The Best Teacher

The next day, Katy was hulled up in her bedroom with her studying materials and a can of mixed nuts to snack on with her favorite black cherry soda. She sat with her knees up on her bed and switched between finishing a practice question for science and playing a card game online—which strangely helped her concentration even if it made it last a little longer. This was the life really. Alone in her room with her pajamas on and good snacks and not to mention being excused from her classes today due to her injuries. After Dr. Stein had checked her wounds and used surgical tape to pull the gashes back together and secured them with a patch, he gave her some medication for the pain. She hadn't taken any since she got up this morning. It made her fairly drowsy and she was afraid she wouldn't finish what studying she had planned to get done today if she took anymore. But it was all right. It didn't hurt too badly and she was enjoying her alone time immensely.

A knock came to her door. "Come in," she said reflexively. Christian was probably checking on her again.

The door to her bedroom opened and her entire gang of friends piled in. Katy gasped and hid behind her pillow. Christian laughed. "What's wrong?"

"I look like crap! Why is everyone here?!"

"We wanted to come see you!" Odette said happily and sat down in one of her chairs.

"And make sure you were okay." Kian leaned against the wall.

Katy self-consciously tended to her messy ponytail. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for coming to check on me but you didn't have to."

Tim sat next to her on the bed and gently held her chin to inspect the gash on her face. "So, none of them needed stitches?"

"Nah. Couldn't have been stitched easily anyways. Skin moves too much."

"Stein fixed you up well." He kissed beside the wound.

William stepped forward with a covered plate in his hand. "Hey. These are for you." He set it on the bed beside her.

Katy gasped and took the cover off. "… Sugar cookies?" She looked up at him and smiled in spite of the twinge in her cheek. "You made me cookies, William?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

"Aw!" Kian hopped forward and picked one up. "Look at this! William's a regular Betty Crocker!" Rachele covered her mouth to keep from laughing too hard.

"What's the big deal? Who doesn't like sugar cookies?" William put his hands in his pockets.

Katy picked one up, too. "Does he do this a lot, Odette?"

"Not typically dessert. But he does bake and cook a lot." She smiled.

Kian took a bite. "Mm! Delicious! Good job, man." He gave William a pat on the shoulder.

Katy did, too, and her reaction was much the same. "For the record, you can make me cookies any time you want." Now everyone leaned forward to have a taste.

"So, that was some awesome skill yesterday, Kate," Nikki said around her mouthful of sweets.

"Yeah! We'd never seen that before!" Rachele praised.

"We hadn't done it in forever. Perfect timing though, huh?" Christian grinned.

"Yeah, did you see the look on their faces? Haha! I wish I could have taken a picture," giggled Nikki.

"You really did an outstanding job, Katy. We're all proud of you." Odette gave her a warm smile.

Christian sidled closer to Odette. "Oh, I got hurt, too."

Odette faced him. "You did? Aw," she said sympathetically, "The electric charges?"

"Yeah, it got me good. But I had to make sure Katy was all right so I hung in there." He shrugged modestly.

Nikki rolled her eyes with obvious exaggeration and Rachele and Katy giggled.

"You were wonderful, Christian. I'm proud of you, too." She patted his cheek. He couldn't help a wide grin with a goofy chuckle.

"Are you both going to be okay for our resonance training tonight?" said Kian with another mouthful of cookie.

"Yeah. We feel okay enough I think. Besides, I'm interested to see how far we get tonight." Katy gave a confident smile.

(Page Break)

The four meisters stood around the fat candle with their eyes closed and their minds all connected. Katy and Rachele occasionally giggled, apparently sharing jokes with each other silently while they all sent thoughts out (whether they meant to or not) and intersected them and tried to process what it was and who it was from. It was as if they had created their own game with each other in this void where their minds all converged. Some thoughts were easy to discern—such as "hungry" which most often seemed to come from Christian. Other thoughts were more complicated—thoughts that didn't necessarily have an adjective to describe them. They were more like feelings with no names. Katy was pleased to find out that she decoded every thought from Tim successfully even though it took him a little longer to figure hers out. Nikki's seemed simple usually. She and Kian both sounded a very similar note of angst and impatience as if they were ready to get on to the next thing before anyone else was—though their sound still meshed with everyone else's effectively. Rachele's were easy to figure out. Her thoughts and feelings were exactly what they were and they weren't typically muddled with anything unidentifiable. Everything in Rachele had a place no matter how random or off-the-wall it might have seemed. This made her friends smile. They all knew she was genuine but to have it confirmed in such a personal and beautiful way was very satisfying. Odette and William's thoughts were the hardest to figure out. Everyone heard his piano just fine and it made a very clear sound but it didn't really sound like anything anyone in the group was used to hearing. As expected, his sound did invoke the occasional dose of anxiety or panic—but that was pretty much it. William's sound could only be described as edgy and unpredictable. And yet this was all he put out into the void. Actual thoughts and true feelings were entirely absent. Odette's were there. But they were very quiet, very stern. She seemed to control how much she allowed her friends to hear as well, as if she were merely focusing on reading everyone else and nothing more was on her mind at all.

Their resonance was interrupted when Dr. Stein spoke up. "You all are doing very well. I think it's about time to figure out who the team leader is."

"A team leader?" Nikki said from her weapon form with interest.

"Yes. In some cases the leader is constant and permanent. In others the leader changes depending on the battle. It depends on who feels what when facing their foe. Whatever it may be, experience with the style the enemy uses to fight or maybe you had a really good breakfast that morning and you're just more on the ball than the rest." Dr. Stein threw his cigarette in the leaves and stepped on it. "When Soul and Maka's team fought, Maka was always the leader. That's just how it was; it was how she fit with her team. If I had to make a bet, your situation will be different. I would venture to guess that you have a different leader depending on who you're fighting and when."

"Is that a good thing?" Odette sounded hesitant.

"It's not a bad thing as long as you have very good communication with each other. So!" Dr. Stein stuck his hand out for Miss Marie. She took it and her body was swallowed in white light as she took her hefty hammer form. "Let's see who it is today!" he sang while smacking the head of the big hammer against his palm.

"Don't you think you should, like, teach us how to figure out the leader first?" Katy said nervously.

Dr. Stein casually took off his glasses and handed them to Soul who took them with a sharp smirk. "I strongly believe that experience is the best teacher." The scientist snapped his arm out and the hammer smashed into Rachele's torso with a quick electric spark and sent her flying into a tree trunk.

"OW!" she screamed—more out of frustration than pain. Her comrades all scrambled to their fighting stances and Odette sprang forward, swinging the great sword around her at their instructor. Stein blocked effortlessly with the hammer and ducked the next swing before striking her the same way he did Rachele and right into another tree. Tim ricocheted off a nearby branch to spin the shuriken at the professor's exposed shoulder though it was smoothly side-stepped. Tim was also flung into the ground by Marie's bombarding strike.

Stein mostly stayed in one spot and only turned to swat them away like flies. "You're not communicating," he called out, "Want to see how long you'll last like this?" He thrust his hand forward at Katy's chest and sent her sliding through the leaves from his direct soul wavelength attack.

And he was right. They weren't communicating. It was so easy to find each other when they were all quiet and standing still and not doing anything but communicating with each other. But now they were trying not to be on the receiving end of that hammer that always felt worse than it looked. There was no chance of them getting a single attack to land until they could hear the music again. Tim attempted to coordinate. "We need to come from different angles and stay out of each others' way!" He hurled Nikki towards Stein.

The teacher ducked and Rachele squealed when the shuriken crashed into Grae's white blade and threw her down. Stein popped back up. "Yes. You do." He reached down and picked up the shuriken. "You also need to not shout your strategy." He threw Nikki back at Tim and the boy only barely caught her.

There was a unison grumble amongst the students as they blocked attacks the best they could before trying to hone their focus on each others' minds. When they all had returned to the void as Dr. Stein continued his merciless barrage, there was a lot more being passed between them. So much of it was just noise that was unrecognizable but they eventually started to hear Nikki's voice. Her song was breaking away from the unison melody she held that so closely matched Christian's. While this conclusion was being derived, Tim had found a spot close range that gave him the best striking position and had begun to force their teacher back a step or two. That was it! Tim was the team's leader.

Kian caught onto Nikki's melody and started sawing away on his cello to follow along at her pace. Once he found her direction, he closed his eyes and leaned into the chords, playing boldly and richly as a smile started to creep up. It was fast and bouncy and it made him feel like dancing. Soon he no longer needed to follow along—he felt it in his bones and it was pouring out through his fingers into his instrument and out into the whiteness, never overpowering Nikki's lead but never straying an inch from her song.

Rachele twisted out of Stein's sight behind him and sharply swung the scythe against his back while her opponent also took a strike from Katy's naginata. "This is it!" the ginger called out. They were doing it!

William's fingers bounced off the piano keys all up and down the keyboard and he didn't even try to make his eyes keep up. He simply followed Kian's cello, Christian's back-up vocals and Nikki's lead. It wasn't hard to play along; he was familiar with this speed and the sporadic jumping from one note to the next. But it wasn't easy with that dark figure looming over his shoulder, making malicious clicking sounds in his ear. William kept his eyes forward and let his fingers run wild on the keys and tried to ignore the sticky black hair that fell on his shoulder and brushed his cheek. He breathed quicker to compensate for the musty darkness he was inhaling due to his overseer's proximity.

Odette doubled behind Rachele and sprang over her to swing at Stein from above. When he ducked, Rachele caught him below with the hook of her scythe and very nearly unbalanced him.

The inky figure put its chin over William's shoulder and turned where its mouth should be to his ear and lifted a long bony hand with charcoal skin to whisper. William's eyes went wide and his lips twitched. His fingers didn't miss a beat but now he suddenly banged on the keys with such adamant force that the sound vibrated his ribs. His chest started heaving as the black ghostly figure let its hand slip away from his shoulder.

"HRAH!" Odette thrust her hand forward with a bright flash of her blue soul wavelength, sending Stein backwards against a tree where he slid down into the leaves with the hammer by his side. Tim swept up and put Nikki's blade at his neck. The rest of the students stood around with panting breaths.

Dr. Stein started to laugh low in his throat. His head rolled on his neck until he was looking up at Tim. "Congratulations. You pass."

Every student slouched and loosened their limbs with their weapons hanging beside them. Soul started to clap and Marie changed back to her human form and helped the scientist stand up.

William's hands slipped off the keys and he stared down at them, feeling light-headed and still out of breath. His hands were shaking a little so he tried to breathe more calmly. But he knew it wasn't going to happen.

He roughly scooted back in the bench and jumped up, not bothering to straighten his tuxedo as he stormed up to the black figure and stared about two feet up into its empty face. His nostrils flared and his heaving chest pulled his vest tight with each inhale as his eyes sharpened to piercing strength. "Leave her alone," he growled through his teeth.

The shadow's head jerked sideways and cocked as it made a crackling moaning sound and slowly floated towards him.

William snarled and tightened his fists by his sides.

"Great job, everyone!" Marie congratulated sweetly.

Dr. Stein leaned backwards with his hands on his hips to pop his lower back. "It seems—this time Tim and Nikki had it figured out. But my bet is still that your leader will not be constant. Your communication skills are good but they're not great. The more you fight while resonating with everyone, the better you will get. We will do more training." He started walking back to the castle. "Tomorrow."

Christian snickered, having also turned back to his human form. "We pack too much heat for ya, Doc?"

"You wish." He looked over his shoulder with a rather unsettling grin, his eyes completely hidden due to the overwhelming firelight glossing his glasses. Marie walked beside him with her hands behind her back and Soul brought up the rear with his lazy saunter.

The students all looked at each other. "Uh… Is anyone else scared now?" Christian pointed a thumb at their teacher.

"Don't boast, idiot! He could kill us if he wanted to!" Katy punched the blonde's shoulder.

"Still, that was really good, guys. I think we should all go out for pizza!" Rachele suggested.

Kian clapped his hands. "Done and done!" They started to walk towards the school.

Odette tapped her fingers on the handle of the zanbato. "Hey, William, you want to go eat pizza with everyone?" She looked at the wide black blade, waiting to see his image appear. But he didn't show up and he didn't reply. "… William?" She tapped her fingernail on the shiny part of his blade. Nothing.

"You coming, Odette?" Tim stopped and looked back at her.

She lifted her chin. "Don't worry, I'll catch up with you guys later. I think we're just gonna go back and chill. Thanks!" When the group kept walking she held the giant sword in both hands and looked down at it, only seeing her own fuzzy reflection. She stood like this for a while and waited to hear him say something—anything. But he didn't. And he never showed his face. Odette sighed and held the zanbato against her, cradling it carefully as she walked back to the castle alone.