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***WARNING: This is an M rated story with violence and the consenting sexual relationship of two men. If either of these offends you, do not continue.***

Chapter 1: A Debt Repaid

"ETA five minutes." No reply came from his stoic partner, shrouded in dark matted garb over the hard edges of his combat gear, though he wasn't expecting one. His breaths were soft, thin threaded lines among the whipping wind which sliced as knives with the dawn light over the valley's breadth and just outside of the old broken window on the fifth floor of the long-since evacuated factory building. But as the war-torn region had either brought death to the workers who once slaved away in the concrete confine, or its shadow had bit at their heels as they had fled with their lives, it had become the home of the two brothers for the past three days.

Those days had slinked by with barely enough words passed between them to have filled a single moment in a happy home. But, they were used to it. Years of training and even more still on the frontlines, or the edges as it were, as the best long-range reconnaissance team the Fiori special ops had ever seen, had left them honed as keen as sharpened ice. Though they had forsaken the bars and stars of the military, they remained regimented and professional in their mission.

Gray hadn't so much as shifted in the last twenty hours. He lay on his belly, one eye pressed to the socket of the scope of his custom LM110, his left arm tucked with the butt of the long rifle against the inner curve of his shoulder. Beside him, and similarly cloaked with black camo paint masking his pearlescent pale skin, Lyon propped himself up on his elbows, LR binoculars clutched between his fingers, as he turned his attention to the dull polarized screen of his digital readout. "22.4 degrees Fahrenheit," Lyon listed, and that fact showed in the pluming white cloud drifting past his lips with his hot breath. "Wind, three knots North by Northwest, 4 clicks." Just as he turned back to his binoculars, a train of Humvees bumped along the dirt road across the wide canyon between them and a small clearing.

Similarly, from across the rim of the canyon, a pair of SUVs sped toward the meeting. Right on time, Lyon thought absently. He appreciated when things went according to the intel, and there had not been a single deviation on this particular op yet. The vehicles slid to a stop, facing eachother with metal grills and brush guards shining like metal teeth on giant beasts. Lyon twisted the magnification on his binoculars and read off the distance from the infrared laser gauge. 1400 yards, with a mild cross wind. It wasn't the hardest shot they had pulled off, but it was damn near close. Honestly, if it were anyone but Gray behind the trigger, he'd never believe that the shot could be done, but as it was, he'd never seen his brother miss. The car doors swung open in synch, almost as if on cue.

Curtains up.

"Wait for positive ID," Lyon ordered softly, though he knew it was unnecessary. Just as he had confidence in his brother's marksmanship skills, so too did he firmly believe in the cold ice that ran through his veins. Giants of men, hulking in muscle, shifted out of the cars. Each bore a strap over their shoulder, large imposing automatic weapons hung. And then she stepped out. Long flowing red hair trailed down her back, waving with the wind as her hips swung in complete confidence behind a bull of a man who towered over her with an LMG in his mitts. In a sleek black dress, she may have been at place in a ballroom dinner, though her eyes were of a dangerous blood chilling shine. She wasn't the target, but if she was there.

Behind her, a sleek-backed man in a polished black suit swung out of the back SUV. He tugged at his luxurious coat, and grinned wickedly as he ran a hand back over gleaming blue hair. Siegrain Fernandez.

Action.

"That's a positive ID. We are green. Wait for the trade to take place then take him out." Shifting, Lyon switched his concentration to the meeting through the long barrel of his high def., military res., long range recon camera. He snapped pictures silently, making sure to capture as the head of a known dark militia sauntered off the lead green Hummer. He was a sight, Laxus Dreyar, with his strong steel blue eyes under jagged blond hair which was slicked back underneath his black sunglasses. He gave silent orders to his comrades, leaving the majority to his right hand man, with his long flowing green hair, to secure. Lyon could practically hear the crunching of the dirt under the high-laced military boots as Laxus moved to meet his opposite – the refined and polished politician with a charming smile.

Lyon's finger twitched, taking picture after picture, capturing irrefutable proof as the two went about their backdoor exchange. A briefcase – the content of which were satellite readouts from Fiori Intelligence – passed from Siegrain's hand to the dangerous man with a lightning grin. "You are go," Lyon ordered.

But just as Gray's finger was about to squeeze in on the trigger, a fierce man with bold bright pink hair standing resolute against his charcoal suit, stepped directly between the two conspirators and the sniper team's shot. He crossed his arms over his chest, turning to face directly across the canyon and to the barren factory building at its edge. Lyon softly cursed. "Shit, that's Natsu. Gray, the meeting's almost over, if you don't take the shot now . . ." but Lyon knew the trigger wouldn't be pulled. The shot would have to take down Natsu to get to the man behind him and Gray would never pull the trigger on an innocent. Though, he had to at least argue, the entire mission was at stake. "Gray, he's not innocent. He's guarding our target. You have to take the shot."

"He's just doing his job," Gray spoke for the first time in two days. "I shoot, we become exactly what we set out to stop. No. Abort."

"Gray," Lyon scowled into his binoculars and watched as Natsu's head tilted a little and a small smile played on his lips. His hand raised high. In his palm he held a small grey box with a metal antenna. His thumb trailed over its center. "Shit, what's he doi-"

Hell erupted.

There was a single click of a metal mechanism which had ricocheted off the empty concrete pillar like a chilling dread-filled ping-pong ball, before the early morning was consumed in fire. It stamped down on him with an overwhelming fury. The heat scalded his back, jumping over his skin and crushing him into dust. Dimly conscious, he tumbled out of the window, thrown by the explosion as if a mighty mythical dragon had reared back and kicked him through the threshold with a powerful claw. The force ripped through him, smashing through the remaining glass.

It sliced wicked thin lines. Crimson painted his face through the black camouflage as he fell. The glass sparkled, falling with him. His vision flashed. His hair whipped past him as the darkness took hold.

Waking with a rasping cough that tore at his throat with a thousand knives, Gray's eyes cracked open. He felt completely destroyed, his entire body broken and numb. And he hung limp. It took him several hazy minutes to finally figure out that he was hanging like a ragdoll by his feet from the crooked branches above. Good boots, he laughed internally, swinging through the air, his arms loose over his head. Or was it below his head. Gods, his head hurt.

But, he willed his stubbornly refusing body to swing through the air. He was a pendulum ornament upon that tree, swinging like a monkey, childishly back and forth. And he grinned stupidly. And, he was clearly losing it. Yet he managed to close his arms in a tight hug around the trunk's girth, welcoming the bite of the sharp bark against his cheek. Twisting his foot, he grimaced as a jolt of searing pain lanced through him. Ankle broken. Great. With one leg at an awkward jutting angle from the tree, Gray slid his hands down.

Slowly, he shimmied his way down the three floors to the waiting ground so far below. With every movement, the bark cut into his palms. His leg wracked him with indescribable pain, but he pressed on in an agonizingly slow trek. The brown shell of the tree was painted with shining red iron, the warmth seeping out from Gray's body as he went. When his boot's heel thunked on the ground, he fell back, smacking hard with the cold dirt. Limp and utterly useless, his arms fell out to either side of him. Gray looked up the tree to the charred crumbling floor five stories up as one would laying on a blanket under the stars.

Lyon. Gray's eyelids fell over his crystal blue vision, and his brother's face dominated. "Damn it!" Gray growled, forcing himself to fight against the all-too welcoming and comfortable embrace of the eternal sleep he knew was just a breath away. His vision was dim, his thoughts sluggish, and his body unresponsive, but somehow he forced himself to his feet. Shifting his weight onto his good foot, Gray teetered, laying a palm on the tree.

He had to find Lyon. Damn it, what the hell happened? Clenching his teeth, Gray took in one long, determined breath of the morning air, and set himself. As he hobbled forward, his hand trailed down to his side where he unstrapped an M9 from around his thigh.

Gray didn't know how long it took him to make it to the ridgeline. He collapsed back into the ground, staring bitterly at the building below him. Breathing hard, his chest pounded, just as spikes drilled into his skull. And he watched.

He watched as Fiori Dragon five-man squads secured the abandoned factory building. He watched the military trained movements, the quick and unyielding command as they formed a perimeter. Several teams breached its south door and rushed into the building. In a crouched run, guns trained at the ready, they entered. And Gray watched as, after only a couple minutes, they carried a body back out the door. His helmet had been blasted off, and Gray could see the white hair on the lifeless body, his head bobbing back and forth as two Dragons carried him out.

Eyes red-rimmed and burning, Gray twisted on the hillside, pushing himself off the ground. Only after he had crawled into the driver seat and was winding down an old dirt road in their evac jeep, did Gray allow the tears to fall.

When he reached his destination – an old dark warehouse at the port of the business district in Magnolia - the shroud of night had begun to fall over the shoulders of the bustling city. He flashed the hi-beams with a short blinking code and a sheet-metal wall drew back into the ceiling. Numb, he flicked off the engine, sliding out of the jeep. Clutching the M9 in his torn and bloodied hand at his side, he limped through the garage and into the main open warehouse.

"Gray, holy shit, what happened to you?"

Blinking slowly, Gray stared at his team. What was left? His team. There had been five. Now, there were two.

"Gray, gods, you look like you were blown to kingdom come. Here, sit down."

But, Gray said nothing. The world had grown cold. Too cold. He looked carefully into the eyes of his remaining teammate. Or so he had been before Gray had set out on that mission. "How long were you in their pocket, Del?"

The tiny intel man with jet black hair shook his small wiry face rapidly. To look at him, you would sooner have guessed he was a desk jockey, a hacker with horn-rimmed glassed and the eyes of a child. But, Gray knew better. This man had seen the bloodshed of war, and had almost reveled in the spilling of it. It had been a mistake to bring him along when they went AWOL. Just because Del had been a part of their squad, Gray had seen to overlook all that lay in those pitch black eyes.

"What are you talking about, Gray?"

Sighing, Gray shifted a little more of his weight off his now baseball sized swollen ankle. "Never mind, it doesn't matter." His hand was steady as it swung up. When the gun sparked, the shot's bang pitched through the warehouse. Blood sprayed at Gray just as Del collapsed in a heap to the ground. From the hole in his forehead, two streams of blood trailed down his smokey face, tracing red lines down past hollow eyes.

Empty, Gray pulled Del's chair to him and collapsed into it. Flicking on their comp, Gray's fingers danced, clacking over the keyboard. He had about fifteen minutes – if they hadn't already caught his scent – before Apache choppers descended on the warehouse with at least three fully outfitted Dragon teams. Pushing the pain deep inside of him, Gray focused on the glowing screen, quickly scanning lines upon lines of GPS readouts. Then, communications. Everything he needed on his targets, he copied to an external hard drive.

Then, keying in a code, watched the computer fizzle and spat, sizzling as code devoured everything like a thick poison in the system's bloodstream. Tucking the hard drive under an arm, he fitted a small circular mine to the computer tower's shell. The explosive latched on with a metal smack, green LEDs glowing green as Gray pushed his thumb into its center.

Ten minutes.

Hobbling to the weapon locker, Gray laid his palm over the ID plate. After the locks popped, he grabbed a long sleek black rifle out of the cabinet. From the drawers he took a thin cylindrical slotted silencer, cases of bullets. Then from beside them, he tugged an assault rifle clear of its restraints, and slid its strap over his shoulder. After sliding a combat knife into his boot, he made for his bunk and draped a sterling silver necklace over his head.

Then Lyon's. Flipping the picture frame next to Lyon's cot over in his hand, he smashed its glass surface down against the hard wooden shipping container that had served as his nightstand. Fishing the picture free, Gray carefully tucked it into his combat vest's front pocket.

Six minutes.

Taking Lyon's keys, he made for the side door. Though, halfway, he stopped, frowning. Shaking his head, Gray quickened his pace, retracing his steps back to the weapon locker. Fishing inside a drawer, he pulled out a small com. Twisting the mic on, Gray sent it rolling over the warehouse floor, before making for the garage.

Three minutes.

Turning the engine over in Lyon's Tesla, Gray tapped the exit button and slammed his good foot down on the accelerator. He rocketed back into the streets around the dock. Jamming the e-brake, the tires squealed as the car rapidly spun in a 180 before shooting off between buildings.

The Tesla's comp in the dash framed a neon red two minutes later. Gray smiled thinly. Faster than he had expected, but he had managed to put enough distance between him and the warehouse. Lyon would kill him if he knew Gray had stolen his car, but, Gray rationalized, it was better than leaving it to be torn apart by the federal pigs. Besides, all the tech work Lyon had done in fiddling with the internal computer meant that he had a link into the highest level of government security clearances. Hell, it was probably the only mobile level three access computer in Fiori.

The first order of business, Gray had to stop by an old friend's. As it happened, as he pulled into Levi's driveway, the com-line buzzed. Gray, silent in the night, sat in the car and hooked the receiver over his ear.

"Sir, he's not here."

"Yeah, I didn't expect him to be."

Natsu. Gray growled. That fucking bastard.

"Well, looks like he figured out how we were on to the whole operation. One shot. Clean. No emotion. Yeah, this was definitely Gray. What'd you boys find?"

"Weapon locker was open, three large slots open, two small."

"We can assume some of those were from the botched assassination. But, he would have made sure to grab what he needed while he was here. Be sure, he's fully armed. At the very least, he picked up another long range rifle."

"Sir, we aren't going to be getting anything off this wreck."

"Take it with us anyway, I'm sure the lab techs can dig out something even with the computer blown to bits. Okay, anything else?"

"Jeep parked in the garage with quite a bit of blood on the driver seat."

"Hmm, so he's definitely hurt then, get a track on any possible medical access. And he drove off in a different vehicle. Okay, we begin this manhunt now! I want Gray Fullbuster dead or in chains by tomorrow night. Sting, I want a full detail on the hospital. I don't know how, but he'll find out. And once Gray knows his brother's alive, he'll go for him."

"Roger, that."

Gray froze. The rest of the orders drowned out in a dull shadow at the back of Gray's mind. Lyon's alive? Dropping the walkie-talkie on the passenger seat, Gray flicked on the dash-comp's screen. The results of the search popped up almost as instantly as he had typed them in.

- Magnolia Central

- Classified, level two, Federal

- Admitted patient:

- GI John Doe

- Multiple lacerations, severe concussion, internal bleeding, detached retina, broken …

Gray swallowed hard on the bile rising up in his throat as the list continued on and on. Gods, practically his whole body was broken. Gray skipped to the end of the list.

-,coma.

- GI John Doe admitted 6:22:18 08:21:05

- room 217

Tapping the screen off, Gray took in a breath to steady himself. They would have set up a trap for him. But, he had to go anyway. He had to see with his own eyes. He had to know Lyon was still alive.

The door clicked shut silently. He made his way to the front door, managing to give Levi – his childhood friend and the only person he could trust – a weak waning smile before blacking out, collapsing into her arms.

"Gray, you cannot be serious."

"I have to go, Levi. If he's alive—"

"What good will going there and seeing him do? You can't take him out of there. Even if you were somehow able to manage it past what I'm sure is the entire army in a hospital, you can't take him out. Not if he's in the condition you say he is. Moving him will kill him."

"I need to see him."

"And you'll just end up getting yourself killed for it."

Gray smiled softly, framing Levi's face in his palm. It had already been too long. He'd stayed with her for almost two weeks – which she had insisted upon after she had administered her expert medical schooling on him. Damn, she was a stubborn woman. But, Gray, could move reasonably well now. The ankle barely hummed as it accepted most of his weight. Sure, it was going to slow him down, but he couldn't wait any longer. He couldn't not know for sure if Lyon was alive or not. And, he couldn't stay there any longer. Every day put Levi at even more risk. Honestly, he was amazed that marines hadn't burst through the door long ago.

"Thanks for everything, Lev."

She sighed softly, lightly grabbing his wrist with soft fingers. "Take care of yourself. Honestly, you two stupid boys have been such a pain in my ass every since we were eight."

Smiling, Gray kissed her brow. And before anything more could be said, he made for the door. Setting himself resolute as he slid into the driver seat of the midnight blue Tesla, Gray glanced to the window. He gave her a small thanking smile. She waved once.

Parking the car two blocks from the hospital, Gray studied the blueprint of the building he had pulled up on the dash-comp. He committed every hallway, stair, and elevator to memory before he popped the trunk. Grabbing the short-range gear, Gray looked longingly at his LM110. Infiltration, hand-to-hand, this Bond shit, it wasn't his game. He was a long range recon sniper. But, he'd step into this game if that's what it had come to. Shutting the trunk, Gray locked the car.

Across the street, he glanced back at the shining blue Tesla. Hell, Bond couldn't even come close to Lyon's car. Tugging at his suit jacket, Gray felt awkward and utterly transparent, sure the ballistic vest underneath was obvious. And sure he'd be spotted in an instant.

But, he'd managed to make it into the dragon, trying his best to blend in with a grieving herd of family members, weighed down and worried with despair as they crept along to the ICU. Once he made it past reception, he ducked into an empty stairwell. His heart was thundering underneath the layers of protection he wore. He'd seen noone yet. Not a single uniform. Not a single military personnel. Maybe it was luck. But, he wasn't stupid or naïve enough to put any weight on such a thing. On the second floor, the feeling just grew worse.

It crawled over him like icy fingers. Nothing. This wasn't Natsu. But he proceeded. Whatever would come he would deal with when it came, Gray decided. Sliding around a corner, his eyes narrowed. Down the hall was Lyon's room.

And in front of it were two armed military guards. Though, Gray watched for a second to make absolutely sure he was seeing what his brain told him he was seeing. The men, both young and fresh, seemed much more interested in eachother's tonsils than guarding the hospital room. Indeed, the taller of the two had pressed the other up against the wall, devouring his mouth, as his hands hooked to the smaller's hips. He lifted him against the wall, driving down into him with an overwhelming fiery passion in the public hallways. Doctors and nurses weaved past them back and forth as they devoured each other.

Gray took advantage of the opening and slid through the door, though even as he closed the door, the animalistic sounds coming from the hallways, the deep sultry moaning groans, drew his cheeks hot. Trying his best to shake it off, he walked into the room.

The blush immediately faded. As with all amusement and heat. Ice trailed thick down Gray's veins. On the virgin white hospital sheets, Lyon lay thin and weak, hooked up to an army of machines. Tubes twisted around him, down his mouth, leading to a machine that pumped like an accordion, filling his destroyed frame with oxygen. It seemed as if hundreds of wires coiled around him, leading to so many displays and monitors. An IV trickled down into the back of his hand.

Gods, it grabbed at his heart with a tight unforgiving fist to see his brother like that, more machine than man, broken and feeble there on the hospital bed. He moved to Lyon's side, falling to a knee as he took his brother's hand between his. It was cold. So cold. But there was a slight beat. It was faint, but it sounded quiet and regular on the beeping monitor above his head as well.

"He'll come out of it, he's too strong to die."

Gray completely froze. He had slipped, let himself be too drawn away by seeing Lyon. Slowly he turned on a heel, standing in a smooth motion, and stared straight down the barrel of a Colt.

Behind it, Natsu's green eyes burned an inferno, drilling into him. Though, after what seemed an eternity, he relaxed, pulling the gun back to his side. When Gray made no move, Natsu just sighed, shaking his head. "This is a repayment of a very old debt, Captain. You saved my life back in Ceredel. And now, we are even. A life for a life." He jerked his head to the door. "Get out of here. Next time I see you, I will pull the trigger."

Outside the door, the two guards looked at him. Both were disheveled, hair awry, and panting hard, but they grinned.

As he walked away, he promised, "I'll see you again, Lyon, once this is all over."

Next Chapter: Angles