Well hello everyone! If you're new to my writing, welcome! If you're a follower of mine... I can explain. Oh, do tell. Shut up Blake, this is your fault too. Hey, Saber gave you this idea months ago. I just finally got you to work on it. Which was not my intention at all. You already have a multi-chapter story that you struggle to update regularly. I have no idea what you were thinking, starting another one. Well, I was inspired. Oh, for those of you who have you no idea what is going on, say hello to Blake, my muse, who decided I was SO in need of motivation that she decided to manifest in my room. And take the form of whatever character was most on my mind at the time. Say hi, Blake. I apologize for him. Thanks for that. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this new story of mine! The chapter title is taken from Echosmith's March Into The Sun.

Chapter 1: No Apocalypse

The moon hung low in the night sky over the city of Magnolia, the ghostly light casting long shadows over the skyscrapers and river inlets. A lone figure wrapped in a thick overcoat walked down the thinly-populated street. The hum of the city's night life pressed around him, lights from clubs reflecting onto the sidewalks. He glanced furtively around at the empty alleyways, before turning and knocking on a door discreetly hidden on the side of a nightclub.

It opened, and the man was ushered inside by another man, in a dress shirt and slacks. When the man in the coat walked into the room, he beheld four other men arrayed around a circular table, with a large stack of papers and cash sitting in the middle. The one at the head of the group shifted his gaze upward, and recognized the newcomer with a grunt.

"Good of you to join us, Kageyama. Take a seat."

"Thank you Erigor." The man called Kageyama pulled a chair up to the table and joined the group, a troubled expression on his face. "How are the month's profits adding up?"

"Short," the man in the slacks replied brusquely. "We're losing more and more users to Midnight's product every day, and our dealers are being told to either pay protection, sell the new stuff, or get the hell out." He looked up at Kageyama. "But you knew all that. So spill. How did that meeting go? What did Lord Drowsy want?"

Kageyama's mouth wrinkled with distaste. "I gave him our message. Told him and his crew to back off. He wouldn't have any of it. Told me something like "our time was over". Crazy son of a bitch." The dark-haired criminal's hands tightened into fists on the table. "But he did make me an... offer, if you want to call it that. We pay him a percentage, and he keeps his dealers out of our turf."

"Well?" Erigor queried. "What was the little scarecrow's price? I'm guessing it wasn't good, judging by how your face looks like someone put shit under your nose and told you not to wipe it off."

Kageyama's scowl deepened, and his voice was low. "The bastard wants thirty-five percent."

There was a moment of shocked silence in the room, and the men in it could feel the tension build like they were in a pressure cooker. And then it blew.

"WHAT?! Thirty-five percent for protection? Who do those flies in the South End think they are?" Erigor snarled, a feral expression on his face. "He wants that cut just for us to sell the same old product we've been selling for years? I won't stand for it!" He stood up, and every eye in the room followed him, equal parts of anger and trepidation reflecting in them.

Erigor began gesticulating wildly, his eyes alight with fury. "It's time these Oracion Seis upstarts learn what it means to run afoul of Eisenwald! We'll leave their heads on spikes, and then everyone will know…cough…know our…cough, cough…strength… what the fuck?" The other men in the room began looking about wildly at their leader's distress, but by then it was too late.

The entire room was filling with a sickly violet smoke, and their eyes began to tear up as their throats swelled closed. Erigor tried to choke out some word, but it died in his throat as the veins in his neck bulged out in stark relief against the hue of his skin. One by one, the Eisenwald gang crumpled to the ground, their panicked eyes darting around as they seized up. They clawed at their throats, they beat at the walls, they tried to crawl away, but their strength was deserting them too fast. Kageyama even managed to make it to the door, but he could not turn the knob, and he too collapsed on the floor. The last sounds of death and suffocation sounded throughout the room, and then it was silent. The door opened then, and a figure in a gas mask and white coat entered, the gas swirling and parting around him like mist as it dissipated into the night. Standing silhouetted in the doorway, his gaze slowly traveled the length of the impromptu tomb before he walked in. He swept the cash and documents into a sack, checked the pockets of the dead gangsters, took one last glance at the room, and strode out, gingerly stepping over the corpses he left in his wake.

"…..I got your hand in my hand, No drinks inside…, it's how we start a fire, with a natural high… With hands in our pockets, this doesn't have to be our last dance. With hands in our pockets, this world doesn't have to end .No grand finale, Hands in our pockets, we'll march into the sun."

Lucy Heartfilia blearily blinked her eyes open. Her room swam into focus like an oil painting, the brown and pink hues melting as they entered her field of vision. As her alarm continued blaring it's happy tune, she let out a long groan, before reaching her arms above her head on the pillow and stretching languorously. After hearing her back and neck pop a satisfactory number of times, she began the lengthy and involved process of waking up.

First, the blonde pried herself from the cloying embrace of her blankets. She then sat up, and glanced somewhat resentfully at her alarm. It was still cheerfully droning on, and Lucy vaguely wondered why she'd chosen such a lighthearted song for a Monday morning. Oh yeah, she thought as her brain finally began to power on. New job. She climbed off of her bed, forcefully tapping the alarm button as she did so, and stood up, taking stock of her room with a wrinkle in her brow.

The bedroom reeked of "lonesome girl with no social life". It was well-ordered, with a wooden dresser and vanity, a writing desk, and doors leading into a private bathroom and the apartment proper. A window let bright morning light in. The walls were a brownish pink throughout, and her bed had soft pink quilted sheets. And that was it. It was bare, devoid of any personal touches. Other than the obviously custom furniture, which was carryovers from the old mansion, there was nothing unique about it. They were the only things Lucy had brought from her old house, in fact. Everything else was too painful a reminder. Well, not everything, Lucy amended. She glanced back down at her nightstand, and saw her mothers' keys glinting softly. She smiled for the first time that morning. Looking back to her clock, Lucy shook herself out of her reverie and headed into the bathroom to shower. She had a big day ahead.

"Oh Lu, I'm so excited! We finally get to work together!" Levy's voice came over the speaker on Lucy's phone loud and clear, and Lucy was suddenly struck with the absurd image of the bluenette guzzling coffee while talking into her phone and reading the morning paper all at once, while somehow also running in a hamster wheel. She certainly sounds like she has the energy for it. No one said Lucy's brain had completely reached its computing capacity for the day yet. She was now sitting on a barstool in her kitchen, waiting for her currently crisping toast with a steaming mug of coffee in hand.

"Me too, Levy, me too," Lucy replied tiredly, nursing her own cup. She glanced over at the toaster, waiting for the tell-tale click. "Mind telling me again why I'm being assigned to arson, though? The branch of police work I'm the least familiar with? As I remember it, it sounded like you had something to with that decision." She turned to look out of the large glass sliding doors across the room, which led to her balcony porch. The view today was spectacular. Puffy white clouds drifted in the blue sky, and the sparkle of the river below lent the whole tableau a picturesque quality. Cars glinted across the shore on the roads, a sprawl of claustrophobic taxis and limousines.

"Oh Lulu, come on, you know why." Lucy could practically see her friend's pout. "I wouldn't have recommended you to it if I had any other option."

"But you see the problem here, Lev, is that you had any number of options. Options that didn't include messing with your best friend's first post at her new precinct." The toast clicked, and Lucy took a noisy bite out of it to emphasize her point.

"Lucy, I'm sorry about it, but I really need your help here. Actually, I'm not the one who you need to help. I'm doing this for an old friend, you know that."

"Yeah, you told me that. But what I don't get is why instead of requiring him to receive counseling, you need your old roommate and fellow psychology major to watch him secretly under the guise of being his partner."

Levy groaned. "Okay, first of all, you can stop reminding me of what good friends we are; it's only helping to convince me that you're going to do this. Second, I have counseled him. I can only bring him in for a limited number of sessions before I have to make a decision on whether he's still fit for duty."

"Well is he?" Lucy's concern temporarily overrode her annoyance. "Levy, if you think he's unstable-"

"No, he's not unbalanced, Lu, I promise. I don't want to forbid him from working, because actually I think that would just make him worse. But he's far also pretty far from okay, if you know what I mean." Levy's voice quieted a little, and Lucy could tell her friend was fighting through the doctor-client privilege that had been drilled into their heads so effectively in college. "Natsu and I grew up together. We lived at the same orphanage, in fact. I've known him for a long time. He got back from the military about a year and a quarter ago, and he wasn't the same. But when he and his girlfriend went steady, he seemed genuinely happy for the first time in a while. And then…" Levy began to choke up, but she held it together. "She, ah…she died. She was an officer and well…she was murdered on patrol. About eight months ago."

"Gods," Lucy breathed out. "That must have hit him hard."

"It hit us all hard." Levy said, her voice regaining some of its steadiness. "Lisanna was from the orphanage too. She was like family. But Natsu…we didn't see him for a week after it happened. And then one day, he shows up at the precinct, and just throws himself back into his work. Refused to talk about her at all, just shut down whenever her name came up. Eventually, he found a way to pretend he was happy. And whatever he did in the army, they taught him how to take a psych test. He gives all the right answers, as well as if he was reading them from a book." Levy took a deep breath, and her tone returned to its usual peppiness. "So I thought I'd kill a whole flock of birds with one stone. He gets a supportive friend, who's also one of the nicest people I know-"

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Lucy interjected.

"-and I get someone with psych training who I trust completely to watch him every day, and who can maybe help get to the root of his problems."

"And because the universe is ungodly kind to you, you also force two of your loneliest friends into close proximity under your watchful eye for eight hours a day, five days a week, right?" The teasing note in Lucy's voice had lost a lot of its bite, but it was still there.

"Why Lucy, I am both shocked and offended that you think I would let such a base motive influence my judgment on this," said Levy, sounding neither shocked nor offended. "I thought nothing of the sort. But honestly, he's one of the nicest people I know. I think you'll enjoy working with him."

"I'm sure," Lucy replied, rolling her eyes. Having finished her toast, she began walking towards her room to change, keeping the phone at her ear and heaving a sigh. "Alright Levy, I'll do it. But you owe me for this one. Like, tickets to Mermaid Heel owe me. Dinner at Kotobuki's owe me. No expense spa day owe-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it Lu. You're a good friend, you know that? And a good person too."

"Now you're just trying to get me to blush, Lev. I'll be at the 88th soon. See you there."

"See you!" Lucy hung up the phone, and beheld her wardrobe. Chin up, Lucy, she thought. New job, new city, new beginning. She slipped on a pair of fresh pressed slacks, and added a crisp white shirt and makeup. Her navy blue jacket came last, and she confidently strode out into the hallway of her apartment complex.

Unfortunately, upon exiting the doorway,she immediately collided with her neighbor: a young man with spiky orange hair and azure tinted glasses, dressed in a two-piece suit. The two both reeled with the initial impact, and afterwards, their hands immediately came up to correct any imagined defects in their appearances. Lucy's hands went to her hair, while his went to his glasses. When they had both reassured themselves that the contact had not interfered with their carefully constructed visages, the turned to each other with embarrassed smiles.

"Oh, I'm sorry Loke!" Lucy hastily apologized. "I wasn't looking when I walked out of my room."

"Oh, no worry at all, Lucy!" Loke cheerfully reassured her, flashing a ten-megawatt grin. "I enjoy running into you."

"I'm sure you do," Lucy replied dryly, raising an eyebrow at his usual attempt at flirtation. At least he wasn't calling her "Princess" yet.

Loke's eyes moved to take in the clothes she was wearing, and his grin widened even further, which Lucy would not have thought possible on anyone other than Loke. "Hey, today's your first day at the 88th Precinct today, huh?" He didn't wait for a response. "Oh man, you'll love it there! I mean, if you can stand my friends, that is. They're an acquired taste, but they're also the nicest people once you get to know them."

"That seems to be the general consensus from you Fairy Tail types." Falling in side by side with Loke, they both began walking towards the elevator. "Levy told me pretty much the same thing. And why is it every one of you is in some way affiliated with law enforcement? You're like one big police fraternity."

"Pretty much," Loke said, chuckling. "Old man Makarov was a retired police commissioner, so we kinda had public service drilled into us early on. And once Erza became captain, she made sure she got everybody from the old home into her precinct. She's persuasive like that."

"Captain Scarlet, you mean? I heard she's terrifying." The new detective shuddered at the memory of the stories she'd heard from some of the other recruits.

"Aww, she can be a little forceful sometimes, but she's like the big sister you never knew you wanted. Or had to want, more accurately. You don't get to say no to being Erza's sibling."

Lucy let a small grin at that. "Well, let's hope she's as welcoming to me as she is to you."

Loke gave her a reassuring look. "Pssh, don't worry. Just tell her you're friends with both me and Levy, and you'll instantly be a member of the family."

"Just like that?" Lucy looked suspiciously up at him as they reached the elevator and Loke punched in the button for the ground floor.

"Just like that. Trust me." The elevator closed with a soft ding, and began its descent.

So some basic info: Currently, this story is second in line on my priorities list, behind my other work, A Little Lesson On Your Nightmares. I will mostly be focused on finishing that one, but I really wanted to get this first chapter out, so here it is. It likely won't see any updates for a while, but I wanted to make sure I began it so it could begin to take more shape for me in conceptual development. This story will be very different from Nightmares, as it will be much longer, grander in scale, and definitely M. It is a sprawling AU that will utilize a great deal of the main Fairy Tail cast, and will include violence, foul language, drug use, and (maybe) a lemon or too. So you have been warned. Honestly, this first chapter was a little short for my liking, but it's a start, and I can always come back and edit this. Can do and will do are two entirely different things. Thanks Blake. And on that note, I'd also like to thank everyone who read this far! Please follow and favorite if you enjoyed, and don't be shy about leaving a review! I mean really, don't be shy at all. Be bold. Do it. Please. It's how I get better.