Fairy Tail: The Phoenix Prophecy [AU] [Discontinued]

Chapter Twenty-Five

[A/N]: Has anyone here ever seen the Back at The Barnyard movie? You know with the coyotes trying to steal the chickens and the badass cow Ben? Well, I found the song he sang yesterday and I just couldn't help but think this fits this chapter so well. So yeah. Enjoy! I plan for there to be roughly five more chapters left of this book maximum, so let's see if I can beat it! The next 2-3 chapters after this will face solely on the war and then I'll wrap things up. 

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     The moment the line cut off, an uneasy tension filled the room. Natsu and Zeref exchanged fearful glances, their breathing caught in their throats as something sickly began filling their guts. What was it? Worry? Guilt? Anger? Sadness? Hopelessness? Helplessness? Whatever it was, Natsu wanted nothing more than the burn the feeling away, to breathe out the rage he withheld in a blazing torrent of flames. Natsu hadn't realized he had shifted back into his dragon form until he found himself roaring at the top of his lungs, the walls quaking and the stones beneath his talons shattering under the weight of his hold.

    "Natsu! Calm down!" Lucy called up to him, but he barely heard her. Instead, he raised his fist and punched a hole in the wall, his tail lashing and demolishing anything in its path. 

    "This can't be! Igneel can't be dead! My dad couldn't die! He's too strong for that!" Natsu bellowed, resorting to head budding another wall when the one he broke down was nothing but crumbs on the floor. The image of a black dragoness lying lifelessly in a puddle of blood came to mind. her throat torn to expose the soft flesh and bloody mass in between. Her once vibrant eyes gazing into nothing. It hurt him, the though of his father ending up like his mother. What a terrible fate.

     Memories of his father, Igneel, filled his mind, reminding him of the dragon he came to know. He remembered Igneel being the first face he ever knew as a dragonet, he remembered all those stories his father would tell him, how he would often give fatherly advice to his son. But above all, Natsu remembered the smile his father often wore no matter the circumstance. He smiled when he faced a political crisis, he smiled when Zeref or Natsu would come crying to him and how he'd point out the absurdity of the situation, and how he'd even smiled when mother died, and when Natsu told his father he could hardly remember his mother, Queen Qendreth's face.

     King Igneel's ability to smile was Natsu's drive to becoming a better dragon, a better king, because he wanted to smile shamelessly like that.

     A pair of scaly arms caught Natsu's, and the pink dragon turned around, spitting in rage, only to have his face shoved into the loving embrace of his brother. The black dragon held the smaller pink one, and kept a vice-like grip on him even as Natsu began bucking against him.

    "Calm down, Natsu," Zeref warned softly, and Natsu hissed in response.

    "He killed them! First mom, and now dad? Why? What did we ever do to deserve this? Why is any of this even happening?" Slowly, Natsu melted into his brother's embrace, large tears slipping down his cheeks and against Zeref's shoulder, but they went unnoticed as he and Zeref crumpled to their knees, the two brothers clinging on to each other as if for dear life. "I just want to go home. I don't want to do this anymore..."

    "I know, me neither," Zeref agreed, "but that's exactly why we need to keep going. To stop this, get it done and over with, so we can go home. Together."

     Natsu shook his head. "I don't want to fight you for the throne, big brother. I don't want to be king either. I just want things to go back the way they used to be."

     Zeref didn't know what to say to that. For as long as he could remember, Natsu had been the more determined of the two to be the king of the Western Kingdom, often going about with his friends and telling them to call him "King Natsu". Claimed it had a nice ring to it. Zeref was obviously the more suited of the two, but if he didn't hear it for himself he probably wouldn't have believed that Natsu just said that he didn't want to be king anymore. This was unlike him, and honestly quite scary.