn't wait to see if there was a an exotic type of cheese cake at the banquette, after all there is supposed to be a vast amount of rare foods and such, and to make it even better, this was a banquette hosted by the magic council so the expectations were high.

"Dame Scarlet, I presume?" The butler said. His clothing was quite amusing; the familiarity with a penguin was so close. He continued to speak in his monotone voice. "Please hand over the required invitation!" Erza did as she was told and passed on her invitation, the golden paper gleaming under the reflected light of the very expensive looking crystal chandeliers inside the ball room. "Everything is in order, please have a nice stay and make sure to enjoy yourself to the fullest of your capabilities!"

Erza was nervous, this was one of the few instances when her pulse actually spiked. The mighty Titania knew that in a few mere steps all of the eyes was going to be on her, she wasn't a 'regular' visitor at the council, she hadn't been to any fancy parties before, and it was well known fact that festivities like these were battlefields of gossip and back talking, only silver tongued aristocrats could have a shot at surviving in these situation.

A young butler with chestnut eyes smiled at her and offered a drink, Erza didn't want to impolite so she accepted the invitation and took the drink from his hands. When the deed was done he simply walked away with his silver platter containing the rest of the drinks. Erza was just about to join her first group of jolly nobles and highly positioned mages to start mingling away but something got in her way, in everyone's way…

In an instance, the lights were out and everyone including Erza was engulfed in darkness, various mall shrieks of hysteria could be heard from all over the ball room, the fairy queen didn't even get a chance to get startled as the lights were back on in a matter of seconds. Complete and utter silence welcomed Erza as she stared out in the sea of guests. Her instincts were screaming for her to re-quip into something that would give her some authority over the situation, like a suit of armor would.

Every single one of the guests proceeded to completely stay in place, frozen and scared. An ear deafening silence loomed over the vast ball room.

It seemed her instincts were right as a man a few meters away just out of the blue collapsed! The cries of traumatized guests echoed through the banquette halls, being frozen in place, and unable to do anything Erza could only watch as the women in the masses of the sight of the blood, yes crimson very real blood. The scarlet life essence of the man continued to pour down on to the floor, painting the area around him red, he was bleeding out and fast.

Erza couldn't help but to notice his distinctive hair color, were had she seen him before...?

**AN: And done, yup, this was by far the easiest chapter to write by far! Well hope you enjoyed the small scene I told you guys about in the beginning. Now things have gotten truly interesting, and the plot is going smooth. Oh yeah, Siegrain and Ultear have surely done stuff like that when they were in council, I am sure of it. They are by no means in love, which would be stupid; Ultear is simply manipulating him by giving him the impression of being in charge.**

**With that said, have a nice weekend.**

**Please leave a line or two, it means a lot to me!**

**PS: If by any chance you don't what the Pergrande kingdom is, you can check out its location by the link in my profile, there will be a map of the entire continent which Fairy tail plays out in, and it is canon.**


	7. Chapter VII: Investigation

**Relentless**

**Chapter VII: Investigation**

* * *

**Inside Natsu's chambers...**

How many years has it been since that time? Natsu didn't quite correctly recall how many but somewhere around six or five years. The scarf Acnologia had entrusted him with was a very precious and dear artifact. He never wore it anymore; therefore the white scaled scarf was still in a very pristine condition, his superiors at the council, well, not really superiors as Natsu was an official member of the Fiore magic council. It was a matter of etiquette, sporting a scarf wasn't the appropriate way to dress, as Siegrain says. Natsu didn't like that time at all, why shouldn't he be allowed to wear his favorite piece of clothing? The rules was the answer he got from Siegrain, he told Natsu that they were council officials now and they couldn't stroll about clad in in-appropriate clothing. The times had changed and so had the rules, Natsu would have to oblige.

With a reluctant feel about the whole council thing Natsu did as he was told and put away his treasured scarf somewhere else, somewhere nobody would find it, or try looking. Feeling satisfied Natsu put back his scarf in the drawer he took it from, deep under the ever so growing neat stacks of unused shirts was the hiding place for his scarf. Having grown used to not wearing it, just feeling its oddly warm presence would suffice to calm his nerves. Shutting the drawer shelf, Natsu proceeded to his bed to lie down. A feeling of distress washing over him, what should he wear? It didn't take a genius to figure out that he needed to look a tad fancier than usual. Not really caring enough Natsu shelved away the matter for later, after all he wasn't to make his appearance till later into the ball.

In the midst of all his thinking a thought sprung up inside his mind. Wasn't the woman going to come over and 'practice' dancing with him? She had been acting very suspiciously around him for a while now, always trying to force her womanly traits in his face. Natsu didn't appreciate it, not in the least. But the thing that really interested the young council member was the fact that she had been acting this way around Sieg too, probably some months ago, when she joined the council. But in his head everything made perfect sense to why Sieg and Ultear were acting that way, Ultear was probably his mate or woman, he didn't care enough to get in to specifics, but now she is trying to act that way with him too? That pissed the rosette off; if she is Sieg's girlfriend then she can't fawn over him too.

Natsu kept fuming over the matter for some more minutes before his dragon slayer magic enhanced ears picked up the sound of footsteps, quite feminine and supposedly elegant footsteps, it was probably Ultear. The perfect opportunity had presented itself, now that Siegrain wasn't here he had free reign to act normally and not as innocent and unknowing. The steps were drawing closer to chamber entrances threshold, Natsu hurried over to his drawer and snatched up a random suit of smoking, he was after all going to need some help with picking out an outfit after the questioning. Females were supposed to be experts in that area.

'Knock' 'Knock' the mahogany doors wooden clang echoed through the dragon slayers chamber and hit his ears, she was here. Natsu took his time with responding, it needed to look like he was busy with something. After a brief while he responded: "Enter," As expected Ultear's slender figure trekked towards the rosette. Having on the same violet dress from the previous social dancing lesson with Sieg. In her hand, Ultear had a small porcelain plate with a variety of small cakes, or formally known as petite fours. They all looked delicious. While finishing her last bites of the pastry in her other free hand she proceeded to greet Natsu. "Thanks for waiting, my blood sugar got a bit under the weather so I swung by the banquette hall and snatched a few of these," Having said that the violet clad woman gestured the small plate forward towards Natsu. "Want one?" Natsu let out an inner snicker, it was funny, he hadn't at all waited for her in reality, but it was more preferable and gentlemanly if he did, so rolled on with that.

"Thanks but no thanks, you look like you are enjoying them!" Natsu secretly did want them, but he wouldn't admit it, not to her at least, not before he has cleared her suspiciousness.

"Ahaha, you are an amusing one aren't you, I really can't have many of these, I'll grow plump!" Ah, so that's what it was about, Natsu also did eat a lot of food, including sweets and pastries, it was a wonder he hadn't grown fat or worse, but after all his missions did provide him more than enough exercise than needed to keep his muscles.

"If that's the case I'll please myself with one then!" The question was if Ultear had done something with these petite fours, what if she had put a sleeping drug or something in them. As Natsu brought the small cake he had taken from Ultear's porcelain plate closer to his mouth, his nose started to work. Taking a small sniff off of the cake to see if it was edible, his dragon slayer nose told him that it was all green, no scents of suspicious substances were detected. And the initial sniff would pass as an attempt to smell the lush aroma of the pastry.

Natsu flashed Ultear a small grin and literally threw the cake inside his mouth and started munching on the sweet dessert, the flavors of nougat and vanilla flooded his sensitive taste buds, while being vile, Ultear had a good taste! His stomach wanted more, but his brain didn't proceed accordingly, Natsu couldn't just inhale the whole plate, after all he was in the presence of a woman. One of the many lessons of life he had got from his foster father.

"They are good right?" Ultear wondered with small smile adorning her face. Natsu didn't like were this situation was leading to.

"Thank you, but could you know help me with my dancing?" They haven't got all day after all, in an hour or so Natsu would have to present himself down at banquette with a proper outfit and a date, yup, Siegrain said that its more benefiting for the pink haired dragon slayer. As the media either will write about how well he treated his supposed girlfriend or they will start a lot of speculation which are false, but the masses of fans and admirers won't think so. But either way, Natsu's popularity will increase both ways. The most relieving part is that the girlfriend doesn't need to be real, but in reality only a dancing partner at the banquette.

"Mhm, that's why I am here," If the woman tries anything Natsu will retaliate! It was just a matter of time. Ultear on the other hand was in an awfully good mood, having a healthy small red tinge on her cheeks after eating the cake. It seemed her blood sugar was back up. While that was nice, Natsu wouldn't get fooled by her attitude, not this time.

"And while you are here, could you help me pick out a nice outfit? I really have had a hard time picking out one myself." The rosette said with yet another innocent grin, for his to work Ultear would have to think that she had complete control over the situation; otherwise the violet clad woman would suspect that something just isn't right.

"I will, it will be interesting what kind of style you fancy, Natsu!" this whole sentence oozed of suggestiveness, Natsu didn't know what Ultear had planned but it wasn't going to be pretty, that goes for sure.

_**In council meeting hall...**_

An old man was sitting alone in his respective seat inside the meet hall, as expected nobody was here, not a single soul except him. They were all down stairs at banquette devouring all the luxurious foods the council had to offer while small children starved to death in Desertio, he himself wouldn't take part in any of the festivities. Although he had sent an invitation to Makarov Dreyar, he was pretty sure the old fart had somehow snaked himself from the trouble of traveling all over to Era. If Makarov was here then he would perhaps please himself to an extent, of course! His thick gray eye brows were scrunched up together, the sign of great stress showing on his wrinkled face. Out of uneasiness the old man was relentlessly stroking his mustache which was in the shape of a small brush and went down to his lower lip. A strange maroon hat adorned his slightly rectangular face. There was three wing shaped decorations sticking out of his hat. His looks to say at least were unique.

With a very pressing matter on his mind the old man couldn't possibly calm his nerves. It was at times like these; Yajima regretted his application to the council. But he couldn't give in now, there were lives at stake here, it all depended on his plans function and success. There had been rumors about a suspicious cult having infiltrated the banquette that was one of the main reasons he didn't attend this evening. From the shadows he would rot out the people affiliated with this said cult. They sure had guts daring to attack the council's strongest bastion in Fiore. Gran Doma the chairman wouldn't take nicely on villains like them, they were sure to be executed on spot.

To be more specific the cult was rumored to not being from Fiore and the thing that was more interesting was that they had a reputation to be fascinated by dragons, and there was only one dragon in Era at the moment, and that was no other than the eleventh seat holder of the council Natsu! With these vital details, Yajima had directed together a plan, while being simple; it was a very solid plan. Yajima had suggested this very same plan to the chairman and he surprisingly too was wary about young Natsu's safety, after all he was the one who gave the council a new and fresh image. While not being a big fan of said image, Yajima understood why it was very much needed.

He and Gran Doma had used a death sentenced magic convict and put a magical photocell seal on him, in order to give him a more desirable look to the cult, namely Natsu's appearance! The death sentenced convict were to play an act to fool the guests and possible assassin(s) who had hid themselves among the vast amount of guests. Hopefully the assassin was to take the bait and do the deed with impression of truly killing the pink haired dragon slayer. But in reality Natsu was in his chambers, preparing to make his debut to the ball. This way the life of Natsu would be spared. The key element to his plan was Ultear, the woman Siegrain seemed to socialize with albeit too often. She, according to her magic profile used time warping magic, and was capable of freezing time and space for a very brief amount of time; of course she could also pick out the people it would affect!

But there were still a small detail that remained, and that was his role to fulfill, having asked for permission to use a form of forbidden magic from the chairman, Yajima could now use a spell that would erase ones short time memory, meaning that the whole event would be permanently forgotten.

Suddenly the hat clad old man's magical intercom was receiving a signal. It was probably Gran Doma; he was making sure Yajima had remembered to take his ordered position, which he hadn't yet. "Yajima-dono, are you at your destined location?"

"No, not yet, I am still inside the meet hall." Yajima didn't use any formalities when he and Gran Doma spoke in private; they had been friends since the early days when they both had applied to the council.

"Then please head towards the desired destination along with Ultear, failure is not an option!" With that said the council chairman ended the communication link. The problem that Yajima was facing now were the woman from Isenberg was located, well, if he had to guess she was at Natsu's chambers, Siegrain mentioned something earlier about him practicing his waltz.

With the course set on Natsu's chamber, the short former member of Fairy tail paced forward…

_**Natsu's quarters…**_

"Natsu-sama, what are you saying? Me and Siegrain, that's absurd!" Ultear said as she felt cornered, the female council member didn't always feel this way but when she did, it seemed to always be at the worst timings. Somehow the pink haired dragon slayer had figured it out, but the question remained exactly how? Ultear's composure was slowly faltering, in the middle of the social dancing lesson; she had decided to go for a small peck on the rosettes cheek. That's when things got hectic, just as small innocent kiss was going to land the rosette had sprung in to action and lunged at her. At first Ultear had thought that it was out of affection but the dragon slayer was outraged, he started questioning her, and accused her for things he shouldn't know of. While pinning Ultear down Natsu had proceeded to hurl many confusing questions such as 'mates' and 'mating' it was strange, as Ultear didn't know why he considered her Siegrain's mate? But what if he...

"You know I can hear you two!" It was as she had feared; his dragon slayer senses had noticed them, but when? Her curiosity got the better of her so she asked Natsu: "When did you...hear?" It wouldn't get more awkward than this. Ultear was pretty sure Natsu never have had sex, and with him asking the questions it was going to be very blunt and insensitive.

"Two weeks ago! I was at old man Yajima's place, then I heard you two, so stop playing innocent!" Upon hearing those words, Ultear was able to connect the missing dots to the whole picture! That Yajima, he always leaves his quarters when Ultear and Siegrain decide to get passionate. But why didn't he leave when the most recent incident happened two weeks ago? The fact that Natsu was present at his place spoke for itself, really, who had guessed the old man could be this cunning. This was Natsu had found out about her and Siegrain, and all he did was have some supposed 'tea' with Natsu. It didn't help either that Siegrain's room was practically next to Yajima's...

"Yes, okay, but we are not involved with each other like that anymore!" Ultear knew her words were a bit hard to believe at that moment but it was the truth, well, a bit altered but not too far from it. As they both never had anything solid in the first place, in reality Ultear had been manipulating Siegrain to consider her his trustworthy ally and therefore share the secrets he knows with her.

"Why should I believe you in the first place, either way your actions are wrong!" Natsu, who still was pinning her down, tightened his grip around Ultear's breast. The action made the dark purple haired woman let out a slight moan of agony; she still thought it felt good, which was strange. Natsu didn't have any lust full intentions towards her in this situation; he probably didn't really know where to place his hands in order to hold Ultear in place, that's why she let it slide this _time_.

"I am sure you have noticed that you find me growing closer to you over these past two weeks, have you not?" It wasn't pretty but I would work, Natsu wasn't stupid, he would come to a conclusion and figure out the connection between the incidents that had occurred. Ultear couldn't possible possibly put it much simpler than this.

Suddenly it all kind of fell into place for Natsu, what Ultear was saying made sense to him, his feelings told him that she was tricking him, but the dragon slayers mind had persuaded that she was being sensible. Natsu had thought that Ultear being clingy with him was a sign of her abandoning hers and Sieg's relationship, but if the words that were spoken to him held any credibility they wasn't emotionally involved with each other in the first place, but the question remained, why?

Natsu finally understood. With a firm voice and narrowed eyes he stated his final question: "Then why did you want to get close to me?" Ultear took her time with answering his question; she couldn't reveal the whole reason but only the small details.

As she responded, a knowing smile played out on Ultear's face: "Just simple curiosity, you are a dragon slayer but I haven't seen you use any of your powers personally!" That was very vague answer, the kimono clad woman knew that, but more than that was too risky to be able to say.

"My magic!?" Natsu was really surprised, was that the reason? His magic was a variation of elemental dragon slayer magic, that was all that he was supposed to let the people wondering know, including the other council members except Gran Doma as he was the one behind this rule, somehow letting people know that Acnologia was the one who had thought him his magic would give him a bad reputation, yet that fact was one of the reasons behind his entry to the council. "You know you can't…"

He was interrupted by the sudden outburst of abrupt knocking, who could possibly want to meet him now? Wasting no time with getting off Ultear, Natsu took a few brisk fast paced steps towards his mahogany door. Ultear on the other hand was not amused in the least; she had just been through a humiliating and compromising situation. The one knocking would most likely be the old mustache, as she had dubbed Yajima; he always gave her a strange look because she spent a lot of time with Siegrain. He probably was suspicious about the azure haired council member's _enthusiastic_ view on the magic satellite Eatherion.

While Natsu opened the door Ultear had regained her elegant composure and corrected her dresses fit and smoothed out any wrinkles in the silken violet colored fabric, she could not after all look 'suggestive' as the old man will probably get some ideas about her and Natsu. As the pink haired dragon slayer was small talking away at door, Ultear used the chance to proceed towards him; after all it was most likely her that Yajima was here for if the plan Gran Doma had presented her with regarding Natsu, the kimono clad woman didn't at first believe that some random cult had succeeded in infiltrating Era, but one could always be wrong, she herself hadn't exactly _legally _entered Era either the first time, while that didn't matter at the moment, the fact that Natsu's life was in danger did. When she had heard from Yajima and the chairman that the cult probably would be after Natsu's head Ultear was almost going frantic out of stress. Natsu was one of her keys to salvation and she wouldn't see him wasted!

She didn't feel any guilt as she mercilessly pierced through Natsu and Yajima's little conversation, as with most other things she did, guilt was never a factor, almost. "Let's go Yajima-san; I was just polishing Natsu-sama's waltz skills" One of his thick grey eyebrows was elevated as an act of skepticism; he didn't believe her, obviously. As the shame it was, the words that Ultear spoke held the unfortunate truth with them. Yajima scoffed and spoke the following: "Yes that would be for the best Ultear-san." With that said the slender woman in the violet dress stepped out of the dragon slayers chamber, along with Yajima. Natsu was perplexed, this was so sudden, he had never heard of this supposed mission from either of them?! Striding out of his room and while doing so wrinkling up his chamber carpet out of haste. "Hey," Natsu yelled after both of them "where are you two going?" He got no initial response from either of them, Yajima kept his pace and his hands entwined behind his back as he took small fast paced steps towards what seemed the banquette hall. Ultear on the other hand used her hand to gesture for Natsu to follow her. The dragon slayer picked up the hint and the mismatched party of three council members strode towards the banquette.

_**The festivities had started, and the VIP's were arriving...**_

Crossing his arms in frustration the pink haired dragon slayer sighed, he Ultear and old man Yajima had been waiting for half an hour now, but that wasn't the reason he was mad or even frustrated, no, the sight of another pink haired man whose looks were creepily identical to the ones of his own. They had the same clothing, the smallest details in perfect synch, Natsu's choice of clothing was a navy blue coat, the small golden trimmings and details made him stand out from the crowds, it was his formal council outfit, the same one he wore on the meets with Siegrain. "I understand why there is guy looking like me, but how did you know what I would wear?" Ultear snickered at his remark. Well, it was a form of thought projection much like Siegrain's own, but with a twist, the projection was in reality a seal which suppressed the victim's powers null. The victim's body would lose its free will and get controlled by the caster. After all, it would be bad if a death sentenced criminal would have free reign in a high class banquette, especially if he was desperate.

"Natsu, you see, it's a projection fused with a real living man, like Yajima told you earlier, the man is a death sentenced criminal, and if he happens to die nobody will be sad!" Ultear simply found Natsu very amiable when he tried to puzzle together things with complexity like this, it wasn't his specialty that much was clear but he wouldn't give up, that was the best part, he was simply too cute.

"I see, and to prevent any further incidents you and Yajima are going to stop time and erase memories? Seems a bit farfetched, yeah? I though you're magic only affected non-organic materia?" Oh, Ultear was truly impressed with the rosette dragon slayer, he might not look like it, but in reality Natsu was a very good listener, he had membered the great time ark's one weakness.

"That is correct, but is time an organic materia?" It didn't take long for Natsu to answer.

With a snort he spoke: "No, of course not!"

"There you go; the answer is as simple as that!" Ultear was being serious, her magic was the magical incarnation of time, as long as other humans were inside space, or rather took up a part of the world's volume, they would be affected if Ultear stopped space, as time and space were connected. But the thing was that it only had a fifty percent chance to succeed, which was a bit daunting.

"Shhh, be quite you two, it seems it has begun!" Yajima was awfully right, at that very moment the big crystal chandeliers of the ball room lost their luster. Every other light source in the room died of as well. Yajima knew that between this window of time the assassins were to strike at the fake dragon slayer. "Ultear, use your magic when the lights are back!" Ultear didn't need to be told twice as a trio of snow colored magic circles with grey runes in the edges sprung in to action. **"Time ark: Space!"** The lights were back, but nobody made a sound, it was as if they had frozen in place. It seemed her magic had worked! "N-Natsu, it seems you will have to carry me back, my magic is...depleted..." The usage of such a wide range time manipulating spell, had left the time ark user drained of all her magical resources, it was to expected, as she not only had to stop space, but to prevent Natsu and Yajima from getting dragged in to the spell.

With no further incidents Ultear collapsed to the white marbled floor with a 'thump' she was still conscious, barely. Natsu was about do what the woman had told him but something caught his eye, as well as Yajima's for that matter. He was lying dead on the floor, his life essence was welling in between the marble tiles, it made his stomach turn. "Natsu, it's a fake remember that, will you!" Ultear chirped from behind, somehow she had enough energy to do that. Yajima was hunched over examining the fake corpse of Natsu, with his index and middle finger Yajima put his two fingers next to the fallen man's jugular artery. After a few seconds of tense waiting Natsu couldn't keep his excitement.

"Is he dead," Yajima didn't answer instead the old man shook his head "then what is the matter?" Ultear's breathing had become ragged; she was very close to passing out, yet she proceeded to enlighten Natsu of the situation. "Natsu, their aim wasn't to kill, only to cripple!" Natsu's eyes widened, not kill?! Then what was their purpose, were they to kidnap him?

"Natsu, you search for the perpetrator, I shall erase these peoples memory!" Natsu knew what do from here; the assassin couldn't have made it far from his fake corpse, after all time has stopped. As the dragon slayer maneuvered through the crowds she noticed a red haired woman, she was kind of hard to miss, as she was standing next to the corpse, literally a few meters away. She was frozen in an awkward state; with a drink in her hand she looked very shocked. She smelled of strawberries and metal. Taking a few sniffs as he walked up to her, she had a nice dress on, Natsu liked the onyx color. There was an amusing detail about this woman, she smelled a lot, and her scent was all over the place, as if she had been on the move…

But it didn't make sense to Natsu, this girl looked very relaxed, she didn't look like she was the assassin, she wasn't nervous, Natsu could see from her faces muscles, they were lax. Then why did her scent…Metal, it wasn't the scent of steel that Natsu sensed, but blood, the same blood that was on the floor. Which meant that the assassin was close, very close?!

"Yajima, I think the killer is still here, in this hall!" Natsu wasted no time with letting his colleagues know what he had just found out! Now he just had to sniff the killer out. The scent was growing stronger, the woman's scent mixed with metallic scent, he could literally feel the presence of the assassin, above! The assassin's scent came from above, if his nose had served him right, he was currently stood right under the killer…

The pink haired dragon slayer didn't move, he was frozen in place, just now a lone drop of blood had fallen from the ceiling of the ceiling, it splashed onto one of the banquette tables next to Natsu, with a thick splash, soiling the pure white cake that was standing on it, it seemed to be grand dessert of the evening, now not so much.

The rosettes pulse and heartbeat had gotten more frequent, his veins were pumping adrenaline and his excitement was spiked! Finally he would be able to say good-bye to this stupid cat and mouse game. With a fluid motion Natsu turned his head upwards so that nothing more than a pink blur was seen. But there was no assassin to be seen, well, Natsu hadn't eaten anything since Ultear visited, he probably was hallucinating or something!

"Natsu, we are done here! Let's go." Without further ado, Natsu picked up Ultear and walked back the way they came. With a snap of her fingers the spell she had cast was dispelled. Natsu had to hurry back to the banquette, as he was supposed to make his entrance fifteen minutes ago. While the rosette hurried back to Ultear's quarters, Yajima took a calm stroll back to his, things were about to get a whole lot complicated, with rogue assassin on the loose in Era, Natsu had to watch himself…

_**With Siegrain…**_

Why was that woman here, who in the world had invited her, it had greatly interfered with his plans for that evening, the woman was of course Erza Scarlet, his old childhood friend and love, well, not anymore, but the important part was that she was there at the banquette sipping on drinks and having minor conversation with the other guests, when she should be over at her guild! Now Siegrain couldn't attend and that would set him back in his plans to find new investors in the magic satellite Eatherion project. He could literally feel a new wave of headaches coming.

He hadn't seen her since that day, when he told her that all her friends were his hostages, they still were. If he was to show himself now a whole new burden would fall upon his shoulders, what would he tell her? As the Naïve fool she was, Erza would lose her wit and start accusing him for things that people shouldn't know of, which would leave him in an even worse situation. With no other choice left Siegrain walked back to his quarters, during his walk he kept brooding over the reason Erza was here, well, she probably represented her guild. That much was clear, but usually the masters come, not the regular mages.

The deserted corridors of the magic council were death silent, nothing but his leather boots made any sounds, all the personnel and other council members were at banquette, enjoying themselves. Soon the sight of his chamber door came into his sight, as the azure haired man casually proceeded to grab the door handle Siegrain noticed that it was unlocked, how strange, he was sure he had locked it shut. While carefully stepping inside, and looking for traps for any sort could Siegrain breathe a sigh of relief, there were no signs of any magical runes; one could never be too sure.

"Hello there, Siegrain!" That voice! Siegrain's eyes widened at the strangers remark, there was no mistake, it was her! Slowly turning around, Siegrain's eyes saw a cloaked figure, most likely a woman, her hood obscured her face from him, the lights were not on either, as Siegrain was too engrossed about why his room was unlocked to remember to turn them on. "Who are you?" His voice was steadfast but on the inside he was a mess, there was many men who would love to have his head delivered to them!

The mysterious woman didn't respond, she only proceeded to remove her hood, effectively showing her face.

The sight that was presented to him was something he wasn't prepared for, not even after recognizing her voice. The unmistakable crimson hair, the delicate jaw line structure, everything was according to his memory correct, she was Erza Scarlet…

* * *

**AN: And the plot thickens even more, I am sorry to say but in the last week I have been very busy with real life commitments, thus delaying my fic update. I would also want to thank all my reviewers for their support, with Erza confronting Siegrain many things will get complicated and the partner ship with Natsu will be tested, exactly how, will be revealed in the next chapter which will end the banquette arc! If any of my readers have any questions regarding the plot of my story then they can PM me, as I will answer all of them. **

**I would also want to point out a fic that I have been following, it's called Phoenix of Fairy tail by shadowalkz, do check it out!**

**I personally don't feel like I am satisfied with this chapter, as it is full of plot build up, I will probably re-write some parts…**

**Err…pairings, huh? I am going to be honest with everyone and say that I am leaning on the Erza side, but I won't do anything regarding romance until chapter 10 probably, but I am torn, most of the reviews say Mira, and I will most likely do Mira...If anyone has any oppinions please share them with me in the review section.**

**Now putting that aside, I hope that the majority of the people reading my fic isn't doing it for the pairing, as that would be kind of disappointing, honestly. And no, Erza being the one invited isn't foreshadowing the pairings; she is just there to get Natsu involved in FT…Whoops, spoiler! But anyhow, I also don't think there is too much Natsu x Erza, there is more Jerza, when you search the filters most of the stories involving Erza are harems which I mostly don't like. **

**If you have any thoughts on pairings or anything else feel free to contact me, also if any of you have any ideas on how I should develop the plot, once again contact me!**

**Leave me a line or two, as it makes my heart flutter! **


End file.
