Chapter One

Drowning in Fire

"You stupid meat-headed idiot! Why do you have to strike first and ignore everything around you?"

Natsu stared at Gray and wondered exactly what he'd done so wrong. No one got really hurt, in fact, he was the only one that had been in any danger. He did get hurt a little, he guessed as he stared at the gash that was still oozing blood on his arm. It wasn't like they couldn't handle a B rank mission easily enough. He had no idea why Gray was so mad at him, but he was furious. He hadn't even stripped.

"I… I mean, I didn't…" Natsu stammered, staring at him.

The mission was simple, or at least it should have been. And Natsu had been in a really hyper mood, which wasn't all that unusual, but today he had a lot of excess energy. There was a reason, and he could have just explained it to Gray but that would have been embarrassing. Gajeel would have understood, and he would probably go talk to him when he got back to the guild. He needed to deal with this, because as far as he knew, only dragon slayers had this problem. There was no way he was going to tell Gray why he was trying to stay so busy and why it was he kept putting distance between them. When he got near to Gray it got worse, and he was going to end up attacking his best friend. He would have to figure out exactly what he could do to stop this. Gajeel or Porlyusica would be the only two who might know, though.

"I don't think it was that serious, Gray," Lucy said, frowning at him, then looking at Natsu. "I mean, he couldn't have known that the guy was waiting behind the building like that."

"He should have damn well followed the plan and let us figure out what was happening first instead of barging around the corner like that! What would have happened if he'd stabbed you through the chest when you came down? Huh? Where would you be, Natsu?" Gray stepped toward him and Natsu stepped back, both hands coming up over his chest as he stared at him. He was so angry for such a small thing, but why? "You are a bloody idiot and you're going to end up getting yourself or someone else killed like this! Sometimes you are so useless for some powerful dragon-slayer! I don't know why the hells I put up with this out of you!" Gray turned away from him and Natsu felt something crack in his heart. He turned away…he really turned away…

It wasn't like they didn't argue a lot, but for some reason Natsu had to get away from him. He felt tears and that was unusual. He felt one slip down his cheek before he turned and took off at full speed. He had to get away. There was no way he could stand being near Gray right now, not after he turned away. He didn't understand it, but this was the first time, and he knew it was the dragon traits coming to the surface. He knew what was happening, and it didn't help one bit because he couldn't tell Gray why it was he was acting out around him. He couldn't tell him he had a need to show off, to show him how good he was, how strong and how much he wanted to be noticed. Gray wouldn't see him that way and this was the proof.

He had been rejected and that alone was something he couldn't stand to deal with until this time was over. Rejection by the one he'd chosen was almost worse than death to a dragon. Or dragon slayer.

As he ran he thought that maybe it was dumb that he hadn't explained that this was the first time the dragon mating season had affected him like this. Before, he'd felt it, but he had expected to want to take a female mate like Gajeel did. That had solved Gajeel's problems with the same thing. When mating season hit, he just had to hole up in his room with Levy. But no, Natsu had to be the submissive dragon type and in need of someone to mate him instead of the other way around. He was still angry about that. Why did he have to be in this position? He was powerful, he was strong, but he remembered what he'd been told. Power didn't matter. It was a matter of matching mates who suited each other, and Natsu knew he needed help controlling his own power. He needed Gray's ice to offset the fire that was threatening to consume him from the inside out. He didn't know why, but Igneel always told him he wasn't like "the humans" and he didn't know for sure if that meant he wasn't human or what. He felt it was exactly that, but he had never investigated it.

He stopped when he heard a little girl screech nearby. He ran a hand through his mussed pink hair and straightened the scarf. He could do this. He could help someone despite the fact his mind was burning with thoughts of someone who had turned away from him. No, he could be the person he always was and damn the draconic instincts that were trying to consume him. He took off in that direction to find a child of about seven who looked to have fallen in a small pit trap. She was standing in the center, somehow looking to be unscathed. She clutched a doll in her arms with brown hair and button eyes. He frowned, climbing down and pushing her out of it. She crawled up easily once he gave her a boost and then came back to the edge. She wore a ragged dress and was obviously a local child. Natsu smiled at her and started to reach up to grab the sides and hoist himself out. Before he could climb out himself there was a zapping sound and he looked up to see the little blonde-haired child staring at him with tearful eyes.

"Sorry, Dragon-man. They said they'd take my big brother away if I didn't help them."

Then everything went black.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"He's not back yet?" Gray muttered as they sat down at the guild.

"You were too hard on him," Erza said as she sipped a drink. "He wasn't that badly hurt."

Gray sighed. "I know. I'll apologize when he gets here…" he said morosely.

"Gray-sama!" he heard and groaned. He didn't want to deal with Juvia. "Gray-sama, you're back safe! And without Natsu?" she asked as she approached the table. "Did something bad happen?"

"He's on his way back, he just stopped off to do something else," Lucy said with a smirk. She had a worried expression but she didn't want to tell Juvia something she didn't need to know. "He'll be along soon."

"Oh, well, Gray-sama…" she began again.

Standing up, Gray shook his head. "I've got things to take care of Juvia, I'll talk to you later," he murmured and left them alone.

When Natsu didn't come home that night, everyone figured he'd stayed in an inn.

When he didn't come home by the end of the week, Gray decided to backtrack and see if he could find him. Surely, he was between here and where the mission had been. No one was really worried yet. He stood at the bar and waited for Lucy and Erza to come down.

"What are you doing?" Gray looked up to see that it was Gajeel.

"Going to see if I can't find Natsu. He still hasn't come back," Gray answered.

Happy was sitting beside him. "He's just mad because you were mean to him!"

"Natsu wouldn't run away because I was mad at him!" Gray snapped. "I've said worse things and even punched that pink-haired idiot! It isn't like he's going to run off crying."

"But he did run off crying, Gray! Didn't you see?" Happy pleaded, hanging on Gray's arm.

"Wait, when did he disappear?" Gajeel asked, his face turning a bit strange.

Lucy had just walked up when Gajeel spoke, so she answered. "A week ago, when we were on that B-rank mission a few towns to the north. Why does that matter? He just got upset because Gray was a little harsh when he got hurt because he was showing off for some reason."

"I know the reason he was showing off," he muttered then looked up at them. A frown creased his brows. "Because there's a reason I wasn't on missions last week. It was the beginning of the season," Gajeel said as Levy came up and smiled at him. He put an arm around her and pulled her tight against him. "Levy and I were spending some time together to deal with it."

"Season?" Lucy asked, checking over her celestial keys. "What kind of season?"

Levy snickered. "Dragon mating season, silly," she whispered. "Dragon slayers feel it too, and the more powerful they are, the more they feel it. Gajeel is powerful, older than Natsu. I'm sure as much power as he's gained recently that Natsu was starting to feel it this year."

Erza had come up by then and heard Levy's comment. "Dragon slayers feel the effects of the mating season?"

"Of course," Gajeel said with a shrug. "More powerful we are the more we need to indulge in the primal instincts of the dragons. So, for about a week or two every year, we fuck our brains out."

Levy blushed and slapped Gajeel's arm. "Shush, not so loud."

"You were pretty damn loud last night," he muttered and looked away.

"That's because you're beastly during the season!"

"What does that matter as to why Natsu's gone? Do you think he would have found a girl and locked himself into an inn?" Gray asked, thinking that that would entirely be out of character for him. He actually had never shown much interest in girls at all. Hell, he snuck into bed with Lucy and slept all the time but he'd never once tried to touch her in a sexual way. That was odd, Gray had always thought, but he assumed it had something to do with him being a dragon slayer.

Gajeel snorted out loud and then laughed for a few minutes before he wiped the tears away. "You got the wrong idea about Natsu. He won't take a woman, and not only that, it can't just be anyone. We mate once, that's it. If it isn't in mating season, we can fuck like anyone else and it doesn't matter. But during mating season we have one we pick out, and if they reject us then we're kind of screwed. We get our hearts set on them and that's that. Rejected slayers can find a substitute, but it isn't ever the same. We always pine for the one we loved. I was lucky when Levy returned my affection."

"So, did Natsu have someone picked that he wanted?" Gray asked, missing completely the look of abject annoyance on Erza's face. Lucy glanced at her and shook her head.

Makarov wandered toward them with his hands tucked behind his back. "You should try and find him soon. I have a bad feeling about the situation."

Gray and the others left to find him, sure that it would take no time at all. They found several towns around the area that said there had been some strange weather going on, and the group thought that was extremely odd. The weather had been clear in Magnolia, and to have an area nearby see strange storms… No one was able to find much of a trace at first.

After a month of searching with no results they started to worry about what might have happened. Natsu was known for being flashy and not hiding himself. If he was able, he would make a scene to attract attention. Still, no one had seen the pink-haired dragon slayer no matter where they looked. Finally, they found a man who said there was a strange hole that had been filled in recently in the nearby forest. It was close enough to where they had been doing the mission that it was a place that Natsu could have easily ran to in his escape from Gray's anger. They stood at the end of that month over a filled in pit trap. The magic, though faded, was still present. Gajeel and Makarov had come to see what Lucy had found.

"That's a dragon binding spell," Gajeel said as he knelt beside the filled in hole. "And this is the last trace of Natsu's magic you found?"

"This isn't good. I heard a rumor from Pegasus that there was a dark guild that was dedicated to dragons, but more like obsessed with them. If this guild got hold of Natsu…" Makarov said with a frown. "We need to continue looking. I'll call in Pegasus and the others. I'm worried more now than ever."

A year passed, and everyone was slowly giving up. All except Gray. He kept spending all of his free time searching for him, and then slowly began to search out any trace of dark guilds. By the time nearly five years had passed, Gray Fullbuster was known as the Bane of Dark Guilds and the Ice Avatar. He scaled the ranks of power until he was perhaps one of the strongest S-ranked mages in Fairy Tail, and perhaps the entire country. Lucy and Erza had also come a long way, going with Gray on his mission to eradicate every dark guild they came across in hopes that it was the dark guild. Erza was well known as one of the most powerful S-ranked mages in the world by that point, and Lucy's collection of celestial keys had only grown. She, too, had become more powerful, and an S-rank mage.

No one expected that their search would come to an end when a teenager came screaming into the guild claiming a dragon lived in a tower outside a nearby town. The stranger part was the teen claimed that this tower had just appeared there three weeks before.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Natsu woke up slowly. He felt weird, and he didn't know why. He blinked his eyes wearily and realized that he was chained by his wrists to the wall behind him and he was completely naked except for Igneel's scarf and some sort of metal collar. He gasped out and wriggled his arms and tried to access his magic. He was hit with immense pain, though, when he tried.

"Don't do that," a voice from the darkness that surrounded him.

Natsu looked around and realized he was in a round room of some sort, and there were windows, both looking out into a clear sky. The walls were stone and so was the floor. There was a light, just one, in the center of the room in a stand, and the person moved into the circle of it. It was a man with dark gray hair and a full beard. On his forehead was a strange symbol that looked like a crescent moon upside down with a spear piercing it. A guild? No… A dark guild?

"Welcome to our guildhall, Natsu Dragneel. You were a lucky find. We've had that trap set for years, but you are the first dragon slayer to come this way during that time. Thank you for that," the man said.

"Who are you? Where am I? Where are my clothes?" Natsu asked, looking for anything else that could give him information.

"I'm Trayven. And our guild is named Crescent Spear. We revere the dragons, so much so that we wish to become one with them."

Natsu swallowed thickly. "Um, well, that's great, so go find a dragon."

"You know that is nigh impossible. We'll settle for a dragon slayer. See, we need to use you during our rituals. Well, we need the pheromones you secrete and your raw essence."

"What the hell kind of rituals do you do?" Natsu asked, shocked. What were these people doing and what did 'raw essence' even mean?

"The kind that only work during the dragon mating season. The goal is to attract a dragon, but to do that, we need something that a dragon might find… attractive. Like a dragon in season. But to find one is impossible. So, the next best thing is to take a dragon slayer, slowly make them more like a dragon than a human, then their smell will bring down a very much real dragon. Then, instead of the dragon slayer, we will become one with the dragon and unite with them via the magic ritual we cast. We will become the ultimate magical creature," Trayven said with a smirk. "Does that make sense?"

"No, you're crazy! An actual dragon will kill every one of you, ugh, what…why do I feel weird…"

"Master Trayven, the magic is beginning to work," a voice from the darkness said. "We've increased the effects of the mating season on him with it. I was afraid it would not work effectively, however he appears to have been ripe for the beginning of the season. This is the perfect subject as this is the first time he has needed to feel the effects of the mating. We can begin the next part."

"Release him, then, and bring him downstairs to the ritual circle."

Natsu felt the world spin and tilt as his hands were freed and he was drug down stairs by black cloaked figures before he was dumped in the center of an intricately written circle of spell work. He groaned because he was feeling strange sensations in his body now. The magic was making his head feel strange, and it was stirring sensations in his loins that should not be there. He'd been feeling those same sensations over the last week; he knew they were the effects of the dragon mating season. He had been able to deal with them himself, though he had to keep his chosen mate's face in his mind when he dealt with the urges. He nearly fell into a stupor when he felt hands on his body. Too many, and as he looked up he saw faces, too many faces, and then the one who had identified himself as Trayven was leaning over him, whispering in his ear.

"This will hurt at first, until your human mind decides to recede and allow the dragon to exist purely," he breathed and he realized too late to react what he was going to do, what they intended to do.

Time slid to a stop, and nothing seemed to end the utter pain, humiliation, and horror the dragon slayer felt as things began to unfold. The dragon began pressing into his human form and he screamed himself hoarse trying to force it back. If the dragon came free, if he became that…

The next clear memory he had was waking up in the darkness, his body wracked with pain and chained by the neck to a pole in the center of a circular room. He tried to pull the collar off but it didn't do anything except make him bleed. He could walk a circle around the room, and he could feel with his bare feet a trap door on the floor. He could reach all the walls and found no way out. There was a nest of sorts on one side, made of straw, hay, and some softer materials. He found a hole in the floor of the other side; a toilet by the smell. What was happening? He would sleep and find food, bread and meat with water, would appear near the nest each morning.

He scratched marks in the wall with is nails, which he noticed were claws more than nails, and he clutched the scarf to his chest as the only source of a comfort he had. The collar was under where the scarf wrapped around his neck and he had no idea why. He just wanted to leave, but he was unable to even see the barest sliver of light. He felt a year's worth of marks before he heard the trap door in the floor open and the world blackened with a blast of magic. He had expected it. He felt the season coming on again, stronger this time than before.

The rituals from the year were repeated, but this time, Natsu felt his mind edging into the draconic mindset even faster. When it was over again, he realized the portions of food began to dwindle. He was still chained in the awful room. Even when they'd removed him, none of them spoke to him or even interacted with him other than to hurt him and force him down. He wept bitterly as he curled into the nest. Where were his friends? Had they just given up on him for dead? A year had passed and now he was alone again. This time, there were gaps in his memories as the next year passed. He only knew a year had passed because the mating season began a third time, and things were repeated. He barely retained memory of it this time, the dragon in him becoming stronger. He didn't notice the horns, or the fact his hands and feet barely resembled their original form. Only the scarf that he was allowed to keep seemed to keep his soul intact.

You have to sleep.

I don't want to sleep. I don't want to disappear.

You won't. I promise. But you cannot endure this any longer. Let me take over. Let me protect you.

You are me, there aren't two of us.

You've gone a bit insane, so we've split apart for now. Your mate will come back.

Why would he want me now?

You will see. He'll take you, even as me.

I don't want to sleep! Please, stop! Don't make me!

"I'm sorry."

No more words escaped Natsu Dragneel's lips, for the creature that now existed in his body was not him, not any longer. To endure, the dragon roared.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"What is that smell?" Lucy gasped as they forced open the door to this strange, black rock tower.

They had confirmed that this place just appeared nearly three weeks before. When it appeared, there had been a strange storm. None of them wanted to get too attached to the idea, but this place was only an hour's walk from the place they believed that had been used to capture Natsu. None spoke even a word about it being possibly connected to their friend that had been gone for just around five years. The tower seemed to have four levels. The top level had no windows, but Happy had gone and looked in the others and found it empty.

Erza wrinkled her nose and approached a closet looking room. "A refuse collection," she muttered. The place smelled also of death and decay for some reason. Fresh death and decay. There were stairs going up in a spiral in the center around a heavy pole. The ground floor was empty, though. They got to the second floor.

"What the hells…" Gray asked, knelling and touching an engraved spell circle. In the center was a man who appeared to have crawling toward the stairs in the center of the room. His blood had filled it the grooves of the spell circle.

"This is amazing," Lucy whispered as she walked around it. "I've never seen something so intricate and large. This was a ritual, not a simple spell."

Erza flipped the man over on his back. He had a guild mark on his forehead of a crescent moon and a spear piercing it. "I've never seen a mark like this. Some sort of dark guild?"

"How'd he die?" Gray asked, looking at the body.

"Throat's torn out. Strange, looks like it was done with claws or teeth," Erza said as she stood up. "There's two more over there," she muttered and went to find that near the window were two other bodies. These both appeared to have bled out slowly near a potion table. "It looks like they were trying to put together healing potions for themselves," she informed the others as she surveyed the table of supplies. "What happened?"

"Whatever it was didn't happen here, so let's go up," Gray said as he headed for the stairs again. They walked up to another room. This one had windows, but there were three men who had died near the stairs. The room had rings embedded in the wall with chains and shackles dangling from them. Gray saw that they hadn't been used in a while, but there was something near them that caught his attention.

Lucy came over to see what Gray had found and he turned and showed her. "Wait, are those Natsu's?" she gasped. Happy fluttered over and sniffed at the clothes.

"Natsu's scent, this is what he was wearing," Happy said fluttering toward the stair.

"Wait, Happy, let us go together." Gray put the clothing in his bag, fear beginning to blossom in his heart. "I think we found the rumored dark guild. They all have the crescent and spear mark on them. But what were they after? And why?"

It was Erza's voice from the other side of the room. "Look, I found something."

Gray lit the torch in the nearby sconce, bringing brighter light into the room. A table sat opposite the chains and on it had been a spell-book. "What do you think it is?"

"Rituals for dragon summoning. Spells for binding dragons to your will. Rituals on how to increase chances of draining away draconic powers. This is definitely the guild that was rumored. The appearances stopped. They must have taken Natsu after all. But here," she said and picked up a scroll. "A ritual to place a location in a pocket dimension. That's why we never could find a trace of this place. They hid it. Everything here is powerful magic. The Guild Master must have been incredibly powerful."

"No," Lucy whispered as she sorted through other books and scrolls. "They weren't, that's why they needed Natsu. They were literally draining his power through a magic inducer. They were using him to power the pocket dimension, like some sort of batter. Here, this is some sort of journal by the guild master," she said handing Gray the book she'd found.

Gray flipped through it to the last entries. "Something is off," Gray read. "The power is fluctuating as the mating season approaches once again. If things do not work this season, as the fifth time we've attempted the ritual, we will discard the subject and seek out a new dragon slayer. His power may be insufficient to complete the summon. Either that, or the subject's own power is blocking our attempts to summon one of the dragons to us. It is possible that the subject is consciously foiling our attempts." Gray flipped the page. "The rituals have failed. Once again, the subject has not yielded results. Today, I'll terminate his life, as much as it is since the dragon was surfaced. What remains is not human enough to bother returning. He will be a menace in his beast state."

Gray handed the book to Erza who began looking through it again. "I'm going up," he said as he took the stairs. Happy started to follow. Gray stopped him. "You shouldn't go, okay, Happy?"

"Why not?" he pleaded.

"Stay here with Lucy, protect her, okay?" Erza said as she gave Lucy the book. "Just in case things are bad."

Gray felt like his stomach had been split open, again. He had large scar there from the attempt of an enemy to disembowel him. Luckily, his ice magic had shored his gut until he could get to Lucy. Along with that, he bore a long scar down the left side of his face. He got to the top and found a trap door of some sort that was sealed with magic. He easily unsealed it and pushed it open. When he did, he heard the sound of something scrambling on the hard floor.

"Natsu?" he whispered, his heart pounding in his ears. There was another sound of scrambling. It sounded like claws on rock. Gray could see torch in a sconce nearby and reached out to take it, grabbing it and lighting it.

The room was illuminated. This one was windowless and smelled horrid. Decay and death clung to it, as well as just the smell of filth. He saw rats scurry away, and just beyond the light, he saw there was a pile of hay or straw. He could see a chain leading from the pole in the room in that direction. He heard it jangle now and then and he walked toward it.

Glad that he had Erza was an understatement because as soon as he got close, something flew out of the darkness toward him, tackling him to the floor. Erza was fast, though, grabbing the chain and pulling back and Gray found himself staring into eyes that were definitely not human any longer. In fact, he wasn't sure what he was looking at.

Holding the chain, Erza pulled back, the creature that was attached to it fighting her and trying to escape the light into the darkness again.

"Natsu…oh…" Gray said as he stared.

He looked only vaguely like the humanoid dragon slayer. Horns had erupted from his skull, curling up and down toward his now raggedly pointed ears. His face was covered in reddish patches of scales. His whole body was covered with bits of scaling, and his hands and feet had both morphed into claws rather than their intended human appearance. From his shoulder blades, it looked like there were protrusions that were not quiet wings, more like bones that had erupted and never completed their transformation. His face was still somewhat human looking, but his teeth were jagged and feral. His eyes were bright golden and reptilian in appearance. A long, sinewy tail had emerged from him and whipped around frantically. Yet, despite all that, around the collar of metal that bound him to the chain, the scale patterned white scarf still remained.

"Natsu!" Gray screamed this time grabbing him by the face. He winced as he buried both clawed hands in Gray's shoulders. When Erza tried to intercede, Gray shook his head at her. "Natsu, look at me, are you in there?" he asked.

For a second, Natsu's eyes flickered, and his mouth worked for a second before he whispered hoarsely, "Gray…"

At the word, Natsu's face contorted and his eyes closed. Gray clutched him tightly as he fell into heavy unconsciousness.