Chapter Three
Defeat
'Kill her! Tear her to pieces, burn her to ash, devour her soul!' The voice inside Natsu's head screamed at him. The pure manifestation of E.N.D. was awake once again like he always was whenever Natsu got into a fight that truly thrilled him. There was always the downside of finding a strong opponent, that being Natsu having to fight off his darkness as well as his enemy.
E.N.D was always there, but he was silent, watching through the bars of his mental cage in complete silence, except for the midst of battle, that was when the Demon yearned to be free. If there was an opponent that Natsu found worthy then so did E.N.D.
There was no way that Natsu was about to give in to temptation, to let the darkness cover his eyes anymore. He was Natsu Dragneel and it had been nearly three hundred years since he had been E.N.D, but the presence was always there, and Natsu was well aware of that.
Sword after sword after sword was thrust at his face and body. He only managed to narrowly avoid them all with inches to spare as his flames eagerly licked around the blades and danced rhythmically through the air towards the Fairy Queen whose own enjoyment was starting to push through.
'Kill the Angel before she enslaves us Natsu. The light isn't as good as you think.' E.N.D rampaged once again. It wasn't out of the ordinary that he would become immensely vocal throughout a fight, but it was strange that he would refer to Natsu as a singular and then to themselves as one, but that was what he was, it was what they were. Two sides of the same coin both fighting for dominance.
Fire burned around Natsu's entire body when he jumped back and his senses went into overdrive. From beneath the ground he'd been standing, a sword jutted up through the earth. It looked taxing on her, but she had been able to summon a sword through the ground to try and cut him down from below. "Cheeky." He laughed quietly before backing up even further, fists flying around the swords that she held.
"Fire Dragon Iron Fist!" Erza braced herself just in time for Salamander's fist to punch straight into her crossed forearms. The force sent her reeling back for the second time that day.
"The stories about you aren't all that exaggerated I see." Erza groaned under her breath. He was a monster. All that strength and power, how it could fit into such a young-looking body was beyond her. That being said, his body while looking amazingly youthful and prime, was stacked with incredibly lean muscles that were almost glistening in the sunlight. At least she was making him work for it.
"Oh, you've heard stories about me? Have you heard the one about how I'm being considered to be a candidate for a Wizard Saint?" Natsu asked her, loving the way that she granted him with her full focus and even more.
"Y-you, what!?" Erza stared in astonishment, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with the task before her.
"It's not true, but if I start those rumours and get the attention of the council, well..." Salamander shrugged gleefully. It took a split-second for everything to change. All Erza could see was something no longer even remotely Human, no... This was something straight out of a nightmare. There he stood with hellfire raining down around him, setting the world alight in a blazing inferno of sheer destruction.
"I'll show them just how powerful the Salamander truly is." His voice was dark, filled to the brim with promises of pain and death. Despite his threatening words and the envision of darkness that cloaked him and blocked out the rest of the world, the thing that had immediately seared itself into Erza's brain was the way that he looked at her.
The dark onyx eyes were ablaze with vibrant shades of orange and red and even some touches of white in his irises. The narrow eyes of a Dragon were staring out at her. She was entirely too aware of the fact that in his terrifying eyes, there was nothing else but her. Prey.
She forced herself to be ripped from the dark nightmare that he was subconsciously casting over her. She felt a sudden burst of power erupt from within, there was no way that she was letting this monster burn down her Guild. With everything she had at her current disposal, she closed the distance between them and swiped at the skies with all of her swords, flinging him high above.
She'd been expecting him to flip back and land some distance away from her, what she hadn't been expecting was for him to expel jets of fire from the soles of his feet and hands to guide him to the roof of the Guild.
The bastard merely urged her to join him above the ground, not bothering to set a single finger against the Guild itself. Perhaps he was a man who stuck true to his word despite the way that she was sure he was anything but a good man. If he wasn't intending on burning their Guild and she could beat him, then Fairy Tail could take down the dark Guild that hired him, and possibly the Salamander at the same time, if they could get the council to catch him in the act of decimating the Dark Guild.
Only time would tell as their fierce fight raged on, being seen by the eyes of not only the Guild members but also two others who sat in a clean office in the tower of the magic council. Through the orb that sat comfortably upon a mahogany desk, two members of the magic council watched as the famed Salamander fought tooth and claw with Fairy Tail's Erza Scarlet, both of them being needed to act as pawns in a much greater game.
"He's holding back a great margin of power, but why?" Siegrain asked himself, totally uncaring of the other council member sitting opposite him, looking entirely bored with her situation.
Ultear barely held back a yawn. "Salamander is off limits." She reminded him quietly. Whether Siegrain heard her or simply ignored her, he granted her with no response. His eyes were firmly fixed on the fight in the orb.
"Fine, but I want him to be at the Tower of Heaven just to make things interesting. Make arrangements to have him destroy whatever guild hired him to take out Fairy Tail. Make it messy, make it public. I need word of him taking a contract at the Tower to reach both the Fairy Tail mages and any other interested parties." Siegrain muttered casually, already planning out how he was going to inadvertently use Salamander to rally more pawns to his cause.
"That can be arranged but you seem to believe that Salamander will do what you want him to. He will not do anything that doesn't align with his own goals, that much I can guarantee you, Siegrain." Ultear responded, wishing that the Wizard Saint in front of her would pay more focus to the issue that was 'controlling' Salamander. He believed that just because he was powerful in his own right he could control the solo mage. No chance.
"Subtly influence him then. You have the arc of time, do you not? Do something that can slowly push him in our direction. Send him an anonymous contract to destroy the Guild that ordered the hit on Fairy Tail. Have a request sent to Fairy Tail, on our behalf, ordering the capture of Salamander and, at the same time, getting Salamander to go to the Tower of Heaven. Things will be interesting when the carnage unfolds." Siegrain laughed to himself. He could see it now, a grand fight between opposing forces, but who would be the one fit for the perfect sacrifice to revive Zeref? The Salamander or Titania? Time would tell, he'd sacrifice them both if he had to, he'd just have to deal with Ultear at a later time.
They cast their gaze at the orb once again so that they could continue to watch the fight between the two renowned mages, fire and sword graced the air. Natsu was grinning like an animal, Erza gritting her teeth to match the snarl, he pirouetted gracefully around all of Erza's strikes, her heaven's wheel armour was the closest thing to taking the Salamander down though, it was the one that was making him work the hardest.
She had to admit, she had underestimated him to begin with but as their fight had gone on, she'd taken to approaching him with mutual respect through the duration of their close combat. He was possibly the strongest wizard she'd ever faced, both physically and magically, he was just a monster in those respects.
"Don't get distracted Fairy Queen, or you'll lose your wings for good!" Natsu's voice broke her out of her distracted mind as a fire-wrapped fist came crashing down on her midriff, breaking through multiple swords that she'd scrambled to her defence. His punch had made her skid across the roof of the Fairy Tail guild where their fight was now taking place.
Once again she noticed that he'd never produced any flames while they were atop the building, was he really that committed to a word once given? Even during the heat of their fight, he hadn't dropped his guard, nor his concentration towards their guild.
Salamander was in his absolute element, he was so massively engrossed in his fight with Erza that for a moment, just a split second, he'd lowered his mental guard, the one that surrounded the fiercest Demon in existence.
'Let me kill her, Natsu! It's the only way that we'll survive this fight!' The Demon inside raged against the mental chains that held it in place. Fire blazed from Natsu's eyes as he pulled his hands away from his attack and instead clutched his head.
"No!" He screamed, backing up towards the end of the roof, far away from Erza. She had no idea what was happening but the fire mage was in incredible pain, that much was obvious.
"I will not let you ruin this for me, this is MY fight, get out of my head!" He screamed, flames erupting all around his body. The heat was more intense than anything Erza had felt before, even from this distance. How much power was he hiding away inside him?
'Kill her! Rip her to shreds, burn her to nothing, burn it all down, set the world on fire!' E.N.D got louder and louder, never relenting, almost breaking free from the chains holding it down.
"Never, not until that day comes," Natsu whispered, reigning in his surrounding inferno that had caught onto the wooden beams atop the guild hall. So he'd not kept his word after all. Erza stared at the fire as it spread, incredibly unimpressed by whatever she had just witnessed. The best fight she'd had in years and it turned out that the infamous Salamander was insane?
"Sorry about that, Fairy Queen, sometimes I gotta focus more on what's inside than what's in front of me." He said as he slowly raised his head to meet her gaze. There was nothing but pure destruction within his eyes, nothing but pure rage and pain, it was the truest gateway to Hell.
"My little slip-up has caused your guild hall some damage, now it looks like I have to beat you to keep to my word, so what do you say that we finish our warm-up and go all out now?" He grinned with a feral snarl on show.
Erza didn't know how to respond, that was his warm-up? Surely he was bluffing? She too had more power to use but she wasn't about to call their fight up until now just a warm-up.
The Salamander cupped his hands in front of him, magic power erupted from within which made the entire ground beneath the guild hall start to rumble erratically. The crowds of Fairy Tail members who had decided to watch the fight were all struggling to stand on their feet.
"Fire Dragon Final Flame" Once he'd said those words, the world almost fell to a complete standstill. Erza could see everything around her moving at a snail's pace. The sky above them had turned into a demonic carpet of flames, the guild hall was almost completely burnt to ash now, yet still everything barely moved, the fire, the crowds, even the Salamander himself was still cupping his hands in front of him, awaiting to unleash this massive attack.
Erza didn't wait around, whatever was happening was her chance to end this and at least save the lives of the people she cared about. Like a blaze of light, she flashed forwards, grabbing Salamander by the throat and ploughing him through the burning wreckage of the guild and out of one of the walls, dragging his entire body through the ground until he was submerged in concrete, only his shins still above the ground. She'd used every last ounce of her power to do that, and once she'd finished, the world almost perfectly returned to what it should be, the guild hall was ruined, but Fairy Tail was safe.
"You did it!" She heard someone shout behind her. She was too exhausted to register who it was, all she could do was stare at the unconscious body of the Salamander before her world turned blurry and she too fell unconscious, her body falling to the ground from exhaustion, but, she'd done it. She'd defeated the Salamander, and she had no idea how. She knew she wouldn't have succeeded if the world hadn't slowed to a halt.
He was a true Demon.
A/N: Review?