Wheels of Fire

Igneel

A/N: For present day readers, please realize that this chapter was written in 2014. Many things have happened in the manga between then and now.

If you want to know what Edo-Igneel looks like, that's him up above. Years ago I drew a (really ugly and crappy) picture for a DeviantArt contest that could either be old-Natsu or Edo-Igneel. (He's wearing the scarf, but whatever.)

Cat Goliath gave me the idea that Edo-Igneel might have retired from race car driving to become a glassblower, and since I love watching glassblowers at work, I simply had to use that idea.

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Natsu followed a familiar scent. It was not totally the same. There was a smell of grease and sand mixed with it, less char and sulfur. However, the underlying smell was unmistakable. This was definitely Igneel's scent.

He saw a cabin up ahead in the Edolas desert, a strange building that appeared to be made from glass bottles and clay. To the side was a shed, and Natsu heard humming from there, as well as the unmistakable sound of a roaring fire. The air grew hotter as Natsu slowly approached the shed.

"If you take a step closer, you'll die. I'm not joking."

Natsu froze mid-step and slowly put his foot back in place. Igneel also used to set up traps around his cave to stop people from reaching their home, although none of his would have killed a person, just scorched them a little.

Soon, a man rounded the corner, and Natsu's mouth dropped. If ever he had wanted to know how he might look in another thirty years, this man was it. He had the same sharp green eyes and wild pink hair, but there were silver strands at the temples. His stubble was gray, he had creases around his eyes, and a scar ran down one eye and across the upper cheek. Otherwise, to Natsu, it was like looking at himself from the future.

The man's eyes narrowed. "Natsu?" he whispered. When he grinned and roared out a laugh, there was no mistaking that this was Edolas' version of Igneel. He had the same laugh. "Natsu! Dear heavens, you've really grown. Okay, take three steps to the left, walk straight to the cactus, sharp right and walk to the blue rock, then ... oh, you should know how I set up my traps!" he chuckled nostalgically.

"Who can remember that far back?" Natsu muttered, but he saw the boot prints in the sand and followed those, weaving through what he assumed were booby traps. Finally, he made it to the shed. "Are you ... really ... Igneel?"

"What are you saying?" the man laughed, and he grabbed Natsu into a crushing hug. "Don't you recognize your old man?"

"Well, you see..."

"Come here, come here," he urged, pulling Natsu into the shed. "After magic went away, I couldn't drive, and I had to make money somehow. Remember that weirdo glassblower we swindled? Well, I still had his old equipment. Doesn't take any magic, but it's hard work. Anyway, I started making these." He held up a perfectly round glass ball. "Pretty, right? I call them Dragon Pearls."

Natsu jolted. "Dragon?"

"They're filled with a special gas. Set them out in the sun, they charge up, and when night comes, these babies glow as bright as the old lacrima bulbs used to. This is high science, breakthrough technology in the harnessing of chemical compounds, and guaranteed to last a lifetime. They're in high demand. Large corporations have bought them by the hundreds to light up their buildings that went dark after magic vanished."

"Wow!" Natsu cried out, holding up a glass globe. "They really work?"

"Of course not," Edo-Igneel laughed. "Sheesh, even you fell for that lame sales pitch? You should know me better than that. Science!" he laughed. "Like I know the first thing about chemistry. I made a killing selling these Dragon Pearls with that same sales pitch."