When Worlds Collide

Chapter 1

Our story begins in The Lazan City where there once lived a man called Igneel who was so poor that he could hardly maintain himself and his family, which consisted only of his wife and his son Natsu. He was a hard-working man who's only desire was to provide for his family. Then one sad day Igneel and his wife fell victim to an dreadful epidemic that they eventually perished from, leaving their son an orphan. Poor Natsu had tried to survive by doing honest work like his late father but it always ended in failure either due to employers being too poor to hire him, or because they thought that he was just a dirty, good for nothing low-life who would only rob them once their back was turned.

People with more money or a higher status were always looking  down on him. Treating him like he was some kind of loathsome vermin who needed to be squashed or kicked away. He spent every day of his life being cursed at and spat on, and was never given a chance to be better than what he was. So he eventually came to the conclusion that if he couldn't live on honest work, he had have to steal to get by. Which he wasn't particularly fond of but a guy's gotta eat and he only stole food. He never took anything else.

Over the years, he grew up into a very clever and resourceful man with a good heart and a very strong, muscular, build. He was optimistic, friendly, and euphoric, yet also very insecure. He was what many would call a diamond in the rough, meaning that underneath all the ragged clothes and humble appearance, there was potential for greatness. He just needed the right motive to spur him into reaching that greatness, and that's what the first part of this stories within a story is about.

"Get out of here you rotten thief!" A vender shouted as he roughly tossed Natsu out on the street. "If I ever catch you trying to steal from me again, you'll pay with your life!"

"Hey! Take it easy!" Natsu quickly picked himself up off the ground. "I wasn't doing anything wrong."

"Oh so you're not just a thief, but a liar as well!"

"You know if this is how you treat your customers, I'll just take my business else where!"

"Business?! Ha! What a laugh!" He cackled. "You don't have a dime to your name and you never will! You're nothing but a thieving, flea-bitten, street rat!"

Natsu flinched at the insult. Street rat. If there was one name Natsu hated, that was it.

"Get out of here, you filthy, lowly- Ow!"

Suddenly the vender was bitten hard on the ankle by a blue alley cat. This cat was Natsu's only friend in the whole world, he had found him as kitten alone in the alley, half-starved and homeless. Empathizing with the orphaned creature, Natsu nursed him back to health and raised him into adulthood. Once the cat was fully grown, Natsu allowed him to leave because as the saying goes, "If you love something, set it free." However, "If it comes back then it's yours." And the cat did come back, he had grown to love Natsu so much that he never wanted to be apart from him. This made Natsu so happy that he actually named the feline Happy and since then, the two of them were as thick as thieves. Literally.

"Perfect timing Happy, as usual." He smiled at his companion.

Happy purred at the compliment.

"Wretched little beast!" The vender kicked Happy away, enraging Natsu.

"Hey! No one does that to my pal!"

He punched the vender in the face, grabbed Happy, and ran off as fast as he could. Ran before the vender would recover from the attack, call the guards, and have Natsu's hands cut off. Quite an extreme penalty for petty theft, but the punishments in Lazan City had always been brutal. Sometimes, downright unreasonable.

"You okay Happy?" He asked the cat, while checking him for injuries.

Happy nodded.

"Good, and because you were injured on the job." From his pocket, Natsu produced a loaf of bread that he had managed to swipe from the vender's stand and broke it in two. "You get the bigger half of breakfast."