I wake up in a daze and more than slightly hot. "What?" I croak out. I was covered in ten blankets! "What?!" I say more sharply. I start kicking off blankets feeling more and more agitated the longer it took. When I finally unwrapped myself I went to stand up and got my foot caught on something. "What?" I seethe as I look down and see pants twisted around my foot. I don't wear pants to bed. Before I could really start cursing I heard nearly silent footsteps approaching.

When the door opens I come face to face with a fluffy rainbow. "Candi?" I say exasperated.

"Ramla! Oh, ma god we were all so worried about ya!" she set the tray she was holding down on the desk and helped me up. "Ya been asleep for like…three days!" Her accent was thicker than normal.

"C-C-Candace? What's go-going on?" a familiar stutter whispered through the door.

"Helena?!"

"Ramla!" She squeaked as she rushed over to pick up the blankets. "Y-Y-You should st-still be in b-bed!" she tries to scold.

"Candace-san? Helena-san? What are you doin…oh. Ramla you're awake. That's good news," Kid smirks down at me.

"Death the Kid?!" I squawk as I fumble around and almost trip again. I hear other voices coming down the hall and I panic as I look down at my arms and legs. Forgetting that for some reason I was wearing pants, but I also had a long sleeved shirt on. I quickly grabbed a pair of gloves off my dresser and shoved my hands into them. My eyes went wide as I slowly turned to look at Helena, but she was pointedly looking anywhere but at me.

"Yo Kid what was the bump we heard?" it was a familiarly unfamiliar voice.

"Ramla just woke up and fell out of bed is all, Soul," Kid shouts back.

"What kind of idiot falls out of bed?!" came a loud obnoxious voice.

"Black*star!"

"Maka Chop!" I stood there dumbfounded as the group of people crowd into my room. Helena comes closer and grabs my hand and smiles at me.

"I'm glad you're okay. Stein-sensei was about to kill Spirit-sensei!"

"What? When?" I ask exasperated again.

"Yesterday during class he was being mean again," she answers.

"Class…you don't have class with Stein," I say confused. That telltale blush creeped across her cheeks as she toed the floor.

"I-I got moved up into the E.A.T classes…" her blush intensifies. "I'm in the Soul Theory class with you now."

"Soul Theory Smol Theory!" Candi snaps. "My roommate almost died!"

"Oh quit being so dramatic you bowl of sherbet," I chastised.

"When you didn't come home Sissy made a point of saying that the apartment seemed to big. Tiny Mike was upset you didn't cook and—and…and I was lonely!" she wailed as she threw her arms around me. She was sobbing on my chest when a familiar sarcastic voice cut through the noise.

"Knock, knock."

"Stein," I say breathlessly. "There are a lot of people here."

"You're telling me. I can't get them to leave; that one," he points at Candi. "Threatened my manhood."

"And she would have done it too," I laugh as she hisses at him from between my breasts. I pat her head before pushing her back gently and freed my other hand from Helena's. "Did they read my research?" Everyone's soul shifted at the topic change. Apprehension hung in the air thick as fog. "This is no time to be silent!" I snap. "That drug is dangerous and we need to find a way to combat it quickly."

"Um well…" Candi started. She moved a little ways away from me and fidgeted. "I-I didn't know ya were looking into that Ram."

"What?" I say dumbly.

"Lion's Claw," she whispered. My blood ran cold.

"What?" I say a little more harshly. "The drug has a name?"

"Well yeah…it's like this ya see um," she paused. Her soul was quivering and it was irritating my own. Helena's soul was dancing nervously around me and I snapped at her to calm down. "I might have…helped bring that drug into Death City!" she rushed the last part of her sentence before hiding behind Stein. I went rigid as Helena quietly shuffled away from me. I close my eyes and count backwards from ten.

"And why Candace, would you do such a thing?" I say through clenched teeth.

"I-I didn't know what they were doin'! D-Davis was a customer of mine before… ya know," she mumbled. "He asked me to go and finish this deal for him. I wouldn't have done it if I knew it was for drugs! I swear it Ramla," she looked pitifully at me.

"People died Candace. Do you realize how many people died?" I hissed. "What then did you think you were picking up?"

"A shipment…of…illegal firearms…" she murmured hesitantly. Suddenly my blood was running boiling hot.

"Illegal firearms?!" I roar right before Stein punches me in the gut. I sputter and fall backwards into my desk.

"Calm down Ramla, getting upset will only exacerbate your condition," he said calmly. I stay down on the floor, but clench my fists.

"Being here is exacerbating my condition Stein," I growl. "What did Shinigami-sama say when you told him this?"

"He set out Sid and Mira to look into any black market arms deals and to figure out where this Lion's Claw came from." My head snapped up as I stared straight at him.

"You know damn well where it came from! I can't believe it's h—!" I was cut off by an earth shattering roar followed by hysterical screams and the sound of people dying. All of them were sounds too familiar to me, all of them got me up and running without a glance back.


"I can't believe it's h—!" Ramla was cut off by the most awful noise. People were outside screaming and crying and I had no clue what was happening. Ramla however shot out of that room like a bullet and was down the street before any of us knew what was happening. "Stein-sensei w-what's going o-on?!" I scream over the noise. We were all running now and the other weapons have already transformed. I stared in distress at Ramla who was several blocks ahead of us. There was no way I could transform and reach her. Candi was also running with us towards the screaming. For someone with a questionable lifestyle she sure kept herself in shape. I watched in horror as bodies started to pile up around us and I heard a strangled cry from far ahead of us. Ramla had paused in her pursuit to look at something.

When we caught up with her we saw what it was. I started crying and Candi screamed in terror, an entire orphanage lay slaughtered on the cold ground. There was a shift in pressure as Ramla turned towards the massacre before us. I could feel her soul crackling and sizzling in the air around us, it make the hair on my arms stand on end. I wanted to rush up to her and beg her to use me, but she jumped up onto the roof of the orphanage and took off again. Death the Kid, Maka, and Black*star followed her.

"It would be best if you two went and hid somewhere," Stein says to us. He pulls out the cigarette from his mouth and grinds it into the ground. "Things are about to get ugly."

"Wait!" Candi screams after him. But it was too late he was up on the rooftops jumping and flying after the others. She turned to me with wet eyes, "this is my fault isn't it?"

"I-I don't ev-even know what's go-going on," I reply. "Come o-on!" I grab her hand and we continue running after them.


'No, no, no, no, no!' my mind roared as I got closer and closer to the DWMA. 'It can't be…it just can't be…' I felt my soul's frenzied attempted to escape the tight leash I've put it on all these years. A large boom sound echoed across all of Death City and then I finally felt it. "Kaluwa!" I push myself harder as the school gets closer and closer, I can now hear the sounds of fighting and dying mixing together. I push off from the last rooftop hard and land halfway up the steps to the DWMA.

Fire, lightening, and swords were flying everywhere. I rushed past them all until I finally breeched the top. "Gillian," I snarl at the great African Lion currently sitting calmly in the chaos.

"Ah, Ramla you have finally decided to show up," his deep voice purred in amusement. "Isn't this a fun party?"

"You dirty rotten arrogant asshole! Where is she?"

"Mhm…whoever could you mean Ramla?" a cruel smile spread across his face. "Ah! You must mean my mistress, well I am so sorry to disappoint you but she is not here at the moment." He clicked his long nails against one another as he yawned. Someone screamed behind me, but was cut off by a growl. Everywhere I looked lions and lionesses were fighting students.

"Stop this," I hiss.

"Why would we do that? Isn't the point of this school to kill people such as my mistress?" Gillian chided. I bristled at his tone before shifting into a fighting stance.

"How did she get the drugs into Death City?" I ask trying to ignore the pain around me. My soul lashed out painfully inside me.

"Easy we found a sucker willing to sell it for us," he laughed breezily.

"Is it made in Africa?"

"Of course."

"Had more been delivered?"

"After we figured out you were behind the destruction of our last shipment," he growled. "We quickly made more and shipped it out, so yes it is here." He looked over his shoulder at a smaller lion that had been thrown at him. "Oh my," he turns his eyes towards the boy.

"No!" I scream as I launch myself at him. I punched Gillian in the jaw and sent the great beast hurling back. The boy in question gave me a baffled look before returning to the fight.

"Ramla!" Kid shouted behind me. "Watch out!" he took out a lioness that was coming straight for my head. Maka and Black*star were out defending the others while I saw Stein run up the stairs to grab Marie-san. Red and blue souls were everywhere and I felt a headache forming from all the noise. Gillian was back up and prowling around me.

"Master Gillian!" some man shouted. "Look what we caught!" we both turned to see two men in lion masks holding up people. My heart stopped and my eye widened.

"Oh, are these friends of yours Ramla?" Gillian laughed wildly. "I think I shall eat them!"

At his words my whole world exploded.


'Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!' I was kicking and screaming at the man who had grabbed me and Candi. 'Stupid! Stupid! Stupid move Helena!' I twisted in his hold but could not break it. Candi was passed out in the other guys hand and it only made me fight harder. I can't transform because what good would that do?

"Oh, are these friends of yours Ramla?"

'Ramla!'

"I think I shall eat them!" I stared wide eyed at a gigantic lion that was stalking towards us. Ramla was standing there dumbfounded with her mouth slightly opened, her hair was a wild mess dancing on her head. People were screaming and crying and shouting all around us and I did not break eye contact with my should-be partner. I was going to scream at her when the world shuddered under a new pressure. The lion stopped its stalking and it seemed everyone paused mid-fight to see what was happening. I was still staring at Ramla and what I saw I couldn't believe. Her body was quivering and blurring as she raised her hand to her right eye.

"Soul Protect…Off," I heard her say in a low, rough voice. Even though I cannot sense souls I could feel hers from our resonance. It's power was immeasurable as it shredded her pajamas and instead wrapped itself around her. I felt my mouth drop open as I saw for the first time why she was always wearing long clothing. Her right leg and left arm were not the same color as the rest of her body. A skintight suit wrapped its way around her whole body, something pulled her hair back into a bun, and a dark as midnight cloak draped across her shoulders. She sent out a pulse of her wavelength and the men holding Candi and I dropped us before falling to their knees. The lion before us shuddered, but held his ground as his comrades around him cried out in pain. DWMA students were sent flying backwards towards the school behind her.

"R-Ram…la?" I say weakly as I push myself up. My legs were sore from all that running and my heart was beating in overdrive from the fear. There she stood in all her wild beauty looking every inch the deadly predator. Her right eye was no longer purple, it had a milky quality to it like…like she was blind.

"Soul Manifestation On," she held out her left hand and some kind of bow manifested itself in her palm when a quiver appeared on her back. "I'm going to end you Gillian," she growled as she jumped back a few feet. The lion, I'm assuming named Gillian, took off after her without a second glance at us. I fell back to my knees as I watched her dance around the lethal predator.

"Lio-Lio-Lions, Lions, Lions, Lioness!" Gillian roared as new predators appeared. A wicked smile played on Ramla's lips as she brought her bow up and pulled something out of her quiver.

"Bionic Eye On," she murmurs as she places whatever it was that she pulled out of the quiver. "Tracing…Tracing…" she started shifting her eyes all around her as she observed the predators. "Soul Collector!" she pulls her bowstring back and shoots out a bright purple beam. It raced towards Gillian and split into a dozen more beams of bright purple light. Every single one of them hit their marks.

"W-What?!" Gillian howls as his body was shredded into pieces. "You won't get away with this—Ramla!" She just stood there with a dead look in her eyes. "Ramla!" He finally faded out and all that was left was a floating red orb. Ramla calmly walked over to it and pulled back her cloak. She grabbed the orb and only looked at it for a moment before eating it.

When she finished she held her bow out, "Soul Personification Off." The bow disappeared and her outfit started to disintegrate. When her skin started to poke through I remembered that her clothes from before were destroyed. She suddenly fell to her knees and then face planted on the ground. Stein-sensei was by her side in an instant laying his lab coat over her. Then she started convulsing.

"Ramla!" I scream in dismay.

"Maka!" Stein-sensei commands. "Come here!" Maka ran over to them with Soul right on her heels. "Force your wavelength into her."

"What?!" I heard Maka argue.

"Do it now Miss Albarn!" Stein-sensei yells. "Help her! Please I can't…I don't have the right wavelength. Please Maka…" he begs. Maka takes one second to look at her weapon before kneeling down next to my should-be partner. Maka closed her eyes and placed her hands on Ramla's back. A light blue hue emanated from her hands and wrapped itself around Ramla before wiggling its way under the coat and inside her. Slowly, too slowly, Ramla stops convulsing but there was enough damage that blood was trickling out of her nose. Stein-sensei picks her up gingerly and rushes her inside the school.


I couldn't stop it. My soul has been trapped for so long under the force of Soul Protect that when my emotions spiked I lost control. Suddenly my whole soul was open to me again, suddenly I was me again. "Soul Protect…Off." Those horrendous, hot clothes evaporated under the pressure of my soul's wavelength and the familiar warmth of my soul enveloped me. Soon I was hidden under my cloak and the force of my power was back.

When I looked at Gillian again I knew he was afraid. He didn't know all these years of pressure on my soul was to increase my power, he didn't know that I never stopped training, he didn't know me. I shoved everyone back and as far away from Gillian as I could, the two men holding Candi and Helena were knocked out behind them. I could see Helena slump to her knees as the sheer power of my wavelength hit her. Her own soul couldn't even make a dent in mine.

"Soul Manifestation On…I'm going to end you Gillian," I say slowly, deliberately. My soul finished wrapping itself around me tightly as I turned my bad eye towards my enemy. He called on his manifestation magic to try and outnumber me, but there is no outnumbering me anymore. "Bionic Eye On," a scoop manifested itself inside my eye giving me the ability to see all the souls around me. I enhanced my focus to only Gillian and his minions as they approached. 'I need a multiple target hit spell,' I think as my soul starts to shuffle through all of the powers I've gained. When I reach back and pull out my arrow some of the predators move. I quickly lock on target as I pull the string of my flat bow back and let my powers sail.

I hit every target and smirk as I watch Gillian finally fade away into nothing but a childhood nightmare. "Ramla!" he screams on last time before disappearing all together. I approach his tainted soul carefully. I only study it for a moment before swallowing it whole.

'Finally,' I think contentedly. "Soul Manifestation Off…" at the last second I remember I wasn't wearing any clothes and I was in public. But before I could call my powers back up my muscles tensed up and I fell, hard. I faintly hear someone scream my name before a blue light surrounded me. 'Helena…?' I think weakly as I watch my blood trickle out onto the stone.


"Do you think she'll wake up today?"

"I don't know…she's been asleep for an awfully long time…" Helena and Tsubaki were talking in a corner of the nurse's office quietly. Maka was sitting next to the girl reading from a pile of books. Kid and the Thompson Sisters went to see his father quite a while ago and Black*star was helping everyone else with the aftermath. The girl in question—Ramla I should probably start remembering her name—was still unconscious even though it's been four days.

"Maka," I say softly to my meister. "You should go home. You haven't slept in your own bed in almost a week."

"I can't Soul. She just saved the whole city and now you want me to sit at home helpless while she fights for her life? No, I won't do that," she glares at me over her book. "She saved us Soul." I sigh and rub the back of my head.

"I know," I drawl. "But what good are you if you fall asleep reading?" at that moment Kid and the sisters came back into the room.

"What did you find out Kid?" Helena rushed over to him. Tsubaki and Maka were right behind her. Kid rubs his hands down his face, he looks beat. Liz plops down into the chair Maka just stood up from while Patty went over and started to run her fingers through Ramla's hair. It was silent for a long time.

"Not much I'm afraid," he answers. "I couldn't find anything in the library even with my higher level access. Father and the others are not talking even after I knocked your father out Maka," he winced. "Sorry about that."

"No, he probably deserved it," she answers unconcerned.

"There is one thing I can tell you guys," Kid starts before looking at Ramla. "She was living with Stein when she first started here, but after that fight last Friday she moved out. I don't know where she went, but I'm assuming that Candace girl was a roommate or something."

"Okay…but what does that do for us to know?" I ask.

"That same day, well night, I couldn't sleep so I was trying to read in the front living room when I saw something curious outside my window."

"What was it?" Helena whispered. Her eyes were still red and puffy from all the crying she has done.

"It was Ramla…she was sleep walking and ended up passed out on a park bench," Kid admitted. "She was sleep talking and the only thing I understood was that she is missing someone. I don't know who, she didn't say anything much after that." Patty stilled in her ministrations and looked down at Ramla's face. "I know you can't see it right now because of the clothes she is wearing, but her left arm and right leg are different colors from the rest of her body."

Tsubaki moves to lift up her sleeve and Liz removes the covers around her leg. "Oh, my Death," Liz utters in shock. "What is the meaning of this Kid?"

"It-It looks like it's supposed to be like this…" Tsubaki trails off.

"I don't know I just saw it because she had on shorts and a tank top that night in the park," he answers. "I just don't know," he turns to look at her, "who is she?"

"Alright all of you need to go home," we turn to see Naigus and Black*star standing in the doorway. "You've been here for days now. Go home and get some rest."

"Black*star!" Tsubaki cries out as she rushes to her meister. He catches her easily in his arms as she slumps down against him. He looks worn out and I can't blame him, I was trying to keep Maka away from all that destruction. Kid picked up Patty in a piggyback while Liz transformed so he could carry her as well. I looked at Naigus and she was giving me a hard look. I roll my eyes before hefting Maka up over my shoulder much to her protest.

"Soul! Put me down! Soul right now!" she pounded on my back.

"No can do, Naigus-sensei says it's time to go home," I grab the book she was reading and followed Black*star and Kid out the door. "Keep us updated?" I ask Naigus on the way out.

"That's not up to me I'm afraid Soul-kun," she looked at Ramla for a moment. "She'll be fine." She said it with such conviction that I believed her for a moment.

'How can she be so sure?' I think bitterly before moving down the hallway. Naigus watches us go before entering the room and shutting the door.


"Where are you going?" he asks sternly. I roll my eyes as I roll my shoulders.

"Calm down what are you my guardian?" I laugh lightly at him. The gun strapped to my back digs into my hip for a moment before I shift and it fall comfortably across my back again. "I just want to scoop out the area. I've never been this far North before," I wave off his concern.

"Ramla…"

"I'll be fine! You're just as bad at them sometimes," I scold him. My words were harsher than I intended and it showed on his face. My shoulders slump down as I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his neck. "I'm sorry, no you're not. You are not anything like those monster."

"You're right," he laughs humorlessly, "I'm much worse." He wraps his arms around my thin waist and pulls me closer. I can hear him breathe in my scent before nuzzling his face into my stomach. I run my fingers through his shaggy golden locks in a soothing circle. "Ramie we gotta get out of here," he says finally. A lump grows in my throat, there was only one way out of our situation and he knew that.

"Yeah, I know," I say thickly. "I know."

I sat up with a start and a gasp as the memories continued to bombard me. I yank and pull at the constricting fabric around me until I could breathe properly again. When I managed to steady my heartrate I looked around me. It was my room at the apartment, I could hear people outside the door talking quietly. I moved to stand up and found that my whole body was sore and so I fell back against the pillows.

"Ram?" a soft voice floats through the door.

"Candi?" I say hoarsely. Suddenly the door was thrown open and my roommate came crashing into the room. She crawls over to me not minding the fact that I wasn't wearing a shirt as she throws her arms around my neck. "C-Candi?!"

"I thought ya were never going to wake up!" she wailed. She cried onto my shoulder with such force it shook the whole bed. "Ya been asleep for almost three weeks now!" I froze at her words. I breathed deeply through my nose before I pushed her up gently.

"Tell me what happened."


I felt like I had to make up for not posting for weeks by posting twice in one night!

Keep it sparkly!
xoxo

Sparkles