A/N - This is the very first fanfiction I've ever had the nerve to post on the internet, or share with anyone really. I've had the idea in my head for a while, and I'd appreciate it if you'd leave reviews and told me what you think!

I'm aware that I do make a couple fanfiction faux pas when it comes to OCs (at least, I've been told they're faux pas), the biggest being just pushing an OC into the main story and writing it as if they've been there all along, but considering this is a fanfiction on the internet with absolutely no substantial impact on anything, I think we can let it slide. ;)

Notes and translations of the Latin will be at the end of the chapter.

DISCLAIMER: Soul Eater is the intellectual property Atsushi Ōkubo. I have no intention of monetizing my fanwork, and this is merely an enjoyable passer of time.

Chapter One - Time Flies! The Tea-Loving Meister's Swift Entrance, Part 1

A leering, blood-mouthed moon loomed over the Death City, its horrendous eye eternally staring down at the streets below. The moon gave no light to the unnervingly quiet alleys, nor did it give any semblance of care towards the rare few who walked the streets at night. It merely loomed and watched. And for that reason alone, it was the safest, most comforting part of Death City's nighttime.

If only the monster currently making his way through the city's darkest roads would allow the people of Death City the same courtesy.

The sound of chains echoed throughout an alleyway as a being who was well on his way to truly losing his sense of morality stumbled and dodged past the garbage cans and long-empty boxes. His pallid face has been permanently twisted into a horrific grin of malice, and the large chains that he had wrapped around himself clashed and clattered around his hands and feet, glinting menacingly in the moonlight. This man was the kidnapper and killer Hudine, a man whose soul had been warped into a Kishin egg, a man who now hungered for human souls.

A man who had his eye on his next kill.

An olive-skinned young girl no older than fourteen, with long, pink hair that was tied back by a bright blue bow, was several meters ahead of him, casting a frightened look behind her as she fled from him. Down the alley they ran, and had he retained some semblance of who he was before, he would have been impressed by her ability to evade the danger that was closing in on her heels. But right now he only cared for one thing: her soul.

The girl rounded a corner into an adjacent alleyway, slipping out of Hudine's sight. He let out a vicious groan of frustration, his sharpened and yellowed teeth gritting together as he bolted forward with an extra burst of speed. It was only a moment later that he rounded the same corner, and she came back into view, standing trapped at the far end of the alley with no way out.

Alongside a boy that, in all logic, shouldn't have been there.

This boy was about the same age as the girl in appearance, but that was where the physical similarities ended. He was taller and his skin was much darker than hers, with his long ponytail and sharply angular eyes a sharp golden in contrast to her girl's pink hair and coal-black eyes. The girl's eyes had a much gentler look to them, softening the harsh gaze she was giving Hudine. They dressed differently, too. The girl's clothes were much more casual, being a romper the color of cocoa powder over dark tights and a light brown jacket that was cropped at the waist. Compared to the boy's serious, almost businesslike suit the color of burnished gold, the two of them didn't even look like they belonged in the same social circle, much less in the same dangerous situation. staring down Hudine together.

And yet they were, and suddenly Hudine felt like he was mean to be the trapped one. The sense of being lured in like a fly in a spider's parlor sent a thrill of exhilaration down his spine, and his wicked smile only widened.

"You're late," the boy declared, tucking the golden bangs in front of his right eye away from his face and behind his ear with a practiced sweep of the hand. He was talking not to Hudine but to the girl, who shot him a solid glare in response. "You should have been here a few minutes ago, at the very least. I was getting worried."

"Cut me some slack," the girl said. "I had to make sure I didn't look too sure of where I was going. Didn't want this guy to catch on to the fact that I was bait." There was a strange accent in her voice, an accent that almost sounded Italian to Hudine's untrained ears, but not quite.

"I suppose that makes sense. I'd appreciate a bit more punctuality, though." The boy stared evenly at Hudine. "Are we going to take him out?"

"Of course." The girl pointed at Hudine, her expression quickly hardening into one of determination. "You there, kidnapper Hudine! In the name of the Death Weapon Meister Academy, your actions against humanity have rendered your life and soul forfeit, and I, Alecto Bellatore, have come to collect!"

A maniacal grin stretched from ear to ear on Hudine's face, and his only response was a sharp, gleeful cackle. "Heh heh heh… Ha ha ha ha ha! Haaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!" A meister! Oh, how lucky was he to be so close to feasting upon a meister's soul! And with such a challenge attached! Oh, how he would enjoy cutting his way from this little spider's web.

The girl seemed unnerved by this, taking a shaky step backward. "Uh, Tempus, is he supposed to be laughing?"

"He's the type to get excited by the idea of trapping someone, remember," the boy pointed out, his expression unchanging through all of this. "He's probably just as excited by the idea of getting trapped. Or maybe he's laughing and your ludicrous diatribe. 'Rendered your soul forfeit,' really, Ally?"

The girl scowled. "Well, pardon me for trying to make myself feel like a badass." She reached out toward the golden-haired boy, placing the palm of her right hand flat against her chest. "Let's get this oh-we… over with."

"Gladly." The boy faded away into a form of light so bright that Hudine was forced to look away. When he looked back, the boy was gone. And the girl now had a weapon, a bizarre two-sided spear that was connected to a bronze buckler shield on her right wrist. The intricate gears and markings of the buckler and the distinct arrow shape of the spearheads reminded Hudine of something, but he couldn't remember at the moment. And, to be frank, he didn't care. All he cared about was the soul that hummed within the depth's of the girl's heart, the soul that he would soon be feasting upon.

With the mightiest of only barely human screeches, he yanked his hands apart, shattering the chains that bound them together as if they were wet paper. His limp black hair fell in front of his eyes, swathing the view in front of him in a filter of darkness. He leapt forward, swinging the halved remnants of the chains in an overhead arc aimed directly at her head.

She hadn't appeared to move a muscle as he moved to attack, so he was quite surprised to find that she had simply disappeared when the chain was supposed to make contact with her skull. There was no hint of her having moved, and yet she simply wasn't there. He crashed to the ground ineffectively. "What the hell?!" he exclaimed.

"Oh-wer he-ere!" A singsong voice echoed from behind him. Hudine whirled around to see the girl standing a few meters away, the curled tips of her rose-pink hair bouncing slightly as she rocked back and forth on the heels of her boot-clad feet.

Her undeniable smugness made Hudine want nothing more than to rip her face off of her skull before he tore her soul from her body. Before it had been a simple hunger, a need to feast on the delicious innocence of an uncorrupted human soul and sate the craving that had lodged itself in the back of his throat. Now he wanted to see her taken down a peg, to turn this spider's web back in on her and trap her instead.

"You!" he snarled. "You won't trap me! I'll break your trap, and then I'll break you!"

The girl met his glare, raising her arm toward him so that the longer spear of her weapon was pointed directly at his throat. "Brutum fulmen," she snapped in response. "Just come and try it."

"Damn it, Ally, you're getting cocky!"

"It's fine," Alecto Bellatore muttered. "He's too slow and obvious. We'll take him down in ten minutes flat."

"Our time or the rest of the world's time?"

"Ours. He won't know what hit him."

"If you're sure…" Tempus didn't sound very convinced, and she could see him in the back of her mind, giving her a look of doubt. "Just be careful with your ego. You don't want to end up like Black Star, do you?"

Alecto let out hiss as she tensed up, preparing to dive out of the way from Hudine's chains. "Shut up. I'm nothing like him. I've gotten you souls, haven't I?"

Hudine whipped his chains towards her, the silver links turning into a bright blur as they arced towards her. She concentrated her focus on her slow wavelength, pushing aside the instinctive apprehension that dared to intrude itself on her thoughts. She focused on the rippling of her soul wavelength and the beating of her heart and willed it to beat faster, to beat faster than that of her opponent.

With a quiet, almost imperceptible tick of Tempus's gears, the world around her rippled and seemed to shift into an almost standstill. The meister and weapon knew better, though; it was their time that had sped up, rather than the rest of the world slowing down. Alecto had bought herself the vital time needed, and she wasn't going to waste it playing around this time. She ducked under the now barely-moving chains, running towards the evil-souled kidnapper, a surety in her footsteps only granted by the temporary desynchronization in time. "Besides, Tempus," she cried out, swinging her arm in a wide sweep. "You know what my motto is in this sort of situation!"

Tock. Time synchronized itself again, and Hudine pulled back, visibly shocked by her apparent teleportation to right in front of him. Alecto swung Tempus toward his face, the weapon's "minute hand" spear glinting menacingly in the faint light of the stars.

"Qui audet adipiscitur!" she screamed.

The spear tore into Hudine's face, creating a large but unfortunately shallow cut across his cheeks and nose. He let out an angry cry and pulled away, clutching at his face. "What the hell did you do?!"

"It doesn't matter," Alecto said, backing away and holding up her arms in a defensive stance, the clockwork buckler facing outwards. He was practically frothing at the mouth with rage, and that made him more dangerous offensively. Of course, that meant that hopefully he would begin to lower his defenses down. "It will be easier on you if you just give up and surrender your life now."

"Never!" Hudine snapped, swinging his chains around in a bizarre and almost randomized fashion. "You think the great Houdini would allow himself to simply give into his traps? If not, then why should I?"

"Because you're not Houdini," Alecto said. Tick. She stepped to the side, carving another shallow cut into Hudine's arm. Tock. Hudine swung again, the look in his eyes more akin to a rabid animal's than a human's. "Harry Houdini was a master illusionist, escapologist, and even a pilot at one point." Tick. She leapt upwards, narrowly avoiding getting tripped up by a chain aimed towards her feet. Tock. "You are a kidnapper and murderer, who has taken a bastardization of Houdini's stage name in an attempt to make yourself seem more amazing than you truly are, isn't that right?" Tick. She maneuvered behind him and lunged forward, punching the air and driving the spearhead a couple inches into his back. Tock. "That's all you are, Hudine. A bastardization of the real deal." She pulled the spear back, causing a spray of blood to stain the ground. Tick. "Tempus," she said, directing her words to her weapon, "how're you holding up?"

"Good. He seems to be holding up better, which worries me. I know it takes a while to wear our opponents down, but after our initial surprise we haven't even seemed to faze him. And…"

"And?"

"I hope that I am simply overthinking this, but his attacks have been unusually haphazard, haven't they? It's like he's not even aiming for us."

Alecto looked around. Tempus had a point; the chains that were previously wrapped around Hudine were now strewn all over the place, many of them not even close to anywhere she had previously been. "You're right," she said, wariness creeping into her voice. "What's going on?"

Tock.

A low chuckle emanated from Hudine's lips, a chuckle that turned into a vicious, terrifyingly gleeful cackle that sent an icy chill running down Alecto's spine. With fear finally having broken through her bravado and wrapping itself around her heart in a death grip, she turned to run away, not thinking about desynchronizing time again to give her the seconds that could have aided in her escape.

Hudine yanked upon his chains, bringing them all flying towards his hunched form. The chain closest to Alecto's feet whipped around her ankle, causing her to stumble and crash to the ground. Hudine yanked the chains again, and she was dragged towards him at a startling speed.

"Ally!" Tempus cried out in panic. "Don't use your soul wavelength! The chain will be affected by the desynchronization, too, and it will just drag you toward him faster!"

"Damn!" Alecto scrambled helplessly against the ground in a desperately bid to gain some sort of grip against the ground and slow herself down. Nothing; the damned ground was far too smooth. She cursed whoever had paved the darkened streets of Death City, and turned back to Hudine, who was dragging her closer with his left hand while holding the broken remnants of another chain in his right.

"I'm going to bash your head in for that!" Hudine said. "Call me a bastardization? Call me a bastardization?! I will be a master of traps, just like the great Houdini was!"

"Tempus!" Alecto screamed, a desperate and panic-fueled idea for survival bursting into her mind. "Fiwe-thirty o'clock mode, now!" Her accent slipped a little, but she didn't care.

"Got it!" With a distinct whirring noise and grinding of gears, Tempus's shorter "hour hand" spear rotated almost a whole hundred-and-eighty degrees, stopping just short of the minute hand spear. Alecto stuck her arm out, pointing the spears towards the rapidly-approaching Hudine, and closed her eyes, praying to the hideous moon above her for some miracle of luck.

It seemed her request for fortune had been granted, for she heard and felt the solid thud of Tempus's spearheads colliding with something, and she stopped suddenly. Opening one eye, she peeked at the scene in front of her. The spears had buried themselves into Hudine's midsection; not enough to cause any damage to his more vital organs, but enough to cause him a fair bit of pain if the expression on his face was any indication. He backed away, gripping the spears and pulling them out of his torso with a rather sickening sound. "Ah, so that's what I was reminded of," he said, his voice strained. "A clock…"

The words were meaningless to Alecto, but immediately upon saying it, Hudine started cackling again. Dropping the chains to the ground with a clatter, he turned and ran away, fading into the shadows before Alecto could stop him.

"Hey, wait!" she cried out, shaking the chain off her ankle. "Come back! We haven't even taken your soul yet!" Silence was the only response. "Aw, hell," she muttered, pulling herself to her feet. "We've gotta catch up to him! If he gets away, he's just going to kidnap and kill more people, and we may never get you his soul!"

"Right!" Tempus's hands swung back into the twelve-thirty position they were always at. Allect ran forward, and as their soul wavelengths connected and expanded, the ticking and subsequent temporal desynchronization started up again.

Tick. She couldn't see any sign of him, but she knew he couldn't have gotten far. Even if his soul was that of a Kishin egg, his legs were still those of a human.

Tock. "You can't run from us, Hudine!" she yelled.

Tick. She scanned the rooftops. Nothing.

Tock. "We'll take your soul, and make you pay for all the people you hurt!"

Tick. "Ally…"

Tock. "Do you hear me, Hudine? You won't win!"

Tick. "Ally! It's no use! He's gone. We probably won't be able to find him again tonight."

Tock. Alecto fell to her knees, trembling as she fought to hold back the tears that were threatening to well up in the corners of her eyes. "No… no! We planned so much, we worked so hard for this, and for what? Him to get away and us without a Kishin egg for our troubles? I thought we could turn the tables and trap him, but instead I was the one who ended up trapped!"

Tick. "I know. But he can't run forever. We'll keep tracking him, and we'll find him eventually. But right now we need to head back and patch ourselves up. You've got some pretty bad scrapes, Ally."

Tock. Ally stared down at her hands, at the raw and torn skin from when she had tried to stop herself from skidding across the ground. She glanced down at her legs, noticing more than a few tears and scrapes in both her tights and legs. She winced. "Okay. Yeah. We'll go get patched up. But we're going to get him, right?

Tick. "Of course we are," Tempus said reassuringly. "Qui audet adipiscitur, remember? 'He who dares, gets,' if I remember correctly."

Tock. Alecto managed to let out a weak chuckle, standing up again. "Your pronunciation is terrible."

Tick. Tempus transformed back into his human form with a bright flash of light, his bronze-brown shoes hitting the ground with barely an noise. He looked over his shoulder at her, a grin stretching across his dark features. "Oh, like you're one to talk," he said. "'Fiwe-o-clock,' really?"

"Oh, hush, you know I have trouble with that." She started to walk in the general direction of home, with Tempus close on her heels. The two of them would catch Hudine, she thought, clenching her hands into determined fists. Even if it took them weeks and a dozen efforts, his corrupted soul would be theirs, and it would be one step closer to making Tempus a Death Scythe, a weapon fit for Lord Death himself.

Tock.

A/N - Did you know that Harry Houdini was actually not Houdini's given name? His birth name is Erik Weisz! I learned that when looking him up for writing this chapter. And people say that fanfiction is useless! I also learned a smidge of Latin, too! Actual Latin, not Google Translate or Harry Potter Latin!

Speaking of Latin, here's the translations for some of the things that Alecto says:

Brutum fulmen: Literally means "harmless thunderbolt," and is a metaphor equivalent to "all bark and no bite." Essentially, Alecto is saying that Hudine can't back up his threats. Hm. Wonder how well that worked out for her.

Qui audet adipiscitur: In this context, it means "She who dares, wins."

Chapter two is in the works, and should come out in a few days. In the meantime, don't forget to rate and review! Make sure to let me know if there's any formatting errors, too; I'm still getting the hang of fanfiction dot net's formatting system.

- Diana "Nocte"