Shooting Star

Sitting on a high branch in a forest, a young man looks longingly up to the stars. Silently, he makes a wish to the heavens above. Smiling softly he shuts his eyes and slowly goes to sleep unaware of the shooting stars that leave a blazing trail across the sky.

At the same time, in another place far away… a woman looks up at the velvety night sky while sitting on a back porch swing. Unbeknownst to her, she makes the same wish as the man… before she too soon falls asleep. A warm breeze picks up and rocks the swing with a gentle sway while shooting stars appear overhead to cover the clear sky.

In a third place that is separate, but connected to the worlds the man and woman live in, a large figure watches the night sky. From two different directions, shooting stars streak through the air simultaneously. Carrying with them are the voices of the man and the woman as they made their wish. After hearing both of their hearts' desire, the large figure starts to smile. Reaching out in the direction of the stars that carried the woman's wish, the figure plucks something unseen out of the air. Then, turning to the direction the other set of stars came from, the figure lets go of whatever was plucked out of the air. Lowering the arm, the smile grows before the figure speaks.

"Now the rest is up to you two to make your wish come true…." The large figure walks away smiling to itself as the voices continue to echo throughout the air in a soft whisper…

"I wish to find someone who can help make me stronger…

…who can help me protect the ones that I love and cherish."

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"Natsu! Where are you?" A feminine voice calls out.

"Over here, Lucy!" replies a young man with pink spiky hair and wearing a white scaled scarf that is wrapped around his neck. He is standing outside of an immense wooden wall while sniffing the air. Nearby a young blonde girl appears out of the village that is surrounded by the wall.

"What are you doing Natsu? We are about to leave." she says in an annoyed tone.

"Something isn't right. There is a weird smell in the air…. Like something doesn't belong." stated Natsu seriously.

"Eh!? Oh no! Don't tell me it's something to do with that demon Deliora again!" Lucy shouts out suddenly, attracting the attention of their other teammates and some of the villagers.

"What's going on? What's this about Deliora?" gruffly demands a young scarlet-haired woman. Shaking his head in denial, Natsu replies between sniffs.

"No, it isn't Deliora, but it doesn't smell natural either… If it's another demon, it isn't one that lives here. The smell is just too different… Too unnatural." The blonde girl holds her hands in front of her busty chest and shivers in fear.

A blue-furred cat with wings hovers over by Lucy and states simply, "It's probably just Lucy. She is smelly." He then puts a paw over his mouth to unsuccessfully stifle a laugh.

Enraged, the blonde yells while stomping, "I don't stink, you crappy cat!"

Ignoring this, a young man with messy black hair asks with a grim voice, "What if it has something to do with Deliora? Maybe we should check it out to be on the safe side for the villagers' sake?"

"Hmm." hums the red-headed woman as she crosses her arms in annoyance. One of the villagers who resembles a tall green lizard man approaches the group using a spear as a walking stick.

"If you would help us check this out before you leave, we would be eternally grateful. Well, its not like we aren't already, but this would be tremendously helpful." The older woman closes her eyes for a moment to seriously consider the request before snapping her eyes open.

"Ok, we will check this out. Natsu, can you pinpoint where the smell is coming from?" she says commandingly.

Pointing towards the forest, he replies, "It seems to be coming from that direction but it seems fairly dispersed, like it has some time to spread out. I should be able to find it when we get closer, but its hard to pinpoint from this distance."

The lizard-man villager takes a step forward and says, "Some of us can go scouting out in that direction to see if we can find anything while you follow the scent." The older woman replies with a nod while humming in approval.

"Let's move out and stay in contact, we don't want anyone to get separated before we know what we are facing." She says in a militant voice before running in the direction Natsu pointed to. The pink-haired man quickly takes the lead and starts tracking down the scent. Several of the villagers, who all look like different types of demons, spread their wings and follows after the group. After a handful of minutes, Natsu suddenly stops and takes a long sniff in the air.

"We're here. Whatever it is, it has to be around here." He rubs his nose hard. "I smell human as well, but whatever this smell is, it's really irritating my nose." He crinkles up his face in distaste as he keeps rubbing at his sensitive nose. He then turns to the older woman with a serious look. "What do you want us to do Erza?"

"Spread out. Stay in sight of each other. Be on guard, and let out a shout if you find anything suspicious." she says before walking forward with confidence. The rest of the group follows her instructions and starts to comb the woods.

"We'll start searching around from the air." calls out one of villagers, the canopy being too thick to tell who shouted. A few minutes of searching later, Lucy slips on some moss on top of a large rock and falls before letting out a large yelp as she lands.

"Luce, you ok?" calls out Natsu as he heads over to check on his friend.

"Nothing damaged but my pride." says Lucy with a shaky laugh. "At least I landed on something soft." She looks down and gives out a squawk in surprise. The soft thing she landed on turns out of be a rather plump woman with brown hair who appears to be unconscious and in a pair of thick, grey cloth pants, odd red socks, and what looks to be a light green nightgown.

Natsu vaults over the rock and lands on the other side of the woman while quickly followed by the cat, Erza, and the man with black hair. Lucy quickly gets off the woman and joins her friends. They inspect her closely as Natsu squats down and starts to sniff near her head.

"That's her! She's the one who smells weird. She does smell human as well, but it's drowned out by this irritating stuff, like she got dumped in something… But its getting weaker. Very weird..." While explaining this, he doesn't notice the woman's eyes start to open.

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I start to wake up, feeling sluggish and disoriented. The first thing I realize is that my stomach hurts, a lot. (Damn, what the hell did I eat to cause this?) The next thing I notice is that there is an unfamiliar voice right by my ear. I open my eyes to see a tuft of pink hair in front of me, soon followed by a face.

I gasp in surprise and try to back away, only to find that I'm laying on my back next to something hard. The face, which I realize is male, quickly backs enough distance away for me to sit up. Behind him are two girls and one other guy. Breathing hard, I look around quickly to assess my situation.

(What the hell is going on? Why am I in these woods, and who the hell are these people?) I voice out my thoughts and they look at me really confused.

"Who are you? Where the hell am I?!" I ask again, now starting to panic and shout. One of the girls, a blonde, comes forward and makes 'calm down' motions with her hands while spouting out some gibberish. My breathing starts to calm down since these people aren't making any threatening moves towards me, yet. I push myself up onto my feet unsteadily, eyeing the four people in front of me.

I hear them speak to each other in that weird language. I don't recognize that language. Some of the words seem familiar though. (Wait, watashi? That's Japanese! But the rest of that doesn't sound Japanese. Hold on, Mr. Grumpy-face there just said cool in English. What is going on here?) I see that the pink-haired male is staying quiet and just stares at me. It gives me a bit of an uneasy feeling. But nothing in my 27 years of life would've ever prepared me for what I saw next.

A blue cat with wings suddenly appears to my left, causing my eyes to pop out. I shriek out in surprise and disbelief. Twisting to face it, I stagger back to put distance between it and me. I see it put a paw over its mouth and it laughed!?

(This cat is flying and laughing? Where the hell am I?! In OZ? Or maybe Wonderland? It sure the hell isn't my world…) Feeling cornered by the rocks around me and the unknown situation, I start breathing heavily in panic. The four people approach me slowly. I scramble backwards trying to climb over the rocks while not taking my eyes off them. They try to calm me down, or so it seems from their actions and the tone of their voices. My hands land on a stick and I grip it, in case I might need it.

Starting to get over my flying cat shock, their smiles slowly start to put me at ease again. Without a bit of warning, a shape blurs down from the canopy quickly followed by a few more. I don't know how many… All I can tell is that the other people are unaware of them.

(What are those?…. I gasp in astonishment. Monsters? Demons!? No fucking way! They are coming this way! Holy shit! And those people don't know that they are right behind them. I gotta do something!)

Still holding the stick, I push the four in front of me out of the way and let out a war cry to attack the demons. I see that the lizard man thing in front has a spear in his hands. (Oh fuck, this won't end well.) The demons look extremely surprised at my sudden attack and I was able to hit the one in front across the knuckles which causes it to let go of the spear.

Unfortunately, my stick breaks after one hit. Now I'm left with just a stub. I motion for the other people to get away while I back up, hoping to find another weapon. To my utter surprise, I feel hands on my arms, restraining me. I turn to look to see the four people I tried to protect are now holding me still. (The hell! Are they with the demons?! FUCK!)

I struggle trying to get free while shouting in fear, "Let me go, you bastards! Let me go!" I see the demon that I hit walking up to me and I increase my struggles. I'm making the people on my arms stumble around, but damn they got a good grip on me. I can't seem to get free. Next thing I know, there is pain at the back of my neck and blackness overcomes me.