towerofanimus | Critical error

Entry tags:

[ou] natsu dragneel

Critical error

Characters: Natsu and anyone unfortunate to cross his path
Setting: Any corridor on the way to processing
Format: I'll start in third but you are free to choose whatever you wish.
Summary: Natsu is acting like one of the retrieval units. Stop him if you dare.
Warnings: MALFUNCTION IN PROGRESS so expect violence.

He didn't remember when it happened but the dreams he'd had were too vivid. More vivid than anything he'd ever experienced. It was always the same, a table, those emotionless faces staring back at him and the faint prick of pain at the back of his head. Still Natsu wasn't able to make any sense of those dreams nor did he have the energy to really pursue that matter.

In several occasions he had found himself several floors away from where he was before that momentary blackout. Thankfully those instances didn't end up in harm to anyone or Natsu might have locked himself in his room. If only he'd done that. If only he'd done that, he wouldn't be walking down the corridor with the slow constant gait of a drone. His skin was warped and charred and it made his potentially charming features warp grotesquely as boils sizzle and pop all over his body. Even so the blood he left behind was not his. It belonged to the mangled corpse of a resident who went too far off the beaten track and got completely ravaged by one of the many monsters of the tower.

A disgusting scent of burning flesh filled the surrounding area he passed through. His cheeks were almost entirely burned away revealing the razor like canines and the rest of his teeth to the world. His eyes carried no life or recognition as he trudged along. His flames burned constantly, enveloping Natsu and even burning the wrist and hand of the body he dragged behind him. By the point anyone came across him that hand was reduced to mere bone and even that looked ready to crumble into ashes at any second.

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[chaos was getting tired of seeing all these people mutilated and harmed. If a good, stable rebellion for the Administrators was ever put into place, he would have to find a way to worm his way in. He had been part of one small group trying to hide before. He could try to help again, when this was all over.

For now though, he had to deal with Natsu, who was burning himself to bits and pieces, his hand looking like it would turn to soot at any moment. Carefully, chaos formed a large ball of ice in his hands with his power before lightly tossing it at Natsu.]

Ice. Ice. A familiar element. One so ingrained into his character that he actually paused for a moment in his lurching gait. But that was only to open his mouth and fire off a blast of fire at projectile. The movement was almost mechanic in performance and it should be obvious from the flame inside his mouth that he was quite literally, Fired up.

[It was obvious, but that didn't mean chaos was just going to leave him here without something to cool him off. So, quickly, chaos created another ice ball, but this time, it was as big as a boulder. It took the fire projectiles, and while it was damaged, it still stood, a barrier between Natsu and chaos.]

[Few managed to cool off the great Salamander of Fairy Tail. Those few being the Master, Erza and Laxus but sadly they weren't here or the damage would've been kept for a minimum. Natsu stared blankly as the corridor grew the equivalent of an ice wall. A wall. In the way of his duties. Wait duty? What duty? Oh right. The meat bag. Had to take that to processing. No time to get stalled then.]

[Natsu growled and approached the cluster of ice. THe next moment he rammed his fingers into the thing and started pushing.]

[In his head, chaos sighed. He had no intention of harming this person, but it seemed that they were going to go through his ice pretty quickly soon. So, he would have to depart.]

I am sorry. But I am not easy to kill.

[And with that, chaos would teleport away to a different floor, far, far away.]

Enoch had been mildly hungry. He wasn't anymore.

The smell of burning flesh had reached him, and when he looked up to see the sight of the approaching person, it had nearly gagged him. Thankfully he had trained himself to resist gagging, and his stomach was empty to begin with. Bile stung his throat, but no more.

Enoch found himself reflexively moving aside and flattening himself against the wall as Natsu approached, watching in horror and unable to bring himself to say anything. It wasn't often expected that a man skilled in combat would instinctively freeze in danger - but Enoch did, at times. This was one of those times, though it was a mind-numbing mix of horror, instinctive disgust, and overwhelming empathetic pain that froze him in place.

Natsu kept on walking by, at first not noticing Enoch. But the moment he was next to the man, the disfigured dragonslayer stopped. He sniffed the air like a dog would when picking up the trail of prey. His head rotated mechanically until Enoch would have a first row seat at the grotesque transformation he had endured.

Suddenly his eyes flashed behind the flames and he drew back his free fist, fire already concentrated at the tip before he flung it at Enoch's face. Hopefully he would get out of the way in time. Natsu was going to have way more people to apologize to when or if he ever recovered. One less never hurt.

The obvious attack had Enoch stay frozen for a moment - but his battle experience broke through this time, and he ducked, lunging aside and taking the Arch from the back of his jeans. With a crackling of energy, it was activated as it was pulled open, blue energy beam taking the form of several points between the two protrusions on the front of the weapon, unfolded more than half his height. He was prepared to defend himself. But he was hoping the other would move on instead. He didn't want to end the life of another resident here.

Pesky slippery meat target. The wall behind Enoch exploded violently as the flames around Natsu's fist detonated with more force than usual. Natsu was never one to practice restraint to begin with but he never fought to kill. AS such most of his collateral damages involved buildings and not people. But in his malfunctioning state, that self imposed limiter was nonexistent. If Enoch would stay within his range then he was interfering with his work.

In the resulting cloud of dust, Natsu jumped back and out of sight. Though the heat emanating from his body would be more than telling of his position. He gathered flames in both hands and clenched his fists before joining hands above his head. A giant sphere of fire formed there and Natsu flung his joined hands in Enoch's direction, launching his combined attack at the scribe's feet.

With the metal walls, the heat seemed to be coming from nearly everywhere. He didn't see the fireball until it came at him, and he lunged forward to try and dodge it. He wasn't expecting the detonation, though, and it sent him rolling forward, leaving a trail of pure white armor shards.

Through the smoke, the right side of his chest and his right arm were completely bare save a piece of pauldron that seemed glued to his shoulder, though he still somehow kept his grip on his weapon, and his neck guards had broken away. The man himself, however, seemed in pain, but undamaged.

His ears still ringing from the explosion, he turned to find the movement in the dust and rushed the first sign of it, borrowing a technique from one of his enemies back home - he rushed forward with the Arch's beam out, and if it connected something, he swung upwards and leapt back.

Metal and Natsu didn't go well together even when he was still in control. In his unlocked state however that elemental conflict was even more potent. Still a ghastly grin stretched across his disfigured face, a remnant of his former self, the one that enjoyed a good fight.

The attack connected but no howl of pain came, even though judging from the weight of the impact the target of the attack had been a substantial one, namely Natsu's left arm from the shoulder down. the detached limb was sent flying out of the smoke and steam. But that was not going to stop Natsu. Instead a burning hand suddenly lunged to grab Enoch's face with the intent to melt it away with intense heat.

Enoch was momentarily distracted by the limb that flew out of the curtain of smoke, the blazing figure he'd hit visible through it vaguely. But even with that much, his hand simply moved too fast.

He'd find, however, that, while Enoch screamed in pain, his face wasn't melting. It would actually be over much quicker if it was. Instead, he was treated to the pain it would bring as his armor cracked and shattered. Once, twice, as he tried to reorient the Arch in his hands...

Finally, he got a suitable angle and swung it down at the arm attached to it, trying to pull away at the same time. His armor was still intact, but barely - some of his breastplate still clung to him, and he had his left greave in two pieces on his leg, but cracks already crossed all of these...

His normal self probably would have noticed. However in this deranged form, all he knew was that the moment Enoch stopped struggling and screaming would mean the interference had been eliminated.

Again Natsu didn't scream though this time instead of his entire arm coming off, only his forearm was sliced through. The hand gripping his face fell limply to the floor and for a moment Natsu regarded his stump with a flat look of confusion. Well that was the end of it right? Wrong. There was now lightning crackling with the flames and the two energies could be seen forming in front of Natsu's mouth into a growing cluster of fire and lightning that would be launched at the enemy. It was a final stand attack meant to completely destroy the interference. If it hit or if Enoch chose to not use that brief charging time to make his hopeful escape.

Edited 2013-04-27 13:10 (UTC)

Enoch saw the light of the attack charging, and did the only thing he could think to do: He made a mad dash for the space between Natsu and the wall, trying to dodge by getting behind him. The heat of the modified man's body nearly overwhelmed him; his body throbbed in pain, his ears still rang...despite the lack of physical damage to his body, he'd felt every bit of what Natsu's attack should have done.

If he managed to get through, he'd whirl to attack him from behind with his Arch, aiming for his midsection.

Enoch was good. Natsu would remember that after getting over the guilt of attacking him in the first place. Still right now he was focused on snuffing out the scribe once and for all.

So he fired his attack. His precision was fortunately off by a few inches so instead of blasting Enoch straight out which allowed him to get behind Natsu.

He had three hundred years of practice with this weapon, and had honed his instinctive, adrenaline-fueled, self defense-motivated combat into a style all its own through sheer repetition and his own quick intuition. Where its reliability faltered, his armor generally covered until he readjusted, provided he had the willpower to recover it in time.

When some part of him realized he was behind his attacker, he turned to attack, the Arch leading the spin, going for his torso.

"Natsu, where are you?" screamed a girl, who had been running on the corridors, to look for her friend. Panic was evident on her face. It was still scary to be alone here, even though two months had passed.

"Natsu, can you hear me? NATSU!" Lucy screamed again. Turning another corner, she spotted a familiar figure. Contrary to what she expected, seeing her friend sent chills down her spine, in a very bad way.

Of all the people to run into him, it had to be her. Natsu paused in his preset march when her voice reached his ears. He dropped the corpse and looked over his shoulder.

He didn't make any move towards her just yet and if she didn't draw any closer odds were they would both come out of this safe and sound. If only fate would dictate that course of action.

"Natsu, what are you doing here?" Lucy called out once again, starting to run towards him. Something was odd, she could feel it. For the first time, she found the look on Natsu's face scary. It didn't even cross her mind that he could have been brainwashed.

Still no answer though the closer she came the more evident it would be that something was horribly wrong with Natsu. Between the melting skin and his overall lack of verbal response it should have been clear that while he was Natsu he also was something else. Something that would not tolerate intruders getting in the way of its duties.

Finally, Lucy stopped without actually touching Natsu. Why was it that he kept spreading all those fire around? Nothing was making sense.

"Natsu, can't you hear me? I'm talking to you!" she said, with a stern voice.

Edited 2013-04-24 22:21 (UTC)

That stern voice only had the opposite effect on Natsu who instead of speaking up finally turned fully to face the intruder. Now she could see him on all the deformed warped *glory*. Natsu's ghastly featured remained the same though his hands could be seen twitching, alternating between closed fist and curled fingers much as if he had claws instead of digits.

A faint growl somehow made its way out of his throat and the next moment he lunged at Lucy.

"THAT'S ENOUGH, NATSU! HEAR ME ALREADY." Lucy screamed in the end, while trying to defend herself with her arms. Still, she couldn't stop herself from hitting the ground.

He wished he could. He really did. But it wasn't enough to break through the hours upon hours of modifying and programming. He was stuck too deep in the back of his mind to hear her words.

Which was why he barreled into Lucy full force, knocking her down. In the fall he gripped her forearm and squeezed hard to make her stop the incessant screaming. So noisy soo soo noisy.

"GAHAAAAH..." Lucy cried, a few drops of tear flowing through her cheeks. "What has happened to you?" she asked, with a weak voice. "Please come back."

She might as well have been talking to a machine. His eyes had none of that care and life Natsu usually possessed. They were cold despite the flames one could see inside them. The hand on Lucy's rm squeezed again before starting to heat up gradually. The nuisance had to be silenced. if not, he'd have to eliminate. That was the directive given. Eliminate all obstacles preventing tasks given.

"Nat... su..." Lucy panted. Pain was evident in her voice. She was also crying. She was afraid. Even then, all she could think about was to bring Natsu back to himself.

"Hear... me... please..." she begged, still crying.

Once again her words fell on deaf ears and the temperature of his hands rose even further. By now the heat would start to become uncomfortable but Natsu showed no intent of stopping. She was still speaking after all.

The scream was loud enough to hurt people's ears. She wasn't even able to form sentences anymore. The pain was becoming too much.

Why wouldn't she shut up? Burning things don't talk. Maybe if he added more fire this obstacle would stop making so much noise. The odd things was it was scraping inside his mind as well. Something was starting to feel off.

"STOOOOP!" Lucy let out her loudest scream. Her vision was starting to get blurry. The feeling of her arm was beginning to get lost as well. The pain was too much that she couldn't even feel it anymore.

Suddenly Natsu froze entirely the flames around his hand fading back into his charred skin and even receding all the way to his elbow. He lingered a few more moments like that before his hand slowly released Lucy's. Even so there was still no sign of Natsu inside that burning husk of a man.

Lucy curled on the ground, holding her arm tightly. Her body was shaking, and tears were flowing through her eyes uncontrollably. She was panting rapidly as well.

"Nat... su..." She still tried calling out his name.

While her scream did reach him, he had completely locked down. It was the last shred of resistance he could offer. Changing his mission was the only thing he could do. So without another word, he got off of Lucy and turned away.

"No, wait! Natsu, just wait!" Lucy tried to get up, to no avail. "I told you to wait." She kept trying to talk to him. Her feet just wouldn't carry her.

He didn't wait. He didn't even stop to pick up his original cargo and just walked away down the corridor vanishing out of sight around a corner. All the while Lucy's desperate cries to him followed him and would haunt him the moment he would somehow return back to normal. What he had done...the betrayal was unforgivable.

"Natsu..." She said his name softly, watching him leave. She could do nothing other than watching him go. With one final scream, she called out his name. Everything went black for her, as she finally let go and collapsed on the ground.

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Critical error

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sob I'm sorry I'm so slow...

No problem. We've all been fairly slow this month.

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