A/N: I'm back. Hopefully this time for good. I was trying to write Il Trovatore, but ideas for this new story have been flooding my mind lately, so we're going with this instead.

I don't own Fairy Tail.

I hope you enjoy!

Prologue: Phantom Lord

May 1st, X784

A loud scream echoed throughout the chamber as a body hit the cold iron plates covering the floors. A ridiculous laugh echoing through the chambers afterward as the still standing figure walked up to the young girl now on the floor.

"Gihi… Is that all you've got, girlie?" the man asked in a mocking tone as he delivered a hard and brutal kick to the girl's stomach, "I was expecting a better fight from a fellow Dragon Slayer than this."

"Screw you, metalhead." Was all the young girl could say before being lifted up into the air by her collar.

"Eh? What was that? I couldn't quite make it out over your screaming," the man said, hate flashing in his red eyes as his free, left hand transformed into a rapidly rotating blade of iron before thrusting it into the girl's abdomen, earning him an agonizing scream of pain from the young woman the blade cut into her flesh.

"That'll be quite enough, Gajeel my boy," a sneering man watching from a nearby chair commanded, "Release her."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Gajeel huffed before throwing the young woman across the room, "I was getting bored with her anyways."

"Now now, I don't want you to damage my assets too much. Even if she was disappointing in the end," the sneering man said as he stood from his chair before walking over to the young girl gasping in pain on the floor. "You have disappointed me once again, my dear Iva. While Gajeel continues to prove his worth, you only continue to disappoint me. It breaks my heart, it really does."

"S-Sorry… I'm sorry, Master Jose" Iva gasped, desperately holding onto her wound to try and prevent more blood loss.

"Sorry won't be enough this time, my dear," Jose stated harshly, "You shall be demoted for this loss. I'm reassigning you to the Jaborosa Branch. Effective immediately."

"Gihihi… Looks like you're joining the other weaklings now, girlie. You'll fit right in," Gajeel mocked, his shrill laugh continuing to agitate Iva as she writhed on the floor in pain, Gajeel making his way over to her, picking her head up by her hair to hold it close to his own as leaned in towards her. "Make sure you say hello to that magnet bastard and his chicky for me, all right?" he demanded before dropping her head against the hard floor.

"Such a disappointment," Jose muttered one last time before stepping over Iva and heading to the door, barking an order for a nearby mage to retrieve Iva before she bled out on his floor.

"D-damnit," Iva gasped, feeling nothing but rage and pain before passing out to the sound of Gajeel's mocking laughter.

. : + : .

May 2nd, X784

The sun rose over the Phantom Lord Branch in Jaborosa Town as a young man leaned back in an old wooden chair, his feet resting up on a banister in front of him as he chewed on a toothpick.

"Raoul!" he heard a familiar voice call out.

"Same place as always, Nika!" the man shouted back, soon a young woman stepped out onto the porch, her blue eyes staring down his onyx ones.

"We've got an express letter from Master Jose himself," the woman, Nika, explained quickly as she pulled out the letter and showed it to Raoul.

"No shit?" he asked as he quickly sat up straight, "Don't keep me in suspense, woman, what'd he say?"

"One moment," Nika calmly replied as she held out the letter in front of him, a miniature, holographic Jose appearing over the letter.

"Good day, my loyal guild mages. I am contacting you to let you know that I am reassigning a rather… special case to your Guild Branch. Effective as of yesterday, Iva Dragomirov is reassigned to your Jaborosa Branch after yet another disappointing display against Gajeel," the recording of Jose explained.

"Damn, really?" Raoul muttered before being shushed by Nika.

"I expect you to foster her strength in my stead and turn her into a mage of great power and usefulness for myself and for Phantom Lord. Failure is not an option and there will be consequences if you cannot meet my expectations in the matter. She will arrive in a few days once her wounds have healed enough for her to travel. Now, I bid you, good day," the recording finished, vanishing as quickly as it had appeared.

"That bastard got another mage kicked out to this dump then," Raoul huffed, tightening his grip in anger.

"This could be a good thing, Raoul," Nika tried to rationalize, "It means Master Jose is trusting our branch with an important task after neglecting us after all this time. This could be our chance to get back into the main branch."

"Yeah, I know," Raoul huffed, "I just hope this chick isn't going to be as much trouble as I think she is. She's that Dragon Slayer, y'know?"

"I'm aware. Her and Gajeel have been butting heads for a while now back at the main branch, but he's beaten her every time they fought," Nika explained as she tucked away the letter and looked down at Raoul, "But still, this could be really good for our Branch. Fairy Tail has only been getting more and more popular and taking more of our missions from us. We need all the help we can get."

"Tch… Those rat fairy bastards can kiss all every last inch of my ass for all the trouble they've caused us," the black haired man grumbled as he leaned back into his chair and kicked his feet up again, "Well, hopefully things go better from here on out. But I wouldn't bet on it."

Nika let out a sigh at this as she leaned against the wall next to Raoul, "Always such a defeatist," she muttered as they both looked out onto the road that led into town, wondering what the future would bring for their little Branch of Phantom Lord.

Credits:

Iva Dragomirov – Dreadburner94

Raoul Santiago – Dreadburner94

Veronika "Nika" Anastasia – Dreadburner94

A/N: And here we are once more.

Sorry for disappearing last year. Things got really hairy for me irl and I didn't have the time, energy or motivation to do anything productive when it came to writing. But, things are better now and I intend to get back into the swing of writing. I had intended to pick up Il Trovatore again, but then ideas for this story came into my head and I had to do it, so here we are. At some point in the future though, I do intend to start writing Il Trovatore again though, but something fresh came first.

But, as you can tell, this is a story about a branch of the Phantom Lord guild. And if you remember what happened to Phantom Lord in canon, you can expect things to go south for them really quickly. But this will also be about their rise as a guild from that fall and the destruction of Phantom Lord, thus why the story is named Phantom Hearts. It is also my intention to take this story all the way through the canon storyline, though they will not be involved with most canon events outside of a few that I have already chosen for them to get involved in. But that means this story will take place over 8 or 9 years, so you can expect the characters to grow and change over time.

I will have 20 open OC slots for the beginning of the story. But as the guild grows in strength and popularity, more spots will open to reflect this. The OC Form will be on my profile.

And a huge thank you to MyDearWatson and Origm2012 for helping me get this off the ground and bounce ideas off of them. They're always a great help and both are great writers, so make sure to check out their stories as well.

Also, if you're interested in joining a discord for this story, I've got a little corner set up for it in MyDearWatson's discord server. The invite code will be on both my profile and theirs.

That's all I have for now. Have fun creating your characters and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Your host,

Dreadburner94.