I'm back in action! Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this story, I quite amazed with the 12 followers it's gotten. I'm glad I have this time to think about this story and write it out nicely because the pressure's on for me. I have piano auditions at the end of the month and still a lot of work to do, soon I'll have to worry about high school scheduling for the next school year, and then marching band auditions... but that's enough about me! I've realized how OOC I've made Lucy, and being overly OOC really annoys me, so sorry for that! Her personality right now is just a mask, she'll be regular Lucy soon enough. Also, in this chapter Lucy will meet some more people in Fairy Tail!

When Lucy woke up, she was lying in a cot with no pillow, a threadbare blanket that smelled strongly of mothballs drawn over her. That's weird, she thought, am I here already? I'm a light sleeper, I should've woken up by now... and from the way he always talked about this place. I'd figured they would have tortured me a little bit by now... Then a couple more details came into play. Her wrists were in cuffs with a chain between them, so that she couldn't move them more than a foot apart from each other. There was also a chain trailing down from her right cuff, held down to the ground right beside the cot. There was a single light bulb hanging haphazardly from the ceiling, and a dirty window, where sunlight was dimly filtering through. The room was plain, with a white bolted door and walls, with light brown wooden trim and a cold white and black tile floor. Lucy figured she would've been shackled to the wall or something from the stories. Or at least a table full of painful tools would be standing ominously before her. But other than the cot, shackles and lock, it was incredibly plain.

Lucy was about to try and go back to sleep again while she could, when the bolt slid away and the door opened. A man with dark ginger hair and an unshaven face walked in. He wore a long black cloak that was extremely ragged at the edges so that the only thing you could really tell about the guy was that he was tall. "So you're awake then," he said grimly. The man had a look in his eyes, intense in a way like something important had been taken from him and he was examining people to see if they had been the one to steal it away. She gulped and nodded once.

The man casually flipped the grimy light switch and the bulb glowed. Lucy took the opportunity to examine him and her surroundings more and gasped when she saw somethings that she hadn't noticed before. Her right hand was wrapped in bandages, and it felt like it had been burned. Something blinked in her head as she remembered something Jude had said about one of the practices of the Institute... sure enough, beneath the bandage, on the back of her right hand, was a pink mark, branded onto her hand. Her stomach churned, repulsion and horror in her heart as she shifted her eyes from the horrible brand. It was the mark of the Institute, meant to show that a person belonged to the dreadful place. Next, her abdomen flared with pain. She lifted her shirt slightly to find bandages over the spot where the pain came from. It felt like someone had stabbed her. She moved her fingers hesitantly to the bandages...

"I wouldn't do that," the man warned. Lucy was surprised to see the man lower his head. "I regret it. Every time I regret it, but if I try to get away there's going to be hell to pay." It seemed like the man was speaking to himself more than anyone. He then glanced at a paper in a file in his hands and then back up at Lucy. "Your name is Lucy Heartfilia, correctt? My name is Gildarts, and, well... I know some things about your father you might want to know."

Her reaction was impulsive, but she meant every bit of it. "No! I know too much about that sadistic bastard already! Whatever you're here for, just do it! I don't need that crap!"

His expression was sympathetic, as if he could ever understand Lucy's pain, but he raised his eyebrows. He spoke to her as he removed the cuffs."It included why he killed your mother and sister."

"Are you sure you're supposed to be saying that?" Lucy glared at Gildarts as she sat up and rubbed her wrists, "because according to every single one of you assholes here, I killed them all."

"No, but I'm not one of them. Just let me explain, I'm trying to help you, and I have limited time."

Lucy scoffed. "Fine."

"Almost twenty years ago, I wasn't a pawn of this place. I had someone that I loved, her name was Cornelia. We weren't married yet, but she was expecting. It seemed like everything would be great for me. I had someone I loved, soon I would have a child, that's all I needed.

"But their was still a huge if, but I thought I'd conquered it already. You see, I'd borrowed a large amount of money from a man who worked for the government. His name was Jude Heartfilia. Apparently, the man never really bothered traveling around much, because he never came knocking at my door, asking for the money. All he told me was that the money was due in three years, and he even said no interest. I was hopeful, just a couple hundred dollars left in debt, which I would earn next month and by the time he came back, I would have it paid in full and finally, Cornelia and I would have the burden off our shoulders.

"But I was wrong about this man being a good one. It was a cold November day, I remember it very clearly. Cornelia was reading by the fire on our patched chair, I was sitting on a stool I had pulled next to her chair, and I was reading a letter my family had sent me, when he came.

"All of a sudden, someone was forcefully knocking on our door, shouting for us to let them in. I thought the voice sounded familiar, so I obliged, and their he was. Jude. He asked me in a rude tone if I had the money, I told him that it wasn't even due yet, but I told him we almost had it. Jude told me he had changed his mind about the due date, and the no interest. Then, the worst part came. He said if I couldn't pay it in full now, that I would be forced to come with him and pay off my debt in labor to the place her worked. Since he was supposedly an important government official, I didn't resist. I was afraid something would happen to Cornelia.

"And so, I came here. I was horrified when I found out the whole truth about him, about the place he worked. The Fairy Tail Institute. He gave me the job of 'disciplinary worker,' but I found out pretty soon what that really meant. We had to torture the children, who were supposedly the most evil ones, who had to be contained for the 'greater good' of humanity. I think the worst part of the job is when newcomers arrive, and we have to learn about their terrible pasts, where they were supposedly the villain. Then we have to inflict a wound to remind them of our crime.

"That wound though, isn't a reminder of a crime that wasn't really a crime. It's a reminder of what you did to resist them. And being here is what you get for it. There's no escape from this place. These people have even taken the other family members of the other people like me. There's a woman named Mirajane, and they took her sister and brother. Now they have to be stuck in the Institute, tortured. I made Cornelia promise that she'd go and hide so they couldn't get to her or the child in case I messed up. I don't believe I've done anything to cause them to track down Cornelia. I hope not, because you've seen firsthand how good the trackers are, and how they never stop until they've capture their object of search.

"I've learned a lot about Jude Heartfilia since I've arrived here. I know that he was unbelievably rich, and that he worked between the government of Fiore and this place to insure that this place would never get caught in their actions. When he was alive, he acted as a year round inspector of the place. I know he lived in Magnolia, which is a few miles from this place. I know he had a wife and two daughters, one of them being you. He abused your mother because he wanted a son, but his wife had two girls instead and got sick soon after your younger sister was born, and she became infertile.

"He never let any of you leave in fear of one of you telling something that would result in the crash of this place and a place for him in prison, possibly even capital punishment."

This whole time Lucy had been silent. She knew now that not everyone in the Institute except for the kids and those who grew up in there was evil. Even the people who were the ones carrying out cruelty were being tortured, and passing the pain on was the worst part. It made her even more furious at her father and his wicked legacy. But, Lucy didn't understand why Gildarts was telling her this about her father. She already knew all of it... "Erm... I already know these things about him. And I really don't want to stay in this hell hole any longer so..."

"Then I'll tell you why he was killed your mother and sister. He was planning to kill you too. Don't you want to know that, kid?"

Lucy's eyes widened as she realized he had reached what she really wanted to know. She nodded.

"He killed your mother and your sister because, apparently somehow, your mother had gotten out of the house sometime and told someone the truth."

How is that possible? We were always forced to stay inside... unless... there was a small wrench in Lucy's gut as she realized how an odd little situation that had happened a few weeks before that night could've held some light to what Gildarts was saying. She had thought nothing of it at the time, but if Lucy could remember it...

"Lucy, Michelle, would you like to take a nap?" Layla asked her daughters, coming out of Jude's study. It had been a time for them when Jude had been increasingly demanding about the work they did, but it wasn't always work. He would have long lectures, often shouting and screaming at them. They made Michelle cringe, and Lucy would try to cover her ears so she wouldn't have to hear the hours of Jude's torture. He would berate them for how useless they were, for how he wanted to get rid of them, to kill them. Once Jude realized what Lucy was doing, he would beat her hands until they were bloody and raw. Lucy and Michelle quickly nodded, they were always tired now, sleep would be welcome.

It didn't take long. Lucy and Michelle climbed right into bed, not even changing into their pajamas, and Layla tucked them in, kissing their foreheads before leaving. Michelle fell right to sleep, but Lucy restlessly tossed about, trying to get comfortable. Finally finding a good place, Lucy's eyes began to droop. The last thing she remembered before falling asleep was hearing the door to the house open, and thinking Oh no, Dad's home...

The next morning, she woke up, well rested for the first time in weeks. She was surprised that Jude hadn't woken them up to give them a lecture when he had returned. But she had shrugged it off, content with the small streak of good luck. Unfortunately, it didn't last very long...

"That must have been when Mom went out and told!" Lucy concluded.

"The last time Jude came to the Institute he reported that rumors had been circulating around about the Institute, especially him. The others told him to investigate who gave out the information, and deal with them. Soon he came back and told us they had described the informant as a woman of average height, with blonde hair and ragged clothing. They described that she had a scar on her forehead, " Gildarts explained. Lucy remembered that scar. She even remember when she got it. "He said that that was it for you all. He said he would kill you all that very night, and then asked if some of us could come and clean it up. But he never came back. I was sent with the search party to his house. We found everyone dead, except you. You were missing. Our investigators tracked the DNA and such and figured that your sister and your mother were being killed, and you killed Jude. All his knives were gone. So was your sister's doll that Jude always complained about."

She suddenly remembered Michelle's doll, handmade by their mother to resemble her, the thing Lucy's sister told her to take before she died. "Where-?"

Michelle's doll was dropped into her lap. Lucy hugged it and felt tears gather in the corner of her eyes; she lifted her hand and brushed them away. "They told me that you reacted to this as if it was extremely important to you, and they told me to destroy it in front of you, in the same way he killed your sister. But I'm not going to do that. Keep it, let it give you hope, and don't fall to the melancholy of this place." Lucy looked up at the redheaded man gratefully. He slightly grinned back at her.

Gildarts opened the blank white door. "Turn left and go down to the end of the hallway. There's a girl waiting for you, to show you around and stuff."

Lucy seized up at the prospect of seeing the child criminals imprisoned in here. Gildarts noticed her expression. "I figured you might have this reaction, many do," he sighed, "In fact, the person that's waiting for you had the same reaction. Don't worry, she's very sweet. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it so that you could be in the same dorm area as she is, just trust me." Then he narrowed his eyes. "The truth is, kid, that not one of those imprisoned here is evil. They are just traumatized kids, forced to fight back at the people from their past. Just like you."

Lucy nervously made her way down the hallway, noting that they had a lot of these torture rooms, and this was just the left half of the hallway. It was a longer hallway, which Gildarts didn't say anything about. Then she noticed, other people. Lucy froze up. It was a boy supporting another boy who looked to be about her age. The younger boy had to drag the older one along, and he had so many bandages wrapped around him. She gulped. Goodbye to my tough and self-sufficient Lucy, she told herself miserably.

The younger boy was panting. He was small, with tousled bright blue hair and... blue cat ears? He had wide brown eyes, and wore a grubby white shirt and blue pants. He had blue and white sneakers that definitely needed to be replaced, and he also had a green sack over his shoulders, which was interfering with his already poor abilities to carry the injured teenager down the hall.

The other boy also had weird hair. It was a light, dull pink and it spiked up all over the place. He had a tanner complexion than the pale blue-haired boy, and his face was contorted in pain. His arms hung loosely down towards the floor; he was clearly either unconscious or headed that way. His clothes were also is a rather poor condition, an orange t-shirt, frayed black shorts, and navy sandals. He also had bandages everywhere. It was clear he just been in a similar situation to Lucy's, but much, much worse. Lucy remembered when Jude had described their methods of punishment, threatening her mother, sister, and herself with them.

She wasn't completely for certain about what she was doing, and she still had an abundance of doubts about the kids despite what Gildarts had told her, but this little boy looked like he was struggling, and he reminded her just a little bit of Michelle the one time she had tried to pull their mother away from Jude when he had hit her so much she fell to the ground, and the severe punishment Michelle had received, and Lucy soon after for defending Michelle and shouting at Jude. She stumbled forward, ignoring the pain in her gut. As she neared the two, she heard a small thread of conversation.

"I hate that guy," the pink-haired boy uttered.

The younger one had begun to cry. "Why do they always make you go to Bora? It's like he likes burning you, Natsu. Please, stop burning and destroying things. It won't help us, let alone get us out of here. Did you see how hard Wendy was crying after you gotten dragged away? You were in there for over three days!" They burn people? I thought in horror. Burning someone, it's one of the worse things to do!

"I try to, but I just can't. I've told you before, Happy..."

Happy sighed. "We'll talk about this later, with the others. I'll get you to Wendy, so she can help heal you, or do you want to go lie down?"

"Nah, I need to see my sister first, don't I. I bet the others are worried to, I can't let them worry..."

"Aye." Then the teenager, Natsu, seemed to black out. Happy let out a cry. "This is bad! He doesn't get knocked out unless the pain is really agonizing. Why can't I go faster?" Lucy reached the two and immediately held up the other half of the teenager's body. "Who-? Never mind. I bet you're the new prisoner here..."

"Yeah," Lucy sighed, "just let me help you, it looks like you need it. We can do introductions later." The two carried Natsu to the end of the hallway, where they bumped into another, petite teenager with bright blue hair help back by a ribbon. It was almost the same shade as Happy's.

She smiled at Lucy. "I take it you're Luc- Natsu! Quick Happy, we need to get him to Wendy, quickly!" She gave Lucy a look that clearly said, I'll show you what you need later. This is urgent, so help us! Lucy nodded back in consent.

"I already knew that!" Happy whined. Fear began to bubble up in Lucy's chest. How was she going to survive this place? Although Lucy had spent the past seven years fending for herself, she had always felt somewhat detached from the world. The only people she had to deal with were bad people. She dealt with them by beating them up, and in the most extreme situations, killing them. This though, a world with emotional turbulence and pain, would tear away her defenses. And then, the world would see how weak Lucy Heartfilia really was.

Another chapter is done! And it's my longest one so far. Sorry about the cliffhanger, I feel like Rick Riordan is rubbing off on me. I guess that's what you get for spending so much time in the Percy Jackson fandom. This chapter was hard to write, because I had to talk about a lot of things I haven't incorporated that much into my writing before, and for some reason, I kept subconsciously switching to first person. This chapter was supposed to cover more of the story, but I put Gildarts in there, so that took up more time than I had originally planned. Oh well. Thanks for reading, and please review. Bye!