Kid turned at the sound of the Death Room door's being open; in stepped three people, a woman in her early twenties, and two boys – identical twins, from the looks of them – barely older than eight. She was black-skinned and black-eyed, with her tall Afro pulled into two buns on both sides of her head; her outfit consisted of black leggings and a yellow-and-black striped tank top. The boys, both messy redheads, were dressed in matching white shorts, but one had a red shirt on while the other wore yellow.
Despite their casual appearance, Kid knew this meister-Weapon trio was a formidable force, and the only reason they weren't official members of the CIA was because of young age of the boys, Miguel and Mario Santos. They could transform into Demon "stingers", or handheld lightning rods, which, along with her preferred dress style, had earned their meister, Karen Beecher, the nickname "Bumblebee."
The reason Kid had called them in was a personal matter, both for him and them – they were good friends with Garth Brooks and Roy Harper (the latter being Mario and Miguel's maternal cousin); the two agents were currently residing in a Brooklyn hospital, and were communicating with Kid through a handheld mirror kindly provided by a nurse. Roy was lying in bed, hooked up to an IV, his side wrapped in bandages. Garth sat in a chair next to the bed, eyes bloodshot, most likely from lack of sleep, but looking otherwise unharmed.
"Hey, you called in the crew!" Roy exclaimed, waving cheerfully at Karen and his cousins. Karen scowled back at him, hands on her hips.
"Just what are you looking so happy about?" she demanded angrily. "I'm still really upset with you! How the heck did you get captured like that? Some agents you are!"
"Rooooyyyy," Mario and Miguel whined in unison, rushing up to the mirror, "we were soooo worried about you!"
"Hey, hey, little guys, it's alright," Roy assured them, smiling. "It's really not that bad. This bullet couldn't kill, even if the shooter wanted it to!"
"Which, of course, leads us to the most important part," Kid announced, stepping closer to the mirror; at that, the twins dropped back respectfully. Roy focused his whole attention on Kid.
"Do you think, given the chance, Liz or Patti Thompson would have shot to kill you?" Kid hated saying the words, though his voice was steady and betrayed no emotion.
The look on Roy's was face was pensive. After a while, he shook his head slowly. "No. No, I don't think they would."
Garth held the exact opposite opinion, however. "What d'ya mean, no?!" he exclaimed angrily, hands clenched into fists. "They've clearly gone over to the darkside! She shot right at your heart!"
"No, she didn't, actually," Roy corrected over his cousins' horrified gasps. "The docs said it was one milimeter over enough to not damage the heart, or lungs." He gestured to his side. "It was a clean shot!"
"If Liz was truly aiming at your heart, she would have hit it," Kid informed them, a small touch of pride in his voice at that. Liz was an excellent shot, self-learned from her years of mugging on the streets, and the later battles she would fight as Kid's Weapon. Patti was nearly as good, but as she was often the Weapon to her sister's meister, she had less experience.
"See, then, there ya go," Roy said, turning to his Weapon. Garth, a Demon bow who turned parts of his meister's soul wavelength into arrows, similar to how Liz and Patti turned theirs into bullets, scowled. He was still obviously put out, but it was understandable, considering he had been unable to protect his meister and friend from harm.
"I still don't know," he said grouchily. Roy rolled his eyes.
"Okay, look, I know it seems bad," he said, tone rather gentle. "But they were definitely holding back, at least Liz was; I don't know whether Franky knew their bullets can't kill or not, but he was obviously expecting the girls to at least try to take me out. And they clearly went out of their way to, well, not do that. And besides, they explained themselves to me in the alley."
Garth pursed his lips. "Yes, right, the bombs. Which no one has been able to find."
"Yet," Kid interrupted, his tone drawing a slightly sheepish look from Garth. The shinigami refused to believe Liz and Patti were lying, and so no matter how many times Hawkeye-san told him her team couldn't find anything, he always made them go back out. He knew Hawkeye-san, at least, was nearing the end of her patience with him in that regard, but Black*Star was constantly assuring him that the rest of the Border Patrol was behind him 100%. At this point, however, he was getting so desperate, he was thinking about getting Maka to use her Soul Perception to scan the city.
Kid sighed, wishing so much that this affair could just be over. Schooling his features, however, he turned back to Roy. "Despite your...setback, were you able to succeed in your mission?"
Roy grinned. "All bugs successfully planted," he declared, even giving a thumbs-up. Kid nodded approvingly while Karen looked between him and her friend before cocking her head in confusion.
"Do you mean," she began, tone suspicious, "that you meant to get captured?"
"Well, I wouldn't say meant, exactly," Garth answered, somewhat ruefully.
Roy winked at Karen. "Franky put them through a test of loyalty – well, so did we. And despite Garth's objections, I think they passed."
Karen laughed out loud. "Man, you guys are some tricky bast*rds!" She looked at the Santos twins. "See, didn't I tell you they were too tough to get taken down by some normie punks?"
As the twins laughed in relief, Kid said to Roy and Garth, "I thank you for your service, gentlemen. And, Roy, I hope your recovery is swift. It may not kill you, but I know how much such a wound can hurt."
One of the first nights Liz and Patti lived with him, he had gone into Patti's room to see if he'd put the sheets on precisely right, trying to be quiet so he wouldn't wake her; to his surprise, she hadn't been there. After looking in the bathrooms and the kitchen, he'd headed to Liz's room, figuring she would want to know her sister was missing. But when he'd entered the room, Liz had shot up in bed and fired at him from Patti, who evidently had been sleeping with her sister in Weapon form. Startled, Kid hadn't been able to dodge in time, and experienced firsthand just how deadly his new Weapons could be.
"It might not always be a pleasure, but it is certainly an honor to serve you, Shinigami-sama," Garth answered as he and his partner saluted. Kid nodded once more, then headed to his office, allowing Karen and the boys to talk with each other for a bit.
Mind filled with this new information on his partners, he didn't notice until he sat down at his desk that he had a visitor.
Dressed in a short-sleeved red shirt and a knee-length navy blue skirt, hands on her hips, Maka Albarn stood glaring at her friend. "Kid," she growled. "We need to talk."
Kid blinked, startled. "Maka?" he said dumbly, though it was obviously the Scythe meister. She had grown a little taller since her high school days, and a little sharper in the face, but little else had changed, especially not her workaholic attitude nor her devotion to her friends. "Don't you – don't you have classes today?"
She waved the question away. "I don't go in until one today," she answered dismissively. "More importantly, aren't you supposed to be bringing Liz and Patti back?"
The shinigami blinked again, and then his confusion was replaced by annoyance. "If you knew what I've been doing to find them," he said in a low voice, "you wouldn't be asking me that."
"Black*Star and Soul have been telling me," she replied, arms leaving her hips to be crossed over her chest, "but you haven't actually sent anyone to go after them. Why? Do you not want them to back?"
"Of course I want them back!" he snapped, rising from his chair. "Honestly, Maka, now is not the time to be worried I'm going to take Soul away from you!"
She reeled back, shocked, and a hurt look flashed across her face. Seeing it, Kid sighed, feeling bad. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to imply –"
"No, no, it was my bad," Maka interrupted stiffly. Then she was the one sighing, and let her hands fall to her sides. "I mean – I shouldn't have come into your office like this and accused you of not caring. I'm just worried about them, you know? I feel like I should be doing something – Soul told me there's been some rumors about them being in Brooklyn, and imagining them back there..."
"I know," Kid said, sitting back down and gesturing for Maka to do the same in the seat straight across from him. She did so as he continued, "I understand your concern, Maka. But you have to believe me, I'm doing all I can to get to the bottom of this."
"What do you know so far?" she asked, almost cautiously, as if testing her limits.
"Well, according to a source who spoke with them," Kid began, knowing he had to keep the knowledge of the CIA's involvement to himself as much as he could, "Liz and Patti have gone undercover for the safety of Death City, but have until now been unable to make contact. The whole Brooklyn Devils thing, of course, is an act," he added, somewhat forcefully, though he knew Maka would never doubt their friends. "To maintain their cover."
"Of course," Maka affirmed immediately. Then her eyebrows knit together as she tilted her head. "Undercover...? I knew it had to be something like that, obviously, but..." Then she straightened up, green eyes flashing determinedly as they bored into Kid. "Is someone threatening Death City? That's why they left? Is there anything I can do?"
Kid's earlier thought, about putting Maka's exceptional Soul Perception to use, sprang back to mind. "You know, Maka, now that you mention it –"
The rest of his words were cut off as the floor suddenly exploded beneath them.
A.N. – Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this. I had a lot of work to do at the end of the summer, and then school actually started...But I'm definitely keeping with this story; I hope you'll all stick around. And sorry to leave you with a cliff-hanger, but I'm hoping to get the next chapter in soon. TTFN! ;)