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Prompt #29: Reassignment - Deathscythes had obligations, but Soul didn't give a damn. He just wanted to go home.

Words: 1,395

"I'm cold."

Soul fought the urge to roll his eyes. "I told you to bring your winter parka."

"But it would have creased my blouse!"

"Well I can't control the weather, so you're out of luck." Marjorie Kwill got on his last nerve six complaints ago, and they still had a long way to go to reach the witch's lair.

She huffed and tugged at the collar of her flimsy silk bomber jacket. "Besides, it would have clashed with my boots!"

Doubt the witch will give a shit. Soul spared a moment to curse Kid. With Maka stationed in Death City to teach a lecture on Soul Resonance and partnership, he had been forced to take this mission. Marjorie was the only other scythe meister available, and he had more than a sneaking suspicion as to why that was the case.

"How much farther?" she whined.

"About two miles." Soul looked over to one of their other teammates, a meister called Toulouse. "Right?"

"That's what the last intel said." His weapon partner Tamako handed over the paper. "Yeah, the lair is ten miles outside the town. When we start seeing will-o-the-wisp lights, we're getting close."

"I'm cold."

Soul ignored her. "So the witch is a fire-user?"

"All the intel suggests that." Toulouse frowned at the paper. "That's weird."

"What is it?" Soul asked. Weird was never a good thing to hear on a mission.

"Says here she's been known to pop out of shadows."

Something in Soul's mind hummed warningly. "Fire-users normally don't travel through darkness, do they?"

"Maybe the report's inaccurate," offered Tamako. "Could be the color of her flames that the scouts were reporting. Darkfire is warped magic, twisted and made wrong by something vile."

"I don't know," Soul said with a grimace. "Something doesn't feel right."

"My lips don't feel right," whimpered Marjorie. She cupped her hands over her mouth. "Give me your scarf, Soul."

"No." He instantly tugged it up to cover his own mouth. Maka had knitted the ugly thing for his last birthday. The white blobs haphazardly dotting its green length were supposed to be souls, and it had more uneven stitches than Stein's laboratory walls, but it smelled like home. No way was some whiny blonde bimbo breathing all over -

Toulouse stiffened. "Up ahead. Half a klick."

Everyone went combat ready in moments as Tamako and the other weapon partners shifted into their weapon forms. Soul was ready to transform when a little shriek from his meister startled him in half-shift.

"My ankle! I think I twisted it!"

Soul went low to help Marjorie - and a blast of fire shot over his head so close that it ruffled his hair. A meister named Eustace caught the blast square in the chest and screamed as it engulfed him. His weapon partner Jill tried to save him, but she only caught fire and burned to death as well. Meisters and weapons cursed as they tried to determine where the witch was hiding.

In the end, Soul found her first. She hovered on her broomstick above them, sitting sidesaddle like a proper lady, with bluebell flames no bigger than softballs circling around her like the rings of a planet. "I see Mabaa sent quite the crack team after us," she said. "A Deathscythe. We are so honored."

Soul smirked at her highborn use of the royal we. What a prim bitch. It'll be fun to knock her down a peg. "Willa of Wisp, by order of Lord Death and Witch Queen Mabaa, we have come to bring you before the Witches' Mass for crimes against humanity. Surrender now." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Toulouse and Tamako maneuvering into position.

Willa of Wisp smiled haughtily. "We shall do no such thing, Deathscythe. But you shall get off our property or suffer the consequences."

"How dare you!" Suddenly recovered, Marjorie pushed Soul aside and pointed at Willa. "You can't order us off of anything! We have come with orders from Lord Death himself. We're taking you in!"

The witch's smile grew wider. That made the hairs on Soul's neck stand up. No witch was this cavalier when facing down a Deathscythe. Not unless she had an ace up her puffy blue sleeves.

A flash of light startled everyone. Tamako had transformed into her Shoulder Cannon weapon form, big and black and studded with spikes. Toulouse grinned wide and said, "Watch for the flash," as he pulled the trigger.

The energy ball shot towards Willa. She laughed as her ratty black cloak came alive and wrapped around her like the wings of a bat. The ball hit, vaporizing the witch in a blinding explosion. Marjorie let out a cheerleader's shout of triumph -

- right before the cloak rematerialized in a wisp of smoke. Soul cursed when he saw the witch known as Willa holding handfuls of blue fire to illuminate another, bonier woman who held the cloak open like some kind of overgrown bat. Not Willa of Wisp. Willa AND Wisp.

"Twin witches!" he yelled before blue fireballs rained down on the meisters again.

Chaos erupted. Blue fireballs rained down on the strike team, burning the ground and casting eerie light across the meisters' faces. Unable to defend themselves, the meisters had no choice but to dance and weave through the flames. Willa and Wisp disappeared and reappeared like demented little ghosts, torching unsuspecting pairs while laughing in mad delight.

"Enough of this!" Marjorie yelled. "Let's go, Soul Eater!"

NOW she wants to fight? "We aren't prepared to fight two!"

"We can take them!"

Willa's cackle barely gave him time to avoid the fireball aimed at him and Marjorie. He pushed his meister out of the line of fire and yelled as he landed badly. Something snapped in his arm; he hoped it wasn't a bad break. The pain in his leg told him something had been busted there too. Everything sounded odd. I must've hit my head...

A fireball landed on the end of his scarf. He yanked it off and cast it aside, wincing as Maka's handmade scarf went up in flames. "We have to fall back!" he yelled over the bedlam, dragging himself to his feet.

"NO!" screamed Marjorie, coming from out of nowhere with fury in her eyes. "I won't retreat to the likes of these bitches! Transform, Soul Eater!" She grabbed his arm and forced her soul wavelength against his.

Soul cursed as his skin burned at the contact. We're out of sync. We can't do Soul Resonance.

That did it for him. With his good arm Soul hit Marjorie hard enough to knock the girl unconscious, threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and gave the order to retreat. The sound of Willa and Wisp cackling carried on the wind long after they had escaped the hellish landscape.

In the middle of re-applying ointment on the gash on his back, Maka's mouth hung open in shocked disbelief. She'd known his last mission had been awful; he'd never come back that badly injured since becoming a Deathscythe. But he'd never told her the whole story. Not in the three months since that night.

The skin and bones may have healed, but Soul was still hurting. All because she hadn't been there with him.

"Soul." He looked back at Maka. "I'm telling Kid that enough is enough. Next time you have a Deathscythe mission, I'm coming with you." With a definite nod, she returned to her task. The gash was nearly healed, almost a pale pink line across his back. With luck, it would disappear entirely within a week.

Soul heaved a cleansing sigh and closed his eyes, thankful that he was able to tell the whole story to someone other than Kid and some DWMA shrink. It helped ease the weight in his chest from carrying home five charred DWMA badges. "I might've already told Kid that."

"Oh?"

"I said you or nobody."

He heard rather than saw the wickedness in her smile. "Then he's got no choice."

God, he was so happy to be home.

Tie-in to #9: "Leader" that just up and kept going. Enjoy it!

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