#soullock

John is 15 when his hand transforms into the barrel of a pistol for the first time, outing him as a Weapon.  He is sent to the Death Weapon Meister Academy in Arizona.  There, he starts classes in the NOT section, as he cannot fully transform into a Weapon yet. 

  Sherlock comes from a family of highly famous Meisters, and has been trained his whole life to attend DWMA. His brother Mycroft is a famous Meister, and is a very influential member of Lord Death’s council.  His soul partner, a Weapon named Greg Lestrade, runs local law enforcement and also teaches a few Weapons classes at the Academy. Sherlock starts in the EAT section, but to the frustration of his teachers often skips class and seems to have no interest in forming a Weapon/Meister partnership with anyone.  His only interest in Weapons is using them in his experiments.  He and Stein get along, and Sherlock can often be seen conversing with the Franken-doctor about genetics and body modification and corpses.

  John is smaller than the other boys, and Weapons tend to be seen as weaker than Meisters anyway, so he has a bad starting term at DWMA.  Where is your resolve, his teachers ask.  What are you trying to protect?  Why are you here at DWMA?  John has a poor sense of self worth, thinking of all the people he’d failed to protect so far.  He couldn’t protect his father from alcohol, or his mother from his father, or his sister from their father’s fate.  He came because he thought there was no other choice.  What can he do?  Without resolve, he cannot fully transform into a Weapon.

  Sherlock is brilliant and talented, but his lack of understanding of friendship and personal connections creates a rift between himself and the other students in his class.  He goes to DWMA excited for a Weapon partner, but is devastated when no one in his year is compatible with his intense and dominating personality.  Worse than that, nobody even likes him, and are jealous of his power as a Meister.  He can handle every Weapon-form with incredible precision, but there was no Weapon who wanted to be handled by him.  So he swears off partnership indefinitely, choosing to rely on his own power to evade and defeat his enemy.

  One day, a crime takes Sherlock’s interest.  There are serial poisonings happening in Death City, and DWMA suspects Witch activity.  Sherlock deduces the Witch’s identity using his own research, and finds an opportunity to go after the Witch on his own.  He thinks that if he can take down the Witch without using a Weapon, he will finally prove to his brother and teachers that he doesn’t need anyone, let alone an insignificant Weapon.  He goes to Mike Stamford for a certain type of supply, but Mike happens to be with John at the time so Mike introduces him to Sherlock.

  Sherlock makes his deductions: John is from the UK, like him and Mike.  He grew up in London, has a sibling who is on bad terms with him, jealous of his abilities and that he gets to go to a renowned school for “superheroes.”  Deduces that he cannot fully transform into his weapon-form because he lacks self-confidence.  “As you should,” he says cruelly, “for look at you.  You are nearly a head shorter than everyone in your class, and in that awful jumper look about as threatening as a fluffy gerbil.  What good are you to anybody if you cannot fight?”  John is furious. “Who do you think you are?”  Sherlock is almost out of the door, turns back.  “The name is Sherlock Holmes, and I’m the only Meister you’ll ever meet who doesn’t need a Weapon to kill a Witch.”

  By now, all of DWMA has heard of the poisonings in town, and that Lord Death suspects a Witch to be responsible.  Mike and John realize what Sherlock is going to do, and swear.  Mike goes for help from teachers, and John chases after Sherlock.

  Sherlock has tracked the Witch to a dilapidated motel at the edge of town.  He uses a simple “lost my key” trick on another guest to get let into the building, where he then slips away and into the stairwell to avoid being revealed by the proprietor.  He starts to feel nervous, gripping his own synthesized poison, meant to incapacitate the Witch with white fingers.  He could do this.  A simple knock on the door, claiming to be room service, and as soon as the Witch opened the door enough to dismiss him, he’d nail her with the poisoned darts, bust into the room and slit the paralyzed bitch’s throat himself.  He’d call the police and turn her in and he’d never have to worry about finding a Weapon partner again.

  Things don’t go to plan when Sherlock starts to enact his plan—as soon as he knocks, the door opens for him and a voice calls, “Come in, Sherlock Holmes.  I’ve been expecting you.”  Goons appear at his back, taking away his option of refusal.  He has time to think two things before he is ushered in and the door slams shut: “Oh, shit.”

  John has made his way to the motel, using Sherlock’s brother’s intel.  /Go into the residence next to the motel, and make your way to the second-floor bedroom on the left-hand side.  The window should match up with the witch’s motel room./ Mycroft was speaking over a cell phone. /Ignore the family, say whatever you’d like as an excuse, but get to that window!/  He bursts in on a family of four, screams out something about DWMA business, and launches himself up to the right bedroom.  It’s pink and has unicorns on the wall.  Great.  I’m traumatizing a little girl.  Excellent.

  He opens the window and peers out to the dark window he can see just across the alleyway.  He can barely make out a figure sitting at a table just beneath the window, a few candles in the center, and—yes!  Sherlock has just joined the Witch at the table.  What is that idiot doing??

  Sherlock sits at the table.  The Witch tells/Sherlock deduces some big sob story about DWMA agents attacking and killing her family.  “Even witches have families, you know?”  There’s some sort of higher power that got in touch with her.  They knew her family’s specialty was poison, they asked her to make a specific poison, which had specific qualities.  “It’s the rarest poison of all—it doesn’t affect the body, you see.  It affects the mind.  It slithers into the brain and twists everything around—right to left, down to up, dark to light.  Do you see now?  He told me to develop this poison, test it out on as many people I like, to get it ready for a very special someone.  He has big plans for this person, you know!  Do you want to know who that person is, whom has so fascinated my employer?”

  Sherlock rolls his eyes.  “Obvious.  He wants to poison the most powerful man in Death City—Lord Death himself.  To make him evil.  To bring down the entire Death Weapon Meister Academy!  Boring.  He won’t succeed.”

  The Witch laughs high and long.  Sherlock is irritated and very unnerved.  “What?”

  “Not even close.  That would be the rational thing to do with such a poison, right?  That’s what I would do, and maybe I will once I’m finished here.  No, this vial,” and she takes out a vial of poison and sets it in front of her, “is for you, Sherlock Holmes.”

  John is panicked and furious.  What is that idiot doing, sitting and talking with a bloody Witch for Death’s sake?  What’s next, a bloody tea party?  He flinches as the Witch puts a vial on the table.   Poison!  He had to do something, but what can he do?  Sherlock says something else, and suddenly the Witch snaps her finger and three blades are floating before Sherlock, poised to strike his throat at a moment’s notice.  SHIT!  He has to do something, and do something now!  The Witch slides the vial over to Sherlock, and suddenly everything is obvious, so obvious to John.  The Witch left a trail for Sherlock to follow, wanting to lure him here just for this—a game, some sick modified version of Russian Roulette, except there was no chance of escape the round.  Either Sherlock would drink the poison, or he would be stuck through by three sharp blades.  John watched in horror as Sherlock, pale but trying to affect bravado, picked up the vial and examined the contents.  “SHERLOCK,” John screamed, his voice echoing in the alley, but neither the witch nor Sherlock even flinched, unhearing.  He had to do something, he had to—

  Protect.  John needed to protect Sherlock.

  His arm transformed into the barrel of a pistol.  He knew what he had to do.  He stood up on the windowsill, aimed, and fired.

  Back to Sherlock—the witch snaps her fingers, tells him he must take the poison and join her master, or she would kill him here and now.  Sherlock picks up the vial, his mind racing, trying to find a way out of this, when a shot rings out.  The window beside them shatters, the Witch screams, and confusion reigns.  The bullet had stuck the middle blade floating at Sherlock’s throat, which had knocked the other two aside as it spun away.  They landed on the floor, useless.

  “SHERLOCK!” Sherlock spun just in time to see John Watson take a running leap from the building across the way, and crash through the motel window.  Shocked, Sherlock held out his arms in time to catch the other boy.

  “What is the meaning of this!” The Witch screams, and the room is suddenly choking with malicious magic.  “I will slaughter the pair of you!”

  John shoves Sherlock, saving his life yet again as the Witch strikes the place they had just been with scorpion barbs, her hands transformed.  “Sherlock,” he urges, “You can’t fight her on your own.  Let me help!  Use me!”  And John allows himself to feel that desire to protect again, lets it fill up his whole body, and as it does John’s body is filled with light and he transforms into his weapon-form for the first time in his life.

  It is a customized fancy pistol that is black and is engraved with dancing skeletons.  There are two glass chambers on each side: one is filled with black spheres, another with silver spheres, the third with blue spheres and the last with gold.

  “John,” Sherlock breathes, and everything is still for a moment.  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Admire me later!  Watch out behind you!”  Sherlock dodges an attack from one of the Witch’s goons.  He rolls behind couch and examines the weapon in his hand.  He looks at the vials, and adjusts the skeleton-hand dial on the top that switches between the different-coloured projectiles.  “John, is there any difference between these bullets?  Which should I shoot with?”

  “I don’t know!  Holy shit, Sherlock, just figure it out!  Get your head in this fight before it’s severed from your body!”

  Sherlock sets the dial on the black, pops up from the back of the couch, and fires a few rounds into the fray.  John guides the Meister’s hands for expert marksmanship, and together they take down several of the goons.  Then Sherlock is up and running, dodging a blow from a broadsword that cuts the couch nearly in half.  As he rolls under the bed to avoid a stream of fire sent by the Witch, he switches the dial to the silver bullets.  “Time to experiment,” he says, far too gleeful for the middle of a life-and-death battle, John thinks.  “Best to aim for a downed man first, until I know what these do,” Sherlock mused, and by then he is coming out the other side of the bed and was poised to fire.  He shoots two bullets into the fallen body of a goon, and reels back in surprise when the bullets exploded into glittery powder upon making impact.  The powder slowly sinks beneath the man’s skin, setting it aglow with silver light—and then suddenly the man was opening his eyes again, triumphant, the holes that had presumably ended his life plugged back up again. 

  The Witch and the last remaining goon looked on in wonder.  “Carl?” Goony #3 asked.

  “I’m alive!  This is amazing!  I feel great!” said Carl.

  “Oh shit,” said Sherlock.  “That’s the opposite of useful John, what kind of idiotic Weapon are you?”

  “Hey, I didn’t choose what form to be in, or how my form gets used.  You’re the one who started shooting with the silver bullets!”

  “Well how could I possibly deduce that any bullets, on a weapon meant to help me kill my enemies, would bring them back to life instead!”

  As John and Sherlock bickered, Sherlock was up and running again, bursting out of the motel room and sprinting down the hall, dodging blades and magic flames alike.  “Just set the dial back to the black ones, we know those are effective,” John was saying.

  Sherlock burst into the stairwell and started making his way up to the roof.  He looked at the dial and nearly pouted.  “There are two other colours I haven’t tried yet.  What if one of those turns out to be even more effective than the black?”

  “FOR GODS SAKE, SHERLOCK, NOW’S REALLY NOT THE TIME!  Experiment later, when our lives are not in danger!”

  “Don’t be boring, John.”  He set the dial to gold.  “I can multi-task.”  He paused at the top of the stairwell, and aimed John down at the two goons one level down, who were giving chase.  “Make sure you hit right between them, so whatever explodes out of this hits both of them.”

  John guided his Meister’s aim, and true to form the gold bullet struck the wall right in-between Goony #3 and the revived Carl.  Like the silver bullet, the gold bullet exploded into glittery powder on impact, and coated the two men.

  The men had barely enough time to look shocked before their eyes rolled up into their heads and they collapsed right there on the stairwell.  For a nanosecond the students thought they were dead—but then the unnamed goon snored loudly, broadcasting their status.  “Sleeping powder!  That’s handy.”

  The Witch screamed in fury, and Sherlock had to throw himself back into the wall as very hot flames roared past his head.  “Hold still you maggot, I’m going to roast you alive, you and your pet peashooter!”

  “You’re lame and immature!” John called out as Sherlock lunged across the landing and threw open the door to the roof.

  “Really, John?  You antagonize her like that, and she’s the immature one?”

  “Stop giggling, our lives are still in danger. It’s inappropriate.”

  “I can’t help it, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages.  And you’re giggling too, you know.”

  “Yeah, well, your crazy is catching.  Are you gonna try the blue bullets, now?”

  In response, Sherlock set the skeleton’s hand to point to the blue spheres, and crouched to the left of the roof access door.  He pointed John towards the door and waited.  “I hope these are suitable for killing a Witch,” John said.

  “Hush, and concentrate,” Sherlock chided.

  The Witch burst through the roof access door in a blaze of fire.  In the split second before she catches sight of them, the Weapon-and-Meister pair make their move.  They fire two blue bullets, one missing completely and the other catching her in the arm.

  “John, you weren’t concentrating!” Sherlock roared, as the witch screamed in pain and sent deadly fire at him, forcing him to roll aside.

  “Shut up, it’s your shoddy aim!  Watch out!”  The witch’s flames grew more intense, both of her hands up and flinging magic at them.

  Just when it seemed like the students were in serious trouble, suddenly the witch’s arm, the one that was shot, collapsed on her, falling useless at her side.  “What … what is this?” She screeched, and John and Sherlock watched as she tried to move her arm and was unsuccessful.

  And Sherlock obviously understood immediately what was going on, because he grinned and held John up once again.  “Get her legs, John.”  And he fired twice, this time successful in hitting both targets.

  The witch’s legs collapsed, and she screamed louder.  She still attempted to burn the students with her one good hand, but was thwarted when Sherlock shot her again, fully immobilizing her.

  “A paralytic!  How fortunate.  You know, that’s what I was planning on doing before John so rudely interrupted me.  I had the vial in my palm and everything.  I would have been fine.”

  “Shut up.  Your plan was stupid from the very moment you thought it,” John said flatly.

  Sherlock only grinned.  “No matter.”  He put the skeletal pointer back on the black bullets.  “Now,” he addressed the paralyzed witch, “tell me who your benefactor is.”

  The witch resisted all lines of questioning, only replying with curses and insults.  “Don’t you understand?” Sherlock cried, firing the bullets in non-lethal but extremely painful locations on her body.  “I can still make you hurt.  I can make you suffer!  Just answer my question, and I’ll put you out of your misery.  Who is your employer?!”  He stepped on the wounds he’d created, causing the bitch to scream.

  “AAAAH—MORIARTY!”

  “Thank you,” Sherlock said, and ended her with a shot to the forehead.

  John transforms back.  Greg Lestrade arrives on-scene and chews them out something major, then takes their statements.  His people take away the witch’s body.  Sherlock’s brother is there also, and also reprimands the pair of them (Sherlock takes this much less gracefully than he did with Lestrade—and seeing how he was practically having a tantrum at the DI, this was saying something.)

  Suspended, facing months of detention upon their return, John and Sherlock slowly walk towards their dormitories, exhausted but still high on adrenaline.  They talk and laugh and giggle.  John is flushed and very chuffed and Sherlock is immensely enjoying the novelty of having someone actually like him. 

  “—That was surely the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.  I can’t believe we did that.  And I transformed, finally transformed!  I can’t believe tonight happened—and you, the way you fought, I’ve never seen anything like it!”

  “Would you like to see some more?” The question sort of bursts out of him unexpectedly.  He’s nervous, dreading and hoping that John will choose to stay, that John will choose him.

  John turns around and gives Sherlock a weighing look.  Sherlock knows that he understands exactly what’s been asked.  And then John smiles, wide and happy, and Sherlock’s heart beats very fast.