Author's Note: I have some real good momentum at the moment with the story. That and I really appreciate all the reviews and compliments for the last 2 chapters, I appreciate them.
Some of you are wondering why I killed off that certain character, well sometimes I have to make sacrifices for the sake of the character's development. Plus, a death of a loved one is much more impactful to the character instead of a random one. It was heartbreaking to say the least about writing that bit but I will still stand by decision.
Other than that, I hope you can understand why I chose to do that. Now that we got that out of the way, let's start the next chapter.
To him, everything was silent. From the cops putting up and extending the crime scene duct tape from one end of the building to another as they secured one of the entrances to the alley, the sounds of medical examiners putting the victim in a body bag and carefully picking the gurney up as they dragged the body into their truck, everything was so silent to him.
He still couldn't believe it. The love of his life, the Apple to his eye, the light to his shadow, was very taken from him. Laxus sat in silence in Gildarts' car, watching from the front passenger side as the red haired agent took over the crime scene.
From his jacket to the white shirt he wore underneath, Laxus was drenched in blood, her blood. Her stared at his blood covered hands, still picturing the sight of Levy in his arms.
He closed his eyes, hard enough to prevent the flowing of tears he had been holding back. Right there and then, he had to accept the reality. The reality of losing a dearly loved one. And was his fiancée.
Gildarts finally came back, checking up on him as he opened the driver's seat, talking to him as he stood outside of his car. "Hey, you okay?" He saw the image of a broken man, silently sulking in his tears as the crime scene was processed.
Nothing. He didn't say anything. Laxus continued to watch from the window as the EMTs took her lifeless body back in a place he'd never thought he'll see her: the coroner's morgue.
"Hey man, talk to me." Gildarts tried once more to get him to talk.
Nope, still not bulging.
And with that, Gildarts closed the door to his car and headed back to the crime scene where the Interpol agent were as well. "He saying anything?" Meredy asked as she saw the FBI agent heading towards them.
"Nope." He sighed, standing right next to them.
"The Chief called, he handed over the case to us now." Ultear said, coming back from a phone call she had.
"Well after what just happened," Gildarts looked right back at his car and back at them. "I would've made that call as well."
"How's he holding up?" Ultear asked, concerned for the man's emotional state.
"Not good, he's not talking to me." He answered her.
"Let me go talk to him." Meredy asked Gildarts, lending her words now.
"Go right ahead." Gildarts affirmed her.
"Let me borrow your keys." The pinkette now asked for his car keys, a strange request that had the FBI agent raise an eyebrow.
"Um, the car is unlocked." Gildarts assumed that was her reason for the keys.
"Just trust me for god sakes!" She told him.
Still having no clue as to what the woman intends to do with his keys, he gave in and as she requested, gave her the keys.
She walked away from the two and towards the car. Slowly, she approached and opened the door and sat right down on the driver's seat, closing the door for her and the detective's privacy. "Hey." She greeted him.
Like how he responded with Gildarts, silence. Only stared at the crime scene, agonizingly looking at pool of Levy's blood that was on both the ground and on the side of the dumpster.
"Come on, talk me." Though she's only known him for the last day or two, she had considered herself to be his friend to say the least.
No words still just as he has been doing since the got here.
Meredy then took out the keys, which she borrowed from Gildarts of course and placed it right inside the keyhole, turning the key and engine on. "Guess we're going to have to do this the hard way." And like that, she drove off.
"Did she just-" Gildarts cut his sentence short as the pinkette drove away in his car with Laxus.
"Yep." Ultear witnessed the same thing he did.
Gildarts dashed out of the alley, not seeing where exactly his car went. "WHAT THE HELL!?"
As she drove, not knowing where exactly she herself knew they were going, the running engine was all that can be heard. Silent as ever with the radio of.
"Why did you do that…?" Laxus finally broke his silence, speaking softly, asking her why she drove away from the crime scene.
"To finally get you to talk," she answered him as she took a turn left. There was hardly any traffic at night. "You kept staring at… her pool of blood… it made me worry a bit."
"I… I had finally proposed to her…" He looked back at the earliest memories today. "She was… so happy when I… told her…"
"I know big man, I know." She tried comforting him.
"You don't know… you don't know what it's like to lose someone… to lose the person who always stood by you… who made you happy…" He silently sobbed again.
Suddenly, the car came to a full stop and right in the middle of the street. Still, with hardly any traffic around, stopping in the middle of the street could cause problems, none of which Meredy really cared for.
She looked at him and he looked right back, carefully thinking of what words to say next. Instead of words, Meredy took out a small picture from her inner jacket's pocket and handing it to Laxus. "Who's this?" He asked her, looking at a picture of her and an unfamiliar man right beside her, hugging her. He was had dark hair, beautiful green eyes and was very well built in shape.
"That man is… was… my husband…" Meredy, softly, answered his question.
"I… had assumed much," he gave her the picture back. "What happened?"
"A gangbanbger mugged and killed him, all because of a gold watch I had bought for him on our 3rd year anniversary…" She looked at the picture of herself and him. A smile she once had because of his presence was all gone. "It's been… 2 years already since I last seen him."
"…" Laxus felt her empathy. She lost a loved one just as she did.
"You feel like it's your fault, correct?" Meredy asked him. "I know how you feel, at first, I felt like I was responsible for my husband's death… feeling terrible…"
"…" He silently listened to her. He did feel responsible, leaving Levy all vulnerable back at the restaurant.
"But I realized that no matter how hard I try to sugarcoat it, to somehow feel at ease," her voice sounded raspy, holding back the tears of remembrance. "That it never gets easy…"
"I'm… I'm sorry…" He placed his bloodied hand on her shoulder, comforting her.
"They never got the thief…" She continued. "Even till this day, I ask the cops about the progressed they've made in his case."
"Nothing, I would assume." He guessed.
"Yeah, but unlike you, you still have a chance to put your killer away, the one who took your loved one." Meredy placed her right hand on his hand, the one he placed on her shoulder as he comforted her.
"Y-You're right," he took off his hand from her shoulder. From underneath all the tears he and she shared, a smile, faint, but still a smile crossed over his face as he gave it to her. A heartwarming smile came from he as well. "Thank you."
"N-No problem," she turned the car's engine back on. "We should head back, Gildarts is probably cursing at my name right about now."
"More like the moment you drove off." He corrected her.
"RIIINNGG!" Suddenly, the detective's phone went off, ringing as their small moment of conversation was broken.
"Must be him." He took out his phone from his pant's right side pocket.
"Probably." She drove again, taking the first left turn at the intersection.
He looked at the caller ID, Blocked Call, was on the cracked screen of his phone with both the answer and ignore button were on the bottom. He gulped down some saliva, nervous of who the blocked caller it was. Nonetheless, he answered. "Hello?"
"Ugh… she shot me good…" Minerva. Of all the people who would call me right now, had to be her. He could hear her harshly panting.
"Minerva." He said loudly. Meredy stopped the car again, this time leaving the engine on as she looked at Laxus.
"I did… what I-I had to… she was a nuisance to my affection to you…" Her panting was becoming irregular, harshly breathing in and out.
"SHE WAS MY FIANCEÈ! MY GIRLFRIEND!" He yelled through her phone. "AND YOU KILLED HER!"
"I DID IT FOR US!" She followed with her own yell, even Meredy heard it from where she sat.
"Lady, you're a psychopath! Insane!" As redundant as that sounded, Laxus continued. "You're twisted, unimaginable love? It's all fucking fake! In your goddamn mind!"
"Baby… please…"
"No, don't you dare!" He continued his conversation with his raised voice. "I will find you, I will have justice for what you did to her, you hear me!? And don't ever call me again!"
He hung up now and in a fit of rage, he rolled down his window and threw his phone out the car and onto a building's brick wall, breaking and scattering the phone into pieces all around.
…
"Is she still alive?" A group of high teenage beach goers were around Erza as she laid unconsciously on the sand.
"I don't know man," one of the teenagers with a long branch stick began to poke her with it. "She feels dead."
With his constant poking with the branch up against her lower back, Erza was finally regaining consciousness. "… nngh…" She slowly started to pick herself up.
"Holy shit dude, she's alive!" The group of friends were startled by her sudden movement.
"She's a zombie! Run for your life!" They all ran from her, leaving her be on the beach.
As her vision finally came back to her. On the horizon, she saw the sunrise, making the water in front of her vibrant with orange and yellow colors.
She sat on her knees, trying to remember what had happened. Then she looked right in front of her. The sand acted almost like a chalk outline, placing another body right in front of her, dragged and picked up.
Her realization finally kicked in when she felt the cute stuffed penguin next to her. "Natsu!" Erza yelled his name out.
She tried to figure out his whereabouts as she got up from her knelt position and ventured out of the beach.
Erza looked around in the parking lot. Nothing out of the ordinary and as she suspected and worried much, no sign of him.
Her phone started to ring and vibrate in her purse. Taking out the phone and answering it without looking at the caller ID. "Dobengal, you son of a bitch!"
"You kiss your mother with that dirty mouth of yours?" The elusive assassin chuckled at his remark. "Oh wait, she's dead."
"You shit, where did you take him!?" Ignoring his uncalled joke, she got right into her main interest.
"Oh, you mean that pink headed lover boy of yours? Oh why, he's right here next to me, wanna say hi?" He continued to laugh.
"I want to know if… if he's safe!" That's she's worried about. After so long, she never experienced a weakness like this. The weakness of not knowing where your loved one has been taken to.
"Erza, like I said, I'm much more merciful than our mutual boss of ours," he finally stopped laughing. "He's, well heartedly, okay."
"Better be, cause if you so lay one finger on him, I will murder!" She threatened him..
"Oh, but isn't that the only thing you were ever good at?" He told her. "Tell me, how oh how did you go head over heels for your target? That's not like you."
"You should worry about your life, not mine!" At this point in the conversation, Erza knew he wasn't going to tell her where he is.
"Oh but that's just it, I want to know how you, the best assassin in this shindig, fell in love with this man right here," Dobengal continued. "I want to know how a woman with no weakness whatsoever, finally became so fragile as the person she was so fond of, was taken from her."
"I swear to God, I will find you!" She yelled at him once more through the phone.
"The clock is ticking Erza, you better hope you find me in the next 3 days," he lowered his voice. "Cause if you don't, the next time you see your boyfriend, is in a body bag."
"…" Erza now had to play his game.
"You know my associates," he gave her the first hint. "Blackmail them, bribe them, rough them up a bit, hell, even mill them, one of them knows exactly where I am."
"That's it!?" His task, it sounded way to easy for Erza to do.
"I could've made it much more difficult, a scavenger hunt all over Fiore, but I didn't," he told her. "I just want you to find me, so when you come here, I can beat you and kill you, right in front of him to see."
"A fight then?"
"Yes," he answered her. "Now, if you excuse me, your little pink birdie is finally waking up."
"No, don't hang up!" She asked him.
"Bye, bye, Erza." And like that, he hung up.
…
"Ugh…" Natsu groaned as he felt his arms and legs were tied to the chair he was placed and sat on.
His vision was both blurry and disoriented but after a few seconds of blinking and waiting, it was back to normal. And right in front of him, sat a man in black Kevlar body armor, his face half covered with a black scarf and brown colored hair.
"Who the hell are you?" Natsu asked. He couldn't move as much as he wanted to.
"Let's just say I'm the new assassin hired to kill you." The man just got straight to the point.
"Now if that were true, I should be dead on the floor with my own pool of blood." Natsu continued to struggle his hands free from the bounds. No bulge whatsoever.
"Touché," the man got up from his seated position walking right in front of Natsu's view. "Do you know her?" He took out a picture of Erza.
"That's… my friend." He felt uneasy, but still vaguely answered the man.
"Friend? Weren't you making out with her on the beach when the fireworks went off?" He had corrected the pinkette.
"…" Natsu gulped down some saliva, nervous of the next questions he was going to be asked. "Well aren't you some kind of pervert, watching us do that." He now joked, coping mechanism for what's to come.
"Hahaha, funny guy aren't you?" The man sarcastically laughed at the pinkette's joke.
"Many people have told me so, yes." As much as the question was rhetorical, he had given the man a rhetorical answer.
"Tell, do you love this woman?" He continued to show her the very same picture of Erza, hovering it around his head.
"Hmm, am I inclined to answer?" He retorted back with a question.
"Yes if you want to live." The assassin answered. He then brought out a cart, with many tools. From different kind of tools, mainly for torture.
"Ooh, am I supposed to be intimidated?" Natsu smirked at him. His intimidation didn't affect him at all.
"No." Suddenly, the man threw a bucket of water at Natsu.
"What the hell!?" He was drenched. His spiky hair was down and his clothes were drenched.
The man finally picked his tools, red and black clips with a cables that connected to a car battery. "You're going to be tortured." And with that said, the man connected the tips of the clips to Natsu's clothing, shocking him.
"AAAHHHHH!" The course of electricity ran through his body, screaming at the top of his lungs as he endured the pain.
It only lasted about 2 seconds, but the everlasting pain stayed for more. "Now let me ask you again…"
Author's Note: Oh well, will be updating in a couple of days.
Hope you liked the chapter. It seemed a bit slower than my other chapters, but bare with me, it gets better.
See you guys later.