Everything was in disarray; the streets were filled with people running in panic, others stood in front of the building taking pictures of the apartment ablaze. More than a dozen civilians from the apartment complex ran out through the front door, crashing with other people and hurting each other in their frantic states.
Firefighters, police and EMTs arrived at the scene. The policemen tried to calm the people in the streets and securing the front of the pavement were the building stood. The firefighters just entered while the EMTs looked at potential victims from both the blast and when they hurt each other trying to get out.
Back inside the building, Laxus was the first regain his consciousness after the explosion.
As he opened his eyes, he saw the ceiling above him, falling to his back from the explosion. His vision was disoriented, his head was about to explode due to the painful migraine cause by the explosion, he couldn't hear anything and worst of all, he couldn't feel his left arm.
Well he could still feel it but a tingling and numbing sensation loomed over it each time he moved his fingers around. He could barely move his wrist. The worst was not being able to bent his arm as he tried to get up with it. With his right arm, he managed to get up, only to see the fire set ablaze inside the room. His only lead was now dead.
He looked to his side and saw Hibiki, curled up on his side. He crawled towards him with the little energy he had left.
The detective's eyes blurred more with each aching step as he dragged himself to his partner. He was going back to being unconscious with each breath he took as he inhaled more of the ash and smoke.
He finally made to him and saw that the analyst had taken most of the debris from the explosion, slowly bleeding out. Left with no other choice, Laxus had to get himself and Hibiki up and make it to the elevator.
With the support of his right arm, he finally managed to get himself off the floor he laid on. Still having some strength left, he lifted Hibiki onto his back and pushed himself toward the elevator. The explosion made him dizzy but it was not enough to incapacitate him.
Now in front of the elevator, he pressed the button, hoping the tight quartered moving room would come. He placed Hibiki on the side of the wall and sat with the blonde, waiting for the damn elevator.
Laxus held on to the remaining energy he had left. His eyes were twitching due to the smoke and the more he inhaled it, the more it made him less breathe. He was losing his consciousness and fast.
The elevator dinged and to the detective's surprise, firefighters were in it. A few made their way to the room while two of them took them down to be checked on by the paramedics on the scene. As they went down, one of the firefighters gave Laxus his gas mask, finally giving the man fresh air in his lungs.
Finally bringing the two down, they took them to the paramedics. The firefighters placed the two of them down onto the gurney and the two were rushed right into the backs of 2 ambulances by the paramedics, riding in separate vehicles.
...
"This is Channel 7 News, and we're live right now in front of the building in which..."
Laxus was brought to the ICU, only having minor injuries to his arm whereas Hibiki was taken down to the emergency surgery room. He finally regained some motion to his left arm and was given a thin cast over it, nonetheless, he still had to be careful with it.
The detective sat on the corner of his bed, where he listened to the TV, showcasing the event of the bombing that occurred. "Is this the work of terrorist?" Said the blonde reporter on TV.
"Great..." Laxus facepalmed as he heard the woman utter those words. It was bad enough that their only suspect died before telling them anything concrete and now the media was instilling mass hysteria with their terrorist talk. "Just fucking great." He moved his palm to his lips, wiping the saliva as he embalmed his hand into a fist and taking it off his face.
A simple generic looking male doctor finally came back with the results in hand. "Detective Laxus."
"Oh hey doc, what's good?" Laxus turned to look at the doctor as he stood right beside the bed.
"Good news and bad news." He said as he opened the folder which contained some X-rays.
"Give me the bad news." Laxus rather hear the bad before the good.
"Well it isn't so bad to be honest," he placed the X-ray of the detective's arm on a white board. With a switch, a light radiated from behind, causing the bone part of the X-ray to light up. "As you see, the joint of the humerus was in a misplaced position, is the reason why you couldn't move your arm earlier after the explosion."
"And the good news?" Laxus now awaited for the good news, hoping it reassured him of the bad news.
"Good news is, we were able to move it back in place," he took off the X-ray picture and put up a new one after they've placed it back. "Every now and then, you would have trouble moving it but in 2 maybe 3 weeks, it should heal and you would be back in your physical peak."
"Heh, what about my friend? Any news on him?" He now wondered about his analytical friend, Hibiki. From what he had heard from earlier nurses and doctors, his golden haired friend was rushed into surgery.
"Your partner, Hibiki, sustained most of the damage," the doctor sighed as he told him the news. "He must've pushed you out of the way, hence the reason why he took most of the debris." He cocked and adjusted his glasses before continuing. "He sustained a lot of injuries to the chest and stomach areas and had 2nd and 3rd degree burns, the surgeons say he may have a low percentage of surviving the surgery..."
"That idiot..." Laxus could hardly remember the event. It happened so fast, but finally hit him, the golden blonde truly did push him out of the doorway in time before any real damage hit the detective. "Why... why!?" Laxus couldn't control his emotions. Anger and sadness had loomed over him, getting up from the side of the bed and walking around in a distraught state of mind.
"I'm sorry." The doctor patted the detective's back and walked over to another patient in the ICU.
Laxus now blamed himself for putting Hibiki in surgery. If he hadn't had act so rash back there at the apartment, maybe he would be in the ICU as well. He continued to pout over his guilt and the decisions he made leading up to the explosion.
"Oh my god, you're okay!" Suddenly, a familiar petite bluenette hugged the detective from behind.
"Easy there Levy, my left arm was only hurt." He turned around and hugged her back.
"Thank god," she let go of him. "I heard Hibiki was rushed into surgery, is he okay?" She knew the golden blonde. Every now and then, she would help the man with his computer forensics.
"The doctor came by and told me he only had a slim chance of... surviving..." He gulped down some saliva, having trouble saying those words.
"Oh no," Levy gasped, placing both her hands over her mouth. "He's... he's..." She tried to say something positive but her stream of tears won over her.
Laxus brought her closer, hugging her and placing her head to her chest where she poured her tears on. "He's going to make it, I know it, he's someone who wouldn't give up so easily." He comforted her.
"Laxus!" The medical examiner trio came to visit him as well, standing right behind them was the Chief police, Jura.
"Freed, Evergreen, Bickslow, boss," he saw the four of them walk towards him and Levy. "Hey."
"We heard what happened and we rushed here as soon as possible." Evergreen was the first to make it to their position.
"Are you alright?" Freed asked as he and Bickslow were the second and third to make it to their position.
"Yeah, just have sprained arm." He answered. He let go of Levy who stopped her sobbing.
"What about Hibiki?" Bickslow asked.
"He's in surgery," he told them. "Doctors say he may have only a slim chance of survival."
"Oh god, that sounds horrible." Evergreen gasped, Freed's eyes widened and Bickslow looked at his feet, not wanting to show his grief.
"Laxus." Jura called out to him. He gestured his finger for him to come towards him, implying he wanted to talk privately with him.
Laxus went towards him, leaving the four of them to converse about the current situation. "I saw the news, I could only imagine the press knocking at your door and asking for questions that we still don't have answers to."
"Yeah," Jura sighed. The situation at hand was getting worse by the second. "Not only them, but Homeland Security called, they want us to find out if this was some sort of terrorist attack. And they an answer soon."
"Well I have good news and bad news." Laxus told him.
"Good news first." All day long, Jura had seen and heard mostly bad news so for once throughout the day did he once want to hear good news.
"Before our lead was, well burnt to a crisp, he gave us a name." He told him.
"That's great!" Jura was somewhat at ease to have find out that the lead didn't fully die without cooperating. "So what's the bad news?"
"He... didn't give me a full name, only a first name." Laxus sighed as he told him.
"Well, a name is a name, whether it'd be an alias or not, it's still better than nothing," Jura assured the detective. "I want you to go with Levy and see if any of the databases have a match with that name."
"Okay sir, but what about... Hibiki?" As much as he wanted to go back and finish the job, Laxus couldn't leave the man behind that saved him.
"I'll have 2 men stationed here if they hear anything, I need the trio to positively identify our bomber." Jura said as he looked into the direction of his employees.
"Alright."
...
Back at the Precinct, Laxus was in the Forensics lab. While he and his girlfriend tried to find someone by the name of Minerva, Jet and Droy were processing the rest of the evidence from the crime scene at the lab.
"Anything in our database?" Laxus asked as Levy typed in her computer.
"Nope, nada." She said as the name was never brought up in the local database.
"How about FBI?" He suggested as he as well looked at her computer monitor.
"Hmm okay," she went on the FBI criminal database. 5 minutes passed and it came up empty as well. "Nope, same result as before."
"Try..." He tried to think of something. "Try... Interpol."
"Interpol? Alright I guess." If this was some kind of terrorist attack, Interpol might have their suspect in the database.
Not even five minutes and they got 3 hits. "Alright, I got three hits," she stated the obvious. "You want to see them?"
"Yeah, maybe the hospital camera may have captured her as well without us noticing." Laxus said as he continued to look at the monitor.
"Okay, first one we got is Minerva Orla-" She was quickly cut off as she showed the picture to Laxus. An brown colored woman with blue colored mascara and blue lipstick, with tied up bun hairs and loose hair behind it.
"No fucking way!" His pupils widened as he can recognize the woman.
"You know her?" She looked at Laxus. From his expression, she could see that her boyfriend instantly knew her from somewhere.
"She was in the main lobby!" He remembered her from the apartment complex. It was the same woman who gave them the key to the suspect's apartment room. The same woman who looked innocent in a way any woman would give based on just appearance. "She was the one who gave us the key and told us where the man's apartment was."
"Did she want to see her own handiwork in action?" Levy asked while she continued to read the woman's file.
"Maybe, crazy bitch!" He couldn't believe that he and Hibiki were played from the moment the two entered the building.
"It says here that she's more of a hitman than anything, killing her intended target with measurable amounts of collateral damage." She read from the monitor as she scrolled down.
"You think someone hired her to kill Natsu?" He asked her input.
"Maybe, if that were true, wouldn't she had blown up his car instead making someone else tamper with it?" Levy asked.
"She could've, but she didn't," Laxus reached for his phone. "I got to tell-"
He was immediately cut off by his phone ringing. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was blocked. Rather nervous, he answered nonetheless after the third ring. "Hello? This is Detective Laxus Dreyar from Magnolia Police Department."
"Oh, I know who you are, Detective." A woman's voice was heard. Could it have been Minerva calling him?
"Who is this?" He asked. His tone had a bit of nervousness but still, did he manage to hide it.
"Oh you know who this is, you're looking right at my Interpol file." And there, she confirmed herself to be Minerva.
With silent gestures with his hands, Laxus told Levy to start a trace for her phone's location. "Minerva, isn't it?"
"Yes," she truthfully answered. "You're probably wondering why I'm calling, aren't you, detective?"
"That and many other questions beside that," he continued to cautiously converse with her. "You almost killed me and my partner back there, why?"
"You're alive aren't you? Not so much about your friend though, is it?" She added a laugh at the end of her sentence.
Laxus tried to control his anger. "That doesn't answer my question."
"Oh I know, but that's not what I'm calling you for." She said. He could hear her footsteps, but where was she walking to?
"Then why are you calling me for?" Laxus asked, hoping this wasn't a wasteful conversation.
"I just called to reassure you that my target is not Natsu Dragneel, the dear ol' presidential candidate." She said. He couldn't hear her walking anymore.
"Then why target his car?" He asked. It didn't make sense to him, if not the pinkette then who was her intended target?
"I just needed him to get your attention." She revealed.
"Well, you got my fucking attention alright." He told her, cursing as well.
"You are a fascinating detective, aren't you?" She could only laugh. He could only imagine an evil smirk across her face.
"I don't know what you mean by that." Is she playing a game with him specifically? He had to wonder why she did all of this just for his undivided attention.
"Well, I don't have much time to explain myself," she told him. "You're going to have to wait." She continued. "And don't bother tracing this call, by the time you sent a patrol to get here, I'll be long gone." And she hung the phone up.
Laxus looked at his phone. He hung up as well. "Anything?" He turned to look at Levy.
"The call wasn't long enough, sorry." She told him unfortunately.
And in a fit of rage, Laxus threw his phone across the room and into a wall where it shattered, scattering the battery, it's case, the phone itself, and both memory and Sim card. His action startled the two other forensic specialist in the room.
...
Tonight was finally the night, Erza knew what she had to do. After leaving Natsu's home, she inadvertently snuck right back in, this time in her assassin gear.
Cautiously walking through his home, she knew where to go through the darkness of his home.
She only had 2 days before her deadline. And what was currently going on in the news made it a perfect cover for her to do something before anyone can discover what had happened before it's too late.
She finally made to his room, slowly opening his door. Erza now stood right in front of the bed where pinkette laid. Okay Erza, she mentally thought to herself. You've waited long enough, it's finally time to do the inevitable.
She silently glided her feet on the right side of the bed. She saw the man in his deep sleep, snoring through the night. "Zzzzzz..."
She took out her Sai and placed her both her hands on it. She hovered the Sai over Natsu's body, pointing it right above his head. Why am I sweating? She could feel unusually warmer, nervously sweating accompanied by a faster heartbeat. Stop this Erza, you could do this...
She glanced right over at him once more. The moon's light was enough for her to see Natsu's facial features once more before killing him. She could see the bandages on his head from the car accident that had happened earlier.
Her palms continued to sweat. Keep calm... She continued to mentally talk to herself. Why am I this nervous? This isn't the first time I've killed... She tried to reassure herself even then though, it didn't help her constant sweating and increasing heart rate.
He slowly breathed in and out, calming herself down. It was either now or never, and she chose now.
Erza quipped herself, adjusting the grip of the Sai in her hands. She held the Sai above the man's head as far above she can put it and with her body, brought down as fast as she could.
Why.... Everything slowed down. Why...!? She closed her eyes. WHY!? And without knowing, her own body stopped. She looked over at Natsu and saw that the Sai's sharp edge was near his forehead, stopping there.
For the first time in her life, she hesitated. I... I can't do this... Her arms shook as she brought the Sai back to her. Of all people... why did it have to be with him that I have to hesitate with...?
She stood there, watching Natsu sleep soundly through the night. Mirajane was right... I can't do this...
Author's Note: So, what surprised you guys the most? Minerva's unexpected call to Laxus? Or Erza hesitating for the first time? Leave it in your reviews, if you will please.
Also, hope you liked both chapters. Will be updating soon. So see you next time.