M-21 knelt in front of the rocks that meant he couldn't even hold M-24 as he died. Just like so many of them had died alone. Or worse, in the hands of the scientists.

He heard light footsteps behind him, but even when everything turned bloody he didn't do anything but cry. It wasn't like it mattered if he died now, he thought, knowing that even by thinking that he'd let M-24 down. Again.

He'd go on, for them, if these people didn't kill him, but right now…

"This way," the noblesse who'd killed Jake said, reaching out to the pile.

M-21 stared at him, first shocked and then in wild hope.

Except the rocks didn't move, M-24 didn't walk out of there. An orb of white light that was red around the edges floated out of them. The edges were ragged, and the way it was moving and bobbing almost seemed like it was limping towards the noblesse's hand.

Red eyes looked down at it as it floated above his hand, then he nodded.

"Master?" the other noblesse said – when had he arrived?

The Master turned to M-21. "Your friend wishes to sleep by your side."

"Sleep?" Was that a euphemism? Did it mean dead anyway, was M-24 a ghost?

"Like the soul weapons, Master?" asked the blond.

The one holding M-24 nodded at him.

Soul weapon? Were they going to use M-24? "Give him here," M-21 said, scrambling up to reach for him.

When his hand was close enough, the little ball floated the rest of the way – good, M-21 hadn't wanted to risk getting in that noblesse's personal space. Even if he would have, for M-24, if M-24 wasn't entirely gone, if M-21 wasn't alone…

He felt more than heard the breathing, the rise and fall of a big chest. Familiar from when they had to huddle together – the labs were always kept cold. The breathing was slow – yes, just like M-24 when he was asleep.

M-21 wanted to demand answers, to ask if it really was him, but… he knew. This was his comrade.

"He isn't… quite in eternal sleep," the blond said thoughtfully. "His soul is human and changeable enough that he might wake up at some point. Temporarily at first, and soul weapons can only manifest for so long… But the data I have isn't quite applicable to this. I don't have any definite answers."

"If you call, he will answer," the other said, voice full of certainty. "He will need the help of your power, but the source of your power is not inconsiderable."

"M-24?" M-21 said to the empty air. "M-24!" Please. Please answer me.

A low noise of complaint, half-growl because it was better to be threatening in the Union even if it would get them laughed at and beaten up by the other agents to prove their dominance. M-24 needed more sleep than M-21 did, maybe because of why he still needed the drugs… M-21 tried to make sure he got it, in hopes it'd help him heal up somehow. He didn't want to wake M-24 when he was tired like that, but…!

He couldn't help staring down at the hand where the light entered his palm, nudging it forward like he was pushing at a shoulder with his fist.

This got a rush of quickly-hidden alarm, M-24 trying to drag himself awake because if M-21 was panicked it couldn't be good.

"No," M-21 said, letting a breath out. "No, it's fine. Go back to sleep."

Then what'd M-21 tried so hard to wake him up for? M-24's balance of worry and annoyance (not at M-21, at the Union and their lives) wasn't enough to overcome his need to sleep and M-21 felt him surrendering to unconsciousness again.

"Frankenstein, the children."

"Yes, Master. I'll bring them home and make sure they're alright."

What. M-21 glanced at them, and saw the blond – Frankenstein – straightening up from a bow and going over to those kids. Were they annoying him now? He should be glad, he didn't want them interested in him, but M-24. He wanted answers: what did he do to take care of his friend? He snorted: he should know better than to expect to get them. "What about me – us?" he asked, swallowing, wishing he could demand an answer.

"If you want to come with us to be sure they're alright, feel free," the blond said. "If you no longer have the safehouse key and information, I have more at my house."

They'd hidden it. Couldn't have it found on them. "We should go with you," M-21 said, wiping his eyes and standing up. M-24 would want to be sure the kids were okay when it was their fault they were in danger.

"Alright," the blond said, looking down at the four children and hesitating. "Would you mind carrying one of them?"

They'd trust him with that? "Sure," M-21 said, wondering what he was doing. But M-24 would want them to be okay, even if M-21 couldn't do anything to protect him.

M-24 might have a little brother of his own out there… Maybe, maybe he could still see him someday? These guys might know how to make that possible.

M-21 went with them.

"Wait, you're not going to…" Attack a Union base?

"We can't have them knowing about us," Frankenstein pointed out. "And, the kids might be in danger."

So M-21 ended up following them to the South Korean base. He couldn't let them get themselves killed before he got answers… and if they really could take out Dr. Crombel, M-21 wanted to be there to see it. And see if he could ask that bastard some questions first.

He had to take care of the infected, deal with the mess M-24 made before it threatened the kids again or M-24 work up to see it, but he was too weak! Always too weak, was M-24 going to die with him, again?

"You are not weak," the noblesse said, frowning.

M-21 stared at him.

"The source of your power is not insignificant." After M-21 looked at him blankly for a moment more, Raizel asked, "Would you like to see?"

"Whatever," M-21 said. Just… he needed the power to beat this guy.

The noblesse stepped forward, reached out to swipe a finger through M-21's blood. He brought it to his lips… no, below them. "Awaken," he said, and M-21 roared, bashing his fists together.

When they didn't reach each other, when the shock was distributed through his hands and forearms as he heard the sound of clashing metal, he'd expected it somehow.

He – they – lunged towards the infected.

"Are you okay with me staying here?" M-21 asked.

"Master has decided that you may remain here as long as you like," Frankenstein said, smiling at him.

"Sure, that makes sense. You don't want me to leave," and get captured, "when I know about you guys. So you're going to lock me up?"

They both stared at him as though he was saying something that had never even occurred to them and they found it shocking. "What?" he asked.

"I never said you couldn't leave," the blond told him.

"What, like you trust me?" Even if he wasn't going to betray them now, not when he needed to know about M-24.

"I never said I trusted you," Frankenstein said, still looking a little confused.

"So what then?"

"It doesn't matter whether or not I trust you," the noblesse said, and smiled like the sun. "Only Master's will matters."

Brainwashing and mind control were M-21's first thoughts, and then he remembered when M-24 decided to protect the kids. It didn't matter if M-21 thought it was a good idea or even if it was survivable. It was what M-24 wanted to do that mattered. M-24 was his comrade, and M-21 would be there for him no matter what.

They were vampires, but M-24's modifications were based on them, and he'd been able to sense them before. Maybe they'd make sense to M-21's comrade. "So what about M-24?" he asked.

They looked at each other. "He's welcome here as well?" the blond ventured. "He lost his body protecting the children, and he wouldn't be the only soul weapon under this roof."

"What's a soul weapon?"

"Among nobles…" another glance at the black-haired one, who ignored them, focusing on his tea. "Normally soul weapons are born of a parent's love for their child. When a clan leader enters eternal sleep, they can join with the clan's soul weapon to support the next clan leader's will to protect. There are some soul weapons that don't fit that pattern, but if you and M-24 were close, and he was originally human, human souls are adaptable. Master may have shown him the pattern of a soul weapon so he had a way to remain with you."

The Master nodded and drank his tea.

"Summoning a soul weapon gives nobles access to more power, but it's a strain even for pureblood nobles. After a fight like that, you should rest up before you try to summon him again."

"What if I don't want a weapon?" What if he wanted M-24 back?

"Well, there is a case of an embodied soul weapon," Frankenstein said carefully. "I certainly don't think it's impossible, but you should take it very slowly. The Union is as incompetent as ever if changing someone from human baseline more than once is some kind of breakthrough." He looked at M-21 with concern. "I'm sure your…"

"Comrade. We're comrades."

"Your comrade wouldn't want you to strain something and hurt yourself. If you're willing to wait until you've put some more weight on and your condition is improved, I can help you learn how to summon him without Master's help."

"You'd do that for me?"

"You two did save the children's lives."

"After we put them in danger."

"Master guided M-24 to you, and then awakened you both. If he thinks that was worth doing, I won't let his effort go to waste." The man smiled, then paused. "A soul weapon is a big responsibility, however. Why don't I make you an offer?"

"What is it?"

"I manage a school that Master and the children attend, and it has private security. It's not a secret organization or anything, all the people who work there are normal. But the children have been in danger from those who weren't."

"You want me to work there?"

The noblesse nodded consideringly. "If you're able to do the job responsibly, then I think you'll be responsible with what you do with your comrade's soul. And if you're protecting the children, then teaching you things that will help you survive whatever fights you get into on the job until I can get there would be my responsibility as your employer."

M-21 nodded, face serious.

Ignoring them, the other noblesse sipped his tea.

Frankenstein's phone rang. "Master, it's Shinwoo."

Raizel took the phone, listened to it upside down, then put it down on the table without hanging up.

M-21 hadn't done anything like that despite the memory wipes, but there was a lot of stuff he'd had to learn. Phones were part of the general information they'd retained, but it made sense a noblesse might not know human things like that.

And then there was the automatic door.

"Shinwoo wants to meet me."

"Pardon."

"He said he's bored."

Shinwoo was the red-headed kid. He'd gone though all that, and he remembered so little that he could be bored?

Real noblesses' mind control was way beyond what M-24 could do, huh. Even if M-24 had trained him to resist mind control, he'd need to watch out.

"So?" M-21 asked, hands in his pockets after his first day of school.

"How do you feel about ramyeon?" Frankenstein asked him.

"What?"

"I could use another set of tastebuds to help me test the ramyeon recipes I'm making for Master. You're welcome to eat dinner with us, of course, and I'll give you an advance on your salary to buy food elsewhere if you'd be more comfortable, but the human body needs adequate calories, fat, protein and sleep to heal and grow. If you've been developing more power over time, stuffing yourself before you go to bed might be worth trying for a couple of weeks to see if that helps you stabilize."

M-21's eyes narrowed, then he snorted at himself. "No point in asking if it's drugged. You wouldn't have to trick me into doing whatever it takes to see M-24 again."

The noblesse stared at him again. "Why on earth would… Drugs interfere with your system," he said slowly, for M-21's benefit. "This can be beneficial when a body needs the help, but you need to get an idea of what your healthy baseline is. What kind of power you have access to and how far you can push yourself. If you need a drug to be stable, what happens if summoning your comrade boosts your enhanced healing enough to clear your system of the drug? Your situation is already atypical. Let's not raise the odds of something going wrong."

He paused. "If you like, I could show you how to check your vitals. Nobles are different from humans, so I have some equipment that should let you take a look at your friend's energies."

He had a lab with equipment as good as anything in the Union, that was what he had.

"It's not as though we can go to an ordinary hospital," Frankenstein pointed out.

M-21 glared at him.

"I suppose it's not worth pretending I'm not a scientist when the Union set out to blacken my name after I killed a few thousand of them… I'm retired these days," he said, going to sit down at the computer. "Master has forbidden me from experimenting to give myself more power."

"So you experimented on humans, or nobles?"

"I experimented on nobles – I needed the data to modify myself."

Right, M-24 thought – what would experimenting on humans tell a noble?

"My victims were criminals who dealt with the Union – they were going to be forced into eternal sleep regardless, I felt that someone should get some use out of them. Not that I modified them the way the Union does with test subjects, I wasn't going to let criminals have the fruit of my research. But, Master ordered me to stop before I made myself any more terrifying than I already am." He sighed, typing. "I miss the discovery… It's not fun anymore these days, Google makes things too easy."

What the hell was he talking about? A non-Union search engine wouldn't have anything on noblesse. "What are you writing?" That, M-21 wanted to know. Was he keeping records on M-21?

"A guide to using the equipment you might find useful, and what to do with the readings."

"Like what?"

"Like do the values remain steady, fluctuate, increase or decrease, and what does that means about your condition and M-24's." He kept typing rapidly.

"What's wrong with M-24?"

"He's not in danger or I'm sure that Master will let us know – he can see souls," Frankenstein said offhand. "But I'm sure you'd rather not take our word for it, and I'd like you to know how to check your condition before and after working on manifesting a soul weapon. Much of this is unprecedented."

He finally stopped typing and a hum started – a printer. "Would you mind taking a look through this and telling me if there's anything I need to clarify?" Frankenstein asked, handing him a booklet.

M-21 took it and started to read it suspiciously. 'Guide to Medical Equipment for M-21 & M-24,' huh?

Seeing M-21's gaze linger on the front page, Frankenstein explained that, "If you can sense him, some kind of psychic communication might be easier than manifesting a soul weapon, once he's able to wake up. In the other human soul weapon I know of, the souls are always awake and able to talk, but it's rather different from your comrade's situation."

So not much help then.

The constant undertone of 'you're going to have to work this out for yourself' was a lot more reassuring than being told all this would be handled if he did what the scientist noblesse told him to do. M-21 and M-24 were used to having to do everything for themselves – everything that wasn't done to them. This was something he wanted, so of course he was the only one who would make it happen.

"One thing," Frankenstein said.

M-21's gaze whipped to him.

"Please don't bring the guide to the school. I'd rather not have the children exposed to anything that might make them valuable to the Union."

That made sense. A place with high-tech machines that could handle noblesse and modified humans like this, and then they killed Union agents and strolled into a Union base? The Union would want to capture them a lot more than M-21.

M-21 they might hopefully just kill without finding out he was worth dragging into a lab. No, they'd interrogate him to find out anything he knew about these noblesse, and if they found out about M-24…

No. He wouldn't let them.

"Would you mind trying some ramyeon while you read?" Frankenstein asked when he didn't leave the lab.

"Whatever," M-21 said, giving a half-nod, eyes still on the pages except when he looked up to locate the thing he was reading about. Frankenstein gave him this, so he'd eat the ramyeon. He didn't mind working at the school, protecting the kids M-24 wanted protected.