Chapter 1
Death City
Audrey Summers had just gotten out of her final class of the day at the Death Weapon Meister Academy.
Since the start of the day, she had been pondering if she should go through with confronting Lord Death this evening about her request to become a solo meister.
Ever since her partner Ritt left the academy, she had been denied any further missions until she had found a replacement partner.
This was the third month since she became separated from Ritt and time was running out until she was forced into either replacing him, or being removed from the school.
Instead of searching for a new partner for the past months, she had been focusing her efforts on improving her abilities as a meister.
She had been practicing with the schools best three star meister, Miss Julie to improve Audrey's offensive and defensive abilities as a meister.
Miss Julie is an expert meister that has full performance in all categories of wavelength communication, energy generation, perception, and energy injection.
Her job at the academy was to help meisters discover their unique potentials and shape them into promising students.
When Audrey first started training to be a meister when she was younger, she had discovered through Miss Julie that she was an exceptional meister at communicating energy from herself into others to boost their performance or to heal them.
She also had amazing vision with her soul perception that allowed her to detect other beings from a greater distance than most other meisters.
It was with those qualities that Audrey was paired up with her partner Ritt, who could transform into a magic shield.
When they were first paired as partners, Ritt had no offensive abilities as a weapon so Audrey and him were assigned as a support team for other meisters and their weapons.
After a while she was able to work with him to build up his weapon strength so they could eventually attack as well as defend against attacks, thus allowing them to do their own missions.
Since the day her partner left however, it became her goal to become a solo meister so she could set out and find him.
She had trained relentlessly every day, even at the expense of her health to improve her offensive and defensive parts of her soul wavelength.
It was required that a solo meister possesses incredible offensive and defensive wavelength skills in order to survive on their missions.
Unfortunately, despite her incredible hard work over the past three months, she found herself just barely able to begin generating enough soul energy to begin inflicting damage on her targets.
It was just until a week ago that Miss Julie had pulled her aside during practice and said to her that she was wearing herself down and that any further training to this extent would cause severe damage to her.
From that moment forward, the professor prohibited her from using the training hall till further notice.
Audrey was devastated at the news. After convincing herself over ad over that she could pull off being a solo mietser, she was now at a dead end.
She knew after a little while longer, she would be booted from the academy unless she found another partner. She felt so trapped and out of options, so she decided to finally confront the grim reaper on the matter.
She decided to wait around in a study room to rehearse what to say to him for another hour or two.
By the time she was feeling confident enough, all the classes had ended and most of the students had left the school.
She walked quietly down the halls all the way to the entrance to Death's chamber. She then took a deep breath as she stood there. She had never been in Death's office before and was not sure what the office of the grim reaper would look like.
She was about to raise her fist to knock when she suddenly heard two people inside the room. She recognized Lord Death's silly high pitched voice but the other seemed to be a bit distorted and static.
Was it a radio? She wondered.
She cracked open the door to the office slightly to see if she could make out more of the conversation. When that failed, she pulled the door open enough to gently slip in silently.
From the door she could see into the large open room. She saw a straight path with several large Guillotines serving as archways with a path crossing under them.
She was very confused by the setup but reminded herself that it was indeed the chamber of the grim reaper.
The walls and ceiling were blended together with a gloomy clouded sky with most of the ground being covered in dirt and sand except for a wide and white circular elevated platform that was centered to the middle of the room.
She began moving forward into the room and gently closed the door behind her.
She decided for her own well being to walk along the outside of the Guillotine path as she advanced closer to the conversation between Death and the mystery figure.
She then realized her boots were making a squeaking noise that would give away her presence, so she darted behind one of the Guillotine pillars and slowly removed her boots.
After she got the second boot off she placed both boots in one hand and proceeded further into the room.
There were bookshelves encircling the outside edges of the white platform storing thousands of books with some scattering the ground. It looks as if Death has been so busy with everything going on, that he could not take the time to clean his office.
As soon as Death came into view, she darted behind another pillar. He was speaking into what seemed to be his magic mirror.
She was familiar with the magic device through having to used it to communicate with Lord Death on several occasions.
She still could not identify the other person at her distance so she advanced to the next pillar and continued on until she was behind the final pillar before the circular platform.
From there she could make out the conversation as well as see who it was in the mirror.
He was wearing a war uniform that she did not recognize as anything related to Death's forces. His facial expression was stern and she noticed dirt on his face.
"Lord Death, I understand your stance on the war" Said the soldier. "But you must realize that once Germany takes Europe, all the free nations of the world will inevitably follow suite in being taken."
Audrey noticed he was speaking with a heavy accent that she could not identify. She also noticed after looking more closely that he was wearing some fur on his head as well as around parts of his uniform.
The soldier continued "There will not be any sanctuary for those who oppose Hitler's ideology and that of the Nazi regime. You know as much as I do that those deserters of your academy who have gone over to their side will inevitably return to conquer you as well as all of America."
Audrey's heart skipped a beat. Ritt was one of the students that had deserted the academy. Him and a bunch of students fled the academy when tensions over the war were intensifying.
Since then, several other students and teachers have deserted the DWMA also.
Some had dropped out due to family matters while some became enraged over the war and wanted to fight for one side or the other.
"That's why you must send aid to the frontlines in Europe as well as our fighters in the Soviet Union. That's where Germany's meisters and weapons are concentrating most in trying to quell our forces." The soldier finished.
Death then spoke up "I understand your concern for your home country and of the fear of the current twisted political status of Germany, but you must understand that wars like this happen, and that during wartime our main focus should be the kishins that are lurking everywhere because of it."
Death turned his mask slightly over to the row of guillotines causing Audrey to pull her head back behind the piller and tuck in.
He didn't see me, did he? She worried.
As I speak, dozens of new kishin eggs are coming into existence every day and the ones already in existence are getting stronger." Death continued, returning his masked face to the soldier.
Death was motionless in his form and his expressionless mask did not help Audrey to determine his mood. She did notice though that the clouds were rotating violently around the room, perhaps reflecting his mood.
Death resumed speaking, but this time in a tone she was unprepared for.
"So while you are wasting your time on the borderline over fighting against fellow meisters and humans, the true threat of the kishin eggs goes uninterrupted. That is why instead of sending more of my teachers and students away from kishin hunting to aid you, I must ask that you stand down from your renegading behavior and return with whatever students you took from me."
It was beyond obvious that Audrey had come in at a bad time. She had never heard that voice from Lord Death before.
It was deep and dreaded and nothing like his normal happy tone. His mask eye's had also changed in that the top of them became flat and the eyes turned inward in an intimidating way.
She turned to face the way back to the door and debated about leaving but then the soldier responded back to him.
"I'm sorry Lord Death, but there is more going on here that your Kishin hunts. Whole countries are in risk of being completely whipped out and an entire race of people. These students didn't come against their will. They all willingly volunteered to fight a threat that you are clearly to distracted to see. As the war wages on you will only lose more good teachers and students as more of their families and relatives are taking away. These Germans are bloodthirsty savages and will only grow stronger as the war progresses".
Death then boomed back "how dare you! German's are not the problem here. Only you renegade meisters and weapons as well as those soul harvesting Dark meisters and weapons are the reason the world is in its current chaos! Even if you win against the armies of the axis, after a while, the un-addressed Kishins will have become too strong for any of use to handle! They will swarm across the nations and cover everything in madness, even all that you fought so hard to defend against mere mortal beings!"
Audrey had already retreated several pillars back closer to the door when the soldier responded.
"I am wasting my time here. Enjoy the freedom that Death City brings while it lasts." Then the mirror terminated the communication.
Audrey was a few feet from the door when she heard Lord Death let out a loud sigh and then silence. She looked back to get one last glimpse of him and the room, but he was gone.
She blinked and looked again. Did he teleport away or something? She wondered to herself.
Then the shivering began to hit her and she slowly began turning her head to look over her right shoulder with her small pony tail shot straight up and her eyes widened in fear.
Then she heard him in the same dark voice whispering from two inches behind her ear "What are you doing sneaking around in my office?!"
Audrey screamed. "I'm so sorry Lord Death, I didn't mean to eavesdrop! I just get curious and this time I went overboard, I'm sorry, please don't reaper chop me-"
"That's a new height record for you isn't it Ms. Summers?" Death said with a chuckle, reverting back to his friendly voice.
Audrey took a moment to register what had happened and then looked down and realized she was seven feet up one of the pillars hugging for her life.
"Oh, Uhhh yeah." She said with embarrassment. She slid down and straightened out her clothes.
After a moment she turned to face him to address him properly "Lord Death, I'm really sorry for intruding like this. It was very unprofessional of me and I hope that you will excuse my behavior. I won't do it again."
She felt rotten and realized now that it would be harder to convince death that she was ready for a mission.
Death tilted his head. "well no harm was done now was it? You just have to be aware that I do have private calls just like everyone else on this earth and so forth should be treated with equal respect. I bet you would not like it if someone barged in on you if you were having a serious conversation."
Audrey nodded "I agree and apologies again. I also apologies on behalf of that soldier. I fully agree with you about the kishin threat and that they must be dealt with before they become too powerful."
Death nodded at her "I'm please to see that you recognize the situation. I do certainly wish more people would. The world has been darkening, even awhile before the war started. The kishin eggs had been growing and now they are nearly reaching their peaks. It is greatly disturbing." Death's masked face tilted down slightly to signify his distaste.
Audrey saw an opportunity for her to put forward her request. "This leads me to why I am here Lord Death. If you had a moment, I wanted to discuss something with you."
Death tilted his face back up to her "Sure thing. Let's have a seat shall we." Audrey nodded and re-equipped her boots.