A/N: Guys, welcome to Day 4. We're halfway through CoLu Week! We're really getting to the meat of the story now. This chapter was originally only 2,700 words. It felt way too short, given the plot that unfolds, so I had to do some finagling with the next couple prompts. I really wanted this to be a good, beefy chapter for you guys.

(Tomorrow might be a bit late in getting posted. I'm gonna be down at the river today, and then working all day tomorrow. Hopefully I can squeeze in some writing time to get it out on time, but we'll see!)

I hope you enjoy!

Day 4: Freedom

A hush fell over the entire crowd as a sleek black sports car pulled up to the divided groups. Lucy and the others craned their necks to see if it really was Mard Geer Tartaros. Reporters stood near the stage, and instructed their camera crews to hone in on the car, to try getting the best shot possible of the famed CEO of Tartaros Enterprises.

He stepped out of the car, adjusted his finely tailored blazer, closed the door and paused in his sure steps when he saw how many people were gathered. She watched him eye the crowd on both sides. He surveyed the police officers standing at attention, lingering here and there on the signs held high above their heads.

Never forget Dawn City!

Welcome Tartaros!

We're not your labrats!

Looking for work. Finding hope today.

You're not welcome here!

Mard Geer can stimulate my economy!

Don't poison our kids!

His lips lifted at one corner in a self-assured smirk, barely noticeable as he started walking down the wide path toward the stage that had been prepared for him to hold this press conference. Lucy's side cheered loudly, thanking him as he passed by for returning to Lower Magnolia. Their very own celebrity, come back to help them dig themselves out of the slums their government had left them with.

The opposition booed and jeered, yelling that he was a fascist pig, heartless. Soulless. A fox in the hen house, duping the citizens of Magnolia into believing he was there to help. They bellowed that he would ruin the city, and poison the water.

Some even claimed he was in cahoots with Alvarez!

It was appalling, in Lucy's opinion. She knew Mard Geer. Not well, of course, but she remembered how nice he'd been to her when they were younger. As he walked closer, she noticed the way the summer sun glinted in his hair, pulled up into the same high ponytail he'd had in high school. It looked fuller, darker, but the hints of shimmering lavender held her attention.

Odd, she'd always thought his hair was black.

His steps slowed as he came closer to where she stood, and their eyes met. His narrow onyx gaze was still just as penetrating as it had been all those years ago. Granted, she'd never been attracted to him in high school. He was just a little too "pretty" for her tastes, his frame a touch too lean.

That didn't mean she couldn't admit that he was attractive.

"Lucy," he said, his smile growing slightly more apparent, more familiar. He stopped fully in front of her, and the jeers from the opposite side of the path intensified.

"Hey, Mard," she said, smiling back at him. "Welcome back home."

His chuckle was barely a wisp of air. He seemed much more guarded than she remembered. "I should say the same to you," he said. "I saw you in the news, receiving a medal."

Her cheeks flamed brightly and she waved him off with a nervous laugh. God, she hated it when people brought that up. "I was just doing what anyone else would," she said. "I'm glad to be back."

He reached up and gently grasped her hand with the barest touch of his long, thin fingers. "Well, all the same, thank you for your exceptional service to the crown of Fiore."

She watched, wide-eyed as he pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles, then continued on his way.

"Lu, I expect you to tell me what the hell that was!" Levy shrieked from her side of the path. Lucy whipped her head over to find her friend staring at her, both bewildered and horrified - maybe intrigued, she couldn't be sure with how red Levy's skin had already gotten in the glaring sun.

Lucy shrugged. She hadn't a clue what that even was. What she did know was that the heavy indigo glare directed at her from the tanned man standing next to Levy was wholly unwarranted. She didn't know that guy. She'd noticed him with Levy and Gajeel when she'd gotten to the pier and started getting her side situated, but she hadn't been able to see his face. Just his piercing eyes. And the deep crimson of his hair pull back and away from his face.

"You got a problem, bitch bun?" she asked.

He blinked once. Twice. "What?"

"You," she said, scowling at him. "With the bitch hipster bun. Do you have a problem?"

"With you, not particularly," he said. "With that cunt over there?" He pointed to Mard's back. "Abso-fucking-lutely."

"Thank you all for coming today," Mard Geer said, standing at the podium. The mask-wearing man across from Lucy turned and scowled up at him, booing as loudly as possible. She cheered louder, just to prove a point. She was going to have to talk with Levy about that guy. Whoever he was, he seemed like an asshole.

"I appreciate the warm welcome I have received since returning to Magnolia," Mard Geer continued. "It has been quite the experience to see what Upper Magnolia is like, now that I am a successful businessman."

"Bullshit!" someone roared in the crowd. Lucy rolled her eyes. She knew that people tended to believe Mard Geer had it easy growing up. She knew that he hadn't.

"I lived only two blocks from this very pier," he said. "I grew up in Lower Magnolia, and saw every day how hard my neighbors worked for every scrap they received. I saw hopelessness and despair take hold of the strongest men in my apartment building when economic opportunities were ripped away from us."

That's right, he'd lived closer to the pier. She'd forgotten that. The area should have been a bit better off, since the fishermen worked so close to their homes, but somehow… they'd made less and less money as the years progressed. Eventually, the area became the most derelict. It was the place the adults always tried to keep kids away from, so they wouldn't get dragged into gangs.

"I saw the lengths our community went to, just to provide food for malnourished children," Mard Geer said. "Children like me. When food stamps and welfare didn't stretch far enough, when we didn't qualify for help because we somehow made just a few dollars too much in a month… This community came together and helped us scrape by. And now, I need to give back to this same community."

Lucy and her side cheered and whooped and hollered in admiration.

"So donate and save a fucking tree!" a man yelled from the other side.

"We don't want you here!" added a woman with bright pink hair down to her hips.

Mard Geer raised his hands, placating the masses as diplomatically as possible. "The children deserve to have parents who can keep their bellies full," he said. "More tax dollars allocated toward empowering these same children in schools, making sure their education is just as robust as those who can afford to live in Upper Magnolia."

"Hell yes!" Lucy bellowed.

He looked down at a woman with flowing black hair, holding a small child on her hip, a woman who stood on the opposite side of Lucy's group. "They deserve to have decent shoes," he said, "because we all know what it feels like to have wet socks all day at school."

The woman nodded meekly.

"My promise to this city," he said, staring at no one in particular, "is that every position filled at this factory will be offered to Lower Magnolia citizens first. If they are just shy of being qualified, my company will pay for training. You raised me from nothing, and now…" He gave them a wider smile than usual, still subdued, but visible even from where Lucy stood. "Now, I will raise you from the ashes that our government has left you in. Tartaros Enterprises will be the backbone of our city, keeping our heads held high."

The roaring cheers from the crowd were nearly deafening.

"When the air we breathe is under attack," the masked man bellowed, raising his fist in the air. "What do we do?"

"Stand up! Fight back!" the protesters on his side yelled in unison.

"When the water we drink is under attack, what do we do?"

"Stand up! Fight back!"

"When Mother Earthland is under attack, what do we do?"

"Stand up! Fight back!"

"What do we do?" He met her gaze squarely and roared in unison with the others, "Stand up! Fight back!"

She couldn't hear the questions Mard Geer was being asked, or the answers he gave. All Lucy could hope was that she'd be able to find a solid interview later on to get caught up. And that the reporters asked questions that would shed some light on why he'd chosen Magnolia, why the sudden interest in building a factory.

She was just glad that he'd said the poorer citizens of the city would get first pick of jobs. Of course, she knew that they would still have to have some sort of experience to be qualified, but still… He'd said the company would provide training. He was already creating opportunities within his own company for the people of Lower Magnolia to climb higher than minimum wage jobs.

"When the water we drink is under attack, what do we do?"

"Stand up! Fight back!"

She scowled and set her attention fully on the man wearing that ridiculous black bandanna over his face. "Don't you care that people are literally starving to death?" she shouted at him.

"Stand up! Fight back!" he shouted.

"You've got some fucking nerve!" she shouted, raising her voice over the crowd on her side who booed at the protesters' incessant chanting. "Bitch-bun, how are you gonna come down here and yell about Save the planet when these people don't even make enough in a month to buy that pair of shoes you're wearing?"

"The fuck?" he asked, finally looking at her again. "My shoes have nothing to do with this!"

"Fuck you! I've seen the child sweatshop that makes those shoes in Alvarez!" She threw her arms out to the sides, gesturing to the people around her. "You know nothing about what we need!"

"I'd assume you need water to drink," he said, keeping his voice raised so she could hear him over the chants of his comrades. "You wanna give that bullshit company a fucking handy and fuck the world, right? They'll poison the water!"

"Tartaros isn't Balam, and this isn't Dawn City! This factory will help us! Get off your high horse and eat a fucking steak, you hippie piece of shit!"

"Jobs don't mean jack shit when your kids have no clean water to drink!" he yelled. "Or when the air is so fucking thick with pollution pouring out of that motherfucker that you can't fucking breathe!"

"We'll kill all those birds with one stone," she said, smirking. "It's called the EPA. You've heard of it, right?" He rolled his eyes at her. "There are regulations in place for things like that! If it means the poorest in the city aren't starving and killing people in the street for the thirty fucking dollars in their wallet…"

Shit. She hadn't meant to bring that up. That wasn't supposed to make her tear up like this. She hadn't even met her dad, and this had nothing to do with him. She didn't realize that he'd caught on to the catch in her voice.

"We can't even pay for medical bills or medication," she said, and suddenly, she felt a large, strong hand gently grasping hers from just behind her. "We don't have the freedom to worry about the fucking fish!"

"I'm here, sis," Laxus whispered.

She squeezed his hand, silently thanking him for the support. He knew that she was still touchy about her father. If the city had made sure Lower Magnolia hadn't fallen into squalor, then maybe she could've had a father growing up. Maybe he would've made sure her mom's cancer had been detected. Maybe life would've been wholly different. "People die every day in Lower Magnolia simply because we're the forgotten ones. The poor don't need much, right?"

The masked man's eyebrows drew together for a moment. "I hear you," he said. "But there's a better way to deal with this."

"We need the jobs!" Lucy shouted.

"We have a right to work!" Laxus shouted, corralling the others on their side to chant with him. "We have a right to work!"

"We need clean air and water!" Levy shouted in response.

"Stand up, fight back!"

Lucy wasn't sure what changed in the next few moments. She didn't know which side threw something first, but a wave rippled through the people on both sides, and something shifted in the air. There was suddenly broken glass on the pavement several yards away, closer to the stage where Mard Geer had been talking with the press. The yelling intensified and tension mounted so thick, she could feel it seeping into her pores.

She remembered this feeling. This nearly tangible essence that draped itself over her shoulders and pressed down on her from every angle.

This was just like the firefight that had killed half of her unit on her last deployment.

She put her arms out and stopped the few people around her from walking into what had been designated as a safe space. Laxus moved beside her and did the same. They refused to start anything, or allow the high emotions of those who supported Tartaros Enterprises change this from a heated but peaceful event. The group surged behind her, and she looked forward to find the masked man in the same position as her, holding others back and yelling at them to chill the fuck out. She glanced down to the stage to find Mard Geer had stopped talking, and watched with slightly widened eyes as the groups closest to the reporters converged on one another.

Had something started down there?

"Stand down!" a nearby police officer yelled to the environmental activists across from her.

Lucy glanced over to find an officer as tall as Laxus, with shoulders just as broad, tightening his grip on his handgun, still holstered on his hip. She'd known the police had guns, that was just part of their uniform, just like her rifle and pistol had been part of her own. "Get back!" Lucy yelled to the people behind her. They pressed more tightly against her. On Laxus' other side, Mira yelled the same commands, creating a barricade with others in the front row. They all had to work together, or someone could get hurt.

"Fuck!" the masked man yelled, and her gaze snapped back over just in time to see him stumbling forward into the path, past the pylons and two officers on either side of him. More bottles - plastic and glass - flew through the air from his side, some reaching into her side of the crowd.

The officer to her left drew his pistol. "Get back, you bossa fucker!"

The man froze, and put his hands in the air. "Whoa, man…" His foot shuffled back an inch. Lucy shoved the crowd behind her back again, planting her feet as best as she could. He didn't look like he was from Bosco at all, what little she could see of his face. It didn't matter anyway. That was not a word anyone should use. Not even the few Boscans she'd met in the military used it. Why the hell would the cop-

She gasped as two shots rang through the air, causing the protesters on both sides to panic.

She didn't panic. Her body naturally hyper-focused on every detail around her. Assessed the situation, just as she was trained to do. The world moved in slow motion. Her gaze honed in on the moment the masked man was hit in the face with a bullet. The second hit his chest. His body spun and his hands fell from a position of surrender to hold his face as he crumpled to the ground. She felt the oppressive weight of sunlight on her skin that highlighted the subtle streaks of pale red in his tied back hair.

The garbled scream he let loose as he curled in on himself threw both sides into a frenzy.

"Fuck you, pig!" Gajeel roared. It was visibly harder to hold the crowd back on that side.

"He had his hands up!" Mira shrieked from beside her.

"I got you on fucking camera!" yelled a man with long two-toned white and black hair, who stood just next to Gajeel.

"Oh my god, they shot Erik!"

"He didn't do anything!"

The sounds around her warbled, distorted until she was left with the slight ringing in her ears that had plagued her for the last ten years. Lucy took a breath, felt the vibrations of people yelling around her, of bodies undulating in the searing summer heat. They pushed to be closer, ebbed back in fear of the officers who suddenly turned on the crowds. A heavy thump in the air changed the rhythm of her racing heart. She knew that sound.

Tear gas. Someone had shot a canister of tear gas into the crowd. She wasn't sure where.

She knew all these sounds.

The screams, the blood rushing through her ears.

She knew this feeling.

The palpable outrage. The fear and the fury.

She'd seen this with different people, with different clothes and different hair. She'd seen this in Alvarez, when a man had walked in front of another unit toward the back of her convoy, and they'd shot him without remorse. The crowd had lost it. The people of Alvarez had attacked that unit, and only that unit. It had been Lucy's decision to turn around and protect their soldiers. And it had been her decision to make sure the soldier who'd started the riot had been tried for a war crime. Civilians weren't their targets. That man had been innocent.

This wasn't supposed to happen now that she was on home soil. There was supposed to be peace here.

She knew the police were trying to run crowd control. One cop had turned hundreds of people against them, and his peers would do what they could to keep the wolves at bay. She wasn't sure what sort of training normal cops had for situations like this. They didn't seem to be fully prepared, since no one was in riot gear. But someone had tear gas. Had they known this was possible, and hoped it wouldn't happen?

Had they assumed that, because this was Lower Magnolia, there was no other option? It hadn't taken much for that cop to shoot the masked man. Did he think he was somehow in danger?

Or was it all just bullshit?

Either way, these people wanted blood. Both sides had foregone their original purpose of coming to the press conference. They no longer cared about the environmental impact of Tartaros' factory, or how it would help the city.

At least, the people around her, and the ones she could see across the path that the police now struggled to keep clear, were solely focused on the man on the ground. And the fact that he'd been shot with his hands up in surrender.

But all she could see was the masked man's blood dotting the ground as he tried to shuffle up onto his hands and knees. He curled in on himself more, shielded his eyes and cradled his right shoulder. She noticed the heavy breaths he sucked in, how the thin fabric of his shirt shuddered with each trembling inhale.

No one came closer. Even with their anger, and how they pushed against the officers, yelled in their faces... No one tried too hard to break past and help him.

The officer, with his gun still drawn, took a step toward the center of the path, toward the prone man.

More shots thunked through the air at a distance, over their heads, bounced off the ground. The other officers pushed the crowds back, away from the injured man. They didn't let anyone close enough to help him.

She saw the officer still aiming. This man was helpless now. Still, the officer held his pistol at the ready. Lucy's body moved on instinct, and she darted forward to put herself between the man who she'd been yelling at only minutes prior - his name was Erik, someone had said it, and it finally registered - and the officer who, when she looked into his dull grey eyes, glared down at Erik with unadulterated hatred.

Macbeth stared in horror at the scene unfolding in front of him, holding his phone up to capture every moment. He kept Erik in the frame at all times. He refused to lose sight of his best friend for even a moment, because just a couple missing seconds in a video could be all it took for someone to lie and claim something else happened.

Erik writhed in pain on the ground, bracing himself with one hand on the burning concrete and smearing bright splashes of his blood over it. He was bleeding too much. Head wounds bled a lot, but he'd been shot in the face. There was too much blood. So much of it painted on the concrete, still splashing down from the thick rivulets running down his cheek.

"Gajeel, you need to get to him," Macbeth said. Gajeel carried loads of medical supplies in his pockets. He could help Erik at least stop the bleeding until they could get him to the hospital for proper treatment. Or even to Juvia's medical tent. She wasn't fully equipped for something like this, but she was a nurse. Her emergency treatment could save Erik until he was taken to a hospital.

"Move outta my fuckin' way!" Gajeel roared at the nearest officer who blocked his path. "He's fuckin' hurt!" The officer didn't move, and Gajeel barely held himself back. They couldn't go after the police. They didn't stand a chance against armed officers. And Macbeth already knew that Gajeel only stayed in place because, if he was taken down, no one else could help Erik. This was supposed to be a peaceful protest.

None of them had been prepared for this.

Macbeth shifted the camera slightly, keeping Erik in the bottom of the frame while centering the camera on Lucy as she jumped in front of the officer who'd shot him. And instantly, her feet planted themselves at shoulder width, her hands went to rest at the small of her back, one flat palm against the back of her other hand. She looked every bit the soldier he'd been told she was from Levy and Gajeel. Proud, strong, fearless.

"It was just a rubber bullet, lady," the officer said with a sneer. "You need to move."

"Fucking make me," she spat. "I dare you."

Macbeth shuddered. She sounded dead inside. There was no emotion in her voice even as her head tilted back to maintain eye contact. "Someone get another angle!" he yelled. "I'm getting all this on video!"

"I'm live right now!" someone shouted from the other side of the path. "You can't stop us from recording this! The police just shot a protester!"

"Everyone get back!" an officer bellowed. Two other officers moved closer to help remove Lucy.

"Erik, it's gonna be alright," Macbeth said, keeping his eyes trained on the glaring competition happening between Lucy and the officer. It didn't last long. The officer reached for her arm with the hand not on his gun, and she pushed it away with some weird martial arts move.

Her feet didn't move as she stayed close to Erik. As soon as it was done, her hands returned to their position behind her back. She made a show of not doing anything past keeping him from touching her. She didn't hurt him. She remained a stoic soldier.

"Stop resisting!" the officer shouted in her face. He reached for her again, and Lucy shifted her weight to the side, putting herself right in front of his gun.

"Are you arresting me?" she asked.

"I'm about to!"

Macbeth was just about to try and get closer, or make an opening for Gajeel to slide in and get to Erik. He was glad that he'd kept the camera on her when she took a breath from deep within her chest and suddenly yelled, "Hoo'ah!" The sound of her voice echoed down the pier, bounced off the water and shot right into the sky.

Macbeth jumped when there was a thundering chorus of "Hoo'ah!" that echoed back. His eyes began to water as a soft, hot breeze pushed the tear gas from down by the stage toward them.

"Soldiers!" she bellowed from the depths of her soul.

Another round of "Hoo'ah!" answered her call. How had she known there would be people to respond to her? Macbeth looked around, and found people moving closer with purpose. They squared their shoulders, kept their mouths set in grim lines and their eyes were steely. Focused. They carefully slid around other protesters who were still screaming at the officers surrounding her and Erik. Further down the pier, several fights had broken out between the two sides.

A woman with bright red hair pulling into a high, tight ponytail marched out of the crowd where Lucy had come from and took a position on the opposite side of Lucy, placing her back to Erik and standing with her feet apart, hands behind her back. Two men - one older with ginger hair down to his shoulders and a metal prosthetic right arm, the other younger with bright blue hair and a vibrant red tattoo on his face - marched out of the crowd on Macbeth's side, taking position on either side of Erik. They created the perfect barricade around him.

"Who do we fight?" Lucy called.

"The enemy!" several in the crowd bellowed in response.

"Berets!"

A much smaller number of people called back with what sounded like barking. The three other people also participated in the strange barking call. Were these people all Special Forces in the military? They weren't in uniform, so that had to mean they were all veterans. The officer in front of her went red in the face, sneered and revealed perfectly aligned pearly white teeth. He moved, and the next thing Macbeth knew, he held a canister in front of Lucy's face.

He maced her.

She didn't move. She stood there. She took it all. He didn't let up, even after several seconds.

"What do we strive for?" Lucy bellowed, unfazed. Macbeth nearly dropped his phone.

"To excel in war!" the people closest to her yelled in response.

"Who are we?" she yelled. The officer took a small step back, and it wasn't until Macbeth moved just slightly to be able to see her face, still being sprayed with mace, that he found out why.

Her eyes were open, glaring in defiance at the cop as she and the other soldiers yelled, "Fiore's Green Berets!"

The officer's finger slipped off the button, and he shook the canister. Had he run out?

Her sudden smile was chilling. How the hell was she doing that? Mace had left him a blubbering mess at the LGBTQ rally. It had been hard to breathe, or even think of anything past the pain in his eyes, the sudden burning in his nose. She didn't seem fazed in the slightest. The longer he looked at her, the more he felt like he was seeing a war reflected in the honey orbs. The pain and the death, piles of bodies left behind her small frame and innocent face.

"Soldiers!" she bellowed.

The entire crowd bolstered their sudden shout of "Hoo'ah!"

"Who do we fight?"

"The enemy!" soldiers in plain clothing shouted.

"Foreign?"

"And domestic!" they answered.

The ex-Green Beret with the prosthetic arm drew Macbeth's attention. He wasn't entirely sure how, but he felt compelled to look at the older man with the steely orange gaze and stubble on his jaw. He didn't move from his position, but looked at Gajeel. And then he shifted just slightly to the left. An opening that Macbeth was able to clearly see Erik through.

"Gajeel, now," Macbeth hissed. The cop maced Lucy again, but she still didn't move. Macbeth made sure to record the moment she opened her mouth, then spit mace right back at the cop. Gajeel darted forward, shouldered past the officer in front of him, and bent down to get Erik off the ground as soon as the man guarding him moved. He didn't move to the side. He stepped around Gajeel and widened his stance, keeping everyone from getting to both Gajeel and Erik.

Without a word, the other three followed suit.

"I gotcha," Gajeel said, wrapping his arms around Erik's quivering chest. "It'll be fine."

"M-My fucking eye," Erik whimpered.

"Protect our civilians!" Lucy bellowed. "Protect our city!"

"Hoo'ah!"

Pandemonium followed. It was difficult to keep track, but a woman with long silver hair ran forward to help Gajeel get Erik off the ground and away from the police. Gajeel took one arm, and the unfamiliar woman took the other.

"It's Mira," she said gently. "It's okay now. We'll get you to the hospital."

Erik couldn't seem to walk. His head hung low and his feet dragged with uneven steps as he tried in vain to stumble away. Three of the people who'd surrounded Erik went along, keeping guard around them and guiding them back to the safety of the large group. With them in control of that situation, Macbeth was ready to leave as well.

"Get on the ground!"

"I've done nothing wrong," Lucy said.

She was alone now. Still standing where she'd been when she went to defend Erik.

A loud bang echoed in the air, and Macbeth crouched down, only to find thick plumes of smoke rising from near the stage. He was sure he heard someone yell tear gas as the crowd began to disperse. Angry shouts filled the air before the wind pushed more toward them. Macbeth coughed and covered his nose with his arm. He fought to stay where he was, even as people rushed past him to get away from the gas.

He stayed a moment longer. Erik was gone. Why wasn't she moving?

The cop reached down to his belt and grabbed something Macbeth had never seen before. It looked similar to a gun, but it was bright yellow and there were two strange prongs on the front. The prongs shot forward with thin metal wires connecting them to the gun, and lodged in Lucy's bare shoulder.

There was a distinct buzz of electricity. Was that…?

"Why the fuck are you tasing her!" Sorano yelled from just next to him. He knew she'd seen the whole thing. There was no way to miss this.

"Holy shit," Macbeth whispered. "Holy fucking shit!" They were tasing her? For what? She'd defended Erik, who was wrongly hurt! He coughed again and wiped his eyes, trying his best to ignore the burning sensation of tears on his cheeks. Another thump in the air. More gas to disperse the crowd.

She convulsed and stumbled back several steps. As she tried to reach up to remove it, her knees buckled, leaving her kneeling on the ground. Lucy glared up at the officer, finally succeeding in ripping the metal prongs from her arm. Macbeth couldn't stop staring at the thin trails of blood streaking down her barely tanned skin.

An officer stormed closer and pushed him back, yelled something he didn't hear. Macbeth was too focused on recording this. Making sure he documented every second.

Two other officers hit Lucy with a shot from their tasers and she collapsed, face first in Erik's blood still on the ground. She didn't scream.

"The cops just tased a veteran!" Macbeth yelled to the crowd.

"Back the fuck up!" the cop yelled at Macbeth. He sneered when the man reached around and grabbed Sorano with a bruising grip.

"Fuck you, pig!" she screeched. He barely caught it in the frame while keeping a focus on Lucy - who was being pinned to the ground with an officer kneeling on her back and another on her legs - when Sorano cocked a fist back and clocked the officer right in the jaw. "Put your hands on me, and I'll fucking kill you!"

"Sorano!" Macbeth yelled.

"Fuck them!" she shouted. She had a fucking deathwish. He was sure of it as she dashed into the fray and kicked a cop in the head to get him off Lucy's back. Sorano was tased without warning, then hit with a baton in her arms and stomach.

He recorded the cops cuffing Lucy and Sorano, and literally dragging both women away. He made sure to capture Lucy's face. Her closed eyes and blood that wasn't her own on her cheek and soaking into her tank top. It was only then that he realized she was still wearing dog tags around her neck, when the sun glinted off the metal and nearly blinded him. "The cops maced and tased Major Lucy Heartfilia! They arrested her for protecting us!"

He moved to Sorano's face, the bruises already forming on her cheek, the blood on her lips, the shit-eating grin she gave him. She was always starting shit, but this time, she'd jumped into the middle of it. He hadn't a clue why. Maybe because Lucy was a woman. She was exceptionally vocal about women's rights. Maybe it was because of something else.

He wouldn't know until she was bailed out.

He ended the video only after Lucy and Sorano were tossed into the back of a police car that immediately drove off. What was surprising was seeing Levy's car hightailing it after the cruiser.

Was she making sure there were no detours on the way to the police station?

Good idea.

When Macbeth turned to look at the crowd, he noticed how empty the stage was. Mard Geer must have left when things got crazy. There were still reporters recording what was happening from a safe distance to not be affected by the tear gas that was still making his eyes water.

He pulled his shirt up over his nose and ran toward the nearest reporter, hidden in an alcove by a run-down fishery. "You want a story?" he asked. The older man in front of him was someone he'd seen on television when he was a kid. Warrod Sequen. His wrinkled face and forest green hair were more apparent in real life. Macbeth held up his phone when he knew that he had the man's attention. "I just got a full recording of the police shooting a protester in the face, macing a veteran and arresting her for protecting him, and beating another protester."

"You, what?!" Warrod shouted.

Macbeth's crimson eyes gleamed. Erik always did tell him that he had a knack for stirring the pot and pissing people off. It ran in the family. He and Sorano could do this shit all day, and he was damn well going to use it to their advantage. "Plaster this all over the news," he said. "If you won't, I'll find someone who will."

Warrod's nonexistent brows drew together and the heavy lines around his eyes and mouth deepened.

Macbeth smirked. "The two were arguing seconds before this happened," he added. "They were on opposite sides until he was shot."

"This is definitely newsworthy," Warrod said. His gaze darted around to the thinning protesters.

Macbeth knew what buttons to push. He knew Warrod and what he'd covered in detail over the years. This was the reporter who had inspired both him and Erik to take a more vested interest in humanity's effect on nature. And he was the same man who, twenty years ago, covered the race riots in Crocus on television. Warrod didn't mince words, and he clearly sided with equality. He'd gotten himself arrested on live television, just outside the palace, when he'd put down his microphone and took up a sign to join the protest.

Yeah, Macbeth knew this was already tempting, but he could make the deal sweeter. A perfectly horrendous trifecta that he was going to make sure ruined that police officer's entire fucking career. "And I can prove the officer shot him for no other reason than his race."

"Let me see that video," Warrod said immediately.