Manami's POV

I groaned leaning on my brother's shoulder as I tried my best not to hurl. Even though I suggested that we take the train, I absolutely hated having motion sickness. Why did I suggest this!? We should have walked gosh darn it! I thought to myself.

Happy barely acknowledge our pain as he happily munched on a fish.

"Are we ther-" Natsu started his sentence only to stick his head into a barf bag. I crinkled my nose, nodding my head.

"If we aren't I'm jumping off this train!" I yelled as my face turned blue.

Like the heavens had heard me the train finally stopped.

"This is it!" Happy chirped. Natsu and I slowly dragged ourselves off the train, in a town where we had heard there might find Igneel.

After a few minutes, Natsu strolled down an alleyway with me on his back. Both our stomachs rumbled loudly.

"I'm so hungry I could eat a whole cow." Natsu groaned. I nodded in agreement. Happy pointed out the fact that we had no money-making me frown.

"Oni-chan, do you think 'Salamander' could really be Igneel?" I asked leaning my chin on his shoulder.

"It's got to be him, right?" He looked down at Happy for confirmation.

"Ai, it has to be. The only fire dragon I've heard of is Igneel." Happy responded in a matter of factly tone.

I sighed looking down at the ground. I had never been as optimistic as Natsu and Happy. Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought, maybe, Igneel was gone forever. Otherwise, he wouldn't have left in the first place. 

Even if he was here why would he be in the city? How could a dragon blend in here?

Even so, I searched with Natsu. I couldn't just abandon my brother and if we could find Igneel through our search. I wanted to take every chance I could.

A group of girls was crowded talking about Salamander. Natsu and I looked at Happy and grinned and we ran to the crowd, to see Salamander.

"Igneel!" My brother yelled as he pushed through the crowd. We both frowned with disappointment as we saw all the girls were fawning over some random dude. I sighed sagging on Natsu's back.

"I knew it! We would've been able to see Igneel from farther away." I pouted. Natsu slouched in disappointment.

"Dammit, we road that train for nothing!" He cursed as he pushed his way out of the crowd.

The girls glared at us and cursed us for our indifference towards the boring man who claimed to be "Salamander". 

They ripped me off Natsu's back and proceded the beat the crap out of the both of us while yelling about how rude we were. 

"What's up with these chicks!" Natsu yelled as I struggled out of the grip of the crazy fangirls.

"I don't know!" I responded.

"Now now girls, I'm sure they didn't mean anything by that." The salamander guy said grinning, all the girls immediately let go of us and rushed back over to crowd him and they continued screeching praises about how amazing he was. 

 I stood up quickly dusting off my clothes with a pout. Natsu groaned getting up and picked up the backpack I had dropped off the ground. He threw it on his back, I scowled at the girls before looking up to him. He grinned at me and ruffled my hair. I smiled up at him. 

"Here's my autograph, feel free to brag to your friends." Salamander said as he signed a piece of paper handing it to Natsu.

"No thanks," Natsu deadpanned at him. All the girls attacked him again as Happy and I just wanted. I giggled, it was funny when you weren't the one experiencing it. When the girls had enough the left him there and rejoined the crowd.

I grinned at Salamander and accepted the signature so I wouldn't be pummeled by all his fans. I crouched down by Natsu who had his head in a pile of trash. I giggled and placed the signature in the trash before helping him up.

"Mana-chan, who was that?" 

"I'm not sure, but it was fun seeing you get attacked by those girls." I shrugged with a smile.

"What a creep!" A female voice chirped, we all glanced over to see a blonde girl in a blue skirt with a ponytail. She looked over at us with a smile and waved.

"Thank you!"

---

"I'm Lucy. It's nice to meet you." The blonde finally introduced herself. She had offered us a meal to thank us for... I'm not quite sure. Not that it mattered, we were getting free food!

Natsu, Happy and I started stuffing our faces with food. Happy acknowledged Lucy with and "Ai" with a stuffed mouth.

"Natsu, Manami, and Happy was it?" Lucy asked surprised by how we were eating. I slowed down my pace trying to maintain some level of manners.

"Thank you for treating us to food! You're really nice!" I beamed at her before continuing to eat.

"That Salamander guy was using a Charm spell. It can attract people to you, even against their will. Sale of it was banned years ago, though. What a creep going that far to be popular!" Lucy explained as her face crinkled in disapproval.

"But I broke free from the spell thanks to you barging in! So this is my thanks."

I nodded my head smiling while looking at Lucy. She had a pretty smile, she pointed to herself and said she was a wizard. I beamed at her. 

"I saw your gatekeys! You must use Celestial Spirit Magic." I commented with my mouth full of food. She nodded at me.

"Bingo~ You must know quite a lot about Wizards! I haven't joined a guild yet though." She then began to explain what a guild was. I tuned her out though, she must have assumed that Natsu and I weren't wizards.

"You talk a lot." Happy said before he continued to eat. Natsu and I both nodded our heads in agreement.

"Come to think of it, it sounded like you were looking for someone."

"Ai, Igneel." Happy confirmed her statement.

"We came to this town because we heard that a Salamander was coming to this town, but it turned out to be that creepy guy," I said with a pout. Natsu sighed with disappointment.

"Yeah, he didn't look like a Salamander at all!" Happy chirped in agreement.

"A Salamander's a fire dragon, so we thought he'd be Igneel," Natsu said frowning as he crossed his arms.

"What kind of person looks like a dragon?!" Lucy said while sweatdropping. All three of us looked at each other before giving her a confused look.

"Igneel isn't a person silly~" I grinned at her.

"He is a dragon," Natsu finished. Lucy tilted her head in confusion.

"Ai! He's an actual dragon!" Happy repeated.

"Ehhh!" Lucy exclaimed flabbergasted.

"Why would there be a dragon in the middle of town!? Didn't that thought cross your mind?!" Lucy yelled. I sighed looking at Natsu and Happy's expression. They hadn't even thought of that.

"I did think of that! But I thought, maybe, there was a chance. Just maybe..." I looked down at the ground trying to hide my sadness. I could feel Natsu gaze at me, he patted my head and I gazed up to him.

"Mana-chan, we'll find him! I can feel it!" He said with determination, I smiled at him feeling reassured.

"Well, I should be going now. Enjoy your food!" Lucy said as she stood up and put a few bills on the table. I waved goodbye and Lucy smiled at me while waving back. 

"I like her Oni-chan. She's pretty and nice." I smiled at him. 

"Maybe we'll run into her again!" Natsu grinned.

---
(Disclaimer: I know Happy says he can only carry 1 person when he is flying, but if we take into consideration that Manami would've been with Happy since he hatched. We're going to assume that he learned to carry two people because he was raised by both of them [wow that was a useless unnecessarily long explanation for something small lol.])

Happy let go of Natsu and I and we crashed through the roof of the boat Lucy was on. Don't ask me how it ended up like this, cause honestly, I have no idea. We landed to see two men holding Lucy who was crying. I glared at them. I stood up to start fighting but immediately felt the movement of the boat and started feeling nauseous.

"Natsu! Manami!" Lucy exclaimed flashing us her beautiful smile. 

"I can't handle it after all," Natsu said bending over, I nodded my head.

"What are you doing, Lucy?" Happy asked flying over the hole in the roof.

"I got tricked! The Salamander guy told me he'd get me into Fairy Tail! Wait you have wings? Nevermind, let's talk about this later." Lucy explained as Happy flew down and wrapped his tail around her waist and flying her off the boat. The group of criminals looked at the scene in front of them dumbfounded. I glared at Salamander, how dare he dirty Fairy Tail's name like that!?

"After them! We can't let them report this to the council!" Salamander commanded.

I tried standing up only to fall back to the ground because of my motion sickness. Salamander's goons dragged me outside and started beating Natsu up. One of the criminals grabbed my face looking me in the eyes.

"Boss! This girl is pretty cute, should I put her with the rest?"

I bit his hand and glared at him, he cursed and kicked me to the ground. My anger started to overpower the motion sickness, I could see Natsu feeling the same way.

"You! Fairy Tail?!" Natsu spat at Salamander.

Before we knew it the boat was swept away with a large wave, I gasped. I was terrified. 

Water.

There was so much water. For some unexplainable reason, being submerged in water terrified me so much. I felt like I was drowning, I couldn't swim, I felt like I was dying. 

Someone wrapped their arms around my waist pulling my head above the water. It was Natsu, I held onto him tightly squeezing my eyes shut as we were swept to shore. We crashed onto land, I coughed up the water in my lungs. Natsu set me down softly as I tried to calm my shaking hands.

"Manami, you're okay. I've got you." He whispered reassuringly. I took a shaky breath and opened my eyes to look into his determined eyes.

"Lets beat the crap out of this Fairy Tail imposter." He grabbed my hand, I took his hand and he pulled me up.

"Let's do this!" I grinned at him.

We stood on top of the wreckage of the ship looking down at Salamander.

"You said you were from Fairy Tail?" Natsu questioned the man with a glare.

"Yeah, so what?" He answered seamlessly.

"Let me get a closer look at you." 

We both stretched our arms while glaring at Salamander, We both threw off our capes. A few of Salamander's guys started running at us, I kicked the first one away and Natsu slapped the other one out of the way. I had already noticed on the boat that these buff men were extremely weak. Their punches and kicks had felt like nothing.

"I'm Natsu from Fairy Tail!" 

"And I'm Manami from Fairy Tail!"

We both flashed our Guild Marks, Natsu's mark was red on the top of his right arm while mine was gold on the top of my left arm.

"I've never seen you before in my life!" Natsu yelled.

I heard mummers throughout the crowd of criminals. 

"Th-that emblem! These guys are the real deal, Bora!" One of the men stuttered.

"I don't care if you guys are bad guys or good guys," Natsu and I started walking down to the group of criminals.

"But, we won't let you tarnish the name of Fairy Tail!" I finished his sentence with a glare. 

"What are you going to do about it!" Bora yelled while throwing some flames at us, he walked away. Natsu and I looked at each other as I tried not to laugh. Did this guy really believe Fairy Tail wizards were this weak? Natsu yawned.

We both began to consume the flames around us. I almost choked.

"These flames taste absolutely terrible!" I yelled, the group turned back is a surprise.

"I agree, are you sure you're really a fire wizard?" Natsu agreed. Before long the fire surrounding us was gone.

"Thanks for the meal!" We both said in sync. 

"Let's do this!" 

We both devoured the flames surrounding us.

"Fire Dragon Roar!" We both yelled as we launched a powerful wave of fire knocking out all the criminals. Natsu held up his hand and I hi-fived him.

"Oni-chan let's show them what a true Fairy Tail wizard is like!"

He held his hands in fists surrounding them with fire. Bora continued to throw attacks at him, I quickly ran behind Bora and surrounded my feet with fire. I kicked him in Natsu's direction and Natsu finished him off with Fire Dragon Iron Fist. I grinned at my brother, we gave each other a fist bump. 

"Shoot! Let's go!" Natsu said grabbing me as the army arrived. Happy grabbed Lucy and we dashed away. As always we had gone way overboard.

"Why do I have to go?" Lucy asked.

I grinned at her.

"You said you wanted to join our guild, didn't you?" Natsu asked. She looked at the both of us surprised.

"Come on then!" I urged her on, Happy dropped her next to us and the three of us ran together. Natsu smiled. Lucy would make a perfect addition to our team, she was exactly what we needed and I liked the idea of her fighting by our side.

---

We were making our way back the Guild, I heard something whisper to me.

I know you're looking for a dragon...

I whipped my head to an alley where I heard it.

"Mana-chan what is it?" Natsu asked. I gaped at him, did he not hear the voice. I shook it off as me imagining the voice.

"Nothing, I just thought I heard something..." I frowned in confusion. Natsu grinned at me and patted my head as he always did.

"Don't worry about it!" He said with a smile.

I smiled back at him, right after I heard the voice again.

They don't hear me... But if you wish to find dragons follow me...

This offer is only for you... Only for you...

I turned around to see an alleyway.

"One sec, I just want to check something out." I motioned for the group to head over to the guild without me.

"I'll meet you at the guild!" I told them, Natsu gave me a look. I gave him a reassuring smile and they continued down the path.

"You better be there when I join Fairy Tail!" Lucy chirped, I nodded with a grin.

"You can count on it!" I replied before running over to the alley. 

In contrast to the bright weather, the alley was dark. Even with my heightened senses, I couldn't see or sense a thing. 

"Dragons! Do you know about Igneel? How did you know I was looking for a dragon!?" I yelled into the dark. 

Out of nowhere, a finger pushed my forehead with enough force to make me fall backward.

I gasped with surprise, I heard a laugh as I started to fall.

Except I didn't hit the floor.

I blinked and I was in the sky falling. 

"What the actual hell!"