One moment, Maka was standing in the meadow, about to be eaten by a giant snake.

Then a ghost appeared.

Well, that's what he had seemed like at first, with his ivory hair and burning red eyes. She'd thought that she had been hallucinating, overcome by stress.

But ghosts didn't have their head or clothes matted in blood.

Then he called out to her. And then it was quite clear that he was no ghost.

Maka had ran like her life depended it, narrowly missing a fatal blow from the snake.

She didn't know what he meant when he asked her to come with him but a single glance at the enraged snake behind convinced her to say yes. She had taken hold of his hand and she felt her stomach lurch as if she was being tossed in mid-air, the ground disappearing under her feet. But somehow, she didn't fall.

The world transformed into a fog of shapes and colors, too hazy to make out anything. She clung to the stranger's hand, sure that if she let go that she would be swept away.

Suddenly the ground slammed back under her feet, throwing Maka off balance. She teetered, the stranger's hand the only thing saving her from falling to the ground.

Maka wobbled a bit. She blinked rapidly, doing a double take as she examined her surroundings. It appeared they were standing in the middle of a large cave.

To her right was a large river. On the distant side of the bank she could barely make out the outline of a grand palace carved out of white marble. Mist rose up from the ground, giving it an eerie look. She felt a little pang, however, as she gazed away from the palace. Everything around it was dull and gray. There was no green to be found-no plants, no flowers. It seemed like an unhappy place to live, actually.

With a slight jolt, Maka became aware that the stranger was talking. He'd let go of her hand, pacing nervously as he spoke. "…hope you're not scared, I know that it-"

She interrupted. "Scared? Why would I be scared?"

He stopped pacing, giving her a strange look. "Well, given that you are where you-"

"Which is where, exactly?" she asked impatiently.

His look became more quizzical. "You mean, you don't know what this is?" Maka shook her head. The stranger regarded her thoughtfully. "Then you don't know who I am?"

Maka became slightly annoyed. "Obviously not."

Relief washed over his face for a second. "I would have thought a goddess like yourself would have known."

She felt her face redden slightly. "My mother doesn't like taking me to Mount Olympus. I only ever visited it when I was a baby."

Understanding lit up his eyes. "Then you must be Persephone."

"I prefer Maka act-" she trailed off, eyeing him suspiciously. "Wait, how do you know my name?"

"Every time I see your father, he's always talking about you," he shrugged. "Your name stuck after all those years of hearing it."

Maka ducked her head. "I can't help if my father's an idiot."

He chuckled, eyes crinkling a bit.

She narrowed her eyes. "Well now that you know who I am, who are you exactly?" She took another look around her. "And where are we?"

His smile slid off his face instantly. He broke eye contact with her, resuming his nervous pacing. He began, "Please know that you're safe here, even though this doesn't look like the safest of places." He grimaced slightly. "My name is Soul, though that's not what most people know me by." He gestured around him. "And this is the Underworld, or Hades."

Maka immediately understood. Her mother had told her stories of Hades and its fearsome ruler. But as she considered the boy in front of her, he didn't seem as terrifying as her mother had described. Although, she thought as she wrinkled her nose, Hades itself left something to be desired, aesthetically speaking.

She switched her gaze back to Soul. He was looking at her with a mixture of apprehension and unhappiness. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked curiously.

"Aren't you scared?" he said bewilderedly. He pointed around Hades again. "Of this?" He hesitated. "Of me?"

"Of you?" Maka laughed, crossing her arms. "Why would I be?"

Soul looked slightly affronted. "Aren't I scary?"

She gave him a onceover.

Granted he was quite a sight to see and someone who gave him only a glance may have been terrified. But his red eyes, unusual as they were, seemed kind though somewhat guarded. His white hair was sprinkled with flecks of blood and dirt while his red tunic was torn in several places. In that department, she figured she didn't look much better.

"No, not really," she shrugged.

"But my teeth are frightening, right?" he persisted, baring a set of razor sharp teeth at her.

"Why are you being so stubborn about this?"

"Answer the question!"

Maka fought back a snort. "Good for chewing through tough meat, maybe." She turned away as he spluttered in shock, facing the river. "It's all well and good that we know each other now but are we waiting for anything or are we just standing here?"

Soul moved to stand next to her, recomposed. "We're waiting for someone to pick us up. That snake you saw came from a tunnel not too far from here."

Maka's stomach clenched a little. She glanced nervously into the half-darkness around her. "And we're safe waiting here?"

Soul edged a little closer to Maka, casting a look around. "It should be all right. It would take a while for Apophis to make his way back to the Underworld." He frowned. "Although, Kid should be here by now. He responded quickly enough when I summoned him."

"Apophis? Kid?" Maka questioned.

"Apophis was the snake we just encountered," Soul said grimly. "And Kid is the ferryman of the dead," Soul replied. "You'd know him as Charon."

"Ahh," Maka nodded, her stomach twisting itself into knots as she remembered Apophis' sharp fangs.

Soul squinted into the fog, which had moved from the palace grounds to above the river. "I think that's him now, finally."

Maka scoured the river, searching for what he saw. A hazy shape of a boat with a single figure in it slowly came into focus. He headed slowly towards them, using a long pole to navigate the boat.

As the boat grew closer, she was able to make out the details of Kid. He wore a black tunic that fell to his knees, cinched at the waist with a belt. In the dim light of Hades, his golden eyes seemed to shine.

Curiously, he had three white stripes covering one side of his head but not the other. Soul seemed to have read her mind because right before Kid docked on the riverbank, he leaned down and whispered to her, "Don't ask about the hair."

Maka furrowed her brow slightly. "Why?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know," Soul muttered as he straightened up, raising a hand to Kid who was getting out of the boat.

"Hello, Soul," Kid greeted, giving Soul a formal salute. He did a small double take as he took in Soul's state. "What happened to you? You look fit for Asura to come and collect you!"

"Gee, thanks," Soul replied, grabbing Maka's hand again and leading her to the boat. "It's a long story that I'll tell you on the boat."

Kid nodded and then looked inquiringly at Maka. "And who is this?"

Maka piped up. "I'm Maka, daughter of Demeter. Soul and I met when I got attacked by a giant snake."

"I se-" Kid's face went blank as he registered Maka's words. "A giant snake."

"Part of the story," Soul said as he helped Maka into the boat. "Get in and I'll start."

Maka listened intently as she heard Soul explain to Kid his side of the story. She tried to keep quiet but she couldn't help interrupting when she heard Arachne's name.

"Arachne?" she asked, looking up from where she gazed at the river. "Who's that?"

"One of the Gorgon sisters," Kid said.

Maka's confused expression didn't leave her face. "Gorgon sisters?"

"A trio of sisters who are immortal like us although they can be killed. They're pretty much immortal monsters," Soul explained. "They like causing their fair share of trouble though it's mostly been your father's problem."

His expression grew cold. "They chose to involve me this time and that was a mistake."

Maka nodded, turning her head back to the river. "What happened next?"

She listened intently as Soul told of his encounter with the snake in Hades, starting in surprise when she mentioned its invulnerability.

"It became invulnerable just by being in the water?" she exclaimed, looking at the river appreciatively. She reached out a hand to touch the surface of the water.

Both Soul and Kid yelled out. "No!"

Maka jumped, startled. She pulled her hand back, looking probingly at the two. "What?"

Soul's face was almost as white as his hair. "It's true that being in the Styx gives you immense powers but at the huge risk that you'll be destroyed." He leaned back into his seat, frowning. "I still can't believe that the snake managed to survive that. It was probably one of the Gorgon sister's magic that protected it."

Maka glanced uneasily at the water that was lapping benignly at the boat. She scooted away from the edge of the boat, closer to Soul. "Why would they do that?"

Kid spoke up. "Arachne didn't speak much when I was taking her across the river but I did notice that she kept looking at the river. At one point, it almost seemed as if she was talking to it. I didn't think much of it at the time but now, it appears that she might have been guiding the snake."

"I shouldn't have listened to her," Soul said grimly. He glanced at Maka. "But then, I wouldn't have been able to help you."

Maka shuddered. "I don't think I would have been able to do much against that monster. The way that he looked it at me…it felt like he had been searching for me." She swallowed hard. "And then looked like he wanted to rip me apart."

Soul and Kid exchanged worried looks.

"A side effect of the river?" Soul asked Kid.

Kid shrugged. "It's possible Apophis' more violent instincts could have been enhanced in his transformation. I've never heard of it but it does not mean it cannot happen. I will look into it."

Soul nodded, his face still scrunched in worry. "But still…how did he fixate on you?" he wondered aloud to Maka.

"I have no idea," Maka said. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I only visited Mount Olympus once when I was a baby before my mother took me to the forest we live in now. And I've never visited anywhere else all these years."

"You've never been anywhere else?" Soul asked incredulously.

She felt her face redden. "How is that a bad thing?" she retorted at him.

"You haven't seen the world at all," he exclaimed, unknowingly echoing Maka's own words that she had hurled at her mother when she tried to convince Demeter to take her on one of her trips.

"If I may interject, someone fails to leave his own house for days on end," Kid said quietly.

Soul scowled. "That's different. I've chosen to stay in after seeing what the world has to offer me."

Maka laughed. "You weren't impressed?"

"The world doesn't like beings of the Underworld," Soul said.

"Oh," Maka answered awkwardly, feeling a pang as she saw Soul's face fall ever so slightly. She clenched her hands. "Well, that's their problem, isn't it?"

Soul gave her a small smile. "Not sure they'd think that if they saw Asura. Ironic considering he's the one on Earth the most out of all of us."

Kid winced. "My brother is a nightmare to deal with. He's the reason I was late, by the way."

"I thought I told you two to handle it maturely," Soul sighed.

"I was mature about it," Kid sniffed. "Asura kept goading and taunting me."

"I'll talk to him," Soul promised. "Not that it's likely that he'll listen."

"Hmmph, the day he listens is the day my hair is finally symmetric," Kid snorted. "Ah, here we are." The boat bumped gently into a tiny wooden dock Maka hadn't noticed. Kid tossed a rope onto one of the dock's poles, tightening it securely.

Soul addressed Kid as he helped Maka out of the boat. "Kid, have Liz and Patti take Cerberus to the tunnel the snake used and have him guard the entrance. I think he'll be enough to hold off the snake if he tries to come back here."

"On it," Kid said with a swift nod of his head. He gave Maka a little bow and untied the rope from the dock, pushing away from the bank with a push of his pole. The fog swallowed him up quickly as he headed further downstream.

"Er, this way," Soul said, gesturing to a stone path that led to the palace. He half-lifted his hand, as if he was going to offer his arm before awkwardly letting it drop to his waist. The weight of all that happened in the past hour seemed to drop down heavily onto Maka's shoulders as she walked up the stairs leading to the palace.

Her mind raced from one thought to the next, moving too frantically to make sense of anything.

She entered the palace, not taking in any of the large hall's grand decorations. She stared worriedly at the floor, thinking of her mother and if she had returned to the meadow yet. Her heart tightened painfully as she pictured her mother returning to pick up her daughter and finding her gone.

"Hey."

Maka looked up. Soul looked concernedly at her. "Are you okay?"

She wrapped her arms around her middle. "Not really. I think the shock is setting in."

He tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, touch light as a feather. "Let's find somewhere comfortable for you to sit. Then we can talk." Soul led her to out of the hall and into a small room that lay off in a side corridor.

A fire burned brightly in a small hearth. The sound of fire crackling soothed Maka somehow. She looked around slowly, eyes widening as she took in the shelves lining the room. They were full of scrolls, the most that she had ever seen her life.

"Are all of these yours?" she asked disbelievingly. She took a few steps toward, raising a hand to take a scroll off the shelf. She read the title aloud. "The Illiad?"

"You'd like that one. Great war story. Some of gods you might know make a couple appearances." Soul reclined in one of the chairs by the fireplace.

Maka felt a pang as she saw how clearly exhausted Soul was, dried blood standing out against his hair. She returned the scroll to the shelf, looking at him anxiously. "Do you want to take a rest before we talk? I don't mind."

He shook his head. "It's all right. Have a seat."

She perched on the edge of the armchair beside his. They sat quietly for a couple minutes. Maka clasped her hands, gazing into the fire. The way the wood snapped and crackled was comforting somehow.

"So," Soul began, breaking the silence. "That sure was something, wasn't it?"

Maka laughed nervously, relieved that the tension was broken. "It certainly wasn't what I expected." Her smile faded. "I just hope my mother hasn't come down from Mount Olympus yet," she said worriedly.

She lifted her gaze to meet his eyes. "That's why I hope you won't find it offensive but I have to leave right away. I can't imagine how she would react when she can't find me."

Soul nodded slowly, eyes downcast. Then, he looked up. "The magic in here is such that it would take a few hours to prepare a safe passage for you."

He paused before continuing. "However, if you were amenable to it, I'd like for you to stay here until we can learn what the Gorgon sisters are planning. The way Apophis reacted to you certainly wasn't normal and I think you'd be safest here." Soul gestured above him. "I couldn't promise the same up there."

Maka opened her mouth to speak and then lapsed into silence, her hand drifting to play with her crown which had managed to stay affixed to her head somehow. She pictured the way Apophis' eyes had followed her every move as if she was an animal he was hunting. Then, she tried to imagine what would happen if she went back to Earth, back to her mother, and the snake tracked her down again. What would happen to her mother?

Cringing, Maka closed her eyes, refusing to think of what could happen.

And then there was the matter of whether she could even trust Soul or not. After all, she had just met him. She opened her eyes. "If I stay," she began. "Do you think you could ask my mother to come as well?" Maka looked at him pleadingly. "I'm terrified something bad might happen to her."

Soul didn't answer right away, instead studying her face. Then, he nodded. "If you would like, I will send for her."

Maka sat back in the chair, a relieved smile spreading across her face. "Then, I'll stay."