Disclaimer: I do not own Soul Eater, nor do I own any other works or properties mentioned in this story.

Finn, Lily and Ella were created by Beachside/JorbyBlorby and are being used with his permission.

Editorial status: Proofread, proofread, updated, touched up and proofread again.

Also, a refresher on the underclassmen:

·Syed: Meister, taciturn, calm, tactician, good friends with Soul. Elena's partner

·Elena: Demonic Firearm (M14 EBR), cheerful, tries to emulate Syed, good friends with Maka, Syed's partner

·Iskandar: Meister, hot-blooded, impulsive, Alta's partner

·Alta: Demonic Polleaxe, hot-blooded, calculating, Iskandar's partner

·Lilivanti (Lilly): Meister, quiet, calculating, soft-spoken, Frey's partner

·Frey: Demon Longbow, quiet, easygoing, soft-spoken, Lilly's partner

Nine to Life

Chapter 29: Thunder and Lightning

Special bonus omake!

Two men sat on a large, L-shaped couch in the living room. The far larger of the two held a sheaf of papers in his hands. He sat on the edge of the seat, reading through the papers in with keen interest.

The other man, tall and dignified, was dressed in a very fine black suit that was cut for comfort rather than sharp looks. He sat back, his feet propped upon the wood-and-stone coffee table. His short blonde hair framed a face that would be called "handsome" by the unkind and "godly" by everyone else. His bewitching dark red eyes were closed as he waited for his host to finish. He wore a devilishly confident grin that said he knew the proceedings to be but a formality and that negotiations would conclude as he wished them to. The term regal fit the man perfectly.

A third man, tall and thin, sat in a reclining chair. A pair of headphones covered his ears as he relaxed and listened to his music; keeping one eye closed and the other half open, watching his larger partner.

At length, the large man flipped the pages that he'd read back and looked at the cover of the collection for a moment. "Wow." He finally said, stunned.

The blonde man opened one eye and regarded the other as his smile grew. "Truly impressive, is it not?"

"A better word might be 'epic', really." The large man said with a small, knowing smile.

The regal man favored the other with a similar smile, acknowledging the private joke. "So, when do I begin my work?" He asked airily.

The large man made a face. "Uh…" He looked to his companion sitting in the recliner who shrugged. "Well, you see-"

"I know. It's easy to be overwhelmed by my greatness." The regal man said with a mix of sympathy and confidence. "But rest assured, you will adjust in time."

"Well, the thing is-" The large man attempted to start once more.

"Do not worry about my compensation. A man who already has everything need not work for something as mundane as pay. I do this because there can be no one better qualified than I for such a role." The regal man's easy confidence and haughty demeanor was becoming grating for the other two men. The thinner man closed his other eye in an attempt to calm his irritation.

"That's just it." The large man said, finally. He spoke quickly so that the regal man couldn't cut him off again. "You're too good."

"I'm sorry?" The regal man said, confused after a very long pause.

"You're amazing. Someone like me would have to be insane to turn you down." The large man said.

The easy smile returned to the regal man's face.

"Under normal circumstances, anyway."

The regal man's smile faded and was replaced by consternation. "Perhaps you should look over my qualifications again, mongrel."

"I read the damned thing twice. I even read your, uh, story in high school." The large man said defensively. "But that's just it; you're too qualified for this role."

The regal man's eyes hardened. "Explain." He commanded.

"What we're looking for is a man who has your manner, demeanor, attitude, style and personality, but with… well, less competence."

"What." The regal man sat up now, a displeased sneer on his lips. The room, and the sun itself outside the large sliding glass door, seemed to darken with his mood.

"Look, this isn't easy for me, either. You're damned near perfect by every metric. Keep in mind that I say that without intending any flattery because you'd kill me if I did." The large man responded quickly, like a man begging for his life by explaining how he was useful.

The regal man's eyes softened slightly in confusion. "True." He said, his tone still dangerous.

"But the role that we need to fill calls for someone who's confidence isn't… nearly as well, founded, as yours."

Realization finally hit the regal man. His features twisted in frustration before he began to chuckle.

The large man quickly glanced at his companion in alarm. The man wearing headphones, having opened one eye after a few moments, shook his head in confusion.

The regal man threw back his head and began to laugh hysterically.

The other two men sat in silence, unsure of what was going on anymore.

Finally, the regal man sat back up and wiped tears from his eyes. "Oh, that is rich, mongrel. I see what your goal is now. I might have a few people in mind that would be able to… fit the description you have given me."

Without another word, the regal man stood. The other two followed suit, caught up in his charismatic flow; the slimmer man deliberately took his time standing, maintaining a more aloof demeanor. "This has been quite amusing, mongrel." He said to the large man. "Please, take this. Contact me if you need someone of my… caliber, in the future." He placed a business card on the coffee table and walked out of the room.

"That… was terrifying." The large man said once the regal man had left.

"…I guess." The slim man said coolly with a smirk. "More so for you, though. You were sweating bullets for a minute there."

The large man stared sourly at his partner poking fun at him for a moment before giving him a wry grin in return. "Maybe next time you can get stared down by someone who can erase you from existence. You might be better at it."

The thin man threw his hands up in the air as if to say "No thanks, I'm good". The two men resumed returned to their comfy seats.

"How many more do we have today?" The large man asked as he picked up the business card and inspected it. On the reverse side, there was a list of names, probably of the people that the regal man had mentioned. "He never even picked up a pen, how did he..."

The thin man checked his phone as he once again reclined in his arm chair. "Five."

"Joy."

Week 22, Day 3

Downtown Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia

A trio of people stood atop the roof of a grocery store overlooking the downtown area. Normally, they would be rather conspicuous atop the building, but the late hour meant that there would be few awake to notice them.

The group consisted of a man in his early twenties and two women a few years younger than him. The man and the older of the two women stood near the edge of the roof, looking towards a bank a few blocks down the road. The other woman sat in a folding camp chair, browsing the internet on her phone, occasionally laughing at an amusing gif.

"Are you sure they're going to do it tonight?" The first girl asked the man. "I'm getting tired of these bugs. The repellant does nothing." She slapped a biting insect with her left hand to emphasize her point. A dull blue glow emanated from a marking on her hand; a trio of thin, interwoven lines starting around her middle finger, twisting over the top of her hand and disappearing up her sleeve.

"He said that their next job would be that bank and that they'd do it tonight." The man replied patiently, almost disinterestedly. "And standing right behind a lit sign might not have been the best choice."

The woman slapped another biting insect. "Ya think?"

"Yeah, it's playing hell with my night vision."

"We could have cut the power like I wanted." She grumped.

"That might have set off an alarm and we don't even want to leave that much evidence that anyone was here."

"Yeah, but-"

A thought occurred to the man, cutting the woman off. "You're just lowering the temperature enough to hide us on thermals, right? Not cold enough to give us negative readings?"

The girl stopped and closed her eyes in concentration. "I think so? It's kinda hard to gauge what my output is and the long sleeve shirt isn't helping. That's your department, normally."

"We need our heat to look neutral, not negative, even if it's not exactly comfortable." The man asserted. "Otherwise we'll show up for being too cold."

The girl remained unaffected by his stern tone. "Fine. I just lowered my output a bit. If you want precision, you just have to put a hand on my shoulder and-"

"I need my hands free and I need to keep a lookout. You got this, Lily."

"If you say so."

A moment passed, only the sound of night insects and the occasional passing car breaking the silence. Somewhere, a dog started barking in the distance.

"Where the hell are they?" The man demanded.

"Some long dead robbers can't figure out modern technology and be on time to their own heist? No, you don't say." The girl sitting in the chair quipped. She looked up from her phone and smiled smugly as mischief glinted in her eyes.

The man felt his blood pressure spike for a moment before forcing himself to take a deep breath. Ella was just bored, that was all. No need for another argument about patience. Or respect. Or tone. Or attitude. At least she was listening while running her phone's battery down.

"You brought a battery pack, right?" He asked. The last thing he needed was her getting whiny because her phone was dead.

There was a soft rustling behind him. "Got it right here." The second woman said as she held the device up, a multitude of cords dangling from it.

"Good deal." He said, turning back to his binoculars. One less thing to worry about.

"Is that them?" The first woman, Lily, asked.

"Where?"

"Sneaking through the park across the road."

"I see them. Yeah, that looks like them. Working on their own schedule, as per usual." He sighed.

"Why do they have all those big backpacks with them?"

"Maybe to haul the money?"

"Dunno… those look loaded already."

"Weird…" The man observed. For some reason, that little detail made him nervous. "They better not be going overboard."

"Ok, they're behind the bank." Lily reported. "And they went right up to one section of the wall."

Finn paused for a second at that remark.

"Wait, what? Like they know where the vault is? How would they know where the vault was so quickly? Did they get the blueprints? How in the hell did they get physical blueprints of the place? Where did they get them in this day and age? Wouldn't the city raise a flag or two when someone checks out plans like that?" The man momentarily lost himself in a tangent about logistics and working under the radar.

"Uh… More importantly, who's the other guy?" Lily asked, mostly ignoring her brother's tirade, though she couldn't help but let out a small smirk. Her question achieved the desired effect and focused him back on their mission.

"What?" The man asked with an edge to his voice.

"Up at the wall with Kelly." Lily responded, flinching at the severity of his tone. She noticed a spark of rage in his eyes before he quickly suppressed it. Even after all these years his intense glare could still occasionally cut through her

Just as Lily had said, there was a very distraught man in pajamas with an open wound on his bald head. One of his captors had an old revolver pointed at him and he was gesturing wildly at a section of wall.

"Oh shit. Is that the bank manager?! Did they kidnap the fucking bank manager?" Finn growled as his blood pressure rose again. The rush of blood to his face highlighted a trio of pale, faded marks around his right eye, meandered off of his face and down the side of his neck.

"Well, at least they'll know where the vault is." Lily said, amused.

"This was supposed to be a quick job! In and out! Hostages only-" He silenced himself before he could start screaming. The man screwed his eyes closed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his index and forefinger. He took a deep breath and forced himself to channel his energy physically to release his rage. The force of his release crushed the gravel on the roof under his feet into powder. He took several deep breaths and forced his pulse to slow and his blood pressure to drop back to normal. Keep it together, stay cool. For them.

Ella's gaze shifted up as she sensed her brother's fury, clearly worried. Even Lily felt herself tense up and her eyes go slightly wider at his display. The two women cautiously watched as he went through the process of calming himself down. They were both keenly aware that now would be a very bad time for him to lose his cool. They only relaxed when he released a long sigh and grabbed his binoculars again.

"Okay, fuck it." The man said coolly, as if his outburst hadn't happened. "Their body count was supposed to be a lot higher by this point. At least they didn't bring his family too." He sighed in frustration at the stupidity of it all. No one innocent was going to die, at least. Knowing the Kelly Gang, the rest of the family was tied up in their home. And really, how innocent was a man who ran a bank?

"Ouch." Lily said rather flatly as one of the Kelly Gang pistol-whipped the man and he fell to the ground unconscious. "That's gotta hurt."

"Probably did." The man observed as one of the gang members dropped his pack, hoisted the unconscious man up onto his back and headed off towards the park that they had come through. The gang member deposited the man in some bushes before coming back to his comrades.

The four figures of the Kelly Gang busied themselves around the section of wall that the bank manager had indicated

"What the hell are they doing?" The man asked aloud.

"Blowing up a bank." The woman next to him answered simply.

"What? That's ridiculous." The man said as he fished a radio handset out of his pocket. He keyed the radio for a second and then spoke. "Kelly, what the hell are you doing?"

One of the figures behind the bank stopped and fished an identical radio from his backpack. He fumbled with it for a moment before a soft click came over the radio. "Blowin' up a bank. What's it look like?"

The man on the roof exchanged a look with the woman standing next to him. She was giving him a self-satisfied look that clearly said I told you so. [1]

The man on the roof keyed his radio again. "That looks like about a quarter ton of TNT. Where the hell'd you even get that much?"

Kelly opened his mic and the sound of his comrades laughing was audible. "That's not far off, actually. You've got a good eye, boy. You'd be amazed how much dynamite that your average farmer needs. We've just been liberating it from all over for the last few days." Kelly sounded rather proud of their deeds.

"Uh, Finn? Are we far enough away?" Lily asked. Her calm tone wasn't quite able to hide the twinge of fear that she felt.

Finn keyed his radio again. "Impressive as that is, you might want to reconsider how much explosives you're using. Blasting technology had come a long way since-"

Kelly's suddenly angry voice blasted over the radio. "Listen, you little shit, I've been blowing things up since before your grandparents were even thought of, let alone brought into this world. Just you sit back and watch as we do what we do best."

"'Little shit'?! I swear to God Kelly, one day-" Finn raged into his radio.

"And he just threw the radio into one of the bags." Lily reported, trying to ignore her brother's fury and focus on the task at hand.

Finn clamped his eyes closed and inhaled deeply through his nose. He held the breath before slowly releasing it, forcing his free hand open as he exhaled. The roof creaked ominously beneath him as he released another low pulse of energy. After a few seconds, his blinding rage began to subside.

"We're about half a mile away, here. The vault should absorb a lot of the blast and redirect most of it back and to the right from us. We should be fine. However, once they start to back off, we might want to get down to avoid debris. I'm not keen on catching a cinder block to the face."

Finn spared a glance at Ella, who still sat in the camp chair with her eyes glued to her phone, a genuinely happy smile on her face as she watched some meme compilation video. "Gotcha, big bro."

The man sighed, a small smile on his lips. No matter how engrossed Ella looked like she was in whatever she was doing, she was always paying attention.

"They're backing off." Lily reported,the nervousness she had been feeling slightly creeping into her voice.

Finn couldn't really blame her. This was probably going to be the closest they'd ever been close to a big explosion like this without protection of some kind and he wasn't all that thrilled by the prospect himself. But, he had to be the cool and calm one, as always. Even though he'd almost lost his cool twice tonight.

"Alright. Back from the edge." He put the lens caps on his binoculars and lay down on the gravel roof of the building, using his body to protect the very nice set of optics. Quickly, his sisters followed suit.

"I really hate this part." Lily muttered.

Finn gently reached out and took his sister's hand to steady her nerves as he willed his own hands not to shake. Always have to be the strong one. He thought grimly.

DWMA Control Room – Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia

Soul heard the chaos in the control room well before they could even see the door. Raised voices, shouting and several alarms all fought to be heard. The cacophony grew to deafening levels as he entered the room. Beside him, Maka covered her ears and surveyed the chaos.

Syed spotted the two upperclassmen as they entered and quickly approached them. Behind him, Elena looked overwhelmed as she held three phones and tried to carry on five conversations at once. Even the young meister's normal mask of calm had apparently slipped some as he had tried to make sense of the information coming in and take control of the situation; his face was a quiet plea for help.

Maka stepped forward to meet him. "Take Elena, get whatever gear you need and get over there. Now. The Kelly Gang still has to be in the area. Find them. We'll get backup to you as soon as possible."

Syed nodded. "Right." Maka's authoritative voice and instructions were a welcome lifeline and he regained his composure somewhat.

He nodded once more and turned to get his weapon as Maka caught his arm, her face stern. "Find them and tail them. Don't engage them until we can get you backup or you have no choice." Her expression softened as she gave him a final order. "Be safe."

"Count on it." Syed replied before rushing off to get Elena and relay their orders.

After making sure that the younger meister collected his overwhelmed partner and rushed to the armory to gear up, Maka sat down at a console and began to get up to speed on the other teams in the field.

Soul approached the master workstation and quickly silenced the alarms blaring through the speakers. The clamor of the control room was instantly cut in half. As if a spell had been broken, nearly everyone in the control room stopped what they were doing and looked at the Death Scythe.

"Alright." Soul began in a loud, clear voice. "We know that a bank downtown just exploded. What details do we have?"

"It was caused by some explosive. Likely TNT." One man near the front responded. He wore a t-shirt with stylized Maltese cross used by the local fire service.

"You're positive that it wasn't an accident?" Soul asked.

"I'd stake my life on it." The man said confidently.

"Alright, you're point of contact with the local firefighters. Tell them what we know and keep us updated on anything related to the first responders. If we can help them, we will."

The man nodded before turning back to his station and grabbing a phone.

"I want every drone we have available in the air and looking for the Kelly Gang. Keep them out of the way of any police or other emergency air traffic. Keep a visual on the bank and task the other drones to watch the surrounding area. If they're running, I don't want us so focused on the pretty fire that we don't see them."

The drone operators and maintenance coordinators immediately began about their tasks.

Maka stood up from her workstation. "We need Rider fueled and in the air right now. I need them to rendezvous with Archer at resupply point Foxtrot and then pick up Lancer at resupply point Romeo. By then, we should have a good idea where Archer and Lancer need to be dropped off. Be sure to load up with fresh supplies for them."

The supply coordinator set about making a flight plan for the school's helicopter and briefing the flight crew. After a few questions, the air traffic liaison began clearing all of the air traffic Soul and Maka had just ordered with the authorities.

In a few short minutes, the control room had transformed from utter chaos into a controlled riot. Everyone in the control room was focused on their tasks with an almost frightening intensity. They only had so much time to get all of the pieces in place before the Kelly Gang would disappear into the night like they had every time until now.

Soul let out a breath that he hadn't realized that he was holding and turned to Maka. "I'll keep my eyes on the video from the drones. Can you-"

"Get the nearby teams moving? On it." Maka replied without even looking up from her console.

"Thanks." He said, still somehow amazed at how well they could work as a team, even when it wasn't in combat.

The Death Scythe leaned in close to his monitors and began looking through the various video feeds coming from the Berserker drones. Two drones were already orbiting over the downtown part of Wangaratta while three more were coming into holding patterns on the town's outskirts.

"Holy fuck, how am I supposed to see them?" Soul mumbled under his breath.

With the fire service station less than a mile from the bank, they were already on the scene and battling the impressive fire that threatened to engulf the entire block. The police were split between searching for the Kelly Gang, keeping what seemed like the entire town back from the scene and helping medical personnel look for anyone who had been caught in the destruction.

There were a lot of people out and about, running all over the place.

What was most frustrating was that the night vision filters of the drone cameras were almost totally useless. The fire was so massive and bright that it was washing out all of the feeds, even when the cameras weren't pointed directly at it.

After a few minutes of trying to use the night vision, Soul took control of one of the cameras from his console. He switched it to one of the thermal modes and grunted in frustration. The simpler "black-hot" and "white-hot" imaging modes were just as washed out as the night vision.

Finally, he switched over to a color-spectrum camera on the drone and was given a view that painted relatively cool objects as a deep blue and ranged from blue to purple, pink, orange, yellow and white as the temperature of the object rose. The massive columns of smoke billowing off the fire were still remarkably hot and obscured his view at certain angles, but it was the clearest picture that he could get.

Slowly, Soul began to pan the camera over the blocks surrounding the massive fire. By this point, the police had created a solid perimeter to keep bystanders back and the number of people running around outside the perimeter had dropped. That should make this a bit easier, but I doubt that they're still watching their handiwork.

The weapon expanded his search to the areas further away from the bank. A cluster of orange-yellow objects in the parking lot of a grocery store to the south of the bank caught his attention. He centered the camera on the objects and zoomed in a bit. There were a number of large vehicles and over a hundred people milling about. Curious, Soul switched the camera back to night vision and put the feed on the big screen at the front of the control room.

"Anyone know what's going on here?" Soul called out to the room at large, zooming the camera out a bit.

"Fire, medical and police have set up a command station. They're keeping the newsies back there and out of the way." The fireman from before called out in answer.

"Ah, thanks." Soul called back as he switched the camera back to the thermal view he'd been using before.

"Wait. What's that on the roof?" Someone asked. "The blue area."

"Dunno. Air conditioner?" Soul thought aloud.

"No, that would be hot. Air conditioners radiate heat as they cool the air." Another operator said.

"Oh? Really now?" Soul murmured, interested. "I wonder if someone's trying to hide?"

He zoomed the camera in closer on the dark blue mass on the roof of the grocery store. As the other objects in the picture grew larger and became more clear, the blob of cooler temperature didn't resolve into any shapes, remaining indistinct.

"Well, that's interesting. Switching to night vision."

At first, the video feed turned black, but the camera began to adjust to the amount of ambient light available to it and the picture brightened.

"What the hell?" Soul asked aloud.

The camera was nearly zoomed in as far as it could go and the gentle buffeting that the drone experienced as it flew through the night sky was too much for the camera's stabilizer to compensate for. He attempted to zoom out far enough to get a steadier picture without including a light source that would wash it out.

One of the drone operators spoke up after a moment. "It looks like… maybe three people are laying on the roof."

Soul grinned like a wolf spotting an unwary deer. "Does that strike anyone as suspicious, given the situation?" He asked the room at large.

"Indeed it does." The drone operator agreed, his tone similar to Soul's.

"Maka, have any of our teams made it back to town yet? I don't want to pull Syed and Elena off their search."

"Caster is on the way. Kid busted out his hoverboard-thing and is hauling ass." Some excitement crept into her reply.

"Alright, send them in. Kid can handle himself in a fight with Liz and Patty. And Beelzebub[2] is great for keeping up with someone trying to run."

Approaching Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia

Kid fought his growing urge to yawn. Opening one's mouth at speeds approaching three hundred miles per hour is not a good idea. He thought to himself.

The reaper rode his flying skateboard through the valleys and foothills some fifty miles to the southwest of Wangaratta at terrifying speeds. For most people, the experience would either be an adrenaline rush on par with riding in a fighter jet being catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier, or as terrifying as riding in a fighter jet being catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier. Instead, the young man was almost bored with the experience. He was simply unhappy about being awoken from his dream of a perfect world, a world where all angles were precise and all things were symmetrical; all except the odd seedy establishment dedicated to asymmetry and the hidden beauties that it could hold…

Memories from earlier that night of his two weapons in ecstasy flashed through his mind. Yes, embracing asymmetry from time to time could be more liberating and exhilarating than anything he had ever experienced. The way Liz would look up at him with eyes half-closed in bliss and the way that Patty would-

Kid felt the sudden flush in his cheeks and quickly shook his head to clear it. Those girls are corrupting me. He smiled wistfully.

Liz cleared her throat softly. "You must still be half asleep to let us see something like that…"

The reaper quickly looked down at the demon pistol in his hand, his face turning a deep crimson. For her part Liz, in her weapon form, seemed to have changed from chrome to rose.

Kid began to stammer, trying to make an excuse for his… risqué thoughts regarding his weapons and for being so unguarded as to let them see those thoughts.

"It's ok." Liz said softly, smiling to herself. "And… I like it when you loosen up a bit. You're more fun."

Hearing her words, the tongue-tied young man smiled. "Thanks." Kid said softly, his words lost on the winds whipping past him were still heard loud and clear by his weapons.

"Shu' up. 'm sleepin'." Patty mumbled, apparently having been asleep for the entire exchange.

"Say…" Liz began after another handful of miles had slipped past beneath them.

"Yes?"

"Do you think it's really them? The Kelly Gang or whatever? It could be a false alarm after all."

Kid thought for a moment before responding, his eyes focused on the path to Wangaratta. "No, I think that this must be them. Maka wouldn't have recalled us in the middle of the night unless it was for real."

Liz hesitated, unsure of saying what was on her mind. Her meister sent her some reassurance over their soul resonance. "It's just that… You said that they could be spirits back from the dead. You know I don't like that stuff…"

The reaper smiled. "We'll be fine. Even if they're wearing the armor they forged out in the bush back during their crime spree. Bullets of that era were far less powerful than today, and you two hit a lot harder than that. We should be able to take care of them easily. This is nothing that we haven't handled before."

Liz closed her eyes, touched by her meister's words. She smiled privately, enjoying the gentle sincerity in his voice.

The miles sped by in comfortable silence.

Up ahead, the nighttime sky began to glow orange. Far more brightly than what would be normal for a town the size of Wangaratta with it's population of slightly less than twenty thousand. A massive pillar of smoke rising into the darkness illuminated by the conflagration at its base.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Finn growled from their vantage point lying prone atop the grocery store. "First, that upstart fuck Kelly deviates from the plan, blows up what looks like half the fucking town and now the locals set up a command center right the fuck around us."

Lily looked down on the command post that had been set up by the local police and fire service in the parking beneath them with calm detachment. "The news crews are super obnoxious, really. The helicopters were a nice touch, though." Her glib comment was aimed more at breaking the tension that she could practically feel rolling off of her brother in waves then at really offering any ideas to aid the situation itself.

Just as Lily said, several helicopters flew overhead. Two police helicopters orbited the remains of the bank and the surrounding blocks now consumed in flames. At the same time, the latest in a succession of medical helicopters approached the emergency landing zone at the edge of town to ferry the critically injured to distant hospitals.

"Oh wow, they're even streaming this on the news sites." Ella gasped in amazement as she watched the news coverage of the very event that they had been witness to.

The absurdity of it all tripped the man up, his rage falling to the back of his mind. "Are you for real?" He crawled over to his younger sister and looked at the phone over her shoulder. "Huh."

Lily joined her siblings and laughed quietly. "Could we go make some bullshit eyewitness testimony?"

Finn gave a short, bitter laugh. "That'd be fu-" His words caught in his throat. His breath was visible in small puffs of condensation. He suddenly became very aware of just how cold it was atop the roof in the middle of a sweltering summer night.

"Lily…" Finn's voice sounded like two slabs of stone grinding against each other. His tone sent a shock of genuine fear up the woman's spine. "How cold are you keeping the air around us?"

"Oh shit!" The air around them rapidly warmed. "I think it's back to where it should be… Do you think we'll be alright."

Finn let his head sink to the gravel on the roof. "I fucking hope so. Hopefully they don't have anyone or anything looking in this direction-"

A distant, high-pitched whine like a jet turbine cut him off.

Finn rolled over and sat up, looking towards the direction that the sound was coming from. In the extreme distance, a white glimmer was approaching from the Southeast of the town.

"Finn, what's that?" Lily asked.

The young man concentrated and called upon one of the many powers bestowed upon him by his tainted blood. In the distance, riding atop the twinkling light that was growing with concerning rapidity, he saw three souls: two of weapons and one that looked unlike anything he'd ever seen before, but nonetheless filled him with fear.

"Reaper…" Finn breathed.

"What?!" Lily asked, clearly unnerved. "As in the Grim fucking Reaper? Here?"

Even the normally oblivious Ella looked up at her two elder siblings with serious concern.

"No no no no no no!" Finn shouted. "This is not fucking happening!"

"What are we-" Lily began to ask.

"Weapons. Now." Finn commanded.

Without hesitation, the two women transformed into nearly identical curved short swords, their midnight black grips held securely in the hands of their meister with the backs of their blades coming to rest on his shoulders.

Each sword had a blade roughly two feet in length with ten-inch handles. The blades were a supernatural carbon black that seemed to absorb all the light around them; intricate, faintly glowing scrollwork reminiscent of vines was etched into both blades. The scrollwork on Lily's blade was an ever-changing sapphire blue that seemed to move of its own volition, like sunlight playing over a moving stream. Ella's scrollwork was a vivid violet that crackled with energy like arcing electricity. Both of the weapons bore a thin stripe of silver that marked their impossibly sharp cutting edge that ran from swept tip to the obsidian-black guard. [3]

The stunning beauty and menace of the weapons was lost on their wielder, who was focused on his rapidly approaching enemy.

A reaper of all things! Here! Finn raged to himself, barely managing to keep his thoughts from his weapons. Who would have thought that Lord Death himself would deign to show up!

A memory bubbled up through the roiling cauldron of anger and frustration that his mind had become: Ella lay on the floor unconscious, head bleeding from multiple lacerations on her face and scalp. Lily in her weapon form in his left hand, fresh blood dripping from her blade. A woman in her mid thirties slouched against a wall splattered with crimson ichor. Finn's small fist gripping the woman's throat as she flailed and screamed, the bloody stumps where her arms should be flinging blood on his face. His fingernails sinking into the flesh of the woman's neck as he screamed in wordless fury as thousands of volts of electricity began to flow-

"GRRAAAH!" Finn screamed, forcing the memory back into the depths of his psyche as he unleashed another wave of energy that buckled the roof beneath his feet.

Once his vision cleared, the young man realized that his enemy had arrived and was hovering in their air before him, standing on what appeared to be a skateboard held aloft on small jets. The person before him was decidedly not the being known as the Grim Reaper, but his soul still appeared unlike anything that Finn had ever seen before. The souls of the two pistols, that were being carefully aimed near him without pointing directly at him, were clearly those of weapons, though. Potentially even Death Scythes.

For a long moment, the two men glared at each other as they sized the other up.

Well, that's unusual. Kid thought to himself. The exact appearance of the man standing on the roof below him was hidden in shadows cast by the many sources of light behind him. What had caught Kid's attention were three thin, luminous markings the man bore on his body. They started around the middle finger on both of his hands, twisted up his arms, across his chest and finally wove up the side of his neck to partially encircle his right eye. Two of the three lines making up the man's markings glowed, one sapphire, the other violet. The third line stood out due to its lack of a color, only visible as a void where it intertwined with its companions.

Using Soul Perception, Kid tried to determine just what the man before him was. However, instead of seeing the soul of a man literally glowing with power and those of his two weapons, Kid only saw the souls of normal humans.

"I can't see anything… he must be using Soul Protect. That's not something that just anyone can pull off, especially not while radiating magical energy like that. In fact that should be impossible." Kid mused "aloud" in his mind.

"Doesn't that mean that he's strong enough to be the person behind the Kelly Gang coming back?" Liz asked.

"Yes. We're not taking any chances. Be ready."

"Got it." Liz acknowledged.

"Roger!" Patty agreed energetically.

"Who are you?" The reaper asked, finally breaking the silence. He lowered his weapons enough for the two of them to see each other clearly.

"I could ask you the same thing. You sure as hell don't look like Lord Death."

"Thankfully, I'm not my father, no. Are you related to the Kelly Gang?"

"I've got no reason to answer someone pointing guns at me." Finn replied with a sneer.

"I don't have time for hypocritical games from someone holding magic swords. Either come with me peacefully and answer my questions or I will make you come with me." The hovering man's voice was cold and dispassionate as he delivered his autocratic ultimatum.

"Ah, I was wondering where that famous DWMA arrogance was. You show up late and expect everyone to kowtow to your whims?" Finn spat. "How about I take a third option and tell you to fuck off?"

Kid sighed in frustration. "Don't say that I didn't give you the option to do things civilly."

"Ella, we're gonna need a lot of juice." Finn said through their resonance. "I've got an idea."

"Ready and waiting." Came the cheerful reply.

The reaper dramatically raised his weapons, readying himself to attack, implicitly giving Finn one last chance to back down.

"Not today!" Finn shouted as he widened his stance, gravel crunching underfoot. Almost too fast to see, he spun Lily held in his left hand, shifting to a reverse grip on the weapon and holding her defensively in front of himself. At the same time, he twirled Ella around and thrust her blade up into the sky. Without any incantation, the violet scrollwork on his upheld weapon glowed brightly as the purple markings on Finn's body brightened, outshining the others. A lightning bolt launched forth from Ella, lighting the surrounding area like daylight, and arcing high into the night sky.

Before the blinding flash or it's accompanying thunder had faded, the man and his two weapons had vanished from the rooftop.

Kid lowered his arms from his attempt to shield his eyes from the intense flash of light the unknown man had released. He blinked several times, trying to clear the afterimage burned into his retinas. Disoriented from the bright pulse and the deafening thunder that left his ears ringing, he whipped his head around, looking for his quarry.

"Where did they go?" Liz shouted as their hearing began to return.

"There! North side of town." Kid called back. "I can't use Soul Perception right now. That lightning must created a lot of magnetic interference." [4]

"Hey, why are the helicopters spinning?" Patty called out,

"What? Patty, what are you-" Kid began to question what she could possibly be talking about before something registered in his peripheral vision. Kid looked up into the sky above him. "Oh no."

In his disorientation, the young reaper had missed a crucial detail when searching for his mystery assailant: all the lights in the town were out and all vehicles had stopped working. The three helicopters that had been flying over the town had suddenly lost power and were beginning to spin perilously through the night sky, lit by the massive fires beneath them.

"What do we do?" Liz asked worriedly.

Kid began to frantically work out his options. I could help at least one of those helicopters land, but it would take too long. That man would be long gone. I could pursue him, but that would mean abandoning the crews of those helicopters. If the radio is still working, I might be able to contact someone and have them pursue instead. Two of those helicopters are police and one is medical, the medevac pilot might not have as much experience handling a crash landing, so that would be the one I help land.

"If the radio works, we go save the medical helicopter." Kid answered a moment later, coming to his conclusion. "Otherwise we pursue the magic user."

"Wouldn't that mean-" Liz began, stopping herself as soon as she realized the full weight of the decision that her meister had come to.

Kid's hand snapped up to the transmit key on the throat microphone he wore, desperately hoping that it's electromagnetic shielding had protected it from the EMP. "Saber, this is Caster."

An agonizing eternity passed in the space of a second as Kid waited for a reply.

A crackle in his earpiece made the reaper release a breath that he had been holding.

"Caster? This is Saber, what the hell happened?" Maka's harried voice asked.

"I ran into someone who was using Soul Protect and magic at the same time. He had two weapons with him. He used one to set off an EMP somehow and escaped, heading towards the north side of town."

"He did what?"

"I'm seeing three helicopters falling out of the sky right now. I'm going to assist them. Have Avenger attempt to intercept them."

"Understood."

Kid cast a quick glance in the direction that his foe had fled towards. He silently cursed the man for having forced such a terrible choice upon him before kicking Beelzebub around and heading off towards the falling air ambulance.

DWMA Control Room – Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia

The control room was utter bedlam.

First the explosion had knocked out the power to the building for a moment before the emergency generators kicked in. Immediately afterwards had come the insanity of piecing together what had happened and trying to coordinate their response and the emergency efforts of the authorities. The hammerblow that shattered the barely-controlled chaos into true pandemonium had been whatever attack that the people on the grocery store roof had unleashed.

While most of the field gear that the DWMA furnished for use at their consulates was hardened against electromagnetic pulses, the same could not be said for the equipment in the control room.

The control room was isolated from the rest of the world by a layer of copper mesh built into the walls, creating a Faraday cage around it. Originally meant to protect against wireless interference and signals from the outside world that could be used to eavesdrop on the goings on inside the room. As it happened, a Faraday cage was also a very good defense against EMPs.

But, even with all that shielding, we still have to have lines to the outside world. Soul lamented as he looked upon his ruined domain, feeling helpless. Everything that could be done to fix the mess was already being done, leaving him with little to do but contemplate his situation.

Still operating off of the emergency generators, the control room had power, but the power surge from the EMP had ridden the phone and internet lines in from the outside world through the Faraday cage. The surge protection on those lines had failed on about half of their network gear, rendering most of the control room blind and deaf to the outside world.

In spite of all of their ill fortune, they did have some good luck. The satellite uplink on the top of the building had escaped the pulse unharmed; allowing them to maintain communications with the teams in the field and the drones that hadn't been caught in the attack. Rider, the utility helicopter, had been well outside the radius of the pulse; it picked up teams Archer and Lancer, and was quickly approaching the town. Finally, and most potentially lucky of all, was the rate at which the damage to the electrical equipment was being repaired; in keeping with the Cold War level of paranoia and preparation on someone's part, the consulate had pre-configured backup gear, allowing them to swap out the fried kit with little trouble.

Soul was startled out of his reverie by Lucas, the on duty drone operator on duty calling to him.

"Mister Evans? Berserker 5 is coming into range now."

"Great. Put the feed up on one of the monitors when you can." Soul responded before becoming aware of Maka talking to someone over the radio.

"...That's right. He's apparently on foot, has two glowing swords and some kind of glowing magical tattoos. He should be real easy to see coming." She paused, presumably listening to Syed. "Good hunting."

"Will Syed and Elena be able to intercept them?" Soul asked once his meister had apparently finished her conversation.

"I think so. They were a mile or so northeast of town when Mystery Man did his thing. Taking into account the terrain and having to evade witnesses, I don't think that he'll have made it that far yet."

"Good. He might not be the Kelly Gang, but this guy knows something. Capturing him and his weapons should help us out a lot."

North of Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia

"Do you think that we missed them?" Elena asked her Meister.

"I don't think so." Syed said aloud, his voice low. "From what Maka said, they're heading almost straight north out of town, and the terrain is likely slowing them down."

Just north of Wangaratta, directly in the line of their quarry's retreat, a small creek meandered it's way south and to the east of town, looping back and forth like a carelessly discarded rope. The land surrounding the slow-flowing stream was low and marshy, filled with chest-high grasses and bordered by forrest on nearly all sides.

The meister was twenty feet up in a tree that provided a good sight line across most of the wide-open marshlands. If anyone was travelling north from the city, they'd very likely have to pass through his domain, either through the dense forest on the far south-western edge of the marsh or through the marsh in the hopes of losing any pursuers.

Syed was hoping that his quarry wasn't truly mad like the Kelly Gang who might try and flee using the roads in a vehicle stolen at gunpoint; he hoped that they would choose the wetlands as their escape route thanks to the cover that it would provide. If he was really fortunate, they would be exhausted and sick of slogging through the mud, water and thick vegetation, to say nothing of the local insects and animals. If the person of interest was indeed tired of dealing with the terrain, they might succumb to the sweet temptation of the overgrown but comparatively clear remains an old dirt road. The road, such as it was, ran in a northwesterly direction, forming the border between the marsh and the forest. Furthermore, the road only had only a few trees on the marsh side, offering little cover to anyone who chose to travel along it.

It was with these hopes that Syed had picked his perch. He had found an older tree that let him get some elevation to widen his field of view some thousand feet northeast of the road. His vantage point was ideal for looking across the marshland with the creek flowing lazily near the foot of his tree, forming a natural barrier against any attack on foot. The marsh created a natural funnel for someone attempting to covertly flee from Wangaratta.

If pressed, the young meister would admit that he was a bit proud of himself for getting a feel for the terrain and using it to his tactical advantage. He was concealed in a tree that generously offered him concealment from his foe, while they would have to slog through the marsh, move through dense bush or take the risk of an exposed road. And thanks to all of his time at the range with Elena, he was able to regularly put five rounds in a three-inch group at five hundred yards [5]; he'd be well within that distance, which would make hitting his target childsplay. He held all the cards and woe betide his enemy if they didn't realize it.

Leaning on a large vertical branch, Syed slowly swept Elena's scope back and forth along the vast area before him. He once again offered thanks to whatever quirk that had allowed her to have a scope that was equipped with night vision. Thanks to his own particular quirks, he possessed unnaturally sharp vision that would be the envy of fighter pilots the world over, but he was still grateful to his partner's ability to enhance his sight further still.

Just as he was beginning his methodical sweep once more, Syed caught sight of a faint glimmer off to his left. The extreme left end of the road was partially hidden by trees growing along the edge of the creek behind which his own tree stood.

A moment later, the faint light appeared more clearly. His hunch had born fruit, it appeared; the light was moving at a jogging speed along the remains of the dirt road just as he'd hoped.

With a quick adjustment of Elena's scope, he was able to make out the shape of a man moving through the darkness. The glowing weapons and tattoos that Maka had told him about made it very easy to make out his outline.

"That would be them, I think." Syed mused quietly as he tried to keep his elation in check. An elevated heart rate would make his aim waver, especially at a little more than three hundred yards.

The meister expertly drew the zoom back so he would be able to predict when his target would be obscured by a tree or some brush. He tracked his target until he was about halfway down the dirt road. He estimated the rate at which his target was moving and aimed ahead of him, leading his shot so that the round would connect with the target.

Syed took a deep breath to settle his nerves and exhaled it slowly.

When the next opening came, he gently squeezed Elena's trigger.

CRACK!

The report from Elena firing echoed across the marshlands at the speed of sound. The pink bolt of compressed soul energy screamed towards its target at far greater speeds.

With his superhuman senses, elevated further by adrenaline coursing through his veins, Syed watched his shot arc toward his target jogging towards their destined intersection. The time it took for his shot to reach his target was a fraction of a second, but time seemed to stretch out infinitely as projectile and target drew inexorably closer to each other.

Just before the moment of impact, a brilliant purple blur erupted from the target, intercepting his shot.

"What?" Elena gasped in confusion.

Syed made a noise somewhere between a weary sigh, a groan and a growl of frustration. "How do these guys always just seem to know when a shot is coming for them with no warning?"

The meister forced down his frustration at the mystery man's supernatural ability to predict and deflect his shot and took a breath to steady himself. He watched through Elena's scope as the man lunged to take cover behind a tree.

"No you don't." Syed whispered to his enemy before sending another shot of compressed spiritual energy towards him.

Once again his shot was deflected, but this time the luminous blur was a vibrant blue.

"You are trying my patience. Try this on for size." Syed muttered to his enemy before firing two more rounds in rapid succession at his foe. The first shot was aimed at his target's heart with the second centered on his right shoulder.

Surprisingly, only the first shot was deflected; again the blue-glowing sword in his left hand swung so fast that it left an afterimage of an arc on Syed's retinas. Instead of countering the second shot with the sword in his right hand, the unknown enemy jerked his torso to the side with preternatural speed. The compressed spiritual energy tore a hole in the man's shirt as it passed by. Using the momentum gained from the dodge, he dove for cover behind a large tree to his left.

The faintest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of the meister's lips. "And you just screwed up."

Instead of trying to fight his way out of the one-sided duel or even attacking Syed, the man with the glowing tattoos had just gotten himself pinned down. No matter what he did from this moment, Syed had the tactical advantage.

Syed keyed his throat mic. "Saber, this is Avenger."

A moment later he heard Maka's voice in his ear piece. "Avenger, this is Saber. Please tell me you've found him."

"I've got him pinned down behind a tree about a thousand feet to my west. I'll keep him put until reinforcements arrive."

"Awesome. Keep him there for five minutes. Backup is on the way." Maka's tone was a weary mix of approval and relief.

"Understood."

Once the conversation ended, Syed centered his sights on the tree behind which his enemy had taken cover. H refused to let his guard down just because his foe was apparently at his mercy; he'd seen enough situations like this on missions, in training and even in movies.

He began to run through all of the possible ways one person, technically three, could do to get out of this situation. "What's on your mind, pal?"

"I will fucking gut that bastard with an honest-to-God smile on my face!" Finn shouted as he leaned on the tree behind which he'd taken cover.

"Are you ok?" Lily asked, even as she felt his pain over their soul resonance. "Your arm-"

"FUCK my arm!" He screamed. "That motherfucker just tried to blow my heart out of my chest and cut off our escape!"

"That seems pretty bad, bro." Ella said, her concern edged by the searing pain that she too felt radiating from him.

They're scared. The simple realization cut through the maelstrom of pain, anger and hate that was screaming through Finn's mind. With a titanic act of will, he began to rein himself in enough to form coherent thoughts once more.

He carefully transferred Ella into his left hand with Lily, freeing up his right arm. After a few experimental motions, he winced and lowered his arm with a groan. It felt as though a small fire was burning on the back of his upper arm. Taking a deep breath, Finn attempted to see how far he could raise his arm, coming to a painful halt with his hand at the same height as his shoulder.

"Gah! Fuck!" He hissed, finally lowering his shaking arm, letting slap against the tree trunk.

Finn's gasping curses allowed another injury to reveal itself. He'd torn a good number of core muscles when he'd forced his upper body to move out of the way of the sniper's fourth shot. His blinding rage had helped obscure the pain, but now it was front and center, making breathing excruciating.

After a long moment of forcing himself to breathe in short, shallow gasps, the pain in his arm subsided to a throbbing ache. That his arm was still shaking was a little more troubling. It was either from the vast quantity of adrenaline still thundering through his veins or he was beginning to go into shock. Either way, he only had a short time to work with before he wouldn't be able to fight, and that wasn't even taking into account the reinforcements that the sniper had undoubtedly called for.

"So, what's the plan, bro?" Liz asked gently, trying to not provoke him into another rage.

Finn closed his eyes and thought. Their enemy was about three or four hundred yards away, up in a tree. Making things worse, the terrain between them was open and marshy; even at his best speed, it would take him far too long to close the distance and the lack of cover would leave him under constant assault. Assuming that he even made it to his enemy, they were up in a tree, out of reach of his blades. And then there was his nearly ruined arm to think about.

"We need a distraction…" Finn thought aloud. "That prick is up in a tree-"

Suddenly, a series of thoughts seemed to fall from the heavens upon him. They instantly coalesced into a plan. A very risky plan that had serious potential to pay off and turn the situation to his advantage.

A savage grin worked over Finn's face. Magical energy began to flow through his body as he savored his plan, causing the markings on his body to glow; his right eye surrounded by the markings began to glow a faint purple color, mixing the blue and violet of his markings.

"I know that look." Ella said, clearly enjoying seeing her brother rising to the occasion.

"You know it." Finn said, sounding like a hunter cruelly cornering his prey. "We're gonna need another big charge, Ella."

"You got it, big brother." Ella giggled in anticipation.

"What are you planning?" Syed asked his opponent, trying to anticipate his actions.

The meister was a bit surprised at himself, making this standoff so personal. Normally he was absolutely taciturn when observing an enemy and looking for an opening. It might have been that he wanted to capture their enemies, or that he was upset that they had apparently effortlessly anticipated and deflected his shots.

There was a third possibility, he admitted to himself. The fact that he had finally truly opened up to Elena. Working through their lingering demons from Tokyo and growing closer as a pair felt like it had lifted a weight from his shoulders that he hadn't known that he was carrying. It was true that he was feeling elated.

Focus. He admonished himself. Now isn't the time to get an ego. That'll only ends in bad things.

Just as he was mentally returning to the task at hand, he realized that his enemy had stepped out from behind his cover. Entirely unnoticed until now, the man stood, raising the purple-glowing sword in his right hand to shoulder height, pointing right at Syed.

"Shit!" Syed swore and began to steady his aim at the man.

In an instant, the purple sword crackled with energy and grew bright enough to wash out the night vision of Elena's scope. Before Syed could switch the night vision off, a multitude of purple lightning bolts shot from the sword towards them.

The electrical energy crossed the thousand feet between them faster than the eye could follow. A dozen bolts went wide, striking trees and the earth behind him, but a majority of them crashed into the tree in which they were occupying.

Syed's world was being torn apart. The very air around him was rent by the electrical energy. Water and sap in the tree flash-boiled from the heat of the lightning, causing it to rapidly expand; leaves caught fire and whole swaths of the tree and it's limbs exploded, filling the air with splinters. Electricity arced all around and through him, trying to find the path of least resistance to the ground. Amidst the deafening thunder around him that felt like it was crushing his whole body, he barely even noticed that the tree limb upon which he rested had shattered beneath him. Likewise, he didn't notice the feeling of weightlessness as he fell twenty feet onto the wreckage of his perch.

It was only through years of training and combat that Syed was able push off of the remains of the branch he had been resting on and to tuck himself into a ball. His back impacted the ground with terrifying force, knocking the breath from his lungs in an anguished cry. He felt several of his ribs break under the force of the impact.

The meister came to rest on his hands and knees on the muddy bank of the creek that ran in front of his former perch. Elena dangled from the sling attached to his chest harness. He gasped for air like a fish out of water, trying to draw air back into his screaming lungs as his ears rang.

Scarcely ten seconds after the lighting impacted his hiding place, Syed grasped his weapon and rose to a kneeling position. Thanks to the combination of adrenaline and the rapid onset of shock from his many injuries, it had felt like hours.

Frantically, he looked around, trying to orient himself and find his attacker.

Icy dread gripped his heart as he spotted the man covered in glowing markings. In the time since he had been thrown from his tree, the man had closed to within a hundred feet of him. Worse, the man was still closing the distance at an inhuman speed, his right arm dangling limply while he held his blue sword defensively in front of him.

Time slowed to a nightmarish crawl as Syed willed his body to move as fast as his mind. He desperately tried to shoulder his weapon and fire before realizing that he'd never make it in time, realizing that his enemy would be upon him by then.

Slow! He screamed to himself. Too slow! In desperation, he flicked Elena's firing selector to automatic in the hope of firing from the hip.

Finally, his reactions seemed to have caught up to his will as he pulled the trigger on his rifle. The shots went wide to the left of his target, but he began to walk his fire closer and closer with each shot.

The man with the glowing markings was now on the far side of the creek, a mere fifteen feet separating the two combatants. His sword began to shine with greater intensity.

Closer! Just a couple of shots more!

Firing fully on automatic, Elena sent seven hundred twenty-five rounds downrange a minute. Just over twelve each second. Less than a tenth of a second between rounds.

And it was still too slow.

Just as the first round went squarely at his opponent, he swung his sword with a speed almost defying comprehension. Once again, he deflected the bullet made of compressed spiritual energy.

Syed watched as panic gripped his chest like a vise.

The water of the creek began to stir.

Following the path along which the unknown man had swung his sword, the water shot upwards into the night sky, creating a wall between them. The wall seemed to swallow the next shot Syed fired, neutralizing it.

Syed felt his heart give in to the despair that had been rising within him. Nothing he did was working and he was out of time. In a moment, his enemy would burst through the wall of water and it would be over. It didn't matter now if he hit his enemy with his next shot; momentum would carry his enemy's sword to him even if he did score a lethal hit.

It was as if all his nightmares after Tokyo had come true. He was going to die here to an enemy that he couldn't hit and Elena would pay the price for his failure.

Elena.

In his final moments, Syed realized that she had been screaming his name the entire time. She was screaming for him to run, even though there was no time or chance of escape. Her only thoughts were of him living, sparing no thoughts to her own safety or life.

He'd failed her. His declaration that he would protect her was being made into nothing but a pathetic lie.

"Watch out!" Elena screamed to him.

It was only then that he realized that the water that his enemy had cast up into the air had begun to coalesce into thousand of shards of ice. All aimed at him.

Syed summoned all of his remaining strength into his legs in that moment and attempted to throw himself to the side.

As one, the icicles flew at him with neausiating speed.

He wouldn't escape them all.

The night air was filled with the sound of a thousand delicate pieces of glass shattering as the ice shards impacted.

Syed screamed in pain as dozens of needle-like projectiles mercilessly pierced his skin.

The young meister came to rest on his side.

Darkness began to creep over his sight. He saw his opponent standing on the bank of the creek just out of arm's reach, an odd fog or mist clinging closely to his body. He saw Elena return to her human form and throw herself over his crumpled form in a protective embrace.

No! He wanted to scream. Run! Live! Please! His mouth wouldn't heed his commands and form the words that he desperately wanted to scream to his partner.

Just before he fell into the darkness engulfing him, he desperately tried to say one more thing: I love you.

Finn stood in the creek mud, his right arm wrapped around his stomach as if trying to force the pain from his torn muscles back inside. His breath came in ragged gasps as he tried to breath without moving his abdomen as he surveyed his handiwork. The tree that the damned sniper had been using as a perch was engulfed in a roaring fire. A sizeable portion of the tree had been blown apart and lay strewn about with a few smoldering fires here and there.

Before him, his enemy lay on the edge of a field of small ice shards that stuck out of the ground. For as much as he hated the pawns of the DWMA, he had to admire the kid's tenacity and skill to dodge the vast majority of his attack at the last moment.

But the job wasn't done. The meister wasn't dead yet; he might be saved with timely medical attention. And his weapon was still alive, clutching at her partner for all she was worth, weeping and crying out his name. Syed was it? He'd remember the name just because of the courage he'd shown. As much as it pained Finn to admit it, the meister had impressed him somewhat.

Finn looked down on the pathetic scene and snorted derisively. This was practically going to be merciful to these two puppets of Lord Death. Really, he was just freeing them from a life of mindless servitude to that pathetic "god". Maybe in their next lives, they wouldn't be cursed by their blood into being the attack dogs of a corrupt institution.

He took a step closer to his fallen enemies, and raised his good arm to strike the killing blow.

Suddenly, the weapon turn and looked at him, piercing him with a truly fierce glare. "Go ahead, you coward! Try! I won't let you kill my meister!"

Despite her words, the girl made no threatening moves against him.

Finn's mind hitched on something.

Girl? He thought. Backlit by the roaring blaze of the tree, he was able to make out the weapon's features. Not a woman? She was small, thin and looked very vulnerable. Her face was dirty with soot and mud, but she looked like a child no matter how he looked at her.

A girl this young is being used as a tool of the DWMA?

He looked upon the unconscious face of the meister, now visible after the weapon had turned to face him. The meister, too, was far too young. Even with his oddly mature-looking features, he was perhaps fifteen years old.

Finn was stunned by the sudden realization that his opponents had been so young. He was obviously aware that the DWMA had students who were barely even teenagers, but he'd always assumed that was so they could be more easily brainwashed. He'd never encountered any students that young that had been sent on a life-or-death mission.

This is wrong! This is obscene! Using children as cannon fodder like some African warlord! Finn raged at just how low Lord Death would stoop in his endless "war" with the Witch's Association.

"Well?!" The girl demanded, jarring Finn from his turmoil. "Are you gonna do it or not?!" Tears streamed down her cheeks as she screamed at him.

Lost for words, Finn just stared at the crying girl wearing such a fierce expression, his arm still held up, ready to strike these children down.

A string of still images flashed through his mind. Finn was standing at the foot of the driveway of his childhood home. Ella's unconscious form held tightly to his chest by one of his bloody arms. His other hand holding Lily's as she cried and screamed out for their parents. Their home burning, flames rising high into the night sky. Dozens of sirens growing louder-

"What are you doing, bro? Just kill her and let's go!" Lily shouted at him over their soul resonance, pulling him back to the present.

The weapon's mask of rage broke. Apparently convinced that Finn wasn't going to kill her that moment, she turned back to her unconscious meister and buried her face in his chest.

"Please!" The girl begged, her voice ragged. "You said you wouldn't leave me! That we'd always be together! You can't! Please!"

Finn felt his chest tighten as he watched the girl plead with her partner not to leave her alone.

"Finn? Let's go! Someone will come soon!" Ella shouted at her brother in a mix of frustration and concern.

"Just kill the girl so we can go!" Lily added.

The young weapon turned to face him once more. "If you're gonna do it, kill us both! I don't want to be alone without him!"

This is wrong. Finn thought numbly. No child should be begging for death, not like this. She's not some automaton-

"Finn! Hurry up! That reaper kid is coming!" Lily screamed.

I can't do this. He finally realized.

The conflicted man turned towards the orange glow in the distance that marked the location of Wangaratta. He couldn't see the strange soul of the meister who'd so casually referred to Lord Death as his "father". But that didn't mean that he or some other DWMA personnel wouldn't be coming soon.

Finn looked down at the young weapon once more. He stared into her eyes for a long moment, searching for something that he couldn't explain. All he saw was a girl terrified that her partner would die without her.

His chest ached and he wasn't sure why.

Without another word, he turned and fled with truly amazing speed, resuming his flight from Wangaratta.

Confused and numb, Elena watched the man covered in glowing tattoos on his body retreat into the night.

[1]: Now I want to go watch all of The Expendables movies.

[2]: I honestly didn't even know that it had a name. Go figure.

[3]: Lily and Ella take the form of Dha-lwe swords, sometimes just lumped in as dha and called daab in Thai. There's tons of different styles, but Beachside picked the Thai/Myanmar style with an upswept tip. A quick Google image search should give you a good idea of what they look like.

[4]: It was established in the canon during the assault on Lost Island (while trying to secure Brew) that interference from strong magnetic fields can mess with Soul Perception.

[5]: For reference, it's generally accepted that being able to put five rounds within five inches of each other on a target at five hundred yards is damned good.

A/N: So, a lot has happened. Both for me personally and the story itself in this chapter. I'll spare you the details on what happened in my personal life because that feels like I'd just be fishing for pity. As for the story, we've finally gotten our first look at the Kelly Gang and this mysterious trio of rather frightening individuals.

Special thanks for JorbyBlorby for being an awesome beta reader, co-writer and friend. Seriously, he did a lot to get me motivated and writing again. Plus all of his work with the new characters and input on everything else.

And yes, the underclassmen are between fifteen and sixteen years old. After all, Maka and Soul were younger than that when they fought Asura.

This chapter has the potential to shake up the story and universe of NtL more than others. Whether or not you think that's a good thing is something that I'd like to hear about. That said, this is still NtL and that won't be changing, the comedy, generally light tone and smut aren't about to get put on a bus, never to return, that I can promise.

As for Finn, Lily and Ella, these three are a bit of an enigma. They are OCs of JorbyBlorby's that he very graciously allowed me to use, albeit with some modifications to help them fit the tone of NtL. That said, these guys are probably the most damaged and deeply flawed characters I've used yet. Their motivations goals and employers are all mysteries for now. That said, I'd really like to hear what your thoughts are on them.

Bonus points to anyone who figured out who the regal man is. So, anyone got any suggestions for who would be a better fit?

Anyways, thanks for reading, now please review!

The pseudo-chapter that Jorby posted for me while I was recovering:

Greetings from a faraway world. Tis' I, JorbyBlorby (a.k.a Beachside), otherwise known as Apoc's editor and sorta-kinda co-author in the absolute lightest sense of the word but that's a story for another day ANYWAY. I'm here to tell you lovely readers that Apoc is going to be gone for an undetermined amount of time. He's going through some real tough times and just isn't in the right place to write anything. Instead he has been and will continue to be taking care of himself and doing what he can to improve his general health and get to a better place in his life. This doesn't mean that the story is cancelled, it's merely on hiatus.

Now, if you guys are interested in more Soul Eater content and aren't down for an undetermined wait time, you can look forward to my story that will begin to come out within a week or so. I am in college, work, and spend time with my friends (like Apoc) so I won't update super often (though I wont be as infrequent as Apoc. Bless him though, I promise you all it bothers him ten times more than it could possibly bothers any of you guys)

So basically, Apoc's hit tough times and is taking a writing hiatus to improve his situation, and I will be starting my own story to hopefully fill the void for those of you who are just dying for something to read

That's all I got lovely readers. Peace.