Author's Note:
Hey everybody! :) I hope you like this fan fiction. It's my first one so please forgive me for any abominable story errors I have made. My computer doesn't have anything else to write with offline besides notepad, so also please forgive the occasional error.
This story is meant to be read while listening to specific songs, so there might be random author's notes with song titles snuck between paragraphs. I will try to have YouTube urls with the titles, (possibly my own videos later on, I haven't decided yet) so you guys can just give it a quick click and there ya go! :) Obviously you can listen without the chosen songs, but you will get more out of it if you do. :)
IMPORTANT: Please don't use the song idea without asking. It was an original idea, and I haven't seen it on this site at all before. :)
Finally, please leave me reviews, I will try to answer them in the next author's note that I'll put at the beginning of every chapter. :)
Follow so you don't miss a single chapter update! :)
Fondly,
Minerva Monfort
Chapter 1
A. N.: The song for this chapter is "Toxicity" by Apocalyptica. I thought the gradual flow of the song suited the pace of this chapter. The change of pace towards the end seemed to fit well with the appearance of our favorite flame-brain. ;) Also, "Toxicity" is the song Reedus is butchering through the speakers. Because I like this song it will appear again later on, so stay tuned folks! :)
Enjoy! :) - M. M.
Lucy Heartfilia sat alone in back of the covered half-ton truck, trying to keep her mind off of her dismal circumstances. She resorted to focusing intently upon her surroundings in order to distract herself.
"I really hate these things," she thought out loud, "They practically throw you through the canvas roof whenever you hit a pothole. And that's if you're not so lucky as to hit your head on one of the metal supports. That would at least save me from this abominable noise." Her muttering went entirely unnoticed by the rotund driver. He was concentrating on the road while blaring some classical music over the truck's tinny speakers. Lucy recognized the piece, could play it in fact, and despised that such a piece of art could be so callously butchered by the sub-standard equipment.
She snorted and shifted her gaze from the forward end of the truck bed to the bindings on her legs. Lucy had been deemed, "capable of severe violence" by the courts, so she was required to wear hobbles on her ankles so that if she tried to jump out of the back of the truck, she wouldn't be able to get very far. She had already attempted to get out of them, but they only tightened more in response. Lucy had given up and resigned herself to whatever punishments this new facility would offer.
"I guess Moma was right when she told me nothing is illegal," Lucy paused to smirk, "just as long as you don't get caught." Her smirk died as her mind ran full tilt down the mental paths she had been trying to avoid. "Why did I have to take that last job? The pay wasn't even that good." Her eyes slid shut as she thought of him... The way he bought her new jeans after her old ones got completely trashed from hiking with him... his soft laugh at her excitement about going on her first ever roller coaster, the enthusiastic kiss they shared afterward, their bodies hyped up on adrenaline...
She was startled out of her thoughts by the truck slowing down, it's engine seeming to relax after the two hour long above 60 MPH drive. Lucy looked out the back just as they pulled off the highway onto a side road, seemingly in a very rural area. She whipped her head around, looking to the cab, then back to her hobbles, calculating whether she could jump out and make it to the treeline with her legs stuck together like this.
Lucy decided not to try it after thinking about her father's words, spoken through jail cell bars before she was sent off, "Lucy we all know you don't want to go there. But it is the only way we can keep you from being tried as an adult. You will be there until they deem you 'safe' enough to be let back out." He looked at her sternly, even the memory making her sit straight up on the hard bench. Her father never spoke in that tone unless he was giving orders to a subordinate. "Don't you dare mess up Lucy Heartfilia You don't need to be a model citizen, but you do need to curb your destructive tendencies. I expect to hear nothing but good things about you." His voice went soft as he looked down at Lucy, reaching through the bars to hold her dainty hands gently in his massive ones, "you be a good girl and come straight back home, where you'll be safe with daddy, okay?" She remembered looking up at him and responding in her most serious voice, "It shall be as you wish father. I will do my best to stay out of trouble. I understand the strings you had to pull in order for me to get this chance. I appreciate it." She had been scared half to death of leaving her gang, but it was leave them for a few years, or disappear off the map indefinitely.
Lucy felt a great hole inside her ache. She had lost him, which led her down the tumultuous road she walked now, which in turn cost her being separated from her family for an indefinite amount of time. She would stay at this prison until she was released as fully rehabilitated. Lucy recalled hearing this place called, "The Fairy Ranch," but it's official name was, "The Northern Idaho Rehabilitational-Experimental Institute." It was the first of its kind apparently, and had been up and running for about a decade or so now. There were rumors about a few people being there most of their growing up, with no visitors. The thought of never being able to see her friends and family again terrified her. She started to shake uncontrollably, her first reaction to the stress to lash out at someone around her, whether verbally or physically it didn't matter-
She was jolted out of her thoughts by the seat seemingly disappearing out from underneath her as the truck turned onto a driveway. Lucy reacted just in time, grabbing the seat firmly with her calves and fingers, holding herself to the seat. She easily adjusted to this new development, and looked out the back of the truck, expecting to see cold hard pavement. Instead she saw nothing but a nicely sized house with cattle and a horse pasture across the paved road. "Either I'm being kidnapped, or this is going to be heaven." She thought suddenly, surprising herself with her hopefulness. She wasn't fond of the city, and found herself marveling at the view while planning possible escape routes into the surrounding hills, being careful to stay aware of her surroundings, so as to avoid another disappearing seat incident.
As a metal gate came into view, she felt her hopes being smothered by her realistic self, seeing the gate slide closed on well-oiled runners. Before she had too much time to wallow in self-pity however, she heard a male voice yell, "Hey Reedus, did you bring back any fish for happy?" She heard a thump and grunt in the cab, and looked toward it, her mind whirling at full speed, possibilities of kidnapping at the forefront again, though this time at the hands of an unknown assailant rather than the round man that drove her here. She started to struggle with her hobbles again, attempting to get them off so she could make a run for the gates and possibly scale them. Her father would surely forgive her for escaping being kidnapped-
Before she had time to think much farther, a dirty, grinning boy's face popped above the truck's tailgate, surmounted by a shock of dark pink hair with a seemingly scaly scarf wrapped around like a sweatband over the forehead. She had just enough time to register this information before he shouted, "Welcome to the ranch!"
Lucy shot to her feet, taking a fighting stance, preparing to defend herself from this deceptively cheery new threat.