Not gonna bother with much of an opener, so let's just jump into it! Here's chapter ten!

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail, all rights are reserved for Hiro Mashima and affiliates. I only own True Heart, the people in it, and the premise of this story.

Chapter ten: Before The Storm

Fairy Tail's infirmary is unnervingly silent, save for the both irritating and comforting beep of the heart monitor. The entire world seems to have gone dormant, not even the most rowdy of Fairy Tail's members causing noise downstairs. The last person who had spoken in a tone louder than necessary was immediately cowed by Mirajane and her terrifyingly sweet smile.

Lauren sighs inaudibly, her morose gaze locked on the form on the bed. She takes in the sight of Anna's unnervingly blank, sleeping face, and feels her hands clench into tight balls in her lap.

She should have known. She should have known that something was wrong! She should have said something!

But she didn't, and now Anna's hurt. Those sadistic Lion's Den bastards kidnapped her and tortured her. Hell, they would have killed her if Hydra and Alvara hadn't swooped in and got her out of there.

Her hands tighten further, knuckles turning white, a tight knot forming deep in her chest.

"Why do you keep getting hurt?" She whispers into the room, staring helplessly at Anna, begging for an answer. Anna remains unconscious, providing no sort of reprieve or answer for the Dragonslayer. Ever since Anna had initially collapsed in Fairy Tail's entryway, she'd been stuck in a pervasive coma-like state. Doctor Veric and Porlyusica had assured everyone that it was normal, especially if she'd been tortured as it appeared, but Lauren still couldn't let go of the feeling of wrongness. Anna should be lively and screaming in rage at people, not lying comatose in a bed and being constantly filled with healing magic from the Spirit Realm.

Chronos fucking above, it's almost as if Anna wants her to hide her away in the hoard. It sure seems like it, what with how many times the redhead ends up getting hurt.

"You're a real piece of work, Anna.." Lauren whispers, but then as a memory begins washing over her, a small smile tinges her lips. "You haven't changed a bit."

It was the hair that caught her attention first. That long hair, flowing freely and shimmering like woven rubies in the wind. That beautiful scarlet hair had snagged her eyes, and refused to let go for even a second.

* Flashback *

A young girl stumbles into town in exhaustion, bare feet braving the hot streets on their own as the sun mercilessly beats down on her auburn head. Her stomach twists uncomfortably from a lack of food, her mouth dry and tongue heavy.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Startled, the auburn-haired girl looks up at the sound of the enraged shriek, watching blearily as another young girl chases a boy across the street. The girl has long scarlet hair, flowing in the wind in violent waves as she desperately races after the boy. "GET BACK HERE! I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU!" The little girl continues to scream as she runs after him, the boy shrieking all the while for her to leave him alone, calling her a demon.

She watches, transfixed, as they run around, ignoring the shocked shouts of adults who get in their way. Her eyes, a startlingly deep emerald green, are locked solely on the girl, more specifically her hair. It's a dark red, long and flowing and the color of rubies. It's beautiful, and she can't stop staring. The auburn-haired girl continues following the streak of scarlet hair until the girl rounds a corner and disappears, still screaming at the boy.

Just then, another girl, with golden-blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, races by, begging the first girl to stop. She disappears around the corner as well, though the shouts can still be heard for several minutes.

The girl is left standing there for several long seconds, before the rumbling of her stomach grabs her attention once again. Fighting back a grimace, she heads down a different alleyway. She's so hungry, but the last time she tried swiping something from a food stand she got caught. She isn't really in the mood to get another whack.

...

"Hey, are you okay?" Slowly and blearily, the girl looks up at the sound of someone asking a question. The girl looks up slowly to see a kind face giving her a worried look. It's...the red-haired girl from yesterday. She's crouching down, a worried looking smile tilting her lips. Her eyes are brown like the darkest chocolate, with long dark lashes framing them, her mouth turned into a gentle smile. "I'm Anna. What's your name?"

She hadn't noticed it before, but now that she's closer, she can see countless runes scripted on the girl's body. On her arms, her legs, her neck, even her face. They're golden, shining brilliantly in the sunlight. Is she some sort of goddess? A Spirit? The girl doesn't seem bothered by the runes at all, like they've been there her entire life.

She's quiet for a few seconds, trying to find her voice. "Lauren. Lauren Velanie." She finally supplies, her throat drier than she'd thought.

A blinding smile graces Anna's lips in response, and it's like she's looking at the sun. "Nice to meet you, Lauren! Are you hungry?" She asks, gaining a tired nod. Anna nods to herself resolutely and gently pulls Lauren to her feet. "Come with me, okay?"

Barely an hour later, Lauren and Anna sit inside a strange building that Anna called her 'guild hall'. Anna is careful to check up on her new friend, making sure she's eating and alright before tending to her own meal.

"So what brings you to Oshibana, Lauren?" Anna asks, taking a sip of cherry soda. Lauren pauses mid-bite, slowly bringing her plate back to the tabletop. She chews what's in her mouth before answering.

"I'm lookin' for my Ma, Luna." She says finally. "She disappeared a couple o' weeks ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Anna responded back, her eyes understanding. "When I was three, my big sister went missing, and my mama and daddy and me have been trying to find her ever since." She looks away, staring out the window. "We haven't found her yet, or even who might've taken her, but I know we'll find her someday. I mean, I've got to. Right?"

Lauren stays silent, staring down at her plate blankly. She misses Luna so much, but she has no idea where she could have gone. Lauren just woke up one morning and she was gone. Where could she be? Had she done something to make Luna angry? These thoughts have been running rampant in Lauren's poor mind ever since Luna went missing.

Suddenly, Anna springs up from her seat, her arms up and fists clenched. A determined look is painted onto her face, and her dark eyes sparkle with promise. "Tell ya what? How about I stay with you until you find your mama, and you'll stay with me until I find my sister! Sound fair?"

Unbidden, Lauren feels a small smile work itself onto her lips. "Yeah," She agrees readily. "Sounds good to me."

That day marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

* End flashback *

And now that same kind heart who'd reached out to her so long ago was unconscious and healing from torture she never should have gone through.

Alvara told her that Lion's Den had stripped Anna's magic out of her. The very thought made enraged shivers crawl up and down her spine. Magic stripping is so utterly painful, ripping her heart out would've been kinder. It's no wonder Anna's been sleeping for this long; she needs to in order to recover from having her fucking magic ripped from her.

Magic is such a vital part of a wizard's life that it practically flows through their veins, right alongside their blood. When you're taking someone's magic, you're touching something that should never be touched by another living being and cruelly yanking it away from its home. It tears from your body and spirit in ways that is sickening. Some who fall victim to this torture die from the shock of it all.

She couldn't even imagine just how painful that feels herself, but she has a vague idea. The very thought of Anna being put through that much pain made her sick. And then there's all of her stab wounds, with the horrid stench of Verina all over them. Her teeth ground together, the Dragonslayer blood in her itching to make the crazy bitch pay for what she'd done. If that knife had been any any higher, Anna would have died.

Lauren didn't want to lose Anna. Aside from Luna, Anna was the first person to reach out to her, to offer her a helping hand. She'd unknowingly wormed her way into the Dragonslayer's heart, and Lauren would be damned if that irritating redhead escaped now. She'd invested too much time, energy, and love into that redhead for her to leave now. She's in for the long haul, whether she likes it or not.

Lauren didn't even realize when she started nodding off. In no time, she was fast asleep, her hand keeping a firm grip on Anna's, even in sleep.

...

When Anna slowly climbs back to wakefulness, she finds a blank white ceiling above her, and the steady, mildly irritating beeping of a heart monitor somewhere out of sight. She doesn't quite know where she is, but the slightly familiar feeling of magic in the air leads her to believe she's currently in Fairy Tail's infirmary. Her stomach and chest don't hurt anymore, and she can feel a slight hint of soothing healing magic, Celestial in nature.

A dry-lipped smile crosses her face. Alvara, the redhead realizes. Alvara must have dropped by and helped speed up her healing process.

"What were you thinking?" A harsh, clipped voice demands from her left, drawing her attention to see Hydra, hunched over and giving her a blank stare. She shrugs her shoulders to the best of her ability, having expected his hostility. She knows it's just masking his concern. He'd never outright say he was worried, but it seems the only way he can express it is through anger.

"I was thinking that I had a bad feeling that night, one that told me to put my Keys where they would be safe. I was right." Her explanation was lax, even to her, but she didn't bother to elaborate. She was tired, goddamnit. Unfortunately for her, rest would have to wait, as her explanation only served to further infuriate her Spirit.

"You were completely defenseless!" He said heatedly, jumping to his feet and his glare worsens, narrowing his eyes into the finest of slits. At the words "completely defenseless", Anna felt her mood go down the drain.

"Hydra, I appreciate your concern, but shut the fuck up." With a stern glare in his direction, she pulls herself up to rest her back against the headboard. "I knew damn well what I was doing when I put my Keys in the Spirit Realm. I got a bad feeling that night, so I did the only thing I could. My intuition is never wrong, but it's not a Chronos-damned danger detector! It can't tell me who's going to attack me or when, just that some danger is on its way! Believe me, had I known that Verina the Torture Bitch was aiming to grab me, I'd have kept your Key and Draco's. Probably." She explained, grabbing the glass of water from the side table and gulping down half its contents.

Hearing the "probably" at the end of her explanation, Hydra glares even harder.

"'Probably'? And just what the hell do you mean by that?" He snarls lowly. Anna rolls her eyes at his pissy attitude, crossing her arms defiantly.

"I mean that Verina is goddamned certifiable, and that your Keys are worth even more than the damned Zodiacs. If she got my Keys off of me, she'd either sell them, call the Spirits out to make them watch me be tortured, or break them and send them back to True Heart. Excuse me for trying to protect everyone." The redhead hissed venomously, shifting in her bed, only to wince as her movement pulls at one of her wounds.

"Now if you'll excuse me," She starts back up, not letting him get even a single word out. "could you tell me what day it is and help me to the bathroom?"

Petulantly, Hydra keeps a steady glare at her. "It's Wednesday, the 21st." He bites out in a clipped tone. But in spite of his quietly seething anger, he gently helps her get out of bed and gets her to her destination. Once she's done, he helps her hobble back to the bed, plopping down into his chair as soon as she's settled. She very pointedly ignores just how much of a child he's being, knowing that bringing attention to it will only make him worse.

Hydra's head is turned away from her, his face set in one phenomenal scowl, and she rolls her eyes again. He's such a damned child.

Just then, the door to the room nearly comes flying off its hinges, giving Anna a proper heart attack and sending Hydra leaping to his feet, sharp claws suddenly adorning his fingers. The hard, protective look on his face fades though, as soon as he realizes the culprit of the interruption is not an intruder, but in fact Anna's teammates and one other person.

Anna lets out a sigh of relief, feeling and hearing her heart rate return to normal. Her eyes open, turning to get ready to give her teammates a very thorough tongue-lashing for scaring the Chronos out of her, when her eyes land on that fourth individual. It's Tristan, one of her guildmates, and his eyes are solely on her. Immediately, she feels all of her anger fall away, turning directly into embarrassment, and she tries to inconspicuously fix her hair, averting her eyes as far as they'll go without being obvious.

"Could you three, oh I don't know, NOT bust the door open when Hydra's already like a cat on a hot tin roof? Chronos above, he's already so wound up I'm afraid he'll snap in two if the wind so much as blows." She bites out to her team with as much bite as she can manage, which right now isn't a whole lot. Hydra, hearing her call him a nervous mother hen, scoffs and turns away, letting his claws retract before he crosses his arms over his chest.

"I'm so glad you're okay!" Sunny cried, her blue eyes swimming with tears, worried or relieved, Anna can't quite tell. In response, Erin cocks an eyebrow, placing a hand on her hip.

"I wouldn't exactly say she's 'okay', Sunny. She got stabbed three times." Came Erin's dry, humorless response. Seeing Sunny flinch and her face turn dark, Anna locks her dark eyes on her pale blonde friend.

"Shut it, Erin. I'm alive and that's what frickin' counts. Not stab wounds, or cuts and bruises, or even magical stripping. I'm alive, which is the most important thing." She said, and her gaze bore into Erin's, daring the blonde Requip Mage to say something. Her and Erin's friendship was a bit of a strange one, Anna admits. At times, it seems like they never should have even met, let alone become friends, due to their wildly different personalities and outlooks.

Anna gives Erin quite a few passes, knowing that the blonde just isn't that good at social interactions that don't include jobs. She's just not that good with dealing with people, so Anna usually lets Erin's often brash approach go. Though in times like these, she finds no problem in putting the blonde in her place if she feels she's overstepped her bounds.

Erin, seeing the daring lure in her team leader's eyes, nods almost imperceptibly and says nothing else, realizing she'd been too harsh.

"You're not in any pain, are you?" Sunny asks, her voice less lively than it had been. She watched Anna with an unnerving amount of seriousness, seeming to track her every movement like she'd break into a million pieces. Anna smirked, rolling her eyes.

"No, Sunny, I'm not in any pain. Alvara made sure of that, so you can stop watching me like I'm gonna break." She said, watching as her words seemed to electrocute the blonde to her core. A light flush painted the embarrassed blonde's face, but the smile she'd worn before slowly returned thanks to Anna's snark. Lauren then strode over single-mindedly, and planted both hands firmly on Anna's shoulders, giving the redhead a look of stone-cold seriousness.

"If you ever do something like this again, I will lock you away in the hoard and even these morons," She pauses just long enough to gesture to Sunny, Erin, and Hydra. "won't be able to find you. Do you hear me?" The Dragonslayer threatened, a hint of a fang poking out from her mouth. Despite the threat, Anna can see just how much Lauren had been worried.

"Loud and clear. Now can you please get the hell off of me so I can brush my teeth?" The redhead answered expressionlessly, although she felt amusement when Sunny reached over and smacked Lauren in the back, not appreciating the 'moron' comment.

Laughing a bit at the unfiltered amount of snark in Anna's voice, Lauren obligingly relinquishes her hold on the redhead's shoulders, allowing Hydra to assist the redhead in getting to the bathroom. As she's scrubbing at her teeth, a million and one thoughts run through her mind. What provoked Lion's Den into attacking now? And why would they target her specifically? What is their endgame from doing this?

She spits the foamy toothpaste out of her mouth, glad that the minty freshness is erasing the god awful metallic taste of blood. As she raises her head once she's done, she locks eyes with her mirror image for just a second, taking stock of the fading bruise around her neck and the darker bruise on her shoulder that covers a bit of her collarbone. Almost unable to even look at herself anymore, she rips her gaze from the mirror, allowing Hydra and Lauren, who both hovered by the door, help her back to bed.

As Lauren is setting her down on the cot, Anna's eyes accidentally lock with Tristan's. They stay in that stalemate for what felt like hours, but was only a few seconds. As soon as she realized she'd been staring at him like a weirdo, she drags her eyes away, moving them to stare out the window, trying to will her face to not heat up.

Chronos, she must look like such a nutcase, just staring at him like that. She hopes she didn't have any of those goo-goo eyes that are such a staple of shoujo manga. That's all she needs. Her teammates and Tristan to see her with heart eyes. Lauren would never let her live it down. She'd have to kill the poor Dragonslayer.

Why?

Because Anna liked Tristan.

If you asked her, she'd of course deny it up and down, but she'd be lying. Anna wasn't an idiot. She knew her heart well enough to know what it wanted. And what it wanted was Tristan. She knew she probably wasn't his type though, after all she couldn't imagine his type would involve spending years hunting down her long-lost sister who could have very well been dead for all she knew. And she'd probably never tell him how she felt, not wanting to make him have to let her down. She knew he was a really nice guy, and she didn't want to put him in the position of having to let her down because he didn't feel the same.

Chronos, just the thought made her want to crawl into a hole and never come out. No, she's never telling him how she feels. Not even if it would save her life. Besides, she's a Spirit, so she'd survive even if a situation like that ever did come around.

"Well..." Lauren trailed off, noting the stagnant, awkward silence of the room. Thankfully though, she hasn't seemed to pick up on Anna's thoughts or anything, which the redhead is grateful for. "I'm gonna go tell Master you're awake. You can send Hydra to come get us later, I can tell you've got some more talking to do." She said, dragging all three of her companions out of the door, ignoring every single one of their complaints, which were then cut off as the door slammed shut.

Hydra, who had been silently examining the door, suddenly spoke then. "I ain't gonna start up again with my complaints, cause I know you don't need any stress now. But we are going to talk about this again when you're fully healed, understand me?" His voice, that deep, dark baritone, leaves no room for argument. She nods her head, not even wanting to argue with him anyway, far too tired to even bother.

"You know this isn't over though, right Hydra?" She asks. "Lion's Den has made their move, and we all know that this won't stop, not unless we do something about it." Her own voice, though tired, held nothing but calm determination.

Hydra is quiet for a second. Then, he sighs, threading his hands in his baby blue hair. "Yeah, I know, Anna. It's the calm before the storm."

And that is the end of chapter ten! Welcome to the beginning of the Lion's Den arc, and I hope you have your big girl/boy/non-binary/gender-non-conforming panties on, because this train ain't stopping!

I can't wait for you all to see the next five chapters. Once I write them, that is XD

-Silver Sin