With Great Power Comes Great Responsibilty

Chapter 1

College. It's supposed to be the beginning of a person's journey toward independence—or at least, that's how I saw it. A fresh start. A chance for me and my friends to make our own decisions about life. At first, that sounded exciting—fun, even—until I realized just how hard making real life choices could be.

Oh, right. You probably want to know who I am.

I'm Natsu Dragneel—just your average, ordinary college freshman... or at least, that's what I thought I was. Then something incredible happened. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Every great story starts at the beginning, and like most people, my life had pretty humble origins.

I was born nineteen years ago in a small-town hospital. My dad, Igneel Dragneel, was a local mechanic—honest, hardworking, always smelling like motor oil and burnt rubber.

Money was always tight for us. As a kid, I'd hear my parents argue constantly about it. How much they made, how much they lost, how much they owed in taxes, bills, groceries—you name it. Mom blamed Dad for everything. One day, it became too much for her, and she left. Just like that.

I'll never forget the morning after.

I was six years old. I had just gotten up and walked downstairs for breakfast. Instead, I found Dad sitting by the front door, crying. I'd never seen him cry before.

"Dad?" I asked.

At the sound of my voice, he looked up. His eyes were red, tears streaming down his face.

"Dad, why are you crying?" I asked. Then I noticed something. We were alone. "Where's Mom?"

He didn't answer. He just stood up, wrapped me in a hug, and broke down all over again.

"I'm sorry," he kept saying. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's all my fault."

He repeated it like a broken record. Back then, I didn't understand. Not really. But as I got older, I realized—he blamed himself for her leaving. But I never did. It was her choice. He didn't force her to walk away.

From that day forward, it was just the two of us. And he did everything he could to raise me right.

Things started to change when I hit high school. That's where I met my first real best friend: Gray Fullbuster.

Believe it or not, we met in a janitor's closet—duct-taped together by a bunch of bullies. While we waited for the janitor to come rescue us, we started talking. Turned out we had a lot in common. We were both favorite targets for the school's resident assholes, we were both science nerds—he was into biology and anatomy, I preferred physics and chemistry—and we each had just one parent in our lives. Oh, and we both had the worst luck with girls.

Naturally, we became best buds for life.

Sure, we didn't always get along. We fought—a lot. But we shared everything: classes, problems... even the same crush.

Her name was Lucy Heartfilia.

To me, she was perfect. Popular, smart, funny, kind—everything. And even though she was part of the "in crowd," she actually saw me. Me. The school's biggest loser. No one besides Gray ever paid me a second of attention... but Lucy did. She talked to me like I mattered. She stood up for me when the bullies turned me into their punching bag. But someone like me—or Gray—didn't stand a chance with someone like her.

So now you know my backstory. My family. My best friend. My hopeless crush.

Now comes the part where Gray and I ended up sharing way more than any best friends ever should.

It all started on a college field trip to the lab of Dr. Acnologia Kingston...