Hello, boys and girls. I'd like to tell a story.
It's been almost two years since I've updated this story. I finally got the motivation to put out this chapter. I have to thank Gruvia Week for giving me the kick in the pants I needed to get back into writing. Before getting into the story proper, let me take a moment to answer reviews.
May Misch - I am glad that you are liking this crime drama. I wasn't very confident in this story. I have the ideas swirling in my head but I wasn't sure how it would play out in my fingers. So hearing that you liked it fills me with glee.
Uclassi - The awesome/horrible dichotomy is what I'm aiming for. Making you sit on the edge of your seat while simultaneously cursing me for what I am doing.
And to every one who has read, thank you.
And now, on with the feature presentation.
Chapter Nine - The Wizard
Who is Gajeel Redfox, Levy thought.
That was the question before the hacker as she set up a virtual machine on her desktop, preparing to brick a tech support scammer's computer. Her fingers elegantly clacked along the keyboard in a familiar motion. These days it didn't take much thought to do. It was almost like autopilot. Computers are easy. This guy was difficult.
What kind of guy has no financial footprint, no job, an apartment where the rent is only payable in cash and an encrypted cell phone? Levy could feel it in her bones. This guy was something dangerous. But why?
The blue haired woman tapped her fingers against her desk, contemplating what she was going to do. That's when it hit her.
"Let's see if he's got a criminal record." She said to herself as she grabbed a spare laptop. The hacker booted the operating system and opened up the Fiore Criminal Task Force database and began typing the name Gajeel Redfox.
No Match Found
"Yeah, it would have been too easy if I was going to get a match right away." She mused.
Perhaps now would be a good time for facial recognition. The hacker said that she would do it after Natsu's testimony but she got distracted by trying to clone Gajeel's phone. This time, however, she would finally go through with it.
She accessed the Magnolia U's server and searched for Gajeel's student ID to grab his photo. She took a moment to stare at it, metal eyebrows, sharp nose, thin frowning lips and piercing red eyes. Those eyes made her shiver a bit. There was something about those eyes, sinister but worldly and experienced.
"Who the hell are you?" She said to the picture.
Grabbing the photo, she ran her facial recognition program. Almost immediately, she got a hit.
52 percent match
Levy didn't understand. "There's no way I got a hit that fast. I haven't even run the face through FCTF's database yet."
An image popped up. It was at The Magic Bullet. She was looking at the footage she collected from the club. There was Bora Eminentia, the guy she and Lucy scammed, with a larger man beside him. The angle wasn't that good as he wasn't staring at the camera but Levy could make out his eyebrow piercings and long wild hair. There was no doubt in her mind.
"That's Gajeel." She gasped. She suddenly went cold. "He's into drug dealing."
You would think that someone who spent time taking down foreign criminals would have no problem when they were up close. You would be wrong. The people that the hacker had arrested were far away, names and faces on a computer screen, impersonal. Gajeel, in many respects, was more real than any of them, and he was in her class.
Levy reviewed the final moments of the footage, the night of the raid (and the night she scammed them out of their money). She watched as the Task Force went in and arrested the staff and ended with the arrest of Bora and the man who was probably Gajeel.
"Wait." Levy paused the tape. "If Gajeel was arrested that night, how is it that he's out and in my school?"
The blue haired woman clacked on her keyboard and checked the Task Force's BOLO board. Going through page after page of notes, she finally found what she was looking for, a note that coincided with the day after the arrest.
Be on the lookout for a man by the name of Kurogane. Between 170 to 190 centimeters, black hair. Armed and dangerous.
"That's it?" She sighed. "This isn't very descriptive. What the hell? Where are his more descriptive features? His piercings, his long hair, his scars. Hell, even his name. This could be anyone." Levy huffed and ran a hand through her wild blue hair. "If this guy runs with drug dealers, why isn't his face being shown, security footage, anything?"
Levy could feel it. Something wasn't right. Down, down the rabbit hole she goes.
"Okay. Let's widen the net."
An idea hit her. Instead of searching for Gajeel Redfox by name or by NatID picture, why not use the video still of his side profile? It may turn up less than reliable results but it might put things into focus. She'll bet everything on this gamble.
"Are you set up, Hibiki?" Laxus asked. "We need to begin that video conference call."
Hibiki was typing away on his portable laptop with one hand while undoing his tie with another. It isn't easy to set up a secure video conference call with Interpol. The only room that was suitable for such a set up was the Captain's office. Laxus sat against the desk, Captain Makarov in his chair and Gildarts stood, all three of them waiting on the connection that Hibiki should have finished by now.
Laxus gazed around the office in an attempt to fight off boredom. There were two filing cabinets in one corner of the room with files on all the active cases the Task force was working on. The captain's desk was in the center of the room, adorned with photos of his family. (However, even without looking at every one specifically, the blond man knew that there would be no pictures of the captain's son.) There was a coat rack on the opposite side of the room where the captain hung his hat. A large screen television was one of the walls so that they could look at news footage, or in this case, connect a computer to the monitor.
"We're almost set up." The computer forensics head sighed as he clacked his fingers against his keyboard. "And we're through."
The television screen showed the Interpol logo.
"We're ready to begin." Hibiki told the other occupants.
The screen made a zrrt sound. Then, the face of a woman appeared. She had bright red hair and a piercing stare that could chill a man deep in his soul.
"Are we connected?" The woman asked.
"Yes." The captain answered. "I am Makarov Dreyar, captain of the Fiore Criminal Task Force. The blond man is my lieutenant, Laxus Dreyar. The older man is Gildarts Clive, my top agent. And manning my computer is the head of computer forensics, Hibiki Laytis."
The redheaded woman nodded. "My name is Erza Scarlet." She told them. "I am the head agent of Interpol's Spain Office. I am also the European point agent on the Black Hunter cartel."
A perverted flush crossed Makarov's face. "What a surprise to see someone so young heading a drug task force. And also so beautiful."
The woman glared. "I'll thank you not to say such perverted things." She groused.
Makarov snapped his back into his chair. "Yes, Ma'am."
Laxus shook his head. His grandfather was a pervert. Time to take control. "We contacted you to get information on Black Hunter and Der Freischütz. We just arrested a man who has been in contact with someone from the gang. We have every indication that Black Hunter may try to use Fiore as a staging ground."
Agent Scarlet digested that information. With a calm purpose, she addressed the four. "I can send you everything we have on Black Hunter. However, we have very little information on Der Freischütz."
"Is he that elusive?" Gildarts asked.
The redhead sighed. "We've tried to get agents in their gang. We've never been able to penetrate it. And I couldn't tell you if the Americans have infiltrated it because they are always hush-hush on these issues." There was a long pause. "If Black Hunter is trying to branch out into Fiore, there are two people you need to be aware of."
Agent Scarlet nodded to someone offscreen. Her image disappeared and was replaced by a man with wild blond hair appeared on the screen. His expression was vicious. One could tell at a glance that that this man's sanity left him a long time ago. A chill threatened to run down Laxus's spine.
"This is Zancrow Chernitskaya." Erza's voice could still be heard. "A former Chechnyan Separatist who broke away from the war and got into gun running and drug smuggling in the European Union. The Russian Federation wants him for the murder of one of their ambassadors and they are willing to pay 40 million for him. The SVR desperately wants him alive but will take him dead."
Zancrow's image disappeared. In its place was that of a dark-skinned man with dreads and a sharp aquiline nose. His eyes were calm, deceptively so. It was as if his outward appearance was a facade but his eyes showed his true nature.
"Azuma Alhambra." Erza informed them. "Yemeni born. We don't have much information on his past but we can link him to the funding of some terrorist attacks in the Middle East. The U.S. wants to question him about an attack in Syria before the civil war."
"Sounds dangerous." Makarov sighed.
Agent Scarlet's image popped up on the screen again. "They are the gatekeepers from what we understand. They scout out potential gangs that they can subsume and then control it." Erza put fingers to her temples and rubbed them. "The fact that we even have any information on them at all is nothing short of a miracle. The rest will be in the files."
"Thank you for everything." Makarov nodded to Hibiki who immediately cut off the transmission.
A beep emitted from Hibiki's computer, indicating that he had received an email. The computer technician accessed the email and saw that Agent Scarlet had emailed the files on the two guys, Zancrow and Azuma. With a clack of the keyboard, he printed out several copies.
"We're going to need to be on point." Makarov said with sagacity. "If these two are as dangerous as Agent Scarlet described, we are in for a bad time."
"I'll try and get that out of Bora." Laxus lolled his head until he heard the crack.
"I'll give this information to Gajeel." Gildarts sighed.
Makarov stood up and looked at the other three men in the room and dismissed them with a nod.
In his office, Hibiki groaned and rubbed his forehead while sitting in his chair. This Black Hunter thing was getting intense. Before he had the time to ponder his decision to take such a job, an alert came on his computer. With one hand, he clacked his fingers across the keyboard to see what his computer was telling him. The name "Gajeel Redfox" flashed across his screen. Quick as a shot, the head of computer forensics sat up.
"Someone ran a background check on him." Hibiki realized. His fingers became a whirlwind of activity, trying to find who was looking for FCTF's undercover agent. In a minute, he was able to triangulate the towers where the request was made.
"Huh? Why would someone from Magnolia University be doing a background check on this guy?" He wondered. Running a hand through his blond hair, he grabbed the phone and called Laxus.
"Sorry to bother you." Hibiki apologized. "We need to talk about our mutual friend. It has to be here though."
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick went the clock on the wall. Gajeel watched as the red second hand moved ever so slightly. He was laying on a chaise with his dirty boots, refusing to acknowledge the other person in the room. It's been nine minutes and 20, 21, 22, 23 seconds since Gildarts dragged him in for his first "therapy session". Though the long-haired man tried to tell him that he didn't need any shrink to look in his head, the older handler told him that it was not up for negotiation. This was an order from the Captain. To make sure that Gajeel completed his session, Gildarts would be sitting outside in the waiting room. Well, they could make him come here but they couldn't make him talk.
The woman, Dr. Lockser was it, said nothing for the last ten minutes since she said hello to him and directed the pierced man to her chaise. Instead, she was sitting cross-legged across from him in a well-worn leather chair. She had a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. Perhaps she didn't care if he talked either, probably because she was getting paid either way. Well, that's fine. He wasn't going to say anything.
Gajeel could faintly hear the sound of a pen scratching against a hard surface. He turned and saw the shrink writing something on her clipboard.
"What are you doing?" He asked, finally breaking the silence.
"Writing." She didn't even look up at him.
"Writing what?" The pierced man challenged.
"Notes from our therapy session." Again, she didn't look at him.
This made him sit up. "What notes?" He blurted, now taking an interest in the other person. "What notes?" His voice was a little higher.
"Would you like to see?" There was a sweetness in her voice mixed in with a taunting that rubbed him the wrong way. "This is your session after all." With a defiant look in her eye, she offered up her clipboard, as if daring him to take it.
Gajeel pursed his lips. This woman was getting under his skin and he didn't like it. Well, let's see what the shrink had to say. He snatched the clipboard and looked at what she penned.
Subject defiant in his silence. Spent nine minutes watching the clock on wall, suggests intentional opposition. Disrespectful of other people's property, demonstrated by dirty boots on furniture. Subject demonstrates a keen desire to be standoffish for its own sake, suggests a propensity for self-destruction. Subject is unfit for active duty.
"What the fuck?" He roared.
"What's wrong?" She probed, as if she didn't already know.
"You wrote that I was unfit for active duty." The long-haired man huffed like a raging bull.
"And?"
"And?" His red eyes narrowed in anger. "How the fuck can you make such an assessment? You don't even know me."
"That's correct." The psychiatrist tucked a stray hair behind her ear and grabbed back her clipboard and pen. Now she was staring into vicious red eyes. She had no fear. "I don't know you. How can I tell the captain that you mentally fit to handle such a serious undertaking if I can't understand what you are thinking, what you are feeling?"
"I'm fine." He punched his fist into his open palm. "I'm made of steel."
"Even steel can show stress fractures over time." Dr. Lockser sighed. "I'm not asking for your life story right now. Just, let me know what is going on inside that head of yours."
"You want to know what's going on inside my head?" Gajeel growled. "I'm fucking bored. I could be heading underground and finding a new gang to run with before I take them down."
"How does it make you feel when you ingratiate yourself into their ranks without them knowing you're an undercover officer?" She pressed.
"Fucking amazing." He scoffed. "Most of the time, I don't even have to lie. My appearance does most of the work for me. They're idiots who think that I'm just dumb muscle."
"You like being underestimated." The doctor proffered. "They don't know the real you and it amuses you, right?"
"Of course, it does." Gajeel cackled like a madman, remembering some of his takedowns. "It's a game. A deadly game. I have to be on point every day I'm with them. Never letting up for a minute. Always looking over my shoulder. Doing this is much better than being some student."
"Student?" She asked.
"My new assignment is trying to get this professor who we believe is on the take to notice me." He offered. "I've been in his class for two days and it is fucking boring."
"Why?"
"It's a room of eggheads. I don't belong there." The undercover ranted. "I belong on the streets."
"Why risk your life on the streets?" She pressed.
Gajeel was quiet for a second. "Because of the Captain." He admitted. "The Captain saved me. So, my life belongs to him to do as he sees fit."
Gajeel got up and walked towards the door. "I'm done for the day."
Dr. Lockser sighed. That was all she was going to get from him now. But that was okay. That was more than she expected to in this first meeting. "That is okay but I expect you here again next week. Otherwise, I will tell the Captain that you need to be pulled."
Gajeel made a tsk sound and left the room, leaving the psychiatrist alone with her notes.
The familiar blue and gray uniform of Aetherion Prison pissed off Bora. The shackles on his hands and feet irritated him. He remembered how humiliating it felt to walk around in clothes that he didn't choose and follow a schedule that he didn't make. The last time he was here, he swore that he would never be imprisoned again. And it was all thanks to that rat Cobalt.
After taking his plea deal, Bora had lots of time to think on who the undercover informant had been. His first thought went to Kurogane. Surely as his bodyguard, he would have been privy to every dark little secret of his. But Bora immediately ruled him out. Kurogane was as loyal as they come. He has done so much for Titan Nose that there was no way he could be the rat. Besides, he busted out of FCTF custody and was handling Black Hunter on his behalf.
"Hey, Prisoner." One of the two guards escorting him yelled. "Back in line."
The guards in Aetherion Prison always wore balaclavas to protect their identities and body armor to protect themselves from the inmates. And they didn't even use their last names. They went by codenames. Those nameless, faceless entities thought they were better than him. Fucking public servants. He made more money in one month than they will ever make in their entire careers.
They finally reached his cell and opened the door. His cell was a single bed with a twin bed fused into the wall. The sheets on his bed were a dull, well-worn white. There was a toilet next to the bed that had a built-in sink on top. Running from that toilet/sink was a large sturdy pipe that probably pumped water in and out of the cell. The cell itself was painted a sickly yellow. So, this was going to be his home for the next five years.
"Dinner's in a few minutes." One guard announced while unshackling him.
"Enjoy your stay at Casa Aetherion." The other, he honestly couldn't tell them apart, laughed.
Sitting on his new bed, he went back to the moment he had accepted the plea deal. His bitch of a lawyer had refused to represent him further because he was broke. And there was no way he would be hiring some baby-faced public attorney to defend him against Justine so he told Justice everything.
"What do you know about a man who calls himself Der Freischütz?" He asked.
"He's some kind of drug dealer out of Germany." Laxus answered.
Bora snorted. "Drug dealer is so fucking simple. He's much more than that. He's a fucking wizard."
"What do you mean?" Justine queried.
"You think you get on top these days because of one drug?" Bora's tone was mocking them. "It's a fucking trade war. Pot, cocaine, meth, prescriptions, today's people can partake of a whole assortment of illegal drugs for their fucked-up lives. No one is going to be an Escobar by selling one drug anymore."
Bora smirked. "Der Freischütz is different because for him he isn't selling just one drug. Magic Bullet is amazing and highly addictive but it doesn't put you on top when people can buy all sorts of other drugs. He and Black Hunter are like the Walmart of drugs. Their goal is to unify all aspects of the trade."
"How did you get in contact with him?" Laxus pressed.
"I didn't." Bora retorted. "Black Hunter got in contact with me. They knew I was dealing Ecstasy and wanted in. They liked the idea that I was buying clubs to push X and thought that I would make a welcome addition to their group."
Laxus pulled out a still of Bora and Kurogane meeting with two people the night of the raid. "Who are they?"
"They called themselves Zancrow and Azuma." Bora told them. "They are part of Black Hunter. They are Der Freischütz's representatives or something. I don't know."
"Where are they?"
Bora shrugged his shoulders. "Hell if I know. I've had no contact with them since I was arrested."
"Where's Kurogane?" Laxus asked.
Inwardly, Bora laughed. "Wasn't he in your custody? I've had no contact with him since my arrest."
Laxus gave him a look of disbelief. But what did Bora care? It's not like he could prove it. The lieutenant did try to extract more information from the leader of Titan Nose, like who else was left in his gang after the murder of Deitman, Brady, Harrison, and Mason. Bora gave him the name of Miles Parrish (even though the leader of Titan Nose didn't know that the man whose name he gave was already dead) and several other low-level guys.
When he was done, Justine had written up a deal. For pleading guilty to drug trafficking, he would be given five years with good conduct.
"Everything I have ever worked for is gone." He sighed and punched the mattress of his new bed. "But that is okay. I've lost everything once before. I will rise once again."
The door to his cell opened up. One of the guards came in with a large black plastic bag.
"Gonna need to change the sheets." He said. Bora couldn't tell who was under the balaclava. He also didn't care.
The guard pulled out something from the bag and handed it to him. It was wrapped in brown paper that was tied off with a bread tie. "It's a cheeseburger. You missed dinner so the cook made you something. Be grateful."
Bora took the burger and stared at it for a bit. So this was to be his meal for the next five years. He considered throwing the food on the ground in protest but he soon thought better of it. Best to make the best of a bad situation. He finished the burger quicker than he thought. Bora realized that he was hungrier than he imagined.
All of a sudden, a wave of drowsiness hit him. Bora couldn't understand it. He wasn't tired five minutes ago. What gives? The drug dealer was so caught up in his confusion that he didn't realize that he was still holding on to the paper that the burger was wrapped in. He noticed that there was some writing on it.
Wenn du die Toten kleidest und inmitten von ihnen spielen willst, sollst du deren Reihe beitreten.
The words made his eyebrows furrow, trying to recall, in his haze, where he had seen these words. That's when it hit him. It was on the arms of Zancrow and Azuma. When he came to that realization, fear washed over him because he knew what was coming next.
"No…. wait…. I" were all he could get out before the sheet from his bed wrapped around his throat, making a rudimentary noose. It was the guard who was strangling him. He had his knee pressed against his back, preventing him from turning around and defending himself. All the man from Titan Nose could do was claw fruitlessly against the air. Whatever was in that burger sapped his strength, making him unable to fight back. It took a couple of minutes but the light finally faded from the eyes of Bora Eminentia.
And that's the end of that chapter.
It was a bit difficult to remember what I had written some time before. This had gone through seven drafts before I was comfortable posting this. Most notably, I had to rewrite Erza's first scene, as I had remembered I did introduce Zancrow and Azuma to Gajeel on multiple occasions. I also had to rewrite Bora's death scene because I almost put in his killer's identity way too early. Don't want to give that one up right now.
Well, was it worth the wait? I am very curious. Liked it? Hated it? Have no opinion one way or the other. Leave me a review. I'd love to hear from you.
Until next time,
A. Angel