Soul's sweating through his black shirt; it's not exactly how he wants to swoop in to save Maka. He debated the headband, but he had to keep his hair out of his face somehow. He's got the keys to the main gate he won off Blake the security chief in a bet, and several blankets. It would be weird to wheel around a topless girl in a fish costume at top speed, and it's nowhere near enough to October to have Halloween as an excuse, so he has to improvise.
This might be the stupidest idea he's ever come up with, other than that bet with Blake. There's probably no way in hell the night guard would take his bribe, he would definitely be caught on one or thirty security cameras, and he'd probably end up shot in the face.
But Soul had to try.
He sneaks into Ox's lab, tiptoeing as quietly as he can in his heavy boots. And splashes into the the room.
Maka flops in the middle of the room, the glass from the tank shattered, and the water nearly ankle-high.
"What… the hell, Maka?"
"Getting fresh air," Maka snaps as her tail slaps the tile helplessly. She has little cuts up and down her exposed skin from the shattered glass. Soul picks his way across the room, careful not to disturb the shards closest to her.
"Maka," he says quietly and she stops struggling.
"I wasn't sure you were coming," she admits. She gives another flop and mumbles, "I wanted out. I'm stuck in another tub."
It should hurt, that she didn't trust him, that she was so desperate to escape that she would put her life in danger to do so, but he's trying not to laugh, watching her twitch like a fish out of water. Which she was. Sort of.
"And what exactly was your plan?" he asks incredulously, stepping carefully over the shattered glass, and kneels beside her. He can feel the sharp pieces of the tank dig through his jeans but he ignores it. "Break out of the tank and army crawl to the ocean?"
Maka wrinkles her nose and gingerly leans back on her elbows. "I was hoping it was a full moon."
Soul cocks his head. "Why does it have to be a full moon?"
Maka pales. "No reason," she mumbles, squirming in discomfort. "Are you going to help me up or leave me in a bunch of glass?"
"Alright, alright," he says with an eye roll. He scoops her up as best he can, but can't help the little cuts they get as they maneuver the shattered tank. "We're going to get shanked. By the tank. Which you broke."
Maka opens the door for them, and Soul tries not to think of a groom carrying his bride over a threshold.
Because that would be super lame.
It's a very serious moment, he's rescuing her from a life of being poked and prodded by Ox, and he definitely doesn't blush when she casually wraps her arms around his neck.
"Where are we going?" She asks, her tail undulating up and down.
"To your chariot." He motions for her to open the lab door, and she does.
Soul thinks he should have known that it wouldn't be so easy, especially because the tank Maka was housed in was double reinforced and had motion sensors pinned on it since she got to the Bureau, but he had hoped.
As they stand before a growing crowd of guards, hefting complicated looking guns, helmet shields firmly in place, they cling to each other in utter surprise.
Their surprise turns to contempt as Ox steps out from behind a particularly tall guard.
"Soul," says Ox, shaking his head. "Oh, Soul. Soul, Soul, Soul. I warned you."
"Wasn't listening," Soul shrugs.
Ox bristles. "You're about to steal government property, Evans. Release it, and we'll give you a fair trial."
"Her name is Maka," Soul snarls. "And she's not property. She belongs in the ocean."
"She belongs to the Bureau, in my lab, under my direction!" Ox stomps, like a shiny-headed, temperamental child. He points an accusatory finger at Soul. "You just want all the credit."
"Credit for what?" Soul asks incredulously. "Keeping an innocent girl from her home and family?"
Ox rolls his eyes. "She's not a girl. She's a test subject."
"Not anymore," Maka pipes.
Ox's jaw drops. "Y-you never talk to me."
"That's because you suck."
Soul stifles a snort as she whispers, "Plan B?"
"There really wasn't a Plan A."
Maka claps her hands over Soul's ears and screams.
It's more like a screech, very high pitched. It reverberates in his chest, his very soul, and he struggles to hold on her Maka as his legs turn to jelly. The sound seems to have a similar effect on the guards, who clutch their shattered helmet shields and keel over.
Soul doesn't have time to regain his senses before Maka's slaps his chest. "We have to move," she coaxes.
They step over Ox, who clutches his head his head on the ground, groaning pitifully.
"Why didn't you do that before?" Soul grits out, his brain still rattling around in his skull. "Could have saved us a lot of time, and about half of my brain cells."
"Wasn't the right time," Maka replies, urging him forward. "Let's go!"
They move, tripping over armored limbs as they went, down the hall to where Soul stashed the wheelchair. He sets her down in it and keeps moving, pushing Maka in the wheelchair as he runs. The rest of the building is quiet, apparently Ox didn't expect to be overcome by a little fish girl and a desk jockey.
They manage to get to where his brother's beat up pick up is parked when they hear the sirens. In a rush of adrenalin, Soul tosses Maka in the van, the wheelchair in the back, and throws himself into the drivers seat. Ignoring all signs, he races towards the exit. Black SUVs swarm them as they exit the lot and turn down the street.
In his hysteria, Soul briefly considers taking her back to his place, making her comfortable there for a while. She would be fine for a few hours out of the water, but he could always fill up his…
Bathtub.
It wouldn't be captivity, but it wouldn't be freedom.
In truth, his place is probably being turned upside down as they barrel down the surprisingly traffic free boulevard.
"They knew," Soul hisses as he abruptly turns left. The tires of the Bureau SUVs squeal as they try to follow, and Soul notes in satisfaction that one hulking black vehicle as flipped onto it's side.
"Neither of us were very subtle," Maka dismisses. "Turn here!"
The truck angles on two tires, wavering dangerously, before slamming on all four again and ripping down the road. SUVs behind them swerve and crash
"Alright," Soul exclaims. But more vehicles swarm them, their blue and red lights flashing against the dawn.
"Shit," Maka hisses. Soul doesn't have time to be amused (or shocked, because where in the hell did she get that word from) because Maka's gripping the steering wheel, making them swerve precariously between lanes.
"That way," she urges. "Go that way."
He obeys, pressing the gas harder as a thought flickers through his mind. "Wait… how do you know where we are?"
"I've been around here before," Maka says absently.
"How?!"
Maka merely points, as the blue of the ocean appears over the horizon.
There's no time for more questions: Gunshots ring out. They lose their rearview mirror, and the back pane shatters.
He could just drive them, full speed, into the ocean and solve all of their problems.
The pier looms in front of them.
Soul shakes his head and slams the break. "We're getting you into the water."
Maka struggles as he tries to unbuckle her seat belt.
"They're not going to hurt you," he says, pulling her out and quickly settling her back in the wheelchair.
"But they'll hurt you," she pleads.
That's entirely probably, but not the point right now.
The point is Maka, and getting her away from this mess, the mess he helped create. He pushes her, full speed, down the peer.
"You're surrounded," calls Ox over the megaphone. Soul looks up. Ox is hanging half out of a helicopter, a helmet obscuring his stupid face. "Give me my mermaid back."
They're trapped, mice in little snapping devices, like a less fun version of a game board.
"Surrender now, and you'll only spend 15 years in prison for theft of government property."
Maka's hidden things from him. Big things. He's not sure how she knows so much about the streets, about nooks and crannies of the city.
There's no time to ask, no time to think.
Soul swallows hard and throws himself, Maka, and the wheelchair into the bay.
The water is cold and it sucks the breath from his body, forcing water down his throat and into his lungs. He resurfaces, thrashing to keep his head about the water. Maka pops up next to him, looking livid.
"We're supposed to be doing this together!" she shouts over the sound of sirens and the buzzing blades of the helicopter.
"You need to g-go," Soul grits between chattering teeth. The freezing water sinks into him, penetrating his bones, clutching his bones. He can't feel his fingers and the numbness is creeping up his arms. "You're safe- go!"
"I'm not leaving you," Maka says firmly. She looks stronger in the salty water: Her skin is glowing, the hollows of her cheeks are fuller, her eyes sparkle under the sunlight.
She gnaws at her lip. "I-I can do something- But I can only do it once-"
"Soul Evans," It's Kid over a loudspeaker but the words are blurred in his mind. "Come out with your hands up. Both hands."
Kid doesn't matter.
Just Maka.
"Will you stay," she says, eyes blazing. She looks more nervous than he's ever seen her, including the time Ox came at her with a pair of tweezers.
She knows the directions to the beach, but not a basic beauty tools.
"Will you stay with me?"
Yes, yes, yes.
But stay where? They're in the the freezing cold water, loaded weapons pointing at their heads, helicopters circling above their heads, and armed forces coming closer and closer to them in a speed boat.
He'll stay with her in this mess, in this hell.
Soul has to save her. If staying with her, in whatever sense she means, will help save her, he'll do it.
"Yes," Soul says and Maka doesn't hesitate. She takes his face between her hands and presses her lips to his. He grips her hands as she drags them down, her tail pushing them deeper and deeper into the water. She releases him to mumble "Open your mouth," and plants her lips on his again. He obliges. Bubbles rush from between his lips and Soul kicks with all his might as water invades his lungs.
She pushes his shirt off, her movements quicker than his. He's clumsy in the water, his eyes strain, and he fumbles with his belt as he tries to help, distracted by her lips and tongue. Maka pushes his pants down and Soul fights embarrassment, but there's not enough oxygen in his brain.
She shushes him, smiling against his mouth. "Just a little more."
He's calm as his bones knit together, his kicking smooths into gentle, rhythmic strokes from his tail.
He has a tail.
Maka lets him rest for a moment, and, as they sink, the sunlight grows weaker and the water gets bluer.
She presses her forehead against his, and whispers, "Hi."
Soul gazes at her, his second set of eyelids sliding shut.
"Hi," he breathes.
He's so warm.