Author's note: It's been an eventful two weeks for me. A lot that I was dedicated to I had to back out of for good reasons, and for the better. Also, I really hard about this and I will be semi-retiring from fanfiction. I started focusing on other things in the recent years and fanfiction has been on the back burner a lot. I want to finish this series and focus on things that I really want to do like my own work. It's a lot on me and I'm trying to focus on things that need my attention. I don't know how long this series will go on; but I want this to live up to my works over the years. Also, follow my if you can! I make a lot of cool artwork and if you're interested, subscribe!
Chapter 4: The Casino
A few days had passed ever since the small run and the pay checks were pouring in like hotcakes. Gajeel was in total shock at how much was pouring in from just a single run. Nearly $100,000 was made from this. Gajeel was literally speechless.
Gajeel watched as Levy made her way around the bar and handed everyone a small stack of cash to each gang member and handing what appeared to be a slightly larger cut to Jet and Droy. Eventually, Levy made her way to Gajeel and gave him a kind hearted smile.
"You were amazing out there the other day Gajeel." she told him "Keep it up! Here's your cut of the run!" Levy then handed him the stack of cash and Gajeel studied it quietly. From wht it appeared to be, there had to be over $1,000 in that pile.
Eventually, Levy finished her rounds and made her way to the center of the room.
"Good work Gang!" she smiled confidently "After this, the gangmates at the other location will be getting to work again on the next round! Otherwise as of today, I wish to give everyone here a day off tomorrow! As my thanks to all of you for an amazing job well done!" everyone cheered in happiness at Levy's decision as she crossed her arms and smiled confidently.
Gajeel arrived home late that night and parked his rat bike in the garage before slinging his backpack that was loaded with the money Levy gave him onto his back, and opening the door the lead directly into the house. The moment he entered the house the scent of freshly cooked pizza filled his nostrils. He made his way over to the couch and found a pink haired man with lightly tanned skin in a red t-shirt with a dragon on it and ripped jeans, opening a large pizza box and had two bottles of beer on the table.
This man was Natsu Dragneel, Gajeel's younger cousin.
"Hey Gajeel!" Natsu nodded "Welcome back, got us a pizza for dinner!"
"Thanks." Gajeel grumbled before throwing the bag on the floor near the couch and sinking into the couch. Natsu grabbed a paper plate, took at least two slices from the box and watched the cheese try to stay together before snapping. Gajeel took the plate from his cousin and began to devour the slices.
"How's your new job?" Natsu suddenly asked his cousin moments later.
"Good." Gajeel replied after swallowing another bite "Money's great, co-workers aren't bad, boss is hot."
"Really?" Natsu replied.
"Yeah, it's going well." Natsu nodded in understanding.
"Hey, can I ask you something?"
"If it's a recommendation to work with the gang, you can forget it." Gajeel spoke out right before sipping his beer.
"What?" Natsu asked confused "No! I was going to tell you that a new casino opened up and if you wanted to check it out tomorrow?" Gajeel looked at his cousin with surprise, he didn't expect that.
"I do have the day off tomorrow." Gajeel revealed "Maybe we can check it out, what the hell."
"Sounds fun to me!" Natsu smirked "Hey, can I borrow a few hundred when we go to the casino?"
"Fuck you, you little shit."
The Ruby Casino was a large building with multiple casinos and pent houses. It was large, spacious building with red lights hitting the walls and making the walls a deep ruby red, the walls had monitors everywhere with looping video of rubies falling constantly, and a Lamborghini in the center room. So many of the upper class that was found in this crime riddled city walked the halls of the Ruby Casino, it was unbelievable.
Gajeel looked to one side and found slot machines and on the other was roulette tables. Natsu suddenly let out a grunt as he stretched his limbs.
"I don't know about you Gajeel," Natsu groaned "but I'm heading to the poker tables." he then suddenly snatched about $200 from Gajeel's wallet "I'll pay you back when I win!"
"You son of a bitch!" Gajeel hollered at Natsu before he ran off to the poker tables. Gajeel took a deep breath through his nose and let it out through his nose, those meditation videos he's been watching on the Yoga Channel were pretty helpful...sometimes.
The slot machine room was a medium sized room with multiple machines that either will pay you out or were rigged to make you lose; mostly made to make you lose. He looked around the room to find an empty slot machine and decided to put at least five dollars in the machine. He pressed the buttons and watched as the machine spun until reaching several bars and showing a match: Gajeel won $10.
"Heh." Gajeel smirked to himself "Not bad." he played the machine again and watched as the money continued to climb the ladder and watch as he won $50 right off the bat. Deciding it was time to not press his luck, Gajeel took the money he won and decided to walk.
He got up from his seat and looked around the room to see if there was a roulette table nearby or better yet, a horse race.
"Gajeel?" a voice suddenly spoke. Gajeel turned around to see who the owner of the voice was and soon found, to his surprise, Levy. She was in a slim, green cocktail dress that had a nice sparkle to it, green heeled roman sandals and her hair was down. In her hand was a small martini glass with a drink in it. The leader of the biker gang's face turned into a large smile the moment she saw Gajeel.
"What a nice surprise!" she smiled "What're you doing here?"
"Hey Shrimp." Gajeel smirked "Cousin wanted to come here and check it out. Little shit stole $200 out of my wallet right off the bat to hit the poker tables. What about you?"
"My friend Lucy brought me here." Levy smiled "She wanted to check it out as well."
"Wait a minute. Lucy? As in Lucy Heartfilia? The writer?"
"You know of her?"
"Cousin likes her fantasy novel she wrote three years ago."
"Yeah she invited me to go with her. I was going to actually head over to the warehouse to check on things, but I felt I needed some time to unwind. Hey, are you up for a drink?"
"Always am."
The bar was filled with multiple rich, upper class people and from what it appeared, most of these drinks looked quite expensive. Gajeel clutched his wallet in both fear and also pride knowing he had the money to pay for it and also fear at how much it would cost.
He made his way to the bar keep and ordered a whiskey on the rocks and another martini for Levy. The bar tender took the $50, prepared the drinks and gave it to the two.
"So Gajeel," Levy began "how are you liking your new job?"
"Pretty awesome." Gajeel admitted to his boss "Lily's awesome to work with, the pay is great, I get to do something I love, it's awesome!"
"I'm thrilled to hear you're happy Gajeel." Levy smiled before taking a sip of her drink "Lily also told me he enjoys working with you and thinks you're excellent in your position."
"That's good to hear." the two sat in an awkward silence for a moment before Gajeel cleared his throat.
"Say uh Levy." Gajeel suddenly spoke up, surprising the biker gang leader "I know the gang's goal is to make a lot of money and get outta here; but what do you plan to do? How do you plan on getting out of here?" Levy put her drink down on the table and looked at it a bit sadly.
"I was born in this town." Levy openly admitted "I came from a small but poor family that could hardly afford a car. Crime was something we all had to take part in in order to get by. When I was a teen, my father was gunned down for being falsely accused of robbing a liquor store."
"I'm sorry." Gajeel nodded in respect, knowing what it was like to lose a father.
"Thank you." Levy nodded "After he died, I knew I had no choice but to get out of this town; the problem with this town is that mostly everyone is dirt poor and no one's hiring. I started Shadow Gear as a way to help those who felt the same as me, those who wanted to leave." she took a sip of her drink before continuing "When we make enough money in the gang's funds, we're going to buy a large yacht."
"Wait, like one of those yachts you see on those foreclosure websites?" Gajeel quizzed.
"Exactly like those!" Levy smiled "I plan to buy one and get everyone in the gang on board and sail away from this Godawful place. I don't know where to go next; but I hope it's far away from here." for some off reason, Gajeel placed his hand over Levy's, to show the woman he was with her on this, but to also give her a sense of comfort since this was somewhat of a touchy subject. Levy's cheeks blushed at his action and she looked at him to see his head turned away and his cheeks pure red.
The lights suddenly turned down in the casino, causing Gajeel and Levy to look out the entry way but couldn't see the view. The TV changed to that of the main entryway of the casino and found a podium under the spotlight.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of Oak Town," the announcer began "I would like to divide your attention to the stage and introduce the future mayor of Oak Town, Miss Touka White!" the room clapped and cheered as a young woman in a white pantsuit with long, white hair that curled at the end, a beautiful rose –like hair piece made her way to the podium.
"T-Touka White?!" Levy hissed in shock.
"I heard of her!" Gajeel realized "I heard her name on the radio the other day! She's running for Mayor I think."
"Gajeel, we need to get out of here." Gajeel looked at Levy in confusion at her words.
"Why's that?"
"Touka is the top candidate for Mayor at the moment and she heavily has the OTPD's support. The whole place is probably swarming with cops and considering my position.."
"If she finds out that the leader of Shadow Gear was here, we're fucked."
"Exactly!" Levy spat before jumping off her chair "Find your cousin Gajeel! I'm going to find Lu-chan!"
"Wait!" Gajeel hollered "At least let me go with you in-case something happens!"
"I appreciate your concern Gajeel, but I'm fully capable of handling myself." she gave him a small wink before running off to the nearest restroom and texting Lucy to meet her there.
Gajeel made his way to the casino floor and searched through the crowd for his younger cousin. He scooted politely through each person and noticed on the stage at least five police officers standing in silence as Touka gave her speech.
"Fuck." Gajeel grumbled to himself. He continued to make his way through the crowd, all while Touka continued her speech:
"As this casino continues to flourish, I sincerely hope, that it will help build our town's economy and help end the crime wave that has plagued our town for too long. If elected Mayor, I promise to do what no other Mayor has done, and that's actually end the crime wave! If elected I will put an end to the terror cult known as Liberius and put an end to Shadow Gear!"
The crowd cheered at Touka's words and if you asked Gajeel, he would've been sweating buckets now. He continued his frantic search until spotting a familiar figure nearby on one of the slot machines. He stomped his way over to his cousin and placed his hand on his shoulder, spooking him.
"There you are!" Gajeel growled "Come on! We need to get the hell outta here!"
"Gajeel?" Natsu spoke "What the hell?! You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"Fuck that! We need to leave!"
"Why?"
"Touka White that's why! Woman probably has this place crawling with cops!"
"Can I at least play one more game?" Natsu asked "I'm on a hot streak!"
"Cash your game and let's go!" Gajeel growled. Natsu ended his game and soon, the sirens that were connected to the machine went off, giving a large BRRT BRRT noise, signaling Natsu had won the machine's jackpot.
"FUCK I DON'T NEED THIS!" growled Gajeel before grabbing his cousin by the scruff of his collar, but not before grabbing the winning ticket.
They made it to the parking lot of the casino where both Levy and a tall, blonde-haired girl with a curvaceous figure stood next to her.
"Gajeel! There you are!" Levy smiled before making her way to her employee "I take it you found your cousin?"
"Yeah, and the idiot won two thousand dollars in the casino. Almost got us caught." Gajeel grumbled.
"Hey! Not my fault I won!" Natsu growled before making his way to the ladies "It's nice to meet you, I'm Natsu." he shook both their hands in common curtsey.
"I'm Levy." Levy replied "And this is my friend Lucy."
"It's nice to meet you both." she smiled while shaking both their hands.
"Wait, the author?" Natsu asked.
"Yep!"
"Whoa! Cool!"
"Yeah yeah yeah." Gajeel mocked "Now, lets cut the chit chat and get out of here!"
"He's right." Levy spoke "Gajeel, did you and Natsu bring a car?"
"Took a taxi." Natsu told her "Thought we were going to get wasted."
"We got a car fortunately." Lucy smiled "Get in, we can give you boys a lift." they eventually made their way to a white Pegazzi Tezeract and all crammed themselves into the car, managing to pass through security and escaping into the night.