Maleko slowed stirred awake and found himself sore all over while his head felt fuzzier than a bunny's behind. What happened? His memories of what he had been doing were… cloudy and warbled. And even as he tried blinking his eyes open, all he saw was darkness, nothing but pitch black. Were his eyes even open? His mind was still far too gone to be able to tell the difference, but he was starting to get some sensations besides dull aching back into his body.

He started to notice that his face was pressed against something cold—a concrete floor? It felt like it, had he fallen asleep on the floor after playing? No… nothing in this place resembled the scents of his room. Maleko could remember that he had been out of his room at the time, too… with Soul… heading out to eat with Soul and his friends….

Soul had… explained brothers too him and Maleko… wanted the world to know they were brothers? That sounded right, but what happened after that? He tried to think, tried to remember, but couldn't.

His head hurt. His body felt lethargic.

Squirming on the ground, Maleko let out a low groan and whine as he tried to push himself up onto his knees to no avail. For some reason he couldn't move his arms from where they were behind him… were they… tied? He tried again and felt the rope biting into his skin with each attempt, bruising his wrists where they had been tied tightly. His fingers felt tingly, was that because of the tightness?

What was going on? Why was he tied up? Where was he?

Squirming even more in desperation, Maleko let out a long whine and a whimper as he struggled to get free. Why couldn't he use his magic? Was it because of the weird drowsiness his body felt?

"Maleko? Maleko, is that you?" it was Soul. He sounded like he was… right next to him? Maleko tried to find him and if he focused hard enough, he could feel the older teen on the ground beside him, though his scent was completely obscured by something… wrong. A wrong scent, one that was bad.

"Maleko, it's going to be okay," Soul's voice but through the darkness once more, there was a hint of desperation in it that he was trying to hide, "Just focus on me, it's going to be okay," Soul was trying to be calm, for Maleko, but even he couldn't hide the way that his fear made its way to his rotten scent.

Maleko whined and tried to drag himself closer to his friend, "Soul," he whined, struggling against his binds even more. They hurt his wrists, were forcing his fingers to go numb. All Maleko wanted was to get free and know what was going on. He could feel Soul, so close, and yet just out of his reach. If he could just… just burn off these bindings… but he couldn't, not when his body felt so wrong. It was hard just to find the embers, to find the spark to ignite his fire.

He whimpered as his face scrapped against the rough concrete floor as he tried to push himself to his knees, but his attempts came to a stop soon enough. Swallowing hard, Maleko held himself perfectly still as he heard footsteps drawing closer. His body falling into instinctual habits. A predator was coming, he had to hide—don't make any sudden moves—don't get found—his mind was a hurricane of thoughts and fears as the footsteps grew louder and closer, solid thunk-step-thunks against the cold floor.

The steps came to a stop right in front of him, so close that Maleko could smell the overwhelming stench of oil, salt and ink from the people before them. Then his ears twitched as the sound of laughter filled the darkness. It wasn't the same happy and jolly laughter he heard all the time, from his friends at the academy, from the people back home, from mama.

This laughter was cold and hollow. It was cruel.

Without warning, Maleko felt a hand on his head, someone's fingers were tangling deep into his hair and pulling him up by the strands. Hard. As if they didn't care if they ripped chunks from his scalp. The back of his head burned and ached as he was lifted, and though he struggled, it only caused him more pain. From beside him, he could hear Soul let out his own howls of pain and resistance. He could only assume someone was doing something similar to his friend.

Maleko couldn't see it, but he could feel another hand coming to his face, by the scent and by the way the air shifted in front of him. Then the blindfold came off.

It took Maleko a few seconds to adjust, blinking his eyes multiple times to see into the room, dimly lit by the few overhead lights that still worked. Even though he could now see, Maleko still didn't know where they were. All around him was steel, concrete and stained, filthy windows that barely let sunlight through. Though it wasn't as though it was empty inside, he could see between the steel support beams a few metal crates. Was this a… a warehouse?

Just barely Maleko could see Soul kneeling beside him, arms and feet tied up to keep him from running off. His face looked pale and sweaty, and his eyes were bloodshot. Now Maleko could put a name to the scent that clung to Soul, it was the same scent of a dying animal.

Slowly Maleko looked to the man who still held him by the hair. A large, bulky man, dressed in a black hoodie and jeans, his face hidden behind a mask of sorts. There was another, smaller, thinner man behind him, dressed in a white button up shirt and tie.

The smaller man chuckled and crouched in front of them, "Hope you two weren't lonely while waiting for us," he said, his voice so chipper, so easygoing.

"Who are you?" Soul growled as he lifted his head, blindfold hanging limply around his neck.

More laughter filled the air. "Honestly, do you actually think we're just going to go and tell you our names? If we wanted you to know who we are, we wouldn't be wearing masks, now would we?" he asked and reached over to pat Soul on the head. "But, really, you have other things to worry about than who we are. For example… shouldn't you be more concerned over what's going to happen to you?"

Maleko made a sound somewhere between chirping and whining as the man said that, the gears in his head turning as he tried to make sense of the situation. What did they mean by that?

The larger man let Maleko go and his chin hit the ground hard enough that he felt his teeth rattle. Groaning, he opened his eyes back up to watch the thin one pull a large briefcase across the floor. The latches clicked as he opened it op and Maleko felt his nose scrunching up at the awful smell that came with it.

Inside were needles and vials full of a strange green liquid. The smell was wrong, whatever was in those vials, it was bad. Dangerous.

"You two should consider yourselves lucky," the small man said happily as he rolled up his sleeves and put the needle to one of the vials, sucking up the green liquid into it. "This drug is going to be our best weapon against the DWMA, and you two get to test it. Well, you won't be the only test subjects, the people in charge need more than one or two tests to know for sure if this will work. But don't let that get you down," the man approached them and even though the mask hid his entire face, Maleko knew that he was smiling behind it. "Tonight the two of you will further the Acolytes cause."

The man walked closer to them and Maleko flinched back, a growl rising in his throat, fighting against his bindings, trying to do anything to get away from the two of them, but as expected he got nothing.

"Oh, I wouldn't even try. We injected the both of you with a small dose of this already, it'll make you both woozy and keep you from any transformations," the man chuckled, "we don't need you slipping free from the ropes after all. But now we'll both get to see what a full dose of this will do."

Soul struggled, his eyes fixed on the two, "Why are you doing this?" he demanded, squirming on the ground to try and get free of his bindings. "Are you working for Medusa, is this her work? Not that it matters, we stopped her once, we'll stop her again and you won't get away with this."

The thin one laughed again, "Oh, what brave words coming from a little mouse on death's row," he cooed, slapping the larger, silent mans arm in his laughter. "Us working for Medusa? That's a joke if I've ever heard one. To think we'd sully our own names to serve someone as unworthy as her. No, no, never in a hundred lifetimes would we ever bend our knee to her."

Medusa, Maleko knew her. Mama didn't like her, and neither did the DWMA. But that was about the only thing that he understood or knew from that.

"Then why?"

Still laughing, the thin one just shook his head, "We're doing this because our God has commanded us to do so," he responded in a rather pleasant tone, which in itself was strangely discomforting given the situation. "Everything we do here, everything I do, it is all for her. The one true God of this world, not your whimsical reaper who delegates others to do his bidding, who has children fight his wars. Our God wants the DWMA gone, and all those affiliated with it dead, and so I must do as she wishes."

"You are insane," Soul spat.

"Are we? You do the same for your false God, hunting and staining your hands with blood because he says their evil," the man responded and twirled the syringe in his hands, pushing the air out and letting a few drops drip down as he crouched between Soul and Maleko. "But we're not here to discuss insanity and philosophy. We've a much more important task to complete, and so, who would like to go first?"

He pointed the needle at Soul, letting the tip brush across his bare neck, "So, shall we let you try it first…" he let the syringe linger on Soul for a few more moments before dragging it over to Maleko, "or maybe you?"

Maleko whimpered as the man drew closer to him while Soul struggled against his bindings, trying to crawl or drag or roll himself over to them, anything he could to try and stop this.

"Get away from him!" Soul snarled, "Don't you dare, do what you want to me but don't mess with him!"

His words fell on deaf ears as the large man lumbered over, took hold of Maleko by the shoulder and dragged him to his knees, holding him firm with a massive hand. Maleko whimpered as his arm was twisted against its bindings so that the needle could go into the veins right at the crook of his elbow. Even as he was forced to kneel and forced still, he trembled with fear.

The needle pushed in, breaking through his skin and he yelped, jerked away and closed his eyes as he felt the drug pushed into his veins.

It wasn't right, it burned, it made his head feel fuzzy and his body scream.

This wasn't right.

(Fight back already!)

Maleko whined as he felt the large hand on his shoulder dig into him, as he heard Soul yelling from the floor and the thin man laughing, as his body began to feel wrong as the drug made it's way through him.

(Survive)

Maleko was stronger than this, he wasn't someone who'd just let himself be pushed around like this. He was of the jungle. Maleko was of the world of the wild, not the world of man. He was stronger and braver, and yet here he was trembling and whining because of a needle prick. He'd faced down beasts scarier than this! Had this world made him weak? Had he forgotten the only rule of the wild?

Survival.

No matter what, no matter what you do, no matter how much it hurts or how hard it might be, you must survive. Nothing else matters but ensuring you live another day. Survival at all costs.

Maleko had to survive. Was going to survive.

Survive… survive… survive survive survive.

Slowly his whimpers morphed into a low growl as he bared his teeth. Even with the syringe still in his arm, the drugs in his system, he wasn't going to just lay down and take it. He would survive, he would fight tooth and claw, until his dying breath to survive. Nothing else mattered right now.

Lunging forward as best he could on his knees, Maleko tore himself from the large mans grasp into the arms of the other, biting hard into his arm.

"What the—fuck! Get off me, you brat!" the jovial attitude of the thin man was gone in an instant as he snarled, grabbed Maleko by the hair and yanked hard to tear the sorcerer off him, to get him to open his mouth and let go. But Maleko had no intention to do that. He could feel warm blood pouring into his mouth, taste the coppery sting on his tongue and let out a muffled growl as he dug his teeth in deeper.

Was that bone his teeth were scraping against, or just muscle? Had he hit any major veins that he could tear out of this man? He wasn't sure yet, his mind had a thin fog over it from the drug and adrenalin.

A knee rammed into his chest and the impact caused Maleko to open his mouth out of reflex, letting out a ragged gasp as the air was knocked out of him and a sharp pain coursed through his ribs. He hit the ground with a whine and each breath that followed sent sharp pain through him. Still tied up and unable to push himself onto his knees, he looked up as best he could to see what kind of damage he had caused the other.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" the masked man hissed, cradling his arm while the giant beside him looked desperately around for something to stop the bleeding.

Maleko felt a surge of pride as he saw how bloody and torn the arm was, and quickly berated himself for stopping at biting and not just tearing a chunk of meat right off that arm with his mouth. He could do it, easily, and some parts of the flesh was already barely hanging on where he had bit him. Maleko couldn't help but smile in satisfaction as he licked some of the blood on his lips. It'd been a while since he had tasted fresh blood like that.

He hadn't realized how much he missed the taste.

"Fucking savage!" the masked man snarled as his arm was wrapped with a torn off sleeve of the others hoodie. "You shouldn't have done that… you really shouldn't have done that," the large man grabbed Maleko by the shoulders while the one he had bit rammed his fist into Maleko's face. Maleko could hear something crunching and something warm running down his face as pain spread across his nose.

Another punch came, and then another. A punch to the face, a knee to the gut, all the while the giant behind him held him in place. Maleko let out gasps between blows, tears burned in his eyes. Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to bite him.

"Stop it!" Soul yelled, pushing himself across the floor.

"Struggle all you like, but you're not going to transform, you're not going to be able to do anything," the thin man cackled as he hit Maleko across the face again. "But your screams are annoying. Shut him up."

The giant dropped Maleko to the ground and he barely had time to recover from the impact before the thinner man kicked him right in the hip. He writhed on the floor, opening his eyes a crack as he heard the muffled sounds of conflict, only to see Soul dragged limply across the floor.

He didn't have time to process what the giant did to his friend because the barrage of blows didn't stop. Though the thinner man couldn't punch him anymore, he seemed more than content to continue kicking and stomping on Maleko on the floor.

His body felt like he had fallen from a giant tree, crashed through all the branches before landing onto the rocks below, and it only got worse as the man continued to beat him. His entire body was throbbing, he felt like he was going to vomit as choked sobs escaped him. The pain was overwhelming, it was all he could feel, enveloping his every sense and thoughts. He almost gagged and choked as he coughed up a glob of blood.

Stop, please, stop! Stop hurting me! Stop hitting me! He wanted to beg the man to stop, that he'd do anything just stop with the pain, but he couldn't even form a single word.

Stop it… stop…

It was hard to breathe… his mind was clouding over. Survive, he had to survive. The weak died, the weak had no place in the wild… he couldn't be weak, he can't be weak. Instinct. Rational thoughts were giving way to pure instinct and drive.

Gritting his teeth, Maleko prepared himself for the next blow and felt the bones crack as the masked mans knee rammed into his small chest once more. The air rushed out of his lungs and his blood boiled. He was not going to die. He wasn't going to die here.

Embers and sparks, he could feel them deep within him, buried beneath the drugs and toxins in his system. Swallowed up by the foreign liquid, but there. He just had to reach through the murky waters and grab it.

Maleko wasn't a weapon, he wasn't a human. He was a sorcerer. The son of magic and the son of the jungle. His blood was of magic, his blood was of fire. Maleko had within him the flames of the morning sun and he was not about to let them put the fire out. No one can put his fire out, those who try will be burned up in the flames.

The smoke filling the air was dark and dense, even as the fire department worked tirelessly to put the flames out, their sirens ravaging the air, louder than anything. There were probably a good dozen different vehicles, from the large fire trucks with hoses, to smaller trucks, paramedics and police cars surrounding the burning warehouse. Not to mention all the bystanders watching from a distance, asking questions and trying to understand how a simple rundown warehouse erupted into flames like that.

Sabotage? Teens messing around only for some goofing off to go wrong? The theories the civilians threw around was endless.

"Let me go in there!" Maka yelled as she tried to push past Sid. Behind her the others waited anxiously, though Blackstar was being physically restrained by the zombified man to keep from charging into the burning building, "He's in there, I can sense him in there!"

Stein frowned as he dangled the cigarette between his fingers, looking to the building, to the dark clouds of smoke above. His eyes glanced to the entrance of the warehouse, where the ambulance sat parked and the paramedics waited anxiously with their equipment ready for anyone still alive within.

Soul and Maleko going missing and hours later a warehouse catches on fire suddenly and violently with Soul inside. Only a fool would think it's a coincidence.

"Right now it's too dangerous to just rush in," Sid reasoned for what might have been the hundredth time since they had all gathered there. "The building is still burning and we don't know how stable it is. Right now the best we can do is let the firemen do their job and get him out safely. If you two go rushing in, you might make things worse."

Usually Maka was a well behaved student who was reasonable and understanding, but it was equally understanding that she'd be impatient and reckless considering her partner and best friend was in that warehouse, with none of them knowing if he was okay or not. So really, Stein could understand her completely right now.

But Sid was in the right.

They couldn't very well let kids go rushing into a burning building just because they wanted to get their friend out. It was best to leave things to the professionals. When it comes to hunting witches and monsters the people let the DWMA handle it, and in return when there are regular crimes and fires, they let the police and the firemen handle it.

Though he should be thankful, he supposed, that the rest of the group was holding themselves back from just rushing into the building. Even though there were a handful of the staff at the warehouse, it could be more tedious than it should be to keep them all under control. Especially with so many civilians watching them right now.

But the fire… it didn't sit right with Stein at all. Nothing about this sat right with him.

Soul abducted. Of course no one initially thought he had been abducted, he had only been missing for a handful of hours, his friends had just assumed that something came up and left it at that. But then he didn't answer his phone and no one could find Maleko. Of course suspicion was going to start building up. The burning warehouse didn't help things at all. Just made everything worse.

Of course Maka and Kid came to investigate when they heard of the fire and sensed Soul in the area, and reasonably enough, the entire group panicked when they realized Soul was in the burning warehouse.

Stein didn't like anything about this. Nothing at all.

He'd realized that they had also not noticed the one thing that was most wrong about all of this. Well, he supposed he couldn't blame them for that either. Soul was their friend, had been their friend for far longer than the other had. So when Soul was put in danger, is was natural that they would focus on him and forget the child entirely. Soul was more important than the boy was, even if they wouldn't dare admit it.

His attention fell back to the warehouse entrance as a couple of firemen covered in soot and ash came out of the still smoking entrance. One of them was carrying Soul in his arms and was quick to bring him to the paramedics waiting. Stein gave Sid a nod, who in turn backed off, allowing the group of meisters and weapons to rush to Souls side as the unconscious weapon was strapped to a gurney.

One of the firemen caught Steins eyes and motioned for him to follow. He sighed, dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his shoe. "Come on," he motioned to the others, but then paused and had Sid stay with the kids. "Keep them out there," whatever was going on inside, he didn't want the students sticking their noses in right now.

"All this smoke really burns my eyes," Spirit muttered as they stepped into the dim warehouse, the sound of broken wood and plastic crunching underfoot while many small puddles of melted iron already cooling surrounded them. Just how hot had the fire been before the fire department put it out?

There were a few cops already inside, he noticed, and a mess of yellow tape was being put up everywhere. Of course it would, this was a crime scene. Though just what kind of crime it was going to be had yet to be disclosed.

His nose scrunched up as they wandered deeper into the warehouse. "Oh, God," Marie had gasped, slapping a hand over her mouth and nose. "What is that smell?"

He knew the smell as soon as he had noticed it. It was a very unique kind of odor, one that most people don't get the chance of finding, and as such he already had an inkling of what the fireman had to show them before they even reached the yellow tape.

But even with an idea in mind, he was still taken aback by the full extent of the scene. His mouth twitched and he had to force his face into the hard mask.

"Oh, God… oh God," Spirit hissed as he reeled back beside him and Marie let out a horrified gasp, her eye wide, "How in… this is…"

On the ground were bodies. That wasn't anything new, and it was understandable to expect them to be burned and charred corpses. But that wasn't everything. Two men were strewn across the floor, unrecognizable. Stein could tell from what remained that one had been rather small and wiry, while the other was still fairly large despite the gore that remained. But there wasn't really much remaining to get much more than that.

It would be an understatement to say they had been butchered. The two had been torn to shreds in a way that depicted no ounce of mercy or remorse. Throats torn open so that blood would pool out, faces clawed off, ears and noses ripped away, limbs were missing, their bodies were opened up so that their bloodied ribs were visible to all. Organs were gone, some had entire chunks torn off.

Or rather… bitten off.

Stein lifted the yellow tape and knelt beside the bodies, already working to put together what happened, and the more that he looked at this, the less it looked like the work of some maniac with a knife, and the more it looked like a wild animal attack. But he couldn't think of an animal that would do damage this extensively, at least none that lived in Nevada. If it was an animal, the giant would have been able to deal with it easily.

It wasn't an animal, despite how much it looked like it. Besides, an animal couldn't do all the injuries that were present. Even though the building was burning, these men were burned in ways and places that the warehouse fire couldn't do, that the flames wouldn't have been able to reach, not unless it somehow found a way to get inside these men and burn them from the inside.

He glanced at the floor around them, at the bloodied and broken masks. They'd been torn off the men's faces by the looks of it, broken and burned, but you could still tell that they were gas masks. A little farther away was a knife covered in blood.

This was just getting worse and worse.

"Stein, I think you want to take a look at this," Spirit said and the scientist stood up as his friend nudged a burnt briefcase over to them, careful not to touch it with his hands until the police could bring them gloves. "It's hard to tell what was in it, the glass is all broken, and the fire probably destroyed most of the stuff. But it looks like there were syringes and needles. Might be traces of whatever they were using in here."

"We should make sure they run some drug tests on Soul, then. Whoever did all this could have been injecting him with something," Marie spoke up, the concern for her student clear in her voice. "God… what even happened here?"

"That's what I'm going to find out," Stein said, fishing through his lab coat for his pack of cigarettes as he got back onto the other side of the tape. He didn't stop walking when he reached the two Death Scythes, and he ignored their questions when they asked him what he was doing and where he was going as he began to walk through the warehouse.

He lit his new cigarette on one of the crates that was still burning just a little as he passed it, barely pausing in his stride. His gaze stayed down, eyes locked onto the blood drops and smears across the floor. Not that he needed it to guide him where to go, but it gave him an idea of what to expect.

He followed it deeper into the warehouse, past smoldering support beams and charred cargo crates. Past broken security windows and burn marks on the floor. It led him to a door in the far back, an emergency exit in case of fires, fitting, he mused. The door and the push bar to open it was smeared with blood and bloody handprints, and the door was left ajar. Not wanting to ruin any potential evidence, Stein pushed it open the rest of the way with his foot.

The blood trail continued through the back end of the warehouse, and Stein continued to follow it. The wire fence surrounding the warehouse was broken a little towards the bottom in the back, and there was a shallow hole—probably made by a stray dog—and the bottom chains of the fence as well as the dirt of the hole had a good amount of blood coating it.

"He crawled under," Stein said out loud as he blew out a puff of smoke and with his free hand he began turning the screw in his head. Even for him it would have been a tight squeeze under there, implying that he may have been too hurt or too weak to climb over the fence, something he would have easily been able to do.

It wasn't hard for Stein to get over the fence and he continued to follow the blood. It concerned him that the blood trail was growing stronger the longer he followed it, more blood being left on the ground, shorter intervals between smears and drops.

Stein felt his lip twitch again and his hand came up to the screw once more, feeling the familiar click, click, click with each turn. Though he could still sense a soul, so there wasn't a need to worry too much yet. He was thankful that the boy was smart enough to take back alleys and empty roads, otherwise he might have made a scene with the public.

Even so, Stein did let his pace quicken a little to a brisk walk as he continued along the trail. The blood was growing fresher, he was getting closer. But the soul didn't feel any stronger, now that was something to be concerned with.

He turned briskly around the corner, diving into the narrow alley coming to a stop at a stack of old boxes that had been piled up beside an old apartment under the fire escape ladder.

"You're going to get an infection staying out here like that," Stein said, kneeling in front of one of the boxes. A whimper was what he got in response, followed by a whine. He waited patiently as the bloodied carboard box shook and trembled.

Maleko crawled out, his face and body lathered with blood, his white hair stained red and matted together. His nose was bleeding and crooked, broken by the looks of it, his left eye was swollen, as was his right cheek. Stein could already see the welts and bruises forming all over his small body. The kid was mostly naked, only burned strips of clothes remaining on him, pieces that hadn't completely burned away or fallen off.

He was beaten badly, perhaps beyond badly. The boy was breathing heavily and it was clear he was trying hard to stay up. One hand was held fast around his left side, but even with all his attempts, blood still pooled between his fingers. Steins eyes fell to his other hand where he held a small knife identical to the one in the warehouse, covered in fresh blood.

"Heh…. Help…" Maleko whimpered, a single slurred word as he swayed on his knees.

Stein pulled his coat of and wrapped it around the child just as he dropped the knife and collapsed. There was little that he could do but use the spare gauze and tape he had in his coats pocket to cover the knife would on his side before lifting the unconscious child into his arms. Bruised, broken bones, multiple lacerations and stab wounds… the child looked like he had just come out of a war.

It was a bit tricky pulling his phone out of his pocket while holding the kid, not aided by the fact that Stein wasn't going to just stand around but instead chose to start walking back out of the alley. He managed and dialed the number, waiting as it rang.

"Stein?" Spirit answered, by the background noise he was most likely still at the warehouse, "What's going on? You just walked out on us! Did something happen?"

Stein adjusted Maleko in his arms as he began his journey back to the academy where he could perform whatever surgeries were necessary. "I've got Maleko, I'm heading back to the school now."

"Maleko?" Spirit repeated and suddenly there was the sound of a struggle, Stein felt his mouth quirk as he heard a muffled argument on the other side and then— "Maleko is with you?" Marie. "How is he, is he okay?"

"He's hurt. I don't know how badly," Stein answered, his pace still brisk. The knife wound wasn't in any lethal area, but he couldn't tell what other injuries the boy had, how much of the blood was his own and how much were the people he had killed in there. "Either way, Maleko is going to be telling us exactly what happened in there."