Just a warning, there are some character deaths in this chapter.

Maka turned over the disk in her hands. "Even Akihito doesn't know where she is…" she sighed. "Maybe this will finally answer all my questions…" The hallway of the hangar was quiet. Her comrades were waiting for her, but she needed a moment to gather her thoughts before heading out to her mother's secret lab. Well, sort of secret lab. The disk was given to her by Akihito. It could only be viewed at the lab. She worried about what she would find when she finally played what was on the disk.

The sound of footsteps shook her from her thoughts. Soul appeared before her, concern etched on his face. "You doing okay?"

"No," she answered immediately. "We have no idea what we'll find there. We don't know if Resonance is even there. What if I find out things I don't want to know? What if we don't find Resonance? What if Tsubaki dies? I just-"

He wrapped his arms around her tight and refused to let go. "Everything will be all right," he whispered in her ear. "You just have to have a little faith."

Her heart fluttered as she remembered her conversation with Tsubaki at the bar. Love had never been an emotion she had sought out like her friend did. There were too many training sessions, too many missions, too many people trying to kill her. Falling in love and trusting someone enough to catch her was more terrifying than any battlefield she had been on.

He pulled away slightly, arms still around her. Watching her intensely, he waited a moment before finally dropping his arms. "We need to get going. Don't have much time."

Placing a hand over her heart, she tried to calm herself down. Maybe she would have time to explore this new feeling later, but for now, she had a friend to save.

…

Raindrops pelted the helicopter as they finally touched down on the lab's platform. Out in the middle of the raging sea, the lab had not seen many visitors since its construction. The storm made Maka a bit uneasy, making her rub her mother's necklace to remain calm. Each soldier turned on the flashlights mounted to their weapons as they entered the facility. Soul stayed close to Maka, keeping an eye out for her.

They wandered the empty hallways, discovering some early versions of bioroid incubators, various desks, some test tubes, and paperwork that had been left unfinished. Maka noticed a plaque on the wall next to one of the bigger offices. Removing some dust, she read the words "Doctor Kami Albarn". "This must be the place," she announced to the rest of the team. They all entered the office cautiously. Who knew what they would find there?

In the middle of the room was a desk, a large computer sitting on top. Maka walked over and inserted the disk into one of the drives. The lights in the room flickered for a moment and a hologram appeared.

A blonde woman in a lab coat fiddled with a cabinet in the corner of the room, her movements shaky and quick, as if she was afraid to be found. "Maka…" she said into what had been an empty room at the time of the recording. "You are the key that can open the lock…" The sound of racing footsteps turned her attention from the cabinet and to the office door. Soldiers appeared in the doorway, guns trained on the doctor.

"Don't recognize the uniforms," Soul whispered to Maka. She nodded in agreement.

"Dr. Kami Albarn, we mean you no harm," one of the soldiers announced. "Please, give up the data and come quietly. Just cooperate and no one will get hurt."

"It's too late!" the doctor shouted. "Resonance has already been destroyed! You came here for nothing!"

"Don't lie to us!" a hot-headed soldier shouted, stepping closer to her.

Maka watched the scene play out in slow motion as soon as she saw her mother pull a gun out from under her lab coat. "Don't do it… For the love of god, please… Don't shoot!" she begged the hologram.

The hot-headed soldier opened fire at the sight of the handgun. Kami began to fall, and Maka raced to catch her in her arms. But her hologram mother fazed through her, dropping dead to the ground. Tears fell from the young soldier's eyes as the hologram faded, leaving only her and her team standing in the room. Hands balled into fists, she fell to the floor and sobbed. Soul kneeled down next to her, a comforting human hand on her back. No one else moved, not knowing how to comfort the girl.

"Maka, I'm really sorry about your mother's death… But we are here on a mission. You wanna save Tsubaki, right? Save all the bioroids?" She looked up at him, wiping tears from her eyes, and nodded. "Good. Should check out that cabinet Dr. Albarn was looking at at the start of the recording. She said you were the key…"

Soul helped her off the ground and the two made their way over to the cabinet. Maka opened it and found another computer, prompting a password. "I am the key…?" she thought out loud, her voice still shaky from her crying. She tried typing in her name. Immediately, access was granted, and once again the room flickered to life as another hologram played. Her mother stood next to her desk. An image of the pendant Maka now wore around her neck displayed on the screen.

"Maka, listen to me, this information is very important. This pendant contains important data from my research. Someone is trying to use it to do terrible things. They want to take away your future. I am leaving it at my home for you, disguised as a gift. It is my hope that you have found it and have kept it safe. The only person you should ever give it to is Akihito, and only if he asks for it. He was my assistant for a long time, and I trust him. Do not give the pendant to anyone else, only to Akihito, understood?" Kami closed out of the image of the pendant and smiled to herself. "Maka… I love you so much. I am so proud of you." Once again, the hologram faded away.

Fresh tears stung her eyes, but Maka refused to let them spill over. She wrapped her hand around the pendant. "I've had Resonance this whole time…" she said in shock.

"Better hurry. Akihito is waiting for us to return with that data," Soul said, moving towards the door. He stopped as a light shined in from outside. Mutliple helicopters surrounded the lab. "The Regular Army? How'd they know we were here?"

Ox watched them through the window. "They've got the dock completely blocked. We're going to have to find another way out."

"Looked like there was an access stairway to the roof," Soul replied. "We can counter them from there."

The quietest of their team blocked the door. "I'm really sorry about this…" Crona stuttered. "I couldn't go against her orders…" He pressed a button on his watch and spoke into it, "We're on the third level, in the largest office."

"You bastard!" Kilik shouted. "You betrayed us!"

"I'm so sorry…" Crona repeated, hanging his head as Regular Army soldiers filed into the room. Finally, Colonel Free entered the room, and the door was shut.

He smirked. "Is it really that surprising that there was a mole on your team? Besides, the real traitor is right there!" He pointed at Soul. "Looks like you made the mistake of trusting your subordinates, Maka. Just like your father."

"What are you talking about?" she spat.

"Let me spell it out for you. The terrorist attack on the care center? Soul tipped us off to the underground elevator." Free laughed at the look of shock on her face. "Don't look so surprised! You saw how easily he let my Landmate go, didn't you?" She looked at Soul in horror and stepped away from him. The colonel aimed his gun at her. "Now, if you don't mind, I'll be taking that pendant now."

Maka glared at him a moment, refusing to move even as he brought the gun closer to her face. Suddenly, Ox kicked the gun from Free's hands and aimed his own gun at the colonel's head. "Get to the roof, hurry! Don't worry about me!"

Soul grabbed her arm as the rest of the team hurried out of the office towards the roof. "We need to go! You can be pissed at me later!" he shouted at her when she ripped her arm from his grasp. She nodded and followed him up the nearby flight of stairs.

Shots fired behind them, and Maka turned to see what was happening. Ox fell out of the office, full of holes. "Ox!" she cried, rooted to her spot on the stairs.

"C'mon! We have to leave him, he's gone!" the cyborg shouted, once again pulling her arm. Reluctantly, she made her way to the roof with him.

Somehow they had lost the rest of their team once they made it to the roof. Maka raced to the edge of the platform and aimed her gun at Soul. "Stay back!" she ordered.

He reached out to her. "Give me the pendant! If you have it, you'll never be safe!"

With one hand, she clutched the pendant. "My mother gave her life to protect Resonance, and so will I!"

The Regular Army caught up with them, complete with Colonel Free and General Gorgon herself. She stepped forward and smiled at Maka. "Maka Albarn? I am General Medusa Gorgon, Commander of the Regular Army. You must understand that we have no intension of harming you. We only want to see that data destroyed. Our goal is to regain control of the legislature and destroy the D Tank, thus ridding the world of the bioroids. Society will once again be in human control. The only thing standing in the way is that data! Now please, hand it over without further incident!"

"Request denied!"

Free growled at her and stepped forward, but Medusa held out an arm to order him back. "You mustn't trust bioroids!" she continued. "They want to control us!"

Maka held her ground. "Maybe you're right, maybe bioroids can't be trusted. But after all I've seen, I know this much… Bioroids don't try to kill each other!"

"Kami Albarn gave her life to protect Resonance, because she was afraid of what might happen if the bioroids were fully restored!" Soul shouted at Medusa, taking a step towards her.

"Because bioroids represent a threat to our race!"

"No! Their whole purpose is to safeguard our species!" He looked over his shoulder to look at Maka. "I cooperated with Free in the terrorist attack to force Akihito's hand. I knew he had some information regarding Resonance and that he would only reveal it in a dire situation. Shinigami promised me that if I brought Resonance to him, he could promise your safety, and I could fulfill my promise to your mother!" Turning back to Medusa, he shouted, "Can't you see there's more going on here? Shinigami doesn't just want the Resonance data. He needed you and the regular army to conduct a coup. He wants you to blow up the D Tank! And there must be some reason Akihiito is so desperate to keep that from happening!"

A shot through his kneecap brought Soul to the ground. "I've had enough of this!" Free shouted. "And I'll be damned if I let some machine tell us what to do!" He shot again, his bullet bouncing off Soul's metal arm. "Your father was the one to kick me out of the LVMPD SWAT team, Maka. Do you know how humiliating that was?! I wanted to make him pay for all the misery he caused… So when we met again on the battlefield, and I found him injured, I left him there to die. My only regret is that it wasn't my bullet that killed him!" He moved to aim his gun at Maka. "And now, all those filthy bioroids have his DNA in them! Every one of them! Once the bioroids are dead, and you along with them, Spirit's legacy will be erased!" He took careful aim and pulled the trigger.

Soul quickly rushed to her, shielding her from the bullets as the rest of the soldiers fired on them, and pushed them both over the edge of the platform. As they began their fall into the ocean below, Maka fired at Free, lodging a bullet in his skull and knocking him backwards, dead. The soldiers ran to the edge and fired blindly into the swirling, dark waves below.