Chapter Text
Neurotoxin
Noun
-a poison which acts on the nervous system and brain.
Side effects often include paralysis or weakness in the limbs, altered sensation, tingling and numbness in the limbs, headache, vision loss, loss of memory and cognitive function, uncontrollable obsessive and/or compulsive behavior, behavioral problems, depression, anxiety, loss of circulation, imbalance, flu-like symptoms, seizures or seizing, and hallucinations.
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Pain.
All Natsu could feel was pain.
Whatever slashed his back left marks that feel the way normal people must feel when burned. He could feel something warm running down his side but he couldn’t get himself to move, to look at it, to protect himself. The marks only burned more the longer they were there.
There was a brief moment where he could feel the hot breath of that thing on his neck, where he could smell the stench of rotten flesh and decay that he first smelled when it opened its mouth and showed the many rows of sharp teeth, and fear shot through him. He couldn’t move.
Then the warmth and smell vanished, replaced by cold and the smells of mint and pine and ice.
He let himself fall unconscious.
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Panic gripped Gray’s mind as he sprinted down the stairs of the icy house he’d created, and memories of the many other times he’d heard screams like that rose to the surface. The sheer terror in Natsu’s voice had shaken him beyond belief, because of all the screams he’s heard they’ve never been his , and they’ve never sounded like that .
The door shatters when he opens it, his panic causing it to crack and fall apart when he had only wanted it out of his way. In a single fluid motion, he flung his hands up to recreate the first spell Ur had ever taught him. “Ice-make: Shield!” The ice spreads a few inches above Natsu’s body rapidly, stopping the teeth of that thing in their place.
The hell is that?
Gray couldn’t stop the shiver that went up his spine at the awful high pitched screeching noise the beast let out as it pulled fruitlessly at where its feet were frozen to the ground. In another moment of battle hardened instinct, he brought his hands together to create a lance of ice. He threw it with all the force he could muster, and it nearly whistled as it travelled the short distance between him and it.
Then it vanished into thin air.
What the fu-
He only barely managed to dodge the attack from behind, the icy cold claws of the monster ghosting his bare skin, but not getting the chance to slice into him. An icy blade formed in his left hand as easy as breathing, and he slammed it backwards into the monster’s chest, ignoring the way his injured shoulder ached with the movement. Despite feeling it sink deep between its ribs, the creature didn’t seem to feel a thing. So Gray twisted the blade as he jumped to the side.
The beast let loose another high pitched screech as it attempted to remove the blade, and looked up into Gray’s eyes. He stiffened and took a small step back. It was all he could do to not let his knees buckle as the rush of primal fear gripped his heart.
I’ve only pissed it off.
The thing grabbed the ice blade with its large clawed hand and tossed it to the side, and with a speed something so large should have, it launched itself towards Gray. Gray lifted his hands once more, and in a fit of desperation, he made another shield. However, unlike the one that protected Natsu’s unconscious body, this one was more than ten feet across in all directions.
I have to keep it away from him.
The beast slammed right into it, and that one mistake gave him enough time to place an ice dome over him, Natsu, and the entire icy house behind him. It slammed against the dome over and over again, but ultimately, it couldn’t break through the ice. Not even it’s claws could fully cut though it.
I have to make it stronger.
He placed his hands against it, and ice continued to spread, thicker and thicker, until he could no longer hear even the barest hint of the steady thuds of flesh slamming against ice or the awful feedback like noise that had left its throat.
Gray’s hands trembled even once he was no longer touching the ice, but he refused to give himself even a moment of rest. He quickly dispelled the small shield over Natsu, and what he saw wasn’t pretty. “Fuck….. Fuck .”
Natsu’s back had four claw marks running from his right shoulder down to his left hip, and there was an inky black substance mingling with all the blood running down his side. His vest had been torn to shred by that thing’s sharp claws. Natsu would almost look peaceful if he wasn’t so pale and if his breathing weren’t so shallow.
Gray dug his nails into his palms, forcing himself back to the present as he sprinted off to grab his previously discarded shirt from inside. The second it was clutched in his fingertips, he sprinted back to Natsu, sliding to his knees beside him as he pressed the white shirt against Natsu’s back. Within minutes it was quickly becoming more red and black than white, and Gray forced himself to take a few deep breaths.
It’s Natsu. He’s had worse. He’ll be fine. He has to be fine.
It wasn’t long before the shirt was completely saturated, and the bleeding didn’t appear to be stopping.
Shit fuck… what stops blood flow….. Pressure, a tourniquet if it’s on a limb- cold. Ice.
After a moment’s hesitation, he froze some of the blood in the shirt, but against Natsu’s high body temperature, it melted quickly. He kept refreezing, each time getting it a bit colder, but it continued to melt over and over again.
Almost as if he’s melting it unconsciously. What if….
“I’m hoping that you’re as crazy while unconscious as you are while awake, you flame-brained moron.” He carefully peeled his shirt off of Natsu’s back, wincing in sympathy as parts of it tried to stick to him, and he placed his hand over the lacerations. Ice began to spread from his fingertips, and almost as if fate was being kind, Natsu’s flames flared to meet it the way they usually did. As if it were some kind of miracle safety switch in his magic, the worst parts began to cauterize, stopping the once insistent bleeding.
Gray threw his hands up in the air, and let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding, “it worked!” he flopped backwards, eyes looking up at the ice dome he’d created and his limbs heavy with exhaustion, but he smiled...Unfortunately, the smile was quickly wiped off his face when he finally caught the putrid smell of burnt flesh and gagged.
“Oh gods, that’s fucking nasty -”
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Natsu felt like he was underwater.
He couldn’t move or hear or force his eyes open. He felt numb.
He didn’t know what was happening. Everything around him is black and blank as if he’s stuck in a void of endless darkness.
I hate this. Everything’s fuzzy. And cold. Cold? Why is it cold? What is cold?
He felt like he was slowly losing his mind.
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He still hasn’t woken up.
Natsu had barely moved since he went down the day before. Gray hadn’t dared to move him lest the cauterized wounds reopen, so he was still splayed out the same way he’d landed. If Gray couldn’t hear his breathing, then he’d be sure Natsu was dead.
He’s never been a sound sleeper.
Natsu was almost as pale as his scarf had once been, and it was more than a little worrying. The last time he’d looked like this was when he’d come into contact with Erik’s poisons, and his body had fought that off in less than an hour. Not to mention the fact that confirmed poisons can’t affect him when we found the berries…
Needless to say, Gray hadn’t left his side.
He stomach grumbled angrily at him after a few hours, but he couldn’t risk leaving Natsu alone. The forest and the riverbed weren’t far away, but opening the dome would be a death sentence. Gray shuddered as memories of the thing beyond the icy walls he’d created popped into his mind again. If it weren’t for that state Natsu was in, he’d barely believe it wasn’t some horrible nightmare he’d made up in his mind.
Natsu’s fingers twitched, and all Gray’s attention refocused on him
Gray took a deep breath, watching for another moment before daring to speak, “You alive?” There was no verbal response to his question, and Natsu didn’t move again. Gray sighed, and pulled his knees up to his chest so he could lie his head between his knees. “What am I saying… of course you’re alive…. You’re too much of a fucking cockroach to die.”
Gray didn’t know how long he sat like that in the eerie silence of the seemingly timeless wasteland they’d found themself in, but at some point he began to feel like he was being watched. He did his best to ignore it and to stay as still as possible despite the fact that it had to be all in his head. That thing couldn’t have gotten inside.
That didn’t work for long, and when he looked up, he froze. Natsu was staring right at him, his pupils blown so wide that the green of his iris couldn’t be seen. It’s like he’s looking right through me…
“Natsu-” He barely got his name out of his mouth before the dragon slayer’s eyes widened and he screamed .
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Everything feels wrong.
No matter how hard he tried, Natsu couldn’t move. It was as if he was a passenger in his own body, so when he finally managed to force his eyes open, he’d expected it to be a victory.
It wasn’t.
Blood ran all across the ground in crisscrossing rivers, and they appeared to run off the edge of the world. The deep red sky felt endless and empty in all it’s starless glory, and everything was so cold . He could feel the sticky feeling of blood across his body, and never before had he felt so alone and so helpless.
There’s a skeleton .
It was directly in his line of sight, so he didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it before. It was hunched over with it’s skull between its knees, and there was still flesh clinging to it in places, peeling off slowly and turning to dust as if it were decaying the second it was no longer attached. It oozed pus and blood in the places that there were fractions of muscle left behind, and the fatty tissues around the stomach slowly liquified and slid down between it’s thigh bones. After a while, it moved, and a sinking feeling filled Natsu’s chest.
It wasn’t falling. It was moving like a human being, stepping closer to him, and in one heartstopping moment, its vocal cordless mouth produced his name with Gray’s voice.
The scream tore its way out of his throat before he could stop it, and the minute amount of adrenaline he had produced allowed him to scoot backwards no more than a foot and a half. Blinding pain rippled up his back as he moved, and the scream turned into a pain filled gasp as the air felt like it was leaving his lungs.
It’s touching me! It’s touching me- get off get off get off!
The skeleton had grabbed onto his shoulders tightly, and the feeling of bare bones where there should be hands caused him to choke on his own panicking gasps. Coughing hurt him just as much as moving did. He quickly started to get dizzy again, and before he knew it, he was back in the world of darkness.
I think… I think I’d rather stay here.
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Gray’s hands were shaking, cut he couldn’t get them to stop. Natsu had looked at him as if he were terrified of him.
What the hell happened to him…?
Despite his best efforts, Natsu had passed out again. The second he’d touched his shoulders, Natsu had descended into what looked like a panic attack, but nothing he said or did seemed to get through, and he’d eventually stopped breathing in some desperate attempt to stop choking on his own air. He’d passed out as soon as he’d run out of air, and he was breathing normally now.
“Fucking hell, Natsu…” Gray mumbled. He very carefully turned Natsu back over onto his stomach, finger feeling for any fresh blood on his back. “At least you didn’t tear them back open.” His skin was colder to the touch than it had been before, and worry welled up in Gray’s mind. I don’t know how much sharing body heat would do considering how cold I am, but… He gently pulled Natsu against him anyway.
The silence around them was deafening, but Gray preferred it to the screaming.
Natsu shook and twitched in his sleep, and while seeing him moving around was more of a reminder that he was alive, the movements were extremely unnatural. There were times where he would forcefully curl up or his limbs would jerk, and Gray watched every movement closely.
The second time Natsu awoke was equally as unpleasant as the first. He screamed loudly, his voice cracking and dying out as he broke into sobs. He curled so tightly in on himself that it was stretching the wounds on his back painfully, which in turn only made him curl up more. He dug his dirty fingernails into his arms almost desperately, and Gray had to pry his hands away from his arms. “Natsu- Natsu! You have to focus. You’re fine, you’re okay, but you have to stop that before you hurt yourself.”
Natsu’s sobs were full of panic and pain, and it made them incredibly hard to listen to. Occasionally the sobs were broken up with words in a language Gray didn’t recognize, but any Fiori that came out of his mouth was a jumbled mess, so he assumed it was the same with the mystery tongue.
The mystery babble and the sobbing went on for hours, and Gray had never felt so helpless.
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A few days ago, Earthland:
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The journey from Fairy Tail to Blue Pegasus was three days on foot, four if you took several breaks. That’s why Makarov remained as patient as he could, not wanting to jump ahead of himself, but it was coming up on a week and he hasn’t gotten a single phone call from Master Bob. “Those boys…” He grabbed the pint he’d been given and chugged a bit of it, the annoyance finally starting to show on his face.
Wakaba snorted from beside him, “Day drinking already, Makarov?” His voice was teasing and light hearted, considering he had his own pint in hand as well. “Did Natsu and Gray destroy a town on their little trip?” His jab earned several rounds of laughter from those closest, seeing as that was expected of the boys.
“No. I haven’t heard from them or about them at all,” Makarov responded, “and that worries me a great deal more.” He took another drink, but this one emptied his mug. “Annoying little brats…” Mira took his mug to refill it without being asked, and Makarov couldn’t help but feel as if something had gone wrong.
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When there was still no word by the end of the day, Makarov took the initiative and called Master Bob himself. His friend’s voice broke through the silence of his office after only one ring, “Maki! How are you?”
“I’m doing alright, Bob.” He answered politely, “But I’ve sent Natsu and Gray your way and I’ve heard nothing from them in nearly a week. Have they been by?”
Bob sighed on the other side of the line, the sound itself giving him his answer. “They never showed up here… I can have my maged go out and look for them if you’d like?”
A bittersweet smile stretched across Makarov’s face, “I would appreciate that greatly, my old friend. We’re going to look as well.”
“We’ll find them, Maki.” Bob said cheerfully. “Don’t you worry.”
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Naturally, the dragon slayers were the first to catch the scent. Even though Natsu had the best nose out of the seven of them, their noses were still ten times stronger than a bloodhound’s. The scent trail had been fading for a week though, and that had left it faint and difficult to follow. They were lucky it hadn’t rained since they left, or none of them would have been able to follow the trail.
Several members of Fairy Tail followed closely behind Wendy, Laxus, and Gajeel as they walked the path that Natsu and Gray had taken through the forest. Every now and then someone would break the silence with a joke about how they probably got caught up in a bet, and everyone would laugh.
The laughter died out some when they stepped into a clearing that looked like a tornado went through it.
The ground was ripped up and nothing was left in the ground but the dirt itself. There were rocks embedded in trees as if they’d hit them with massive amounts of force, and the trees themselves were uprooted at impossible angles. Many of them were no longer in the ground at all, and were lying sideways. Splinters of shattered trees were scattered everywhere, and some of the sharper pieces jutted out of the trees the same way the rocks were.
Wendy walked right through the carnage, and to where the smoke and cinnamon and chocolate smell of Natsu met the mint and pine and ice of Gray. She bent down and dug her hands into the dirt, gasping softly when her finger closed around the scale of a very familiar scarf. As he tugged it out of the dirt, it fell apart in her hand, the threads torn to pieces. She bent down to pick up as many of the pieces as she could, and as she dug, her hands closed around the cool metal of a broken chain, and Gray’s necklace came out of the pile with the last of Natsu’s scarf.
“Wendy?” Gajeel shouted from the otherside of the clearing, “did’ya find anything?” In his hands was the box they were supposed to be delivered to Master Bob, or rather, what was left of it. It was in several pieces, held together only by the velvet lining.
She held up the precious items silently, tears welling up in her eyes, “The scent trail stops here.”