"...nngh..." Erza had finally awoken, finding herself on the bloodied air bag that popped out of the steering wheel. The first thing she does is inhale some air only to be welcomed with smoke instead. With blur vision at the moment, she feels the pain-induced headache she was having from the crash.
Within seconds however, her vision was back to normal, now seeing the collateral damage she'd done with the car. The car in front of her was totaled, as well as the car she was driving in herself. The front of the car was totally smashed, seeing pieces from what seemed to be it's motor and engine sticking our with several other but smaller ones as well and with that, left it smoking.
The fog and rain had also stopped, making the street visible for her to see.
She looked to her right side hoping to see if Natsu was alright. He wasn't there, only seeing an empty seat by her side. "What the?" She immediately took off her seat belt and got out of the car only to find the other car empty as well.
With Natsu nowhere in sight and the other car empty, Erza turned to look around the street: still nothing. No witnesses, no bystanders, hell not even birds were around to look at the crash at hand. What the hell is happening here?
And with a blink of an eye, everything suddenly changed: the streets were now a deep green covered forest and Erza was right in the middle of it. What just happened!? With nothing in sight but trees, Erza could frantically turn to all her sides, trying to find a way out of it.
With no other options, Erza ran. With no directionality, she was just left with randomly running until she found something to led her to civilization. There's no way I went from being in the middle of a road to being in the middle of nowhere! She continued to run, pushing beyond her physical limitations. This has to be some kind of dream!
She finally made it to the end of the forest and entered the side of the road. She stopped in her tracks, gasping for air as her lungs needed to refuel. Thank god. Erza panted rapidly but after a few minutes, she was able to pace her breathing once again.
Erza continued to run, this time on the road until she found someone to help her. She continued to find that someone until she saw a car crash, only this one crashed into a tree.
Similar to that of the one she woke up to, she ran towards it. "Hey! Are you guys alright?" She yelled as she ran towards the crash.
The car was a grey Hyundai Tiburon as Erza read from the back of the car.
She was right by the driver's side of the window, finding an unconscious red headed man and on the passenger side of the car, a dark haired woman. Both of their faces were heavily bloodied as was their airbags that were meant to protect them.
She tried to open the door but it was locked from the inside. Left with no other options, with all her upper body strength, she elbowed the window, breaking and shattering the glass on to the man. She unlocked the door and opened it.
She checked for a pulse but it was too late, he was far gone. Erza now went to the passenger side, only find the same results as the man, the brunette was gone too. Damn it...
Suddenly, she heard a faint cry. A child's cry at that. Erza turned around and checked the backseat only to find something more shocking. "No way..." Her voice trembled, her eyes widening, she couldn't believe who she found.
The crying, it came from her child self. She was at a loss of words. Like staring into a mirror of the past, Erza could only help but stare at her child self, crying for her parents. "MAMA! PAPA!" The only words she cried out.
This... this is another memory... Erza finally realized what she was in.
She heard another car come from behind her, only this one was all-round black. Mercedes W140, was the car. The car parked right behind the bad crash and single silhouette covered man came out of it. The figure walked slowly to the car crash.
As Erza did, the silhouette figure did all the things she did and that was check for any signs of life. The figure then turned it's attention to the cries of the small child Erza in the back.
He opened the car door, slowly. "Little girl, are you okay?" The voice was distorted.
"My mama... my papa..." Little Erza continued to cry.
"There, there little girl, it's alright," the silhouette figure carried out the little scarlet haired girl. Erza could only stair and watch the whole thing go by. "What's your name little girl?" He asked.
"... my name is Erza..." Her pouring eyes turned to single drops, silently sobbing.
"Erza?"
"Erza!"
Erza was finally conscious. Instead of finding herself in the car, she found herself laying on the floor and right beside her was Natsu. "Hey, are you okay?"
"What... what happened?" As she sat up, she placed her hand over her head, feeling the blood pour out of her wound she sustained.
"We crashed." He pointed at the cars.
"Was there... anyone else?" She asked.
"Yeah," Natsu turned to his left, the 2 other people from the other car were placed right next to them, still yet to come out of there unconscious states. "An ambulance is coming already."
"That's... good..." She sighed, taking a deep breath.
...
Finally back at his apartment from the all-nighter he pulled, Laxus found himself in front of his doorstep. Tired, it took him longer to find and get his keys from his right pocket. He felt the cold nickel silver keys at the tip of his fingers and grabbed them, taking them out of pocket and proceeded to come inside his apartment.
Fatigued, he closed and locked the door behind him, threw his coat on the coat racket and simply trailed off into his living room and falling onto his couch. "Ah! Home sweet home..."
Suddenly, he felt a smaller and lighter person fall on top of him, hugging the man from behind. "Took you long enough to come home."
"Oi, it's not my fault you got here an hour before me, Levy." He turned around and saw the petite bluenette. Her blue hair was down and wet, already in her sleep attire which consisted of a white crochet lace tee and shorts and underneath it a matching white bra and panties.
Levy now laid on both his stomach and chest, letting some of the shower water on her hair onto his chest as she continued in her cuddle like hug. "I'm guessing you're not in the mood to... do some foreplay, huh?"
Every now and then, Laxus and Levy would do some foreplay, arousing each other before initiating the actual sex part of the foreplay. Not right now however, seeing as the blonde detective was out of juice at the moment. "As much as I would love to do that, I'm beat."
"Not even a teeny bit?" She asked once more.
"We can make out." He meekly suggested.
"That's not particularly fun that much without the usual foreplay," she sat on his chest, her small stature body wasn't heavy at all for the detective. "I'm guessing the job fucks you better than I do, huh?"
A small chuckle escaped from the man's mouth. "Well when you put it like that, you make that sound like a bad thing."
"You make it sound like I don't please you, which makes me a bit insecure..." She looked away from him, crossing her arms around her chest, with a small tint of blush over her cheeks.
"Hey, you definitely please me, Levy," he raised himself a bit up with his arms underneath him. "Don't you ever think I want to make you feel insecure. You know that's not my nature to do so."
His words were slightly effective as she finally faced him again. "... I'm sorry."
"And I'm sorry too." He apologized back.
With his right harm, he pulled her back and embraced the bluenette, now just cuddling how they were. He placed his lips on her forehead, kissing her. "I love you, alright?"
Levy couldn't help herself but smile meekly at the man. She returned the kiss, this time, placing her lips onto his. "I love you too."
They simply laid on the couch, still in their embraced state.
Levy fell asleep first in his arms while Laxus tried his best not to doze off.
Just as he was about to surrender to his tiredness, suddenly both his and the bluenette's phones loudly rang atop the coffee table they sat on.
His ringtone played Shepard of Fire by Avenged Sevenfold while hers played Cold Blooded by the Pretty Reckless.
She was still asleep in his arms so Laxus tried his best placing her on the couch as he got off to answer his phone. "Yeah?" He answered without looking at the caller ID.
"Detective Laxus, there's been an accident that happened downtown." A grunt officer called him, informing him of the situation at hand.
"And? I just pulled an all-nighter and I just got home, can't you low ranking officers do it?" While that did sound a bit insensitive, he was just telling the truth. The man needs some rest for crying out loud.
"Well we would unless this didn't have your name all over it." The officer on the other line vaguely said.
"What's that supposed to mean!?" He raised his voice. He was already tired, might as well just waist the remaining energy he had by yelling through the phone.
"It's Natsu Dragneel's car, sir."
"And?" Laxus rolled his eyes. As if his name didn't appear all over the news, let alone in his work life. "Can't you handle a simple car accident?"
"We would've until one of our technicians found that his car's brakes have been tampered with."
"Huh...." He loudly sighed, placing and rubbing his neck with his right hand, still holding the phone to his ear with his left. The stress finally kicked in. "I'll... I'll be right down there."
"Just come to the precinct, we already moved the majority of the cars and their totaled pieces there already."
"Alright, thanks for that." He hung the phone up.
"Whooo waaas that?" Levy yawned as she stretched her body on the couch.
"That was an officer on the phone." Laxus went to his coat racket and wore his jacket once more.
"What happened?" Upon hearing that work called, Levy woke up from her small nap.
"Someone tried killing the presidential candidate again."
...
Upon his arrival to the Police Station, like deja-vu, the front of the station was filled with news reporters and journalists once again.
Laxus parked his car in his usual place but like last time, the news reporters and journalists saw him and immediately moved towards him to surround him. "Alright Levy, when we go out, I want you right behind me." He told her as he was about to get out of the driver's seat, awaiting to be bombarded by questions and flashing camera lights.
"O-okay." Levy said nervously. This was the first time she was surrounded by all of these men and women from different sources of media, which made her stomach a bit queasy.
Laxus nodded and soon got out. Right behind him was Levy.
She held his left hand with her right hand, griping and holding on to his arm with all her might as the two of them walked through the crowd.
"Is it true that presidential candidate, Natsu Dragneel, has been in a car accident?"
"No comment." Laxus placed his hand over his eyes, blocking the lights from hitting his eyes.
"I heard that someone was in the hospital, was that him?"
"Still no comment." Laxus continued to answer the media the same way he's always done.
"I heard that his brakes were tampered with, are you the leading detective on his case?"
He and Levy finally entered the building, leaving the crowd outside as they were. "Jesus Christ!"
"What's wrong?" Laxus turned his attention towards his girlfriend.
"I think someone touched my ass earlier." She patted behind her ass, hoping to take off the perverts imprint on it.
"You want me touch it?" He, with a straight face, asked. She simply scoffed at his request.
Before she can answer him, Jura was right behind Laxus. "Ahem," he coughed, getting the blonde detective's attention. "There's no fraternization in the Police Department, detective Laxus."
"Oh, chief, didn't see you there." Laxus said nervously, a sweat drop trickled down his cheek.
"Um, I'm going to go now," Levy let out a small wry laugh. "I have a car- cars to examine in the garage, see you!" The bluenette now left her lover to deal with their boss.
"I- uh- I got nothing." Laxus admitted.
"Okay enough of that pointless babble, we have a serious problem." Jura got right down to the case.
"I know about the tampered brakes, sir." Laxus tried to assure him.
"It's not just that," the two of them walked upstairs and into the chief's office. Jura sat down in his chair while Laxus sat across from him. "The FBI is coming down my neck on this."
"Are they nervous that they may have closed their "Dark Rose" case too soon?" It didn't surprise Laxus not one bit. He knew the case wasn't over nor did he think that it was the last time it was going to cross his mind about it.
"Yes, I want you to make sure that what's happening now is not in any way connected to that case." Jura asked of him.
"I have a gut feeling it is." Laxus told him.
"Well I don't like gut feelings," Jura said. "Now go find me that evidence to shut them up."
Laxus got up from his chair. "And what happens if I find evidence that does link it?" He hypothetically spoke.
"Then this becomes one major shit mess," He truthfully answered him. "Don't disappoint me."
"Alright, where is Mr. Dragneel?" Laxus needed a location on his whereabouts before heading off.
"In the ME's office." Jura answered him.
"Wait a minute, I thought no one died." Laxus raised an eyebrow.
"No one died, it's just him and his bodyguard didn't want to go to the hospital," Jura assured the detective. "So instead, the trio downstairs are examining them."
"Great, at least that saves me gas money to go out and see them at the nearest hospital." Laxus smirked. He left his boss's office and proceeded to go down in the first floor of the basement through the elevator.
After a few minutes of riding down the elevator, he made it into the ME's lab. "Hey, what's up Detective Laxus."
The pinkette greeted him as he walked into the room. He and Erza both sat next to each other. He also noticed that the trio weren't nowhere in sight.
Laxus saw that both him and Scarlet had bandages wrapped around their heads. "Uh, hi, where are the medical examiners?"
"The one called Evergreen went to the morgue, something about showing a family member his dead relatives or something," Erza told him their whereabouts. "The one called Freed went to the garage, gathering blood more blood samples from the cars." She continued. "And the one called Bickslow went to go get us something to eat."
"What brings you down here, detective?" Natsu asked.
"Well I came down here to ask some questions about your whereabouts throughout the day, if that's alright with you two?" Laxus took one of the chairs and sat right across from the two of them.
"Not at all, ask away." Natsu answered for the two of them.
"Okay," he took out his little notepad and pencil from within his jacket's inner pocket. "Let's start this morning, where were you two?"
"I was still home eating breakfast." Natsu answered.
"I was just arriving to his house in my car." Erza answered secondly.
"Afterwards?" He scribbled down their answers.
"We went to Magnolia's General Hospital." Natsu answered.
Laxus stopped scribbling on his little notepad upon hearing they had gone to the hospital beforehand. "Mind telling me what you were doing there?"
"He went to visit his father." Erza was the one to answer the question.
"He's... dying." Natsu gulped down some saliva, having trouble saying those very words.
"Oh," Laxus was rather shocked to hear this news. "I'm sorry about that."
"It's fine, his doctor today told me he didn't have much time left," Natsu sadly sighed as he explained. "He has stage four lung cancer. At the very least, he has less than 3 months left."
"I see," Laxus continued to write down the conversation. "And when you were coming back, was that then when you realized that your car's brakes didn't work anymore?"
"Yes," Erza answered. She was the one driving when the accident occurred. "As I was driving, I tried stopping the vehicle. However, each time I pressed on the brake, the car wouldn't even stop an inch." She recollected the calamity of events. "I tried to pull the emergency brake but I was too late, we crashed with the other vehicle at the intersection."
"And the brakes were working fine before you made it to the hospital?" He asked.
"Yes." She answered.
"Okay, so we have to assume that the brakes were tampered with while you two were visiting at the hospital." Laxus put his notepad away, now done with his questions.
"I would assume so, yes." Natsu agreed with the man's intuition.
"What time did you arrive there?" He asked one more question before leaving to investigate.
"Around 1:12 P.M.," Natsu looked at his wristwatch and back at the blonde detective. "And we left there around 6."
"So whoever did this had a 5 hour open window to do this," Laxus was now about to head out. "You guys can go home now, I'll have someone drive you two home."
"Thanks I appreciate that."
...
Thanks to the information received to him by Natsu and Erza, Laxus now headed towards Magnolia's General Hospital, along with a familiar golden blonde computer analyst, Hibiki. It wasn't far from the Station but needless to say, Laxus still drove. "Sooo... why do you need me?" Hibiki asked him as he stopped at a red light.
"You're going to find my suspect in the Hospital's cameras while I talk to the Hospital's staff." He answered him.
"You know, I could've done that from my computer." Hibiki meekly suggested to the detective.
"Just shut up and do what I tell you to do," Laxus retorted. As easy as that sounded, he preferred to do things face to face, hands on. "Alright?"
"Alright, I guess." The golden blonde pouted, not bothering to complain any longer.
They finally arrived. Laxus entered the Hospital's parking space and, well, parked his car.
As the two got out of the car and made there way to the entrance, an old pinkette woman awaited and greeted them. "You must be detective Laxus I presume? We spoke on the phone earlier."
"Yeah," Laxus shook her right hand with his left while Hibiki only gave her a nod. "Porlyusica, right?"
"Yes," she shook right back with a firm grip. "I'm the Dean of Medicine here, you said that one of our security cameras might've caught your suspect in the act of tampering with Mr. Dragneel's brakes in his cars, correct?"
"Yes ma'am, he's here to check them whilst I question some of the people out here, hopefully they saw something if your cameras didn't." He explained their plan.
"That's fine, you should start with the construction workers over there," she glared past the two men and into the side of the hospital where the construction workers were. Apparently, they were adding a new gift shop. "And then speak with Brutus over there, he let's the people in and out of the parking lot."
"Thank you ma'am." And off Laxus went to start his investigation.
"And you can follow me, I'll show you to the camera room." As soon as she said that, the old doctor made her way into the hospital's main lobby whilst the golden blonde followed right behind her.
Making their way through doctors, patients and visitors alike, Porlyusica finally brought the analyst to the camera room. With her keys, she opened the door and let the man in first. "Here we are." The room itself was pretty dark but nonetheless the illuminating light from the screens was enough for the analyst to work with.
"Anyone else have access to this room?" Hibiki asked as made himself comfortable on the chair. It's warm, someone must've already been here.
"Are you implying that someone from our staff is your suspect?" A little hint of irritation was in her voice. She was rather appalled that the cop was assuming her or her staff were a part of whatever they were investigating.
"Not the question I asked," he retorted. "I only asked if there was anyone else besides you and security that have a key to this room, the seat was rather warm when I sat on it."
"I can see your point," she silently sighed. "It's me, the security guards and a few nurses." She told him. "The nurses come here to take a nap whenever they do double shifts."
"Mm, okay." He skimmed through the early recordings. He started from where Natsu and Erza arrived and made his way forward through the video afterwards.
"Anything else?" She asked, before departing and leaving him be with the room.
"No, that's about it," he responded, looking back at the stern old woman. "Thank you."
She left him be.
"Alright... what do we have here..." Hibiki said lowly to himself as soon as he saw something that caught his attention in the recordings. 3:12 P.M., that's where a strange man wandered his sights on the mobile.
The video was low quality, but with the right adjustments with the tools he had brought, the blurriness of the screen was now fixed and the analyst had a clear picture of the man's face, well more like the teenager's face. He cropped out everything but the man's face and sent it to Forensics. And with that, he took out his phone and dialed his partner.
Outside back at the parking lot, Laxus had interviewed everyone that Porlyusica had mentioned. And they all came back with similar stories: they didn't see anyone act suspicious or look out of place. He was at a dead end at his path.
"No one saw anything..." He jotted down the last few of his thoughts on his little notepad before putting it back in his inner pocket of his jacket. "Just great, I really hope Hi-" Midway through his sentence, his phone rang. Hibiki, was the caller. "Speak of the Devil."
He answered. "You found something?"
"Yup, I got our guy in the act." Hibiki informed him.
"Nice fucking work." Laxus happily grinned at the sound of those words.
"Just sent the picture to Levy and her crew, hoping she can ID him." He told him through the phone.
"And hopefully soon." Laxus now hung up the phone.
Just as he was about to put his phone back in his back pants pocket, he received an email. A message from Levy. Either she texted him something erotic like she would do when she's missing him or she ID'ed his suspect. He was going with the latter.
He opened the message and just when he thought his grin couldn't get any bigger, it did. The man in the picture Hibiki sent was ID'ed as Rio Belevan. He was small time crook, fenced stolen items and was committed for battery assault. The message also contained his current address which was only 3 blocks from the Hospital.
He then called Hibiki. "Alright meet me at 3547 Baker Street."
"On it."
...
After several minutes, Laxus had arrived first at the apartment complex where his suspect lived. He awaited for Hibiki who was taking his sweet time getting there.
Getting rather impatient, just as he soon pulled out his phone, came coming around the corner the golden blonde analyst. "What the hell took you so long!?" Laxus forehead nerve popped out as he let his anger out.
"Sorry, sorry," Hibiki deeply apologize for his tardiness. "I just met this really cute nurse. And of course, I was inclined to give her my number just because of how pretty she was."
"And?" Laxus was only getting more irritated with each passive second within the conversation.
"Her name was Jenny!" He scratched his left cheek, smiling as he remembered her beautiful long blonde hair and that curvy body of hers. His daydream soon ended when the man could see Laxus killing glare. "Which is probably something you didn't need to know..."
"Obviously, now come on we have someone we need to talk to." Laxus now walked into the building, soon followed by Hibiki.
"Can I help you gentlemen?" A woman, standing right behind the main lobby's desk where the tenants checked in.
She had an eastern look to her: long, straight and glossy purple hair, reaching down to her lower back, while mostly left loose, being parted in the middle of her forehead and sporting two bangs framing her face and going down below her shoulders, the top part of her hair is also tied into a pair of bun-shaped Dango loops at both sides of her head, and a braid is present some inches below each of such loops. Her lips were colored with a shade or maroon lipstick while having blue eyeshadow. Her attire composed of a white buttoned up shirt, a short black dress and black high heeled boots.
Her features were strikingly mesmerizing for someone to be having this kind of job. "I need the room Rio Belevan is staying in." Laxus showed her his badge.
"Do you need his key as well?" She asked as she opened the drawer on her desk.
"Just in case, yes." Laxus answered.
"Here you go," she handed the detective the keys. "His room is on the 8th floor, number 6 to be precise."
"Thank you, ma'am, stay safe." Laxus now started to walk towards the elevator.
He then turned to look at Hibiki who couldn't stop staring at the woman at the desk, awestruck by her beauty. "Hey, come on now."
The golden blonde didn't respond. Without any other choice, Laxus pulled the analyst by the ear and dragged him to the elevator. "Sorry about that ma'am." He apologized for Hibiki's rude behavior just as the elevator doors closed.
"S-Sorry about that." Hibiki weakly laughed, massaging his left ear in which Laxus pulled.
"Whatever." Laxus didn't want to bother with the subject.
"It just felt like I've seen her somewhere before though." He rested his head over his hand, trying to remember if he did have a vague memory of seeing her.
"I really don't care, just want to get this over with." The elevator stopped at their destination.
They walked the halls of the building until they made it to room number 6 where Rio was. Laxus knocked the door hard. "Rio Belevan! This is Detective Laxus from MPD, open the damn door!" He announced himself.
After a couple of seconds, no respond came. "Rio Belevan!" He yelled his name once more, knocking on the door much harder than earlier.
"Don't come in!" He finally answered, just not the response both cops would want to hear.
"Open the door, now!" Laxus commanded.
"I... I can't!" The man now started to cry behind the door.
Left with no choice, Laxus signaled Hibiki to open the door whilst he readied his gun. And in a single swoop, the two entered his apartment only to find Rio strapped to a chair with a timed bomb. 10 seconds on it left.
"Oh god." Laxus lowered his gun.
"Her name was Minerva. She told me to do it."
In front of the building, coming out of the apartment complex, the woman from behind the desk now left with an evil smirk. She put on glasses and a dark jacket as disguise, walking and blending in with the crowd. And as she left, BOOM! The explosion was seen from outside the front of the building, engulfing the room with flames and smoke.
Windows were shattered and fell on unsuspecting people from below. And with that, the mass hysteria started.