"You don't have to do this."
"I am well aware of that."
"Heh, I guess I could use the company in hell."
"It's where we were both going to end up anyway."
There is the sounds of hands hitting the floor.
"I just hope this works."
And then there was nothing.
"Someone help!" A woman's back brushed up against the cold, hard tiles of the dead end. She clutched her purse protectively to her chest, breath coming a little too fast and heart racing as the man approached her, smelling all too much of alcohol and bearing down on her with a knife that looked all too sharp.
"Come on lady, just the purse is all I need." She flinched away as his spare hand came up to caress her soft cheek, tears brimming her eyes as calloused fingers slid down and began curving their way around her fragile neck, short pants of air escaping her mouth as if to see how many last breaths she could have before her short life ended.
"Wow, this is a suspicious alleyway. All dark and everything, even a dead end, can you get more cliché?" A boyish voice broke the tension in the air like when a good hammer comes in contact with glass, leaving dangerous shards lying around, waiting to cut an unsuspecting someone.
"How about you just walk away kid?" The man sneered, turning his face around, allowing a few of his fingers to linger on her neck for a few moments before allowing his back to face the girl, who promptly lost her will to stand, collapsing to the ground, shivering. Then man's cold gaze landed on the short figure, a beige jacket billowing slightly in the breeze.
"Kid? I'm a little more than that." Slowly, a white gloved hand rose upward, something blue showing on the palm before it allowed the face to be seen. As faces go, it was a good face, albeit a little childish. It seemed to hold onto some of the softness of a younger person, though the boy must have been fifteen or sixteen. Bright blonde hair had a small part to the side, cheerful golden eyes staring at the much bigger man full of defiance.
"I gave you a chance, twerp." The man grunted before beginning to advance on the boy, the knife held out threateningly. There was a smirk, the sound of the hands clapping together, and then white gloves hitting the side of a building, blue sparks spidering across and sinking into the concrete.
"Fair enough." The boy replies, and suddenly there's a giant metal suit of armor standing beside him, both of them in a defensive posture, and the man feels his heart sink down to somewhere close to the center of the Earth.
"Y-you're him, aren't you? The Alchemist of the people, the Armor Alchemist-"
"Alfonse Elric at your service." He gave a mock salute.
Too easy. I dusted off my hands slightly as a few men came to take away the man. I had been keeping an eye on this guy all day while I was looking for some groceries and sure enough - he had been up to no good. I slid my gloves carefully off my hands and pocketed them.
"Are you really the Armor Alchemist?" I jumped slightly, looking down at the women who had yet to retrieve her bearing enough to stand up.
"Heh, yeah, but you can just call me Al, everyone does." I extended my hand out towards her, and she gratefully took it.
"So it's true then, you normally fight side by side with a suit of metal by sending part of your soul into it?" She asked in disbelief, and I felt myself blush slightly.
"Something like that, it's mostly instinctual, really." I rubbed the back of my head, avoiding eye contact.
"A-amazing."
"Heh, I guess." I wasn't a huge fan of fans, if that made any sense. I had met plenty of people in my life that deserved the praise of the people far more than me, but when people looked at me with such awe… all I could really do was just vaguely agree with them so as not to unintentionally offend someone.
Eventually the local police came to make sure that she was okay and I found my opportunity to slip out. When I was younger, my teacher had made sure that I knew how to draw transfiguration circles like the back of my hand, and I did, but over time I had discovered that taking the time to draw the circle when you're in the middle of a fight can make you next to killed.
Alchemy was the embodiment of a circle. You took elements , deconstructed it, and then returned it to become a whole. I made sense that in order to perform alchemy, you had to draw circles as the base of alchemy. It was eventually discovered that you could have transmutation circles on your hands making a faster and easier way to perform alchemy. But you could only have one kind of transmutation circle, so it was relatively limiting, and on top of that you had to have extensive knowledge of transmutation circles, especially the one that you had one your hand. The likeliness of having bad rebound was increased exponentially, and around 99% of the people who had tried similar things had lost their hands, arms, legs, lives, and had transmuted themselves into disfigured monsters that either had to be put down or died shortly. Mastering the technique took years, sometimes decades, though there were things you could do to make it a little easier. Essentially the more circles you had the more stable the transmutation circles were. For instance, I had two circles on my gloves and then I made a third one by clapping my hands together.
A lot of soldiers from Ishval had even had transmutation circles tattooed on their hands, which was extremely dangerous in daily life, requiring a lot of discipline to not inadvertently cause a transmutation and ruin their own or someone else's life.
Finally, my teacher was so incredible that she could create transmutation with no actual drawn circle, the only circle she had was with her hands by clapping them. I always told people that I had gotten my inspiration for my technique by her, creating my own transfiguration circle that could do most basic and intermediate alchemy, putting it on two gloves so I could perform alchemy just with a clap of my hands, but really I wasn't sure when I had first thought up that idea. It came relatively naturally to me, like I had gained inspiration from something even closer to me than teacher, something I had seen more often.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts as I exited the alleyway, straightening out my suit vest. I had been getting lost in thought a lot recently. Not a desirably thing.
"Ah, Alphonse!" My head lifted at the familiar hardened female voice.
"Lieutenant Hawkeye!" I greeted, giving a small wave as I approached the blonde haired woman. "It's great to see you, how have you been?" She gave me a smile, though a sigh was on the tip of her tongue.
" As good as one can expect. Havoc's been dumped again, so there's no chance of him showing up to work for at least a week. Breda, Falman, and Fuery were responsible for it this time, they set it up and everything." She raised a hand to her forehead.
"It's a wonder that you can keep those four in line at all." I threw her an encouraging smile.
"Well, Armstrong does help when he can." A sudden thought assaulted my brain, coming from nowhere but seeming important.
"Hawkeye, if you don't mind me asking, why did you join the military?" She frowned slightly at that, and for a second I was afraid I'd crossed my boundaries.
"I'm not really sure, I joined after my fathers' death. Perhaps I felt like I could find away to prevent death. Where are you headed to next?" She seemed eager to change the subject, and I raised an eyebrow slightly, but I was too polite to probe.
"I think I have a lead on… something." I gave her a pointed look, and I knew Hawkeye was well aware of what I was talking about. "I'm going to see if I can find anything xingese alkahestry."
"Xingese alkahestry? Not alchemy?"
"It's similar, I think. But not? I'm not sure, that's why I'm looking into it."
"Well, best of luck, Alphonse." Riza gave me a quick pat on the shoulder.
Riza Hawkeye stood alone in the room. She didn't dare turn on the light, allowing the setting sun to light up the room through the window. There hadn't been a Colonel who had taken this room in several decades, the room staying empty, as if forgotten and caught in time. Slowly, she pulled out her gun.
'why did you join the military?' Alphonse Elric had spurred a feeling in her that she hadn't felt in a while, one she couldn't name. There had been a time she knew the answer, she knew that she had joined for a reason. For someone or something, but the cause was lost to her, like a word on the tip of her tongue that simply wouldn't put itself into formable letters.
Why was she here, of all places? What had led her to an abandoned room? What was the one thing missing from the scene she was taking in?
Sharply she turned around, leaving the room behind her, only to haunt her dreams.