Extra Lessons
A very quick announce: Thanks to CatKkit for betareading all the chapters. This sure is a better story than when it was first published thanks to you so, thanks a lot friend! I owe you a big one! :P
As every late in the afternoon on Mondays, our inseparable duo was walking in one of the extremely large corridors of Shibusen, ready to go home. Classes had just ended so the halls were quite lively and full of people.
The representative clothes of the pair, as members of the elite junior unit "Spartoi" (which, for them, consisted on a schoolgirl stitched white blouse with a blue sailor-style collar, a red tie, a short pleated blue skirt and tight white knee socks), still drew the attention of the other less-skilled student around, making them gawk and stare.
"I'm telling you, when the scalpel touched that thing, it just kind of exploded all around me!" said Kim Diehl, a pink-haired petite girl with green eyes, –The Tanuki witch and Lamp Meister – as she remembered her last class with Professor Stein. Judging by the face she made, it wasn't a pleasant experience.
"Eugh…" her partner, a girl with longer brownish almost black hair and sharper eyes –Jacqueline O. Lantern Dupré the Demon Lantern – exclaimed. Now she felt thankful about the special training all the Spartoi weapons had to take that same morning. She got to listen to interesting lectures with Soul while Kim had to dissect some poor animal with Maka. Even after all those special classes they were recieving from the more experienced mesiters in the school, Kim and the others were still surprised that they hadn't received their first Spartoi mission yet. "One would think that, after so long in Professor Stein's class, doing dissections would become like a second nature."
"No kidding," the pink-haired girl said, still troubled. She still shuddered at the memory of getting dead animal juices all over herself. "I can't believe Maka was so careless… it felt so… eugh! Lucky you."
"I guess so."
Turning a corner, the witch (still sick from the memory) decided to change subjects. "So, how was the special training today?" Just before her friend could respond, Professor Marie, came over to them.
"Hey girls!" cheered the blonde Death Scythe. She wore a sleeveless black jacket, a blouse, bulgy electric-patterned black shorts, sandals and… an eye patch with a yellow thunder-like sign on her left eye. She looked a little disheveled, though.
"Hmm? Professor Marie, what's the matter?"
The teacher stretched herself a little and, after mumbling something about 'ten minutes lost', she happily said "Uff… gladly I found you two… ah, Shinigami-sama sent me to tell you that you need some extra lessons."
"Eh…!" exclaimed horrified the meister. Jackie was left speechless. "W-why?!"
The Demon Hammer, Marie Mjölnir or "the Destructor", shushed them and, with a hand gesture, told the girls to follow her. While walking through another hallway she asked "What's the mission of meisters and weapons here on Shibusen?"
As if on cue, the two girls composed themselves a little and answered at the same time.
"Kick Kishin Eggs' asses!"
"Create Death Scythes for Shinigami-sama to use."
"Ehm… correct," Professor Marie said, a little hesitant. She wasn't expecting so… short and simple answers, but then again those two weren't exactly like Maka or Ox. "Um… well, your record of soul-hunting has been kind of low this last week (zero in total…), and, as members of Spartoi, that's not a good thing at all, hence the extra lessons. And you're not the only ones, even the Thompson sisters are being told right now that they are to be going out on missions on their own..."
Kim felt a little offended and exclaimed, "Well, I don't remember doing anything to deserve extra classes! Why don't you just make us take missions instead?"
The professor wasn't insulted by Kim's rude tone and simply replied, "But that's exactly what you're going to do! You just have to cover this and last week's fee with four different missions total. You will be excused from classes if needed, so don't worry about it."
"Oh…" the girls nodded and let the professor guide them around, concentrating on their teacher's words.
Okay, maybe they didn't to go out on missions every week, but four normal missions weren't that hard to finish. They were just time consuming. Not much of a problem.
"These missions will be assigned to you according to your capabilities. I'm not saying that you're weak at all, but you need to gain more experience on battles so, when your first official Spartoi mission starts, you'll be ready," said Marie to her students in a lecture tone stopping on her tracks. "Our enemies are acting very quiet but are waiting for a chance to move against us; Kid is still missing and the Kishin is still out there acting like a price of a race. That's why you should start preparing now before the real war starts."
"Hai, Professor," said the two girls said, understanding her point now. So they weren't going to do maintenance as punishment but as preparation.
Just when Kim was about to ask another question, she looked at their surroundings. They were no longer in the lively, busy and well-illuminated school halls. Instead, they were in what looked like a dim, cold, rocky corridor with some old wooden doors with small, barred windows. They were definitely in the dungeons now.
"Uh… how did… we get here…?" Kim asked with a very perplexed look on her face. She was still looking around, now holding her weapon's hand out of slight fear.
The teacher stared at the ceiling and answered innocently, "Uh? This isn't the bulletin reception…" she looked around and asked, "You two wouldn't happen to know in which part of the school we're in, would you?"
"Don't you know, Professor? You were the one leading the way!" Kim yelled, starting to get annoyed again.
Marie scratched the back of her head with a sheepish smile on face, nervously saying, "Yes, but I was walking aimlessly. I thought I would find the Reception that way."
The two students stood on silence for some seconds. Then, Kim face palmed and her weapon sighed.
"Let's just look for an exit then." Jacqueline said sharply, trying not to scream at her teacher's face for their current predicament. She felt her stress rise like Black Star using Tsubaki's shadows manipulation to grow taller. So… Professor Marie got us lost in one of the dungeons…
Great. Just great.
(Some hours later)
Again in the corridors of the school (after searching and walking on the dungeons for so long), the duo walked tiredly toward their destination.
"Man, I can't believe Professor Marie," grunted the mesiter. "I didn't know she was this bad at directions… that kind of explain why she sometimes arrived late when she was the teacher."
Her weapon silently agreed. Thanks to Shinigami-sama, they found out their way, but, how did they get so deep within the dungeons without noticing? That's anybody's guess.
They arrived to the reception quickly and, after greeting Kirikou and the twins, went with the receptionist.
"Why, hello there girls. Is something the matter?" the woman greeted. Said woman was old, chubby and covered in make-up, but was always respectful to the students and willing to give them advice and courageous words. For the hint of tiredness on her voice, she was ready to close the reception and go home.
"Yeah, we're meister Kim and weapon Jacqueline. We're supposed to wait for a mission here," the Tanuki said in a polite voice. Hopefully granny would be kind enough to give them the mission so late…
The woman clapped and happily answered, "Oh dears, yes, yes. The mission arrived not so long ago. I will give it to you now."
Then, the old woman took out a large black envelope and gave it to Kim. She winked and wished the two girls good luck as they were leaving, gathering all her things and ready to do the same and call the day off.
The two students decided to go home and open the envelope there. After all, they had to get ready for Tsugumi's pajamas party. Kim and Jackie also decided to start whatever mission was inside the envelope tomorrow. Getting lost in the dungeons really took a toll on them.
After a while, they arrived at their shared room at the girl's dormitory. Their room still had the original two single-beds, two small desks, a night table between the beds and two closets, but after living for so long there together; the girls added their own touch to it with a pair of band posters, framed photos, and souvenirs from their missions. Nothing in the room was expensive-looking (aside of Jacqueline's cello and the room's original furniture) thanks to Kim's unique saving methods.
Jackie wasn't a person who loved to always save her money or something, but with a Tanuki as a partner, money was something they rarely wasted.
The two were greeted by Meme, a happy-go-lucky brown haired girl with the memory of a fish, who was currently sleeping on Kim's bed. They woke her up and nicely took her to her own shared room with a note taped on her back. Some things never changed…
Kim made a mental note to go and talk with Tsugumi and Anya again at the small meeting. Even after changing the keys and door knob a few times, Meme was still able to open their room mysteriously. Her partner suspected that the supervisor chief, Miss. Misery, was letting her in.
Shaking heads, the two let a small chuckle. They couldn't deny that those weird situations were hilarious in their own bizarre way.
After the small incident, they opened the mysterious envelope. Inside there was a smaller white card with the information about the mission.
As Kim started changing to her pajamas, the weapon took the card and quickly glanced through it while undoing her tie.
"How's it?" Kim asked, taking her shoes off changing them for pink slippers. "Easy, difficult? Far, near?"
The brown-haired girl, still reading the mission while changing, said, "Um… I suggest you get some sunblock."
"Is that so? Let me see," the Tanuki said, walking over, already in her pajamas, and snatched the mission card from her friend. After a few glances of it she mumbled, "It's not that bad."
Jackie changed her shoes for sandals, now ready to go out of the room to the Demon Halberd's room. With a carefree tone she answered, "If you say so…"
"C'mon, it could be worse."
Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Eater (or Soul Eater NOT!), their characters or locations; they're the properties of Atsushi Ohkubo. I just took them without permission for entertaining purposes.
Hallo,
First off, I don't use the terms "DWMA" or "Lord Death" because they're the English translating and I prefer the original ones. I'm sorry if this caused any problem, but those names get on my nerves a little…
This is set after the creation of Spartoi but before the first mission of that team (hence Kim's remark) and the chapter acts as a prologue; the rest will be the missions the girls had to take and so.
Now, about the characterization… well, along their canon profiles, my Kim is also greedy, self-confident, sarcastic and a little dependant toward her partner, and I like a serious, sharp, teaser and mild-tempered Jackie.
Reviews with good criticism will be much appreciated. :)
Bis bald, alle!
