Balancing Act
Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail
Enjoy
Two Weeks Later
Unfortunately for Natsu and his crew, things had picked up in several regards that the time to tell the women they were interested in what, exactly, their businesses were did not exist. Ivan and his band of thugs had shipped in a huge amount of narcotics and was of course gunning for the brothels first, followed by the casinos.
"Move the shipment or we're dead." One of the lackey's says. Natsu pops out from around the corner and shoots the man.
"Dead anyway asshat." Natsu snarls. The other man turns to run, only to run straight into Gray and his knives. He drops dead before he even knows what's happened.
"Honestly, Ivan has shit goons." Gray laughs, walking over the dead man.
"Honestly, the piece of shit that is unfortunately my father never got the brains to find capable people." Laxus chuckles.
"Got a trace on the shipment?" Natsu asks as Laxus hauls the dead bodies into the nearby dumpster.
"Come on, you know that's Jellal's and Wendy's area of expertise. If you had left one of these fuckers alive I could get something out of them." Laxus snarls.
"Yeah, whatever." Natsu snaps back. Laxus bites back his reply, knowing full well Natsu or Gray aren't in the mood to get into a verbal fight with him. Natsu's phone chimed, and he let out an agitated snarl at the message.
"What now?" Gray asks.
"I'll discuss all of the mounds of bullshit in the meeting tomorrow. For now, let's take care of this main issue at hand." Natsu says as his eyes slide over to the truck with several narcotics in it. Finding the gas line was easy for Natsu, and after quickly stabbing it in such a way to avoid getting gas on himself, he throws a match at the small puddle forming and walks back to his car with Gray and Laxus in tow. As they round the corner out of the alley in the seedier part of town, they hear the distinct sound of the truck going up, loud bangs and pops of metal expanding with the force of the fire and gasoline. Soon, the sound of an explosion and fire shooting into the air erupts from the alley.
Natsu's phone chimes again and as he looks at the device, annoyed already, immediately his face calms and both Gray and Laxus know it's Lucy. Natsu always gets that look of calm when she texts him. As if sensing their eyes on him, he puts his phone away after sending a brief, 'working, will call you in a bit' text.
"I need to tell her the shit show my life is but with all the recent bullshit I haven't had the fucking chance." Natsu snarls as they reach their cars.
"Same here." Gray says casually as he unlocks his car. Laxus remains silent as he gets into his car.
"What time is the meeting tomorrow?" Laxus asks as he unlocks his car.
"Nine." Natsu says as he gets in his car and drives home. Walking into his large home, Natsu lets out an annoyed and tired sigh. A small meow calls his attention to his strange blue cat Happy.
"Hey buddy. Holding down the fort for me?" Natsu chuckles to the cat. A happy purr and small meow is all he receives as a reply from the feline, but it's enough. His footsteps echo in the grand home as he makes his way to his office, with the occasional shuffling of the house staff keeping busy only adding to the deafening silence of the home. Reaching his office, he flips the light on and takes a seat in his chair, Happy curling up on the stool next to the desk.
His phone dings and he chuckles.
"Prompt as ever." Natsu chuckles as he pulls out his phone to talk to Lucy. It was strange how fast he came accustomed to her texts and talking to her every day. Turning on his computer, he continued to text the blonde beauty hoping to distract himself from the annoyances of the day. Jellal had informed him that one of his agents had gotten a huge amount of information and would be sending it to him an encrypted file. That file would then determine his next course of action. Within minutes of his computer being fully on, he received a file from Meredy and started the downloading process which he could clearly see would take about fifteen minutes.
"Heh, not bad. But if this is only after a few weeks, I doubt it's going to be much better in a couple months." Natsu chuckles, feeling a headache form at his temples. Just as the download gets halfway complete, his phone goes off, and knowing how Lucy is, she normally doesn't call. Looking at the caller ID, he lets out an annoyed sigh. It's the head of the high end restaurant coalition.
"Dragneel speaking." Natsu says.
"Hello Mister Dragneel sir. As I'm sure you're aware, it's almost that time of year again where the Fine Dining Festival is at hand. I've already taken the liberty of sending you the new regulations for this year." The man says on the phone.
"Thanks, I'll get on that tonight." Natsu says calmly though internally he's already banging his head on his desk. The regulations were always fifty page long monsters that had several downloads within them that he would have to electronically sign and send back to the committee. His eyes shoot to the clock on the wall which read five thirty. The files were ninety percent of the way done. Sighing in annoyance and defeat, he opens the large document and reads through it, opening and downloading other files as he goes and reads those as they show up, letting the first files sit until he's completed this task.
Two hours go by before he can finally read over the files Meredy sent him and as he reads through those, his headache intensifies.
The Next Day
Walking into the conference room with maybe three hours of sleep, Natsu doesn't feel great and looks equally pissed. Sting and Gajeel notice this immediately.
"Oh, it's gonna be a shit day, I can tell." Sting chuckles. Natsu's eyes shoot at him and then Gajeel smirks.
"Shut it brat." Gajeel chuckles as they walk into the room behind him.
"Thank you." Natsu barked as everyone took their seats.
"We have ourselves a real shit show." Natsu says calmly.
"Elaborate will you?" Erik hisses. Natsu glares at him, his eyes narrowing for just a moment before he takes a steadying breath.
"Meredy sent me a large number of files last night and based on those files, it can easily be determined that Jiemma, Jose and Mard have been busy. Along with Ivan, they recruited a group that goes by Tartaros, which has a huge following of underhanded thugs, another group known simply as Spriggen, along with a two men known as Brain and Hades." Natsu says. Erik goes stiff for a second.
"Give me a second." Erik says as he makes a quick phone call. Within a few minutes another man, Macbeth, walks in.
"Why is he here?" Natsu asks.
"Macbeth is one of my best assassins and may know one of those people you just mentioned." Erik says.
"Brain isn't his real name, no one knows what his real name is, but he is my foster father." Macbeth says. Natsu eyes him for a minute and then allows him to proceed.
"He kills for sport; he taught me how to kill when I was a kid. It's helped me become the assassin I am now, but as for anything other than just being a pawn for him, well, it took me getting my ass handed to me by Erik to realize that I still had a lot to learn. He also has some interesting ideas on the state of the country." Macbeth states.
"Such as?" Natsu inquires.
"He believes that the king and those that support the king should have the right to do whatever they want however they want. Murder of a spouse or child, numerous partners, excessive money, the works essentially. As a kid, I knew it wasn't right, it sounded wrong. I played the role well. He probably thinks I'm dead, since my last job all those years ago was to find and eliminate the Poison Dragon. I can presume he wanted me dead because maybe he knew that I hated his idea of a 'perfect society', hence the mission. His mistake really." Macbeth states with a chuckle.
"Hmm, good to know. That lines up with what we know about Jiemma, Jose and Mard. If anything, that may be the reasoning behind the others, thinking that by eliminating us the king will pardon them." Gajeel states.
"But that would be complete idiocy." Rogue says.
"So, it fits the bill." Sting chuckles.
"Moving on. Ivan's group is in charge of distributing the narcotics. Predictably, the went after the brothels and casino's first. They also plan on hitting the hospitals, switching out the correct medications for cocaine and heroin. From what these files also reveal, they'll be coming in at night to do all this." Natsu says.
"Ok, but all of our madams kick any of the girls with serious drug problems, same for the strip clubs as well. Drugs aren't allowed unless prescribed." Sting says.
"Yeah, but a few do have a problem, and it's those few that they're counting on." Natsu says. Sting acknowledges this with an annoyed sigh.
"I'll call and make sure that extra eyes are on the doors." Sting says. Natsu nods, then turns his attention to Erik.
"I need you to get some of your best at the high risk targets. Confer with Sting and Rogue to see what the addresses are of those locations and post your best there. Go over the list of regulars with him." Natsu says. They nod in affirmation.
"Anything else to report on that end oh fearless leader?" Gray chuckles.
"No, now onto our normal business affairs, mine being that the usual craziness is about to ensue." Natsu says and is met with a groan.
"Man, why?" Gajeel growls.
"Oh, shut it, you and Fullbuster are rolling in money, if anything, it'll drive more people here." Laxus says. Gajeel's family business was in construction and Gray's was in real estate, whereas Laxus was in electricity, so they all needed each other in a way.
"True, people come to this city just for that event. It's exclusively a Magnolia thing." Gray chuckles.
"Yeah, and we rake in the money from the people hitting the clubs up after." Sting laughs, slinging his arm around Rogue.
"We all benefit from it, but it makes everything a little more crazy during the month. Why they do this in November will never fail to amaze me." Jellal chuckles.
"Summer is highly overrated." Natsu explains. He receives documents nationwide throughout the summer about similar events. The meeting draws to a close soon after.
3 days later
"Fifteen. Fifteen fucking attempts thus far." Sting growls in annoyance, as he drags the most recent drug dealer into the interrogation room, blue eyes blazing with anger and annoyance.
"The bitch already uses something." The man growls.
"Yes, but you don't need to go polluting the others. That's why we have different floors for the ones who stay drug free and the ones who do not." Sting snarls as he throws said man onto a chair.
"I'll do what I want brat." The man shouts. Sting smirks, taking out a blade and holds it to his throat.
"No, you'll tell me what you know, or I'll cut you so fucking good they wont be able to tell your ass from your mouth." Sting spits. Laxus chuckles as he walks into the room.
"I got this." Laxus chuckles. Sting lets out a low growl before he punches the man in the chair hard enough to cause him to vomit. He walks out of the room where Rogue waits and sees Natsu, Gray and Gajeel there as well.
"On the bright side, they stopped going for the high end locations where there are literally no drugs at." Rogue says.
"Yeah, because Erik and his crew are doing their jobs, taking out anyone that looks shady as hell." Sting says.
"Or anyone the workers report as trying to give the drugs as payment." Rogue adds.
"These fifteen have all be at lower end strip joints." Gray adds.
"I'll call Erik." Sting says. Natsu nods as Sting makes his call. These last few weeks have been odd for him, and now all this tension is building. He momentarily debates after work going to a club, finding some random woman and fucking his tension out but something about that thought causes his stomach to churn and his heart to ache so he lets it go and carries on with the task at hand.
"He's got it covered and from the sounds of it Laxus is gonna get the info out of that piece of shit." Sting chuckles as he puts his phone away only for it to ding, magically, with the other four as well.
"Well, if anything, they're punctual." Rogue snorts.
"No shit. That was scary!" Sting laughs. Walking away from the room, all sending a text of some sort to the respective woman they're interested in, it's Sting who breaks the silence.
"Ok, so please tell me it's not just me but even with all this fucking stress, does the thought of finding some random bitch to just fuck it out somehow repulse you? Because for some damn reason, no matter how stressed I fucking get, I can't bring myself to go do what I did all through high school." Sting says.
"You're not the only one kiddo." Gajeel chuckles.
"Same." Gray and Rogue say.
"Agreed." Natsu replies, receiving odd looks from the others.
"What?" Natsu asks.
"Huh, damn. Looks like we've all been hit then." Gray laughs. It's then that Natsu gets why, just as his phone makes another pleasant ding because of the beautiful Lucy.
"Well shit!" Natsu laughs out, more shocked than annoyed.
I hope you all enjoyed and I will be posting again in March. Until then please R&R.