Disclaimer: Soul Eater © Ohkuho

-Telepathy-

(Thoughts)

A/N: Hello readers! Nice of you to stop by! This is my first Soul Eater fic, so I hope you guys enjoy it!

Chapter 1

"Kid I swear I'm going to kick that reaper butt of yours!" Liz cried as they reached their mission destination. "You know I can't stand creepy, slimy, gross things!"

"Stop complaining," Kid said, trying to be patient with her. "This mission is too dangerous to send regular humans, I'm the only one who could take it."

"Aren't we regular humans?" Liz grumbled.

"Yes, but you will be staying in weapon form, and I can attack from a distance." He landed Beelzebub several yards outside an abandoned village, but he didn't hop off and dismiss the flying skateboard like he usually did. "We'll need as much speed and mobility as possible. This village was overrun with an invasion insect-like creatures, they're apparently enormous, and their poison dissolves almost everything it comes in contact with. I'm sure now you know why I was the one who had to take on this mission."

"Yeah, because you're a grim reaper and your body can take a lot more punishment than regular humans…" Liz grumbled.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Patty asked.

"Well, this is more of an extermination job than anything else," Kid answered, having Beelzebub lift off a few inches from the ground and headed towards to the village. "You two can't absorb animal souls, they'll just cancel out the kishin souls we've already collected, so I'll have to take them and give them to my father to deal with once this is over." He paused as they entered the village, looking around, listening, and pushing his soul perception as far as it would go. "Our top priority is to destroy the queen, once she's dead then the drones won't have a purpose anymore. It's likely they'll die as soon as she does."

"I almost feel sorry for them," Liz muttered.

"It's likely they're mindless, following only the impulses of their queen, so killing them would essentially be giving them their freedom." Kid could sense hundreds of souls in the surrounding area, but none of them feeling strong enough to be the queen. "I'm going to take us back up over the village. I want to locate the queen before I start shooting at anything. Once I do, I know we'll be swarmed by these things, and would rather have a sense of where I'm heading than just running around blindly."

They rose up over the village and moved slowly towards it's center. Kid had to resonate rather strongly with the sisters, making his soul perception not only span the gap between them and the ground, but also down below the surface, underground. For the moment, he was mildly irked that Maka's soul perception was so much stronger than his, but that was something better dealt with when he had the time and focus to train himself. He had more important issues to think about.

If his assumptions were correct, it was likely that the queen had cloistered herself deep underground, away from any threats from the outside. "There," he said, halting his skateboard and looking down over the village. "Right in the center of the village, rather unsurprising actually, it would be the most efficient way to set up a hive."

"You almost sound impressed…." Liz muttered. "Don't start having an obsessive reaction to this, please? The last thing I want is to have all of us eaten by giant bugs because you were distracted by symmetry."

"I said it was efficient, not symmetrical," Kid said, biting back a snap. Now was not the time to get agitated. He began their decent, monitoring the souls of the drones surrounding the hive. It didn't take long for the creatures to notice him, and the waves began. "Here the come!"

Giant insects pretty much covered what these things looked like. This wave closely resembled wasps, except these were green, and each was about the size of a small car.

"Those things are huge!" Liz screamed, hearing her sister laugh as usual.

"They're so yucky looking!" the younger sister laughed.

Kid fired at the wasps, aiming for the wings and heads. If they couldn't fly, they wouldn't be a threat when he was still this high up, and if they didn't have heads, well, they would cease to be threats altogether.

The wasps flew straight at him, not trying to avoid his shots in anyway, proving that they were as mindless as Kid had expected. But, just because they were mindless, didn't mean they didn't know how to function. Acid green ooze formed at the mouths of several of the wasps, and they spat at the reaper, trying to douse him in their venom.

Kid zipped around them, avoiding their attacks, but just the smell of the venom made his nose burn. "That can't be good," he muttered quietly. He quickly dispatched the rest of the wasps, watching the bodies fall to the ground far below.

"What's not good?" Liz asked.

"When I avoided their venom, I could smell it as it flew past, and just the scent burned my nose. I can feel it in my lungs too."

"Just the smell is burning?" Liz asked. That wasn't good at all. From what she and her sister had learned about their meister, most naturally occurring poisons did not effect Kid, not even ultra violet rays from the sun. If just the smell was causing him physical pain, albeit very minor, it meant it was very dangerous.

"This complicates things," Kid said, halting and thinking for a moment.

"Maybe it's bark is worse than it's bite," Liz offered hopefully.

"But those are bugs," Patty said, not getting it. "Bugs don't bark, do they?"

"It's a figure of speech, Patty," Liz told her.

"Oh."

Kid took a deep breath. "I'll just have to keep my distance." He began their decent again, firing at the wasps as soon as he could see them. If the venom was bothering him, even just the smell, he didn't want it getting anywhere near Liz and Patty.

The waves seemed unending, he could barely descend a few feet before more of the creatures appeared.

"There's so many!" Patty exclaimed.

"I sensed hundreds of them when we first arrived," Kid told as the last of the current wave fell away. "There could possibly be thousands…."

"Thousands?" Liz cried. "How are the three of us supposed to take out thousands?"

"We took out those mummies didn't we?" Patty reminded her. "And they were pretty mindless too."

"Yes, but there weren't thousands of them, and they weren't venomous either." The older sister shivered. "And these things are a lot faster…"

"We'll be fine as long as we keep our distance," Kid said, reassuring them. "This may just take longer than I had originally expected."

"Just as long as we don't have to spend the night here…" Liz whispered nervously.

Kid nodded in agreement, but another wave began to approach, and he turned his full attention to it. The one relief was that these creatures were definitely mindless, and it appeared that their queen could not see through their eyes, only sense what was going on, so her drones could not strategize or even learn from Kid's attacks. Even so, it still took over an hour to get to the ground, and he had been pushed back from where he had originally found the queen's soul.

He stayed on Beelzebub, still wanting to remain as mobile as possible, and quietly flew towards the center of the hive. There didn't seem to be quite as many sentries down on the ground, but as he rounded a corner to avoid some debris, he encountered two, enormous, scarab-like insects. They halted what they were doing, which was spitting their corrosive venom on piles of scrap metal and concrete and breaking it down to add to their nests, and turned towards the young reaper. Venom built up at their mouthparts, but Kid started shooting before they could start spitting, and were soon slumping to the ground with their heads no longer discernible parts of their bodies.

"And I thought those wasps were bad…." Liz muttered. "How much farther to the hive?"

"Technically the hive is all around us," Kid answered. "See the debris they were working on and the build-up around us? They're turning this village into their own hive, and a they seem to want to make it several stories high."

"But you said the queen's underground, right?"

"Right. It's all for defense, plain simple." He heard scuffling behind him and whipped around, and just barely avoided a flying mass of venom as it flew by. Three more scarabs had come up behind him. "At least these things seem a little slower," Kid said as he reversed his skateboard, shooting at the creatures as he moved away, wanting to as large of a space between him and them as possible.

It was mayhem. There seemed to be no end to the oncoming swarms of the scarabs, with a smattering of wasps every so often. After another hour of taking out countless numbers of creatures and not getting much closer to their destination, Kid managed slip away from the latest swarm and found an abandoned warehouse. Squeezing in through a small broken window up near the roof of the building, Kid let the girls shift back into their human forms for a short break.

"Hey Kid, you picked a good hide-out," Patty said with a big grin. Around them were crates of stored away food and drinks, likely for emergencies.

"I am parched," Liz said, "but would it really be all right just to take it?" Before Kid had found them, this place would have been heaven for her and Patty, but now that things were better, her own conscious was making her recall all that they had been forced to steal to survive.

"We're essentially acting as exterminators for these villagers," Kid said. "I don't think it will matter if a bottle or two of water and some food items disappear, especially after all the damage these insects are causing to everything else." He knew the girls were probably getting hungry despite all of the fighting and flying bug parts.

"You heard him Patty," Liz said with a nod. Her sister giggled and the two of them went looking for something to eat and drink.

Kid followed them, not feeling any need for sustenance like his partners, but the last thing he wanted was for one of the creatures outside to break through one of the walls and find Liz and Patty alone without him. At least the two of them didn't need to be reminded to be quiet. He stood on top of one of the large crates, keeping his soul perception active and alert for any souls that came within half a dozen yard of the building.

"What are you doing?" Liz asked, looking up at her meister from where she and her sister were sitting on some lower crates.

"Just keeping an eye out. We may be inside a building that they've shown no interest in so far, but that doesn't mean they'll continue to do so."

"Well, while you're watching, can you at least do one thing for me?"

Kid sighed and looked down at her. "What is it?" A bottle of water suddenly flew up towards him. He caught it with no trouble, but glared back down at Liz. "You know I don't need this right now."

"So you say," Liz said. "But you have been the one doing all the fighting, and like you said, this has been taking a lot longer than expected. Who knows when we'll get the chance for another break later on. So, please, just drink it?" She knew full well that he didn't need to eat or drink nearly as often as she and her sister, but that didn't make her worry about him any less.

The young reaper sighed and opened the bottle. "All right." The two girls grinned up at him and went back to their snacks.

Once they were through, the three of them headed back out again, avoiding several roaming groups of sentries as they went. The coordinated groups were becoming more numerous, but just as before, they couldn't learn from Kid's abilities. He on the other hand, found it easy to avoid them once their searching had begun. Their queen had the hive decently gridded, but there were still plenty of holes that Kid could slip through to avoid them.

"I just hope all these things don't suddenly appear behind us when we find their queen…" Liz whispered.

"That's why I'm trying to be as quiet as possible," Kid told her. "If I haven't made any appearances and killed any of their kind for a while, they may just assume that we left and go back what they were doing originally. Hopefully I'll be able to slip into the queen's chamber and dispatch her before they're aware of it. Like I said, once the queen dies, it's likely that all of her drones will die along with her."

They flew along quietly, carefully skirting several groups of drones as the went. It still took almost two hours to reach the central hive, and by then sun was already starting to droop in the sky. It had taken almost the entire afternoon to reach the central hive, and they still had to get down to the queen and kill her before their mission was complete.

Kid peered inside one of several entrances, noticing that the walls of the hive were covered in a strange, glowing fungus that gave off almost as much light as a light bulb. "Interesting," he murmured, but that was about all her gave it.

"Well at least it's not gonna be dark," Patty said, grinning at her sister.

"Y-Yeah….great…." Liz said, not feeling too much better about the situation.

"Hey so," Patty started, "how are we gonna avoid those things inside the hive?"

"I'm not sensing too many drones inside," Kid answered. "I'm guessing the hives themselves are where they go when night falls and they can't see anything."

"So let's hurry up and get out of here before it gets dark…" Liz stammered quickly.

"That's the plan," Kid said. "I still have to be careful though, I said I wasn't sensing too many inside, but that doesn't mean there aren't any at all. I still want to keep out location quiet from them, so I may need to take several detours before we actually reach her." He silently floated inside the hive, listening, and sensing with his soul perception for the closest of the drones still inside. There was one somewhat close by, he would have to watch out for it as he went, but there were no others that were as close.

The tunnel he was in slopped downward, which made sense if the led underground. He was following the queen's soul while monitoring the closest soul of drone, but keeping track of two souls while trying to navigate through the twisting pathways of the hive was difficult, and he would temporarily have to stop monitoring the closest drone so he wouldn't end up traveling in circles.

Once, he let the drone's soul go for a little too long, and when he picked it up again, he was startled to find that it was nearly on top of them.

"The corridor we just passed was dark," Patty reminded him.

He urged Beelzebub back the way they had come, feeling the soul of the drone coming closer and closer, and zipped into the darkened passage way just before the drone rounded the corner. Kid floated as far back as he could, and found that this 'corridor' wasn't much more than a depression in the wall, and it only went back about five feet. He pressed his back against the wall and held very still, hoping that the darkness would hide him from the drone's vision.

The giant scarab began passing by the depression, seeming not to notice them, but then it stopped, peering into the darkness with it's relatively small, beady eyes. Finally, it continued it's way down the corridor, but Kid didn't breath a sigh of relief until it was several yards away.

"That was really close…." Liz whispered. She could feel her meister's pulse pounding through the hand that held her pistol form. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he whispered. "That was just a little too close…." He took a deep breath, wanting to calm himself before they continued on. Now was not the time to lose his nerve or his focus.

"It's too bad we can't use each others abilities through soul resonance," Liz said. "I know Tsubaki has a very slight soul perception ability, and Black Star can use it when he's resonating with her."

"That may be something we'll have to try later," Kid said. He took another deep breath, feeling his pulse rate return to almost normal, and stretched his soul perception out to monitor the close souls again and find the queen's soul to follow. He would keep monitoring the souls, even if he ended up wondering into walls. "I may need you two to be my eyes, I want to concentrate on the location of the drones' souls so that doesn't happen again."

"Okay," the girls said together.

Floating back down the passageway they had been forced to deviate from, he picked up the queen's soul again, and the soul of the drone they had just barely avoided. The soul of the drone was still close, and he slipped down a different corridor as soon as he found one.

"Are we getting any closer to the queen?" Liz asked. "This place is like a maze."

"From what I can tell," Kid said, "we're about halfway down. She seems to have the remaining drones patrolling in regular sections. This creature knows what she's doing, and I have a feeling that she's been around for a very long time."

"Didn't Stein mention in one class that there were ancient beasts that still lived today?"

"He did, and this could possibly one of them. Those creatures are almost like demi-gods and are very powerful. If that's what she is, this queen…." (I'm not sure I'll be able to handle her alone…)

"This isn't going to be an easy fight, huh?" Liz asked.

"This whole mission hasn't been easy," he reminded her, doing his best to avoid answering her and giving away his fear. "And just like any other queen, she's likely going to be protecting some form of offspring." He heard Liz groan in disgust. "I think I'm starting to feel the same way."

"Me too," Patty said. "I like bugs as much as the next, but these…" she made a sound of disgust that actually managed to cause Liz to giggle.

Kid felt a smile pull at the corners of his mouth, he could always count on Patty to defuse tension with her innocent-like personality.

Reaching a blind corner and an entrance to another passage, Kid stopped and concentrated, feeling for drones' souls. There were three in the next passage, but, annoyingly enough, that same passage would bring them much closer to the queen. "Damn...that's annoying."

"What's annoying?" Patty asked.

"This next passage would bring us much closer to the queens chamber, but the problem is, there are three drones patrolling this way."

"Like you said," Liz started, "this queen knows what she's doing. She probably knows that way is a shortcut and is keeping it well guarded."

"Yeah." Kid sighed. "I know as soon as I started shooting, the entire colony will surround us, but continuing to avoid them is taking so much time…." He managed to pull out his pocket watch, they had been in the hive already for over an hour.

"To bad we can't make some kind of distraction," Patty said.

Kid thought for a moment. "Maybe we can…."

"But how?" Liz asked.

"If could fire off, quietly mind you, a sustained shot that will hold for a while and explode at my say so…."

"Patty and I have never developed silencers," Liz said, knowing that was the only way they fire off a shot without making any noticeable noise.

"And won't that still bring a lot of drones in from outside?" Patty added.

Their meister sighed. "Yeah. I'm sorry Liz, but I don't think we're going to be out of here before dark, not unless we get very luck and find an unguarded shortcut."

"I think I'll manage," the older girl said. "Just….don't get hurt."

"That's the plan." He took a deep breath and, reluctantly, took the corridor free of drones.

"Hang on sec Kid!" Patty said suddenly.

The young reaper halted quickly, "What is it?"

"What's that hole up there?" she asked. "The one high up in the wall just above us, off to your left."

Kid looked up where she had indicated, and found a decently sized hole in the wall about six feet above his head. "Hmm…." He rose up on Beelzebub and carefully approached the hole. It was large, but not large enough to fit the wasps through. Peering inside, he felt a draft coming up from the hole. "An air duct." He turned around and looked at the opposite wall, finding another hole just a few feet higher than the one they were investigating. "Yes, definitely an air duct."

"I guess they have to get air down to the bottom somehow," Liz said.

Kid turned back and peered into the air duct. "I wonder…." He concentrated on the queen's soul, sending his perception through the air duct and down to the queen.

"You wonder what?" Patty asked.

Kid smiled down at the girl/pistol. "Patty, you found us a short cut."

"I did?" she asked, and then beamed in delight. "I did!"

"That duct will take us down to the queen?" Liz asked.

"Yes," her meister answered. "Unfortunately I'm going to have to dismiss Beelzebub, I won't be able to fit down the duct and continue to ride it at the same time."

"And there aren't any drones on the way down?"

"None that I can sense." He climbed into the duct and dismissed his skateboard, the walls of the duct smooth and dry from the constant airflow. The incline in the duct was steep enough so that he could slide down, but he had to control his descent so he would shoot out suddenly and cause any unneeded attention.

The duct was long, but there were no interruptions from drones, and without having to navigate through the maze of passageways, Kid felt the queen's soul getting closer and closer as he slid down the duct. Finally, he saw a light, the end of the duct, and stopped himself a few feet from the exit. Carefully, he moved himself to the opening, peering down into what he knew was going to be the queen's chamber, and bit back a yell of shock.

She was gigantic! Her abdomen alone was the size of a small house.

"If that's not an Ancient… then I don't know what is…" he whispered.

-I sense you…- came an eerie voice in his head.

"Wha-!" Kid gasped, the voice sending a chill down his spine.

"What's wrong Kid?" Patty asked.

(They can't hear her), he thought. "Nothing," he said quickly, and added to make it believable, "I just can't find her head…."

The massive body of the queen shifted and her head came into view.

"Well there it is…." Liz quaked.

The queen moved her head from side to side, her compound eyes, each at least the size of one of her drones, were clouded from within. -I cannot see you, tiny thing, but I know you're there.-

Kid swallowed hard. (She's blind….If I can manage to take her by surprise, I could do some massive damage to her before she could locate me.)

-Puny scrap,- came the queen's voice again. -I have lived for far to long to be taken out by the likes of you, even if you are the son of that meddlesome Lord Death.-

(She know's who I am!)

-I have lived tens of times longer than that being, since the time that the great reptiles walked the earth.-Her enormous, iridescent wings, suddenly rose up from her back. The sound they made as the started buzzed was equivalent to that of a jet engine, and the draft the kicked up started pushing the you reaper back up the air duct. -Ah! There you are!-

"Not good!" Taking a chance, he jumped out of the duct, summoning Beelzebub and zipping away just as something hit the spot where he been hiding.

"And we thought the drones were big!" Liz shrieked.

"Screaming right now isn't going to to help matters!" Kid yelled, concentrating on controlling his skateboard through the air currents the queen was creating.

-Hold still you pest- she said, firing a barb from her body at him, using the gusts to angle it after the reaper.

"Liz, Patty! I need you to get ready for soul resonance!" Kid dodged the barb and kept flying, trying to gauge where it would be best to shoot the monstrosity. (Underneath), he thought (There's no way she can protect her underbelly, she's far too big to maneuver away, but I just have to get under there.)Given how long this creature had been alive, just trying to dive underneath her would be foolish, it would far to easy for her to just drop down on top of him.

"I hope you have some kind of plan Kid!" Liz yelled.

"I'm hoping I can use the fact that she's blind as an advantage," he told her.

"A decoy?" Patty suggested.

"I decoy would be good. She's using the air currents to locate me. If I can fire off a shot or two in different directions, then I may be able to distract her."

"Wouldn't really big explosions interrupt her air currents?" Liz asked.

"They should." He dodged another projectile, this time a massive stinger from the row running over the top of her abdomen. "Soul Resonance!"

-Meddlesome child!- The queen spat. -You're far too small and weak to harm me!-She followed the currents of his soul wavelength, easier to detect now that he was resonating, -Die!- She fired off several barbs and stingers at once, but the bubble she felt as his soul wavelength was not the whole body of the reaper, and many of her missiles flew and embedded themselves into the chamber walls before Kid flew anywhere near them.

"Resonance is distracting her too!" Liz cheered.

"Not enough though!" Kid said as he felt the pistols transform into cannons. He aimed and fired at the ceiling, and the fired back behind him, hoping the explosions would distract her and interrupt the flow of the air currents.

-GAH!- The queen screamed. -You dare fire off such things near my eggs!-

"I hate being right!" Kid yelled, dodging another barb, this one dripping poison. He shot off more cannon fire, aiming for areas that would make the queen think he was on the other side of the room. When she turned to face him, using the angle to fire off many of her stingers in the direction she thought he was in, he took his chance and dove down under her, firing as many cannon blasts as could as he passed.

The pained shriek that filled his head nearly knocked him off his skateboard. He shook it off and glanced behind him, surprised to find that he had half severed the queen's abdomen from her upper body. "Looks like you're a little too old!"

-OLD BUT NOT USELESS!- She raged, and, as if to spite him, fired off stingers from her partially severed abdomen. In doing so, she seemed to spend much of her strength, and her upper body fell to the ground beside her abdomen, more of her underbelly dangerously exposed.

Kid took the opportunity and fired at her, hitting her exposed weak spot several times as a flew by.

-GOT YOU!-One of the queen's twelve legs shot up, knocking the young reaper off of his skateboard and sending hims tumbling across the chamber floor.

"Are you okay?" Liz asked.

"Fine!" Kid yelled as he shot to his feet and started running. The queen had already proven once that he ruined abdomen was still dangerous, and she proved it again as she sent point filled barbs and stingers after him.

"Hey Kid!" Patty said, suddenly. "If her eggs are so important, wouldn't hiding in them make her not want to shoot at you?"

"It's an idea," the young reaper said, and raced for the nearest cluster of eggs.

-OH NO YOU DON'T!-The queen's rage shook the chamber. -MY EGGS MAY BE IMPORTANT, BUT LOSING A FEW TO DESTROY A THREAT LIKE YOU WILL BE FAR WORTH IT!-

"So much for that!" Kid dodged a projectile and tumbled, rolling to his feet and racing on.

-I MAY DIE TODAY, BUT YOU'RE COMING WITH ME, SPAWN OF THE REAPER!-She fired the last of her barbs and stingers, her strength slipping away.

Kid avoided the missiles, some by just a hairbreadth, and believed he was almost in the clear, right when the last stinger caught him in his right shoulder and pinning him to the wall.

"Gaaaahhhh!" He screamed, the poison burning worse than any flame he had ever felt.

-Such a sweet sound-, the queen said. -Shame I cannot see your agony….-

"Kid!" Liz and Patty screamed.

"Stay in your weapon forms!" He ordered them. He yanked his body against the stinger, hoping it was as aged as the Ancient queen herself was, but it didn't budge. "Damn!" The massive stinger was embedded in the wall his pinned to, and the venom inside it was beginning to pump into his body. He was still resonating with the girls, and the cannons were ready to fire again, but he couldn't raise his right arm. Feeling his strength evaporating, he quickly summoned his skull arms, the black tendrils wrapping around his injured limb and bringing it up so he could fire both cannons.

-My children…. - The queen whispered. -I am sorry….-

"Death Cannon!" The blasts fired and tored through the queen's head, ripping through her and blowing her apart, leaving nothing behind but her kishin soul.

His strength gone, the reaper arms vanished and his right arm fell to his side, the pain coursing through his body and making his drop both pistols.

Liz and Patty shifted quickly back into their human forms. "What do you want us to do?" Liz asked.

Kid tried to pull the enormous stinger out of his shoulder, but the venom had weakened him a lot more than he had initially realized, and he barely had the strength raise his good arm up and fruitlessly grab the stinger. "One of you….is going to have change back into a pistol…." Pain lanced through his shoulder and down his right arm. "I can't pull it out….and neither of you are touching it...so…." He gritted his teeth for a moment. "You'll have to shoot it until it breaks off."

"But that still doesn't get it off of you," Patty said.

"I can't pull it out...but….if you two can break off this end, I should be able to pull myself off of it…."

The two sisters exchanged glances, and Liz asked, "So you'll want us to break it off as close to your body as possible, right?" The reaper nodded, and she noticed that his usual pale complexion was turning an off gray color. She took a deep breath. "Okay, Patty, can you change back please?"

"Mm-hmm." Her little sister transformed and Liz held the pistol and steadily as she could. "I'm so sorry if I accidentally hit you…"

"Can't feel any worse than this…" Kid said, trying to smile.

Liz aimed and fired, watching pink colored bolt hit the stinger, but it seemed to do nothing. "This may take a while…"

"Why does that not surprise me…?" Kid grunted. His entire body burned, the venom coursing through his body and trying hard to dissolve the flesh and bone it encountered.

"We'll break it off soon," Patty said, trying to reassure her meister.

Liz took aim again and started firing, continuously, and wouldn't stop until she saw any kind of cracking. It felt like forever, over and over she pulled the trigger, watching the pink rounds hit the stinger and appear to do absolutely nothing.

But then, finally, a crack started forming. She resisted the urge to start kicking it, wanting to get it off her meister as fast as she could, but she knew that the venom could easily eat through her boot and do massive damage to her foot, so she kept firing. After what seemed like another eternity, the massive end of the stinger broke off, still leaving about two inches sticking out of her meister's shoulder, but that was as close as she could get. "Okay, it's off." She suddenly heard a hissing sound, much closer to her, and noticed an acrid steam rising from a bloodstain on her sleeve. She shrieked, dropping Patty, and quickly got her jacket off before the venom could burn through and do her damage. As it was, a tiny bit of it had reached her skin, but since it had been diluted by Kid's blood, all that was forming was a red welt that burned and stung.

"L-Liz!" Kid gasped, but couldn't move to help her.

"You okay Sis?" Patty asked as she shifted back to her human form.

"I...I think so," Liz answered, her voice shaking a little. "It doesn't seem to be doing the same damage as it did to Kid, but I think it's because it was mixed with his blood."

Patty went to her sister's discarded jacket, stepping on the clean part of the body, and ripping off the good sleeve. She wrapped the sleeve around her sister's arm and tied it up firmly.

Kid opened his eyes, finding that even his eyes were starting to burn and blur. "I'm sorry Liz..." he whispered. He could feel excess venom from inside the stinger oozing out from where it had broken, hissing as it came in contact with his flesh and clothing.

"It's okay, it's not your fault," Liz told her. "And in a way you still protected me from it." She smiled, trying to ease his worries, but he was in so much pain that she couldn't tell if it made any difference.

The reaper gritted his teeth as he turned his fading attention back to the task at hand. "This is going to hurt…." Gathering up all of his willpower, he wrenched himself forward, feeling the bones of his shoulder scrape against the stinger, and finally slid free. He fell to his knees, resisting the urge to grab his shoulder. He heard the girls drop down next to him, and grunted, "Don't touch me…."

"But...we can't just leave it like that," Liz said, "and you're obviously going to need help getting out of here." Her meister's eyes looked strange, the normal yellow-gold coloration taking on a greenish hue, and his skin was becoming more gray, also with a greenish tinge. The older Thompson sister took a deep breath and turned to her sister. "Looks you're loosing your jacket too."

"No biggie," Patty said as she slipped off her jacket and ripped the sleeves off.

"I told you…." Kid gasped.

"I know what you told us," Liz said, "but if the venom were really that bad, all of you clothes would be burned away and so would a lot more of your flesh, so whatever parts of you aren't burned, they should be safe to touch." Her arm was hurting, but the welt hadn't spread out from under the make-shift bandage, so she figured it was all right for now.

Patty carefully bound up her meister's wound, and then slung Kid's good arm over her shoulders and hauled him up.

Liz pressed the back of her hand to her meister's forehead. "He's burning up, we have to get him out of here." She looked around, but couldn't remember which tunnel they had come in from. "Damn, this is bad…."

Kid lift his head and whispered, "The air duct we came though was near the northwest passage." Liz pointed to the one she thought was the northwest, but he shook his head and gestured to the one farther to the right. When she pointed out the right one, he nodded. "After that...I'm not entirely sure where to go….I followed the queen's soul when we came down… but…. I didn't think about getting out…"

"If this hadn't happened then you probably would have just blasted your way out," Liz reminded him. She led them to the northwest passage, looking up the tunnel to get a sense of where it went, but the strange, glowing fungi was beginning to dim. "Oh no… with the queen dead the hive is starting to die, the lights are starting to go out!"

"Better get moving…" Kid grunted, trying to stand on his own and pull away from Patty, but he couldn't even lift his head.

"I got ya Kid, you just concentrate on walking," Patty told him.

"Let's go," Liz said over her shoulder.

The three of them headed up the tunnel, not entirely sure where they were going, but Liz felt that as long as they were heading 'up', they would eventually find an exit.

After about ten minutes, Liz stopped and turned to her sister. "Should we stop for a minute?"

"I'm okay," Patty said, "but Kid doesn't sound like he's doing so good." The young reaper's breath was becoming increasingly wheezing sounding and very labored.

"Do you want to stop for a few minutes?" Liz asked as she approached, about to take her meister's grey, sweaty face in her hands so she could lift his head, but stopped when she noticed green fluid oozing from both corners of his eyes and his mouth. "Kid…." Her stomach churned.

"Just keep going…." Kid whispered.

"Okay, but tell Patty if and when you need to stop." Liz turned and felt a shiver course down her spine as the glowing fungi around them flared slightly and then dimmed again.

"What about you Sis?" Patty asked. "Is your arm okay?"

"It's about the same." She flexed her arm, but didn't feel any more or less pain than she had been feeling before. "It hasn't spread, at least not past the bandaging, so I guess as long as that doesn't change, I think I'll be okay." The light flared again. "Let's get going, I really don't want to be roaming around here in the dark."

They continued on, occasionally heading up a different tunnel if it started heading farther upwards than their current path, dodging around the now dead bodies of the drones. Finally, after rounding a corner, Liz said sunlight coming an opening ahead of them.

"What a relief," she said. As the reached the exit, something block their way out, a large figure blotting out the light. Liz shriek and jumped back.

"Liz, Patty, Kid? Is that you three down there?" The voice was familiar.

Liz took a deep breath. "Sid, is that you?"

The zombie walked a few steps into the tunnel, his broad form allowing in more light and proving to the girls that it was him. "Yeah, it's me. Lord Death was watching your progress, and when he realized just how dangerous that venom was he immediately sent an eradication team after you. This entire village needs to be burned down-,"

"Kid's hurt," Liz blurted. "He was impaled by the queen's stinger."

"Let's get him out of here," Sid said as he hurried over and took the semi-conscious reaper from Patty. "I'll have Knygus take a look at him, but there won't be too much we can do for him until we get back to Death City."

The four of them walked out of the hive and into the village, the sun beginning to disappear over the horizon. Sid took Kid over to where Knygus was working, tending to a worker that had stepped in a puddle of the venom. Sid had grabbed the man and cut his leg off, preventing the poison from killing the man. Knygus had the man stable and was about to contact a rescue team for an emergency airlift when he meister appeared at her side carrying the now unconscious young reaper.

"Kid!" the woman exclaimed, shocked to see the boy in such a state.

"I guess he was hit by the queen," Sid told her. "I know there isn't much you can do for him right now."

"No, there isn't," Knygus sighed. "I can put some proper bandages on him, but that's about all."

Sid nodded as the Thompson sisters approached, and noticed that Liz's arm was also wrapped up. "Liz, what happened to your arm?"

"Some of Kid's blood got on my sleeve when we were trying to break off the stinger," Liz told him. "There was venom mixed in with it, but his blood had already stopped a lot of it's potency, so when it soaked through my sleeve it just left a burn behind." Knygus came over and started unwrapping the make-shift bandage around her arm. "I-I'm fine! Help Kid first."

"There's really nothing I can do for him," Knygus told her. "And even though I can put proper bandaging around his injury, there's really no need for it. What's on him right now is fine, he's not bleeding and whatever venom is left around the wound isn't burning the wrappings away." She unwound the sleeve and exposed the bright red burn on the girl's arm. "You're a very lucky girl, Liz."

"I know…" The mark burned intensely, and she could feel odd prickly sensations, but it all eased as soon as Knygus spread on a thick layer of cooling salve. The woman re-bandaged her arm and turned back to Kid.

The young reaper was still unconscious, and Knygus felt the boy's forehead just as Liz had done before. "He's got quite the fever." Even though she said rewrapping Kid's injury wasn't necessary, she now wanted to see the severity of the actual injury for herself, so she could let Stein and Lord Death know. Carefully removing the make-shift bandaging, taking great care not to touch the wound itself, she eased off the rest of the boy's clothes so she could see the extent of the damage.

Other then the impalement wound itself, which had destroyed much of the surrounding muscle tissue, had also broken through the boy's scapula, leaving the rest of the bone cracked and oddly softened from the effects of the venom. The surrounding flesh was as red as the mark on Liz's arm, an odd contrast to the color the venom was turning the boy's skin. "He may look bad, but he's still a lot better off than anyone else would be." She turned to the girls. "I know it's not easy to look at, but I need you to tell me if the wound has gotten any worse since you wrapped it up.

Liz and Patty approached.

"It's the same," Liz told her. "The only changes that have happened since he got it is the color of his skin and….whatever that is, coming from his mouth and eyes."

Knygus took a thick cloth and wiped away some of the green ooze coming from Kid's mouth. Whatever it was, it did not burn away the cloth. "It's probably just his body's way of fighting the poison." She put the cloth down and carefully bandaged the boy up, and then went to radio for an airlift.

Liz sighed and plopped down on the ground next to her meister, feeling only slighter better than she had when they were still down in the hive.

"You okay Sis?" Patty asked as she sat down next to her.

"Yeah….I'm all right." She rubbed her face with her good arm. "It's been such a long day….and we still have to get Kid home and properly tended to." She felt a sudden shiver up her spine. "Oh no….I hope Lord Death isn't too angry with us…"

"H-He won't be…." came Kid's raspy voice.

"Kid!" the girls exclaimed, surprised that he had regained consciousness.

"N-Not so loud…" he rasped, wincing. Everything hurt, even listening, and he felt so weak that he couldn't even open his eyes.

"Sorry…." Patty whispered.

"We got you out," Liz told him. "We met up with Sid at the entrance and Miss Knygus took a look at you. She's radioing for an airlift right now." She watched her meister's labored breathing. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

"A lot….is unfortunately….putting it mildly…."

"Ditto…" came a deep male voice, the man who's leg Sid had cut off.

"Who's that?" Kid asked, obviously not being able to turn his head and open his eyes.

"I'm part of the Eradication Team Lord Death sent out after you kids. This whole area needs to be burned to ashes so that none of the venom remains. Unfortunately I ended up stepping in a puddle of that shit, and Sid had to cut my leg off before it could kill me."

"Heh….at least I'm pretty sure I'll keep my arm…." Kid managed to smile, though it faded quickly. He hoped he would keep it anyway, if there was one part of him that wasn't feeling anything at all, it was his right arm. He hoped it was just that the venom had burned out the nerves and they would eventually regenerate.

"You should stop talking and rest Kid," Liz told him.

"Yeah, you're not looking good at all," Patty added.

"I figured…" he whispered, and was beginning to feel his consciousness fade again. "Jus…don't worry 'bout my dad….'kay?"

His slurred speech was almost cute. Liz reached over and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead again, his sweaty skin still feeling just as hot as before. "Okay, we won't. You just rest now." Her meister made some kind of agreeing response, but it wasn't anything remotely understandable. Her hurt heart ached and she swallowed hard to hold back tears.

"You just listen here now young Miss," the injured man said. "If he survived a hit like that, with that venom, then I think he'll probably be okay. You said he's the Grim Reaper's son after all."

Liz sighed and looked back at her unconscious meister. "Yeah, I hope so…."

ooo

A/N: Oh, I'm sorry, does this cliffhanger suck? The next part is in the works and will be uploaded when it's finished. I plan on having two to three more parts, but we'll see. For any of you that are interested, I have a few (2) pieces of Soul Eater fanart on my Deviantart page, which you can access via the link in my bio page. No art from this story, not sure I'll get around to it, but I hope you guys like what I have anyway. Thanks for reading!