Disclaimer: only doing this once. Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima. I am simply writing this story out of boredom and am not making any money out of it.

Female OCs in this fandom seems to have a tendency to be either very mild mannered or overly badass. So I decided to do something new on my own part.

I'm a freak with character development so the chapters will be long as heck and the beginning may be kind of boring but it's important for later on. So read it or you won't understand it!

No Sting in this chapter, but Rogue will be there.

Chapter 1: Playing Dirty

Daybreak was a peaceful village situated a few miles into dense forestry in the mountain areas of Fiore. Although it held economic prosperity, Daybreak was fairly isolated from the rest of the magical world. Mages were not unheard of but they were rarely ever called for services as the citizens in Daybreak were strong-willed people who believed in independence.

That was until the attacks began.

Heather, a middle aged woman, well known for being the best female lumberjack in Daybreak had trekked her daily path up the mountain tracks where the taller trees were. She had brought her youngest son with her, as usual, as her older children were always too busy and there was no one else who could fit the time inside their tight schedules to babysit him. It was approaching nightfall when Heather's husband began to worry when she did not return with their son.

He had gathered together a few of his friends and the small group climbed the mountains to investigate. It did not take long for the search party to find her lying beside the creek, resembling a pale ghost of her former self. Her clothes were torn, exposing a deep wound in her chest, from which flowed rivers of blood that mixed in with the mud on her skin. The ground near the creek was still soft from the recent flooding and several human shaped dents in it showed signs of struggle. A trail of animal like paw prints marked a path across the mud but it stopped once the beast had reached unimpressionable ground.

Perhaps the most disturbing or heart-warming factor of the attack was that Heather had been lying spread-eagled over her son's frame, still protecting her child even as she lay dead. The boy was soaked head to toe with blood but carried no injuries of his own with the exception of a few bruises. He had been shaken - who could blame the boy? - And hadn't spoken since, not even to his own father and siblings.

This first attack had been innocently dismissed to be committed by a cave bear and the news was quickly forgotten by the village within weeks. The second attack came two weeks later when the body of an elderly fisherman was discovered swollen and bloated, floating on the surface of the creek. His chest had been mauled once again by some kind of animal but the disturbing part was that this time, a track of human foot prints were indented in the ground.

At this point, the mayor of Daybreak began to grow desperate. His name was Frederick Bentley, a very young man who had inherited the seat at the age of eighteen from his deceased father and held a childish sort of ignorance towards the world. Naturally when the attacks started, he was clueless to finding a solution and almost broke down when other members of the council began challenging his seat.

That was until that woman had arrived. She had seemed delightful at first, lacing her hands within his and whispered lies of her occupation as an independent mage into his ear. Being a naive and impressionable young man, he had believed her and agreed to hire her for her magical services. She was intelligent- of course she was- a talented con artist and a believable fraud. Once the money was within her hands, she had run for it, leaving Daybreak with half the villagers' funds and an untamed animal on the loose.

It took a while for the mayor to recover from such a loss. His fellow council members had already scolding him for relying on magic which was all lies and fancy tales. Needless to say, he was hesitant to trust mages again but eventually decided that they were the only people who could deal with the monster. The attacks had become more numerous- to the point where the villagers were hesitant to climb the mountains to complete their daily tasks, causing a huge blow on Daybreak's economy which relied heavily on its lumber jacks to export wood.

The mayor had realised that it was a foolish decision to have trusted the woman, (he was beginning to think that she magical ability at all) and decided to hire a mages from a licensed guild. The mages were due to arrive three hours ago but vehicles that were willing to carry people into the mountains were rare and their transportation had been delayed and limited to walking.

A knock on the door aroused him from his stupor. Uncrossing his arms and lifting his head, he gulped and said in the most confident voice he could summon, "Come in."

Mr. Bentley almost choked on his own spit when two people entered; dressed in the most ridiculous outfits he had ever seen. Both mages wore full-body spandex suits that fitted in a little too nicely near the crotch area with long, flowing navy blue cloaks. Each sported a hat shaped like the head of a dog, the upper jaw lowered over their heads to shield their faces so that it was almost impossible to tell their genders, if it hadn't been for their tight fitting jumpsuits.

"Are you the mages I hired?" Mr. Bentley said a little hesitantly. Although, he wasn't expecting anyone else that afternoon, it felt right to ask... just in case as the two people looked more like costume advertisers for a tacky household product than professional mages.

"Yeah, and you're top dog around here right? Mr. Mayor was it?"

Mr. Bentley found himself stupefied at the fact that the two costume freaks were capable of making sounds other than barking. Clearing his throat he began, "Call me Frederick. And you two are...?"

"Gemmie-," the first mage, the man with the brown dog hat began.

"-and Husky," the second mage, with the grey hat finished.

"The two of us-."

"-are the guild's-."

"-best tracker mages!"

If Mr. Bentley had felt awkward before, then this was really the epitome of embarrassing moments and that was the understatement of the year. His head was still spinning from the way the two mages had completed each other's sentences and the poses... oh god, the poses! It took him a few seconds to recover from the mental scarring and forced his voice to calmly ask the mages to get off his table.

He was really beginning to regret his decision now. Maybe he should have listened to the local council members. These new mages didn't seem all that serious about their work if they were insane enough to show up on a job resembling something out of a mental asylum.

"Now that we've got the pleasantries over," he said, focusing his gaze on a painting just above their heads so he wouldn't have to look at them directly, "I'd like to discuss the mission in detail. Err...please sit."

He gestured at some chairs in front of the table but the mages waved him off.

"Nah, we prefer to stand," Gemmie said.

"As long as you are comfortable," he said dismissively before continuing, "so, the reason you are here today is because there's been some animal attacks on villagers recently."

"You're paying four million jewels just for a mission to protect people from animals?" Husky laughed, a low, somewhat dog-like chuckle.

"You're really underestimating us, aren't you?" Gemmie said.

"No! That's not it," despite containing a fairly good amount of self control, the mayor found his calm façade falling apart as the stress rushed in, "on one of the attacks, human fingerprints and tracks were found leading away from the body! There's definitely something out there in the woods and they're neither human nor animal. They've been attacking us for months now and our village isn't going to survive if this continues any longer."

"So this is a really important mission then right?"

"I'm willing to pay four million jewels for it and more if you ask for it... the only problem is...," his face fell as he trailed off, "the payment money was stolen a few days ago by a woman."

"A woman? You let your guard down around a woman? Man, you really suck, you know that," Gemmie cackled.

"There you go again, offending the client," Husky said, sighing, "sorry about that but he's right- that is pretty lame."

"Well... she was a good liar," Mr. Bentley said defensively, "she ripped our local casino one and with ease too... though now that I think about it, she was probably cheating... eh? What is it?"

The mages had grown silent, their heads lowered so that the shadow of their hats concealed their eyes. Their previous light-heartedness seemed to have disappeared with the tension and Mr. Bentley found himself quite intimidated despite the hilarity of their clothing. "Do you remember what she looked like?"

"Well, most of it has escaped me now...," Mr. Bentley began thoughtfully and sweat-dropped when their faces darkened, "but I think she had blue hair? Like really dark blue hair, almost black cut short and I think she had either blue or green eyes. Oh! And she carried around this white backpack."

"Did she give you a name?"

"Well, at the time, she said her name was Kim or something like that... but once again, I think she was lying..."

"She was," Husky said darkly, "her name isn't Kim. That girl would be famous around the black market if she didn't always travel around. Never sticks around long enough to get a reputation though."

"What? Do you share some history with her?" Mr. Bentley said, surprised.

"Frederick was it?" Gemmie said, "we'll accept your job on one condition."

"I'll accept as long as the condition does not harm the village."

"You let us go after that woman first. And after she's found, and the money's in our hands, you let us do whatever we want with her," Husky said.

"Even if it means killing her," Gemma added.

Despite the woman's crimes, Mr. Bentley was never one to encourage people to kill. However, if he had to prioritise between the life of a female criminal who had stolen money from him and the lives of his village then the answer was clear. "I accept," he said without hesitation.

"Good. We've still got a score to settle with her... messing with Quatro Cerberus... Loki, that cowardly little thieving cat."

XxX

If there was one thing that Loki was absolutely terrified off, it was dogs. From rabid Rottweilers to friendly Great Danes and even small dogs like Chihuahuas, it didn't matter. She was still scared of them, no matter the size. If you were classified under the canine category, then she was terrified of you. Loki didn't know where her cynophobia stemmed from as she had never been bitten by a dog- mainly because she'd never allow herself to be within a hundred metres of a dog.

So the fact that there were two men with dog masks currently following her made her extremely on edge. It had started off innocently enough- they had appeared outside a bakery and she had given them strange looks at their choice of wear but thought nothing of it. However, after whirling around and seeing the same person staring into a shop window several times, it was beginning to get suspicious. She immediately dismissed the possibility of the two men being mages sent from the Wizard Council as they weren't exactly being very discreet in the way they were stalking her. However, she didn't want to confront them either because Loki was, well- shit scared of dogs, even if she knew it was just a costume.

The problem with confronting them was quickly erased because they chose to approach her first. Thankfully, it was midday and the streets of the town were bustling with activity. It was beginning to become very clear that they were chasing her when they dropped the act of looking into shop windows when she turned around. Instead, they seemed to be forcefully pushing their way through the crowd to get to her.

"Do you see anything you like, miss?"

Loki turned towards the source of the voice and found that she had somehow wandered in front of a food stand when she'd been distracted by the stalkers. She decided to pretend that she was till clueless and quickly pulled on a false smile that she hoped was realistic enough to fool the stalkers. "Ah... yeah, the takoyaki looks good. Can I have a box of those?"

After paying the salesman 10 jewels, she gave a final smile and wave and left, accidently knocking over a toddler's fairy floss in the process. Without even stopping to apologise, she slipped away before the mother of the child could give her a scolding, quickly glancing around just to make sure the stalkers were still following her.

"Damn! We lost her," Gemmie cursed as Loki's tuft of dark blue hair disappeared behind the form of an overweight man. Both tracker mages relied heavily on speed to perform their magic but the large crowds of people were greatly putting them to a disadvantage.

"Don't worry too much about it. Loki's magic also uses speed," Husky said, apologising as he knocked over a scandalised old lady, "this crowd is also a disadvantage for her. Look for an opening to a fairly clear area."

Sure enough, they spotted the woman slipping down an alleyway, between two large buildings, that led off the main street. "To the right!" Gemmie whispered as the two muscled their way to the same spot and ducked inside.

"They're persistent," Loki sighed, starting to grow nervous. It wasn't as if she'd never been in a similar situation before. Loki was used to being hunted down, after all, involvement on the black market didn't exactly make you the most well liked person in the world. However, when dogs were involved, Loki was susceptible to bad judgement and bad judgement led to mistakes.

Securing her arms around her backpack so that it wouldn't fly off while she ran, Loki jumped, breaking the wall of aluminium garbage bins, scattering rotten fish, empty milk bottles and other various bits of rubbish in her wake. A yelp was heard behind her as someone slipped over the mess she had created and she quickly turned a corner and fled.

But the stalkers won't slow either. Both were at least a foot taller than her with very long legs so they had the advantage of height. "Oh, damn it all," Loki gasped, whirling around to face the two men with tears in her eyes, "why are you following me?"

"You still don't recognise us?" the man in the brown dog mask growled, "how insulting."

"NO!" Loki squealed, she felt pathetic at how high pitched her voice was, "don't come near me you stupid mutts!"

Time to resort to desperate measures, Loki thought, hastily breaking the magical seals on her calves and not stopping for a minute to enjoy the new found magical flow rushing into her legs, she ran for it.

"She escaped again," Gemmie cursed, "her magical abilities have improved since the last time we saw her!" The two mages puffed as they struggled to keep up with Loki. If the girl was fast before, it was now difficult enough to constantly keep her in sight. She was extremely talented at being evasive, weaving in and out of the alleyways, using the advantage of being out front to spill as many obstacles as possible in their paths.

"She may have improved but she's still as cowardly as ever," Husky growled, "her magical power is good but she only ever uses it to run. It seems like the only thing she's improved at since we last met is running away."

"And to think we were tricked by someone like her. Absolutely disgraceful."

XxX

It wasn't often that Rogue separated himself from the rest of his group but he did it every once in a while just escape the chaos. While Sting enjoyed the attention and generally liked living his life in the open where everyone could get a good view of him, Rogue preferred to remain in the shadowy alleys of the backstreets. It was an area riddled with all kinds of petty criminals from the common pickpocket to the occasional drug dealer. Overall, it wasn't exactly the safest area in town, but Rogue had a lot of faith in his strength and he doubted that he could be beaten by simple minded hooligans and juvenile delinquents.

Rogue enjoyed the back streets for their silence. Silence was something that most people couldn't appreciate, especially people like Sting who practically smoked attention on a daily basis. After declining the offer to attend the fair currently being held in town, Sting had called him many names- amongst them were "anti-social" and "party pooper". Frosch, being the dedicated companion that he was, had agreed to follow him, separating the Twin Dragons team into a perfect two with Sting and Lector outside enjoying the fair and Rogue and Frosch hanging around the alleyways until the excitement was over. Frosch had been extra squirmy since the team had separated and Rogue had a feeling that his exceed friend would rather be enjoying the fair activities. "You don't have to force yourself, Frosch," Rogue informed him, "I'll be fine. You should go and join Sting and Lector."

"Fro likes being with Rogue," the exceed said determinedly, "if Rogue isn't going to the fair then Fro isn't going either."

"It's too dangerous for you here. The back streets aren't all fun and games you know."

"Fro knows. But Rogue is here to protect Fro from baddies."

"Alright then," Rogue sighed, giving up on trying to convince Frosch to leave him. He had expected the response, as Frosch, although being hopelessly clueless and naïve, had always put Rogue's happiness above his own. It was something that Rogue could not appreciate enough. On the contrary, while Lector loved his companion just as much- if not more, (the exceed honestly worshipped the ground Sting walked on), he couldn't remember a time Sting acknowledged this. At least, he never showed it openly.

A starving man who looked much older than he really was, stared at Frosch with hungry eyes as they passed as if he seriously considered eating him. Rogue shot the man a warning glare as he swept by and sent him scrambling. "Stay close to me, Frosch" he ordered.

They had no aim in particular, though Rogue paused every now and then to inspect the many illegal potions that he wouldn't find on sale out in the open markets. There were numerous drug dealers, though he never bought any of the potions they offered him. If he was ever caught carrying illegal drugs then it would badly stain his perfect reputation as a Sabertooth mage.

They walked for a few minutes where nothing particularly worth mentioning happened, that was until a clatter of metal awoke Rogue from his stupor. He glanced up, eyes darting to a garbage aisle situated to his left. A young woman stumbled out of it, looking worse for wear and clearly out of breath. Her bob of dark hair was cut in a simple short haircut that was more for convenience than aesthetics and she was dressed in what would have been a modestly designed green blouse except the first few buttons had been ripped open, revealing a large portion of her breasts.

Her eyes suddenly lit up as she stared in his direction. Rogue glanced quickly behind him but no one was standing behind him which meant that the girl was looking at him. "Hey! You there!" she called, her voice reminiscent to whispering though she was being far too loud to be doing so, "help me out for a bit, will you?"

When he didn't respond, she took this as the cue to approach him. Her skin and clothes were marked with several dirt stains and behind the sour smell of garbage, she carried an artificial floral scent that was perhaps lilac? The good quality of her clothing and the exotic perfume she wore was clearly not something that Rogue saw on the low class citizens of the back streets. If anything, he could better imagine this girl out with the rest of the adolescents, enjoying the street fair. She looked so tired that she didn't even seem to notice that her backpack was wide open, though Rogue didn't bother to tell her this.

"There are these two freaks in dog suits chasing me," she said, noticeably shuddering, "just point them in the wrong direction when they come around, OK?"

Rogue nodded and she smiled. "Thanks," she said quickly before dashing off into an alley. No sooner had she disappeared, two men matching her description exactly whipped around the corner, skidding to a stop in front of him.

Even with her warning, Rogue thought that the men looked absolutely ridiculous. If he hadn't been previously told, then he would have thought the two to be street performers participating in the fair who somehow got lost and ended up in the shady parts of town. They took a few seconds to catch their breath before the man with the grey dog mask leapt right into it, "Excuse me, mister, have you seen a girl about this tall," he gestured to a point near Rogue's shoulder level, "with short blue hair, wearing a green blouse and carries a white backpack?"

Despite himself, Rogue's lips pulled up slightly at the corners in amusement. He pointed to an alleyway, opposite the one the girl had taken, "She went that way," he said. The two men thanked him and dashed off.

Frosch turned to Rogue looking slightly surprised, "Why did Rogue help her?"

"No reason," Rogue replied, already directing his attention the alley the girl had run to. His eyes fell on a brown sack lying at the entrance between the two walls which definitely hadn't been there before. Walking over, he picked the sack up between two fingers and inspected it for a minute. It carried the girl's lilac scent and also the metallic scent of money.

He loosened the knot around the bag's neck, eyes widening as a stream of golden coins immediately fell out. Rogue had no doubt that there were at least several million jewels in that sack. It was impossible for a girl who didn't even look old enough to work full time to carry more money than what the average adult could earn in half a year, which meant-

"Fro thinks that Rogue just helped a stealer escape," Frosch said from somewhere behind him.

Rogue scooped the fallen cons back into the sack and retied the knot, "The correct term is 'thief' not stealer, Frosch. Let's go, I think we've spent enough time here. Let's go and meet up with the others."

"Rogue is keeping the money?"

"Knowing Sting, he probably blew all our money on food and rides. We'll have no money left to book an inn for the night and with this, we could probably get the fanciest suite in town."

"But Rogue is using dirty money," Frosch protested.

The noise from the fair reached their ears as they walked down the final alleyway, "Would you rather sleep on the grass then? Or maybe some garbage bins?"

Frosh wrinkled his nose, "No, garbage bins are icky and grass gives Fro rash. But what if those dogs start chasing Rogue too? Fro doesn't like dogs," he said, looking worried.

"I'll handle them, as always."

"Fro agrees!"

Warning: I am really slow with writing romance. I just don't believe in that whole love at first sight thing or love after only four chapters. Yeah, so if I make an implied romance scene, it'll look more like friendship since I just suck at writing mushy scenes.

Urgh... I have a feeling that I wrote Rogue really out of character. And the problem is, Sting is going to be even harder to write. I mean, at least with Rogue, his character is quite simple to understand, at least for me. He doesn't speak very much but his actions speak louder than words. Sting on the other hand... is much more talkative yet I know near to nothing about his habits and personality. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.

What are your opinions of the characters so far? Am I writing the canon characters OOC? What are your opinions of my OCs, (most of them won't stick around throughout the whole story) except for Loki of course. If you dislike her then I'm OK with that as well. It wasn't until I finished writing that I remembered that one of Lucy's stella spirits also share the same name but people spell it Loke, so give me a break OK? Also, I think the name Loki, (Norse god of trickery) really suits her personality so bear with me!

Oh, and just to get it clear... Loki is not me, nor do I neccessarily like her. In fact, I think we only share one thing in common and that's being extremely slack sometimes.

So anyway, please post a review- it makes me feel loved. Also, I'll be stalling the fight scenes mainly because I don't know any of Sting and Rogue's abilities yet.