I looked at the strange object in my hands with suspicion, giving it a squeeze, a sniff, and a few more pokes. It didn't make any sense, unless they had some sort of local food-based Alchemy. Rice, meat, sauce and greens all merged together in some sort of strange bread bag. Like a crazy chimera made out of food instead of animals. It looked like it ought to be poisonous, but the rest of the people on the street seemed to like it, so I bit down anyway.
It was good, really good. Really, really good.
"You liking it, shorty?" the guy with the cart said as he put my coins in his wallet. I nodded to him. It was so good, I couldn't even bring myself to anger over him calling me a sprout.
The coins themselves… I hoped they wouldn't be discovered too quickly. It'd taken a while, but some sort of automated machine that took coins and a bit of Alchemy had allowed me to figure out how to transmute some petty cash from scrap metal, or at least something close enough to this place's coins that people wouldn't immediately notice. It wasn't nice, and in Amestris, it would be highly illegal, but a man needed to eat, so I didn't feel too bad about it.
I sat down on a bench in the park, finally feeling relaxed. This city was weird, the people were weirder, and even the parks were the weirdest, but these were foreigners, so that could all be forgiven, as long as they had good food. Which they had. Almost as good as Ishvallan stew, which was in a class of its own.
Hidden in plain sight, Alchemically repaired clothes and gloves covering my scratched up AutoMail, I looked around, watching the people in the park. They looked… normal enough, for how weird the city was turning out to be. Yes, most of them were obsessed with glowing rectangles that seemed to be some sort of communication device, yes, the fashion was completely ridiculous, and yes, these people had an obsession with jogging in the early morning. But even with all of that, they were still people.
Even with the continued bombings plaguing the city, life went on. Parents went shopping with their children, teenagers flirted like idiots, all those things. Everything was slightly different though. Small wagons to transport babies were quite popular, and I spotted several people rolling around with wheels strapped to their feet, or to a wooden plank. It was reassuring, knowing that someone eating breakfast on a bench in the park wouldn't immediately stand out as a foreign spy of some sort.
"Well, let's get going," I told myself, jumping up from the bench, trying to figure out where I'd have to go to get back to my hideout. The sun was just above the ocean in the East, so I had to go… "That way!" I pointed, moving to the North. Yes, I'd come here in a roundabout way, but I was pretty sure I'd have to go North to find my way back to the dilapidated area that was my temporary home.
Something was wrong. There were too few people around, too many cars hidden in nearby alleyways. Something was out of the ordinary, which probably meant something was wrong for me.
The same thing as before, the girl with the giant Chimera again? Or something else?
Only one way to find out. I walked up to a nearby wall, placing my hands against it to transmute a ladder into the concrete, then made my way up, turning it back into a smooth wall behind me. No need to give my presence away just yet.
Proper vantage point acquired, I looked around the city. There were several people a few buildings over, hidden under dish-like objects, next to small walls and other such things. Obviously hiding from anyone walking down the street, but clearly visible from behind. Not complete idiots, but I wouldn't exactly call them well-trained. They weren't wearing the uniforms I'd come to expect from the local military, or National Guard as I'd learned, either.
I smiled. This was going to be a fun little. I took a running start, setting my right leg on the floor just before the edge of the building, then using the mechanical strength of the AutoMail in my left leg, placed upon the small raise at the side of the roof, to launch myself forwards over the alleyway, dashing forwards and repeating the manoeuvre several times. Then, as I came closer, I slowed down, stepping on my tippy toes as I crept up on one of the watching men. He was bald, with a tattoo inked on the back of his head in the local script. He had one of those strange communication devices on the ground next to him, and a set of binoculars in his hands which he used to screen the streets down below.
I snuck up behind him, tapping on his shoulder. "Hey, since you've been doing such a good job, I have something for you."
The man turned around in surprise, asking "what?"
"This!" I replied, a metal fist meeting his face, dropping him to the ground. A quick transmutation later, and he was bound to the roof itself, unable to call for help. I looked at his device. How did it work? Picking it up, I tapped the screen like I'd seen people do before, and it lit up, showing a set of different scribbles, presumably names, and a little slider at the bottom that was currently turned to red.
"Lion four checking in, nothing here," a voice spoke, and one of the little scribbles had the button it was on light up green.
So it was a communications thing. Which meant…
I kept it in my hand, and moved forwards to a different watcher, one building over. A quick Alchemy assisted jump, and I snuck up behind him. Then, I took another look at the device, and used my finger sneaking up from behind, then looking at the device, turning the slider from red to green with a flick of my finger. "I think he's behind you," I said, watching one of the names, presumably the device's former owner, light up green as I did so.
Just as I'd expected, this man's device replicated the sounds. Then, the moment the guy turned-
"And that's two," I noted, metal fist hitting face once again as my words were repeated on the man's device. Right… they'd know I was here now. Not my smartest plan so far. I clapped my hands together, deforming the building beneath me to launch me towards my next target. He panicked, this one seeing me coming, and grabbed for a gun, but I landed before he could get a proper grip on it, and a transmutation later dropped him through the floor, crashing down while I caught his weapon with a stone tendril.
I looked back at the device I'd stolen. Ten names, meaning seven to go. Six if one of them was supporting from the back.
Shots were fired, and I tucked the device into my belt before I launched myself through the air again, this time throwing myself through a broken window somewhere below one of the guards. Landing inside, I could see that the building was mostly abandoned, and a second later, a man dropped through the ceiling in front of me, a look of surprise on his face, and therefore still conscious.
I grabbed him by the collar, pushing him against the wall with my meager weight, hoping my metal arm would intimidate enough to keep him locked up.
"What do you want?" I asked, moving up close, staring straight into his eyes with a look I normally reserved for homunculi and people who insulted my height.
"What… the fuck?!" the man replied.
"I said, who are you working for!"
The man just looked at me in confusion.
"How many of you! Or do I need to beat you up some more!"
"Hey hey, no need for that, just tell me what to answer first shorty! I can't ans-" His speech was cut off by a metal knee in his stomach.
"Don't call me a midget!" I yelled, throwing him to the floor. "You're the one the size of a-"
Metal grinded on concrete below, tearing it apart. "What the?"
"Heh, now you've done it," the man groaned, holding his stomach in pain. "No way your lil' tricks are gonna work on the boss, he's gonna kill ya."
"A boss huh?" I asked, smashing my hands together, transforming the steel of my right arm into a blade. "Guess that means I don't have to deal with the small fry anymore."
The tearing sound continued, moving through the building. Was he really going to… no, his subordinate was still in here, he wouldn't…
The building creaked below me, and I leaped out of the window I'd come in through. Sure, they might have been my enemies, but I had no idea why they were even here, and I didn't want to kill them or anything like that.
I landed on the ground outside, dropping one story and rolling to break the fall, coming up again to see a monster worse than most anything I'd seen in Amestris, with the exception of… Envy's true form? Gluttony when he opened his second mouth? Either way, this thing was terrifying.
He, or maybe it, looked like a human Chimera. A combination between a wolf and a man, only instead of fur and fangs, he was made out of whirling metal. Or was he like Al, a soul bound to a piece of metal, but using some sort of mechanical death-machine instead of a suit of armor? Or worse, a homunculus...
Either way, it turned around, the front, if you could call it that, looking at me.
"I'm guessing I'm who you guys were looking for?" I asked, readying my fighting stance as the metal unfolded further, and a shape vaguely like the torso of a man appeared out of it.
"No mask?" he asked, his face mostly steel cabling where the muscles should have been, the voice raspy and deep.
"The name's Edward Elric," I replied. "And you are?"
"Hookwolf, in case you didn't recognize me. What you and that Bitch did… I liked that place."
"Heh, so you're the monster responsible for that, literally!" I replied. "How about a real fight? One between people, who can actually choose to fight it?"
"Heh, you look like a child, but you speak like a warrior!" the man replied, a strange smile on his wicked face. "Can't say I have a problem with that. Men! Stand down. We're doing this old-school!"
He leapt forwards on four legs, the torso melding back into his bulky body as I created a wall of stone to meet him.
Steel and stone struck together, sending sparks flying as Hookwolf tore through the obstacle, only to meet my second strike.
I'd done some research in the past few days, and as it turned out, even poor, run-down areas like this one had sewage and electricity running beneath the streets. And now that I knew what to expect, and where to find everything, I could easily redirect the underground pipes involved in the system. In other words, it was time to figure out if metal wolves also smelled like wet dog.
A blast of water smashed into Hookwolf, throwing him into the air even as he'd broken through the first barrier. Flying into the sky, the man was helpless to act as I prepared my third strike, a fist of stone inspired by the famous Armstrong Alchemy smashing into him as he was unable to dodge.
Hookwolf crashed to the ground, metal bending, but not breaking. He was in pain, but it didn't look like he was actually hurt. This was going to require more than just a few simple tricks, but how could I take him down? Stone bindings wouldn't hold the man, at least not for long. Unless…
I took a few steps away from my opponent, my back against the wall as he stood up again, whirling blades on his arms spinning around menacingly as metal hooks reached forwards out of his core with a mind of their own, ready to tear apart my flesh.
Hookwolf stormed forwards faster than he had any right to be, a long sharp hook of steel lashing out in front of him. I didn't dodge, instead grasping it with one hand, the sharp metal cutting into even my automail's metal exterior as my other hand reached out behind me, touching a metal pipe that reached up all the way to the ceiling, designed to carry away rainwater into the sewers below. At my command, the metal tore away from the wall, twisting around Hookwolf, and while he tried to pull himself away from my grasp, he obviously hadn't expected me to have a metal arm that could hold up to his onslaught and take hold of his appendage.
Steel twisted into steel, and I could see his body work slowly work on the obstruction, almost like it was absorbing the material into itself.
Didn't matter. I released his arm, and transmuted a hole into the wall behind me. I dashed into the warehouse, enemy hot on my heels as I got ready to steal my opponents' plan. He stalked after me, enjoying the fight as I replied with transmuted steel beams in his path. Two long steel appendages launched at me. One, I kicked away with my left leg, the other I jumped over with a backflip, pushing of with an arm as I transmuted another temporary barrier between us.
"I'm guessing that telling you that that entire thing yesterday was a mistake wouldn't exactly work, would it?" I asked.
"What, chickening out already? I'm going to kill you for that!" the man replied in anger, reforming the torso as he tore through my barrier and blocked a stone fist I'd launched at him effortlessly, the shrapnel bouncing off of his body.
"It's just, y'know, neither of us have something to gain here," I replied as I took a large T bar and slung it around the man. My temporary base was probably already compromised, and it wasn't like his dog-fighting ring would come back if he took me out. Plus, I didn't want to die.
"That's where you're wrong kiddo!" he replied, taking a few seconds to saw right through the steel. "Reputation, revenge, the joy of the fight! Are these not worthy reasons for battle?"
"For a life and death fight?" I replied, opening a hole between the man, watching as he crashed into the basement below. "None of those are good reasons to kill someone!"
Steel crashed against concrete below me, and I could see shards fly up into the air as Hookwolf climbed back up, so I took a few steps away. By striking at Hookwolf with metal instead of concrete, I'd taken out most of the support pillars of this building. Just one more to go, and it'd come crashing down on top of him, giving me the time to escape into the city.
I stepped around the corner, put my hands to the last pillar, got ready to transmute it, and heard the sound of someone cocking a gun.
"Hookwolf gets all worked up for fights like this," a man with neat blonde hair, a black breastplate and a V-shaped mask said, aiming a gun at my face. He stood about 20 feet away, a girl in tight red clothes behind him, her hair covering one of her eyes. "Doesn't mean we have to play by his rules though."
"Not gonna shoot me?" I asked. Yes, his weapon was trained on me, but he hadn't fired yet, which meant something. If only I knew what.
"Not yet," he replied, shaking his head. "I have some questions for you first young man."
"Such as?" I replied, keeping myself from acting stupidly. I wasn't that young, he just said that because, well...
"Who are you working for? And why are you stupid enough to go around maskless, telling everyone your name?"
"Well, that's easy," I replied, eyeing the surroundings. It'd be risky, what with the pistol, but I didn't really have a choice here did I?
Just as the man furrowed his brow beneath his mask, I completed my transmutation, using the mass of the building's support to launch myself upwards. The man fired, reacting with impeccable timing and aim, but he hadn't expected the metal leg. A bullet bounced off of it, but I felt a flare of pain in my side as I flew through the air, presumably ricochet. Soaring across the rooftop, I put down my right arm to break my fall, misplacing it as I rolled over the roof, crashing against one of those weirdly large dinner plates.
"Shiiit… that hurt." I groaned, slowly standing up as people yelled on the streets below, and a massive cloud of dust filled the area, caused by Hookwolf's burial. I'd escaped for now, but I'd need a new place to rest and recover. I explored my side, feeling a wet throb where the bullet had glanced me. I could ignore the pain for now, but that would stop when the adrenaline wore off, and I'd have to either find a doctor or do emergency surgery on myself.
Really, really wished I'd paid more attention to biological transmutations right now. Someone like Dr. Marcoh would've been able to solve this with a single circle. At least my ribs weren't broken.
That, of course, was when the universe decided to make my day even worse, as the masked gunman appeared out of nowhere, hovering in the air to the side of the building.
"What the… That's just unfair!" I exclaimed, quickly transmuting a wall between us as the man aimed his pistol at me. His line of sight didn't remain blocked for long as he soared through the air, but the cloud of debris from the collapsed building gave me a new idea as I transmuted the roof beneath me, turning tarred concrete into dust.
No matter how darn impossible this guys' Alchemy was, he wouldn't be able to shoot me if he wasn't able to see me.
Secure in the knowledge that he'd be occupied for a few more seconds I legged it, running through the rubble, away from the scene of battle and into more populated territories as everything was smothered in a massive dust-cloud.
Half a minute later, my stumbling, coughing gait finally brought me out of the dust-cloud, into yet another alleyway, this one a bit closer to the more populated areas of the city. I caught my breath for a bit, taking the time to look at my surroundings. Dumpsters filled with garbage, and a few storefronts that were either empty or barred with metal. In the distance, I could hear sirens similar to those that had heralded the arrival of the State Alchemists yesterday, so someone had noticed what was happening here. Question was, who? The people I'd been fighting hadn't been all that professional, but they definitely had some sort of high-level Alchemical backing behind them, what with the steel Chimera and the… whatever kind if Alchemy provided flight. I really wanted to figure that one out.
Something glinted in the corner of my eye, and I moved as fast as I could, a bullet striking the steel of my arm. The hell?
"Darnit, how did you find me you masked dumbass!" I yelled out, getting ready for a fight as my enemy stepped out of the cloud of dust. I was so sure I'd managed to lose him. What had I missed?
"You shouldn't sell the Empire short, we have our ways," he replied, his finger on the trigger.
I transmuted the floor before he could fire, this time breaking up the street, pillars of stone randomly rising up, throwing my enemy off balance as I ran for him. He leapt from the platform beneath him to another in a manouvre he'd basically copied from me, and as I tried to bring up my arm to block a potential attack, my foot slipped on the stone beneath me.
Slapping my hands together during my fall, they touched the ground the moment the man fired, bullet bouncing off of a quick barrier between us.
What was he going to do next? I had absolutely no idea about this guys capabilities. He was obviously a sharpshooter on the level of Riza, he could fly, he could dance around like he'd studied under teacher, and he had some sort of way to track me, so what was he going to do next?
Do a somersault over my wall, apparently. He appeared above me with a backflip, flying high over the barrier as I transmuted the ground beneath me. If this street was the same as any other in the city then…
"Gotcha!"
As the man came to the ground in an effortless three-point landing, I broke the water pipes running beneath the street, surprising him with a blast of sewage water launching into the air from below.
He was blown of his feet, and as he tried to regain his footing, I jumped on top of him, throwing the gun out his hand with a strike of my arm.
"Tiny fucker!" he shouted, trying to hold me off with one hand while the other went to a knife on his belt, and one of his feet tried to kick me.
I blocked the foot, his shin striking against metal as he cried out in surprise, and a quick one-two with my fists got through his guard and into his face, taking the fight out of him.
"Pfhew," I spoke, standing back up and wiping the sweat from my brow. That had been close, and I wasn't out yet. People were yelling in the dust-cloud behind me, and the wound on my ribs was bleeding badly. I stumbled through the remains of the street, away from the downed man, my legs barely able to stay beneath my body on the rocky, broken up terrain. Had I lost that much blood, or was something wrong with my balance? Had I taken a blow to the head so hard I'd forgotten about it? I stumbled through the alleyway into a now-empty street next to it, when a vehicle suddenly braked in front of me. Fearing another enemy, I looked at the driver, and… "Winry?" I asked, but she ignored it, instead throwing open the sliding door of the van from her position in the driver's seat.
"Rachel told me about you," the girl said. "Come with me if you want to live."
