5 days before the Crash

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Natsu said looking up at the old run down apartment complex.

"Yeah this is what rogue told us." Gajeel said looking at the paper that had the written address on it.

"Hopefully he's home." Happy said looking hopeful that this man would be able to find his friends.

Gajeel wrang the doorbell and waited for someone to buzz them in.

Eventually a voice responded over the little intercom. "What do you want?" The gruff voice replied sounding like he had just recovered from an extreme hang over.

"Hey a man named rogue told us that you could help us with something, will you let us in for we can talk?" Gajeel asked his patience already thin from being stuck with Natsu in a car with both their car sickness acting up today.

The man at first didn't respond but eventually the sound of the door buzzing open allowed them in much to everyone's relief.

They went up a couple flight of stairs and eventually reached this apartment door number and knocked.

A man opened the door who looked just as terrible as he had sounded. His eyes were droopy, his hair was anything but neat and he had a 4 o'clock shadow. Yup this man was definitely on hard times considering he looked like a man who once had everything.

"Rogue sent you?" The man asked inviting them in with a simple gesture that pointed to his couch that had formal ties around it and a few t-shirts.

"Yeah we need to find our friends that have been kidnapped." Natsu said flopping on the couch intrigued by how bouncy it was.

"Shouldn't be a problem..Oh my names Hibki by the way." He said handing them a card that had his name and bussiness information written in gold.

"Hibki Lates?" Natsu said in shock.

"Natsu you know this man?" Gajeel asked trying to put a face to a name but failing at recognizing who the man was.

"Yes, I met him a while back on a mission I had. Hibki Lates use to be a billionaire womanizer that also owned 3 hotels." Natsu said shocked that this was the man that he had once met.

"Yes, well I fell on hard times in which I went bankrupt and once my money was gone my hotels and ladies followed.." He frowned reminiscing to a time where he had the whole world in his palm. Now he'd be lucky enough to have twenty dollars and a bus pass to get to work every day.

"Damn that's rough..." Gajeel said amazed at how far the young man had fallen.

"But anyway, do you have the number so I can trace it?"

"Yeah here." Gajeel handed the paper over to him watching the man look over it and pull out a laptop with all these weird numbers and personal info in it.

"Okay so can you find them?" Natsu spoke eager to get going.

"Well if my calculations and coordinates are right they are in downtown in an abandoned building that used to be a donut shop."

"An abandoned donut shop is where zeref stays?" Gajeel wondered aloud gaining a surprised expression by Hibki.

"You guys are dealing with Zeref?" The two guys nodded knowing just how dangerous zeref was but feeling that he's even more dangerous then they assumed.

"Zeref does not mess around when it comes to manipulating people and using their weaknesses against them I highly suggest you guys be careful when you confront him."

"Thanks for the warning Hibki but we got this." Natsu assured the man.

"Plus we're gonna try to avoid confronting him all together, we're going to sneak them outta there."

"Will that work?" The man wondered.

"It will if you could hack into their security cameras and switch off the lights when we arrive." Gajeel said hoping that Hibiki would do them this one last favor.

"What do I get in return?" Hibiki said looking between the two men.

"Hm, what do you want?" Natsu asked.

"Well I currently work as a singer in a bar downtown..but i'm looking for an upgrade because their payments sucks as you can see from the dump i'm living in." Right on cue a rat ran across the room causing Happy to scatter up on Natsu's shoulder.

"Well Cana does own a bar doesn't she, maybe she can hire you, I mean she does owe us for kidnapping our friends." Gajeel seethed angry that the dumb alcoholic had backstabbed them like that.

"Fine i'll help you but this won't be easy."

"When is it ever?" Natsu grinned.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Lucy's p.o.v

"How long you think we've been down here?" Levy asked.

"I don't know maybe a couple of days." Lucy spoke her voice kind of choppy and raspy due to the lack of water that they had been giving them.

"Wait something just dawned on me." Cana said raising her head up to face the two.

"What?" Levy asked already annoyed with whatever was going to come out of the girls mouth.

"Zeref threatened to hurt Mirajane and Lisanna but they're obviously not down here, so.."
"Where are they?" Levy asked frightened at this new revelation.

"Okay Cana what exactly was Zeref's plan?" Lucy asked suddenly having a real bad feeling to what might be going on.

"Well the plan originally was to kidnap you and send for ransom afterwards laxus would come hand zeref the money and then.." Cana didn't want to finish the sentence knowing that that option could very well still be on the table.

"And then what?" Lucy asked determined to get some kind of answer out of the woman.

"Lucy i'm really sorry about all of this." Cana whispered a tear making its way down her face.

Lucy shook her head, "Cana look this isn't entirely your fault. I mean if we had of been better friends we would've known how rough your situation was and maybe we could've stopped it."

Cana didn't get the chance to reply before the door was thrown open.

"Ladies I have a visitor for you." A guard said escorting the figure in.

"Nice to see you again Lucy Heartfilia."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Porlusica had just sat down reviewing her files only to get another phone call interruption. "Hello?" She bitterly spoke hating to be interrupted.

"Hello Porlyusica." Doranbolt spoke.

"Mr. Doranbolt, To what do I owe this lovely pleasure at being called at 11:00 at night?" She sarcastically spoke.

"Well I just received some quite disturbing news, Lucy Heartfillia and some of her friends have been kidnapped." He spoke his tone indicating that he was serious.

"What!? How on earth did this happen?"

"Don't know police are looking into it though."

"Well If Lucy's not here she won't be able to testify!"

"Hm that is a problem isn't it?" The man spoke nonchalantly.

"We have got to get this case changed for a later-"

"Ah, i'm afraid that won't be possible the judge has already called for an jury to which everything is set for our original date. I'm afraid that he'll just have to suffice without his wife's testimony."

"You know good and well when Juvia goes up on the stand a cries her heart out and swears up and down that laxus had previously abused his wife he'll have absolutely no chance what so ever!" The woman yelled popping a stress reliver.

"Well I guess we'll just have to see..Goodnight Ms. Porlyusica." The man hung up leaving the stunned woman speechless.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Who else felt really bad for Hibki!? :( Poor babe anyway..

Hi guys! I know I updated within a week Oh my Gosh right? Well i'm on summer vacation now so I think i'll be able to update even faster! And I also have really good news! I have divised a well thought out plot for each of these main characters because we are approaching the big CRASH! So I insure you that their will be More ACTION,DRAMA, AND SADNESS TO COME with of course maybe a little or alot of HAPPINESS! I'm so excited to be writing this story for you all and i'm just so glad that you have stuck with me and are still reading on! Thanks so much and pleaseee leave a review! Reviews motivate me to keep it going! Anyway that's it! see you soon! :)