The sun was just breaking over the horizon as they arrived at Domodedovo airport. Maka could feel her internal clock struggling to reset. She'd slept random hours on the plane, but nowhere near a normal amount. She felt like morning had just happened, and now it was dawn again.
This was the first time she'd been to Eastern Europe in the summer. As they rode their private bus through the streets of Moscow, she enjoyed the scenes of the city waking up. Kid, Liz and Patty dozed, BlackStar was doing push-ups in the aisle, Tsubaki watched out the window, and Soul listened to something through his headphones. Sid and Nygus were near the front of the bus, Sid speaking to the driver, Nygus looking through some papers. Everyone was dressed in plainclothes - Sid didn't want to attract any unwanted attention until they got to where they needed to be.
Their destination was Red Square. But not to tour. They'd been told they would be greeted and briefed, then sent out to deal with whatever the threat was.
As they waited under the rusty red wall of the Kremlin, a tall man approached Sid. Sid nodded and gestured to the rest of the group to follow. The man led them down several alleyways and into a nondescript doorway.
They passed down a hallway, through several more doors, and emerged in what must have been a grand ballroom at one time - high ceilings, parquet floors, dark wood, heavy velvet curtains thinning in patches. The sickle and hammer motif appeared everywhere in the bones of the room - carved in wooden details, embossed on bronze lamp sconces. The EE DWMA had evidently repurposed this space, though Maka had never seen it on any previous missions. The team was offered space at a large, modern meeting table set up in the center of the room, and tea from a samovar on an antique side table. Then the tall man began to talk.
"Good morning. I am Death Scythe Sergei Volkov. It is my first time to have the honor of meeting most of you. Thank you for your assistance. Let us begin the briefing."
"Kyrill - Pashli!" Sergei yelled to a little man Maka had just noticed, sitting in a corner near a number of computer monitors and servers. The inset monitors of the meeting table lit up, flashing a series of images - maps, photographs, graphs.
"We have trouble" Sergei said. "This town - Veredivo - he pointed to the map - a village on the bank of a tributary of the Volga, near Nizhiny Novgorod - there is something strange. But we could not pinpoint it. Power is being drawn there. Sometimes, a great amount of madness shows up on our tools, and those of us sensitive to it - we can feel it. But mostly it is silent. We sent out a team - these pictures are from them."
Maka squinted. It looked like a small country town. The pictures were very detailed. It looked like the investigators had met with quite a number of families from the town. There were homes, cottages, and people, a small church, a small school, some animals, farm fields, but - nothing looked particularly wrong.
She was confused.
"What's wrong with this? It looks normal to me."
Next to her, she heard Tsubaki take in a sharp breath.
"Where are the children? Do any children live here?" Tsubaki asked
Sergei let out a long breath.
"Yes. There should be children. We don't know where they have gone. Our team could find no one below the age of twenty-three in the town. And the strangest thing - the parents and grandparents don't miss them - They are without concern. Even though they have photographs, they have their children's belongings, their rooms - they are... how do you say... it's like they see these things, but they don't see. They... seem to have forgotten their own children ever existed... We would not have discovered the situation if not for the rogue madness emanation."
"What!?" Maka stood up so quickly her chair tumbled over
"Maka..." Soul righted the chair and put a hand on her shoulder.
She slowly sat again, eyes focused intently on Sergei.
"Do you know who or what is behind this?" Kid asked, from the other side of the table.
The newly-minted head of the EE DWMA shook his head. "I have never experienced a situation like this in all my years as a Death Scythe. I assure you, we have had our finest weapon-meister investigation teams working on this, and they have turned up absolutely nothing. We can't wait any longer."
All eyes in the room were riveted on Sergei.
"I know. It is highly disturbing. Where children are concerned, and with the strength of the madness we have detected emanating from the location, we knew we needed help. With the rare genetic gifts present in your team, we hoped you could succeed where we have failed."
He looked pointedly at Maka.
Suddenly, a DWMA EE meister entered through a side-door of the ballroom. He spoke in Russian to Sergei, who nodded. The meister stood aside, and into the room stepped Professor Stein and Spirit Death Scythe.
Maka's eyebrows rose. Her father's eyes found her, and he smiled goofily.
Shinigami, She hated doing missions with Spirit. This was quickly becoming something completely different than the simple, refreshing battle she'd envisioned.
"The DWMA received new information from Sergei just after you left Nevada." Said Stein. "Shinigami felt it was best we accompany you. We caught the next flight out."
"We can't waste any more time." Said Sid, standing.
"To the bus, everyone." Sergei ordered. "We'll go over more details on the way."