The courtroom was noisy - Erza knew that intellectually - but the rushing in her ears drowned out all other sound. Adrenaline was coursing through her body, and she was on her feet before she knew what was happening.

Someone had Natsu. That was the only possible explanation. Someone had taken Natsu, and Gray might as well have come right out and told her, but Erza hadn't been listening. Natsu wasn't on a job at all, which made sense. If he had been, even one far away, he would have been calling Gray constantly. And she had known it wasn't like Gray to get this upset over a mere threat, especially not to the point of refusing to eat or sleep for days. She had to get to him. She needed to tell him that she would figure this out, that she would rescue Natsu and they could make things right together.

Erza started to push towards the front of the courtroom, but everyone else had apparently had the same idea. Erza supposed she hadn't realized how important Gray's testimony was, let alone that everyone else in the courtroom would also be aware that he was the linchpin witness. But there was a scrum of people, most of them taller than her, and Erza snarled in frustration. She considered pushing people out of the way, but after a second decided that it would be easier to just jump one of the empty seats, and use those to make her way to the front.

"Settle down! Order in the court!" The judge was shouting for all he was worth, but no one, including Erza, was listening. She clambered onto her vacated seat, managing to get her head above the crowd of people mobbing the aisles.

"Clear the jury," the judge yelled. Erza ignored him, scanning the front of the room for Gray.

He wasn't at the witness stand. Swallowing back a sudden burst of fear, Erza forced herself to slow down and look around for the ice wizard.

He wasn't there. And now that Erza was paying attention, neither was Rinel.

"No," Erza said. She started to yell out - surely everyone in the courtroom would be horrified that the star witness had vanished, and he would be found that much faster. But then she thought better of it and closed her mouth. The air around her was thrumming with the panic, fear, and anger of the crowd. She was sure it wouldn't take long for them to notice that Rinel and Gray were missing, but she was legitimately afraid that if she shouted it out now, she was going to start some sort of riot.

Erza turned, trying to see if she could throw herself the other way over the bench. But there were so many people packed into the room that she couldn't find an opening. And anyways, she didn't even know where Gray had gone.

Clearly, this was a more elaborate scheme than she had initially given credit for. Someone must have been waiting to escort Gray out of the room the second he gave his testimony, relying on the confusion caused by the unexpected shift. If the plan was that good, Erza doubted she would be able to catch up to them now. They must have somewhere safe they were taking him, where they could hide him until they were sure Rinel would be alright.

Erza felt a sudden icy chill of fear run through her. Gray was either sick or hurt. She'd never figured out what was wrong with him, but she was sure that something was. And now they had him, and they were very probably the ones who had hurt him in the first place….

Erza stepped down from the bench and whirled on Lahar. He was still sitting next to her, where he'd been placed during the trial, peering at the crowd with frustration and a vague sort of fear.

"Lahar?" Erza said, and she knew there was danger in her voice. "Do you know what's going on?"

Lahar's face hardened as he turned back to her, pushing his glasses up his nose with business-like precision. "Not exactly," he said. "But as we told you, we suspected there was something wrong with Gray, and we suspected it had something to do with the upcoming trial. Doranbolt told me this morning that he has a lead on one of Rinel's contacts, and he doesn't believe it will be long before he locates Rinel's base of operations. I'll get in touch with Doranbolt immediately, and we can call in a strike force…it shouldn't be much trouble to recapture Rinel and extract Gray from there…."

"They have Natsu."

This caught Lahar completely off-guard. "They…what?"

"They have Natsu, and they're holding him over Gray. They probably threatened to hurt or kill Natsu if he didn't do what they wanted. If the stakes were any lower, he never would have gone through with it."

"Oh," Lahar said quietly, blinking behind his glasses. After a second, his eyes widened, and he stood up. "Oh."

"We have to go now," Erza snapped. "There's no time to waste. I don't know if they have any intention of returning Natsu, or releasing Gray, but Gray at least is hurt. They need our help."

"Y-yes," Lahar mumbled, beginning to push back through the crowd, towards the exit. "We'll contact Doranbolt right away. We won't wait for the strike force, we'll go straight there. Excuse me, yes, this is important, please move!"

Even as preoccupied as she was, Erza found it slightly offensive that the crowd was parting for Lahar, and not for her, but she supposed that the extra ten odd inches of height, in addition to the Rune Knights uniform, probably helped.

She wondered if she would have been able to get to Gray if she'd requipped into her Giant Armor. Then, she wondered exactly what she would have done, if she had reached him in time. If she'd stopped him from going with Rinel, he wouldn't have been in danger, but Natsu still would be. She didn't know how deep this operation went, or the extent of information they were receiving about Gray. Had they been watching the trial? Had they been watching Gray this whole time?

For a moment, Erza felt what she was sure was only a small fraction of the hopelessness and fear that Gray had been feeling for the past two days. She wished that she could have helped him earlier - it must have been hell for him to go through this on his own, worried sick over his partner. Surely, there must have been something he could have done, some way to reach out subtly enough that whoever was watching him couldn't punish Natsu for it.

And then, Erza remembered Gray's 3am visit to her room. He had tried to reach out to her, to ask her for help, possibly even to give her a hint about what was happening. And she'd essentially told him, to his face, that he was doing the wrong thing by trying to save Natsu. She hadn't known the context, of course, but that didn't matter right now. Gray had specifically asked that she come to the safehouse. He had wanted to trust her, and she made him feel like he couldn't. Whether it was purposeful or not, and whether or not Erza would have made the same choice as Gray was immaterial. He was hurting, and she had made it worse.

When she found Gray, he deserved one hell of an apology. Erza ignored the small voice in the back of her mind saying "if" she found Gray. She would find him, and Natsu as well. If Doranbolt didn't have the necessary information, she'd get it some other way. Erza would move heaven and earth to save her family.


If he was being completely honest with himself, Gray hadn't actually thought that much about the aftereffects of the trial. He hadn't really considered what it would mean that Rinel, a man who he knew had knifed a council member in the chest, was walking free. The trial had felt like a fixed endpoint, where he would either get Natsu back or die trying. These past few days, he hadn't been able to imagine a life after that. He honestly hadn't even really imagined being reunited with Natsu. As far as he'd gotten was thinking about how disappointed Erza was going to be with him, and then he'd been trying not to think about that too hard either.

Now, the consequences of his actions were feeling very, very real. He'd testified at the trial, and now he was being escorted who knew where by a murderer, a murderer that he'd more or less gotten released.

As soon as Gray had testified, the courtroom had gone wild. A bunch of people had stood up, looking shocked and angry. Some of them had looked like they wanted to hurt Gray. Some of them, like Erza, had just looked confused and disappointed.

The judge had tried to regain order, but it hadn't really worked. Before Gray had realized what was happening, the guy who'd talked to Gray early was putting a clammy hand on his shoulder and dragging Gray out of his seat.

Gray had stumbled hard, blinking dark stars out of his vision as he'd struggled to stay conscious. But he'd managed to remain on his feet, and he'd allowed himself to be guided outside.

By that point, Rinel was already waiting for him. Gray had no idea how he'd gotten out. In fact, Gray didn't really think he should be out. He hadn't technically been acquitted. Gray had felt a thrill of fear. Had he messed something up by nearly causing a riot, and not allowing the trial to be finished?

But the justice system in Fiore was inefficient, over-stretched, and easily corruptible, so Gray had slowly convinced himself that it might be alright. Letting a murderer go free was one thing, but letting someone go who'd accidentally left their court date early was something entirely different.

But maybe that was bad. Gray didn't know whether it was more important at this point that Rinel was recaptured, or that Natsu was kept safe.

Gray wanted to believe that the council would realize there was something suspicious going on, and re-arrest Rinel once he'd already gotten Natsu back. He wanted to believe that they would clean up his mess. But he just…didn't. And even if they tried to, Tony and Rinel would surely be long gone by then, and Gray didn't know where they were going or what they'd be up to. The scheme they'd tried to pull would very likely work.

"H-here he is," the attendant stuttered, looking at Rinel as he pushed Gray towards him. Gray stumbled again, almost going to his knees this time, and barely caught his balance. By the time he'd managed to stand up and look around, the attendant had already vanished.

That wasn't good. Gray knew the guy certainly wasn't scared of him, which must mean that he was terrified enough of Rinel to run away before the murderer could look at him.

"So you're the one who saw me," Rinel said, by way of greeting. He looked down at Gray, taking a step forward. Once again, Gray was very aware of their respective sizes.

Rinel looked him up and down, like he was memorizing Gray's face in case he ever needed to come back and finish the job. Gray fought the urge to step back, or look away. Instead, he balled his hands into fists and leaned slightly forward.

"Just take me to Tony, okay? I did what he said."

Rinel didn't answer, and for a terrifying moment, Gray thought that he'd changed his mind, and he was just going to try to kill Gray right here behind the courthouse. Gray's hands went cold, even colder than usual, and he let his magic start to gather. He tried not to start shaking. Usually, someone like Rinel would be no problem, but Gray hadn't really been functional for the past two days, and he was barely staying on his feet as is. And Rinel had killed a council member. If he started a fight with Gray, Gray wasn't so sure he would be the one walking away.

But Rinel shrugged, as if Gray simply wasn't worth the effort, and began walking down the alley at the back of the courthouse.

"Come on."

His back was to Gray. That should be a vulnerable position. Gray sure wasn't going to turn his back to Rinel, not even for a second. He wasn't even going to relax, not until he had Natsu and they were both very, very far away. Rinel wasn't scared of him, either because he knew the pressure Gray was currently operating under, or because he had some other plan.

Gray didn't want to admit it, but he was very, very scared of Rinel. He hadn't interacted with him until now - he'd only seen Rinel in passing. He hadn't been there for the arrest, and he hadn't seen him until the trial. But with every passing second he spent in Rinel's company, he was starting to understand just how bad it was that this man was walking around free.

He still didn't know what Tony and Rinel had been planning that necessitated killing a council member. Until now, Gray had vaguely assumed that the murder had been Rinel's doing, and Tony had mostly been helping out a friend. But now that he was thinking about it, that didn't make the most sense. Tony was planning something, and that had both required Kolten's death and Rinel's continued involvement.

Whatever it was, it was probably really bad. If it wasn't important, they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of kidnapping Natsu and blackmailing Gray. And if it wasn't bad…well, Gray just couldn't imagine that Rinel wasn't involved in some pretty messed up stuff.

They walked to a parking lot maybe two miles away from the court house. Rinel had pulled a hood up over his face, but he didn't seem to be disguising his appearance aside from that, so clearly, he wasn't really worried about being followed. He hadn't done anything at all to hide Gray, which personally, Gray thought was kind of a bold take. He was pretty sure Erza would be tracking them down as soon as she possibly could, if only so she could beat Gray into a pulp.

Rinel walked right up to a car, with enough authority that Gray figured it must be his car or one that had been carefully described to him. He fished keys out of his pocket - the attendant must have slipped him them.

Gray didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was pretty relieved they'd finally stopped walking. Gray's hip was cramping, his calf was throbbing, his knee was trembling so badly he thought it was a miracle he was still vertical.

"Get in," Rinel said. There was no real threat carried on the words, but Gray still felt completely helpless, like a worm wriggling on a hook. He got in the car.

"Where are we going?" Gray asked as Rinel started to drive.

"We're going to get your friend," Rinel said.

He's my boyfriend. Gray bit back the words.

"He's…he's with Tony? And that's where we're headed now?"

"Yeah."

This was the first Gray had actually had it verbally confirmed that they were heading for Natsu, right now. Relief bubbled up in Gray's chest.

"And then Tony will take the soul bond off, right? And I can…I can take him home?"

Gray hadn't realized the high, desperate edge that his voice would have until the words were already out of his mouth. He probably would have been embarrassed, but at this point he was too tired and in too much pain for that feeling to really have any bite.

"Whatever, kid. Sure."

It occurred to Gray that now that he had given his testimony, he had lost what little leverage he had. There was nothing really to stop them from killing both Gray and Natsu, and in fact that would provide them with quite a lot of advantages. Rinel had confirmed for Gray that he was the murderer, and Natsu had to have seen Tony's face by now.

The only thing that was keeping Natsu and Gray safe was the fact that killing them would bring a manhunt down on Tony and Rinel, one they couldn't possibly hope to evade. The full wrath of Fairy Tail wasn't an easy thing to weather.

They must have some sense of that. And Fairy Tail would go after them anyways, granted without as much fury. So they must either be planning to kill Gray and Natsu after all, and escape somewhere safe before Fairy Tail found out, or let them go and escape before Gray could turn them in.

Either way, they must have a way to disappear almost as soon as they were together, or their whole plan would fall apart. If Gray wanted to do…anything about this situation, this would be his only shot. After that, they would be free to unleash whatever havoc they had planned, and it would all be Gray's fault.

Gray would have to fight. He had to put them down, before they could kill either him or Natsu. He couldn't let them escape. Gray was going to fix his mistake, and he was going to get Natsu back, and make sure that they could never hurt him again. He didn't want to kill anyone, but it was worth it if it would save Natsu, and if it was the only way out of the situation he'd found himself in.

It was harder to look at Rinel after that. Gray wanted to be acting more normally, but he was trapped in a car with a man who he'd just decided to kill. But Gray didn't want to look away, either. If he dropped his guard, even for a second, Rinel could just push him out of the car or something and no one would ever be the wiser.

By the time the car pulled to a stop outside a small, nondescript house, Gray's heart was beating so fast he felt lightheaded again.

"Out," Rinel said, turning towards Gray. "We're here."

Gray nodded, his head swimming with the sudden motion. Swallowing back nausea, he slid out of the car, steadying himself against the side. Rinel walked past him, reaching the door of the house and knocking a few times in what was presumably a prearranged pattern.

After a brief pause, the door swung open. A man about Macao's age, wearing typical wizard robes, stood inside.

"Rinel. It went well, then?" The voice was all too familiar to Gray.

Rinel shrugged. "You already know it did. Otherwise, he wouldn't still be breathing." He nodded over his shoulder, back towards Gray.

Gray had known that Tony had been watching the trial, but it was still violating, not to mention frightening. But instead of giving into the chill creeping up his spine, Gray clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. He'd been scared for so long, it felt good to get angry instead.

"Take me to Natsu," Gray demanded. "I did my job."

Tony exchanged some sort of look with Rinel, then nodded. "Okay. You held up your end of the bargain, I'll hold up mine. Your boyfriend's in the basement."

Tony stood back from the doorway, and Gray followed Rinel inside. He half-expected both men to head for the basement, which might pose a problem. Gray had no idea what kind of magic Rinel used, and he wasn't sure he could take them both on at once.

But Rinel headed the opposite way, climbing up a flight of stairs towards the top floor. Carefully, Gray resisted the urge to sigh with relief. This was better. As soon as he had Natsu in his arms, he could kill Tony first, then go after Rinel.

Tony led Gray through the house. Gray passed a small dining room, a sitting room with patched and dirty sofas, and a half-glimpsed room Gray thought might be a kitchen. Finally, Tony arrived at a small door, which he pushed open to reveal a set of rickety descending stairs.

"He's down here," Tony said.

Gray leaned heavily on the banister as he made his way down. Obviously, the pain in his leg hadn't diminished at all. But it was something of a relief not to have to worry about hiding his limp. He could act like he was in as much pain as he wanted, and that did make it somehow easier to move around.

Finally, Gray managed to make his way to the bottom of the stairs, where his eyes took a moment to adjust to the sudden dimness.

A small sound drew Gray's attention to the far side of the room. Natsu's pink hair was instantly recognizable, even in the relative dark, and as Gray's eyes adjusted, he could make out more and more of his boyfriend's condition.

What he saw left Gray horrified.

Natsu's hands were chained to a pipe set into the wall. The angle might have been comfortable if Natsu were able to sit up, but he clearly wasn't. He was slumped forward, chin almost resting against his chest, hands held above his shoulders at a painful-looking angle.

Natsu's injured leg was carefully stretched in front of him, covered with a ragged-looking blanket. Gray couldn't tell what it looked like beneath that - how bad it might be. From here, he had no visible injuries, and if it weren't for the unnatural position, Natsu would have almost looked like he was sleeping.

"Natsu?" Gray breathed. He hadn't actually meant to call out to Natsu, but as soon as he'd laid eyes on his boyfriend, he simply couldn't help himself.

Natsu shifted slightly, dragging his head off his chest to look blearily around. Gray's heart almost stopped. He looked…sick. He was pale, and his eyes were shadowed. He'd been stuck here less than a week, but it already looked like he'd lost weight - his cheekbones had been hollowed out, his eyes slightly sunken. It took him a long few seconds for him to even seem to notice Gray. When he did, he automatically tried to shift towards him, but even the slightest movement was met with a hiss of pain. As he started to wake up a little more, he held himself with a ginger sort of stillness that made Gray's heart hurt.

"Gray?" Natsu's voice was soft, barely there. It was hoarse from disuse, and Gray could hear the pain behind it, but he was still overjoyed to hear Natsu in person, rather than telepathically.

"I'm here. I'm gonna get you out," Gray promised. "Don't…don't try to move." It was all he could do not to run across the room to Natsu, but Gray knew he needed to stay as close as he could to Tony. It might only provide him with a few milliseconds of advantage, but that would be worth it. Tony had to die.

And now that Gray had seen the state Natsu was in, he wanted Tony to die. He wanted to be the one to kill him. Even now, Natsu's eyes were barely focused, and Gray wasn't entirely sure that he understood what was going on. He wanted to pay Tony back tenfold for every second of agony Natsu had endured. He wanted to kill Tony right now, but he knew that wasn't the smartest idea. He wasn't entirely sure what that would do to him and to Natsu, if they were still linked by Tony's magic.

"Let him go," Gray said. He could hear his voice shaking, but it wasn't with fear this time. Tony probably wouldn't be able to tell, but Gray didn't care. Let him think Gray was terrified. He would be all the more surprised as he was dying.

"I'm going to release him. I'm a man of my word," Tony said, taking a step closer to Natsu, and by default, to Gray as well. Gray tensed, feeling his magic build inside him. As soon as Natsu was free, as soon as the tattoos on their wrists disappeared, he would strike.

"But, I can't have you killing me as soon as I undo the link, and I need some way to make sure you don't turn me in." Tony winked at him, then tapped his own wrist.

The pain was gone. Suddenly, Gray's leg felt almost perfectly fine. It was sore, probably from having limped around on it for days, but it didn't felt like it was broken. He was no longer linked to Natsu.

But when Gray looked down at his wrist, the sense link tattoo was still there. He looked back up at Tony, who was holding up his own wrist, with a new, matching tattoo.

"Sorry, kid. Call it insurance. I'll unlink us as soon as you and the Dragon Slayer are well out of sight, and Rinel and I are long gone. It's the only way I can make sure you're not going to attack us."

Gray felt like he couldn't breathe. Even without the pain, he was utterly exhausted, and weak from hunger. He needed to come up with a new plan, fast, but his brain felt like it was moving at a quarter speed. There wasn't going to be a way to keep Tony and Rinel from going free.