Well, I hope you enjoy this next one, because I sure loved writing it! I hope you enjoy it! :)
"…"
"Sheska?" My head jerks up and I look at Tia, with a tray full of food for all of us, who has entered the small room I've been staying at since we arrived in this town with the others. I haven't really been interacting with anyone else, I've been kind of on edge with everything that's happened. I've just been watching mine and Riza's suitcase, which I should probably close since no one else should see our private contents, and reading a good novel to pass the time until I and Riza can get back to Central. Hopefully may will be better soon…
I honestly don't know her personal, but it's only natural that I should feel worried for another person. She helped us out on the train, and her and Al seem to be really close. I hope she pulls through…
"'Lo? Anyone in there?" Tia waves her hand in front of my face and I say,
"S-sorry about that, I was just thinking… about May and all…" I tell her shyly
"Well, when yer' done thinkin' 'bout 'er, why don'cha actually ask how she's doin'?" I stare at Tia with my mouth agape and say,
"She's… she's okay?"
"Just fine 'n dandy. With 'er healin' skills, she'll stand as straight as a sunflower 'n no time flat!"
"That's great! I'm so glad you were able to fix…" I stop talking when I think about what she just said, "Stand as straight as a sunflower?" Tia gets tense and says,
"Oh! That! Yeah, uh-well, it's… it's farm girl talk! Ya' know… cuz' they're all tall and… straight… I'm an adult, shut up!"
"Okay, I'll just drop it. Anyway, thanks for making food for all of us every night, we really appreciate it, but you really don't need-" Tia puts the food down and says
"Poppycock! I'm happy to with all the General did, helpin' my sister out an' makin' my lil' bro so happy, it's the least I can do. Silly kid…" I'm older than you, "So, what're ya' readin'?"
"Oh, this! It's called, Dark and Light: Two Sides of the Same Coin. It's about a war going on, but it goes on to indicate both sides of the war, and the reasons people are fighting to win on both sides. It's by my favorite author James Grahl,"
"'That so?" Tia sits down next to me next to the bed, "He must be pretty famous if he's that good."
"Well… actually no." I scratch the back of my head nervously, "He's sort of a diamond in the ruff that hasn't been found yet."
"Whaddya' mean?"
"He's not very famous at all, he's preferred to stay anonymous, and has never gone out of his way to publish his books all over Amestris. There are only a handful of books made by him, and they're all handwritten, one each."
"Huh… you must have been lucky to have been able to find it."
"Yeah, luck… anyway, do you need any help with anything? I'm free and would love something to do!"
"Hmmmmm, nope, nothin' in particular. I could use a drink o' water… by the way, about those explosions outside."
"Do you know what they are? We figured that we would check it out, but-"
"No worries, just some dumb kids messin' 'round with fireworks. No need to trouble yerselves, just lemme have some water, five minutes off mah' feet, and I'll giv'em a stern talkin' to. Not that they'll learn anythin'. Prob'ly jus' ignore me and keep doin' what they're doin'."
"Alright, just give me a minute." I walk out of my room and into the bathroom, pouring some water from the tap and into two cups, one for me and the other for Tia. As I walk out of the room, I walk in on Tia looking into my books cover,
"Jus' takin' a gander at it." She says, putting it down and walking towards me, guzzling down the water in one gulp and walking out, saying,
"Welp' take care of yerself Sheska! See ya' later!"
"Bye!" I tell her. After sitting down, I take a sip in my water, and set my eyes to my novels contents, allowing myself to be sucked back into the world made merely out of ink and paper.
I stare at the young woman in an elegant blue dress with a pure white kitchen apron on. Her green eyes are shining in the moonlight and her black hair is flowing in the wind. I must say, Alice is beautiful, but her looks have a strange sort of ferocity to her. Something, besides what I've seen of her so far, tells me I need to be careful of her.
I just look at her apprehensively, and she does the same, showing little to no emotion. Suddenly, she looks slightly surprised and apologizes, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, being enemies is no excuse for a lack of formality," She then curtsies and says, "My name is Alice Liddel, it's a pleasure to meet you… though we seem to be beyond the the point of polite mannerism's, wouldn't you say Mr. Elric?"
I look at her apprehensively and say, "Of course it is! You nearly killed my friend fand endangered all of the innocent people on that train! Do you think a false display of kindness will stop me from putting you back into that cell you escaped out of?" Alice scowls and says,
"I assumed that it wouldn't be that easy, but nothing can ever be so simple for me. Time to get down to business, I need you to unhand Mr. Raverce there, I'm taking him with me. If you don't… well, I'll hurt you a lot worse than I hurt your friend." The seriousness in her voice tells me that she means what she's saying; she's going to get this man away from me by any means possible.
And I'm going to stop her from doing so, by any means possible!
I stand up and prepare to fight with Alice. Karlin's too injured to really do anything, I don't need to worry about him.
"I'm ready whenever you are!" I enter a fighting stance and prepare myself, but Alice doesn't seem interested,
"I think I should get him away from the battlefield. I hate it when I'm responsible for people's deaths… at least when it's not intentional. Also, duck." I notice something red in the corner of my eye and snap my neck backwards, a red, heart shaped blade barely missing me,
I immediately launch a punch in the face of my attacker, and hear some bone crack, and feel my hand throbbing. Looking at the disturbing face of my opponent, I understand why my hand is hurt.
There's no skin on his face to cushion my fist.
The creature stumbles back, and screams harshly at me, bringing the same blade it had before, which was apparently part of a long, double-handed axe, down onto my head. I grab it and pull it towards me, along with its wilder who I kick back, taking the axe for myself.
The creature stands back up, and I take in its bizarre appearance in a split second. It's a person… no, some sort of zombie! Its face has rotted away leaving only the skull that I punched and fractured with a black hood covering its head that goes down to its shoulders. It has a strange white suit on with several marks that look like black clubs, and the anomalies on this thing only get stranger. It has a club shaped hole on its rectangular torso, with stitches on its body and it bleeding from all of them, plus the stitches holding it's limbs onto it that have black gloves and boots on them.
As the creature screams and comes towards me, I swing the axe diagonally, slicing right through the beast, seemingly killing it. Blood pours out and it screeches before collapsing to the floor. After it collapses onto the ground, I feel a brief pang of guilt, along with my stomach wrenching, and I nearly throw up in disgust of what I… what I just did…
However, something odd happens. The creature disappears, it's body fading away into nothing along with all of its bodily fluids. The axe I'm wielding does the same. I'd wonder what happens, but I have bigger things to worry about.
Suddenly, four other creatures like the last tear themselves from the ground, two with the same club designs, and two others with red diamond designs replacing the black clubs, one of each type holding another axe.
I accidentally let out a small shriek when Alice suddenly says, "They're called Card Guards, formerly under the service of the Red Queen, now under service of me. Poor things, nothing but the most basic instincts of a simple beast or less since they're the living dead, yet they're probably brighter now than any other time in their lives." Alice says with a sigh,
Alice is closer then before, very close, but I don't dare take my eyes off of the… Card Guards as called them, fearing for my safety and my life.
"I'll be with you in a moment, and I do hope that my paltry forces can keep you from getting bored."
As if on cue, as soon as Alice stops talking, the monstrous creatures scream and attack me at once.
"Hey… thanks for the save," Karlin says, as I carry him over my shoulders, struggling to keep my balance. If only I wasn't so small, carrying someone wouldn't be nearly as much of a chore,
"Save your thanks for someone else. I'm only saving your life because I was required to," I tell him, as I observe Mr. Elric fighting. At the moment he's stepping back from a Spade Card Guard's axe swinging at him several times, and an unarmed guard, along with an unarmed Diamond Card Guard trying to claw or punch him,
"If you didn't care, you'd just focus on saving my life," Mr. Elric dodges the attacks from one Card Guard, promptly tossing it into the other, taking care of two obstacles, temporarily. The Diamond Card Guard in the back growls and thrusts it's axe into the air, launching a small diamond projectile.
Karlin groans painfully as I set him onto the ground, "And that's what I'm doing. Now, you know how to get back to the base, correct?" He nods and pulls out a small electronic device, pressing the button and a red light on it starts flashing,
Mr. Elric's taken the projectile into his shoulder and falls back, a perfect victim for the Card Guard's Axe. Just as he's about to become a victim, he claps his hands together and a stone wall appears out of the ground, stopping the axe and causing it to go up with the rising wall.
Then, he claps them together again, and forces the wall down on the guards quickly, effectively crushing two of the Card Guards. The third steps back and launches a diamond shaped projectile at its target that is meant to pierce his internal organs. However, the same projectile is launched back, blocking it. This one has blood on it… so he yanked it out of his shoulder and used it as his own.
"No, if that was it, you'd have just attacked Alphonse without thinking, only making sure that you don't hit a vital organ or that I don't bleed out. Keeping away from a battlefield shows that you want to help me avoid pain, and therefore, are worried about another human being." Karlin says,
I don't say anything other than, "…Perhaps," because I don't know if he's right. I've been willing to harm anyone and everything that gets in my way, however I've only done that to things or people that would do me wrong. I have no reason to let Karlin get hurt and then there's… perhaps there is a hint of accuracy in his words.
Though I wonder, why do I feel guilt for fighting Mr. Elric?
Speaking of which, he has just created a knife from the earth, ans has charged at the Card Guard that attacked him, viciously hacking away, while wearing a strange face… odd, it's been quite some time since I saw someone that frightened. The last time I recall it was… my last meeting with Dr. Bumby. The dead can't schedule appointments, to the best of my knowledge.
After the creature is good, dead, and fades away, Mr. Elric turns to the last Card Guard, and charges at it, ducking the axe it swings at him, and he slashes it's chest, cutting through the diamond hole. It punches Mr. Elric in the face, but he doesn't stop attacking.
As the last Card Guard is overpowered, I walk towards Mr. Elric, listening to Karlin tell me, "Just hold him off for a few minutes, after that, we leave."
Cut. Cut . Cut.
I keep slicing the Card Guard in front of me, trying my best to ignore it. Ignore the screams of pain… ignore the blood pouring out of it… ignore the… the way it feels for my knife to… to cut… to cut through it…
As the creature collapses to the ground, I fall to my knees and throw up, unable to keep my food in my stomach any longer. I'm panting and sweating from all of the fighting and the shock…
What… what on Earth is going on? What are these things? Are they… real? I look at all of the blood on my hands, and fear that I may wretch again…
But suddenly, the same thing that happened before repeats.
The blood disappears from my hands, fading away, and so does the… body left behind.
What's going on? Am I going-
"No, you're not going crazy." I force myself onto my feet in a flash and turn around to look at Alice,
"How did you…?"
"You just had that look on your face, the one where you question what you know to be real and fake. I've seen that face many times when I've looked into a mirror in the past."
"…What were those things?" Alice looks slightly annoyed, "Didn't I tell you already, they're-" I charge at her and bring my knife down, out of sheer frustration, which she blocks with her own. As I push down on her with my knife, I shout,
"I know what they're called! But those monsters… they… they couldn't be real, that's impossible!" I keep pushing down on her, but even then I can't over power her! How is she even this strong! Nothing makes sense about this girl!
"You want to know so badly?" She asks, promptly pushing me back, and suddenly smacking me with some sort of hammer, that sends a jolt of electricity into my head,
I watch, dazed, as multiple Alice's run backwards, and as everything comes into focus, a toadstool of some sort pops out of the ground in front of Alice, who is now about ten feet away from me.
"Mr. Elric, you said that what you've seen can't be real, and you're right. The Card Guards aren't real… in fact a lot of what you've seen is just from…" Alice makes a short dash onto the toadstool and is launched into the air, and comes down on me with her knife trying to cut me!
"…My own mad mind!"
I block it with my own, using two hands, and as I fall backwards, I get my feet onto Alice's stomach and push her over me, pushing her backwards.
I roll to my front, and stand up, preparing myself for Alice's next strike, which is the first in a series of attacks with her knife.
Our blades clash rapidly, letting out a harmony of noise in the night,
"What do you mean-" I say pushing her knife back, "they're from your mind?"
"Just that!" She deflects one of my attacks, "I've seen many terrible things in my life! Tell me, is it sad that most of them were distortions created in my own head!" She forces me back with one strong strike,
"Tell me, are you going to laugh at the mad woman!" She takes out two metal objects that I assume are meant to be thrown and I create a cage-like wall in front of me to block the attack and let me keep an eye on what she's doing,
However, as they're thrown, the objects don't get blocked by the cage,
Instead, both of them go around it, catching my off guard and piercing my chest and torso,
"Aauugh!" I clap my hands together and tap all of the bars for the cage, making them transmute so that they thrust forward towards Alice,
She sidesteps them and tosses her knife at me, which I catch between my hands. The knife disappears and reappears in Alice's hands. I avoid the attack, grabbing her hand along with the one with the knife in it, trying my best to restrain her,
But my best is barely doing its job, so I think I'll need to ask her some things while she's restrained,
"Just stop! I need to ask you a question!" Alice struggles viciously against me, nearly forcing me off balance a few times,
"And just why should I help you!" She says, rather composed, despite the fight going on
"I'm sorry about whatever happened to you! All I want is to find my brother!" Alice stops and looks me in the eyes, shocked, "I don't know what happened to him, I think he may be hurt… or worse… I just want to find him! Please!" I have to blink tears out of my eyes,
"I'm so worried… just please give me an answer."
Alice thinks for a moment, looking uncertain, "Well…"
"Alice, come on!" Karlin screams, and I look in his direction. He has a strange white portal open in front of him with white energy streams swirling going into… some sort of white room…
I feel a sharp pain in my gut and realize Alice just kicked me!
Karlin hobbles into the portal, and Alice runs after him,
"Wait! *Cough* *Cough* Please!" I hold my stomach from pain,
Just as Alice is about to enter the portal, she turns to me and for a brief moment, I can see something that looks… like sympathy in them,
"Call Ms. Armstrong about your brother's current condition, Mr. Elric. And do take care, we'll meet again," Alice walks through the portal, which closes, and I'm left alone with so many questions,
What happened to my brother? What does Major General Armstrong have to do with him? Who is that group, and who is Alice?
However, I do manage to answer one of my questions as I run to Colonel Mustang and pick him up; how am I going to get him healed.
Ignoring my own pain, I take Colonel Mustang to the clinic to have Tia treat him, and help him myself in any way I can,
Confused? I hope so, that was my intention. Don't worry, you'll just have to read what's next to get less confused. Read and Review!