With Great Power Comes Great Responsibilty

Chapter 3

As quietly as possible, Natsu followed the suspicious looking individual into the backroom where he saw that had cages and tanks containing various small animals. Birds, rabbits, frogs, snakes, bats, lizards, mice, even some fish.

"I wonder what they're using these animals for." He thought.

Suddenly he was startled by a roar and a hiss. Turning around he saw two large cages: one that contained a komodo dragon and one that contained a sumatran tiger.

"What the hell?" Natsu cried while trying to keep his pounding heart under control.

"Yes sir I'm in."

Natsu heard a voice coming closer. Acting fast, he hid. The voice belonged to the person he was following. A man in a lab coat who was talking on the phone.

"Yes the dragon and the tiger are here...You want me to do what? But isn't that a little risky?...No! No! I haven't forgotten how much you're paying me for this. I'll do it, I just hope you know what you're doing."

He hung up and then he started unlocking the cages containing the komodo dragon and the sumatran tiger.

"Hey what are you doing?" Natsu said.

"Get out of here kid! This none of your business!"

"You're not letting those animals out are you? They could kill somebody!"

Before Natsu could do anything else, he unlocked the cage that held the dragon. The large reptile was released, feeling scared Natsu quickly ran out the background screaming: "Run! Everyone run!"

"Natsu what's wrong?" Gildarts asked.

"This guy in the back! He opened the cages! He let the animals loose! A dragon and a tiger!"

"What?! No!" Acnologia shouted in horror. "My experiment!"

The dragon and the tiger both came running into the room.

"Everybody outside now!" Gildarts shouted.

The students and everyone else there started to scream and run in terror of two predatory animals chasing them. In the mist of the chaos, Lucy tripped in the crowd and fell down. By the time she was able to get up again she found herself face to face with the dragon.

She screamed, Natsu was the only one who noticed. When he saw the komodo dragon open it's large jaws to bite down on Lucy who had become paralyzed with fear. In an instant, Natsu darted toward the dragon and grabbed hold of it's jaw before it could bite her.

"Run Lucy!" He told her. "Run now! Before- Ahh!"

His grip wasn't strong enough and the dragon bit his hand hard. 

"Natsu!" Lucy screamed, horrified.

"I'll be fine! Just go!" He seethed in pain. "I'll be right behind you!"

Believing his words, Lucy got up and ran away. Natsu tried to break loose and follow after her but the dragon's fangs were too strong and the pain was so great that he ended up passing out. The dragon released Natsu's hand and slithered away, apparently he didn't like how Natsu tasted. But the tiger saw him as a free meal. The large feline approached his unconscious body with hungry eyes and his tongue licking his chops. However his impending meal was interrupted by a glass test tube being thrown at him by Gray.

"Hey! Over here!" He shouted trying to get it's attention. "Here kitty, kitty. Come and get me!"

The tiger forgot about Natsu immediately and it lunged for Gray. He tried to dodge it's attacks the best he could but the tiger managed to scratch his arm. Gray fell down, clutching his bleeding arm in pain and closing his eyes as he prepared himself for what seemed to be the end of his life. It wasn't until he heard the sound of a gun shot being fired that he opened his eyes again and he saw the tiger lying dead on the floor. At the door of the lab was a group of police men who had shot the tiger and then quickly shot the dragon when they saw it heading for an open window. 

Gray and Natsu were taken to the ambulance that arrived only moments after the police did. Both young men were taken to the hospital and their families were called immediately. Natsu's father rushed to the hospital faster than a speeding bullet but Gray's father didn't come or rather he couldn't come. 

Gray's parents weren't in his life anymore. He was just eight years old when his mother and father died in plan crash while traveling back from a second honeymoon. With no other living realtives, he was placed in the care of his mother's older sister Ur Milkovich who had been rasing him as her own ever since. She happened to live next door to the Dragneel family so Igneel had her travel with him to the hospital in his car. She found her precious nephew sitting on a hospital bed with his arm bandaged. 

"Oh Gray are you alright?" She said embracing him.

"I'm okay Aunt Ur."

"Is anything broken? Do yu have a fever? Are you going blind?"

"Aunt Ur it's just a scratch. There's nothing wrong with me. In fact there sending me home tonight."

"Oh thank goodness."

He couldn't blame his aunt for being in such a panic whenever he got hurt or sick. After all, he was the only family she had left. To this day he still remembered when he found out about what happened to his parents.

He had just come home from school, all excited about seeing his parents again after being apart from them for a whole week. Just before they left, he had begged his parents to take him with them because he didn't want to spend a whole week without them. Of course they told him no but they promised him that if he was a good boy while staying with his aunt then as soon as they came back they would spend the whole day together doing his favorite things.

He walked through the door of his aunt's house, feeling so happy but he saw his aunt sitting on the couch weeping.

"What's wrong Auntie?" He asked. "Why are you crying?"

She wiped away her tears and gathered up her strength.

"Come here Gray. We need to talk."

He was in tears before she could even finish telling him the awful news. She spent the whole night rocking the crying boy like he was a newborn baby and wiping his eyes and nose with tissues. It took a year for them to finally move on and Gray was so grateful to his aunt for caring for him that he would do anything for him.

"How's Natsu?" She asked.

"I don't know. The doctors say that he's still out cold. I hope that lizard to get him infected with venom."

Natsu had been infected with something but it wasn't venom and Gray had also been infected. They didn't know it yet but the animals that had attacked them were no ordinary animals.