Chapter 13 Erza's Dream

Natsu woke up to a familiar scent, "Where, where am I?" He tries to get up off of the not so comfortable bed, only to be held down by someone's arm. "Strawberries." he says. Looking over Erza is asleep with her arm and her leg surrounding each side of Natsu's body, and when his eyes finally traced up to her face, he could see one eye open and staring directly back at him. "Erza?!" Natsu tried to jump out of her arms but she held firm.

"You are not leaving Natsu." A cold tone escaped her voice. "You have done enough for one lifetime, you aren't going to be allowed out of my sight again. So lay down and enjoy it, or else." Natsu softly eyed her, and he began to lay down, he looked her right in her eyes, and then glanced away, unable to hold her stare for more than a moment at a time.

"What happened." He finally mumbled out, his voice sounding hoarse and weak.

"You are alive. That's what happened." Erza responded, equally as cold as the first.

"But, how-"

"Does it really matter? We won, you are alive, end of story, and I am never going to forgive you for abandoning me and going off to die. Do you have any idea how that felt? The only two men that I ever loved, dead at my feet?"

"Two?" Natsu asked, immediately regretting his question. Erza just looked at him quietly, and nodded her head.

"Yes, two." Their conversation ended there as the dream melted away and shifted to the steps of a chapel, where she was in her choice wedding dress and Grey was talking to Erza from a small pedestal.

"You know this was your idea right?"

"Yes, I know Grey, that's why I'm worried." Erza said shakily.

"You didn't choose this for him. He was going to ask you someday, you just beat him to it, that's all there is too it. Me on the other hand, I never had a say in the matter, Juvia is probably watching us as we speak, and to her, I am not safe around you until you have been wed off."

"She really does have a wild imagination doesn't she?"

"Well it didn't help with you taking a bath with me and Natsu every month up until you got kidnapped by tartaros." Grey remarked while staring into a just very recently cloudy sky.

"Okay, I'm Okay now, you can walk me down the aisle Grey."

"Good, because If we don't get inside it may start to rain." The dream then melts and shifts once again, this time to an open field.

"Hey Erza! Can you catch catch me!?" Happy yells to what seems like nobody. ….. nothing happens, then a gleam can bee seen in the distance, and a Lance appears! Just in time Happy dodges out of the way with a swift back flip in mid flight. But just as he opens his mouth to taunt at the endless sky again, a net catches his wings and he plummets to the Earth, only for the net to fade into non-existence. The cat quickly recovers and begins to fly westward, to his waiting parents, Erza and Natsu.

"Hahaha! Happy you just got owned from over a mile away!

"Shut up Natsu! It's not like you could hit me!"

"My Fireball would be a tracer! You would fly for 10 minutes and still not escape it!"

"Erzaaa! Natsu's being mean to me!"

"Knock it off Natsu, you know he can't handle teasing, even if he is already 100 years old." Erza retorts between nibbles of the glazed strawberry atop her white cake.

"But he is so mean!" Happy continues to whine. Natsu strolls over to Erza's picnic basket, and pulled out a butane lighter, a large one at that. He then reaches in once more and retrieves a large piece of meat, which he then doused in a large open jar reading FLAMMABLE.

"Natsu, that jar has to last us the entire day, you can't use it all up so quickly." Erza mumbled through her excessively large chunk of cake that she took from her plate and shoved in her mouth.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But why not start out strong!?" Natsu exclaims as he lights the meat with the powerful lighter.

Happy takes to the air to escape the heat of the flames, however the heat doesn't last long as the flames are pulled towards Natsu as he chows down on the large chunk of well overcooked meat.

Erza, with cheesecake crumbs dripping from her chin, scorns him for eating so much in a single bite, until happy points out that she too has eaten obscene amounts. Which promptly lands him in her storage space once again.

The dream shifts again to a large, heavily fortified building as her and Natsu along with Levy and Grey walked up it's steps.

Inside the fortress was a well adorned room with may flags and dressings draping the walls, with meaningful designs decorating each one. Natsu and Grey both stepped up to a podium where an old man stood dressed in fine white robes and a black beret adorned with a double silver stripe and a three letter acronym spelling USA on the lace.

"What did you call us in for?" Natsu gruffly addressed the elderly man. "We already gave you this month's supply of magic."

Grey then interjects and says, "We aren't giving you anymore this month if that is what you are asking for. Our deal is that we would help your worlds slowly release its dependence on magical power, not supply it whenever it wants it."

Just before Natsu opens his big mouth again I pulled him back and Levy wrote 'SILENCE' over Grey's open mouth.

"We are sorry for that Mr. President." Levy retorts, "But these two aren't very easy to control. Please, tell us why you wanted to speak with us."

"Yes, well, no apologies necessary. However, I will get straight to the point. We have no magic left."

"What?" Natsu shouts as I bring a muzzle out of my storage. He then grumbles to himself as he asks me to put it away. Which i do, slowly.

"As the eighth President of the United Sailors of Alvarez I was in charge of reducing magic consumption by 30%, to prepare for the 10th President's abolishment of its use on the seas. However we have run into quite the problem. A recent re-emergence of one of the members of Tartarus has turned our western fleet into little more than toothpicks. Our best demon capture team was annihilated yesterday and in response we called you four in to ask a favor."

"You want us to fight him?" Levy responded first, as I felt Natsu perk up at the mention of one of Zeref's demons.

"No." The President's decisive and firm words troubled me, but not as much as the look on his face did. "I want you to give us the knowledge and the capability, as well as the magical power to capture him ourselves." He has done far too much damage and has taken far too many lives to be simply left off of the hook by something as easy as death." The President's face began to contort, something I have never seen before in any of his public speeches. And by the looks on my friend's faces, neither had they. "I want him to have to answer for each and every life and asset he has destroyed, and by our hands, by the humans of this world. Not by other monsters."

A twinge of anger has shown on Levy's face, but quickly was replaced with deep thought, as we have been called much worse in the past few centuries, this name carried no weight.

She finally spoke. "I understand your prideful position Mr. President, however we cannot follow through with your request. GIving you the capability to defeat an etherios, and jackal by the sound of it. Would be irresponsibly shifting the balance of power in this world. The balance of which the Fairy Tail Guild has been very vial in maintaining. We will not be granting you such power, and instead will be sending Mirajane Strauss and Lucy Heartfillia to investigate and dispose of this etherios creature."

"NO!" He slammed his down on the podium. "We must become independent and deal with this creature on our own! We must be able to protect ourselves and our crew members out on the sea without the delayed intervention of people like you! This monster has already wiped out almost 10% of our fleet, and 15% of our people! We cannot wait for your slow action! We need to be able to fight back ourselves in real time!

Levy then took a few deep breaths, with her anger rising, it being kept under control here was difficult. She responded, "I understand Mr. President, but this demon is not of your world. He is no ordinary demon, he is a demon who murdered platoons of magic wielding armies and even stormed a heavily defended magic council building. He even once gave our best members a fight for their lives back in our mortal days. He is NOT someone for magicless humans to fight. His curse will kill any human he touches, or touches him, and every item he touches turns into an explosive."

The look of fear quickly raced across the President's face. He had clearly never heard the stories before and was shocked by the level of destruction that this enemy was capable of.

"I am sorry Mr. President, but the Fairy Tail Guild will handle this situation." And with that, we walked out the door.

"Man," Natsu said. "I never thought that I would ever hear about Tartaros again."

"I'm with Natsu on this one guys, after all we have been through, they are the last enemy I would expect to show up again."

"Something bothers me about all of this guys." I spoke up, realizing something as I said it. "Didn't he act rather strangely when Levy told him what Jackal could do?"

They mumbled around a little bit until Grey spoke up, however at the same time, Natsu turned his attention to the nearest white wall. "Yeah, but that guy has never even seen us in action, he didn't know what high levels of magic power are. And he is probably setting his standard based off of the monthly supply of power that we supply his organization with."

"Yo, Natsu! Whats going on in that head of yours? Why don't you pay attention to what I'm saying for a change?" Grey loudly says as he reaches for Natsu's shoulder, which i then stop before it reaches him.

"Stop, Grey. He is listening."

"Listening? Listening to what?" He asks, as Levy nods swiftly.

"Oh that little bitch, no way." Natsu says under his breath.

"Guys we have a problem." That wasn't Jackel that destroyed those boats, It was Deliora."

"What?!" Grey shouted. "How?!"

"They just said that they revived the wrong demon, that Jackal was their intended target, but chose the wrong unlabeled book, and now Deliora is on the loose again."

"Those bastards!" I yelled. "Do they even know what that demon is capable of? With it's resistance to magic it will be difficult for even us to stop it."

I awoke with a start. The ending of my dream etched in my mind, clear as when i was dreaming it. Natsu was already awake and sitting on the bed, looking at me with a grin on his face.

"SOOOO."

"So what?" I asked.

"How far did you get?" He asked, almost jumping from excitement.

"Well, we just found out about Deloria."

"OOOOHH!" His eyes lit up, who knew that the emperor was behind it huh?

"What?" I asked, confused.

"OH! OOPS! You're not there yet. Ok forget what I just said, time to go to work, get up and get dressed." He said as he kissed my cheek and hopped off of the bed with the greatest of ease. "We have a long day ahead of us, and we have wasted enough of the morning already.