I want to apologise to anyone who was expecting this chapter earlier. I sorta gave up on this story until I found some inspiration once more, but whatever. Thanks to everyone who has supported this fanfiction. Enjoy!
The bar was crowded and sweltering. It stank of beer, sweat, and cheap perfume mingled with the thick scent of burning incense, the smoke curling like a sinuous creature as it rose to the rotting rafters.
Perspiration rolled of the face of the woman working the bars, her tired cerulean eyes revealing the fact that it was no magic that the job was getting done. Her striking white tresses were pinned out of her face, up in a greasy mess, truant strands sticking to her neck and framing her cheeks. She skilfully dodged a drunkard's wanton hands as he grasped over the knurled counters at her slim figure that was made ugly by a washed out dress and worsened by a dirty apron.
She glanced wearily at a newcomer, a muscled young man with incongruous magenta hair and smouldering slate-grey eyes. She nodded at him briefly as she met his eyes, to which he mimicked her action and strode to the back room through a door that was labelled with a no entry sign.
After a half hour had passed and the crowd was engaged a brawl, their attention temporarily diverted to the frenzied pelting of limbs, the bartender slipped through the same door that the man had entered, clicking the locks shut behind her as she hurried into the room.
There were six other persons in the room, the tense atmosphere practically tangible. The bartender gripped her apron with calloused but thin fingers.
"They got Macao and Romeo," the young man from the bar said to the woman without looking up at her, his eyes down-casted, glued to his tightly clasped hands.
She gasped; mouth slightly open then slowly released the breath. Her eyes slid shut.
"Who else?" she asked with certainty, voice trembling as a teardrop rolled down her cheek.
The man with a strangely red scar carved onto his face replied this time.
"Meredy and Ultear."
"This has gone on too far," a man with dark hair said in a dangerously low voice from his seat on top of a crate, "We should make a move, how much more should they kill?!"
"Shut up Gray," the magenta haired man snapped as he looked up, "Don't be an idiot just because you broke your promise with Ul. We have other people to think about too, we can't get selfish now, not when so much people are depending on us!"
The dark haired man, Gray, shot to his feet to address the other.
"I'm sorry if I can't be like big brave Natsu and stifle my rage after they killed someone I loved, or have you forgotten about Lisanna already?"
"That was not a very manly thing to say," the burly white-haired man growled from the farthest corner, the penumbra he was cast in making his rippling muscles look almost unearthly.
Gray glared for a moment but sank back onto the crate, not because of fear of the man but because of the bartender's stiffened shoulders. He looked away guiltily.
"I'm going back to the bars," she whispered, turning and leaving before anyone could say anything else.
"Yer a real ass, ye know tha' Gray," a barbaric looking man said from where he was leaned against a wooden partition, long dark hair pulled away from his strong features by a bandana. A crooked smile made its way onto his face as he was about to say something else.
"Oh be quiet Gajeel," the smallest person in the room voiced as she glared at the man called Gajeel.
"Eh?" Gajeel started, "Shrimps couldn'a speak the las' time I checked."
"And when was that you Neanderthal," the small woman scowled.
"Neendeth-wah?"
"My point exactly," the woman replied satisfactorily.
"Stop it," Gray said loudly, cobalt eyes glowing chips of ice. Silence enveloped the room.
"You shouldn't say that they were killed, Gray," the scar-faced man said tiredly as he let his head loll onto the wall behind him with a dull thud, "We aren't sure if they're really dead."
"And that makes me feel so much better. It'll be worse if they're kept alive, 'cause then they'd prob'ly be tortured or somethin'."
"If you all have time to create some theory or the other then I suggest you get back out there and help someone," Natsu murmured as he strode out of the room.
A woman knelt before a figure hidden in the shadow of a high-backed throne chair, head bowed respectfully and arm twisted across her armoured chest in what was a sign of allegiance. Her scarlet hair was allowed to flow down her back in a bloody waterfall, contrasting sharply against the gleaming silver mail.
"I am honoured to have your respect, Knight, but no need to be so formal. Rise," the person sitting languidly called out, voice gilded smooth and tinged with humour.
The knight rose stiffly, head still bowed.
"How may I be of service to you, My Lord?" the woman queried in a strong, authoritative manner, unbefitting of a subordinate.
The person in the chair laughed.
"You never change do you Erza?" the man said fondly as he got out of the chair and stepped into the dim, yellowish light, smooth androgynous face looking as if it were carved out of marble, glassy eyes hollowed and staring.
"My Lord, of what do you speak?" Erza asked, strained.
The man shook his head slowly before sitting down once more.
"Anyway, Knight, you are assigned a very special mission. You are to capture Lucy Heartphilia and bring her back to me. You will be given comrades that were especially selected for this task. I expect you to co-operate fully with them even though you will be the superior officer. I want her back alive with as little wounds as possible since she is carrying something very special to me, understood?"
"Yes, My Lord," Erza responded mechanically.
"Alright then, Erza, stay safe, I don't want you hurt now."
"Yes, My Lord," the woman said then walked out of the room, steel scraping against steel as she did, leaving behind the man's empty, amused chortles.
