Fairy Tail - Twilight Empire

Chapter 122 - Zeref

Natsu landed, softly, in a forest of dark, crooked trees. None of them had any leaves or really any signs of life. Most still had a somewhat healthy thickness to them, but a few looked ready to topple over with a strong enough sneeze.

Happy rested on Natsu's shoulder, just as he had when they were yanked into whatever that portal was. Natsu looked around. No signs or scents of any wizards. Someone clearly wanted his attention.

"Alright, what do you want with me?" Natsu shouted. His voice, for some reason, echoed all around. Happy also searched. When no response came, Natsu shrugged. "Alright, I guess we'll have a look around."

"May as well," Happy said. "This place gives me the creeps."

"Smells awful."

"I can't smell anything."

The forest didn't expand or breathe at all around Natsu and Happy while he walked. The place was the same all around. The skies overhead were blue and a little cloudy. There wasn't a hint of green anywhere. This wasn't the forest they'd attacked and, in fact, didn't have the smell or feel of any place Natsu had been before.

It was all just...sad. Like the trees didn't smell rotten, they simply smelled aged and withered, lacking any of the sweet scents their leaves might have. No more sap, no more bark with any energy in it.

The ground underneath Natsu was where all the dead leaves had fallen. Some of them had turned black, but not from anything growing on them.

He looked for a clearing to get a better view of the forest, but none came. There were hardly any good hiding spots, too. Whoever it was that brought Natsu to the forest was already gone, or had just cast some sort of spell to drag him away.

"Maybe I can get a better look at things from above," Happy said.

"Good idea, let me know what you find."

Happy nodded and spread his wings. However, as he leaped, he fell right back down into Natsu's arms.

"Fly, Happy, come on."

Happy jumped, and again, nothing.

"I can't!"

"What do you mean you can't?"

"I mean, my magic isn't working, Natsu!"

"No magic?"

Natsu charged a ton of magic into his fist, and released...nothing. It all stayed there, stuck, unable to be cast out of the magic circle. No magic circle even appeared.

"That's weird."

"Maybe we're in a forest of Bane particles or something."

"But it doesn't smell like that," Natsu said. "Or feel like it. That stuff hurts, don't it?"

"Where the heck are we?" Happy cried.

Natsu shook his head. "I don't know, and that's really starting to piss me off. We have to keep looking around, I guess."

Happy clung to Natsu's shoulder, and their walk began anew.

He paused, after a while, at a tree that finally stood out because of the marking engraved in it: the Fairy Tail emblem, worn and faded into the bark of a dead tree. Natsu ran his hands over it. The tree, it felt, tried to come back to life over it, but didn't have the strength. The emblem would be there, forever, until the tree finally turned back to dust.

Still, there was something familiar about the feel of the emblem, the touch of the tree. Like a power he'd sensed before, but couldn't quite put a finger on it.