The Power of a Promise

Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater.

"Ow! Patti you dropped a box on my foot!" Liz scolded her sister as she rubbed her sore toes.

"Oops! Sorry sis~!" Patti said sweetly, then picked up the box that had just squashed her sister's foot and skipped off. It was an early afternoon and Maka, Kid, Tsubaki, Patti, and Liz were all looking through Dr. Whitley's lab, searching for any clues to his whereabouts. So far, they had no luck.

"Patti, be careful with that!" Kid said. Patti had just picked up a long test tube filled halfway with a purplish liquid and was staring at it intently as she flipped the tube upside down and back upright again many times, watching the substance create small bubbles. No one knew what any of the fluids or materials did, so they had to be extra careful with how they handled them.

"Yeah, Kid's right Patti. Who knows what that stuff is? For all we know, it could be acid or could cause an explosion or evaporate in the air to create a gas that may expose us to some unknown disease or-" Maka was interrupted when Patti dropped the tube. Everyone gasped, then Kid dove for the glass tube. He caught it, causing everybody to let out a sigh of relief. But, as quickly as he had caught it, the tube slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor, the liquid spreading over the surface. Nobody moved.

"Quick! Put your hands over your mouth so you don't breathe it in as fast!" Maka said to her friends. They did as they were told. They all stayed that way for a few minutes, unsure of what to do next.

"What are you guys doing?" Cormac said as he entered the laboratory, looking confused. Maka took one hand off her mouth and pointed to the fluid on the floor near Kid. Cormac walked over it and kneeled on the ground. He then proceeded to put a finger in the purple liquid and lick it. Everybody shouted at him in alarm.

"It's grape juice," Cormac said with a grimace on his face. "Really old grape juice."

The meisters and weapons removed their hands from their faces, feeling very stupid and embarrassed, except Patti that is, who just giggled and sauntered off to find something else to do.

"Anyway, I came in here to see how you were doing with the search," Cormac said, getting up off the floor.

"Not very good. We haven't...found..." Maka began, but her words grew softer. She put a hand to her forehead, suddenly becoming dizzy. The meister's vision was blurry as she fell to the ground. She heard muffled voices calling her name before she completely lost consciousness.

"Work faster," a voice said.

"I'm doing the b-best I c-can," another voice said, sounding scared.

"I don't care! Work faster, imbecile!" the first voice yelled. I recognized the voice now. I opened my eyes and turned to face the direction the voices were coming from. Sure enough, there stood Witch Rekka. She was behind a man cowering in an old wooden chair, laboring on something on the desk in front of him. I took a step towards the man, feeling pity for him. He turned his head in my direction, and I realized that this was the man from my nightmare last night, the one pleading for help. In front of him was a metal box.

"Did I tell you to stop working, bastard?" Rekka angrily said to the man, who then turned his gaze back on the object in front of him. I tried shouting at the witch, but nothing came out of my mouth. I screamed and screamed, only for my voice to not be heard.

"Maka! Maka wake up!" Kid shouted at the blacked-out girl. Maka slowly fluttered her eyes open.

"I...I'm fine," the meister said as she took Tsubaki's hand to help her up.

"You're fine?! What the hell just happened to you?!" Liz said. Maka rubbed her now pounding head.

"I don't really know. I guess I didn't sleep well last night and that affected me somehow..." the emerald-eyed girl said as she continued to massage her forehead. She could feel the headache growing weaker.

"I'll go get you some water," Cormac said, leaving the room. A minute or two later, Cormac returned with a glass cup. He handed Maka the drink and she took small sips. The headache was almost completely gone now.

"Look, I'm okay guys. Can we please just go back to searching?" Maka pleaded. Kid and the other weapons exchanged looks before nodding their heads. Maka smiled and gave the glass back to Cormac before returning to sift through the things in the laboratory.

"Oh, how interesting..." said a woman's voice from outside the Whitley residence, where nobody could hear.

"It seems we will meet again soon, Miss Albarn. I'm looking forward to it," she said before bursting into flames and disappearing into thin air.

"What do you guys say about some lunch?" Cormac offered the group. They all nodded their heads. Cormac left the basement and was about to enter the kitchen when he saw a bit of orange in the corner of his eye coming from outside. He opened the front door, a blast of cold hitting his face. He looked to the area he had seen the color, and in its place was a hole in the snow that reached to the grass underneath. The tips of the blades of grass were even burnt a bit.

"Not again..." Cormac said exasperatedly.

"How does this keep happening? It's been a whole freaking year since this started!"

"What's been happening?" Maka said as she peaked her head out of the doorway. Cormac jumped.

"Look. That's been happening," the boy said as he pointed to the burned part of his lawn. Maka's eyebrows furrowed.

"A whole year you said? Like, since your father disappeared?" Maka questioned. Cormac sighed and nodded, clearly fed up with the brown spots that will litter his yard once the snow melts.

"It's unlikely, but I wonder if it could be..." Maka thought, a certain witch on her mind.

"No, I'm probably just being paranoid. There's no way," Maka assured herself.

"Hey, how about that lunch? I'm starving," the pig-tailed girl said with a smile. Cormac nodded and went to the kitchen, still slightly angry. Maka looked back at the burned spot and frowned before closing the door behind her.