Yay, I posted Chapter two!!! This chapter is the reason I came up with the title. I just needed something to save the story as and just typed in whatever my eye happened to land on. The muses are not very fond of me when it comes to titles, I think. It takes me forever to come up with good, meaningful ones. Which this one, I'm sorry to say, is not.
Clang.
I grunted quietly, still half-asleep.
Clang.
I rolled over and tugged my hood over my ears.
Clang.
Opening my eyes a crack, I discovered that the cat was gone and the sun's position in the sky had shifted. How long had I been out?
Clang.
I grimaced at the metallic sound, annoyed.
"Okay, Greed, what are you doing this time?" I muttered, leaning over the edge of the roof.
Clang.
"Ouch! Watch it, Loa!" Martel's voice reached me, but I didn't see her. Loa grunted an apology, and Dorchet was also present, the larger man lugging a huge suit of armor with him. Dorchet held the helmet by a white plume so that it swung back and forth, hitting the wall repetitively.
I considered flinging a rock at him, wincing as it sent out another "clang," and searched for Martel. However, they disappeared down the stairs, leaving me mystified.
"Curiosity killed the cat," I told myself and lay back down, only to get up again and slip after them moments later.
When they were within sight, I hid behind a corner and peered after them. I seen noticed Martel's short blonde hair and tattoos inside the armor, looking pissed and rubbing her head. Tailing them was easy, but I still had no clue what was going on. Eventually I had to make for an air vent since there was no other secret way into the back room.
There, the armor was chained up with Martel still inside it, and Dorchet placed the helmet back on it and seated himself on some crates. Loa walked away saying, "I'll go get him."
After his footsteps faded away, I heard Martel sigh.
"Sorry, but I've got guard duty. I know it feels weird for me to be inside you, but you'll just have to deal with it, okay?"
Wait, what the hell? Was she talking to the armor? Last time I checked, Martel didn't apologize to empty hunks of metal, or most people in general.
"That's alright. I'm used to it by now."
The new voice made me jump. It sounded like a young boy inside the armor, but I'd only seen Martel. Was she in there with him? That was…ahem…suggestive. Didn't know she liked little kids.
Yeah, right.
"Just don't touch that blood seal. It's the only thing keeping me in this world," the voice continued, and the armor moved slightly, the helmet's "eyes" glowing with a strange light.
Blood seal? Geez, it looked like Martel was moving the armor, but she was way too small to do that much. Was there someone else bigger than her in there? And what was the whole "sorry I'm inside you" thing?
"You know," Martel told him, "your body's kind of neat."
"You're unusual yourself, aren't you, Miss?"
Damn straight.
"Do you know what a chimera is? My body is part snake."
"What?" The armor moved uncomfortably. "But human-animal chimeras have never been made before!"
"That's what you think, huh? I used to be a soldier, but I was critically wounded in the Eastern civil war. They dragged my half-dead body away and experimented on me."
"But that's terrible!"
Was this kid serious? Somebody's oblivious to the real world…
"I guess it was, but if they hadn't picked me, I would've died anyways. Human or chimera, it doesn't matter. At least I'm alive."
"Yeah, they didn't give a damn what we wanted," Dorchet put in, lighting a pipe. "To them, we were just lab rats."
My jaw trembled slightly, but I ignored it.
"What animal did they combine you with?"
"Guess."
"Just watch. He raises one leg when he pees," Martel joked.
"I DO NOT!" he yelled back.
I grinned, holding back a laugh. Good one, Martel.
"Was it… a dog?"
"Yeah. I kind of like it."
I sighed quietly. I knew all this already. What I wanted to find out was who the armor kid was. When was the conversation going to go that way? If it didn't, I might have to go beat it out of Dorchet.
Again.
God, I love my life.
The door opened, drawing my attention back to the room below. Greed, followed by Loa and several other men, stepped in, and Greed approached the armor.
"Is that him?"
"Yup."
I gasped as he lifted the helmet, allowing a red alchemical symbol to flash into view. I jerked out my gloves and scanned the fingertips, finding the identical one on the index finger of one hand.
I got it. A soul transmutation.
Well, well.
Greed plopped the helmet back in place
"Nice to meet you, kid. The name's Greed. Let's be friends."
Friends, my ass. What was he trying to gain this time, that—
"The ouroboros tattoo!"
I blinked at the sudden exclamation.
"Huh? You know about these?" Greed asked, glancing at his left hand.
"I met someone weird in Central who had that mark."
"You met one of the others? Which one was it? That hag Lust? Or that lazy-ass Sloth? Aw, it doesn't matter."
I remembered asking him about his tattoo. Annoyingly, he'd only talked about it that one time. The next time I asked him, he brushed me off, sounding irritated. Oh wait, that was after I framed him for a bunch of pranks I pulled on everyone else. Oops.
"Are you some kind of bad guys?"
Hell yeah, armor boy.
"I wouldn't say we're bad, but we're not exactly good either," Greed told him. I almost scoffed out loud.
"So, Al, isn't it?" he continued.
Oh, that was his name.
"How does it feel to be nothing but a soul in a body that can never die?"
Sensing an "I am Greed, fear me" rant in the making, I scanned the room for something else interesting. What did Greed want with Al anyway? To use him as a decoration? Yeah, right, Greed was way more ambitious than that. He probably wanted to turn him into an automatic ceiling fan or something…
My attention span was decreasing rapidly, if that was even possible. I needed something to do, like kick Dorchet's ass. Then I noticed that Loa was standing directly beneath me.
Within range.
Grinning maniacally, I lifted my foot to kick the grate out again, and then the bastard decided to step forward, out of the way.
"You jacka—" I started to hiss.
A fist flew out of the ground and embedded itself in Greed's stomach, and my grin was magically restored.
"You let your guard down!" Al announced, scratching the ground with a rock. "I can easily break these chains with alchemy—"
"You were saying?" Greed sneered. The concrete fist crumbled, and Greed slammed the armor against the ground.
"Just chill, okay? Oops, sorry about that, Martel. Forgot you were in there."
I winced empathetically, pitying the snake woman in spite of myself.
"Parlor tricks like that don't work on me, kid," Greed went on. "If you want to kill a guy, you've gotta try harder…like this."
Loa bashed his head in with his hammer. I clenched a fist in satisfaction and waited for him to get up again. Al, who appeared thoroughly freaked out, was yelling at Loa.
"Shut up and watch," I muttered quietly, amused by his reactions. A loud crack filled the room as Greed snapped his head back in place and started explaining about homunculi. Armor boy didn't believe it at first, of course.
"You can't be immortal!"
"You're right. Even with a body like this, I'm not immortal."
"Sure, sure. Why don't' I kill you right here to prove it?" I snickered.
He glanced up at the air vent.
"Selena?"
"Oh, I said that too loud, didn't I?"
"Yeah. You did."
"Shit."
Al fidgeted awkwardly.
"Um, who is that?"
"Just the girl who breaks in every so often," I answered automatically.
"Why don't you come down here?" Greed suggested flatly.
"Shut up, Greed. I'm not that stupid."
"How long have you been up there?"
"I followed Loa and Dorchet after a certain son of a bitch disturbed my precious nap time."
"Which son of a bitch?"
"The son of a bitch."
All eyes turned to Dorchet, who glared guiltily at the floor, probably hoping for a chance to stab me someday. I loved putting him on the spot.
"Then you know what he's here for?" Greed cocked a thumb at Al.
"Hmm… No, not really. Care to enlighten me?"
His head dropped to his palm with an irritated groan. Snickering, I tugged the grate open and landed lightly on the floor below, making Al jump.
"Hey there," I waved. Greed straightened up, hands in pockets.
"I thought you weren't coming down?"
"I want to talk to this guy." I motioned to the suit of armor next to him, tilting my head inside my hood sweetly. "What do you want from him, anyways?"
Greed took hold of the helmet and swept it off again before Al could protest.
"See that rune?"
"Yeah."
"You know what it's for?"
"Uh-huh."
"Think about it. That's the same as eternal life. I want to know how it was done."
"So you kidnapped him."
"Yeah."
"I could've told you how to do that."
He blinked.
"Wait, what?"
I held up my middle finger with the rune for soul transmutation on it.
"Yes. I could have," I deadpanned.
He stared at it like I wasn't totally flipping him off, then narrowed his eyes.
"You wouldn't have told me squat."
"Bravo, we have a winner," I smirked at him.
Greed rubbed the back of his neck impatiently.
"Okay, now that we have that cleared up, are you going to go or what?"
"I have unfinished business here," I drawled.
"Which is?"
"I told you, I want to talk to armor boy."
Al glanced between the two of us.
"Um…"
"I don't have time for you right now," Greed interrupted him.
"Sure you don't," I brushed him off, squatting down to Al's eye level. "Well then, it's Al, right? Nice to meet you."
"Hello," he answered uncertainly. "Your name's Selena?"
"Yup."
"And you're an alchemist?"
"That's right. You are too, aren't you?"
"Yeah…"
"You're not a state alchemist, are you?"
"No."
"Good. If Greed got arrested for abducting a military officer, I'd have to visit a prison to kick his dumb ass, and I'm too lazy to do that, you know?"
"I just told you this morning—" Greed began.
"You don't fight women, I know," I interrupted him irritably. "And I keep telling you that you're a sexist bastard."
"Hey, that's harsh."
"Hey, get over it."
Al broke into our not-so-friendly exchange, "Those gloves have a lot of advanced transmutation circles on them. Did you make them yourself?"
I grinned, holding them up proudly.
"You bet. My teacher told me to apply what he taught me, so I did. They're my best work."
"How old are you?"
"Fourteen. What about you?"
"Fourteen."
"Awesome."
"Why are you here, of all places? You look like you have the skill to be a state alchemist."
"Well, see, it's not so easy for me to go out in public," I laughed awkwardly.
"Why not?"
I placed a finger against my lips.
"It's a secret."
And then someone pulled my hood off.
Selena's a fun character to work with. All she wants to do is cause trouble for Greed and have an occasional fight with Dorchet. A simple life, right? By the way, I don't know why or how she would know about soul transmutations when she's never really done one or seen one. I'm just assuming she read about it or her teacher told her about it. Come to think of it, she wouldn't need it on her gloves. Maybe she was running out of different types of transmutation circles for the fingers?
Okay, I'm just rambling now. Reviews, plz.
