Chapter One

Da Capo

Juvia Lockser applied a shade of coral lipstick as she bent towards the mirror in the restaurant bathroom, touching up the color that had faded since she'd first put it on earlier that morning. If she was being honest with herself though, anything to steal a few moments away from Jose Porla was worth it. But she could only stand there, smacking her lips and fussing with her long blue hair that fell in waves about her shoulders for so long before Porla started to get suspicious and send someone from the restaurant in after her. And that was the last thing she wanted. Things would only get worse for her if there was a scene.

Anyway, this was only a brief respite from the dark world she lived in. Other such moments were few and far between, but she took what she could get, even if it was just to take a few moments to fix her makeup. When she was really desperate, she'd find a way to excuse herself even when something like her makeup didn't need fixing.

She took her time now nonetheless, before straightening and twisting the lipstick closed and capping it. She considered herself one last time in the mirror, and then threw her lipstick back in her handbag and took a deep breath, as one might do before taking the leap off a high dive.

Back out in the restaurant, Porla appeared to be flirting with the waitress as she refilled his wine glass. Juvia cringed inwardly but did her best to hold her chin high and act like she was still the hottest thing in the room. It had been one of a handful of survival techniques she'd lived by since she'd been barely thirteen years old, when Porla had dragged her down into his dark world.

Just as he was kissing the back of the waitress's hand and then giving her behind a smack to which she responded with a sickeningly coquettish giggle, Juvia reached the table. He looked up as she drew back her chair so she could sit. He leered at her in his usual way, and in her usual way, she pretended to find it charming and smiled back at him. She'd become so practiced at it that there were days she worried she'd accidentally slip into the skin of a woman who legitimately pined for his attention, as she had watched so many other women do, helpless to save them from themselves because she'd had enough to worry about trying to save her own skin.

Juvia laid her handbag beside her on the white tablecloth and shook her head a little, shaking back her thick blue tresses of hair.

"So, my lovely Siren," Porla said, using her codename as a pet name as he leaned back like a sultan in his chair. "Why don't we discuss your next hit?"

"Can't we at least have the main course first?" said Juvia, though she tried to sound playful about it. "One meal at a time, after all."

"Oh, this is just to whet your appetite, babe." Porla straightened up in his chair and then reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket and produced a picture, which he turned over in his fingers like he were doing a card trick before he laid it flat on the table and slid it across to Juvia.

She was treated to a photograph of an old man who appeared to be having the time of his life at a bar. The picture didn't show it, as anyone else who might have been with him was cut out of frame, but she could tell that he wasn't drinking alone, the he was in fact drinking among the sort of friends who were so close you considered them family.

Juvia felt a pang at the idea before she put that aside and turned the photograph over to find the name scribbled on the back.

Makarov Dreyar.

"Former chief of police in the seventh precinct," said Porla, picking up his wine and swilling it before taking a quaff. After he swallowed he added, "He knows things. Too many things. He's a liability to the Phantom Lord syndicate and how we do business. Or rather, I should say, what our business is."

In this case, Juvia was completely on the retired police chief's side. She always had been. Phantom Lord dealt in drug trafficking. Made bank doing it too. Which meant that aside from the occasional time Porla would get drunk and take out his violent anger on Juvia, she lived a very high and sophisticated lifestyle. Save for the days she stayed in her room when she got something like a black eye and Porla didn't want anyone to see, she was treated like a well-to-do lady within the walls of Phantom Lord mansion. Provided she stayed confined within the compound.

Really, for her, it was nothing more than a glamorous prison.

Except when she was unleashed to take out the targets Porla ordered her to. After all, she was also trained in everything from basic gunplay to sniping.

That said though, there was nothing she could do but do as Porla asked of her if she wanted to stay alive. He'd made that very clear the first time he'd brought her to Phantom Lord mansion, weeping and broken.

So, unfortunately, Juvia couldn't afford to spare this perfectly decent old man's life, anymore than she could any of the other people she'd killed in the time Porla had used as one of his personal assassins.

At least while she was still Jose Porla's plaything.

"Where can I find him?" Juvia asked, already tucking the photo discreetly in her bag, right alongside her Kimber Sapphire Ultra II 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

"There's a bar, where he hangs out," Porla told her. "The Fairy Tail, they call it. A gal named Mirajane Strauss runs it. Tends bar there too. But be careful. She's got a Winchester shotgun under the bar, and she knows how to use it. And one of the other regulars there's not only one of the top cops in the city, she's Dreyar's protégée. She took over as chief of police for him. Chief Erza Scarlet. And from what I hear about her, her boyfriend's an ex-marine. In and out of the mental hospital for PTSD. Sargent Jellal Fernandes. Oh, and let's not forget the bar's other two notorious regulars—notorious in the sense that they're general rabble rousers, but the…Robin Hood sort, if you know what I mean. And someone with the sort of moral fiber that Chief Scarlet has would let them get away with certain things if they're in the name of a…brand of vigilantism."

"Should I expect people that distantly related to my target getting that involved?" Juvia asked with clinical focus.

"You should consider it a possibility," Porla warned, turning strangely serious as he set his wineglass back down while Juvia picked up her own. "Those two rabble-rouser sorts I told you about? They're troublemakers, sure, but they take care of their own. If they get even a whiff that you're after someone like Makarov Dreyar, who might as well be the godfather of the whole damn bar, they will beat you to within an inch of your life—doesn't matter if you're a man, a woman, or a child, which, I gotta admit, I admire that kinda hardball play. And don't forget, that's all before they even get their guns. From what Sol's told me, they're both just as skilled as Scarlet in handguns and firearms."

Juvia snorted. "I'm way more dangerous."

Porla raised his eyebrows at her. "Careful, sweetheart," he said, but rather than sounding concerned it sounded more like a threat, coming from him.

Juvia cleared her throat and sipped her wine, hiding her discomfort.

"Anyway," Porla went on, scratching at his mustache with one hand while he took the switchblade out of his pocket with his other. "They know how to mess you up."

"But they aren't ex-soldiers or cops? Like at all?"

"Not at all. They just believe in being prepared. Well, and they weren't always on the up and up. They both grew up on the streets. Actually, one of 'em had a pretty decent home as a kid before his folks got whacked by the Deliora family. Rumor is he's kept his ear to the ground ever since for any sign of those fucks, made a vow of revenge on the crosses carved into the gun grips of his father's silver desert eagle, or some bull like that. As for the other, well he's your typical parents-were-too-poor-so-they-abandoned-him shit. But anyway…well…you know how only the people who learn how to kill are the ones who survive…living on the streets."

Porla flicked open his switchblade and grinned.

Juvia bristled inwardly, but kept her disgust tamped down, along with the horrid memories of her childhood and how Porla had made it so hellish for her.

"He, he, he," Porla chuckled, flicking the blade closed again. "So, that's what these two did. They're pretty lethal when they wanna be. And even though their friend Scarlet has set them straight, they're still…you know…bad boys with hearts of gold and all that."

"All right, fine," said Juvia, trying to make herself sound submissive so Porla would quit trying to intimidate her into his arms and just tell her the names of these two "bad boys". "And their names would be?"

Porla grinned as he picked up his wine glass again. "Natsu Dragneel…and Gray Fullbuster. Or…the Dragon and the Iceman."

"Fine, I'll watch out," Juvia assured him, trying to insinuate with her tone that she wanted this conversation over with.

But Porla sensed her tension. However, instead of punishing her for it, he went with the "loosen up" approach. "Come on, Juvia, babe. Of my four top assassins, you're my best, baby." He tried to slide his hand over hers, his fingers crawling like a spider over her skin. "The Siren…she-demon of the sea…."

It took everything in Juvia not to snatch her hand away. She hadn't had to give herself up to him yet, and every day she prayed she could keep things that way until she could find her opening and cut and run from this life.

Just when she thought she could get away without him hurting her for a change, he suddenly increased the pressure of his hand on her arm, gripping her in a vise-like grasp, his hand now like a claw.

"Just remember," he growled, leaning in closer, "when I found you in that rat's nest, parents dead and you starving and not far behind, I got you out. You owe me your life."

Juvia picked up his hot breath on the air, he was that close. She cringed inwardly, but stood her ground and managed a smile that didn't feel as forced as she knew it really was.

"And I'd say, considering how you botched things with…Redfox…I was a paragon of forgiveness. Because to be honest, babe, I'm a little sweet on ya." Porla leered at her again.

Gajeel, Juvia thought forlornly, though she kept the emotion hidden, as easily as she did with everything else. Just the same, after she'd let Gajeel Redfox go even though Porla had ordered her to kill him, she'd sworn to herself that she'd never let her heart get in the way of her head again. Because next time she knew she wouldn't be so lucky. And as much as Porla liked to tell her he was "sweet on her", he'd have no qualms about killing her. He'd had no qualms about ordering a hit on Gajeel, after all.

Just look out for yourself. You can't afford to stick out your neck, if you want to live.

One day though…she prayed for it…that day when she could finally have a life where she could afford to live with more integrity of character.

When it got right down to it, she absolutely hated the person she'd become. She'd always told herself that she wouldn't let the bad things that had happened to her turn her into a bad person. But she'd been wrong about that.

Porla finally withdrew his grip on her, and Juvia relaxed, though not noticeably as the waitress returned with their dinners, and even with her lack of an appetite, Juvia swallowed her food with the same determination with which she swallowed her pride. And very slowly, she grew numb to her fears and her doubts and her self-loathing, and once again became the cold, passionless, unmerciful killer that Porla had bred her into.

The murderess who could kill with a smile before killing with a stab in the back.

Juvia set out the next day from the Phantom Lord's compound in one of the Lamborghinis. While it didn't make up for much, it was still pretty cool that she could have her choice of all of the fine cars that Porla and the Phantom Lord had in their lot, and take it out when she went in pursuit of a target for assassination.

She hot-rodded it down the serpentine road that cut through the forest before reaching the city, blue eyes hidden behind a pair of $500 sunglasses, her svelte blue dress hugging her curves as expertly as she hugged the curves of the road in the blue Lamborghini. And despite what most would say, she managed effortlessly to operate the foot pedals in her high stiletto pumps.

She revved the engine, reveling once more in another respite, a taste of the freedom she longed for, if a false freedom, an illusion, a dream.

But then reality set in, though not in the way it normally did.

Instead, her "check engine" light flashed at her, and not long after that, when she got to the outskirts of the city where the flats were, the once-purring engine now choked at her, gasping as it struggled to keep up with the gear Juvia had it in.

"Are you kidding me?!" Then Juvia yelped as the car suddenly slowed, staggering like someone with a limp. At that point, her best bet was to try to get as far as she could, and at the first service station she came across, she'd have to pull in, even if they didn't look like they'd know the first thing about how to deal with a Lamborghini engine. Because, truth be told, she actually did know a thing or two about engines. She wished she could learn more though.

It felt like forever though before she came across what looked even remotely like a service station, some place called Happy's Car Service. And by that time, she felt like she was dragging herself along the curb, her flashers going, muttering under her breath how Porla's mechanic could be such an idiot.

"Damn it."

Turning the wheel and managing to crawl her way to the curb, Juvia just barely pulled into the lot of the service station and parked.

The place was pretty run down, she noted, as she stepped out of her Lamborghini and lowered her shades. But there was something she liked about it. It wasn't sleek like any of the car dealers she'd been in before when Porla would drag her along on a whim, or for security, but the lack of glitz gave her this sense that this was a place Porla couldn't reach her, even if this was exactly the kind of place where Porla himself had actually started out. Not a service station, but a grease pit of another kind, one where he'd have fallen into the darkness with his brethren if he hadn't made the decisions that he did, ruthless as they were, to get him to the top of Phantom Lord.

In any case, she was desperate if she wanted to get anywhere with this car.

She shut the front door with her hip and sashayed over the gravel lot to the front door to the service garage.

It was a pretty quiet day in the shop for Happy's Car Service. But then, Happy's was a pretty smalltime business. While the radio was on in the office, sitting on the desk covered in paperwork, Gray Fullbuster and Natsu Dragneel, the only two who worked the place, were in the middle of tinkering with the next car that was on their docket for fixing—a yellow '72 Chevy Vega—both of them in ratty jeans and muscle shirts that did in fact show off how impressively toned they both were in the abs, arms, and chest (something that Natsu's girlfriend Lucy Heartfilia had no problem expressing her appreciation for).

And then around his neck, Gray also had a silver sword cross set with a blue gem that hung by a silver chain. The only thing he'd gotten from his dad when he'd died, aside from his gun—Silver Fullbuster's silver desert eagle, the grip engraved with crosses on either side. He'd made a vow of vengeance on that gun, and now it sat quietly and unassumingly with Natsu's Beretta 92FS in the drawer of the desk in the office.

While Natsu was halfway in the hood fiddling with the engine, Gray was in the driver's seat in charge of trying to get the ignition started every time Natsu told him to try turning the key again.

But all it did was cough over and over, sputtering toward a start that would never be because the engine refused to turn over even after all they're work on it.

"Jeez!" Gray banged the steering wheel. "Come on, Natsu!"

Natsu emerged from the depths of the engine and poked his head around the uplifted hood, waving a wrench at his partner. "Hey, I'm doin' the best I can here!" he snapped. "There's something jammed in here!"

"Well you're doin' a crap job findin' whatever it is!" Gray snapped back, leaning out of the window and shaking his fist like he was a pissed off driver on the road.

The two of them glared at each other before they both sniggered and broke out into a burst of laughter.

"You S.O.B.!" Natsu jibed.

"You're one to talk!" Gray jibed back.

"Okay!" Natsu dove back into the engine with renewed vigor.

Gray was still laughing when the front door to the service station opened, and everything stopped at the sight of the person who walked in.

She was a knockout. There was no other word for it. His heart stopped, and then started pounding at the very curvaceous and buxom woman in the tight blue dress with the flouncy short skirt, striding over the threshold in blue stiletto pumps. She had a pair of very expensive-looking sunglasses perched atop of her head, and her hair was long, and thick, and a beautiful dark blue that fell gracefully like water about her shoulders and back. From one hand dangled a chic handbag with a chain strap, which she swung with an entrancing abandon.

"Gray?" Natsu called. "You wanna try that key again?" When Gray didn't answer, he emerged from the engine again. "Gray?"

"Hey guys," called the woman. "Would either of you be able to help me out with my car?" she asked. She wasn't acting sultry, but even so, something about her voice made played divinely on Gray's eardrums.

Natsu glanced between Gray and the woman, and then he waved a hand in front of Gray's face. At which point Gray just leaned over so he could see around his friend's hand. Which made Natsu laugh and stand up to turn to the woman, since Gray had apparently lost the power of human speech all of a sudden.

"Yeah, we can take a look," said Natsu, tossing aside the wrench on the nearby work table and then grabbing a rag and cleaning the grease off of his hands.

Realizing Natsu was about to shake the woman's very elegant-looking hand, Gray leapt out of the car, grabbed a rag of his own and cleaned up his own hands, before jogging around Natsu so he could beat him to the punch.

He held out his hand for the woman to take instead. "We'd be more than happy to take a look, ma'am," he said, trying not to sound too eager.

But then his and the woman's ocean-blue eyes met and something warm opened up in his chest. And he was suddenly made aware of how clammy his palms were as the woman took the hand he offered her and shook it.

Better still (or worse, maybe), she smiled at him, as though amused.

"Why thank you," she said pleasantly, and then she seemed to hesitate for a moment as she looked at him, and Gray felt he should say something back, but his mind was drawing a blank. All he could think about was how beautiful this young woman was.

Like he'd never seen a beautiful woman before.

Which he had.

"'S'it parked out front?" Natsu asked, breaking the silence. But his grin was mischievous, and Gray flashed him a slightly annoyed look.

But he still couldn't seem to find his voice again.

"Ah…yeah," said the woman, who actually seemed a little short on words herself, which Gray took rather sympathetic note of. "Here, I'll um, show you," she finally said, clearing her throat and letting go of Gray's hand, turning away.

It didn't help that now Gray had a good view of her from behind as she waltzed back over to the door.

Then Gray got shaken out of his trance by the feeling of Natsu reaching over and drawing his finger across the corner of his friend's mouth.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Gray hissed under his breath.

Natsu was clearly holding in his laughter. "Sorry, dude, you were droolin' a little there."

Gray watched him follow the blue-haired woman out the door, shaking his head, before he too followed. Now that he had a moment to actually think about it, he was being ridiculous. This was the way a wolf acted in a Tex Avery cartoon, not how a decent grown man should act. If his dad were alive and could see him now, he'd give him a well-deserved smack upside the head.

He sighed, running a hand through his dark hair, and then he smiled to himself. After all, he'd rather have problems like this, than the problems he used to have, where he'd have to answer everything from the end of a gun. Same for Natsu.

Though of course they still carried.

Because they were days where those problems still came up now and then.

Moreover, he was still waiting for the day he'd finally manage to track down those Deliora fucks and take them out. Kill them dead the way they'd done his parents.

Just the thought though made him shiver against his will.

And Gray Fullbuster was someone who rarely felt cold.

Outside in the hot summer sun, Gray was struck speechless a second time at the sight of the woman's car. Then again, he wasn't exactly surprised, given how refined a woman she seemed to be, which made him wonder for a moment what she was doing at a backwater service station like their operation here, but then he got his answer before he even had to ask.

"I'm guessing my guy didn't bother to get the engine on this bad boy checked," the woman explained, regarding the electric blue Lamborghini Diablo. "So I'm driving down the road thinking everything's fine until it starts dying on me and well…this was the first station I came across, so…." Then she shrugged.

Gray paid particular attention to the words "my guy", and found himself kind of hoping that that didn't mean she had a boyfriend. Not that he was thinking he could make this woman his girlfriend—the moment he saw her, he was well-aware that she was not only drop-dead beautiful, but waaaaaaaaaaaay out of his league. She was definitely the kind of woman who came from a world that concerned itself with the "breeding" of their fellow human beings, like they were thoroughbred horses instead of people.

And he knew he definitely wasn't no thoroughbred.

Natsu whistled meanwhile at the way the sunlight shined on the blue paint of the car in front them. "Well, it may take some digging, but I think we can get her fixed up for ya. What do you think?" he added to Gray.

Gray meanwhile felt his palms sweat again, this time at the idea of popping that hood open and taking a look at that engine. Engines like the ones found in cars like Lamborghinis and Ferraris and the like were supposed to not merely be engines, but works of technological art.

He grinned up at the other two. "Yeah, absolutely."

"You'll be appropriately compensated of course," the woman threw in. "Not just for the car, but for keeping this lowkey."

Gray's smile went slack, and he caught Natsu's eye. He too had suddenly gotten serious, knitting his brow. Then they looked at the woman.

"Lowkey?" they asked.

"Yeah. See I'd rather no one knew I was here," said the woman, looking quite serious herself.

Which gave Gray the impression of a woman who had something to hide. Or rather, was trying to hide from something.

On the run, maybe? From the law?

She might've seemed like a refined and high-bred girl, but she seemed like a nice girl too. Maybe not the nicest, but a nice girl. Certainly not the kind that'd be on the run from the law. From a bad guy, maybe? Maybe by "my guy" she had meant a boyfriend, but one she was trying to get away from.

Well, whatever it was, it wasn't his business to know the details. Though that didn't mean that if someone found her that she didn't want finding her, that he wouldn't do something about it.

He glanced at Natsu again, and he could see in his friend's face that he was going through a similar thought process. They nodded and then turned back to the woman.

"Not a problem," Gray told her.

The woman visibly relaxed as she smiled again. "Good. Thank you."

"So, you said you were on your way into the city when this happened?" Natsu asked.

"That's right," said the woman.

"Well, if it turns out that this'll take more than a day to fix, would it be all right if we made sure you got a ride to somewhere where you could stay until we do get it fixed?" Gray asked.

The woman seemed to consider him again, like earlier, and then her expression softened. The effect was very lovely, Gray had to admit.

Which made him smile rather softly back as she said, "Of course. I'd appreciate that. Thank you."

"All right then," said Natsu clapping his hands together and rubbing his palms against each other. "Could we get a name then?"

"Juvia Lockser," said the woman.

"Great. Juvia Lockser, I'm Natsu Dragneel. And this blockhead here's Gray Fullbuster."

Something flickered in Juvia's eyes, as though she were actually taken aback, but it was so quick and her cool smile was back in a blink that Gray felt he might've just imagined it.

In fact, her smile was, if possible, a bit wider than before, and warmer too. And Gray felt that warmth reach into his chest again.

"Well thank you again, Gray, Natsu. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

She caught Gray's eye, and then seemed surprised again—this time pleasantly so—with the way he was regarding her.

Meanwhile, Natsu took a pencil and a notebook out of the back pocket of his acid-washed jeans and opened it up, asking, "Same here. So, let's talk about cost estimates up front, shall we?"