Chapter 2: The Blonde, the Fraud, and the Levitating Lunch
Sticking with Natsu and Happy was, I quickly discovered, an exercise in controlled chaos. Natsu, now that his stomach wasn't trying to eject itself from his body, had the boundless, hyperactive energy of a puppy that had just chugged three espressos. He darted through the streets of Hargeon, sniffing the air, yelling "SALAMANDER!" at random people with red hair, and generally causing a low-level public disturbance that made NPCs visibly nervous. Happy fluttered along beside him, offering unhelpful commentary, while I floated serenely behind them like the world's most overqualified support drone.
This is fine, I thought to myself, effortlessly dodging a flailing arm from Natsu. This is exactly like escorting an NPC in a video game. An NPC with zero self-preservation instincts, a 'Leeroy Jenkins' charge strategy, and a tendency to aggro everything in sight.
It wasn't long before we heard it: a wave of high-pitched squealing that could shatter glass and curdle milk. It was the unmistakable sound of a fangirl mob, a phenomenon I was deeply familiar with from countless idol anime. Natsu, bless his simple, shonen-protagonist heart, interpreted this as a sign of a powerful fighter.
"Whoa, that guy must be super strong to have that many people cheering for him!" he exclaimed, his eyes sparkling. "He's gotta be Salamander!"
He charged towards the source of the noise, a dense crowd of swooning women gathered in the middle of a plaza. Happy and I followed, me phasing through the crowd with the ease of a ghost and Happy just flying over them. I made a mental note to try out Gengar's abilities later; turning invisible and pulling pranks sounded like a fantastic way to kill time.
And there he was. Bora. The fake Salamander.
He was even more ridiculous in person than on screen. The slicked-back purple hair that looked like a rejected Yu-Gi-Oh! design, the ridiculously flamboyant cape, the smug grin that screamed "I'm a C-list villain and I know it." He was using a cheap Charm spell, a low-level form of hypnosis, to enthrall the women around him. The air was thick with a sickly-sweet magical energy that felt like cheap perfume and desperation.
Pathetic, I thought, my inner monologue dripping with the disdain of a seasoned anime critic. This guy's the tutorial boss. The first Goomba in Super Mario Bros. He's here to make the real heroes look good, a walking, talking EXP piñata.
And speaking of heroes, my eyes scanned the crowd and landed on her.
Lucy Heartfilia.
Blonde hair tied in a side ponytail, big brown eyes currently glazed over with literal heart shapes, looking up at Bora like he was the last slice of pizza on earth. She was completely under the spell's influence.
"Oh, Salamander-sama, you're so dreamy!" she sighed, and I felt a wave of secondhand embarrassment so powerful it almost made me physically recoil.
Oh, Lucy. You're supposed to be the smart one, the audience surrogate! You're falling for the most obvious trap in the book! This is Day One stuff!
Right on cue, Natsu, with all the subtlety of a rampaging rhino, shoved his way through the crowd.
"Hey! Are you Salamander?" he yelled, completely oblivious to the romantic atmosphere Bora was trying (and failing) to cultivate.
The sudden intrusion, so loud and devoid of any romantic intention, was like a record scratch. The Charm spell flickered. The women blinked, confused. Natsu, meanwhile, was busy getting a closer look at Bora's signature (and realizing it wasn't Igneel's).
This was my chance to be more than a spectator.
While Natsu was having his moment of disappointment, I focused my psychic energy. I didn't do anything flashy. I just sent a small, precise pulse of pure, clean energy directly into Lucy's mind. It wasn't an attack; it was like hitting the 'refresh' button on a buggy webpage or blowing the dust out of an old game cartridge.
The effect was instantaneous.
Lucy's eyes cleared. The heart shapes vanished. She blinked, looked at Bora, looked at her own clasped hands, and a deep, horrified blush spread across her face. The sickly-sweet magic was gone, replaced by the cold, hard light of reality. She saw Bora not as a dream boat, but as a greasy, purple-haired weirdo with a cape.
"What was I just doing?" she whispered to herself, looking utterly mortified.
Natsu, having confirmed the autograph was worthless, loudly declared, "You're not the guy I'm looking for!" and turned to leave. The crowd, now completely free of the spell, dispersed, grumbling about what a creep Bora was.
Bora, furious at having his fan club disbanded, stomped off after yelling at Natsu. Lucy, wanting to thank the boy who had inadvertently saved her from terminal cringe, ran after us.
"Hey, wait up!" she called.
And so began the classic, canonical scene. Lucy, out of gratitude, offered to treat us to lunch. Natsu's stomach, which apparently had a one-minute cooldown, immediately started rumbling again.
"FOOD!" he and Happy cheered in unison.
We ended up at a nearby restaurant. The moment the food arrived, Natsu and Happy began inhaling it, creating a teetering tower of plates that defied the laws of physics. It was a spectacle of pure, unadulterated gluttony.
Lucy watched them, her eye twitching slightly, trying her best to maintain a polite conversation over the whirlwind of chomping and cheering. I, on the other hand, floated politely next to the table, content to simply observe. My quiet demeanor seemed to be a small island of sanity in the ocean of chaos.
Lucy sighed, taking a delicate bite of her own much more reasonably-sized sandwich. She gave me a small, weary smile.
"Well, at least you're well-behaved," she said, likely assuming I was just some bizarre, exotic breed of cat Natsu had picked up. "You're a strange-looking little thing, but you're kind of cute."
I gave a soft, innocent-sounding "mew" in response. Oh, this is too perfect, I thought, a mischievous spark igniting in my mind. She thinks I'm a normal pet. Time to shatter that illusion for comedic effect. Prepare for trouble, and make it double.
She turned back to her plate to take another bite of her sandwich. As the food approached her mouth, I used a tiny, invisible thread of telekinesis. The corner of the sandwich suddenly dipped downwards, neatly dodging her lips.
Lucy froze, mid-bite. She blinked. She slowly lowered the sandwich and stared at it, her expression a perfect mask of confusion. She poked it. It was a perfectly normal, non-sentient sandwich. Shaking her head slightly, probably blaming the weirdness of the day, she lifted it again.
Once more, just as she was about to take a bite, I made the sandwich juke to the left.
Her eyes widened. She stared at the sandwich with deep suspicion, as if it had personally insulted her. Natsu and Happy, lost in their own food-based dimension, noticed nothing. Lucy was all alone in her silent battle against a seemingly sentient lunch item.
She narrowed her eyes, determined. With a sudden, quick movement, she tried to catch the sandwich off guard. But I was ready. This time, I made the sandwich perform a graceful little backflip in her hand before landing perfectly back between the slices of bread.
That was the final straw.
"What is WRONG with this sandwich?!" she exclaimed, holding it out as if it were an alien artifact.
And for my grand finale, I had the sandwich float gently out of her hand. It hovered in the air for a dramatic second, then zipped across the table at high speed and inserted itself directly into Natsu's waiting mouth. He swallowed it in one gulp without even breaking his eating rhythm.
Lucy's jaw hung open. She stared at her empty hand, then at Natsu who was already reaching for another drumstick, and finally, her gaze landed on me.
I was just floating there, tail swishing gently, giving her the most innocent, wide-eyed look I could muster. I let out another soft "mew."
A vein started throbbing on her forehead. She pointed a trembling finger at me.
"YOU!" she shrieked, causing half the restaurant to look over. "It was YOU! You're not a cat! You're a... a... a food-stealing ghost-magician-thing! WHAT ARE YOU?!"
Natsu finally looked up, confused. "Huh? The little guy? He's awesome!"
"Aye! He gave us bread!" Happy added, holding up a fish skeleton.
Now that the prank was complete, it was time for the formal introduction. I sent the thought to all three of them, a clear, simple chime in their minds.
Mew.
Lucy froze, the angry look on her face melting into pure, unadulterated shock. "Mew? Is that your name? You can talk in our heads?!"
"He does that!" Natsu confirmed cheerfully. "He's our new teammate!"
Lucy looked at me, her mind visibly rebooting. A floating, pink, telekinetic, telepathic... prankster... named Mew. It didn't fit any magical creature she had ever read about. I was an anomaly, a puzzle, and I could see the gears turning in her head. Perfect. The mission to establish myself as a lovable but chaotic enigma was a resounding success.
The conversation continued, with me occasionally chiming in with a single-word telepathic comment, mostly to mess with them. When Natsu mentioned Igneel, I sent the word Dragon. When Lucy talked about her Celestial Spirits, I sent the word Stars. I was basically a living, floating emoji.
Eventually, the meal wound down, leaving a mountain of plates that would give the restaurant owner a heart attack. As Lucy paid the bill (wincing at the total), Bora, the fake Salamander, reappeared. He'd overheard Lucy talking about wanting to join Fairy Tail and saw his chance for revenge.
He smoothly invited her to a party on his yacht, promising to put in a good word for her with the guild master.
Ah, the classic villain trope, I thought. Luring the naive girl to a secluded secondary location. This guy's read the handbook.
Lucy, despite her earlier embarrassment, was tempted. The desire to join Fairy Tail was her primary motivation, her one big goal. It was a powerful lever to pull.
As she looked at the invitation, I decided to intervene again. I wasn't going to let her walk into this completely blind. I focused a sliver of my psychic power, not on her mind, but on the invitation itself. I imbued it with a faint, psychic residue.
When she looked at it, I sent a single, powerful, emotional pulse.
DANGER. TRAP. DECEIT.
It wasn't a voice. It was a gut feeling. The kind of feeling that makes the hair on your arms stand up, the kind of feeling that screams 'this is a bad idea.'
Lucy flinched, her hand trembling slightly as she held the paper. She looked at Bora's smiling face, and for a split second, she saw a flicker of something ugly and predatory in his eyes. The feeling passed, but it left a seed of doubt.
"I... I'll think about it," she said, pocketing the invitation.
Bora, confident his charm was working, just smirked and told her not to be late, before swaggering off.
"Wow, Lucy, you're gonna go to a party on a boat?" Happy asked.
"Maybe," she said, though her voice was uncertain. She looked at me. "Did you... do that? That feeling I just got?"
I just gave her a slow, deliberate blink. I'm not confirming or denying anything. Plausible deniability is my new middle name.
She left us soon after, heading off to think. I knew she'd still go. Her desire to join the guild was strong, and she'd want to see if the offer was legitimate, even with the bad feeling I gave her. But now, she'd be on her guard.
"Well, what do we do now, Natsu?" Happy asked, patting his full belly.
Natsu stretched, letting out a yawn. "Let's walk around. I'm sure we'll find something."
As we wandered through the evening streets, I guided our path with subtle psychic nudges, steering Natsu towards the docks. It wasn't long before we overheard two guys talking.
"...yeah, the famous Salamander is having a party on his yacht tonight! I hear he's sailing off with a bunch of girls!"
Natsu's ears perked up. "Sailing? A ship?"
His face immediately turned a sickly shade of green. But then, his expression hardened.
"Wait a minute," he growled, a low fire in his voice. "He's using the name of a Fairy Tail wizard... and he's sailing off on a ship? That doesn't sound right."
Happy nodded. "And he's not the Salamander we're looking for!"
Bingo. The plot hook has been taken.
Natsu looked down at me, a determined glint in his eyes. "Let's go crash a party."
I let out a cheerful, musical cry. Oh, this was going to be fun. Time to see a Fire Dragon Slayer in action. I just hoped the collateral damage wouldn't be too expensive.