Chapter 3:Resonance

Claire and Melina arrived in the Training Room. It was a round room, the walls lined with dummies and targets and punching bags. Claire scanned the room warily, but Melina looked so excited she was about to burst at the seams. There didn't seem to be anyone around, but the two noticed a little girl dressed in a witch getup playing with a few toys laid out for her. She didn't seem to notice them walk in, too enthralled in her own imagination.

"Hey Angela!" Melina called out, catching the little witch girl's attention.

"Ms. Melina!" Angela replied with the same energy. She got up and ran to give Melina a hug. She then noticed Claire, and scurried behind Melina for protection from the newcomer.

"It's ok Angie. This is a new student here, and a friend of mine. She's awesome." Melina said, smiling at Claire.

"Um hi, I'm Claire. And what's your name?" Claire said, kneeling down to the younger girl.

"A-a-Angela."

"Angela? What a beautiful name." Claire extended her hand to shake Angela's. Angela accepted with a smile.

Melina was so touched by the moment she almost forgot why there were there in the first place. "Oh Angie, could you tell Mifune that we're here? I told him to expect us, but I'm sure he forgot."

"Ok sure thing!" Angela skipped over to an empty spot on the wall and knocked three times. The wall spit open, revealing a secret room. Out of it appeared a young man wearing a long sleeved white shirts and jeans with sandals. He had long gray hair and a piece of straw in his mouth.

"Ugh, Angela. You know now is my sleeping hour." Mifune sighed, picking Angela up and placing her on his shoulders.

"Sorry Mifune, but Melina is here! She said she wanted to practice. Please can she practice, please?" Angela pleaded with her guardian. Mifune eyed Melina and then Claire, who he had never seen before.

"So Melina, finally found yourself a partner. I guess there's no time to waste." He then turned to Claire, "So you must be a new student."

"Yes sir. My name is Claire Underwood."

"Hmm. Do you have any sort of battle experience Claire?"

"Umm, well my uncle taught me a bit of self-defense and boxing. Does that count?"

"Well it's better than nothing. I guess we'll jump right in. Melina, your weapon form please."

"I've been waiting for this!" Melina exclaimed. She began to glow in a red light and transform in Claire's hands. Quickly the light faded, and she was now a flying guillotine. She was a donut shaped disk, with steel grey curved spikes around the circumference of her body. A thick red rope was attached to the top of her.

"Whoa Melina. When were you going to tell me you could turn into a giant death yo-yo?" Claire pondered, inspecting Melina's new form.

"I wanted it to be a surprise. At least I'm not something boring, like a sword or a gun or something." Melina retorted telepathically. It sounded fuzzy in Claire's head, like talking through a cell phone in a tunnel.

"Alright, enough with the useless banter." Mifune interrupted, placing a dummy in the middle of the room, "Claire, all you are going to do is use Melina to hit this dummy target."

"Just swing me and throw me. Easy as pie." Melina said, encouraging Claire. Claire nodded. Clutching the rope in her right hand, she lifted Melina up, panting with the stress of lifting the heavy weight.

"Hey, I know I gain a bit of weight this month, but c'mon," Melina sneered.

Swinging Melina in a circular motion next to her, she set her sights on the dummy. Next, without thinking about it, she tossed Melina ahead. However, she didn't account for the speed of Melina's flight, and as Melina launched ahead, Claire was pulled along for the ride. Melina collided and was stuck into the wall, while Claire landed headfirst next to her, dangerously close to Melina's sharp blades. She stood again, dazed. Angela was laughing her little head off maniacally.

"Again." Mifune grunted. Claire tried again, this time not getting pulled along, but missing by a mile. Again and again she tried, swinging Melina with all her might, but to no avail. Soon, her arms got tired, and she collapsed to the ground trying to catch her breath. Melina reverted back to her human form, slightly dizzy from all of that spinning.

"Claire." Claire raised her head up to find Mifune looking down at her. A small part of her wanted to push him. She hated when people looked down at her.

"You have to remember that Melina does not lose her humanity in her weapon form. Instead of trying to control her, you two must be in sync."

"Mifune's right, Claire. We're not on the same page. Our soul wavelengths need to be in sync for this to work."

"Soul… wavelengths?" Claire asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Here take my hands and close your eyes. Just concentrate on me." Melina said with a small smile. Claire complied, grasping her partner's hands and closing her eyes. She found herself back in that black abyss where she was with Lord Death. Claire waited for a while, floating in space for about a minute, and then suddenly she saw a red light in the distance. It approached her at considerable speed, stopping a few inches from her face. It was a bright red, and was wrapped in a hood. It was slightly larger than her own soul, and shine even more bright. Claire reached out a hand to touch it, and she saw sparks come from her body and go towards Melina. Sparks were sent back to her, and she felt a surge of electricity flow through her. Her eyes snapped back to reality and she fell back. Melina jumped to her side with all kinds of worry in her eyes.

"Claire! Are you ok? I'm sorry, this is my first time resonating too, so I have no idea what I'm doing, and-"

"Melina, relax. I'm fine seriously. It just was surprising was all. I've never felt…whatever just happened."

"It's almost never successful on the first try. Perhaps we should take a break for now. You guys can try again some other time." Mifune added. Claire and Melina bowed and left the training room. As they walked to lunch, Claire could tell that Melina was still distressed by the failure of the Soul Resonance. She began to think there was more on her mind than just what happened in the training room. She hadn't known Melina for long, but she didn't seem like the kind of girl to let things get her down like this.

They had entered the lunchroom a while later. It was a huge hall with long tables and yellow walls that matched the rest of the school. Claire grabbed a lunch of chili, tortilla chips, and two apples.

"MELINA!" She heard two people call. Melina's mood shot up like and rocket. She grabbed Claire and sprinted to where she heard the voices. They arrived at a table near the back of the cafeteria with five people sitting at it. The two kids that had called Melina's name were obviously twins. They both looked pretty young to be in high school. They were both short, their heads barely over the table, with ash blonde hair and fair skin. The boy's hair covered his eyes, and the girl's hair was long and covered most of her back. The boy wore all black, except for the white dot in the middle of his shirt, and the girl wore all white except for the black dot in her shirt. They both looked at Melina and Claire with mischievous eyes.

"Hiya Melina!" The boy said.

"Who's the girl?" The girl said.

"Guys, this is Claire, my new meister. Claire, this is Sol and Luna, the Twin Fans of Chaos." Melina stated, pointing to the twins accordingly, "They're awesome little boogers, but don't leave anything of importance near them. They're a little…jittery to say the least." As if to prove her point, Luna had gotten up to place a whoopee cushion down on the seat of a poor unsuspecting meister a few tables away. The fart sound it caused made Luna and her brother laugh uncontrollably, until the girl sitting in between them shot them both a look. They shut up and redirected their attention back to their food. The girl gave a small smile to Claire.

"My apologies about their behavior. It's quite unbalanced, so I have to put them in check every now and then. My name is Eve." The girl had a soft and even tone, as if every word was precisely chosen. She wore a blue dress and brown boots. Her dark hair was in a bun, and she had calming gray eyes.

"Let them have some fun, Eve! Not everything needs to be all elegant and such." The other boy at the table said. He was lanky and had dark skin, about a shade or two darker than Claire, with hair in a small afro with a pick sticking out. He had a Bob Marely tank top on with camouflage cargo shorts and red sneakers.

"How are you, pretty lady? The name's Tyler. But you can call me—Ow!" Tyler was interrupted by a book tossed across the table. Eve retrieved it once more and kept reading.

"Archer! I was going to say archer, dammit!" Tyler shouted.

"I'm sure you were, Black Hammer," Eve replied, not even looking up from her book.

"Oh c'mon, that was one time! Are you still not over that?"

"Well considering that one time was in front of my parents, no Tyler. No I am not. "

As the two kept arguing, Claire and Melina sat down across each other and began to eat. Claire sat down next to someone sitting in between her and Tyler. He was tall, with messy brown hair and light eyes. He had on a plain red shirt and black jeans. He would have pretty cute by Claire's standards if he didn't stare at her like she was an alien. Melina noticed the tension and spoke up. "That's Lance. Don't worry he doesn't talk to anyone except for Tyler, which is good since Ty talks enough for the both of them." The silence between the two still lingered.

"So Claire," Eve started, noticing the awkwardness of the situation as well, "what brings you to DWMA?"

"Well, it was mainly my parents. They were both meisters here, so I guess they figured it was the best choice for me as well. I don't think I would have heard of this school any other way to be honest."

"Ah, trust fund kid, I see? This place should be a breeze for you then." Tyler said confidently.

"Um… I don't think so… you see my parents are dead."

Another silence hit the table.

"It's not a big deal guys, seriously." Claire said waving her hands frantically in front of her, "Actually, that's one of the reasons I came here. I wanted to learn more about my parents. So far, it's weird that they haven't talked about this place more. It's…interesting."

"Always has been, always will. Lance, Melina, and I met in the N.O.T program, which is basically the novice program for students who want to be actual reapers. Eve came the next year, and then Sol and Luna were taken in by the school a few months later, and Eve volunteered to be their meister a while after. Did I get that right?" Tyler asked the rest of the group, getting nods back.

"I'm surprised Lord Death allowed you to skip straight into the E.A.T program. Your parents must have been quite the special people."

"Weeellll, that and a little word from your truly always helps too." Melina said, patting herself on the back.

"Doesn't he not even know your name?" Sol asked bluntly.

"Ah, that's just an inside joke between us. Besides, it doesn't matter how she got in. She's here now, and she's my meister! And we're going to collect those 99 evil souls and I'll be a Death Scythe!" Melina was now standing on the table like a dignified war hero.

"Speaking of which, have you two resonated yet?" Eve asked. Slowly, Melina deflated back into her seat. She brought her head down on the table next to her food. A dark storm cloud appeared over her head.

"Sadly, no not yet. Turns out it's a little bit harder than it first appeared." Claire said, twirling her hair.

"I'm sure you'll be fine. You should have seen how long it took me to resonate with these two," Even replied, hugging the twins. Sol gagged.

"Eve's right. If you keep at it, the payoff is well worth the trouble. The bond between the weapon and meister is really something special." Luna added on.

"My bond is stronger with Eve than yours is." Sol proclaimed.

"Is not!

"Is so!"

"Nu-uh!"

"Yea-huh!"

The lunch bell rang, and students rushed out to their respective classes. Eve dragged Sol and Luna behind her, the twins still arguing, and Tyler and Lance were close behind. Tyler waved back to Claire and Melina.

"It was nice meting you, Claire! Yo Melina, we still on for soccer this Saturday?"

"You betcha! See you then!" Melina yelled back, waving frantically. Melina and her meister walked out last, sauntering down the halls towards their next class.

"You've got an interesting group of friends." Claire said, breaking the silence.

"Oh them? Ah, they're ok. They can be pains in the asses, but I love them anyway. They're like family to me."

"Oh, that reminds me. I don't even know that much about you. Where do you come from? What's your family like?"

Melina sighed, "Nothing much to know. I was born in Detroit. Dad tried to make a living as a street performer, failed miserably. Became an alcoholic. Mom got me out of there as soon as possible. She shipped me off to an all-girls Catholic school in Rhode Island. Found out I was a weapon a week into classes. Used some saved up money to get to Nevada and enroll here. Simple as that."

The explanation left Claire with more questions than answers, but she decided to address the elephant in her room: "How did you find out you were a weapon?"

Melina stopped dead in her tracks. Her books fell towards the ground with a loud thud.

"Melina? Melina, snap out of it!" Claire exclaimed, shaking her friend. Melina shook her head violently, snapping out her trance. She looked like she had seen a ghost.

"Sorry, I had remembered something…unpleasant. We should move it. We're late for class." Melina whispered quickly, picking her stuff off of the ground and speedwalking down the hall, leaving a very concerned and confused Claire.

I promise action and explosions in the next chapter! Sorry if the pace is too slow for you guys…