Disclaimer: All Fairy Tail Characters Belong to Hiro Mashima, Tiamat is loosely based on Tiamat from Forgotten Realms which Belongs to Wizards of the Coast, LLC. The traits of the chromatic dragons have been altered to match the dragon slayers in the Fairy Tail Universe. Drakan belongs to Surreal Software.
Chapter 22: Searching
Natsu had definitely been here. The amount of destruction was proof enough of that. There were flames still consuming what was left of the once stately structure. Gray and Wendy used their magic to put out the remaining fires. The Sky Dragon Slayer walked around sniffing the air around the remains of the house but finally shook her head in defeat. There was no scent trace for her to follow. Whatever Natsu and Happy had found was already gone just like the Fire Dragon Slayer's own scent.
"I'm sorry, Gray-san.", Wendy looked down at the ground in front of her not feeling able to meet the ice mage's eyes, "There aren't any traces for me to follow."
"It's ok, Wendy.", Gray patted the young girl on the head, "You did your best. I appreciate it."
"I suppose I shouldn't even be surprised by this anymore.", Lucy sighed looking at the remains of the once beautiful house, "Natsu overdid it again. Master is not going to be happy about this."
"Where did you go Fire Breath?", Gray muttered as he looked around trying to find anything that would give him a hint of where to go, "You could have at least left something behind to help us find you." He tried to focus on his mate, trying to find him like he had done earlier at the park but either Natsu was too far away or he just didn't understand how it worked well enough.
The three mages looked at each other with matching worried expressions on their faces. What could possibly take out Mira and Erza? Where did Natsu go, was he taken as well or was he just chasing after them? There were no answers here to tell them what to do next. As they headed back to the guild in silence Gray suddenly stopped his mount, his face showing growing confusion.
"What's wrong?", Lucy asked, the concern in her voice evident.
"I don't know. This feeling just came over me. I-I'm not sure"
"What feeling, what do you mean? Is it like a premonition?", Wendy looked at him as she tried to understand what was happening to the ice mage.
Gray shook his head slowly. "I don't know, my heart just started speeding up and I feel like I want to run away but I can't"
His face lost all color as he grasped the full meaning of his words.
"We need to get back to the guild, now.", he urged his mount to increase its speed and Lucy did the same.
"What is it?", Lucy yelled. She was getting a little freaked out by Gray's behavior.
"It's Natsu, he's in trouble. It's got to be Tiamat, she's the only one that would cause him to panic like that. She must have gotten to him after he left here."
"How could you possibly know that, Gray?", Lucy asked him.
"The Soul Bind.", Wendy and Gray answered together. They doubled their efforts to get to the guild quickly and Gray tried to send Natsu some feelings of peace back through the bond but he had no clue if it even worked like that.
xxx
Natsu looked down at himself and realized something was different. She had forgotten to put shackles on his legs. He grinned fiercely, this time he wasn't going down without a fight. He got on his feet and turned around. There was Lisanna, also naked and bound.
"Natsu, could you please look away? This is embarrassing!", Lisanna pleaded.
"How stupid do you think I am?", Natsu snarled, "Do you really think I'm going to fall for the same trick twice?"
"What are you talking about? I asked you to look away."
"SHUT UP!", his voice dripping with venom, "Stop pretending. You picked wrong this time, I've never been in love with Lisanna. She's just a friend so you can stop wearing her."
He advanced towards her getting ready to attack when he noticed the tears. He stopped warily, Tiamat had never cried before. She turned away from him and faced the wall.
"I forgot you get nervous when there's only one of us with you. I-I'm sorry I can't show you my magic. These cuffs they... I mean I knew that but...", her voice broke and she couldn't continue.
"Here, wear this." , a voice Natsu recognized from earlier broke through Lisanna's words as a blanket was thrown into the cell, "I can't to let you out but it's not right for a youg girl to be in here like this."
"Th-thanks.", Lisanna managed as she tried to control her tears.
"Now, what's going on in here?", Silver looked at the two of them with interest.
"He was captured and tortured recently by a shape shifter.", Lisanna told the dark haired man who looked oddly familiar, "He was just confused."
"Tough luck, kid. Still, you got out of that one, maybe you'll get out of this one.", Silver said as he turned around and left. He berated himself as he realized the mistake he had made.
"Hey, come back here. Who are you?", Natsu yelled after Silver, "Where are my things? I want my scarf and my necklace back. Did you hear me? I need that necklace."
Silver raised his hand in a wave and kept walking away from the cell. The less time he spent with the Fairy Tail mages the less interest Keyes would have in them. Maybe they could get out of this but he kind of doubted that would happen before he could take out Tartaros from the inside.
"Oh Gods, Lisanna! I'm so sorry. I thought you were--", Natsu could not bring himself to say the name out loud. "How did you get here?"
"I don't remember, I woke up here. Elfman must be in here somewhere too!"
"I followed Mira and Erza's scents here."
"Mira and Erza are here?"
Natsu nodded and started to look around the cell, how the hell where they going to get out of here? If they could escape and find Erza, Mira and Elfman they might have a fighting chance.
"Natsu, since when do you wear a necklace?", Lisanna asked, she had never known him to wear jewelry.
"Since today. It's a long story."
"We're not exactly going anywhere.", Lisanna pointed to where they were.
"Fine, but get behind me and try to break my cuffs while I tell you."
xxx
"If only we knew the location of their guild we could launch a counter attack.", Levy said in frustration.
"No one seems to know where it is, I've looked through all of the resources I can think of.", Makarov replied, "We'll just have to wait to hear from Natsu."
"I told you already, Tiamat got to him before he got there.", Gray was a wreck. He could no longer feel Natsu's panic and that was making him even more anxious. He couldn't feel anything at all coming from his boyfriend.
"You don't know that for a fact.", Gajeel tried to get through the ice mage's distress. "You haven't even had the Soul Bind for a full day. The truth is you have no idea about how the damn thing works. You're working yourself up for no reason. I've learned the hard way to never bet against the Salamander."
"You didn't feel his panic, why else would he get like that?", Gray countered.
Gajeel had no good answer for that.
"It's no secret that Natsu hasn't exactly been himself since he was captured. He could have been panicking about any number of things.", Rogue took over for Gajeel.
Gray looked at them unsure. What they were saying made sense but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was really wrong.
"Natsu is very powerful Gray, he can take care of himself. Let's just worry about finding Tartaros for now.", Juvia tried to soothe the ice mage.
"Natsu will be fine, I'm more worried about Elfman and Lisanna. Don't you think we should have heard from the by now?", Cana looked at the large barrel in front of her as if expecting it to answer her.
"Warren, do you have anything new to report?", Makarov asked the telepath mage.
"We still can't get in touch with Elfman and Lisanna but I think something has changed, there have been no more reports of attacks on former council members from any of the mages that are still out on protection details. I'm not sure what that means."
Makarov pondered that information. It could mean that Tartaros had already found the three former council members that they needed to release the seal on Face and that could be bad. It could also mean that they were otherwise engaged at the moment, maybe fighting Natsu, Mira and Erza. There just was no way to tell.
"Tell them to stay on protective details until further notice.", Makarov ordered and Warren communicated the order to the field. He was getting more and more frustrated at their situation. How where they going to find this guild when no one seemed to know a thing about it? He heard a thud and tried to find the source of the noise.
"Happy!", Lucy yelled out, "Are you ok?"
The blue Exceed had landed on a table and looked about ready to keel over. He was completely out of magic, his breathing was erratic and tears were streaming out of his eyes. Carla and Lily quickly headed over to him. Wendy also headed towards him, her magic already checking the Exceed for injuries.
"Is he hurt?", Makarov asked the Sky Dragon Slayer.
"No, he's fine. It looks like he just drove himself too hard. He should be fine once his magic begins to replenish.", Wendy petted the Exceed gently as she talked trying to relax him a little."
Happy was desperate to tell them what had happened and time was of the essence. All he could think of was that Natsu was frozen like the giants in the village. He knew that Gray could help him if he could only tell him what had happened. ""MiraandErzawerecapturedandNatsuandIfollowed", he began.
"Tomcat, slow down. We can't understand you!", Carla looked at him. His breathing was speeding up as his lungs tried to keep up with the words coming out of his mouth.
"MiraandErzawerecapturedandNatsuandIfollowed", Happy began again. He looked like he was going to pass out at any moment.
"Happy, calm down and take a breath", Carla tried again. He looked at her with a blank expression, her words not piercing through his panic. She looked at her hand and although she felt horrible about it, she slapped him across the face as hard as she could. Everyone in the guild looked at her in shock. The idea of anyone hurting Happy was alien to them.
Happy looked at her in surprise but calmed down enough to look at Gray and say, "I left him there all alone. Please Gray, you have to help him!"
"What happened Happy?", Gray forced his voice into a calm he did not feel, even though all he wanted to do at the moment was shake the information out of the Exceed. Lucy must have guessed his intent because she picked Happy up gently and hugged him to her chest. She petted him and spoke to him in a soothing voice. She told him he had done the right thing, that thanks to his bravery they would be able to find them and help them all. She could feel Gray behind her as tense as a coiled spring.
Happy let out some last sniffles and motioned to Lucy that he was fine.
"Natsu and I got to the Former Chairman's house and Mira and Erza weren't there but there had been a fight. Natsu was able to sniff out their scents but he was also able to pick out that a knockout drug had been added to their tea. Former Chairman Crawford is a traitor! Natsu might have set his house on fire before we left.", Happy managed to look sheepish for his friend. Makarov winced as he had been hoping that had not been on purpose, but a few of the mages laughed and yet others were of the opinion that the chairman had it coming for incapacitating the girls.
Gray willed himself to be patient and let Happy finish his story. He tried to be interested in the details but all he wanted to know is where the hell was Natsu and what had happened to him? He took some deep breaths to calm himself down but it was just making him antsier. He looked at Happy willing him to get to the end.
"We were able to follow them to this weird cube island thing in the sky. Natsu broke through a wall and landed on the chairman but there was a demon there and he wouldn't tell us what they had done with the girls so Natsu fought him. He wasn't able to inflict much damage but that Ice Devil Slayer showed up and sent the demon away. And...and... he froze Natsu!"
He looked at Gray pleadingly, "I'm sorry I couldn't help him but you can melt him can't you, just like you did Atlas Flame? I didn't want to leave him but I had to come get you."
Happy debated about telling Gray that Natsu had said that the Devil Slayer smelled like him but decided it wasn't important. They needed to get back to Natsu.
Lyon was looking at him with interest. "What's an Ice Devil Slayer?"
Gray ignored the question for the moment as his anger was immediately replaced by fear. Could he? He had almost destroyed Atlas Flame when he had melted the ice surrounding him, Natsu'd had to replenish his fire to bring him back. Atlas himself had been the one to melt the ice around the Giants. What about the baby, would he be able to survive the thawing? Natsu would never forgive him if he accidentally killed their child. One thing was for sure, he was going to give that Ice Devil Slayer some personal attention for what he had done to his family before this was all over.
"Sure Happy, we'll have him back to normal in no time, you did the right thing coming to get help." He gave Happy a reassuring smile that felt very much like a lie but seemed to put the Exceed at ease, "Do you remember where the island was?"
"It's constantly moving,", Happy looked sad as he realized he would not be able to help Natsu after all.
"Tell me everything you remember and we can map it. Come on, with your help we'll figure out where it is.", Levy said. Happy followed her towards a map, Levy writing stuff down as Happy recounted his journey.
The sound of stomping could be heard nearing the guild and the doors quickly opened to reveal Elfman. He entered slowly everything in his manner screaming something was off.
"Elfman, where's Lisanna?", Droy asked.