Don't own this stuff.
The flock was on immediate alert when they heard multiple footsteps echoing deeper in the cave - heading closer. The footsteps grew louder, and finally two figures stepped into the light.
There was a man and a woman. The man was tall and fair-skinned with messy dark hair and eyes. His collared shirt and dress pants seemed slightly out of place with the long coat and combat boots.
The woman looked slightly more threatening than the man, with a disapproving frown and smartly pinned up blonde hair. Her amber eyes were watchful and sharp, like a hawk's. She was dressed similarly to the man, but none of the flock missed the gun strapped to her side.
Roy Mustang's eyes glanced over the bird-kids, then, satisfied with his analysis, turned to his young, blonde subordinate.
"Welcome back, Fullmetal," he said with a slightly humored tone. "I know you usually enter rather extravagantly, but falling half-way down the canyon? I think you've lost it."
Ed scowled and stood up. Of course. He shouldn't expect any less from the man. "That's it? I would have expected something more sarcastic and sadistic." But of course, Ed fired right back at his superior officer. "Whatever," Ed continued, waving his arm in annoyance at the smug look fixed upon the Flame Alchemist's face. "Another School is gone, so it's time to move on to the one in Colorado."
Mustang nodded, now serious, his joking expression vanished into thin air. "When do you want to set out? Or shall we send Alphonse this time?"
Ed waved his arm dismissively. "No, I'm going."
"Brother," Al objected. "Why don't you let me go with you this time?"
"Because-"
Al poked his brother's bare stomach all of a sudden. "You look a bit flabby, brother."
Ed scowled again at the sudden change of subject and pushed his brother's hand away. "It's not like we've had much time to spar, or anything," Ed said defensively.
"True," Al agreed.
The two brothers started conversing easily, while the Flock stood rather awkwardly. Noticing the sharp-eyed woman turned to them and looking them over, Max raised an eyebrow. Seeing this, the woman's frown dropped soon enough, and she walked up to them, holding out a hand. "Riza Hawkeye."
Max hesitantly took the woman's hand - calloused from hard work (or firearms) - and shook it. "Max."
"I take it that the six of you are experiments?" the blonde woman asked.
After a slight hesitation, Max straightened up from her defensive position and truthfully answered, "Yeah."
The woman smiled slightly, her gaze lingering on Angel. "Then you're free to stay with us for a while, if you like. It's safe here."
Max blinked, taken aback. Then her eyes narrowed in suspicion. That's what they all said. Safe, yeah right.
Max, Angel interrupted the elder's train of thought. I can't get into her mind, either... She knew I was trying to, and blocked me out.
But is she OK? Max frowned slightly as she thought back.
Well, I didn't sense anything threatening, Angel admitted. But that doesn't mean she knows how to hide it. Like Anne.
Right. Well, we're all exausted and in need of a little down time, so why don't we stay? If Fullmetal trusts these people, why don't we give it a chance? Max clapped her hands together (she didn't miss the tensing of the four strangers at the simple move) and said to her Flock, "Alright, wha'dda you guys wanna do?"
"Oh, oh!" Gazzy's hand shot up in the air. "Do you guys have awesome weapons and bombs and stuff?"
Fullmetal cast Gazzy a rather strange look and said, "Uh... yes...?"
"AWESOME! Max, can we stay? Please!"
If she was an anime character, Max would have sweatdropped.
Ed propped himself up against the wall next to his brother and said, "So then, you guys planning on staying here for a while?"
"Why would we?" Max snapped back, crossing her arms. "We knew nothing about you, or this place. This could all be a trap. Why should we trust you?"
Ed's mouth tugged into a slight smile. "Didn't I tell you before? I never said we could be trusted, but I do promise that our goal is to destroy all forms of cruel experimentation in the world. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend', right? So why not stay and see how we work for a while. Or maybe even join us."
"If there's only four of you, what kind of resistance is that?" Iggy demanded.
The tall man chuckled. "Four of us? I think you're underestimating our resistrance group. We're not that big right now, but in this small base alone there's about 100 of us. And we have over 45 bases around the world, most with more supporters than this one."
Max scowled.
"Come on," Fullmetal practically mocked. "We're just what every experiment has every wanted. We work to destory everything that you already hate will passon. Nobody can pass up the oppertunity."
Feeling a bead of sweat run down the back of her neck, and the silence in the cavern, Max knew she was being pressured. But...
"Fine."
The Flock all swiveled to look at their leader. Did she really...?
Ed smirked and pushed off the wall casually. "Well, then come on."
After some pause, the Flock followed the six into the cavernous tunnels drilled through the rock.
The twists and turns of the stone catacombs (When Nudge had asked, the Flock had been told that the resistance group had found the cave system mostly made by nature. They had tunneled and 'blasted' (they had a feeling this one had a secret meaning) through the rock to add on to what was naturally there, and Fullmetal had shrugged and said, "We pretty much smoothed out the rock and removed most of the stalacites and staglamites. Survival of the fittest was never my favorite moral, and huge, sharp rocks hell-bent on killing me don't appeal.") were easily navigated by the four Amestrians. The Flock followed rather twitchily, but with haste, so not to be left behind in the labyrinth.
They could easily hear the conversation of the four ahead of them. Fullmetal and the man - Roy Mustang, he had introduced himself (Or as Fullmetal called him, 'Colonel Bastard'.) - seemed to be talking about different areas to attack and battle tactics. That, or they were trading insults. It was hard to tell which of more they were doing.
Fullmetal didn't react well to the word 'short', and the dark haired man threw it in the experiment's face as much as possible. The woman and blonde boy - Fullmetal's younger brother: Alphonse, Al - could only sigh.
After recieving a comment about his fashion sense, Mustang had said with a big grin on his face, "By the way, Fullmetal, you might want to put a shirt on. I never did see you as one to strip in public."
The Flock didn't understand why Fullmetal exploded as he ran after the older man, only that they better hurry if they wanted to keep up.
Chapter 4, done. Whew. I have more to come... it's just a matter of putting it together. :)
Hope you liked it~! ^^