You all know how much I love to steal canon and warp it for my own use so I couldn't refuse a bridge fight with Free (even though prefer making him a sorta good guy instead of a bad guy). I hope you enjoy it.
There had been a little piece of Soul that was still forgotten, buried in that last bit of haze of black blood until the moment he leaped on the back of that horse. Maka had probably not even noticed its absence since for the most part their time back together had been slow, never having to draw a sword and show that particular side of him. Now it suddenly snapped into place, his mind racing and formulating every step forward.
You are the distraction for the distraction. They attack you, forget about Liz who they'll never know isn't Maka. They can't, won't kill you because Medusa needs you. You keep them busy long enough for the guards to get wind of it all and then you're out as soon as reinforcements are here. And he could see it, each step planned perfectly from one minute to the next. Trails and possibilities were being ironed out as he skidded the horse to a halt and jumped to the ground, pulling his sword from his belt.
The man seemed impossibly tall, towering almost two heads worth over him, a strange white eye staring at him along with an amused regular one. The giant was on the verge of laughter as he whispered something unintelligible, a sudden spindle of ice disrupting the carriage, sending it tottering but thankfully falling back to right. The swing threw Eruka to the dust but as she tumbled, Soul watched her cling frog-like to the side of the bridge, her fingers splayed like they were sucking to the stone.
Two witches… Soul only risked one more glance at Eruka, finding her motionless and watchful before letting a second of relief hit him as the carriage continued. He rushed the man, but the stillness should have told him this wasn't the right plan. Regardless, Soul let a momentary sense of victory swell in him as his sword slid into the lower portion of the man's chest. "You're a little too relaxed for being run-through," Soul complained, that joy almost immediately receding.
"Relaxed is just my nature," the man replied jovially.
Soul pulled his sword back just in time to watch the skin fuze back together. Can a witch do that? "What the fuck are you?"
"I'm part of the immortal clan," he crooned through a wolfish grin. "And I guess I'll show off my true form since you're here, prince." The air pressure changed, a surge of wind forcing him back as the teeth in the man's mouth sprouted sickly from the human lips that began to recede. A disgusting, guttural howl reverberated through Soul's head as hair grew along the man's arms, talons now in the place of his fingers. "Werewolf Free at your service. Eh, who the hell am I kidding? I don't serve: I'm here to break the rules."
He'd been too distracted by the transformation to hear the other approaching hoofbeats, but Soul's blood ran cold as soon as he heard her firm voice behind him.
"Soul, get away from him!" Maka reined in her horse at the foot of the bridge, dropping to the ground. "His soul is out of control, we have to-"
"Get out of here!" Soul screamed as he turned to her and motioned at her horse.
"We're fighting together," Maka snapped back.
He didn't hesitate for a second, his words completely running over hers. "Absolutely fucking not."
The bickering was closed with Free streaking in front of Soul's vision, cutting Maka out of his sight completely. His punch hit her in the shoulder, talons ripping open the flesh as the force threw her back. It should have just been a tumble in the dust but after more grumbling whispers under Free's breath, a pillar of ice appeared, stopping Maka short with a sick thud.
"Maka!" There was barely enough time for the scream to rip from his lips, definitely not even a second to spare for him to lunge for her before Free swung a kick, splintering the ice and sending the shards Soul's way. They were blinding and Soul could do nothing but fumble in the disorientation as the cuts oozed on his forearms. A fist of terror squeezed around his heart as he heard another crack of ice. His mind was painting a picture, her blood painting the bridge in grotesque splatters but it was a groan from Free's mouth instead.
Maka's voice hit Soul as a mystified whisper, "He impaled himself."
"I'm a little out of practice," Free complained as he shimmied, trying to dislodge from the shard. "Your mother had me locked up for a hell of a long time."
"My mother?" That had Maka on her feet and rushing him. Her sword slid easily between the cords of Free's neck but that didn't stop him, forcing Maka to take a view scrambling steps back. Suddenly her heels were teetering at the edge of the bridge, feeling that strange disorientation of the back of her calves hitting the small lip of stone that was the only thing keeping her from a plunge into roaring water. She had just peered over the edge for a second when her head snapped back, the clear cracking of ice urging her movement.
Soul was in front of her now, cutting down a shard that Free had thrown her way. "I told you to get out of here," he hissed.
"I don't understand why you're being so impossible, why you expect me to look the other way while you fight!" Maka spat as she planted a foot on the edge of the wall, using it to roll forward and slide behind Free, aiming her sword to cut out one of his legs.
"And I don't understand why you're being so damn stubborn," he cried back. All of his plans had been thrown out the window, suddenly completely unsure how to navigate her movements along with his. She was just too brash, trying too hard to be courageous and strong without working with him. It was almost paralyzing, and he found himself trapped as he watched Free create the sphere of ice. Stab it, stop the trajectory, something, damn it, Soul, something, he was begging himself to no avail.
Instead, the giant orb hit her head-on, sending her toppling back into the dust.
"Maka!" He was scrambling now, falling over his own feet to get next to her, to at least get close enough to see the rise of her chest.
As he got to her side, Maka was up on her elbows, the spiderweb of black blood tangling in her hair. She looked up at him through her blood-splattered bangs. "I'm OK."
"Like hell," he hissed. "Stop this. Get out of here. I get it, you're strong, Maka, but-"
"I'm not going to run like some scared little girl!" Maka was up just in time to tear them both to the right, narrowly avoiding another icicle strike from Free.
"I'm not saying you are," Soul was almost pleading now. "But this isn't a fight we're going to win and I can't risk-"
She tossed him aside, out of the range of another orb that sailed between them. "You sound like a coward! And of course, I'm not going to win if I'm fighting with a coward."
He was just about to spit another vitriolic sentence her way when Maka suddenly doubled over, her hand clutching at her stomach. "Oh, fuck, the baby," he tried to squash that to a whisper as he shot towards her. Free was coming to take advantage of the frozen horror on her face but Soul slipped between them, earning a gash across his shoulder as he drove her into the dirt. "Is it alright?" he pressed through clenched teeth. "The baby…"
But Maka grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly as she finished his sentence, "Is telling us we have to work together. That was… it was screaming at me," something close to a delirious laugh left her throat. "You and me, Soul, if we resonate, we can do this, but it has to be together. We have to stop fighting each other."
Taking her hand then was just like taking that little demon's, the black blood desperately running its course through his veins. The air charged again, but Maka could see that it was the bubbles of each of them converging, a beautiful tangle of their two souls that she imagined sewn together with an unbreakable thread. That hunger struck him again, the idea that swallowing her up was the only thing that would fill him and it became a fight to keep it at bay. Even with that dangerous urge, the connection was heavenly. It was like every motion of his was just an extension of hers. There was no more confusion about what would come next as a clear plan flowed through the two of them.
On their feet again, Soul was quick to charge, a hard slash coming down across Free's front, actually throwing him off balance. Maka took the opportunity, driving her uninjured shoulder into his center and letting the momentum push them both into the air as the stone lip of the bridge did nothing to hold either of them in place. Being airborne brought weightlessness that momentarily pleased Maka to no end and fed an exhilaration that she barely contained with just a short laugh. The horror finally hit her as she realized she was falling just as much as Free and even worse, his huge taloned paw was a second away from digging into her side.
It was two forces that tore her apart, Soul grabbing her by the ankle as he desperately tried to brace himself against the short wall and then the razor-sharp hooked fingers of Free ripping through her cloak and the bodice of her dress to the tender flesh around her ribs. She tried to scream for Soul but it came out as a wordless gasping shriek. The muscles in Soul's chest stretched to snapping, the weight of both of them threatening to wretch his shoulder out of the socket. "Maka," he urged uselessly, knowing that it was just baseless pleading to the universe at this point. I'm not letting go. I'm never letting go. You're mine, damn it. He gathered what he could from every corner of himself and started to tip the scale, every inch of his skin screaming as he tried to lift her leg.
"Come to hell with me, girly," Free hissed from just over the dark swell of the water below. "Let me pay your mother back for all the fun I've missed."
"Forget it, wolf-boy." Soul's head snapped away from Maka just in time to see Black Star standing on the side of the bridge, an arrow loosing immediately from his bow and striking perfectly in Free's wrist. With a growl, Free's grip was lost and he went tumbling into the brackish water. "And how the fuck did you end up like that?" Black Star barked as he let the bow clatter to the floor and rushed to Soul's side, grabbing Maka's other leg. "You were being impossible again, weren't you?" he grumbled as the two of them pulled Maka back onto the bridge.
Maka rolled her eyes before starting, "I was-"
"Being impossible," Soul seethed before his hands rushed over the crown of her head, her shoulder, her side to trace each drop of the black blood. There were only small traces of the wounds at her head or her shoulder, but her side was still pumping blood under his fingers.
"Soul…" Maka was trying to stop his caresses so he snatched his hands away to instead move to cup her face, staring desperately into her eyes.
"We don't have time to have our lovers' quarrel, but this is it," Soul pressed between his teeth. "I love you, I'll fight next to you, but you're pregnant. The whole point of this was to keep you from harm but you throw yourself off a bridge?"
"I didn't mean to," Maka offered weakly.
Soul gaped before he pressed the wave of rage building in his chest out in the form of a rough breath squeezed between his teeth.
Black Star unwrapped the cloak from his shoulder before starting to push Soul aside. "You were right, there's no time for your first fight. Put this on, princess." He tossed the cloth at her and ripped Maka to her feet and out of Soul's reach. "Soldiers incoming, you need to hide-"
"Because as of right now, you're kidnapped," Soul finished.
"Exactly," Black Star flashed a grin at Soul before jogging back towards the horses.
Maka threw the cloak on and pressed the hood up. "Make sure you look for Eruka, but I'm going to take a guess she's long gone."
"I will." Soul tried not to make that an exhausted snap as his hand slipped into the cloak to grab her arm, turning her back to him. "We can argue as much as you'd like when we're together again, but for now, please, remember the baby."
The stubborn curl of her lip wouldn't quit but the sigh that she released was bordering on giving in. "I'll try, but I swear, Soul, the baby wanted, told me to-"
"And when it's old enough I'll ground it for that," Soul growled as he pulled her close enough so he could whisper in her ear as Black Star got close enough. "What did it sound like?"
Maka blinked at him, confused until she saw the way his eyes softened and the tremble that he was trying to freeze at his lip. "Sweet," she murmured softly as she touched a hand to his chest. "A sweet little symphony of a voice, Soul."
Soul let a breath quiver over his lips before he pressed them gently to hers. "Go. Be safe."
Her fingers momentarily curled into his shirt, that fist knocking at his sternum. "You too." She turned in time for Black Star to offer his knee as a step up on the horse. When she was on, he slapped the horse's flank, sending it rocketing off.
"You want me to yell at her later?" Black Star offered with a smile before he launched into his own saddle.
"The whole time you're away," Soul answered wryly. "Keep her from getting herself killed, please."
He raised his eyebrows with a laugh, "You warned her to do the same for me, right?"
"Damn it, of course, I send the two most reckless idiots out together," he hissed as he ran a hand through his hair.
Black Star used his hand to follow Soul's, ruffling his hair back out of place. "Love you, too. Promise at least I won't kill her." He offered a cackle as he urged his horse forward, galloping in the direction Maka went.
"Very comforting," Soul shouted after him as his heart fell into his boots. "Neither of you can die," he added uselessly before turning to the approaching troops. All he could do was shoot off an emotionless description of Free and Eruka, sending groups in all directions with the order to retrieve and detain, kill if necessary. He wasn't going to hold his breath, sure that both of them were no better than dust in the wind. The desperate momentum brought him back to the hall, the blood drying on his shoulder, his clothes streaked in dirt, and his wife gone.
He waded through the crowd of people, seeing the wide eyes, hearing the murmurs. His mother was practically on top of him, her hands grasping fiercely to his arm, but Soul refused to let his voice sound yet. First, his eyes had to search the room, had to flick from face to face in order to see the one that was missing. Medusa was gone. As a sigh broke his lips, the words barked sharply after, "Witches have kidnapped the princess."