Morphing

Roy Mustang was morphing into something he never thought he would become.


A/N: These characters aren't mine, yada yada. There will be swearing a drug use in later chapters, so please, if you aren't old enough or mature enough to handle it, or if reading will negatively impact you, please don't read. I won't be offended. _


Roy Mustang was far too old for this.

For the past week and a half, Colonel Roy Mustang and his men had been scouring the rain soaked streets of Central for a man that quite frankly, he was beginning to have his doubts existed. No matter what leads he and his team received, upon arriving armed and ready, the scene always turned up empty. The only thing that proved that the man, whom they called "The Mask," was real was the string of bodies that had been showing up in nearly every nook and cranny of the capital city of Amestris. The odd thing about the bodies, though, was that there were never any possessions taken from them, and The Mask did not discern between men, women, and children of all ages. What made these murders distinct were five gunshot wounds in precisely the same places on each body; one in each leg, one in each arm, and a bullet hole in the dead center of the forehead. It was with sick horror that Mustang had realized that The Mask wanted to make sure that his victims had no possible means of crawling away from him before he shot them cleanly in the head to finish them off. This last fact, however, was not the most disturbing.

What made these murders potentially the worst that Colonel Mustang had ever investigated was the fact that each of the victims' faces had been removed, the skin sliced cleanly away from the bloody pulp of their faces as if they had removed a particularly horrific mask, which is what earned the killer his title. So far, the mad man had killed twelve people in Central alone, and the city was beginning to panic, teetering on edge to match Roy Mustang's last nerve.

"Are you sure about this one Hughes?" He hissed softly, as his small team of men came to a silent halt behind his raised hand, crammed into one of the many narrow alleyways in the city.

Beside the Colonel, Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes gave curt nod, raising both of his hands to reveal his trademark throwing knives.

Like so many of Mustang's cases, Hughes had been the intelligence member chosen to assist the Colonel, and Roy had not doubted his friend's information gathering abilities for a second. However, with each lead that had come up as a dud, Maes knew that Roy grew more and more antsy. Not only had they not caught the man responsible for a dozen confirmed deaths, but Maes knew that if Roy's team continued to fail, it would seriously impact his furious bid to move up in the ranks, and eventually become Fuhrer.

Maes glanced over at his best friend's face, catching Roy's determined black eyes narrowed in concentration as he waited for the right moment to signal his men to strike.

He would not let Roy fail.

Roy raised his right hand, his fingers tight and ready to snap his trademark flames into life. "On my mark, soldiers."

Maes inhaled sharply.

"NOW!"

With preemptive, Colonel Mustang threw down his raised left hand and rushed around the corner of the dim alleyway, Maes and the rest of his men hot on his heels.

Even as far as the other side of Central, two distinctive gunshots could be heard cracking through the overcastted skies.


Hughes saw the scene before him unfold with painstaking slowness.

At the dead end of the corridor, a heavy set man was leaning over the curled form of what appeared to be a young man, pressing a small revolver against the struggling man's forehead. Hearing Mustang's cry, however, the man jerked his head up and, in a fashion that betrayed his hulking physique, deftly changed targets with his gun, pointing it instead at Roy and his men as they flooded the small space. In under a second, the man cocked his gun and fired two shots ahead of him with deadly precision.

Out of the corner of his eye, Maes saw Roy crumple and fall without a sound until his body thudded hard against the unforgiving cobblestone street.

"Open fire!" he yelled, himself letting loose of the knives he held in each hand.

Against the rain of gunshots, Maes barely noticed as the in front of them quickly fell to the ground without so much as a twitch. He had dropped to his knees, instinctively removing his military jacket. From what he could see by the blood that was quickly staining both the ground and the other man's uniform, Roy had been shot once in the right arm, and once in his left leg, but it was hard to be sure. A visceral scream was tearing itself up through Roy's throat, and his eyes that had looked so steady just a few moments before were now unfocused and wide, staring up into the grey sky above as tears welled at the popping corners.

As Maes reached to remove Roy's own jacket, the Colonel's torso bucked upward, and his teeth gnashed together in a sickening crack, his screaming ceasing as he attempted to gain control over his pain. In between his clenched teeth, Roy sucked into huge and horrible gasps as he squirmed under Maes' touch.

"Come on Roy, stay with me. Calm down and try to hold still," he commanded as gently as he could manage, but the request went unheard to Mustang's deaf ears. Noticing that the fire had ceased, Maes shouted over his shoulder at whichever one of the men was listening.

"I need a medic here!"

"Yes, sir!"

Maes turned back to Roy, who was still writhing under the Lt. Colonel's strong grip. Knowing that getting his friend to listen to him was beyond reason at this point, Hughes drew another knife from within his sleeve and cut through Mustang's jacket.

It was exactly what Maes had suspected, but in a way, far worse.

The Mask had shot Roy in the arm, but with either incredible skill or incredible luck, the man had managed to shoot cleanly through his humerus. Even through the sticky blood that was flowing easily from the wound, Maes could see that the bone had shattered and separated, leaving little white fragments embedded in the surrounding meat of Mustang's arm.

Knowing that this was beyond him, Maes tied the arm of his jacket around Roy's arm and pulled it into a tight knot, attempting to create a makeshift tourniquet, hoping that the medic would arrive quickly. As he did this, however, another scream broke its way out from behind the Colonel's clenched teeth at the new pressure that had been applied to the broken wound. He thrashed his head from side to side, bashing his taut face against the slick stone, drawing even more blood.

Hughes immediately caught his friend's head in his hands, holding him steady, forcing their eyes to lock.

"Roy, calm down! Listen to my voice, it's going to be alright. Just hold on a little bit longer."

The pain, it seemed, was too great and after only a brief second of contact, Mustang's eyes dulled and rolled back into his head.

"Dammit, Roy," Maes hissed, as he released his friend's head, laying it gently to the ground. He wasted no time in picking up his knife once more to cut the remaining arm off of Roy's jacket and tied it just above the sluggishly bleeding wound in his leg. He looked up again over his shoulder. "Where the hell is the goddamned medic?!"

"Lt. Colonel, sir."

A solider whose name Hughes did not know had materialized at this side, his arm plastered in salute. Maes looked up at him impatiently.

"At ease. Well, is the medic here or not?" He said it testily, but he didn't care. Every second that passed was another second closer to Roy fading away for good. Something which he absolutely would not allow.

"He's here and ready to take the Colonel to Central Hospital. He was collecting the victim, sir."

Maes looked over to see an ambulance parked nearby, with the young man already loaded into the back.

When had that gotten there?

"Right," he said slowly, regaining his senses. A man and a woman in white uniforms had knelt beside him and were lifting Roy's limp body onto a stretcher on the ground next to them. As they lifted the Colonel up and began to carry him away, Maes reluctantly turned back to the Private before him.

"Tell the workers in the ambulance to call Headquarters and ask 1st Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye to head to Central Hospital immediately. I don't care what she's doing, just tell her it's my orders."

The Private saluted, and then rushed away.

Maes stood up straighter, taking in a deep breath.

Roy would be okay.

He would just have to wait until he got there.

A/N: And so ends chapter 1… Huh. It feels short. Please tell me what you think, and what I need to work on! Your criticism is greatly appreciated Also, this chapter was just background for the rest of the story…Boo.