Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is not mine. I'm just having fun with it.
Chapter 10: Double, Double
She was tired. Dead tired, if you wanted a more accurate description. And stopping and resting were simply not options. But she was not going to let that make her careless. She couldn't afford to. So instead, she focused on pushing through the tangled weeds.
"Someone should invent a map that gets updated as the grass grows," Ed grumbled.
The copse was proving to be excellent cover. Rapid retreats were, however, not looking like a particularly viable option.
"Welcome to military operations," Mustang retorted, ducking under a branch, "When the intel's half-right, it's a good day."
Afternoon was waning into evening, making the landscape look old and worn. On its west facing vantage point, the cluster of trees received the full benefit of the twilight. Everything within was now attractively dappled. The air felt warm but despite having had a full twelve hours to attempt the feat, the ground was still not completely dry. This it shared with the unexpectedly dense undergrowth and the two men frequently cringed as icy water landed down the back of their necks.
"Half-right's good?"
"It is compared to 'catastrophically inaccurate." He stopped. "Ah ha. This looks good."
The vegetation had thinned, affording them a clearer downhill view. The complex squatted in the middle of farmland, a dirty grey blotch on an otherwise green plane. It was laid out along the lines of a five-pointed star, grey stone buildings running parallel to gravel paths. From a distance, they all appeared to be identical, two storey affairs with sloping roofs.
Ed took out a pair of binoculars.
"Wish the damn sun were pointing the other way. These are gonna glint…"
"We'll have to risk it."
"Right." He put them to his eyes. "Let's see…"
"That's a very bad pun, Fullmetal."
"Shudup. I got…one gate, guard huts…there're men walking the perimeter…no rifles though…that looks like a garage…hmm…a lot of guys in white coats wandering about."
"Doctors?"
"No, milkmen. How the hell should I know?"
Mustang chuckled. Ed shot him a glare.
"What're you snickering at?"
"You. Can you see any way of getting in undetected?"
"Not unless you can suddenly become invisible. There's no cover near the fence on either side. If it were pitch-black, you might be able to do it –" The blonde winced as a particularly large drop of water plunged past his collar. "Urgh. Here. You look."
"Why, thank you." The older man took the spyglasses. "Curious layout, don't you think?"
"Mmm."
"A pentagram."
"I know what it is."
"Not in a circle though. It's not another giant, disguised array. Not that there'd be much point in it being one..."
"You'd be surprised how many people'd be willing to try anyway," Ed answered darkly and did his best to find cover that would not give him impromptu showers.
It had taken her days to completely lose the Marquis' dogs. They were persistent, she had to give them that. Still, she doubted they would expect the utter insanity of returning to the 'scene of the crime'. That was, after all, what it was. But necessity often bred insanity.
By sheer chance, she had arrived in time to see the older Elric leaving his house and heading off with friends. The group's direction had aroused her suspicions at once. She just hoped she would be able to stop him presenting himself to Chambers in gift-wrapping.
The dirt track was no site of outstanding natural beauty but it did have the advantage of a good view of both road and hill. Hawkeye, back against a fence post, cast an apparently idle glance at the silhouette of the copse. Ivan, sitting atop said fence, stifled a yawn.
His insisting on coming as well had been surprising but welcome. While standing solitary guard was never a problem for someone with her patience, basic common sense told Hawkeye that two people were going to stand a greater chance of extracting Fullmetal and Flame from trouble than one alone. Admittedly, she had yet to see him fight but he seemed confident enough with the long knives hanging from his belt.
She wished she could ask him about the brothers. True, for once she was fairly certain that neither of them was holding anything back for fear of worrying anyone. But Hawkeye lived her life according to several very strict philosophies, including 'when you've double checked, check again' and 'when you've got a second opinion, get a third'. They had spent two years – four in Ed's case – cut off from everything they had ever known. That alone meant concern for them was justifiable.
A goose honked overhead. In the distance, a plume of off-white smoke announced the departure of a train. Dusk was beginning to set in properly. The shadows had lengthened picturesquely. It would be a pleasant night.
Hawkeye regarded it all with the utmost suspicion and fingered one of her pistols. Ivan yawned again.
She saw him a full two minutes before he saw her. That had given her time to observe the youth she intended to save.
The way he moved indicated he was no stranger to having to operate stealthily. What she could guess of his build reminded her a little of an acrobat she had once known – compact but unusually powerful. His clothes were dark and nondescript, perfect for sneaking about. And he'd made sure that his long, bright hair was tucked out of the way beneath a woollen cap.
She approved. If he was not a professional, he was most certainly a gifted amateur.
Skirting the very edge of the copse, Ed wrinkled his nose. He and Mustang had separated to see what different angles might show them and 'not much' was looking increasingly likely to be the outcome. Without any obvious clues such as eldritch glows or clouds of odd-coloured smoke, finding out what was going on in the complex was up-sheer-drop work.
"Even the guards don't look suspicious," he breathed, squinting down the binoculars, "Come on, give me something here!"
The possibility that it might be exactly what it purported to be, an innocent private hospital, reared its head. It could be, couldn't it? There could be nothing strange happening at all. Real life was like that.
Edward Elric's life, however, seldom was.
Which was why when he slid backwards, stood up, turned around and stretched, he did not react with the amount of shock a normal person might have.
A woman was standing a few feet away, not making a sound. She presumably was extremely good at not making a sound because he hadn't heard the slightest hint of her approach. Her clothes were dark, like his, blending in with the surroundings. A hood hid her hair and a scarf hung around her neck, presumably to conceal her face, which was now disclosed, pale against the rest.
What her presence had not done, that face did. As a result, she got the first word in.
"Mr Elric." She spoke quietly but fiercely. "You must leave here now."
Exactly fifteen seconds passed.
"Hawkeye?"
"Pardon?" The woman frowned, then shook her head. "My name is Elizabeth Falconer. I can't explain everything immediately but it is imperative that we remove ourselves from here at once."
Various 'what?'s and 'why?'s presented themselves. However, before any could be voiced, Mustang emerged from the foliage to Ed's right.
"So much for that…err…Fullmetal…?"
Falconer couldn't have seen more than the man's profile, since he was looking at her from the corner of his good eye, and only that for an instant. She reacted as if he were the most horrifying thing imaginable.
"Y-you?!" was about all she managed to gasp before spinning and vanishing into the trees.
"Hey, wait!" Ed bellowed, launching himself into pursuit.
"Both of you wait!" demanded Mustang, following suit.
They ran out of copse long before they were anywhere near her. The gentle, grassy incline presented itself in place of the trees. The gentle, grassy slope on the opposite side of the hill from where Hawkeye and Ivan were waiting. The gentle, grassy slope lacking in any cover beyond a few vaguely ambitious bushes.
The gentle, grassy slope occupied by a large number of men in black coats.
Falconer had clearly been expecting them because she did not stop. As Mustang and Ed skidded to a halt, she darted around the nearest of the apparitions, evading their lunges. Two moved to block her path. Her hand lashed out, something gleaming in its grip. The men fell back, one with a long gash in his sleeve. The other raised a pistol.
"No!"
Shouting, Ed tried to jump the gunman. Someone huge stepped in the way and flung him back the way he'd come. He hit the ground and rolled over just as shots rang out.
"They missed," Mustang said curtly as he helped him stand up, "We might not be so lucky."
Defining their probably-about-to-be assailants as men in black coats was a description that stood up to closer scrutiny. They wore the kind of jackets a Christian priest might, high collared, featureless and indeed, completely black. Clearly though, they were not of the clerical persuasion. The sabres and handguns made that quite obvious, as did the military boots.
"Can we help you, gentlemen?"
"I don't think we can, Mustang."
Ed's left hand found the catch on his auto-mail. Sprang. The spring blade shot out from his right sleeve. Sighing, Mustang reached into his pocket.
"I really don't think upsetting these people would be a terribly good id – urg!"
Please let me not have just heard that. It sounded exactly like someone hitting the bastard on the back of the head. There was a soft thud as a body slumped and fell past Ed. His eyes slid to the side. Oh hell.
The instinct to whip around and confront whoever was there proved unnecessary. Silent footsteps carried the perpetrator into full view.
"I'd have to agree. Upsetting us would be an incredibly stupid idea."
For the second time in about as many minutes, he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Or, for that matter, seeing.
Roy Mustang had just been knocked out by…Roy Mustang. In contravention of all logic and rationality, the man who had been his guardian tormentor, the man who'd quipped and jabbed like there was no tomorrow, the womanising, sarcastic, ambitious, ever-cunning Flame Alchemist stood there, free of scaring, sans eye-patch, mouth set in that oh-so familiar smirk.
It was as though the past had just come up and punched the present in the face. Literarily.
Another Hughes, another Gracia, reminded a singsong voice in his head.
That jerked him back to thinking straight and, with his brain working properly, he was able to notice more about this other Mustang than his face. For example, he was wearing the same uniform as the gunmen, with the jacket open to display a white silk shirt, and while the rest of their hands were bare, his were covered by gloves of the same material. And his sabre was unsheathed, held loosely at his side.
"Who the hell are you?"
Base belligerence. That always worked as a fallback plan. Almost always. The smirk did not waver.
"Strangely enough, I don't feel the least bit inclined to answer that question." He lifted the sabre a faction of an inch. "All the same, I must insist that you accompany us back to our residence. My employer would like a word."
Well, that made things simpler. Ed struck a defensive pose.
"Thanks, but I think I'll pass on that."
"Pity."
He stuck as fast as a snake. It was all Ed could do to get his own blade in the sabre's path. The shock of the blow ran straight up into his shoulder.
"Oof! Let me guess: you haven't spent most of your career sitting behind a desk."
Other-Mustang didn't answer, just smirked a bit wider, bounced back onto his heels and sent the sword flashing towards his side. Again, he blocked it. Just.
They kept up the 'dance' for almost a minute. The lightning thrusts became quicker and quicker, until Ed was not so much countering as retreating. Abruptly, everything was still again, the sabre pressing against the knife, auto-mail straining against muscle. Had the prosthesis been functioning at full power and had the angle been favourable, Ed would have been able to force his way free of the deadlock. But neither was the case and it was a struggle to prevent himself from being decapitated. Other-Mustang hadn't so much as broken a sweat.
His eyes locked with Ed's, the black irises as cold as lumps of jet.
"You're no swordsman," he purred, "You fight like a wrestler: all power, no grace."
Then he snatched the sabre away. Thrown completely off balance, Ed stumbled. There was a whirr of black cloth. He saw the hilt rushing towards him and could do nothing about it.
Darkness engulfed the world and the last thing he felt was his feet leaving the ground.
Falconer felt the air sing as bullets ripped through it inches from her head. She ignored them. If you started to think about how close you had just come to dying, you slowed down and then you would die.
There were people pounding after her, she could hear that. She should have known she'd be too late. In all honesty, she probably had. No. She definitely had. What she had not known was how badly seeing him again would affect her.
There were no more bullets now, just thumping feet and ragged breath. Damn it, she couldn't tell how many were after her, she had no idea where to run except back to the town, where she knew for certain more of them were lurking, there was no cover, Josef wasn't here to help her this time, she was exhausted, alone, unarmed save for her knives…
The ground lurched.
Ridiculously, the only thing she could think as she fell was 'Fiddlesticks'.
Someone's arms looped around her and she stopped.
She looked up.
Impossibly, her saviour seemed to have a mirror for a face.
A/N: Hands up who saw that one coming...
Yep, it's contrived, yep it's unoriginal but it's blooming fun! And there are many more 'shocking' revelations to come...
