DAUNTLESS

Chapter XXVII – Birth of the Tactician

"The skillful tactician may be likened to the shuai-jan. Now the shuai-jan is a snake that is found in the Ch'ang mountains. Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both."
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

- Juvia -

It was the first day of her new mission and Juvia got the message in the indicated place, stuck under a trash bin in the small alley behind the building she currently lived in. She put it in the pocket of her shirt before going back inside and climbing up the stairs. She knew her apartment was safe, but she also knew it was best to always keep her guard up when on a mission. She locked the door when she was inside and checked the street below through the windows. It was still very early, it would have been weird to find someone walking around outside. She sat down on her bed and unfolded the small piece of paper. The code was the same as usual and she read,

«Elfman dead – Mission shortened – Suspicious enemy moves – come back in three days».

Juvia stared at the first two words. Elfman had died. She assumed he had been killed during the rescue mission the others took just before she left for her own mission. Had he been killed by one of her friends? Juvia knew she had no right to judge anybody on that matter, but she still hoped it wasn't the case. Poor Mirajane probably felt miserable...

She didn't know if she felt better now that her mission had been shortened. The obvious good point was that she'd spend less time in the lab, but she would have to hurry to gather some relevant information. Three days weren't enough. She had intended to spend her first day quietly observing things, but she'd have to be more active. With renewed determination, Juvia stepped out of the apartment.

She had to show her pass five times to five different teams of security agents before she reached the lab. Since she was new, she also had to be frisked two times before she was allowed to enter the building. Makarov had anticipated all this, so Juvia had no mike or anything suspicious on her. Instead, she had a miniature camera and a new kind of funny toy hidden in the heels of her shoes. A tall woman with long blond hair came to get her at the entrance.

"You must be miss Pluie," she smiled elegantly. "Welcome to the fifth laboratory. My name is Carabine Loyer and I'm the team leader of the medical team. Since it's your first day here, you'll have a colleague training you."

As she gave her explanations to Juvia, Carabine Loyer made them walk along long corridors flanked by heavy doors. Juvia paid attention to every detail she could see while distractedly listening to the team leader. This woman was all but overflowing with confidence and she seemed to really enjoy the sound of her own voice. They climbed down a long set of stairs and Juvia learned several interesting things without even having to ask.

"… I understand it might sound boring, but it won't last long, don't worry. Starting from tomorrow, you'll be working with the subjects. Of course, you'll always have a colleague with you, so don't worry about making mistakes. If you turn out to be rather skilled, you'll also get to work on the most damaged subjects."

At the end of the corridor, they found two large doors and Carabine opened the right one. The left one looked even larger than any of the others she had seen in the lab. Juvia instinctively frowned, but was back to her neutral self a second later. It was her job to learn everything she could about the subjects and the experiments. If she didn't do anything outstanding, she'd have to wait for the next day to work with the subjects. She couldn't afford wasting so much time.

"The subjects?" she asked. "I assume they're homeless people of some sort. How come they suffer damage from the experiments?"

Miss Loyer chuckled at her question.

"It's good to be this interested in the job," she said, "I remember feeling the same way when I was your age. You'll have to be patient, though."

Juvia did her best to hide her frustration and followed Carabine in a room full of scientific equipment where she met the colleague that would be in charge of teaching her everything she needed to know. He was an old man in his fifties and smelt bad. He took her to the refectory for lunch break and she only managed to get him off her back when she left to go to the toilet. She found the room almost right away, but kept walking as she looked for a specific place.

She walked to the end of the corridor and climbed down a familiar set of stairs that led her to another, darker corridor. She frowned. The place really looked creepy when the lights weren't on. Gulping, she walked to the two doors. She knew the one on the right led to the underground lab where she had spent all morning. The door on the left was the reason of her presence. It was a large door made of some really thick looking metal. As expected, Juvia didn't hear a sound coming from the other side, even when she pressed her ear against it.

She took a step back and studied the lock. She was almost 100% sure that the subjects were being kept behind this door, and the complicated locking system almost confirmed this. Juvia took a moment to focus on the sounds around her and make sure she was alone before taking off her left shoe. She opened the tiny capsule hidden in the heel and took out the even tinier robot hidden in it, putting it on the lock. Juvia had no idea how it worked, but she knew thanks to Mest's explanations that the miniature robot would be able to crack the lock. The tiny thing suddenly grew cute little spider legs and entered the lock. It clicked open a second later.

Juvia checked her watch, she had ten minutes left before the afternoon shift. With a last look behind her, she opened the heavy door and entered the room.

- Lucy -

When the Academy officially became a traitors' lair, Makarov thought it was necessary for his kids to have a place where they could gather and relax. Almost everybody had helped arrange the hall with sofas and armchairs, thick, soft carpets and colorful cushions in front of a large television. They called this place the Foyer. Lucy and the others were sitting there in silence while the officers were having a meeting in the general's office. Lucy was sitting on the largest couch with Levy's head on her laps, the small woman's legs resting on Gajeel's laps. Sting was sitting on a particularly large cushion while his brother sat on the carpet, his back lying against Mest's legs.

"I'm out of booze," Cana groaned. "And I had four cans. How long are they planning to have us wait?"

Bacchus groaned his agreement, but kept quiet.

"Shouldn't be much longer," Loke said, glancing at Gray. "They probably didn't know about the trap before they sent Juvia on this reconnaissance mission. Things just got much more complicated."

Gray groaned in annoyance and let out a humorless snort.

"Things aren't complicated at all," he retorted. "They should cancel her mission and order her to come back."

Gray was an introvert, but even so, everyone knew about his feelings for the nurse. It was probably killing him to be unable to go there and take her place. Juvia had shown everyone during training just how strong and smart she really was, they didn't need to worry that much about her. But now that the Octagon was hunting rebels among their own comrades, Juvia's mission could very well be life-threatening.

"I don't think they should call her back," Gajeel said. He received dark looks from almost everyone, but ignored them and went on, "she infiltrated one of the Octagon's main labs, just imagine what kind of crucial information she'll have access to. We can't afford to pass such a great opportunity."

Gray glared at him and the look in his eyes sent icy shivers down Lucy's back.

"Her life's much more important than any information we could get from this shitty mission," he growled lowly. "If anything happens to her, I'll fucking blow the whole building up."

Bacchus smirked at this and Lucy rolled her eyes when he answered,

"Atta boy," he cheered. "That's what a real man sounds like."

Lucy froze and all her friends did as well. Bacchus hadn't spent much time with them, he couldn't have known about Elfman's signature line. In her head, she still could see his large grin and hear his raspy voice as he yelled silly lines about being a real man. She gulped down the knot that had formed in her throat and did nothing to break the heavy silence that fell upon the room.

A moment later, they heard a door open and familiar voices approached them from the other end of the corridor. Natsu and Erza were the first ones to enter the Foyer, all eyes on them. Gray jumped from his seat and stared at the commander. Levy sat up to give him some space and the pink haired man took a seat between her and Lucy.

"So?" Gray pressed.

The commander glanced at everyone and sighed.

"We had to make decisions," he warned. "Some of them you won't like. Starting with the general mission orders, rescue missions won't be conducted anymore..."

This first information was enough to make the room seem darker and colder. Unfortunately, Lucy and her friends weren't done with the bad news. The commander told them that Mirajane would be part of the team that would go retrieve Elfman's body, but none of them were allowed to accompany them. They also learned that Juvia's mission wouldn't be cancelled, only shortened.

"Shortened?" Gray growled. "We have no idea what's going on with the Octagon, but she's not allowed to come back?"

"It would be even more dangerous for her to run from there now," Erza explained. "Our enemies would get suspicious of her."

Gray growled in annoyance and shook his head.

"She's already in danger," he retorted. "At least, tell us where she is. There's no need to keep her mission a secret anymore."

Erza sent him a dark look that was almost enough to calm him down.

"It's precisely because she's in danger that we need to keep her whereabouts a secret," she countered. "Don't worry, though, if something goes wrong, the robot Mest gave her will send us a signal."

The young man shook his head once more and snickered.

"Really?" he groaned. "Awesome, I feel totally reassured now."

Lucy kind of stopped listening to their bickering and tried to think about everything the commander had told them. They wouldn't be conducting any more rescue missions, they weren't allowed to leave the base if not necessary, Mira was running down a dangerous path for the sake of revenge, Juvia's mission was much more dangerous than they had imagined...

"Things are getting out of our control," she whispered to herself.

It wasn't that she was losing hope or feeling sorry for herself because everything was crashing down around her, though. Saying this out loud, even if it was just a whisper, made it easier for her to think about all this as a sole problem. Thinking of it in terms she could easily understand, it was like the mechanism of a clock: a gear had been misplaced and now the whole structure was falling apart. You could think of it as a demonstration of the butterfly effect. At some point, something must have gone wrong and they failed to notice it.

"Alright, everybody get up," the commander ordered.

The young man received a lot of confused looks, but nobody moved.

"If you want to feel miserable, I'll help you," he smirked. "Training time. None of you will have any energy left to get depressed after that."

While almost everyone groaned at this, Gajeel smirked back and rose to his feet to face the commander.

"Anything you can do, I can do it with the shrimp on my back," he assured with a cocky grin.

"I take the bet," the commander immediately agreed. "If you lose, I'll have you follow me around all day long with a leash around the neck."

Lucy and the others laughed at the sight of Gajeel's smirk fading from his face upon hearing the stupid condition for the bet. Loke suggested that Gajeel should have something to gain from this if he were to win and it was decided that the commander would have to let the girls give him a makeover if he lost.

Since things got this funny and everyone desperately needed to distract themselves, it didn't take long for all of them to run to the field. Since Gray also wanted to make a bet with Jet, more bets were made to make things more interesting. Gray wanted to know if he was faster than Jet, the loser of the race would have to wear high heels for a whole day. Sting challenged Erza to see who was the strongest. The race came first and Jet actually had the nerve to wait for Gray near the finish line to cross it at the very last moment. Sting did a pretty decent job considering his opponent was Erza, but the woman knocked him out with a high kick.

Gray and Sting both lost, but Gajeel actually managed to do everything Natsu could do even with Levy on his back. It was really funny to watch, Levy looked like a baby koala clinging to her mother. Eventually, though, Natsu decided to play it dirty. He knew very well that Levy was afraid of heights, so he decided to climb up a tree. Gajeel tried to follow him, but Levy wouldn't stop slapping him and threatening to kill him if he made her climb that damn tree, so he lost.

"Alright, that's it for the kid games," Cana beamed. "Lucy, let's see if you can drink more than me. The loser will have to do a strip tease dance in front of everybody."

It was nearly impossible to hear the commander's protests among all the cheers and laughs, but Lucy heard the ''Hell no!'' he roared and actually considered accepting the bet just to tease him. Something prevented her from doing it, though. A light beeping sound that came from one of their friends.

Everyone turned to Mest as the young man pulled something small out of his pocket. He frowned at it and sent his friends a worried look.

"That's the signal," he explained. "Juvia's been caught."

- Juvia -

The door fortunately opened without making a sound, but Juvia was quick to close it behind her. The room she had just entered was dark, only lit by blue neon tubes. Despite the darkness of the room, the spy managed to make out several rows of jars sitting on long tables and another door on the other side of the room.

Carefully, Juvia approached the tables to inspect the contents of the jars. At first, she couldn't really recognize what was floating in the eerie liquid substance inside, but she found handwritten notes on the longest table and started reading them as quickly as she could. She was quick to understand that they were medical files and belonged to very young people, but they all seemed to be in very good condition. Juvia opened the most recent file, the one on top of the pile, and read it. This one had an additional comment on the first page,

'Very useful subject; blood compatibility: high; complex tissues: promising. Still not perfect compatibility; need of material from subject 13'

Juvia frowned and closed the file. This one was the 117th. She gulped when she understood that the files belonged to the guinea pigs. From what she found in the other files, most of them were children, teenagers or young adults. Thanks to Mest's miniature camera, Juvia took pictures of the files, making sure to properly capture the names of the subjects and of the researchers, the dates and every valuable information she could get.

On the other end of the room, she found a large desk on which sat several thick books. Juvia opened the one on top of the pile and frowned almost immediately. Thanks to Porlyusica and Erza's lessons, she was able to understand the medical lingo right away. With this book and the files, it didn't even take her a minute to understand what this lab was being used for. The only remaining question was why in the world would the Octagon allow such a thing?

Juvia glanced at her watch and saw that she had less than four minutes left before the end of lunch break. She hesitated. With the pictures she had taken of the files and the book, she had enough evidence. Her mission was already a success, she didn't need to take any more risks. But Juvia was smart and had a very reliable instinct that she couldn't ignore that easily. She was absolutely sure that the subjects were being kept on the other side of that second door. After all, inside the creepy jars all around her were their organs...

"Just a glance," she thought, "I won't even enter the room."

With a heavy sigh, the nurse pushed the door open. The very first thing she heard were sobs. She gulped. It was so dark in there that she couldn't see anything at all. She opened the door wider and the sobs turned into cries as the weak blue light struggled to enter the room. If she squinted her eyes and focused very hard on the shapes in the room, she could somehow make out a row of large boxes, beds and tables, but it was way too dark to see them clearly. Where were the cries coming from?

With a last glance behind her, Juvia braced herself and fully entered the room. Surprisingly, her eyes adjusted to the darkness much faster now that she was in the room. She hesitantly took a few steps forward, careful not to walk on the large metal roots made of entangled cables. When she finally found the tables and machines to which the cables were connected, Juvia froze.

The subject lying in front of her couldn't be older than six and Juvia couldn't tell if he was alive or not. He was breathing, but covered in large, recent scars that let the spy know he had just undergone different types of surgery. The most shocking thing about the sight of this boy was the cross shaped scar on his shaved head. Even without being a professional surgeon, Juvia could tell that this boy couldn't be saved anymore. If she were to check the content of the file concerning this boy, she'd probably find that he had barely any organ left.

"What if I had been sent here a few days earlier," she wondered. "How many of them could have been saved if I had been sent here just a few days earlier?"

Gritting her teeth and clenching her fists, Juvia turned away from the table and her eyes fell on the boxes piled against the walls. They were in fact cages, each of them containing three or four subjects. Some of them were crying, most of them weren't even conscious. It couldn't wait. Juvia knew she didn't have the authority to change the mission's objectives, but she would be damned if she walked out of there without doing anything for these people.

"The robot," she whispered to herself, "where's the robot?"

Mest had told her that she could use the tiny robot to send them a signal and request for reinforcements if needed. This little thing was really useful, she'd have to thank Mest for everything.

"Are you perhaps looking for this?"

Juvia blenched and turned around to find a familiar silhouette on the doorstep. The very blond and very antipathetic Carabine Loyer was smirking at her, holding a minuscule object between two fingers. Juvia gulped when the woman dropped the robot and slammed her heel on it, efficiently destroying it. Juvia felt bad for Mest, she figured it had taken him a very long time to make it.

"I thought you looked suspicious," the blond harpy chuckled. "Your biggest mistake was to underestimate me."

Juvia inwardly smirked. Carabine's biggest mistake was to underestimate Mest: when she stepped on the robot, she activated an emergency device that sent a signal to the Academy.

- Lucy -

"I'll do it," Gajeel said. "I'm the strongest of you all, it gotta be me."

"No, I will," Jet countered. "I'm the fastest guy, they won't even see me."

"Why the heck do you think we'll only send one person?" Erza groaned.

"That's right," Makarov agreed. "We need to pick at least five recruits to form a small team that will infiltrate the lab and rescue Juvia."

"Why only five?" Loke asked. "Why don't we send fifty guys to raid the building?"

Makarov and Erza exchanged an embarrassed look and Gildarts awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. The latter was finally back from his reconnaissance mission and would take part in the upcoming fights.

"Because we can't afford to sacrifice this much soldiers," Mira answered. The colonel was almost back to her normal self, but she wouldn't smile anymore and it pained Lucy to no end. "If we send five people, it will be a quick, discreet operation. If we were to send a whole unit, we would be in for a bloodbath."

Unsurprisingly, everyone volunteered to be part of the rescue team, but the five who were chosen were Gajeel, Gray, Jet, Sting and Dan.

"We'll spend the next three hours planning the operation," Makarov said. "You're going there tonight."

They were in Makarov's office, but since there were only two chairs and no one wanted to show any sign of weariness, they were all standing around the large desk. Lucy watched in silence as the five of them were then given tracking devices, protective gears, assault rifles, daggers, pistols and silencers, transceivers, mikes and action cameras. She would have given anything to be part of the team, but she respected Makarov's decision.

"We'll keep in touch with you at all times," Mest explained. "Everything you see, we'll see it on the screens. We'll be able to give you directions and you guys will be able to answer us and report your situation at any time."

"Two trucks with reinforcements, weapons and a medical team will be waiting for you near the bridge," Gildarts added. "There are thirty seven employees in the building plus ten security agents with handguns. Here are the blueprints. Two of you will enter through this backdoor, the other three will enter through here and will mostly scout the area. The real danger's situated in this area, where two of you will have to break in."

The explanations went on and on, but Lucy couldn't really focus on what they were saying. She was staring at the map, frowning in confusion. Why did she feel like she'd been there before?

"And that's about it," Laxus ended. "Any question?"

The operation had been planned way too quickly, they needed much more time and preparations. But they couldn't afford to wait any longer.

"Yes," Dan said. "Are we allowed to kill them at first glance?"

A heavy silence fell upon the room as all eyes fell on Makarov. The old man contracted his jaw and glared at the map for a moment before answering,

"Yes," he said. "Shoot to kill."

Lucy glanced at Gray. He hadn't said a word at all during the meeting, but Lucy could read him like an open book. He was more than ready for this and he would have done what was necessary to bring Juvia back, whether he had Makarov's official authorization or not.

oOo

When the car and the trucks left, Lucy and the others formed pairs and decided on the turns. Lucy and Loke would take the first turn and keep an eye on the screens and keep the officers updated on the situation. Not the most exciting mission ever, but since none of them were allowed to go to the battlefield, they'd have to make do with what they were given. When they were both accustomed to the various types of monitoring equipment, Loke decided to play with the transceivers.

"Gajeel, your cam's nosing down. Can't you even adjust it properly, dumbass?"

Lucy heard a mumbled ''Fuck off'', but Gajeel did move the cam. Of course, they wouldn't be able to play around like that for much longer, but Lucy figured it was a good idea to ease the atmosphere a bit.

"You guys all have daggers, right?" Loke asked. "Can somebody please cut Jet's hair? This ponytail's seriously ridiculous..."

Lucy laughed as she listened to the fights that ensued: Jet protesting as Sting and Dan both seemed to be willing to play hairdressers. She then glanced at Loke. She heard from Erza that his condition wasn't getting any better, but you'd have trouble believing it when he looked like this. He was laughing like a child playing a prank on his siblings. His smile widened when he caught her eyes.

"Gotta hang up, guys," he chuckled. "Lucy's staring at me like I'm the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. I think it's time to make a move!"

Lucy laughed wholeheartedly at that and her friends' answers didn't help her calm down at all.

"Shut up, pervert."

"We didn't need to hear that..."

"Don't you dare lay a hand on my Lulu!"

"Natsu's gonna kill you both, dumbasses..."

"I'm starving..."

The door of the monitoring room opened and Lucy turned to find the commander entering the room, hands in his pockets. He raised a brow at them as he slumped in a chair beside Lucy.

"And here I thought you guys would be all tensed up," he chuckled. "What's so funny?"

Loke winked at Lucy and smirked as he answered.

"We were flirting," he said. "She's gonna fall for me anytime now."

The commander shook his head and smiled.

"Right," he said. "I don't know why I bothered asking."

"What about you, commander?" Lucy asked. "Why didn't you go with them?"

Lucy only meant to chat, she wanted him to stay longer and was willing to talk about anything to give him a good reason to stay. Had she known the commander's eyes would turn this dark, she probably would have picked another subject of conversation.

"I wish I could have," he sighed. "But Mira's right, we can't afford to send all of our best fighters there..."

Lucy knew how he felt, she was dying to go as well. She stared at the screens and her eyes stayed on Sting's cam. He was looking out the window and the streets looked kind of familiar somehow. The trucks weren't with them anymore, they were probably heading for the bridge where they'd stay on standby.

"It's a shame that Lucy can't bear being away from me," Loke sighed, "I would have gone there to kick their asses."

Lucy faintly heard the boys laughing and teasing each other, but she couldn't take her eyes off the screens anymore. The car was nearing an eery industrial building complex they couldn't see very well because of the large barbed wire fence surrounding the area. Thanks to the scouts' work, they knew where the security cameras and where to hide the car.

"It's starting," she said to get her comrades' attention.

Loke and the commander immediately stopped fooling around and came to sit right by her side to look at the screens. The boys followed the plan and two of them, Jet and Gray, headed for the back of the complex while the others ran for the other hidden entrance. Lucy was so tense it almost felt like she was there with them.

As expected of the five of them and thanks to their amazing protective gears, they managed to climb up the fence an reach their entrance points without getting caught by the cameras or the guards. Lucy held her breath as she stared at the screens. Gajeel and the others were in a huge storeroom that wasn't lighted at all, but she couldn't tell where exactly Jet and Gray were. The latter two were in a very old stone corridor flanked by heavy doors.

"This area wasn't detailed on the blueprints," Gray said.

Indeed, if Lucy's memory was correct, Jet and Gray were supposed to find a storeroom similar to the one Gajeel and the rest found.

"That's fine," the commander took the mike to speak, "go on as we planned. We'll stay in touch to guide you."

"Roger."

The boys walked down the corridor till they found themselves facing another larger door. Lucy saw Gray raise his hand on the screen, but the commander stopped him.

"Check two of the side doors before opening this one," he ordered. "Jet, cover him."

Without a second of hesitation, Jet and Gray went to stand in front of the closest door, on the left side of the corridor. Jet added the suppressor to his gun and raised it to cover Gray as the latter opened the door without wasting a minute. When no enemy or monster came running at them, Lucy released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Inside the room, a lot of metal boxes were gathering dust on large shelves. Jet opened one of them and Lucy heard him groan.

"Medical files, apparently," he said. "I don't understand jack shit about that."

"Same here," Gray added as he was checking another box.

"Ok," the commander answered. "Go on."

The boys walked out of the room and closed the door before going for the one right in front of them, opening it with the same method they had used for the first one. This room looked a lot like the first one, but they were huge books instead of boxes on the shelves. On the screen, Lucy watched as Gray took one and opened it. She couldn't see the letters because of the position of the camera, but Gray was quick to react.

"Fucking hell," he muttered.

"What is it?" Lucy asked. "We can't see what's written."

"And your smart comment isn't much help," Loke added.

Surprisingly, it wasn't Gray that answered.

"It's a trade register," Jet breathed. "They're all trade registers."

Lucy frowned and glanced at her comrades, they both looked as confused as she was. What was so bad about these trade registers? Though, why did they even need trade registers in a laboratory?

"Come on, guys," the commander groaned, "we don't have much time. Give us the information we need and go on."

A minute of silence followed and Gray spoke up, his voice unnaturally neutral as he gave them what they wanted.

"The registers contain detailed information about organ trade," he said. "Blood type, age and medical condition of the donor, price of each organ, name of the buyer, and so on."

Lucy's eyes widened in horror as she turned to stare at the commander. His jaw was contracted, but he didn't really look that surprised. Loke had turned really pale, though.

"I feel sick," he said, "and it's got nothing to do with my condition..."

Through Jet's camera, Lucy could take a good look at the room. They were several thousands of registers on the shelves and they were probably more in the other rooms. The atmosphere in the room was so tense it was almost impossible to breath properly until the commander rose from his chair and went to get the phone.

"Loke, go to Makarov's office and report everything we just learnt," he ordered. "I'll call the drivers of the trucks to tell them to get ready. We need to come back with some of these registers."

Loke nodded and got out of the room. Lucy thought that there was a time not that long ago when he would have run out of the room at full speed. While Natsu was on the phone, Lucy told Jet and Gray to leave this room open and prepare as many registers as they could.

"Leave them here for now," she said, "you'll take them with you when you run away."

"Roger."

When Natsu came back to sit in front of the screens, Gray was opening the largest door at the end of the corridor. This time, the door led to a room full of scientific equipment that seemed to be used to check blood samples and things like that. They'd probably learn more about that from Juvia, but they were most certainly checking the compatibility between the donors and receivers in this room. The boys quickly reached the other side of the room and opened the door. This time they found themselves facing a large, modern corridor leading to a long set of stairs leading up. Lucy froze.

"There's another door right by the one we just opened," Gray said. "Want us to check it out?"

The commander hesitated, but shook his head, something Gray obviously couldn't see.

"Later, if we have enough time," he said. "Go on."

Lucy didn't say anything, but her heart hammered in her chest. She had no idea why, but she was absolutely sure that they needed to open this door.

"Maybe they should open the door," she whispered without needing to, "just to check?"

The commander rose a brow and gave her a questioning look.

"Why?"

"I don't know... just an intuition."

As expected, Natsu didn't want to take any risk that didn't need to be taken. He only said that they'd open the door on their way back if they had enough time. Jet and Gray climbed up the stairs and found that the new corridors finally matched the blueprints they had seen. They managed to check the whole floor without getting caught, but found no trace of Juvia.

At some point, as Lucy was keeping an eye on Gajeel's team, she saw a guard enter Dan's field of view. Before he could do anything, though, Sting knocked him out with one of his famous heavy punches. They tied his hands behind his back and shoved a floorcloth in his mouth before hiding him in a cupboard.

"We need to hurry up and get out of here," Gajeel said. "Now that one of them went missing, they'll soon understand that something's up."

That was true, but...

"But we still haven't found Juvia," Lucy retorted.

"Do you want the lot of us to get caught too?" Gajeel snapped. "We've been looking through the whole building for more than half an hour, it's getting too dangerous!"

Before the commander could say something smart that would most probably have helped the lot of them calm down, Lucy clenched her fists and let her fear get the better of her.

"Are you saying that you'd rather run back here with your tail between your legs?" she roared. "Do you have any idea what they'll make her go through if you come back without her!?"

"I never fucking said that," he roared back. "I'm telling you bastards to call the others back so I can go berserk in there!"

Before Lucy could react to his words, the worst thing that could have happened happened. A guard found them and managed to send a message to his colleagues to warn them. A loud siren was heard immediately after. Damn it all to hell, this was officially the worst day of Lucy's life. Beside her, the commander cursed and slammed his fists on the table. He looked pissed off to no end. Reluctantly, he took the mike and gave his last order.

"All of you retreat immediately," he groaned. "It's an order."

The five of them protested, but Gray's answer was the loudest of all.

"What!?" he roared. "Don't fuck with me, I ain't getting out of here without her!"

The commander massaged the bridge of his nose with two fingers and sighed. He had expected this situation, but it didn't mean that he had control over it.

"I know what I'm asking is cruel," he said, "but you have to understand we don't have a choice any..."

"Would you leave if it was Lucy?" Gray interrupted him. "If you were in my place and Lucy was in Juvia's, would you leave without her?"

The commander froze and clenched his fists. As an officer, he obviously should have answered that yes, he would have left without her. He needed to be a model for the others, someone they knew they could trust and rely on. He was willing to put his life on the line, he'd let himself get caught to protect the others, he'd go through hell for his comrades and give up on his life if needed. But he couldn't sacrifice Lucy. He would give up on absolutely everything and anything but her.

Lucy figured this specific topic brought back his memories of the night of the explosion and she gently placed her hand on his arm, encouraging with a soft smile and a nod. Before the commander could answer, though, someone else appeared on the screen. A tall woman with long blond hair wearing a white blouse was running toward them, but she froze when she saw them properly. Her eyes widened and she turned back to run away. Not quickly enough, though. Lucy had recognized her.

"Jet, catch this woman," she roared in the mike. "Catch her and take her keys!"

Lucy silently thanked Makarov for putting Jet in Gray's team as he was much too fast for this bitch. He caught Carabine Loyer in less than ten seconds and threw her to the floor before taking her keys.

"I've got them," he said. "What do I do now?"

"Give the keys to Gray and punch her lights out for me," she ordered.

Jet hesitated and glanced at the woman without moving an inch.

"What? Are you serious? Why?"

Gray didn't ask any question, though. He took the keys from Jet's hand and did punch the woman's face with almost all his strength.

"Did it feel good?" he asked.

"Very much so. Everyone, listen to me. Gajeel, Dan, Sting, go to the ground floor and gather with Jet in the fourth section of the blueprints. You'll see a long set of stairs there, get down and follow Jet to the room of the registers. Take as many as you can and run away from here."

The commander frowned at her and silently asked her for an explanation, which she gladly gave him right away.

"Gray, turn back and run to the second corridor you saw, the one with the stairs leading down," she said. "I know where Juvia is."

End of chapter 27

Ayo! It's been so long since I last updated, I owe you guys an apology. Life's been awfully busy and I got sick, but I'm back! Don't worry, the story goes on!

A few changes will occur, though: first, I'm not dividing the story into two parts anymore, it will be one simple story much like the ones everyone on the site publishes. Second, I might write shorter chapters to make sure that you guys won't have to wait this long again! I'm sorry if these changes bother you, but I really think it'll be much simpler for me to write this story now!

Once again, to everyone reading the story and sending messages to support and help me: thank you from the very bottom of my heart! I read absolutely every review and even though I can't always answer them, it's always a real pleasure to hear from you all!