Disclaimers: All Fairy Tail Characters Belong To Hiro Mashima. All Forgotten Realms Concepts and Characters Belong to Wizards of the Coast, LLC. The concept of the Soulbond has been modified from the video game Drakan, a property of Surreal Software . Kai Dragneel belongs to me.

Chapter 8: Unexpected Encounter

"Well, that's the last time I try to destroy a mountain on purpose," Natsu grumbled to his Exceed, Happy.

"I can't believe how long it took to clear up that mess!" Natsu whined. He had been stuck in that town for weeks, his body constantly sore from the physical task of clearing rubble day in and day out. About the only good thing about it had been that for the first time in a while it had distracted him from the other pain he had been feeling. The pain that had begun about two weeks after he had left Magnolia. It was like a dull ache in his soul that never seem to go away, thoughts of Gray would lessen it sometimes but whenever he thought about their mating it grew to almost unbearable proportions.

"Well, that's because you had to do it by yourself." Happy replied, "It serves you right too! You're lucky they only made you do that instead of paying damages, and don't forget they fed us."

"I guess, but we wasted almost two weeks in there and that cell smelled. I'm supposed to go home in a little over a month and I don't feel like I've gotten much stronger, not to mention we've found out absolutely nothing about Zeref."

"We could always head over to that forest you talked about, lots of monsters there to fight." Happy pointed out.

"Now you're talking!" Natsu cheered, "I wonder what kinds of monsters they have?"

Happy shrugged, they didn't really know much about the place they were headed to outside of the general direction to follow.

"Do you hear that, Kai? We are going to go beat up some monsters! I bet you'd like that, maybe we can do that when you finally come out." Natsu said as he talked to his toned belly. He had given up on trying to understand where Kai was inside his body. It was enough to know he was there. He was getting a little excited at the idea of being a parent, even though it was not something he had ever thought about until it was thrust upon him. At least he didn't have to worry about Tiamat trying to take Kai away from him anymore.

They found the road they needed to follow to get to their destination and began to walk towards Mikage Forest.

o-o

'There it is again' Kai thought to himself.

The first few weeks that he had been back inside of his father had been very lonely. He had missed Igneel with every fiber of his being although he tried to keep himself strong by reminding himself that he would see him again someday. Igneel had said so.*

Recently he had started hearing a voice, he couldn't quite make out the words but sometimes he thought he could almost make out his name. Was his father finally trying to communicate with him?

'That would be nice' he thought. There was really nothing for him to do here. The place where he had lived with Igneel was gone. It had been a product of his magic and it had disappeared with his death. Kai didn't know how to make a new one so he mostly slept a lot and felt himself heal. He never felt hunger as he was constantly absorbing small amounts of his father's magic. He had no way to tell time but even if he did, he had no idea how long he was supposed to stay in here. Would he even know when he was ready to be born? He was in the dark and the only noise he could really hear well was the rhythmic beating of his father's heartbeat. He loved that sound, it reminded him that he was not alone. He created a thought projection of his two parents and watched it for awhile before making it disappear. He really wanted to see them again.

Igneel had never taught him how to connect himself to his father's senses and Kai got the feeling that had not been an oversight. Kai thought he had figured out how to send suggestions to his father's mind so he had been trying to flood his mind with images of Zeref and their childhood in the hopes that it would make his father want to seek out his brother but he had no real way to tell whether his attempts had been successful.

He wondered about how he could connect to his father's senses and had a thought. If he could determine where those memory threads were created he might be able to latch on to the newest one and follow it back up to the source. He set about figuring out how to find his father's most recent memories amidst all those threads.

Like the time he had been searching for the memory of his mother he focused all his power on finding Natsu's most recent memory. When he released it a thread began to glow more brightly than the rest and Kai followed it eagerly.

o-o

Natsu and Happy had walked for hours before they saw any signs of human life. They finally saw a village and decided to stop there for an early dinner. They looked around and noticed that a lot of the village seemed recently squished? There was rubble laying around what looked to be the flattened remains of buildings and other structures. Curious about what they saw, they made their way to the village's one tavern and prepared to use the last of their jewels to eat before they headed into the forest.

Natsu ordered a drink and sat there gaging the patrons to see whether there was anyone worth challenging to a fight. He saw a lot of scared faces and noticed most of the men in the tavern were wrapped up in bandages. He wondered what was going on. When the bartender came back he ordered their food.

Natsu heard a voice say, "That mark on your arm, are you from a magic guild?"

Natsu turned around to see who was talking to him. He saw a man not much older than him pointing at his arm.

"Yeah, I'm in a guild. I'm from Fairy Tail." he answered. He expected the man to ask him questions about guild life or magic or any of the other questions they were all used to answering by now. He was surprised when the man said, "I would like to hire you."

"Hire me? What for?"

"You must have seen the buildings outside." the man said, "I can pay you if that's what you're worried about." He showed him a large bag full of jewels.

Natsu laughed, money had never been a big motivator for him. It was a necessity, but he was perfectly willing to do jobs for free if it was the right thing to do. Until he had met Lucy he had never even given it much thought. As long as he had enough to eat he was usually happy.

"I did see the buildings, what did that?" Natsu asked.

"A large monster has been coming out of the forest at night. It has destroyed our buildings and our crops but has not killed anyone. However, if we can't get rid of it soon we will have to abandon this village and find a new place to live. All of our men have already tried to stop him. They have nothing but bandages to show for their efforts but you have magic, maybe you can succeed where they failed."

How big is it? Did it have any weaknesses? Why did it only come at night? Why was it destroying their crops? Why did it not go on a rampage and destroy all the buildings at once and why did it keep itself from killing? These were the questions Natsu should probably have been asking himself or the man but Natsu had been stuck in a cell for two weeks doing menial labor and he was too excited about the prospect of a fight to really give the issue much thought. Besides he had never been the planner of their team. So with only the vaguest of descriptions as to its appearance and abilities he decided to accept the job. He even offered to do it for free as he had been planning to fight monsters in the forest anyway, but the man was strangely insistent that he accept payment. After he and Happy finished their meal they went outside to wait for the monster to make its appearance.

Hours had gone by and Natsu had finally dozed off only to be startled awake by screams. He quickly got up and ran towards the noise. He stopped in his tracks and gazed up at the monster he had agreed to fight. It looked like a toad, a dark gray coloring on the top half, and a brilliant red belly, with whorles and patterns that looked almost like flames curling up around its throat. This wouldn't normally be awe-inspiring, but the thing was at least 30 feet (10 meters) tall and enormously fat. The scariest thing about it though was its eyes. They were red and glazed over as it looked at the set of buildings it was trying to destroy with single minded purpose.

A smile lit up Natsu's features as he realized this was going to be a challenge. "Hell yeah, I'm all fired up!"

He quickly made his way closer to the monster ignoring Happy's cries that he should observe it a little before attacking it and instantly went after it with his Fire Dragon Roar.

Happy yelled after him, "Natsu, I have a bad feeling about this!"

The toad turned to face Natsu as the flames raced toward it, but the monster did not otherwise react, and when the flames struck its glistening red skin, they were absorbed into it without seeming to cause the creature the slightest discomfort. The toad crouched, then launched itself high in the air, landing on a nearby shed and squashing it flat with a splintering crash.

Natsu ran toward the beast and leapt into the air, fire blasting from his feet as he hauled back his fist and shouted, "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" The fire mage flew toward the creature, but faster than he could even follow, the toad's mouth opened, and a long bulbous tongue stretched out, snatching Natsu from the air and drawing him into its mouth.

"Natsu!" Happy screamed. "Let him go you big slimy monster! He isn't a fly!" Happy watched as two faint explosions of fire went off inside the toad's throat, but it did not appear to be fazed in the slightest, and it leapt onto yet another house, knocking it down like kindling. Happy flew toward the toad, but realized that there was no way he could even scratch the beast and he probably looked much more like a fly than Natsu did.

The creature opened its mouth again and the tongue darted out, racing toward Happy at a speed he couldn't hope to dodge, but as the tongue ascended, it seemed to be slowing down and dropping below its target. Happy saw the reason for this. Natsu clung to the tip of the tongue, looking disgusted as he was covered in drool. The tongue lost the last of its momentum, and fell to the ground. The toad started to pull it back into its mouth, but Natsu grabbed a fence post as he was dragged past it and clung on for dear life. The tongue stretched, and finally separated from Natsu with a pop and disappeared inside the toad's mouth.

This was not going at all like Natsu had anticipated. Of all the rotten luck! Why the hell did the stupid monster have to be immune to fire. Still that had never stopped him before. He stood, trying to wipe some of the toad slime off of his face, and prepared his next attack but jerked around in surprise when he scented someone he had not seen since they had fought the dragons at The Dragon King Festival.

"Cobra?" Natsu asked surprised. What was he doing here?

A moment later the Poison Dragon Slayer had joined him. "Gods, Dragneel you're so damn loud I could hear you from my camp. What are you doing here?"

"At the moment I'm trying to complete a job. I need to take out this monster but he seems to be immune to fire."

Cobra snorted, "So what you're saying is you're useless and I'm going to have to bail you out. Fine, I'll help you, but you're going to owe me and I intend to collect quickly."

"Just shut up and fight. This village is in trouble.", Natsu snapped.

Cobra faced the toad as it slowly turned and selected the next building it intended to flatten. It leapt into the air, but as it passed over the two of them, they both jumped up to intercept it with shouts:

"Fire Dragon's Sword Horn!"

"Poison Dragon's Spiral Jaw!"

The two dragon slayers struck the toad in its belly, knocking it off course. It landed at the edge of the forest, on its back, and it looked almost comical as it squirmed with its legs thrashing in the air until it finally righted itself. Glaring about until its red glazed eyes finally found the two of them.

Natsu recognized that look, and he scrambled for the nearest cover as he shouted, "Cobra, watch out for its tongue! It will try to..." His shout trailed off into a dismayed whisper, "eat you," as he watched the toad's tongue dart out and snatch Cobra into its belly before he could move.

Natsu tried to formulate a plan on how to extract Cobra from the belly of the beast. He dodged back and forth, launching blasts of fire at it, but the flames seemed completely unnoticeable to it as it turned and prepared to jump onto another house.

Suddenly, there was a "thoomp!" and the creature's throat bulged, wisps of purple smoke curling from its nostrils. The toad shuddered, hunched up, and gagged. Its mouth opened and it spat up purple tinged bile along with a furious, slime-covered dragon slayer. Natsu immediately knew that he was going to owe Cobra for this. Big time.

The monsters eyes lost the red glaze that had been present throughout the fight and Cobra muttered something under his breath low enough that even Natsu's ears couldn't detect it,

"What was that?", Natsu asked him.

"Don't worry about it, you'll find out soon enough. Collect your reward and let's go. I'll expect half of course."

"Sure" Natsu shrugged, "You can have all of it if you want."

"Nah, half is fine."

Natsu walked off to collect his reward and say goodbye to the man that had hired him. He joined Cobra and they began to walk into the forest.

"So, are you on the run?" Natsu asked his fellow dragon slayer.

"Can you hold off the questions until we find somewhere we can wash this crap off of us?" Cobra said, "There's a river nearby, we'll head there first."

Natsu looked at Cobra and thought about how ridiculous he looked. He tried desperately not to laugh but he wasn't having much luck.

"You know I can hear your thoughts, right? You don't look or smell much better yourself , by the way." Cobra said dryly. "The river's this way."

Once they had finished washing off the toad's bodily fluids, Cobra remarked, " We will never speak of this ever again, that goes for you too, furball!" Cobra glared at Happy who after a few snickers readily agreed.

"Now, to answer your previous question I'm sort of on the run, I'm with Crime Sorciere now."

"You're with Jellal? That's surprising. I thought you hated the guy."

"We've come to an understanding, our real enemy is Zeref, not each other."

"Zeref?" Natsu said excitedly, "Do you know where he is? I've been looking for him for weeks."

"No, we don't but we won't stop until we find him. We're following a lead right now,"

They had been walking for about a quarter of a mile when Natsu began to smell the familiar scents of the other members of Crime Sorciere.

"So the rest of Oración Seis joined Jellal too? That must have been one hell of a recruiting pitch."

Cobra grinned, "You could say it was painful, but that's all water under the bridge. You might want to be quieter, they're asleep. I was on guard duty when I heard you. You can go rest in my tent, we'll talk in the morning."

Natsu grunted and he and Happy crawled into the tent Cobra pointed out. They both fell asleep quickly.

o-o

"DRAGNEEL....DRAGNEEL...." Cobra yelled as he tried to wake the flailing dragon slayer, "NATSU!".

Natsu shot up breathing quickly. He looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings and became uneasy but as he saw Cobra and Happy staring at him he began to calm down. He was in Cobra's tent somewhere in Mikage Forest.

Cobra was looking at him intently and all of a sudden he crawled out of the tent and hurried away. Natsu had caught a strange expression on his face. Was that guilt? Why would Cobra feel guilty? He decided not to worry about it and focused on working his way back from his nightmare. That had been the worst one he'd had in a while. Sleeping with Gray helped to keep them away but now that they were apart they had started creeping up on him again. He worked on some of the breathing exercises Porlyusica had taught him to calm his mind and slowly he felt the nightmare ease back to whatever part of his mind it came from. He sighed and made his way outside.

Jellal was sitting against a tree and as he looked up at the Fire Dragon Slayer, he did not seem surprised by his presence.

"Good Morning, I won't ask if you slept well."

"Yeah, that happens sometimes. What are you guys doing here anyway?", Natsu asked. This place was remote even by Crime Sorciere standards.

"We've been following a lead on a cult that's trying to summon Zeref. Their headquarters are around here somewhere. We haven't exactly found them yet. They seem to be able to control the monsters in this forest and have been using them to destroy the surrounding villages. To what purpose we don't yet know. Cobra mentioned he found you defending one of the villages last night. Is that why are you're here as well?" Jellal answered.

"No" Natsu replied with an easy smile, "I was coming here to train. I'd heard there were some tough monsters in this forest and if that one Cobra and I fought last night is any indication I don't think I'll be disappointed."

"Cobra mentioned you were looking for Zeref as well. Why?"

"That's my business, do you know anything that can help me find him?"

"Not exactly, but if this cult manages to summon him maybe we can both get our questions answered. We could use your help, Natsu."

"Pinkie's staying. He owes me one and I'm calling it in. We need all the help we can get with these bozos." Cobra said as he returned from wherever he went. Natsu searched his expression but the Poison Dragon Slayer gave nothing away. "Besides I doubt he can resist the lure of being able to train with us."

Natsu thought about it for a bit and realized Cobra was right. There was no way he would walk away from the chance to train with Jellal, Cobra and the rest of Crime Sorciere.

He could hear Cobra snickering as Natsu said, "I guess I could stay for awhile."

A/N *Kai is referring to events that happened in the Dragon Drabble Choose To Live, available on Fanfiction or AO3.

Figured it was time we knew what Natsu has been up to. I bet you can all guess where this is all leading up to :). I hope you liked the fight scene, I though it was funny. As always let me know what you think , I like to hear from you! Thank you to SilverWhiteDragon and Puck100 for reviewing last time.