Full title because Wattpad's a little bitch and titles have a word limit:
The Dragons of Days Past- Uh... Present? Days Past Now Present? Whatever. Dragons. It's Dragons. Holy Shit, There are so Many Fucking Dragons.
Hey guys! Sorry for the absence, I was really struggling to figure out how to write this. But on the bright side, I was able to plan a lot for the future. So that's exciting.
Either way, here's a new chapter. It's quite a bit shorter than the last few. It would be longer but I wanted to get it out as quick as I could. This isn't edited as much as I would like, but, again, I wanted to get it out fast.
Enjoy!
~~~
The entirety of Crocus shook as another explosion rocked the earth. The noise blanketed the sound of y/n's footsteps, fast and thunderous as they were. Cobbled stones broke underfoot as she ran, gaining speed as a series of caterwauling wails and screams cut through the air. Civilians raced by to the outskirts of town, crying out for friends and loved ones. Mages shouted instructions, herding them through the streets to safety.
Y/n slowed to a complete stop and smelled the air, trying to catch the scent of the Blue Pegasus wizards. Master Mavis had been quick to send her off to help the other guild as there were no dragon slayers amidst their ranks. An unmistakable fragrance hit her like a freight train. Ichiya.
She coughed and let out a strong puff of air from her nose trying to clear the scent, but it held strong. She sneezed a couple of times, small elemental bursts firing from her mouth as she did.
She frowned into a cloud of silver frost as a low whistle rang out from above. She barely had time to register that it was the airborne dragon that dropped the volley of projectiles before she leapt out of the way. They hit the ground with a deafening crash and the earth seemed to shake from the force.
Y/n took a step towards the one nearest her. She reached out a hand, gently running her fingertips over its surface. It was smooth and cold, covered with shallow ridges and small bumps akin to those that raise one's hair in the presence of danger, suspense or the cold. It seemed to be made of metal, adamantine maybe.
"An egg?" She breathed, brows furrowing in confusion. She jerked back as the eggs began to break, thin cobweb-like fractures spreading across the metallic shell. "Please no."
The Fates did not listen to her prayer and the eggs surrounding her all burst open, revealing a swath of dragonoids. Their teeth and talons sharp, their hides gleaming silver.
The one nearest to her opened its maw and shrieked. An orb of glowing energy grew in the depths of its throat. The dragonoid released it in a column of magic and a grating screech rang through the night as it barreled towards y/n.
"Of course," y/n muttered as she weaved around the attack.
She rushed forwards and drew her arm back, her fist encased in ice. The dragonoid let out another shrill cry as she landed the blow. Its skull exploded and it dropped to the ground, finally silent.
Y/n took off sprinting, hoping that the dragonoids were too slow to keep up. The sound of heavy footsteps and metal slamming against rock echoed through the night. They were chasing her. Why wouldn't they?
She drew an arm back, a burst of ice magic rushing outwards. The ground beneath her pursuers becoming icy and rough. The first dragonoids fell into a disorganized heap. The others simply clamoured over their fallen brethren, using them as stepping stones to catch up to her.
She continued in the direction of the Blue Pegasus guild members, their scent and that of their fear growing stronger the closer she got.
E/c eyes honed in on a nearby store. A canopy hung over its door, two stalls of flowers on each side. Y/n jumped up onto the nearest stall, skipping along the edges to avoid damaging more flowers than needed. She leapt again, landing on the canopy and springing off of it to reach the roof. The shingles clattered under her feet as she ran across the length of the rooftops. The sound of scraping and heavy footsteps let her know that she still wasn't in the clear
The line of buildings came to were coming to an end. A vast courtyard lay at the end of the roof not long before her and all the buildings around her were to far to risk jumping, lest she wanted to hurt her ankle again. She didn't.
Y/n ducked under another blast as she darted across the last roof. She pressed her foot against the very edge of the roof, pushing off of the building and launching herself into the air. For one terrifying, uncontrolled moment, she was falling. Then she hitched, suspended mid-air as she slowed her descent, gliding on draconian wings.
"I've really got to practice that,"
With a strong flap, she was rocketing into the night sky. The dragonoids screeched, shooting after her, but she was able to evade the attacks. She twirled around to face them, and with a large blast of fire, it seemed they wouldn't be bothering anyone for a while.
Y/n flew a little higher, her eyes snapping to a boulevard a couple of blocks away. The Blue Pegasus mages were facing off against a dragon whose scales appeared to be comprised entirely of stone.
A flash of movement on one of the rooftops nearest the dragon. A long, white coat billowing in the wind. A fog of an all too familiar type of magic, its crimson-purple hue a stark contrast to the night sky.
Y/n grinned.
Her wings folded back as she dove down. She barreled headfirst through the air, the ground below drawing nearer with every staccatoed beat of her heart. She winced as spread her wings, hanging suspended once more before she pulled them back and landed before the Blue Pegasus with a slight stumble.
"Well hello darling," Hibiki smirked. He took y/n's hand, pressing a gentle kiss to her knuckles and he dipping his head in greeting.
"Get back sideliners!" The mage in the white coat shouted from the rooftop as the spell grew stronger.
"Sideliners?" Ichyia exclaimed indignantly. He glared as he watched the man leap into the air and strike the dragon in the head.
Y/n tugged Hibiki behind her and knocked Ichyia back with a gust of wind. She could have grabbed him as well but she really didn't want to touch him. Her skin crawled at the mere thought.
She slammed her foot down and pulled her arms, crossed at the wrists to form an 'x', up in a sharp, quick motion. A wall of earth and stone rose up. It wrapped around the wizards, leaving only their backs open to attack.
Excess magic from the mage's attack burst outward, raining down on the streets below. Y/n pulled her arms further back over her head and the top of the wall began to bend, stretching out to form a ceiling of sorts. The toxins hissed and spit as they made contact with the shield.
Hibiki flinched as they ate a hole through the stone above his head. Y/n stretched a wing out over him, keeping him safe. She gathered the excess acid on her thumb and liked it up. If she was to win, she'd need to gather all the magic she could get.
Y/n let the shield drop, and the Blue Pegasus guild members gaped up at the new arrival.
"Cobra, from the Oracion Seis," Hibiki spit. He stepped in front of y/n as if to defend her. An act that was more humourous than charming. "What's the deal? You don't owe us any special favours."
"Yeah, why are you even here? You should be in jail!" Eve said.
Ren nodded. "Damn straight. Considering the hell your pals put us through, I'm not sure I even want your help."
"Yeah why the change of heart anyway?" Jenny stepped forward. Y/n realized that the blonde was clad in nothing but a tiger-print bikini. What the actual hell? Jenny's lips curled up into a smirk, her expression becoming seductive as she struck a pose. "Oh, I know, you saw my twin tigers and figured you'd like the chance to tame them. Keep nice and maybe you'll get a cuddle or two."
Cobra look rightfully disgusted by the proposition. "Would you shut up top-heavy? Unless you want to die, in which case, keep talking."
Y/n slapped a hand over Jenny's mouth to keep her from saying anything else. She fixed the blonde with a blank stare and heaved a heavy sigh. "Please excuse me for saying in the most impolite of ways Jenny but sometimes, I find myself wondering what the fuck your problem is. Like, I would really love to know."
Ichyia stepped closer to the dragon and struck a pose. He winked up at Cobra and y/n thought the poison dragon looked like he was going to be sick. "No matter the reason for his change of heart, he shall not face this threat alone. We shall fight alongside him!"
Cobra readied another attack. "I said get back sideliners!"
"You'd better do as he says," y/n said, using her wing to block Ichyia from the torrent of poison that rained down around him. "He gets pissy when things don't go his way."
"I do not," he snapped as he leapt from the dragon's back.
"He does too," she said. She laughed as she stepped forward, waving the Blue Pegasus wizards off with a flick of her hand. "Go on, see if you can help anyone out with those eggs."
They nodded and rushed off.
Hibiki, however, lingered behind. "Are you sure?" He asked voice laced with hesitancy and worry. He caught her wrist in his hand and tugged her closer to him.
"Yeah, go ahead. I'll be fine."
He frowned at the man but a few meters before them. His eyes conflicted as he rolled his bottom lip between his teeth.
"I'm not gonna do anything to her, so quit your worrying," Cobra grumbled. "I know my word ain't worth much, but I owe her one."
"Aw, you remember me? I'm touched," y/n cooed. Cobra grumbled a low shut up but the bite behind the words was hollow.
Y/n turned her full attention to Hibiki. She offered him a reassuring smile and clasped his hand in her own. "Listen, Hibs, I'll be fine, really. Now go on, they need you."
"Fine, but if I may ask for one thing to steel my nerves?"
"Sure, what's up?"
"Nothing much, just a kiss from my fair lady."
"Okay, you're fine," y/n rolled her eyes. Upon seeing his expression, the worry and concern in his gaze, she sighed. She pressed a quick, chaste kiss to his cheek before pushing him away. A rosy blush spread up his neck, staining his face. "Now get out of here."
"Right, of course, yes ma'am." He nodded and darted off.
"So..." y/n said as she walked up to stand at Cobra's side. "Do you still think dragons to be fictional?"
He turned to her in exasperation. "Shut up."
The words caught in his throat as y/n's hands flew up without thought, too quick for him to react. She cupped his face and tugged him down to eye level.
"What the hell happened to your eye?" she demanded, running her thumb over his cheekbone and gently tracing the new scar where his eye had once been.
He shifted uncomfortably. "I sacrificed it for power."
"Well, that was dumb."
Cobra tore himself free of her grasp with a snarl. "No one asked-"
"And your ears!" she gasped, reaching out to touch them. Cobra swatted her hand away, his own going up to trace the pointed edges. Y/n grinned, seemingly undeterred by the strike. "You look like an elf!"
"Like you don't look any different?" He scoffed and rolled his eye. He gestured to her in a sweeping motion from head to toe and then back up again. The tip of her draconian tail twitched against the ground as she laughed. Her fangs, longer, sharper, more animalistic, than before, glistened in the moonlight.
The dragon rumbled. It opened its gaping maw and roared, letting forth a burst of magic.
Y/n threw an arm to the side, not breaking eye contact with Cobra. Another shield of earth formed, blocking the attack with ease. She let the wall drop and fixed the dragon with a fierce stare. "Excuse me, we're in the middle of a conversation here."
"I'm trying to kill you."
"You could at least wait until we were done! I mean, gods, some people have no manners."
Cobra shook his head, tutting in disappointment. "Guess its up to us to teach it a lesson."
"That it is," she snickered.
Her tail thrashed behind her in eager anticipation as she looked to the dragon. Magic began to flow in the air around her. She held a hand up to Cobra with a crooked grin. He clapped it with his own, scaled one. Their hands dropped as they shifted into their respective stances.
Y/n cast him a glance from the corner of her eye. "You ready?"
"Hell yeah I am," he smirked. "Let's kill this son of a bitch."
***
Y/n and Cobra fought well together, especially considering they had never done so before. It was only their second time meeting and on the occasion they had, they'd fought against one another. Cobra had ripped her leg so badly with his claws that the injury had scared over. Despite this, y/n had helped heal him and he had dressed her wounds and they enjoyed a slight reprise, a sense of understanding between them.
But in their battle against the dragon they fought seamlessly as if they'd been doing so for years. When one fell back the other rushed forward. They moved in sync, landing blow after blow. They duck wove around each other, protecting their backs from the occasional dragonoid foolish enough to approach them.
Cobra had to give some of the credit to his hearing, but only in part. When they'd first met, y/n's mind had been a whirlwind. It was hard to read, but he could still do so with a bit of focus. Now her mind was deathly quiet, almost worryingly so. While he could hear her movements, both in the past and in the present, it was as if all her thoughts had just... stopped. Like she wasn't thinking about anything she was doing, moving and reacting on autopilot as if she'd done so hundreds of times before.
He could catch the occasional thought, some directed at him, some about the fight and skills she might need to consider, some so completely unrelated to the point that Cobra would have laughed if it weren't for the dragon before them. They had yet to cause any real damage, no matter what they threw at it, it just got back up again, shaking their attacks off like they were nothing.
Cobra huffed as they fell back once more, his shoulders heaving with a laboured breath. "I'm getting real sick of this."
"Tell me about it," y/n hit the dragon with an earth dragon's roar. It skidded back and shook its head, but overall it remained unharmed. "Okay, new plan- your poison is only going to work if we can get it either into the dragon's mouth or past its scales. If I can break through them..."
Cobra hummed. "Seems pretty similar from what we're doing right now, which, need I remind you, is not working?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, do you have any better ideas?"
He did not.
***
Y/n dove out of the way of a falling building, retracting her wings as she did. Debris rained down around her, the air becoming thick with a plume of dust. With a swing of her arms, a strong gust of wind whisked it away.
Her spell joined with the night breeze, forming a tornado of sorts, growing bigger and stronger the nearer it drew to the dragon. It let out a deafening growl as the attack hit. It was knocked back a couple of feet but aside from a new layer of dust and grime, its stony scales remained unharmed.
Y/n's lips curled up into a sneer as she snarled.
She'd hoped that by now, after so many years of training, with her extended roster of elements, with her second origin released, she'd be able to kill a simple dragon. Clearly, she had been mistaken.
What a fool she was, thinking she could do it. That she could do it without using his power. She was stupid to even think she could do it another way. And she was stupid to think there's be no consequences for neglecting to use and train with his magic. Sure, she'd used it a couple of times, but she'd done so sparingly. And, yes, the spell she'd used on the MPF had been impressive, but how could she know if it was enough? Could she even cast it again so soon?
"Quit you're panicking," Cobra said, landing a blow to the small fissure y/n's iron and earth magic had been able to make in the dragon's hide.
The dragon shook him off and he skidded back to stand at y/n's side. Sure, he couldn't hear her thoughts, but her emotions were an entirely different story. He figured that his time in prison had negatively impacted his hearing, deafening him to subconscious thought.
"I'm not panicking," she muttered indignantly.
Cobra raised a brow with a skeptic hum. "Keep telling yourself that."
"If you keep this up, it won't be the dragon I'll be slaying."
"Ooh, I'm so scared."
"You should be-" her words blended together into a garbled shriek as she was suddenly weightless, grasped between a dragon's talons and pulled into the sky. "What the hell?"
Cobra watched, amused as the dragon flew higher and higher. He shook his head at the string of curses y/n directed his way, turning his attention back to the dragon before him with a smirk. He could have warned her, sure, but this was a lot more fun. Besides, she'd be fine. Probably.
***
Once y/n was done cursing Cobra out, she turned her attention back to the more important matter at hand; the dragon that carried her.
Like all the others it was quite large with deadly teeth and talons to match. Its scales were a deep gray with a distinct patterning. She realized with a start that it was the same dragon that had dropped the eggs.
She could both sense and smell the presence of two other people nearby. One, unsurprisingly, was Natsu, of that she was certain. The other was familiar, akin to that of someone she'd met before. Was the person behind this someone she knew? But who?
Y/n closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. She let it out slowly, blinking her eyes open to see the all to familiar f/c markings running down her arms. The destructive magic which she so gravely avoided using feeling stronger and more prominent. It was electrifying, if not terrifying, how it coursed through her veins, igniting her every nerve with power.
She placed her hands on one of the claws that held her and focused her energy. The dragon jerked as its talon split down the middle, its grip on y/n loosening. With another blast it screeched, dropping her entirely.
She dropped freely through the sky, fragments of the dragon's claw raining down around her. She twisted mid-air, glaring at the dragon. The markings on her arms glowed brighter as she growled, wings sprouting from her back. She bridged the gap between her and the dragon with ease.
"Y/n!" Natsu exclaimed when she landed at his side. "What are you doing here? I can handle this!"
"Ah, y/n, you've joined us at last, how kind of you to grace us with your noble presence."
Y/n turned her attention to the man standing opposite her. His long black and white hair was tied back into a ponytail. His bangs blew wildly in the wind, displaying the scar that ran over his empty eye socket and nose, to the curved tattoo that curled around his left eye. Both his magic and his scent were extremely familiar, but there was something different about it at the same time. She couldn't figure it out. "Do I know you?"
"It's Rogue!" Natsu said. "Well, not Rogue, it's Rogue from the future. He killed future Lucy!"
"I'm not even gonna question that. But, if he's Rogue, why does he smell so... wrong? And why's his magic like that? Almost like..." her eyes widened. "Sting."
"Indeed, I took his power when I took his life," Rogue grinned, his eyes gleaming malevolently. "I am leagues stronger than the Rogue you know, sventar*."
Y/n bristled. "What did you just call me?"
"You may have everyone fooled now, but I know. I know what you are. What you'll become," he spat. "In the future, when Acnologia reigns, you rule alongside him. You kill more than Acnologia or Zeref combined. Appearing human to gain people's trust, helping them, living among them, before revealing your true form and massacring them. Nowhere, no one is safe."
"My true form? The fuck are you on about?" Y/n demanded.
Her words were almost completely drowned out by Natsu's snarl:
"How dare you? She'd never do something like that!"
"The blood of countless people, mages, non-mages, men, women, enbies, children even, stain her hands!" Rogue said, taking a step forward, his glare never once leaving y/n. She stared back just as intently. "The mere mention of her name is taboo. People only ever refer to her as Wer Sventar Di Vi Owier Sthyri**. Though, let's be honest, a thousand is nowhere near high enough, isn't it? Can't you see I'm doing the right thing, Natsu? Can't you understand, she has to die. As long as she lives, no one will ever be safe."
"I don't believe you!" Natsu shouted. "Y/n is a good person, she's my friend!"
"Your friend is a monster! She's misled you all with her honeyed words and sweet lies. And like moths to flames you fell into her trap. It's nothing but an act, she can't change her nature. She can't change what she is. She's a demon. She can't be allowed to live!"
Natsu took a step forward, a low growl rumbling from the back of his throat. Flames roared to life swirling around his clenched fists.
A high-pitched scream. A flash of movement and flailing limbs.
Y/n blinked. Natsu was gone. Was that Lucy?
Happy flew past a moment later, nothing but a blur of blue and a pungent aroma of fish.
Y/n turned her attention back to Rogue. His long hair blew wildly in the wind. His scar glowed silver in the starlight. He stared back at her with murderous intent.
"You said you were going to kill me didn't you?" Y/n stretched her arms out to the side in an open invitation. Her expression was bored and her posture relaxed. She raised a brow. "I'm waiting."
~~~
3, 692 words
* sventar = killer
** wer sventar di vi owier sthyri = killer of a thousand men
So that's our newest chapter? What did y'all think? Future Rogue is a piece of work, but apparently so is future y/n. Interesting...
But hey! We got to see everyone's favourite boy, Cobra! If he's not your favourite boy, then I hate to say it, but you're lying to yourselves.
Thanks for reading guys! Hopefully, I can have the next chapter out soon. I'll be back to edit this one as well, don't worry.