They had been in the limousine for more than an hour, all the way to Era, and Erza still found herself touching the wood and the leather seats every now and then. It was unbelievable to her. Some of the most expensive materials that she had ever seen on armor where here, not to protect, but simply to add ambiance. Even some that required magic to assemble where present.
Speaking of magic. Such a vehicle needed a chauffeur, and the chauffeur needed to be a mage. And since the car was extremely heavy, it needed a fairly good level mage. They had decided to not hire one, so now Juvia was doing all the driving. Erza was silently glad that they had not brought Natsu with them. She would not want to pay for the cleaning of all these surfaces.
Lucy did not seem to care for any of that. She seemed more bored than anything. Erza caught her looking at her and smiling.
"You seem very impressed." said the stellar mage.
Erza blushed, but couldn't really hide it. "It is meant to be impressive. Being impressed is an appropriate response. All this…" she waved her hand around them "…and just for one person? I think it's impressive."
Lucy nodded. "You're right. It's just, my father had one of these, and I never liked it. You mustn't eat, you mustn't drink, don't be loud, don't listen to tapes about a talking elephant and his best friend…" She seemed lost in memory for a second. "Anyway, Erza, why does this impress you so? You spend way more on your armor. You can pay for all this easily. In fact, you are paying for this right now, remember? Thanks for that, by the way!"
"I know. But it's all so… wasteful. See here: Carbon fiber. It takes a team of six mages three days to make anything out of it. It's extremely light and extremely strong. And all it does here is cover the ashtray. My armor all serves a purpose, because I need it for my job." She did not like the smile she could see on Lucy's face. "Yes, all of them! …yes, even the ones I rarely wear! Oh, shut up!"
She took a second to compose herself. "Okay, I like to show off, too. But I show off my skill, and the armor is a part of that. This just shows off money."
Lucy nodded, then reclined in her seat. "But I have to admit: It's still kind of nice, isn't it?"
Erza agreed. "Juvia, how is it for you? And are you sure you agree with the plan?" "Juvia does not care about the car. All she cares about is Gray-sama." she replied in her most monotone voice. There were not a lot of things that could shock Erza, but this tone always made her worry a bit. Juvia continued in the same tone. "…although she does notice that these cars are not bought by or for the comfort of their drivers."
They turned around a corner into a slightly less nice part of town. There were a lot of warehouses and some factories. In the middle, someone had built a management building that was overflowing with ornaments, rivalling the palaces in the city center. It was there that Juvia steered them.
Lucy fiddled with her clothes again. "You know, if you're uncomfortable like that, I'm sure I can get you some sort of suit that should fit you fine" said Erza.
"Thank you, but I think this is better." said Lucy. Erza was not entirely convinced of that. While she was dressed in a suit that was not cheap, but not standing out either, Lucy's outfit was weird, to put it mildly. It was based on a standard business outfit, but still included her whip. Her blazer was open so that one could see her belly button. Unlike Erza, who had a briefcase, Lucy had not brought anything else with her. "Yes, it's not exactly formal wear" said the summoner, "but remember who we're dealing with. De Monza likes a arrogance, because it matches his style. We have to look as if we own this place, or at least one just like him."
Lucy thought for a moment, then added "Please don't punch him. No, that's not right. Please punch him only after this mission is through. You're going to want to."
Juvia pulled into the parking space with careless ease, as if driving huge limousines was her hobby. Maybe it was. Erza realized that she did not know a lot about the water mage, other than her infatuation with Gray. Lucy was opening the door as they heard a loud bang.
"Was that a shot?" asked Lucy.
"It was too quiet. Maybe far away, or indoors."
None of the guards on the parking space seemed to care. They were still busy pretending that they didn't care about them. Juvia did not say anything, but Erza could see what appeared to be literal steam coming from her ears. She wondered if she should say anything, but by then a portier arrived to greet them. Lucy and Erza got out of the car and entered the building.
The doors were large and the atrium was larger. Statues were standing around and pictures were hanging on the wall, all with a blatant disregard for money or taste. All the columns lining the room were covered in brass, polished enough to almost look like gold. Erza realized that she was meant to be impressed, but instead was a bit disgusted. Lucy noticed her behavior.
"Not impressed now? I'm just wondering because you were in the car."
"The car was basically us showing off. I don't like that. But I do know criminals showing off."
Both whispered so that the portier did not hear them. Around them, a few guards were placed. All of them were staring at Lucy, but trying to hide it. As far as Erza could tell, she seemed to enjoy the attention. It was weird, really. Normally, the young mage was always the first to panic in any given situation. But organizing, making a plan or, as now, following it, all really calmed her down. It made a lot of sense that she was a stellar mage, all things considered.
A friendly looking girl at the reception handed both of them badges and ushered them to the elevator and told them to go the top floor.
The loading bay at the bottom of De Monza's warehouse was mostly disused this time of day. Only the highest value items were ever delivered here to begin with, and right now, there was one empty carriage and maybe half a dozen guards protecting the entrance. It was obvious that they were bored.
The silence of the afternoon was suddenly interrupted with a loud bang and a flushing noise, as a fire hydrant exploded. This was outside the guard's experience or responsability, but on the plus side, it was something happening. They went to check it out, leaving behind Carl to guard door.
Someone like Carl didn't mind. In fact, he was glad they were gone, so he could take another sip from his thermos flask. He always told his colleagues that it was just tea, just like he told himself that he didn't have a problem. Whether either believed him was up for debate. But as he opened the flask, the "Tea" jumped at him. He could barely think "huh?" before he got it hit so hard that he fell down, unconscious.
From behind him, a young woman with blue hair emerged, now completely unseen. Juvia strolled over to Carl and checked his breathing. There did not seem to be a problem, so she quickly took his keys and let herself in through the back door.
Lucy and Erza left the elevator and entered a huge office. If anything possible, it was even more tasteless. On the walls were pictures, mostly a random but expensive collection. There were also bookshelves with rows of books that had probably never been read. The lone desk was the size of an average river boat. Behind it, in a swivelling chair almost twice his size, sat De Monza.
He seemed about the same age as Lucy, which felt weird. Many of the guards on the way here were older. His outfit was eerily similar to Lucy's: Based on a business suit, but worn way too casually. Erza had to hand it to her friend: She really did know this guy well enough, even if her father and him had always been rivals. However, there was a big difference: Lucy's smile was always warm and welcoming. Da Monza's smile, on the other hand, was outright creepy.
"Lucy Heartfilia! What a pleasure to see you again!" He looked over at Erza. "I'm confused. Should I be offended that you brought a bodyguard, or that you only brought one? Even if it is the mighty Titania."
Erza wanted to answer, but Da Monza just continued. "Anyway, Miss Heartfilia. Have you rethought my marriage offer? I told you, it's still standing."
That was something that Erza had not expected. Lucy, on the other hand, had. "The answer is still ‚no way in hell, creep'. Hope you don't mind."
He laughed. "Oh, Lucy, you hurt me so! But on the other hand, the situation has changed on my end, too. After all, the Heartfilia money and influence is gone, so what good would an alliance do me?" He paused for a moment, then looked directly at Lucy. "Or is it?"
"That's what my tax return says" replied Lucy. She also gave her best impression of an evil grin. "I can positively say that my dad is bankrupt."
De Monza stroked his chin. "Well, there have always been rumors, of course. A falling out between father and daughter. A magical guild war started out of that, lots of bad blood, very poignant. Then the father's money is suddenly gone. A few people are wondering what ‚prodigal daughter' really means. I do know you're not as naïve about your father's business as he always wanted you to be."
"What can I say? I'm naturally curious!"
"And now, word on the street has it that you're looking to invest, all on the hush hush, but big sums. That's interesting. And I've always found you more pleasant than your dad. He was… he always insisted on ‚honor' everywhere, the kind of honor. And in the end, he just kept doing what he wanted to anyway. I never understood that."
Lucy nodded. "Let's just say he didn't have my inheritance's best interests at heart. Someone needed to separate the two, for their own good."
Suddenly, a phone rang out. De Monza excused himself and picked up. "Trouble? What trouble? Calm down, man, I can't understand you!" Erza tensed, and she could see Lucy doing the same thing, too. Juvia had promised to be discreet, but could she be trusted when Gray was on the line? De Monza continued.
"Ten inmates? What the hell are you guys doing all day down there! Yes, yes, whatever, just contain it!"
Now Erza was really uncomfortable. Whatever this was, this didn't sound like part of their plan at all. And if the plan fell apart, they'd have a real problem. De Monza, on the other hand, put the phone down and smiled at them again.
"I'm sorry. You just can't get the help these days. Sometimes I wish I could just kill them, but then the others will be all like ‚oh my god, who will be next?' instead of working. Anyway, we'll fix that soon. Now, before we go any further, I'd like some proof that you actually have the kind of money we're talking about here."
Lucy nodded to Erza, who got a piece of paper out of her briefcase. It had all the necessary bank stamps and logos. Reedus had really outdone himself this time. De Monza studied it and was impressed.
"Not bad. So you funnelled it through the guild? That's some good tactics. You know, I always liked your father's sense for strategy, and you seem to have inherited that."
Erza could tell that Lucy was not happy about the comparison, but he continued.
"Now, you know we have one of your guys, right? One…" he looked at a piece of paper on his desk. "Gray Full… wait, is that his real name? Like, actually?"
"Yes, it is, and that's what got me interested. I don't like you abducting my people." said Lucy, and Erza knew that the outrage wasn't acted. The next part was, though. "But, you're willing to basically attack the Heartfilias outright? Either you have a lot of guts, or there is money to be made here. I know you don't have real guts, and I hear you're looking for investors. So I want in on this."
"Oh Lucy, always with the teasing! There is some debt to be paid first, though. You guys flooded one of my warehouses, remember?"
"The girl who did that has a crush on Gray. Don't worry, she'll be punished. I've got something in mind involving a scredrive crush, or maybe technique 35… Hell, if you want, keep the guy and I'll give you the girl, too."
It felt wrong to hear Lucy say that, no matter how often they had discussed the tactics in the car. Lucy, too, needed a moment pause, but then continued.
"But for anything else: You leave my people alone. It's not good for morale to allow stuff like that."
De Monza smiled. "I think we can work out something along those lines. Now, would you like something to drink?"
The guard was walking down the corridor, seeming in no hurry. Another guard passed him and asked "Hey, you seen the game yet?"
"Later! I gotta…" he pointed at the bathroom door.
"Alright. See you tonight at the bar, Carl!"
The bathroom was empty. If anyone had been in here, he would have been stunned by what he'd have seen: ‚Carl' started to melt and dissolve into clear water. A few seconds later, the water formed into a young woman with blue hair.
Juvia looked at the sink, then smelled at it. She frowned shook her head. With one hand, she held her nose. The other she put into the sink and let it dissolve into water. Within a few seconds, her entire body was gone down the drain.
"Put that drink down, Miss Heartfilia! We can't trust Mister De Marco!" Oh my god, am I overdoing it? wondered Erza. Yes, she was overdoing it, wasn't she? Or should she be more outraged? "You are a foul swine!" she said, pointing at the mobster.
"Down, girl." said Lucy, releasing Erza from her misery. "Be quiet now." She turned to De Marco. "Sorry for that. But, maybe she's right. I think we should wait with the toasts until we know what we're talking about and whether we can trust each other."
De Monza nodded. "Well, I guess I'd do the same in your position. And your people are loyal, even if they are a bit over-zealous. Anyway, I assume you want to know what it is we're doing here, right?"
"That's why we came. If you've got some talk full of numbers that you give investors, skip it, we'll do that later. Right now, I want to see it all for myself.
The young woman looked lost and was probably new. Certainly, Sergio had never seen her here before, but his boss was always bringing in new pretty women, whether they were qualified or not. Not that Sergio minded, of course.
"Hello Darling! Are you lost? Come on, let Sergio show you the way! Where do you need to go?" He thought a bit, then added. "Just not the basement. Bit of a problem there."
The woman seemed grateful for the help. "Oh, thank you, Mister Sergio! Juvia is actually doing an inspection of water pipes in the building. What kind of problem is it that you are having? Is it dangerous?" "It's something with all the science guys down there. Who knows what they're up to. But wait, an inspection? Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Juvia does not know", she said. "But maybe it was because there is no inspection."
Before he could react, a jet of water hit him in the face and left him unconscious.
The elevator's sign was reading "-4" when it finally stopped. Erza and Lucy stepped outside into a lobby that was nowhere near as massive as the one above. What surprised Erza the most was how it all looked like a country home. She and Lucy both stared out of windows that they knew couldn't acutally be there.
"Ah, yes, our virtual windows. Magic, of course. Apparently it improves the mental state of the patients, or something like that. Now, where is…"
Suddenly, they heard a man shouting loudly in a weird language.
"…sich wohl über den Ernst der Lage nicht bewusst! Wenn das noch einmal passiert, noch ein einziges mal, dann nehme ich dieses Fieberthermometer hier und ramme es Ihrem Assistenten in die Stirn! Wissen sie, was passiert, wenn ein Mensch plötzlich so ein Fieberthermometer im Gehirn hat! Können Sie sich das vorstellen?"
Lucy looked at Erza questioningly, but she shook her head. She had no idea what this meant either. De Marco chuckled. "I think I better not translate this, it's not suitable for ladies."
"Is this part of the trouble you mentioned earlier? We also heard something sounding like a shot when we arrived." said Lucy. Meanwhile, the old man continued shouting.
"Nein, kein Blut, im Gehirn ist keins, aber Schädeltrauma, Gewebeschäden, was weiß ich, fragen Sie einen Neurologen. Wenn er das überlebt, und das wird er nicht, dafür werde ich zu verdammt sauer sein, dann wird er für den Rest seiner Tage nur noch ‚Gildo hat euch lieb' singen!"
"A bit, but nothing we can't handle. He gets a bit over-excited at times, but he is brilliant. Ah, and here is the man himself! May I introduce: Professor von Harzburg!"
A man walked briskly around the corner. He was dressed in a lab coat with a tie underneath. For some reason, he was holding a clinical thermometer. Following him was a woman, significantly younger, but dressed the same. She looked flustered and could probably understand the man. Following her was yet another, younger man, also in the same outfit. He seemed as lost as Erza and Lucy. The old man continued shouting at the woman.
"Ist Ihnen das klar! Jedes mal, wenn Sie ein Bild von einem Einhorn sehen, werden Sie sich daran erinnern und sie werden heulen und Ihnen wird schlecht werden! Bei jedem gottverdammten Einhorn!"
Then, he saw the group, and abruptly became quiet. "Ah, the investors you've told me about, Mister De Monza? Hello, I'm Professor von Harzburg, it is a pleasure to meet you. Let me show you around."
He did not wait for a reply and instead strolled through a door, beckoning for them to follow him. Behind the door was a corridor with glass windows into operating rooms. Some of them were occupied, and a few other people in white lab coats were standing around, making notes.
"This facility is designed to develop new medicine – and new illnesses that you need the medicine for, but right now, we're focusing on something else. This new medicine will, if all goes well, grant the customer eternal life!"
Erza was impressed. "So… you're doing all this in order to life forever?"
"Hm? Me? No, I will certainly not take this pill. A side effect of the active pharmaceutical ingredient is that it will turn you into a hideous, mindless monster over time, with no way to restore you."
Lucy gasped, but the professor continued. "It really does increase the life span in mice, though, so the plan is that we sell these pills, get rich, die old, and only then will people notice the scam. So what we need is a component that delays the…"
He looked through another door, then quickly closed it again. His face was suddenly completely white. "Right… not here… we'll go the other way" he mumbled as he locked the door.
He led them through another corridor into a hall full of beds. There were people in them, all apparently asleep, and all strapped down. Various tubes were going into their arms. "As I was saying, it saves a lot of time and money when one can work with someone like Mister De Monza. All those ethics committees and so on are just roadblocks. But still, we need more testing and later a distribution system, and those things aren't free for us. In particular, personnel with high qualification and low morals, they tend to want a lot of money, and we need to hire more. I don't like more people knowing, but there's only so much you can do before the cloning takes off. So, are you interested?"
He stopped so abruptly that Lucy almost ran into him. Suddenly, they heared a somewhat familiar voice croaking.
"uce… 'sa… eeelp meee…"
It was Gray, in the bed right next to him. The professor looked annoyed. "Oh my, is that one talking again? Miss Medina, please, adjust his dosage."
The woman mumbled "Doctor Medina", but not loud enough for the professor to hear. She nodded towards the man, who rushed to Gray's bed.
Erza saw how Lucy was getting into a fighting pose. She grabbed her arm to calm her down. No matter how much it hurt them to ignore Gray asking for their help, they could not afford to begin the fight right now unless it was really necessary.
The young man turned on some dials, and they could see Gray closing his eyes again.
"We'd… we'd like to see some more of the tests you do" said Lucy, trying hard too sound normal and as if she didn't care.
"Oh? Don't you care about the test subjects here?" asked the professor.
"No, we're just here for the money" said Erza through clenched teeth.
"Allright, that's it, thank you for playing!" said De Monza suddenly. "I'm sorry it took me so long, but I really wanted to savor the irony here, of you standing at your friends bed and saying you don't want to help him. It's so poignant!" He laughed as suddenly a net fell on Erza and Lucy.
"This net looks stupid, but it is made out of highest quality magic rope. Just try to break it. Silly girls, did you really think I would fall for that? Did you really think I would let you get away with and that you would succeed?"
"No, yes and yes" said Erza, to De Monza's surprise. Suddenly, sirens blared.
"It's a fire alarm!" shouted Doctor Medina's assistant. He ran to a box to check something, as all around them footsteps could be heard, trying to leave the building. "There is a pressure loss… something started the fire sprinkler system, but there's no fire reported."
"That can't be!" said Doctor Medina.
"Oh yes, it can!" said Lucy with a grin, as all around them, the fire sprinklers activated, drenching the room in water. The scientists and De Monza turned around and saw how some of the drops combined to create a human form. In less than a second, it had become a young woman with blue hair, wearing a navy blue coat and a blue russian cossack hat. In her hand was a pink umbrella. She started to speak.
"Drip, drip, drop."
Author's note: Originally, I had a very different plan for this chapter. It was just Lucy and Erza talking to the bad guy, then they boarded his private train to the research facility (which was somewhere else entirely), there talked some more until finally… some stuff happened. I guess. It was not done yet (and I hadn't started to write it yet, either).
But that plan was kind of stupid. It had way too little that actually happened, and focused too much on Lucy. Juvia didn't occur at all, even though showing her cool and creepy again was the entire point of the story. So I decided to go with this somewhat route instead. I'm very interested in what you think!
By the way, the delay was not due to the new planning, it is due to university stuff that is taking up a lot of my time right now. I do have a plan for finishing this, but no schedule yet, so if you want, use this temporary end until I finish the real one (in fact, it should work for almost all Fairy Tail stories that aren't finished yet):
Suddenly, Natsu returned. He shouted "I'm all fired up now!" and began to punch ++bad guy here++. For a while, ++bad guy here++ let it happen, offering only token resistance. But suddenly, he said "Bored now" and swatted Natsu away like a fly. It all seemed bleak and lost, but then Natsu remembered all his friends that he had to protect. He shouted "You are going down, because I am a Fairy Tail wizard!" and proceeded to do lots and lots of fire violence to his opponent. The last thoughts, before it all became black, were "I've never seen such power!". The end.