The Devil's in the Details

four short stories about one old house, for 42_souls

Part Four: Cranky

(but the kids are all right)

It was exactly 3:30 in the morning when the phone rang.

By the time that Kid had finished swearing, and had stumbled down the stairs, into the lower foyer where the only phone in the house was kept, it was 3: 33 a.m. During three minutes, the phone had not stopped ringing. That meant that there was an emergency. Or at least, there had better have been an emergency. Kid picked up the phone, and tried not to grimace. His wrists were sore. "What now?"

"Um," said a very small, timid voice on the other end of the line. "Ummmm…."

"Who is this?" Kid asked.

"Marty. Th-This is Marty. Um, hi."

"…Who?"

"Marty Feldmann."

"Who?"

"I was in Miss Liz's group at camp--"

"Oh, no. Are you a Shibusen student?"

"Y-Yes, I--"

"How did you get this number?" Then Kid remembered that it was past three in the morning. It was currently 3:35, to be exact. "And why are you calling me?"

"Okay. Um." On the other end of the line, Marty took a deep breath. Then he said, "Please don't get angry. Mr. Sid gave me your phone number. He told me to call you."

Kid tried to balance his own foul mood – he did not appreciate being roused from a rather exhausted slumber – against his growing concern. The fact that some poor little one-star technician was calling him in the middle of the night probably meant that something was very, very wrong. "Marty, is this an emergency?" he asked. "If something's wrong, you need to tell me as quickly and as clearly as possible."

"I-I-I'm trying," Marty said. He sounded terrified. "It's just that… Um…"

Kid rolled his eyes, glad that Marty couldn't see what he was doing. "Marty. Take deep breaths. Calm down."

On the other end of the line, Marty did take deep breaths. Kid then heard footsteps, turned, and saw Liz and Patti standing there, watching him. "Is this an emergency?" Liz asked. "Should I be putting on some clothes?"

Kid covered the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand and whispered, "I don't know if it's an emergency."

"Who's calling?"

"Matt or… Something. No, wait. Marty."

"Marty Feldmann?" Liz combed through her mussed hair with her fingers absent-mindedly, frowning. "How'd he get this number?"

"From Sid, apparently."

"What?"

Patti laughed. "Oh, Marty! From camp!" Then she pointed at Kid. "You're not wearing any pants."

"I know. I know. Hold on a second." He uncovered the mouthpiece and addressed Marty again. "Talk to me. And do try to be articulate."

"Okay." There was a nervous tremble in Marty's voice, but he continued speaking nevertheless. "So like, I'm the leader of my team now. And, um, Mr. Sid is our advisor this semester. And, um. Ummmmm. We've been assigned to do an extracurricular lesson. So we need to--"

"Marty. Marty." Kid forced himself to swallow his rage. "You did not just call my home at three in the morning to ask for help with your homework, did you?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what IS the problem?! Hurry up and say it!"

"Don't scare him," Liz said, rather loudly, stepping toward Kid. "He's just a student. Stop yelling at him."

Kid held up a finger to silence her. She held up a different finger to show him what she thought of that. Patti laughed at them both. On the other end of the line, Marty continued with his infuriating dithering. "My team is supposed to retrieve a very specific object and bring it back to Mr. Sid. Who's like, at Shibusen right now. On the front steps. Waiting."

"Marty, what part of this is an 'emergency,' again?" Kid was well past the point of impatient. Marty's verbal spewage was an all-over-the-place mess. If only the idiot boy would be able to communicate more directly and efficiently!

"Um. Uhhhhh… Um." Marty sounded quite frightened now. "Okay. This is the hard part. Okay. Okay, here we go." Another deep breath. "So like… It's about the thing that we have to get and take back to Mr. Sid."

"Which would be what, now?"

"The mask."

"What mask?" Kid rubbed at his eyes sleepily.

"Your mask."

"My what?" Kid scratched at his head. Then, something in his sleep-fuzzed brain finally clicked into gear. "My what?!"

"Your mask. The one that looks like a skull, but kind of… you know. Silly."

"It is not silly and Marty are you being serious right now? Seriously? Being serious?" Kid felt as if some sort of mental rug had just been yanked out from beneath him. He didn't understand what Marty was talking about, he didn't understand why Marty was calling him in the middle of the night to tell him any of this, and he didn't know how to respond to Liz tapping him on the shoulder and impatiently mouthing What? Whaaaat? over and over again. Kid tried to wave her away, but she wouldn't leave. Obnoxious. So he tried to turn his attention back to Marty. "This had better not be a prank call," he said, his voice dark and threatening.

"It's not a prank. Um. Sir. We're supposed to get the mask from you and give it to Mr. Sid. Who's waiting for us. Right now. In front of the school."

"I'm not going to give my mask to you," Kid said. "That's stupid."

"Oh, we know. I mean, um. We're supposed to take it from you."

Kid yawned and rubbed at his eyes again. "Are you trying to tell me that you want to fight me for it? Is that your extracurricular assignment?" He frowned. "That's the second time that Sid has sent a bunch of tow-headed little one-stars after me as an extracurricular. I'm going to have to talk to--"

"Oh, we're really not looking forward to having to fight you," Marty said, quickly. "I mean, um. We know that we're totally outmatched. So we're trying to get this done without starting a fight. But. Um. Like, if it did come down to a fight, at least we'd have the element of surprise."

And once again, Kid felt that mental rug being yanked out from beneath his brain. "You have the… the what?"

"The element of surprise."

"Marty…" Kid sighed. "Marty, you just told me all about your assignment. You just blew your element of surprise."

"No, actually," Marty said. "No, we haven't."

Slowly, Kid lowered the phone away from his face. He turned toward Liz. "Does Marty have a cell phone?" he asked.

"That's a stupid question. Everybody has a cell phone."

"Not me."

"That's because you're weird." Liz suddenly looked up at the ceiling. "Do you hear footsteps?"

And then it hit Kid. Two, three, no – four soul wavelengths. Two technicians, and two weapons. Young. In the house. He shouted an obscenity and slammed the phone back down into its cradle. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!" he screamed, pulling at his hair. If he hadn't been half-asleep, and if he hadn't been distracted by the bizarreness of getting a phone call at three in the morning, and if he hadn't been focusing all of his attention on trying to follow Marty's rambling, incoherent speech, then he would have noticed them right away---!

"Liz, Patti! Upstairs, NOW!"

"Do we have intruders?" Patti asked. "Oops, Patti's naked."

"Gun form! Then it won't matter!"

Kid was already pounding up the stairs when he felt two sets of cold steel sliding into his hands. "No holsters and no pants," Liz commented. "You must be really ticked off." Then, a moment later: "So, mind telling us what's going on?"

"Sid is an asshole, and he sent Marty's team of one-stars to steal my mask as an extracurricular, and I think they already did that while I was busy talking to Marty the Mouth-Breathing Idiot on the phone!" He rounded a corner, pounded down a hallway, and ran into his own bedroom. He immediately noticed the open closet door, the open window, and the distinct lack of any soul wavelengths in the room. That was because the four that he had sensed earlier were already on the roof above. "Dammit dammit dammit!"

Kid started toward the window, but then felt Liz jump out of his hand. He instinctively dropped Patti just to even out the balance. "Oh, no you don't," Liz said, pulling him back into the room. "You are not going to climb out that window with guns in both of your hands. Or half-naked." She pushed him toward the closet. "Pants. Now. And holsters."

"Should we get dressed too?" Patti asked her sister.

"No time," Kid snapped, trying to pull on his pants and run toward the window at the same time. At least he was already wearing his pajama top. "Two of the technicians are already getting away!"

"Two?" Liz still wasn't changing back into her gun form. "Where's the third? Do you even know which one is Marty?"

"Look, I don't know these kids as well as you do, I can't tell--" He froze. "The third one's down below. Outside. With a weapon." He scowled. "What do they think they're--?"

Then the first explosion rocked the house, knocking all three of them off their feet.

Kid scrambled back into a standing position. He immediately started running back downstairs. "Liz, Patti!" he snapped, impatiently. Why weren't they already back in his hands?!

"Sorry, but I think it's time to get dressed," Liz shouted after him. "This is going to be one of those things, isn't it?"

"Fine, fine! Go ahead and put on some clothes!" Kid was halfway down the stairs by now. "I'll take care of whoever's--"

Another shock rippled through the house, and Kid's feet flew out from beneath him. He fell gracelessly down the last few stairs, swearing all the while. He realized belatedly that what he had thought was an explosion had in fact been more like a seismic tremor. Kid gripped the bottom of the staircase railing, pulled himself shakily back to his feet, and paused for a moment to actually look around.

The house was still dark and gloomy. There was a light on in the lower foyer, near the phone. It was the only light that Kid had turned on when he had first answered the phone's ringing. But everywhere else was cloaked in shadow. Kid forced himself to take a deep breath, trying to focus his soul perception ability. Then he took eight deep breaths. And then he found the two souls that he was looking for. There. Inside the house, now. Behind him.

He whirled around just as all of the lights turned on.

"Argh!" He hissed and covered his eyes, shocked not so much by the sudden brightness as by the horrific sights that the lights revealed. The house was in complete disarray. Knocked-over furniture, crooked picture frames, fallen candles scattered all over the place, and one spectacularly smashed vase. Whatever the source of the tremors had been, it had obviously been much stronger downstairs than what Kid had felt upstairs.

Kid felt his vision blurring, his stomach clenching with panic. He had to fix things. Had to set them right. This was his home, dammit, and he couldn't just leave the candles on the ground or the shattered porcelain vase scattered all over the place! If his own home was in chaos, then his brain was in chaos, then the whole damn universe was in chaos. He sank down to his knees, momentarily overwhelmed by the destruction all around him. Trembling from head to toe, he shakily reached toward a piece of the broken vase. If he could just---

BOOM!

A third tremor rippled through the house. That, more than anything, momentarily jolted Kid back to his senses. He leapt back to his feet, and ran toward the source of the noise. It was coming from somewhere in front of him. He ran about three more steps before he froze in horror again. He could see them now, illuminated clearly by the blazing overhead lights: A young girl, dressed from head to toe in black sweats, her long hair pulled back into a combat-ready bun. An enormous gadha in her hands. And the grand piano in the lower ballroom, smashed to bits.

The girl was trembling slightly, too. Her soul wavelength quivered with fear laced with adrenaline – pure, terrified nerves. But she still managed to glare at Kid defiantly. "I'm sorry," she said. "But we really need to pass this assignment."

"And who exactly are you?" Kid asked, for lack of anything better to say.

Instead of answering, the girl swung her gadha again, in one long, slow arc over her head. Kid could see her soul resonating with her weapon's soul, building up toward an explosion. She brought the gadha smashing down to the ground in front of her feet, and the entire house rocked with the impact. Then Kid remembered that he was standing directly beneath a chandelier. Fortunately, he managed to scramble out of the way a fraction of a second before nearly fifty pounds of Swiss crystal came smashing down to the ground.

"Are you trying to KILL me?!" Kid snapped at them both. Then his gaze was caught by the smashed chandelier, and he couldn't look away. "Look at what you've done!" He pulled at his hair, fighting back tears. "That chandelier was commissioned! From Switzerland! We'll never be able to replace it… There's no way to fix it now…" He sank to his knees again, not noticing or caring that he was kneeling in the broken glass. His eyes were mesmerized by the sight of a thousand asymmetrical shards of shattered crystal, scattered gleaming across the carpet. It was like staring at a train wreck and being unable to look away. No, worse – it was like staring into the dark heart of the abyss of a demon god's soul wavelength, everything broken and chaotic, no two pieces of glass matching, jagged edges of broken crystal defying any of his attempts to seek out their matching partners with his eyes. Kid helplessly ran his hands through the scattered glass, then gingerly picked up one bit of broken chandelier, and let his eyes fixate on the mess in front of him until he could find a piece that would match with the one he was holding. He stared, and stared, but couldn't find—

The gadha smashed into the side of his head, and for a moment, everything went black.

When Kid found his vision (and his senses) again, he was knocked to the ground, thankfully having been flung somewhat away from the mess of broken glass that was all that remained of the chandelier. He turned his head just in time to see the girl looming over him, gadha raised. "I thought it would be waaaaay more difficult than this, to take you out," she said, pulling back her arms, preparing to swing the gadha down into Kid's face. "But you--"

There was a flash of bright soul-light, and the gadha screamed, turning back into a boy even as his partner's arms continued to helplessly swing downward. It took the girl a moment to realize that she was no longer holding the base of her gadha, but rather, her partner's left foot; the rest of the boy slammed into to the ground beside Kid, wincing with pain. "Owwwww, that hurts!" the boy hissed.

The girl still didn't seem to understand what had happened. She blinked stupidly at her partner. "Ti, what are you doing?"

"Behind you!" the boy shouted. But it was too late. Several rounds of gunfire slammed into the girl's back before she finally went down. But down she did go, nearly falling all over Kid as she did so. Kid managed to scramble out of the way at the last minute. He stood up quickly, dodged Ti's attempt to grab at his ankle, and tried to get his bearings. The girl technician was down, but not out; her eyes looked wide and stunned, but she was already getting back on her feet. So was the weapon named Ti.

But Patti was now holding the ground in front of the smashed piano, using Liz to fire another shot that exploded against the technician's back. "Serpentine, bitches!" Patti shrieked. "What did we teach you at camp?! SERPENTINE!"

The girl finally did try to run, then. Patti fired at her again. Ti leapt directly into the path of the shot, and took three soul-bullets straight into his chest. "Ow! Ow! Ow!"

"Ti!" the girl screamed, somewhat melodramatically. Ti sank to his knees, clutching his chest and gasping. The girl flung herself over her partner, wrapped her arms around him, and begged Patti tearfully, "Don't shoot!"

Patti raised her gun and aimed, no mercy in her eyes. "Still not serpentining," she said.

"We surrender!" the girl shouted. "We give up! We surrender!"

And then, finally, Liz leapt out of Patti's hands. Patti looked disappointed, but she let her sister run toward Kid. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"No," Kid answered. "Absolutely not."

"Come here." Liz brushed a bit of broken glass off his shoulder. Then she raised her fist and punched him, hard, on the side of his face that hadn't been hit by the gadha. "Better now?"

"Much. Thank you." Kid could finally focus his thoughts again, now that he had matching dull aches on both sides of his face. "Liz. Liz! What took you so long?! They destroyed the chandelier!"

"I know."

"And the piano!"

"I can see that."

"And a third-century Han dynasty vase!" Kid sobbed. For the third time that morning, his legs gave out beneath him, and he sank to the floor, trembling. "It'll take days to clean all of this up. I'll never be able to explain this to Father. I'm such a failure. A total failure!"

"Oh, shut up. We don't have time for this now!" Liz grabbed at his arm, trying to pull him back up into a standing position. "We have to get out of here, now! We have to go after Marty! Kid, they took your mask, remember?!"

Kid sniffled, trying not to remember.

"Listen," Liz said, pulling on both of his arms now. "If we don't stop Marty, he's going to go all the way to Shibusen, he's going to hand that mask over to Sid, he's going to pass his assignment, and then everybody will know that we were the first group of seniors to lose an extracurricular challenge to a bunch of little one-star twerps, and then do you know what's going to happen? Black Star is going to laugh at you!"

"I'll laugh at you too," Patti added. She was cheerfully holding her hand, partially morphed into the barrel of a gun, to Ti's head as she spoke. Ti and his partner were kneeling in front of her with their hands raised above their heads, both looking terrified. Which was probably due to the manic look in Patti's eyes. "Come on, Kid. We gotta go."

But Kid shook his head helplessly. "No. No. No!"

Patti scowled at him. "Now what?"

"Look at this place!" Kid wriggled his arms free of Liz's grip and gestured helplessly, his hands sweeping in the direction of the smashed chandelier, the wrecked piano, the utter horror surrounding them on all sides. "I can't leave it like this! I can't—I can't--" He shuddered. "I have to clean this up," he mumbled to himself. Yes. That. As soon as he said the words, he knew that they were true, and he clung desperately to that pure and beautiful truth even as chaos threatened to overwhelm him from all sides. "I have to clean this up. I have to clean this up." It was a good mantra. Good words, that, for the moment, were doing a good job of preventing him from both puking and fainting dead away. "I have to clean this up. I have to--"

"Fine," Patti snapped at him, impatiently. Kid dimly registered that she was in an incredibly foul mood, and getting worse by the minute. Bad news for poor Marty and whichever other kids were with him. "Fine," Patti repeated. "You stay here. Liz and I will get back your stupid mask."

"No way," Liz countered. "Marty's long gone, and he's got way too much of a lead on us. We'll never catch up to him without Beelzebub." She grabbed at Kid's arms again, still trying to pull him up. "Come on! Get it together, Kid!"

And then Kid finally did stand up. But he angrily pulled his arms out of Liz's grip and turned away from her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. But I have to clean this up." Slowly, he started shuffling back across the room. He needed to find a broom. Yes, a broom. First a broom for the broken glass, and then he could worry about the rest. But a broom first and foremost.

Out the damned room, and down a hallway. Kid forced himself to keep moving. He didn't care about the mask anymore. He didn't care about Marty. He didn't care about whether Black Star was going to laugh at him or not. The image of all of those shards of the broken chandelier scattered gleaming across the ground had lodged in his brain, just as surely as some of the smaller shards of the actual glass had lodged in his knees when he'd knelt among them. There was glass and it was broken and it was chaos, and he wouldn't be able to move or think or act until he was able to fix that. Or at least clean it up. But once he was done with the chandelier, he would have to move on to the piano, too. And then the vase. And then, picking up the candles. And righting all of the overturned furniture. And fixing the alignment of the picture frames. And—

"FUCK!"

Kid finally saw the source of the initial tremor, the one that they had felt from upstairs. It was also, he realized belatedly, the way that the technician and her gadha partner had been able to enter the house.

The front door had been smashed in, completely knocked out of its frame. A good chunk of the surrounding wall had been wrecked along with it.

Kid forced his eyes away from the awful sight. What had he come over here to do again? Oh, yes. A broom. There were several in a nearby closet.

Kid found his closet, opened the door, and reached for a broom. He could hear Liz yelling at the kids, still trapped in the ballroom. You little shits! she was shouting at them. You did this to him on purpose!

Well, of course they had. Kid could have told her that much. It didn't take a genius to figure out the strategy that the little students had cooked up. Ti and his technician partner – whatever her name was – had been deliberately left behind as sacrifices. They had known from the beginning that they were going to be taken down by Kid, or Liz, or Patti. Once they had made their presence known, they had been doomed. But they had still pulled off their plan brilliantly. Ti's only job had been to cause as much damage in as little time as possible. Their only goal had been to give Kid a good reason to stay in the house, and not leave to pursue Marty. A darn good reason, by the way.

Kid understood all of this. On a rational level, he understood exactly how and why he had been played. But the hell of it was that it didn't matter whether he understood or not. He still wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything else until he had cleaned up the remains of the chandelier. And possibly the piano. And then the vase. And then the candles. And then the—

"Don't." Patti was there, behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Put down the broom, Kid."

"I can't."

"Put down the goddamn broom, you useless piece of shit!"

"Okay." Kid did so. Patti let go of him, and he turned around to face her. "You're… You're very angry right now, aren't you?"

"No, duh! Kid should be angry too!" She had bunched up her fists and was screwing up her face, preparing to throw an epic tantrum. "They hit you! In the head!" Then her voice broke. "Ti could have killed you. They weren't being careful!" She wiped at her eyes. "I saw it happen. But wasn't fast enough. Didn't shoot in time. I'm sorry."

"Patti." Now it was his turn to slip his arms around her waist, pulling her close. "Hey. Don't cry. They're just kids. They couldn't have killed me if they'd tried."

Patti scowled at him. "Stop being stupid," she said. She pointed toward the wreck at the front of the house, toward the smashed door on the ground. "Look what Ti did to that wall!"

"Is that his resonance attack?"

"Yeah. Carly and Ti. That's kind of their special thing. But Carly's no good at controlling Ti's wavelength." Patti bit her lip. "They could have done that to your skull. By accident. Those dumbasses. We had this problem at camp. We toldCarly not to use Ti against people, but--"

"Patti, are you not wearing a bra?"

Her scowl deepened. "Are you going to help us take down Marty, or are you just going to give up and let him win?"

"You know I can't leave the house in this state."

"Yes, you can." She leaned her head in close to his, pressing against him. Definitely not wearing a bra. But at least she had managed to throw on a T-shirt and jeans, which was an improvement over complete nudity. "Close your eyes," Patti said. "Don't look at the mess."

"But I can't stop thinking about it."

"Then think about me," Patti said. "Come on. Resonate with me."

He closed his eyes and did so, easily connecting with the familiar ripple of her soul wavelength. He breathed in and out, slowly, tasting the bitterness of her anger. And he could feel more colors dancing in her wavelength as well. There was the lingering aftertaste of the moment of sharp, heart-clenching fear she had felt, watching helplessly during the moment when Ti's gadha form had connected with the side of Kid's face. There was the bright streak of her pride, especially her pride in her ranking as a Death Scythe, and a cold, clear undercurrent of not wanting to lose to a bunch of children specifically because she was so proud of her title. And bubbling beneath all of this was the laughter in her soul, her gleeful amusement at the utter disaster that their morning had become, a bursting desire to simply laugh endlessly at how stupid it all was, from the wrecked chandelier, to Kid's insane reactions, to Marty's incoherent phone call, to the moment when Kid had tried to climb out the upstairs window with his guns in both hands and still not wearing any pants. A dozen little moments of humiliating tragedy that, to Patti, were nothing more than amusing scenes in the brilliant comedy of her life. And there would be more to laugh at, before the night was finished and the sun came up. Much more, she was sure of it – and looking forward to it all. Provided that she could ever convince Kid to go after Marty.

Kid squeezed his arms around her tightly, focusing on the heat of her anger. It was a good heat, calming, and cleansing. Her fury was burning the images of the broken chandelier and the smashed piano out of his mind. He pulled her anger deep into him, drinking from it thirstily, using it to fuel his own dormant rage. And he could feel her pulling at his soul as well, responding to his resonance, drawing the wavelength from his heart and forging it into her bullets. "That's right," Patti sighed. "Your soul makes the best ammunition when you're angry."

"Good. Because I am very, very angry right now. I loved that chandelier."

"Me too. It was so shiny." Patti grinned at him. "Let's go kick Marty's ass." Then she wagged her finger at him disapprovingly. "I told you to close your eyes."

"Fine." He did so, and then he let go of her waist. She took his hand, and began leading him back toward the ballroom. Kid kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut and let Patti take the lead, following the waves of her soul, concentrating on their shared anger so that he wouldn't let any other thoughts distract him.

Kid knew that they were back in the ballroom when he could hear glass crunching beneath feet. "Oh, finally," Liz said. "Let's go."

"Wait," Kid said. He knew better than to open his eyes, but he still managed to point in the direction where he could feel the soul wavelengths of Carly and Ti. "What are we going to do with them?"

"Y-Y-Yeah. Yeah!" Carly stuttered, defiantly. "You can't just leave us here! Ti and I are gonna bring down this entire house, if you guys try to walk away from us!"

"Yes. I am totally going to do that," Ti confirmed. "Exactly that."

Patti laughed at their foolish bravado. Kid momentarily felt like laughing too, but then decided against it. Even with his eyes closed, he could still feel Ti's soul wavelength, and he could sense that the poor boy was many hours away from being able to shift into his weapon form again. Taking three of Liz's bullets directly in his chest had drained him of more than he was apparently willing to reveal to his partner. Still, even without weapon abilities, two desperate teenagers could still do a lot of damage to his house if he just left them behind to run amuck. Kid briefly considered simply shooting them both in the head and knocking them out cold. They certainly deserved as much. But even he couldn't quite bring himself to do such a thing to a pair of Shibusen students. So he finally said, "Patti, get the handcuffs."

"Aye-aye!" Patti let go of his hand, and a moment later, Kid heard her running back up the stairs.

"Wait, what?" Carly sounded confused. "Handcuffs? Why do you have handcuffs?"

Liz coughed.

Patti was back almost instantly. "Where?" she asked.

Kid mentally browsed through locations in the house, trying to think of a spot that would still be relatively intact. "Upstairs, east wing, full bathroom. The vertical handlebar in the shower."

"Right. You heard him." Liz stomped across the glass-strewn carpet impatiently. "March, kiddies."

Three sets of footsteps marched out of the ballroom and up the stairs. Patti took Kid's hand again, leading him after them. By the time that they were back on the second story, Kid risked opening his eyes. Things were better up here, although there were still quite a few crooked picture frames to worry about. Liz had twisted Carly's arm behind her back and was frog-marching her down the hallway in front of them. Ti followed a step behind her, morosely.

They reached the bathroom, and Liz pushed both of the kids into the shower. "Wow," Carly said. "I think this bathroom is as big as my entire dorm suite."

"It's probably bigger," Patti said, cheerfully handing the handcuffs to her sister.

Liz snapped one cuff around Carly's wrist, passed the chain connecting the cuffs behind the handlebar affixed to the wall of the shower, and then closed the other cuff around Ti's wrist. "There," she said, satisfied with her handiwork. "I'd suggest you two sit down and think long and hard about how dead you're going to be when we get back. Also, how much it's going to cost you to replace that piano. And that chandelier."

"Which, by the way," Kid added, "was made entirely of rather expensive Swiss crystal." He eyed the shower handlebar for a moment, wondering how long it would take Ti to rip it off the wall. The boy was massive, built like a tank, with thick muscles visible all along his neck and arms. His wrists were almost too big for the handcuffs. But he was also still badly drained from having been shot by Liz. Kid decided that for the time being, Ti was no threat to any of his bathroom fixtures. "We'll be back shortly," Kid said, turning and walking out of the bathroom. Liz and Patti followed him.

Kid paused for just a moment, closing his eyes and trying to sense the presence of the two technicians he had sensed on the roof earlier. Wherever they were, they were long gone, far out of his range. On their way to Shibusen, no doubt. "We have to hurry," he said, striding back down the stairs and toward the hole in the wall that had previously been his front door. "Liz. Patti. Talk to me." Keep me focused. "Who exactly are we dealing with, here?"

"You're still wearing your pajama shirt, you know," Liz pointed out. "Hold on, let me get your cloak."

"We don't have time for that." Kid stepped carefully around the twisted wreckage of his door and out into the cool early-morning air. The moon in the sky above grinned down at him, drooling blood, but providing plenty of useful illumination. Kid ignored the moon's grin, the same way that he ignored the destruction of his home and the thought of all of those mismatched pieces of broken chandelier scattered all over the floor in the lower ballroom. He was only able to ignore these things, of course, because Liz and Patti were with him now, resonating with him, keeping his thoughts sharp and focused on his anger. He could feel their souls pushing at him, driving him forward. They were on the hunt now, and Kid's ability to focus on his prey was the only thing holding him together. But the three of them wouldn't be able to keep up this resonance forever. Eventually they would have to stop, and then Kid could have a good long freakout about the state of the house. But that, at least, could wait until after he had prevented a couple of very, very doomed little technicians from passing their asinine extracurricular assignment.

"Tell me about Marty's team," Kid repeated, as Liz and Patti settled into his holsters, and Beelzebub launched into the air. "I need to know who we're dealing with."

"Right. Okay." Liz spoke to him more clearly from the space inside his mind than she could from within her holster. "Marty's the team leader. He's also the youngest. Kind of a weird kid, always a bundle of nerves. He has a little bit of a soul perception ability, but not much. Elsie is his partner. She's a bow. She's kind of like us, she has to use her technician's soul to make arrows. Neither of them can do a resonance attack yet. They're kind of losers, actually. But for some reason they're working out as the team leaders. Carly is one of the support technicians, and Timirbaran – I'm sorry, Ti, everyone calls him Ti – is her partner. Ti is basically their tank. Well, you've met him. You know now."

"He was almost too big for the handcuffs!" Patti laughed. "Kid, you have girly wrists compared to Ti."

"I think everybody has girly wrists compared to Ti," Liz pointed out.

"Forget about wrists," Kid snapped. "Tell me about the third technician."

"Jozsef. Transferred from the European branch school last year. I think his partner is still Diego, who is--"

"To the left," Patti said.

Kid steered Beelzebub into a dodge at the last moment. Something whickered through the air where his head had been moments before. He pulled Beelzebub down, closer to the rooftops flying by beneath them, and finally spotted a small figure running down a street. It was definitely one of the technicians that he had sensed earlier. And the little idiot was heading straight into a narrow alley.

Kid drew his guns, and flew into the mouth of the alley. Ahead of him, the poor student was still running for his life. "Don't hold back," Kid told Liz and Patti, drawing out his arms and taking aim.

"Duck!" Patti screamed.

But by then it was too late. Something smashed into Kid's left wrist, hard enough to shatter bone. He hissed, but refused to lose his grip on his gun. He realized his mistake belatedly; Diego, whatever he was, had deliberately waited until Kid had exposed his arms before making his attack. A moment later, Kid looked down and saw exactly what Diego was. The technician in the alley beneath him was twirling his boleros above his head, building up a wicked momentum, preparing for another strike.

"Ow," Kid said. He wasn't sure how badly his wrist had been damaged, but it sure hurt. An experimental twitch of his fingers, however, revealed that everything was still in working order. Good. And whatever had gone wrong in his wrist, it was already healing itself. Being a reaper and having a god's body did have its advantages.

"He'll go for your legs next," Liz said. "That's kind of what we taught him to do at camp."

"Good strategy," Kid admitted. "But no good against us." He raised his guns and fired. The first volley knocked Diego out of his partner's hands, slamming him to the ground and causing him to writhe back into his human form; the second volley went straight into Jozsef's knee caps. The boy staggered, then thumped to the ground, landing gracelessly on his rear.

"Boleros are slow compared to guns!" Patti laughed.

Kid leapt off his skateboard and to the ground, running toward the two students. "You're not dead, are you?" he asked. It was about as much concern as he could possibly muster at that point.

"Ow, my knees!" Jozsef hissed and clenched his fists. "You broke both of my knees!"

Kid scowled at him. "You should thank me," he said. "I made them even. That's more than you bothered to do for me." He winced and rubbed at his sore wrist. "Also, knees don't break. But you might have matching shattered patellas right now. Make sure that you can say it properly." He turned to Diego. "You need to get your partner to an emergency room. Sooner rather than later."

Diego stared at him.

"This," Liz said. "This is why you weren't sent to camp with Patti and me."

Patti laughed and laughed. "Busted his knees, busted his knees!" she sang. Being on the hunt had apparently buoyed her spirits considerably.

"You can take care of your partner, right?" Kid asked Diego one last time.

"Yes. Sir. Yes, I'll take care of him."

"Okay, good. Whatever." Kid hopped back onto Beelzebub, and took to the air again. He didn't have time to deal with the two students any more. Jozsef and Diego were playing the same role as Carly and Ti; pawns sacrificed to distract him from the king. Kid had to admit, the students certainly had admirable courage, if they were willing to throw themselves into fights that they knew that they couldn't possibly win, just to give their team leader a chance to make a run for it.

"Next time," Kid said as he looked down at Jozsef and Diego for the last time, "stick to the high ground. Stay on the rooftops. Diego, you can do more damage as a surprise attack from above than you can launched from the ground." Then he flew back up above the rooftops.

"How's your wrist?" Liz asked, as Death City flew by beneath them.

"Not as bad as my face." He winced. "It's healing. I think."

"Is it broken?"

"I don't think so…"

"Don't worry," Patti said. "If they broke your wrist, then Patti can break your other one, so then they'll be even!"

Kid sniffled gratefully. "Thank you, Patti." Then he frowned. "Marty's dead ahead. I can feel him. Who taught these kids to be such sneaky little bastards, anyway?!"

"Now, be fair," Liz said. "They're doing the exact same things that we were taught to do. When you know that you're up against an opponent who totally outclasses you, you've got to resort to guerilla tactics."

"Gorilla! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr," Patti added.

"I'm surprised that Diego managed to score a hit on you, though," Liz said. "Didn't you sense him coming? Whatever happened to your shields, you idiot?"

"I was distracted," Kid snapped, defensively. And he was still very distracted. The broken pieces of the chandelier were still lodged in his brain, and he could feel them – them and the piano, and the vase, and the candles, and the crooked pictures – seething in the back of his mind, clamoring for his attention, waiting to trap his thoughts in an unstoppable fixation. He was resisting the pull of those thoughts as much as he could, and his resonance with Liz and Patti was certainly helping in that regard. But he wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to concentrate on the hunt. Plus, now he had the added distraction of the uneven pain in his body, one wrist throbbing and swelling while the other was perfectly fine.

He really, really wanted to kill Marty. And possibly Sid, too.

Kid shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and forced himself to concentrate on the trail of the pair of souls that he sensed running below him. There. Down below. Kid looked down, and saw a slight, red-headed figure with a bow slung over his back and a messenger slung over his opposite shoulder, pounding down the middle of a wide avenue as if his life depended on it. Which, at this point, it probably did. Kid could sense the fear roiling through the boy's soul wavelength, and that of his partner, too. Fear, but also determination. Marty wanted to pass his assignment, and wasn't going to stop running until he was taken down by force.

Kid was looking forward to doing so, and doing so as brutally as possible.

"Stupid," Liz said, as Kid drew both her and Patti and took aim. "He's running with Elsie on his back. Stupid. Now he'll never draw her in time."

Kid didn't bother to comment on this. He just started firing.

But the boy was fast. Amazingly fast. "Now that's a serpentine!" Patti laughed.

Kid grit his teeth and tried to focus his rage. If it hadn't been for his wrist, he wouldn't be having such difficulty hitting the boy. And now they were running out of time. Within seconds, Marty had reached the wide pavilion that spread out in front of the Shibusen campus. He dodged and weaved across the bricks, utterly undaunted by the lack of cover from the gunfire hailing down upon him. Kid risked looking away from Marty for a moment, and saw Sid, sitting in the middle of the enormous staircase that fronted the school, watching Marty pound toward him with what might have been an expression of amused interest. With the undead, it was kind of hard to tell.

The drooling moon was lowering to the horizon. The time couldn't have been much past four in the morning, but the city was already stirring around them. Lights were coming on in houses, and the earliest risers were already starting their day. Kid feared that the cacophony of Liz and Patti's gunfire might have been playing a part in waking up the city as well.

Kid simply didn't want the humiliation to drag on any longer. "We end this," he said. "Now." He ceased firing, pushed Beelzebub into a thrust, and sped through the air across the pavilion. He went up and over Marty's head, then landed right at the base of the stairs that Sid was sitting on. Beelzebub vanished, and Kid planted his feet firmly on the ground, turning to face Marty. "I'm sorry," he said to Sid, even though his back was to the other man, "but I'm not going to let your brats pass this assignment."

"Go ahead," Sid rumbled. Kid could feel the bemusement radiating from his soul wavelength. "Do whatever you want to. If Marty can't get past you, then he doesn't deserve to pass. Hmm. Are those your pajamas?"

Kid could already feel Liz and Patti's needles charging with his rage. He crouched low to the ground, sighting his eyes on the boy still suicidally pounding directly toward him. Marty ran and ran and ran, ceaselessly, until he reached a point where he was only a mere ten yards in front of Kid. Then he stopped.

And then, he pulled the bow off his back, and started to draw an arrow.

Stupid, Kid thought. His cannons were still charging, but close to ready to fire. If Marty had any sort of soul perception ability, even just a little bit as Liz had said, then surely he was able to see what Kid was doing. He probably could see, in fact. Kid could certainly see the terror roiling throughout the boy's wavelength. The poor kid was close to pissing himself, it looked like. Am I really that scary? Kid thought.

"Yes," Liz answered.

"Totally," Patti added. "Especially when you do the glowy-eyes thing. Like now."

"Martin Feldmann," Kid shouted, pulling his cannons together in front of him and preparing to fire. "Surrender now, and we can end this peacefully. You're a student. I don't want to hurt you. Just give me back my mask, and we can all walk away from this."

Marty trembled. But he dug his feet into the ground, took a deep breath, and pulled a shimmering soul-arrow across the string of his bow. "No," he said. "I don't surrender. We won't surrender!"

Kid couldn't help but smile at that. "Good answer," he said. "I actually am sorry about this, now. Just a li--"

Marty shot his arrow.

At first, Kid blinked at him stupidly, unsure of what he had just seen. "Hey," he growled. "Hey! I wasn't done talking at you! And… I'm right in front of you, you mouth-breathing idiot! How could you have missed me?!"

"Oh, Marty," Liz groaned. "I don't remember his aim being that bad…"

Marty shakily raised his bow again. He had just fired one arrow straight into the ground, and was already cocking another one. "Get out of my way," he tried to threaten, although his terror made his voice crack comically. "Or I'll shoot again!"

"You call that shooting?!" Kid was really furious now. It was bad enough that he had been surprised and humiliated over and over again that morning. It was bad enough that his own home was a wreck. It was bad enough that a snot-nosed little one-star technician was now standing in front of him and shouting challenges, and said snot-nosed little one-star technician had stolen his mask, and he still hadn't gotten it back. All of that was bad enough, of course. But to top it all off, to discover that his opponent didn't even have enough wits about him to shoot at a target directly in front of his face…

That was beyond humiliating. That was beyond infuriating. Kid wanted to utterly destroy the boy. "Liz, Patti!" he shouted. "Don't hold back!" He crouched and took aim again, preparing to fire all of his seething rage in one apocalyptic burst. He was so busy narrowing his focus – and his aim – on Marty's hateful face, that he didn't even notice the ground beginning to rumble beneath him.

By the time that Kid felt the bricks shift beneath his feet, however, it was too late.

Oh, right, he thought, as what felt like several tons of highly-pressurized water erupted through the ground beneath him. There's a water main right here. Of course there is. Right in the center of the campus. Dividing it right down the middle…

So that's what Marty's arrow had been aiming for.

Brilliant.

Kid dimly heard Liz and Patti screaming. With a flash of alarm, he briefly wondered if they were hurt. Then he realized that several seconds ago, a flying brick, having exploded upward during the moment that the water main had burst, had somehow managed to slam him right in the crotch.

For a moment, Kid was knocked breathless, overwhelmed by the sudden flash of pain from between his legs, and the relentless explosion of water slamming his body. He wasn't sure if he fell or if he actually managed to step away from the worst of the eruption, but a second later, he was on his hands and knees, scrambling over the ground, trying to get away from the pressurized spray. He coughed up a lungful of water, and groped blindly around, trying to get his bearings. He found Liz's hand, then Patti's; somehow, the three of them managed to pull each other up and stumble away from the epicenter of the water. Kid splashed across the ground, wiping water from his eyes, squinting through the early-morning gloom to try to find Marty again.

There. Running up the stairs, faster than a bat out of hell. Within a few dozen more steps, he was going to reach Sid. Marty reached into the messenger bag that he was wearing, and pulled out Kid's skull mask, preparing for the handoff.

"Liz! Patti!" Kid ran across the wet bricks, starting up the stairs.

"No!" A tiny wisp of a girl suddenly leapt in front of him, flinging out her arms and blocking his path. It was Elsie, the bow. "Don't you dare hurt Marty!"

"Elsie." Liz stepped forward, and placed one dripping-wet hand on the girl's shoulder. "It's over. Move."

Elsie stared up at Liz, her eyes wide and frightened. Liz had to have been at least twice as tall as her. And she was, of course, a Death Scythe, regardless of how non-threatening she might have looked in her currently soaked-to-the-bone state. But Elsie had desperation on her side. So she did the only thing that she could do. She lunged forward and bit Liz on the arm.

"Argh!" Liz recoiled, more disgusted than hurt. "What the hell? What the hell?!"

Patti lunged at Elsie, then, but the tiny girl was a quick dodge. "Come back here!" Patti growled. That seemed to only terrify Elsie more. So Elsie leapt around Liz and started pounding back down the stairs.

"If this leaves a scar you are so gonna get it!" Liz shouted after her, turning to pursue.

"Wait, wait! Liz, Patti, wait!" Kid shouted at them, but they were no longer listening to him. His partners were running down the steps after Elsie, trying in vain to grab at the tiny, terrified little girl.

Damn! Kid thought. One more distraction thrown into their path. One more attempt to keep him away from Marty. And now his resonance with Liz and Patti was broken, too. Kid could no longer feel their anger burning in him. And without their focus to steady him, he could already feel the broken shards of the chandelier digging into his brain again, taking over his other thoughts, filling his mind with visions of all of that mess to clean up, all of that knocked-over furniture to upright, all of those picture frames to straighten…

It felt as though Marty were growing further and further away.

Then Kid realized with a start that Marty was growing further and further away. That was because he was still running up the stairs, whereas Kid had been lost in his thoughts and rooted to the spot. Taking a deep breath, Kid forced himself to focus. All he had to do was keep it together for a few more seconds. He was older, taller, and in better physical condition than Marty. He could take the stairs two or three at a time; and he did so, rushing quickly up behind Marty.

But Kid wasn't going to make it in time. He could see that now. Marty was only a few steps away from Sid, already holding out the skull mask toward his teacher, his arm stretched out to the limit. Even as he closed the gap between them, Kid realized that he would only have one chance to stop Marty.

So Kid turned his final step into a flying leap. He tackled Marty, slamming the boy down brutally down to the staircase.

Marty's shoulder hit the edge of a stair. Kid both heard and felt the sickening popping sound. Kid's own left knee smashed into the edge of a stair as well, but at least it didn't break.

Kid held Marty pinned down. Marty gasped and wriggled, trying to free himself. But it was no use. He'd finally been caught. Marty stretched out his left arm, his left hand still clutching Kid's mask in a death grip. He groaned and stretched, trying to reach Sid, who was still sitting a few steps above them. "Mr. Sid," Marty gasped.

Sid gazed down at them both. "It's not over until you say it's over, Marty. It's your call." But he made no move to reach down and take the mask from Marty's outstretched grip. Clearly, he wasn't going to lift a finger to help his student.

"Marty, give me the mask," Kid said.

"No!"

Kid reached for the mask, ready to pry it from Marty's bone-white fingers if that was what it would take. "I will break your fingers if I have to. Each and every one of them. Give me back my mask."

Marty shuddered, then slowly began to pull in his arm, making as if to hand the mask back to Kid.

"Good call," Kid said. He finally grasped the mask in his hand. "You--"

Then Marty lunged upward – despite his dislocated shoulder, despite the pressure of Kid pinning him down – and struck quick as a snake.

He licked the mask.

"Ew!" Kid instinctively recoiled, letting go of the mask as he did so. Marty writhed out from underneath him. Before Kid even realized what was happening, it was over. Marty crawled up and over three steps, then dropped the mask directly into his teacher's lap.

Then Marty slumped down over the stairs, collapsing with a groan. "Did we pass?" he asked Sid.

Sid stood up, wiped Marty's drool off the mask with one enormous finger, then nodded approvingly. "Congratulations. Your entire team passes."

"…Hooray." Then Marty's eyes rolled dangerously back into his head. "Ow. My shoulder…"

"Looks dislocated," Sid said. He knelt down, and helped pull Marty up into a sitting position. "Hold on. Think happy thoughts, because I'm going to pop that back in right now." He glanced down at Kid. "Do I want to ask what you've done to the other members of the team?"

Kid was still frozen on the steps, however, blinking up at the two of them stupidly. "What? What?" He felt the world swimming around him. "What just… happened?"

"You lost," Sid said.

"Arrrrrgh!" Marty hissed in his breath as Sid popped his shoulder back into its socket.

Then Sid tried to hand the mask back to Kid. "Here, take this. It's yours."

Kid stared at him. Just stared, for a good long moment, while his brain struggled to process what was going on. Finally, however, something clicked. He stood up, and haughtily swatted away Sid's outstretched hand holding the offered masked. "No," he said. "You can go ahead and disinfect that first, then give it back to me. I'll be expecting my mask returned before noon." He turned his furious glare upon Marty, who was still sitting down on the steps, his face pale and his eyes glassy with pain. "You fought dirty," he said, with a disapproving sneer.

Marty looked ready to sink into a hole and die. "I'm s-s-sorry, sir…"

"Don't listen to him," Sid said quickly. "You fought smart. He's just pouting." Sid stood up, looming over Kid. "You should be proud of these students."

Kid said nothing, just turned his head away and seethed silently.

"Hey. Hey!" From the bottom of the stairs, Liz was shouting up at him. "Hey, did Marty win?"

Kid turned to look down at her. She and Patti and Elsie were standing at the bottom of the stairs, not too far from where the enormous geyser of water was still busily erupting through the ground. They were all soaked, and getting more soaked by the spray from the burst water main by the moment, but none of them seemed to care. Liz's hair was plastered to her head, her wet clothes clinging to her body. She cupped her hands and shouted up at Kid again, "Did you lose?"

"…Yeah."

Down below, Elsie's eyes suddenly went wide. "We won? We won!" She hopped up and down on her tiny feet excitedly. "Ohmigosh! Ohmigosh! Ohmigosh Marty we WON!"

Marty gave Elsie a trembling thumbs-up, as Sid helped him back to his feet. "Hooray," he said. Then he and Sid started shakily descending back down the staircase. Kid followed them a step behind.

At the base of the stairs, Elsie was still celebrating excitedly. "We did it we did it we did it oh my gosh we DID it!"

Patti grabbed Elsie's tiny arms and whirled her around, laughing. "Yay, Elsie! You did it!" She danced with Elsie beneath the spray from the burst water main. "Whoo-hoo, go ELSIE!"

Liz applauded them both, approvingly. "Congratulations, Elsie!"

"Hey!" Kid yelled down at them angrily. "Just who's side are you two on, anyway?!"

"The side that's actually proud when Shibusen students kick ass and take names," Liz said, smirking up at him. "Could you stop being an asshole for like, five seconds? For once? Don't be immature about this."

"I'm not being immature," Kid seethed, as he stomped angrily down the last of the steps.

Elsie was still bouncing up and down excitedly, babbling happily at Patti. "I didn't think that we were going to make it, I mean when he landed in front of us, I was so freaked out, I was thinking, oh my gosh I totally do not want to be hit with a death cannon, I bet that would've hurt so much, but then Marty was so freaked out that he was going to pee-pee himself, and I didn't think that I could make an arrow strong enough to break the water pipe, but Marty was just sooooo scared and it was like, wow, I can take that feeling and make a really huge arrow out of it, and I did and it was totally awesome, and then the water main blew up and I was like, oh my gosh I cannot believe we just did that, and--"

"How did you know that I was standing on top of the water main?" Kid snapped.

"Because that pipe runs exactly through the dead center of this campus," Marty explained, breathily, still leaning against Sid. "It bisects this pavilion, and that staircase. Right through the center. And you, sir. You always stand right in the center, of wherever you are… I knew that if you landed Beelzebub, you would land right on top of that pipe. Right in the center."

Kid stared at him, again.

Liz suddenly placed her hand on Kid's shoulder. "See? This is all your fault, because your movements are still too predictable." Then she leaned in close and whispered into his ear, "Stop being an asshole, now."

Kid nodded, reluctantly. Liz stepped away from him. Then, slowly, he held out his hand to Marty. "Congratulations," he said. "Your team is the first team to win a challenge against Liz, Patti, and me. So… Good job. I suppose."

Marty reached out one trembling hand, and took Kid's. He shook Kid's hand, slowly at first, then with a bit more confidence. His soul wavelength was beginning to tingle with the first cautious fluttering of pride. "Thank you, sir," he said. Finally, he grinned happily. "Thank you very much."

"Don't thank me yet," Kid said. "You and the rest of your team are still going to pay for all the damage you've done to our home. And this, too," he added, gesturing toward the fountain still erupting from the burst water main.

"Later," Sid said. "We can worry about that later. Marty, Elsie, come with me now." He started to lead Marty away, and Elsie followed. "We're going to the emergency room, to get someone to look at Marty's shoulder. The city can take care of that pipe."

"Don't forget to return my mask later!" Kid shouted after them. Then he turned back to Liz and Patti. "Let's get out of here."

The three of them trudged silently back across the pavilion, toward the city that was finally beginning to wake up. Slowly, the world around them lightened; the moon finally dipped below the horizon, and the sun, yawning and blinking blearily, slowly began to rise in the sky. Kid shivered, and tried to wring out the sleeves of his completely soaked pajama shirt. But it was no use. His clothes were drenched, and clinging in a rather disgusting way to his body. His wrist and his face no longer hurt, and felt as if they had completely healed. But the sharp pain in his balls, where he had been hit by that flying brick, was receding a lot more slowly than he would have liked. The knee that he had knocked against the stairs during his attempt to tackle Marty still hurt, too. He was in a bad mood. Oh, and his house had been destroyed. And he had just been utterly humiliated by a team of one-star students. Those thoughts, too, were rapidly contributing to his bad mood.

They walked gloomily down the still-deserted city streets. Finally, Liz broke the silence. "Can't you at least be happy for them?"

"I don't see why I should be," Kid pouted.

"Because they kicked your ass, and were awesome," Patti answered.

"You have to admit," Liz said, "those kids must have had balls of steel, to agree to take on us as an extracurricular. Balls of steel."

"You're just saying that because they're your students."

"They're not my students, Patti and I just chaperoned them during summer camp. But… Hmm. I guess that's enough, really." She was smiling to herself in an oddly satisfied way. "I don't see how you can't be proud of Shibusen right now."

"Huh. I never figured you for the type to have school spirit." Suddenly Kid froze in mid-step. "Oh, no. Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Singing…" Kid scowled. "Some idiot singing at the top of his lungs, at five in the goddamn morning."

"I am the great BLAAAAAACK STAAAAAR… Unparalleled in the city, in the state, in the world… GOOD MOoooooOOOORNING Mister SUN, good morning from BLAAAAAACK STAAAAAAR…."

"Of course." Kid impatiently wiped his soaked bangs away from his face. "Of course. Who else do we know who actually wakes up at this ungodly hour?" He considered making an escape on Beelzebub, then realized that it was too late. Black Star and Tsubaki were already coming down the street toward them. "I don't need this right now," Kid growled.

"BLAAAAAAACK STAAAAAAR is coming to-- Huzzuhwhat?" Black Star paused when he caught sight of Kid and his partners. Then he hurriedly ran toward them. "No way! What are you guys doing here?!" He blinked when he saw the state that they were in. "So I bet you guys know why we don't have any running water?" He grinned at them. "Kid, are those your pajamas?"

Tsubaki stared at them, horrified. "What happened to you?" she asked.

"What did you guys do?!" Black Star asked, somewhat less sympathetically. "We don't have any running water, our neighbors don't have any water, and you sure look like--"

"We didn't do it," Kid snapped, quickly. "We were just… standing there when it happened."

"When what happened?"

"Later. I'll tell you later. I can't deal with this right now--"

Black Star moved to block Kid from stepping past him. "No way! Whatever this story is, I've gotta hear it now." He still had that cheerful, almost hungry grin on his face. Kid fervently wished that Black Star would at least be stupid enough to not be able to sense when Kid was clearly feeling humiliated. But unfortunately, no such luck.

Liz sighed. "You might as well tell them now, Kid," she said, "before they hear about it at school."

"We can't stop to chat," Kid snapped at her. "Carly and Ti are still handcuffed in the bathroom--"

"Oh, now I have GOT to hear this story," Black Star said, his grin widening further.

"No," Kid said. "No. You're just going to laugh at me."

"What if I promise not to laugh?"

"You're not going to keep that promise."

"I'm Black Star, I always keep my promises!"

"Okay. Fine." Kid took a deep breath, steeling himself. Liz was right, it probably was best for Black Star to hear about this now and get it over with, rather than having him hear about it later, via what would likely be wildly exaggerated accounts from the other Shibusen students. "Here's what happened. Sid sent a team of one-star students to attack us, and--"

"And you lost to them?!" Black Star had already reached the obvious conclusion.

"Well, we--"

"Nya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Black Star doubled over laughing, clutching at his stomach. "You lost?! You lost?! To a bunch of one-stars?!"

Kid seethed with fury. "You promised you wouldn't laugh!"

"I said that I keep my promises, but I didn't actually make that promise!" He was close to rolling on the ground with laughter now. "A-a-a-a-and you're still in your pajamas? Seriously? Are those your pajamas?! Aaaaaaaaaah ha ha ha ha HA HA HA!"

Patti was laughing now, too. "Still in his pajamas! Still in his pajamas!"

"Liz, are you all right?" Tsubaki asked, actually showing concern.

"Been better."

"But why are you all wet?"

"Get Black Star to shut up, and we'll tell you this story. Or maybe I'll tell it. Kid, I understand that you're upset, but could you please stop with the glowy-eyes thing?"

"I'm not doing the glowy-eyes thing."

"Yes, you are."

Black Star finally stopped laughing. He looked up at Kid. "Oooh, with the glowy eyes now? Geez, Kid. Take a chill pill."

Kid grit his teeth. It was kind of hard for him to calm down, what with the broken pieces of the chandelier still digging into his brain, the thought of two idiot students still held captive in his bathroom demanding his immediate concern, and now the added humiliation of Black Star laughing in his face. "What are you two doing out at this hour, anyway?" Kid snapped at Black Star and Tsubaki.

"Looking for a place that's open and serving breakfast," Black Star answered.

"I can't make tea without water," Tsubaki said, almost apologetically, "and, er, we couldn't exactly start our morning training on empty stomachs."

Kid rubbed at his temples. "I don't think most places will be open at this hour…"

"Plan B was to show up at Soul and Maka's place and demand some grub," Black Star said. "They cook all the freakin' time, you know? And I bet they haven't lost their water."

Kid scowled at him. "You'd seriously go knocking on their door at five in the morning and just expect them to share their breakfast with you?"

"No duh. That's what real friendship is!" Black Star grinned at him. "Tsubaki and I do that all the time anyway. It's okay, Maka's cool with it. Don't worry, though, I would never do that to you. 'Cause I know that you're a dick." He eyed Kid critically. "You look like you need some breakfast, too. Come with us?"

"We can't. Carly and Ti--"

"—Will be fine, for a little while longer," Liz said, neatly interrupting Kid's protest. "Let's go with them. You need some time to cool off before you take another look at the house again, anyway."

Kid nodded slowly. "Maybe you're right." He wasn't very much looking forward to seeing what the remains of the house looked like in daylight, either way. "But my clothes…"

"It's okay," Patti said, cheerfully. "We're all friends here!"

Kid tried not to think too hard about the very noticeable fact that Patti was wearing a soaked T-shirt and no bra. "Sure, okay," he said. "We're all friends here." He closed his eyes. "So let's go bother Soul and Maka. They're already awake, anyway. Making cinnamon rolls. Which will be done in exactly thirteen minutes and forty-seven seconds."

He opened his eyes again, and found that everyone was staring at him. "What?"

"Kid," Liz said slowly. "How do you know that?"

"Hmm." He tapped his fingers against his holsters, frowning. "You know… I have no idea. Absolutely no idea."

"Cinnamon rolls! Awesome!" Black Star pumped his fist excitedly in the air. "Let's go!"

The five of them continued down the street together. Black Star started singing again. Liz and Patti took Kid's arms, trying to infect him with their cheer. It wasn't working – Kid was perfectly content to continue moping about his defeat, at least for a while longer – but it at least helped take his mind off the broken chandelier. A little bit.

The shards of shattered chandelier crystal were still there, digging into the back of his mind, demanding his attention. But the call of the cinnamon rolls was stronger. Kid let himself focus on that, and finally relaxed, at least somewhat. The chandelier could wait. We're all friends here. Who needed to worry about cleaning up the smashed remains of fifty pounds of irreplaceable Swiss crystal, when he had his friends with him?

I do, Kid thought, answering his own question. He chuckled bitterly, and ignored the curious look that Patti shot him in response.

It was all right, though. The chandelier, the piano, the vase, the front door, the candles, the furniture, the picture frames – everything that had been broken and ruined, he could let himself worry about later. Even if he couldn't avoid having his coming breakdown, even if it was completely inevitable at that point, he could at least delay it for a little while longer.

The cinnamon rolls were calling again.

Ten minutes and twenty-two seconds.