Authors note: I'm sorry this is a week late, I finally started working after being out of work for a very long time and my first two weeks have been a killer. The job I had gotten and was made to wait for, and it's not bad the job. Colleagues are anime geeks and geeks in general, including my bosses. Hours are pretty long; but it's not too serious to be honest; however, I think in the long run it may be more beneficial to have some minor cuts in my hours to help with other commitments I have in my life.
The job itself is fairly simple and I'm appreciated there which is a major plus. And unlike a lot of places, they praise their employees and one of my bosses stood up for me from a customer who was getting nasty for no reason. Since my hours are now considered unpredictable, I might start posting the night before or later in the day. These past two weeks alone I hardly had time to finish this chapter. I guess me planning to go into retirement for fan fiction is the best choice these days considering now I have another thing to juggle in my life.
I made this a two part because looking at the chapter; I realized this whole thing would be better as a two part and made it less stressful for me personally.
Otherwise, things have been looking really up! Let's get back to the story!
Chapter 7: The Debate from Hell part 1
The morning sunlight seeped into the windows of Gajeel's shared home, leaving rooms that were growing brighter by every three minutes. The room was mainly lit by now; but the shadows of the night before still danced on the walls of the rooms, trying to avoid the sunlight and keep their job going. Gajeel let out a large groan in the morning air, feeling the effects of his night's sleep still taking a toll on his body and letting one rip in the morning air. Much better.
"Ugh.."a voice suddenly groaned causing Gajeel's eyes to widen; remembering the events of the night before. Oh crap "What's that smell?" Gajeel looked right in front of him to find Levy, beginning to open her eyes and sniffing the air as they sat up.
"Uh….p-probably some takeout my idiot cousin forgot to clean up." Gajeel suddenly came up with "I always yell at him to fucking clean up after himself." Levy stared at him for a moment with uncertainty before deciding not to press it.
"What time is it?" Levy asked Gajeel as she rubbed her eye to blot out the sudden burst of light.
"8:30am." Gajeel replied "Normally I like to sleep till noon. Guess it's one of those mornings."
Gajeel looked down at Levy and began to realize something; they were literally in a position that made them cuddling. Their cheeks turned pure red before they rushed to sit up properly and accidentally banged their foreheads into each other.
"Ow!" they hollered in unison before falling back into the couch for a moment, pressing the spot on their foreheads they hit and doing their best to rub it.
As they recovered, a door opened up to reveal a sleepy Natsu, walking out of his room to take a peak before making his way back to bed, not even noticing or caring about the predicament Gajeel and Levy were in.
"Well…." Levy suddenly spoke up "I need to get going soon. We need to get ready for our next shipment."
"Uh wait." Gajeel spoke up "You wanna grab breakfast? We can also carpool to work I guess…" Gajeel scratched the back of his head awkwardly with a tiny hint of pink on his cheeks.
Levy blinked owlishly at Gajeel's offer before returning a beautiful smile to the long haired repairman.
They made it to a local fast food restaurant and bought their breakfasts through the drive-thru and arrived at the hideout fifteen minutes later. The two entered the old gas station convenient store to witness the gangs surrounding the flat screen tv that was mounted to the upper corner of the room. Their eyes glued, to the tv and not even noticing, Gajeel and Levy coming in together with the fast food breakfast they got for themselves.
"What's going on?" Levy asked as she made her way to the crowd.
"You're not going to believe this." Lisanna, Mira's youngest sibling revealed "Take a look at the TV." Levy and Gajeel focused on the television to see an unusual looking white crucifix. One Gajeel swore silently he has seen before somewhere.
"This is your final warning." A deep yet elegant and sinister female voice spoke over the TV "We will not be silent. We will liberate this town and return this town to white eventually. If the Mayoral Debates continue tonight, we will have no choice but to use brutality. This is The White Mage, signing off." The cross suddenly flickered and changed to what appeared to be a breaking news news cast. All of Shadow Gear sat in silence thanks to the shock of the situation.
"What the fuck was that?!" Gajeel suddenly spoke up in the quiet room, spooking a few people.
"Liberius." Freed, a man with green hair and part of a small clique in Shadow Gear called The Thunder Legion spoke "They broad-casted that time threaten the town and the mayoral nominees."
"A few days after the first hijacking, Liberius threatened to attack the Mayoral Debate." Mira explained while leaning against the bar "The nominees, Touka White and our current mayor, Jose Porla refused to listen to The White Mage's warning and decided to go on with the debate."
"This bastard deserves to get his head caved in." Laxus, a member of the gang commented as he leaned back in his chair, drinking his coffee "You're going to threaten a lot of lives? Well you sure as hell deserved to get a swift kick in the-"
"She." Levy suddenly spoke up. Everyone turned their heads to her.
"What?"
"She. I think the White Mage is a female."
Everyone stared at Levy for a brief moment in pure silence.
"How do you know this?" Erza asked "I'm not saying I doubt you; but The White Mage does everything in their power to hide their face so no one would know."
"For starters their voice is pretty low I admit it." Levy shrugged "I think it's a more deeper tune because they're either trying to hide their real voice, or that is their real voice. Either way, it still has a feminine touch. The second is even though their under that heavily decorated robe, you can see some of their feminine features like how petite their hands are, their jawline, etc. it pretty much tells me The White Mage is a woman."
"I can kind of see it." spoke Mira with a smile.
"Well whatever the hell they are, they deserve the ass whooping of the century." Gajeel spoke up, biting into his egg sandwich a bit irritated.
"I think the nominees are foolish." Gray shrugged as he leaned against the wall "They're going to get themselves killed at this rate."
"Gray." Cana suddenly spoke up drunkenly "Clothes." Gray looked down to noticed he was now in his underwear.
"Aww hell! When did that happen?! And wait! Cana, why the hell are you drinking 10 in the morning?! Do you have a serious problem?"
"It's five somewhere…"
"Can we please focus on the problem at hand?" Jet suddenly spoke up "Liberius is going to try and give gangs like us a bad name!" everyone began to murmur in agreement to Jet's words.
"Yeah!" Droy spoke out "If Liberius isn't stopped, we could be done for! We need to take action! Right now!" the room cheered in agreement to Droy and Jet's words before Levy spoke.
"Guys, I understand your concerns and I'm just as concerned. I even couldn't spend the night alone it was that serious." Levy soothed "But violence won't be the answer to this! If we start a gang war or make a statement that involves violence, then we're no different from Liberius, or Diablos!"
The room grew silent at Levy's words and realized the seriousness of this. If they did something as rash or terroristic as Liberius tends to do, they could kiss everything they worked so hard for goodbye.
"So what do we do?" EverGreen, a member of the Thunder Legion asked Levy.
"I'm not sure." Levy openly admitted "I know we can't stay silent forever. I know we have to speak out! So please be patient until we find a solution that can make us look good in the eyes of the public."
"Since when the fuck did we care about public opinion?!" asked Gajeel.
"We always had." Pantherlily revealed "We may not follow the law, but we sure as hell try to be a gang who doesn't condone violence."
"We really don't want anyone to die." Lisanna smiled.
"I think it's best we shut down our drug production for now." Levy revealed "If something happens, then we would be in grave danger. All of us. Erza, can you head out there and shut it down for now?" Erza nodded at Levy's request and soon left the building to do her mission "As for everyone here, just go about your day. Let's try to hope and pray nothing serious happens." The gang agreed with Levy's decision before separating.
Gajeel wiped his face with his jacket sleeve and crumpled up the wrappings the food was placed in and threw it out in the nearest garbage can, planning to think over some things. He may actually consider giving this Touka lady a piece of his mind; but then again, Shadow Gear has been good to him. Best not to do anything rash. He shrugged off the thoughts and soon made his way to the repair shop for another day of repairs while Levy made her way to the bar, hoping to get some water. Mira leaned in with a knowing smirk on her face, causing Levy to look at her suspiciously.
"Sooo..." she began "How was that night you didn't spend alone?"
The Mayoral Debate was an hour from now and Touka was sitting in her makeup chair, twiddling her thumbs and bouncing her knee in a nervous state. Beads of sweat pooled off her forehead as she thought about the debate that would take place in the next hour. Oh God this was excruciating! Why did she agree to letting the debate continue? Why did she try to be brave and say it was alright to go through with this and know have to face the idea of being killed?
She could've just stayed home, grabbed her favorite dress, wore a blonde wig she had hiding in her closet from last year's Halloween costume and go to that new dance club with the half naked men in cages and forget her troubles. Or she could've ordered Chinese food and watch live car chases all night. Either way, her night would be a lot better if she was doing one of those things.
Touka turned on the television that was in her dressing room and did her best to try and keep her mind distracted from all of this. So far the only thing the tv had was news casters using foul language and lewd suggestions on certain subjects. Jesus this town needed help. She flipped the channel again to one of a man in a submarine, exploring the oceans outside of Oak Town when a large squid appeared and grabbed the submarine.
"OH SHIT!" Touka cursed in a shocked manner. Something she hardly did to be exact "Is that really in our ocean?!" she better get some teams out to find if that really is in there. Otherwise people will die. She flipped the channel again to an anime called Princess Robot Bubblegum which caused Touka to turn the tv off.
"Ugh…. Nothing's working. How can I get through this without feeling like my insides are about to burst? Ugh where are my notes?"
She began to search the folder she brought with her and soon found her notes for the sppech. She read through each statement she wished to say during the mayoral debate and noticed immediately, she stopped writing at the ending of her tax cut answer.
"I must've dozed off." Touka thought as she remembered last night. But as she looked at the page, she suddenly noticed someone else wrote on the paper. It said :"It said :"Order hydrophone and Oxycontin."
Touka studied the handwriting and realized it looked similar to her's; but different in a sense. The way the o's were written and how the e's and p were different. The rest was mainly similar to her own; but otherwise it looked completely different.
"Who the heck wrote on this?" She asked herself as she stared at the handwriting.
Knock knock knock!
"Miss White!" The voice on the other side of the door hollered "Miss White, you're going to be on in five minutes! Are you prepared?"
Touka scattered her papers for a moment before catching them, reorganizing them and getting out of her chair, more or less prepared for this debate.
The Town Hall was filled with chairs, cameras and on the stage were two podiums where Touka and her competitor, Mayor Jose Porla were to debate in front of a live audience. Touka looked at the stage and watched as people filed in the hall. She swallowed a lump she felt forming in her throat before pulling out a heart shaped locket. She quickly opened the small piece of jewelry to reveal a tiny picture of none other than Natsu.
"Natsu…" she breathed "Please lens me your strength tonight! When I win, I'll find you so we can be together! Just wait a little bit longer." She closed the locket and soon began to hear the sounds of people clapping their hands together.
The cameras turned on and automatically went live around the town, allowing everyone in the town to tune in on the channel their local news station would be on. Shadow Gear all sat together in the movie theater they had under the hideout and hooked up to the live television so they could watch. Natsu was at home eating Chinese food and channel surfing when he noticed this appearing and soon the announcer appeared on live television.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of Oak Town." He spoke "Tonight I bring to you our mayoral debate and the public will decide for this upcoming election day for who will be our mayor!!" The crowd clapped in respect "Our first contender is our long time mayor, Mayor Jose Porla!" As he said that a man who looked to be in his fifties with slick back burgundy hair, pointed features and a look on his face as if to say he was up to no good appeared on the stage.
"Next up," the announcer continued "is a woman who's new to the world of politics; but a great hit in the recent polls! Ladies and gentlemen I present to you Miss Touka White!" The crowd erupted into cheers at the announcers words and soon Touka made her way onto the stage, coming face to face with her opponent and shaking his hand.
"Alright!" Spoke the announcer "Let the debates begin!"