Are you a Weapon or a Meister?

{- - - - - - - T W O    D A Y S    L A T E R - - - - - - - }

A bone-chilling screech filled the air, followed by a soft "glowing" noise as a red kishin soul floated in mid-air. A teenage girl wiped the sweat off her forehead with her free hand, her other hand being occupied by the staff of a certain scythe. The said scythe chuckled before turning a bright blue. It then morphed into shapes in mid-air before it transformed into a boy, landing on the ground. He, with his hands in his pockets, made his way over to the soul and grabbed it. He gobbled it down in a few bites, despite it being two-times bigger than an average fist. A satisfied "aah" was heard by the boy.

The boy, who was in his teens around the age of 15, smiled back at the girl. His eyes were a deep shade of red and his eyes were slanted downwards. His white hair was messy but covered a bit due to the headband that circled the middle of his head. Certain stickers and badges were placed on this headband. His blank-white teeth were as sharp as a shark's. He wore a black jacket with yellow sleeves and design on the top-right of his chest. He also wore maroon khakis and black and yellow shoes.

"What're you smiling for, Soul?" The girl laughed softly, a joking smile inching higher on her face. The boy, named Soul, chuckled again.

"Nothing," He dismissed with a nonchalant wave of his hand and a shrug. He smiled another humorous grin. "I'm just thinking about what I'll be able to do when I'm a Death Scythe."

The girl rolled her eyes and smacked him upside the head. "You silly oaf. C'mon, it's late. Let's contact Lord Death and get back to our apartment."

Soul sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever. Let's go."

The girl, named Maka, walked down the alleyway they were in, looking for a window. She had green eyes and dirty-blond hair strung up in two pigtails on each side of her head. She wore more uniform-like clothing than Soul, with a white undershirt, a white-striped green tie, a long black jacket with the backside of it ending near her feet, a yellow vest underneath, a red-plaid short skirt, and black shoes with a lot of buckles. Her teeth were straight as opposed to Soul's. She also wore white gloves.

Suddenly, a very loud crash stopped both of them in their tracks. The two quickly turned around. Soul jumped high in the air and morphed into a scythe. Maka, with a lot of practice and experience, caught him with one hand and positioned herself into a fighting stance. She became a still as a statue a few seconds later. Her heart raced with alarm and seemed to be beating as loud as a drum. Soul's reflection shone in the scythe's blade, and his expression wasn't any different - alert, determined and ready.

Everything was dead silent - only the small squeaks of mice and cawing of birds (who were escaping due to the loud noise) interrupted this silence. After about a minute or so of staying still, Maka narrowed her eyes and slowly tiptoed closer to the source of the sound, which was another small alleyway to the right about 5 feet wide.

"Anyone there?" She called as she peeked down the said alleyway - the only part of her showing was her left pigtail and one-third of her face. When no one answered, she grunted softly and stepped completely into view. Soul sighed, as if he were holding his breath the entire time of waiting.

He transformed back into his human form. "It's probably nothing. Maybe someone ran past and accidentally tripped, then ran away shortly after."

Almost immediately after he said that, something under a trash bag shifted, followed by a groan. This made both Maka and Soul flinch, but they narrowed their eyes at the bag. Soul didn't want to transform again only to find out it was a rat or some other harmless creature, so he stayed in his current form.

"Is anyone there?" Maka repeated, taking a step closer before the bag rolled away to reveal a woman.

The pair gasped in shock. What was a girl, nonetheless a girl looking about 15 to 17 years old, doing in a small, dirty and dark alleyway being covered by a trash bag?

Instantly Maka rushed to her side, brushing off any excess dirt and garbage. She was able to get a closer look at the girl from this close up. She had long, straightened dark blue hair with one, thick strip of hot pink running down it and a triangular dent in her bangs. She wore a uniform looking extremely close to Maka's, only it was in shades of purple. Other differences were that she had no coat or gloves, purple sneakers, her tie was dark blue with pink stripes, and her skirt was a little longer with no plaid. Her eye color wasn't definable at the moment, as she seemed to be sleeping or unconscious.

Maka lightly shoved her to wake her, but the girl didn't bat an eye - quite literally.

"Do you think the kishin we killed a few minutes ago did this?" Soul whispered, showing no emotion.

Maka raised two fingers to the girl's neck, then lowered her head close to her chest. Moments later she pulled away and stood up. "She has a pulse and a heartbeat. Along with that I hear faint breathing. Kishins don't leave people alive, Soul. In fact I don't think she even had an encounter with the one we defeated. She would've been killed or majorly injured if that happened."

Soul nodded in bored understanding. "So what do we do with her? We're not going to just leave her here, are we?"

Maka shook her head. "Of course not, you idiot. She needs shelter. Some other creature, or even worse another kishin, might harm her if she's in this state." She nodded to the girl. "I think the best place we could shelter her in would be our apartment at the moment. Come on, help me carry her back."

Soul sighed and came closer to the girl. He was about to pick her up when something very heavy slammed into his stomach, knocking the air out of his chest. He widened his eyes and flipped mid-air, his shoes smacking the brick wall of a nearby building. In the split-second he had, Soul's legs sprang and, in a wide jump, he landed next to Maka and turned on his heel to face the attacker. Speaking of whom, Maka's eyes were as wide as they could stretch from shock, but showed hints of anger and determination inside as well. She instantly went into a defensive pose.

Both of the pair stared at the attacker. Soul growled quietly. He wanted to transform to show them who's boss, but he needed to find out who their enemy actually was first.

A raspy cough filled the alleyway. The person stood up and quickly jerked their head to look at Soul over their shoulder. Red-violet eyes glinted slightly. It was too dark from where they were standing to tell if the person were a female or a male - actually, it was too hard to tell what they looked like in general.

Suddenly, they took a step forward towards the light.

If Maka's eyes could widen any more, they would've widened to fit her face. The attacker was a female, around the same age of the unconscious one, but she wore much more different clothing. She wore a baby blue short-sleeved T-shirt with a darker baby blue undershirt. The undershirt had long sleeves, so they passed the T-shirts' and stopped at her wrists. She also wore royal blue denim shorts that stopped right above her knees, and she had rainbow socks with white sneakers. On the top-right of her chest there was a pin. It looked like a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt peeking out of it.

Her red-violet eyes were narrowed and her face contorted to a mixed expression of anger, fear and panic. Her long, slightly-messy hair was highly unique, being all of the colors of the rainbow. Her skin was tan; Soul guessed she probably did outside activities due to this and the fact that her forearms and calves twitched slightly to show muscles.

"Stay back! This is one of my best friends - try to harm her and I'll send you to the hospital!" She spat, raising her fists and shifting her feet to stand in a more intimidating pose.

Maka's gaze softened. She wasn't looking for trouble; she was only trying to protect her friend from suspected harm. "Calm down." She dropped her fists and spoke in a reassuring, but slightly strict, voice. "We were only trying to help. Your friend is unconscious, but alive all the same."

The girl grunted and lowered her fists a little. "How do I know you didn't do this to her? How can I trust you?"

"You can check her for injuries. Me and my partner here only found her." She motioned to Soul, who also dropped his fists at the same time as Maka did. He nodded to the girl, a suspicious glance being sent the stranger's way.

Slowly, the girl stepped back and crouched next to her friend, still keeping a fist at the ready. Suddenly, she started to frantically search the unconscious female for any hidden wounds. When she found none, she looked up with an apologetic but slightly alert glance.

She stood up and walked closer to the pair. "Sorry," She muttered loud enough for them to hear. "I just saw my friend and I...thought you had hurt her."

Maka smiled and shook her head. "We understand," She looked up at the night sky, saw the eerie, smiling moon and frowned slightly, then turned back to the girl. "but it's getting pretty late. Is your home close by?"

She lowered her head and looked away. "No," She huffed. "In fact, I don't even really know where it is."

Maka tried to keep a smile so she didn't depress her or make her feel guilty. "That's fine. Would you like to come stay at our apartment for tonight?"

She looked up and grinned slightly. "Yeah, that would be nice. Do you have any extra room?"

Maka nodded. "There's an extra room with about 15 sleeping bags and one large bed." When the girl tilted her head, she laughed. "The bags are so that, if we ever go on a camping trip or vacation in general, we'd have enough for our friends." She seemed to understand and smiled fully.

"Well, that's great. Here, I want to show you my other friends." She jogged past them, then stopped and turned around. "I'm Rainbow Dash, by the way." Rainbow nodded to the other girl, still in the alleyway. "That's Twilight Sparkle." Maka twisted her head and glanced at Twilight.

"I'll stay and watch over her." Soul offered. Maka blinked in confusion.

"Soul is actually wanting to help for once? Am I dreaming?"

Soul narrowed his eyes. "It's not like I have anything else to do. I'm not interested in meeting a bunch of girls."

Maka nodded, serving as a silent ,"thank you" and started to make her way to Rainbow.

Rainbow took one last sad glance at her fallen friend and continued walking. The two girls exited the small alleyway and the larger one came into view. Instead of going to the left, where most civilization was, she went to the right and continued walking. Almost instantly Maka felt a pang of pity, and she stopped momentarily; to the right, she knew there was another small alleyway, but after that there was a dead end. She snapped out of her small pity party and jogged to catch up with Rainbow.

"So, Rainbow, where do you live? I haven't seen you around before." Maka questioned, partly out of trying to start a conversation but also out of curiosity.

"Ponyville, although it's definitely not around here. Ponyville is more cheerful and colorful than this place."

Weird name, Maka thought to herself, knowing it would be offensive if she said it out loud. "Do you guys ride horses a lot there?" She joked.

Rainbow stopped, turned around and made a contorted face, almost as if it were such a strange question that she couldn't believe Maka had asked that. "No! That would be weird, disrespectful and uncomfortable sitting on ponies' backs all the time."

Maka narrowed her eyes, but conducted it must be a tradition of Ponyvillians to not ride horses. She smiled apologetically, trying to lift the sudden negative aura around Rainbow. "Sorry. I didn't know about your traditions."

Rainbow grinned and laughed softly - the effect worked, and she returned to her happy mood. "It's all good. No offense taken. You just startled me a bit."

She looked back ahead of her and continued walking. As Maka thought, she turned to the left to a small alleyway. Four people, with the moonlight shining on them enough to show that they were female, looked up and widened their eyes happily at Maka.

"Wow!" A cheery and high-pitched voice caught the attention of Maka. She looked to her left and jumped out of surprise, seeing an energetic teenage girl staring gleefully at her inches away from her face. "We've been here for two days! It's nice to see a different face. We took a nap at a park and when we woke up, we were here in clothes I don't remember wearing and in a human body! That's pretty freaky, huh? Well, you're a human, so it's not that weird to you. Nevermind that," She took a breath of air. Her face changed quickly to one of serious depression and concern. "Have you found anypony by the name of Twilight Sparkle? When we woke up we couldn't find her anywhere."

Maka nodded, still slightly confused to the whole 'woke up in a human body' part. Weren't they already humans before? "My partner, Soul, is back there protecting her. She's unconscious, but she isn't harmed."

The other girls who were in the back of the alleyway (Maka just now noticed they were standing closer to them now) gasped in shock, but relief was obviously seen.

"You don't need to worry - she's fine." She reassured, making them soften their concern. She sighed and glanced at Rainbow, then glanced back at the other girls. "Gosh, where are my manners?" She giggled and extended out a hand to them.

"I'm Maka Albarn, a Meister and student at DWMA. It's a pleasure to meet you."