Author's Note: Okay. I am sooo sorry that I am so late about getting this up. Okay here's my life story.
1. I was lazy
2. I had a cold and didn't feel up to writing.
3. I am currently in the process of buying my first car. It has not been a good experience. It's happening at a very inconvenient time in my life and it's not something I had wanted to do yet, but sadly have no choice. It's been very stressful and my anxiety is beginning to flare its head again. What does that mean? I get stress induced migraines and plummeting moods. Not good things for writing.
That being said, the car situation is almost resolved. Things are looking up. So here is the chapter. I will try not to let my personal problems get in the way of posting my chapters again. I apologize for the wait. I hope you enjoy the chapter. Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Fairy Tail. All rights belong to the writer of the manga and anime.
Aurelia and Hel made it back to their hotel on dead feet. Hel immediately headed for the communication lacrima. "What are you doing?" Aurelia asked.
"Calling Levy and Gajeel for help," Hel replied solemnly.
"What?! No!" Aurelia cried using her newfound ability to metalbend to knock the lacrima out of Hel's reach.
"Aurelia!" Hel shouted. "Stop fooling around! Lani's in trouble. We're in over our heads. We need help!"
"We don't! We can figure it out," Aurelia insisted.
Hel sighed. "Why is this so important to you? Why is it so important to you for us to do this on our own?" she questioned.
"Because…I…Look," Aurelia replied. "You're not the only one having trouble adjusting to this new life."
"Aurelia, you love it here," Hel said.
"Yeah, but I wasn't expecting to be here," Aurelia responded.
"How could you?" Hel cried.
"That's not the point!" Aurelia exclaimed. "The point is I had plans! I had something to work towards. Here I'm…I'm just the girl that has no clue what to do with her life! I wanted to do this mission because I wanted to prove I could…that I could be successful as a mage."
Hel's face softened. "I guess we're all having a hard time adjusting," she said. "Well, I see only one solution here."
Aurelia nodded and righted the lacrima communication device. "Go ahead," she replied. "Call Levy and Gajeel."
"That's not what I said," Hel commented. "We're going to complete this mission. "We'll save Lani and those women."
"You do realize we'll have to work together, right?" Aurelia said. "No fighting."
"I know. Scary thought, right?" Hel joked.
Aurelia smiled. "We need a plan. Do you want to take the reins on this one?" she offered.
"You're the plan maker," Hel replied. "You lead…I'll follow."
"We need to go back to the warehouses and speak to Ryku," Aurelia declared. "We need to know as much about those warehouses as possible."
"Okay," Hel agreed instantly. "Let's go."
Lani groaned as consciousness came back to her. She had lost consciousness when she was teleported last night. Now, she felt incredibly groggy and it was a struggle just to open her eyes. Finally, she managed to get them open and blinked a few times to clear her vision. She forced herself up into a sitting position and glanced around her. The room was large. Even with all the women that were in it, it didn't feel cramped. And the room was filled with women. Every corner of the room had women huddled together. Lani could hear some of them crying. Others were either unconscious or too terrified to make a sound. There were too many for the men to have been able to coerce their cooperation. It was apparent to Lani that the drugs were used to make the women easy to capture and then move them.
She heard someone groan beside her and looked down. A purple haired girl was waking up. "Hey," she whispered quietly, trying not to startle the girl.
The girl stared up at her before looking around. Her eyes widening in terror. "Where are we?" she asked.
"In a hidden room in some underground tunnel," Kailani replied. "At least, I think we are."
"How do you know that?" the girl asked suspiciously.
"Because me and my friends were investigating this…trade," Lani explained. "We were planning to bust them last night but…things didn't go according to plan."
"Are you a town knight?" the girl asked.
"No. I'm a mage from Fairy Tail," Lani answered.
"A mage!" the girl cried. "Then you can get us out of here."
Lani smiled sadly and shook her head. "I can't. They drugged me and my abilities are hindered," she said. The girl looked crestfallen so she rushed to reassure her. "But don't worry. My friends are still out there. They'll find a way to save us."
The girl nodded. "My name's Hayley," she said.
"Lani," she replied. Lani gazed around the room again now that she was feeling slightly more alert. There were no windows or doors. Escape was impossible. The man who'd taken her last night must be able to teleport multiple people at a time for the operation to be functional. She certainly couldn't see any other way into the room. Of course, the room was only dimly lit with a single light bulb that hung down from the ceiling in the middle of the room. There was no way of telling where in the tunnel they were. She hoped Aurelia and Hel would figure it out and come rescue her and the others soon. More importantly, she hoped they didn't kill each other before they figured the mission out.
Aurelia and Hel rushed through the workers on the docks to Warehouse One. They busted through the door causing it to slam against the wall behind it. Ryku jumped in his chair and looked up. He smiled when he saw them. "Hey girls. Any luck?" he greeted them. He then frowned, puzzled. "Weren't there three of you?"
"Ryku," Aurelia said ignoring the last question, "do you know about the tunnel that leads up to Warehouse Four?"
Ryku's face lit up. "Now that's an interesting bit of history," he declared. "Once upon a time our town wasn't so friendly towards magic and its practitioners. There was a prohibition that banned…" He paused and his face paled as he realized why she'd asked. "They're using the tunnel to get the drugs in."
"It's worse than that," Hel replied. "It's not just the drugs. They're only a means to an end to the people we're dealing with. It's a sex trade. They're smuggling women into the tunnels."
Ryku closed his eyes. "I can't believe this is happening," he sighed. He looked back up at them. "They've been smuggling them onto the ships, haven't they?"
'We don't know that for sure, but yes, we think so," Aurelia answered. Sympathetically.
"We don't know where in the tunnel they're keeping the women either," Hel added.
"Well, they must be in the one room," Ryku replied.
"That's where we thought they were holding them," Aurelia said. "But when we looked last night it was just an empty office room."
Ryku smiled. "The office is a ploy," he told them. "It's actually one large room. The bookcases hide the other half of the room."
"There's another half of a room?" Aurelia and Hel cried.
"The people who ran the old smuggling company wanted an extra defense lined up in case the town knights found the tunnel so they built a fake office," Ryku explained.
"Who else would know about this tunnel?" Aurelia questioned.
"Some of my men might," Ryku replied.
"Do you think any of them might be behind all of this?" Hel asked.
"Or at least in on it," Aurelia added.
"No," Ryku said firmly. "My men are all stand up guys."
"What about an old employee?" Hel asked.
"Please. Think hard. These men have out friend," Aurelia pleaded. "Did you ever have an employee who had a problem with women? Or liked them too much?"
"No…well," Ryku paused. "There was this one guy almost a year ago. I had to let him go. He constantly offended my female workers. And a lot of my guys."
"What was his name?" Hel asked.
"Hold on," Ryku replied standing up. "I still have his file." He walked over to a filing cabinet behind him before shuffling through a drawer. He plucked out a manila envelope and handed it to the girls. "Here." Aurelia and Hel opened the file and their eyes widened.
"That's the man who took Lani," Aurelia said.
"Well I can promise you have mine and my workers' cooperation," Ryku promised. "What do you need us to do?"
"We need you to evacuate the docks," Hel replied.
"And contact the town knights," Aurelia needed. "We'll need back up."
"You got it," Ryku agreed.
Lani shifted in place and tried to flex her aching muscles. The other women in the room were all doing the same. The condition of the room had changed vastly from when she first woke up. The room had grown hot and dank with their body heat working more effectively than a furnace. Earlier, a woman had vomited and that including other bodily fluids was making everyone sick. Her promises that her two friends would rescue them were falling on deaf ears and even she was losing hope for a quick rescue.
Suddenly, a scraping sound filled the room and Lani turned her head to see the far wall sliding open and three men entering the room. A few of the women began to beg to be released. One of the men ordered for them to shut up as they stalked across the room towards her. She made eye contact with all three men, refusing to be intimidated.
"Looks like your friends are keeping to our deal," the one man said. She recognized him as the man who'd captured her last night.
"They won't," she replied firmly. "They're going to stop you."
One of the other men laughed. "That's wishful thinking," he guffawed and she recognized his voice. He was one of the men they'd heard in the office. The one who gave the orders. "It's been hours. If they were coming for you they would have by now."
"Aurelia wouldn't come without a plan," Lani snapped.
The man who captured her smirked. "I listened to her bickering with your other pal last night. There's no way they can work together to come up with a plan," he replied.
"Yeah, they can't come up with a plan," the third man declared stupidly. She recognized him as the nervous man from the office.
"I think they'll surprise you," Kailani returned.
"I rather doubt it," her captor said.
"In the meantime, though, we're going to have our fun with you," the gruff office man declared. "You see we have to pass these girls off in mint condition or the boss won't like it."
"But we have no reason not to touch you," the nervous one added stroking her cheek.
Lani paled. "You wouldn't," she said.
Her captor laughed. "Oh, we would," he replied menacingly leaning forward to grab her when a loud explosion sounded throughout the room and debris flew through the air. Lani squirmed out of his grasp as he turned around to see the fake wall the men had entered through was gone. She smiled when she saw Hel and Aurelia standing in place of the bookcase with a group of the town knights backing them up.
"The gig is up boys," Aurelia taunted.
"Seriously," Hel snarked, as the town knights started rushing into the room to arrest the men.
Lani saw her captor was about to teleport out of there so she quickly stuck out her feet and tripped him. "He's a teleporter," she warned the one knight.
"Don't worry," the knight said. "He's not going anywhere. These restraints restrict magic."
Aurelia and Hel rushed towards her then. "Are you okay?" Aurelia asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Lani replied and smiled weakly. "I just really have to use the bathroom."
Hel laughed. "Come on. Let's wrap this thing up," she said.