Johanna knelt quietly next to Edward, Scar, Hoenhiem and Lan Fan, Darius and two new Chimera who defected from Kimblee, as they watched the entrance to laboratory three. Their original plan, entering through the sewers that Gluttony had Led Johanna and Alphonse through, had backfired almost as soon as they made it. The military had upped their guard around town in the wake of a terrorist attack that had claimed Fuhrer Bradley's life. Johanna was certain Fuhrer Bradley's wasn't dead, but she couldn't fault whoever it was that initiated the attack for trying. She'd assumed Mustang, but they hadn't heard from him in months.
"They've only got three guarding the entrance." The new Chimera, Zampano, told them. Surprise be to Johanna when she found out that Scar had been travelling not only with Mae Chang, but also with his own entourage of Chimera.
"I like those odds." Jerso, the other chimera, chimed in. Johanna said nothing, watching over her shoulder suspiciously as Scar shifted behind her. The two met eyes, obviously studying one another, before looking away. Johanna still didn't like him being here, even if he was an ally now. He was big a brutish and, she'd admit scary.
"No, this is perfect for me to throw my weight around and use my title." Edward told them, hopping the bushed before Johanna could even ask what. "Help me! Please!" He shouted as he ran, producing his stop watch as he did. The soldier's attention immediately transfixed on him. "My name's Edward Elric! I'm a state alchemist!" He told them as they studied his pocket watch. "I need you to help me! Scar has a hostage and he's trying to kill me!" Edward shouted suddenly.
Hostage? Johanna thought, as a rough hand grabbed her arm. She bit back a groan, instead plastering a more frightened expression on her face. I feel like it's always me. She thought to herself. Darius watched her with a smirk.
"You play a really good damsel." He teased, earning several muted chuckles from the men hiding in the bushes, and Lan Fan, who'd made her way into a tree.
"Hey! Hands up!" Johanna heard a soldier shout. She turned her attention back to the guards at the gate, all three of them pointing guns at them. That made her heart skip several beats. Thankfully, before they could use them, Edward knocked the three out cold. Johanna jerked her arm away from Scar, glancing at him over her shoulder before continuing to Edward's side. She felt bad for not trusting him but hey, the man did try to kill her.
So did Greed. The thought came before Johanna could even squash it, stopping her in her tracks. Her group brushed passed her, congratulating Edward on his heroics, before continuing up the stairs. She watched Scar bring up the rear of the group with a frown, dwarfing Lan Fan who walked next to him silently.
"Are you alright, Johanna?" Hoenhiem asked, pulling Johanna back to the world around her. She nodded briskly, clearing her throat. Looking up at the man, she found him giving her a big smile.
"I'm okay. Just thinking."
"Hard from the looks of it." Hoenhiem chuckled, gesturing for her to follow the group, which was now waiting at the top of the steps for them. Edward eyed the pair suspiciously before pulling the door open for them. Johanna thanked him quietly as she stepped beyond him.
Find time to be nicer to him. Johanna's conscience told the girl. He didn't have to be here, he's changed, why can't you? Her thoughts were a great distraction from the strange looks they received from the laboratory's staff, but she shook them off quickly. She didn't have time to be distracted today.
"Found it!" Edward told the group, leading them to a wall. Johanna could see the subtle transmutation marks in the drywall, this was the hallways that Edward told them had been sealed after Lust's defeat. Edward wasted no time reopening the wall, clapping and creating a gaudy door, decorated with skulls. Johanna frowned.
"We really need to talk about the definition of the word tacky when this is over." She told him. Edward glared at her, fists clenched at his sides.
"I don't need to take this from you." He growled, throwing open the doors. Shocker, the hallway behind it was dark. Johanna shivered, following after him down the stairs.
The dark hallways was pretty standard looking, despite the fact that it seemed to extend for infinity in both directions. From what she could tell it seemed to be crafted the same way the rest of the building was, linoleum floors, green tinted walls. Johanna snorted thinking about the remodelers who had to repaint and retile this hallway after it wore.
"Should we split into two groups?" Edward asked. "Sounds good. I'll take a team this way." Hoenhiem said, pointing off to their right. "You and Scar can lead a team the other way."
"Why do I have to go with him?" Edward scowled, pointing at the Ishvalan. Apparently Johanna wasn't the only one having mixed feelings about their partnership.
"It's best to divide the groups based on their skill in alchemy. Remember? You told me he was unaffected by Father's alchemy block while you were rendered helpless." Hoenhiem said cooly. Johanna raised a brow as Edward seemed to deflate whiles Scar's scowl seemed a bit .
"So then who's going with you?" Darius asked him.
"My alchemy is unique, so I'll be fine with a simple bodyguard." Hoenhiem told them, earning several weird looks. He smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm afraid hand to hand combat is not my forte." Edward sighed, rolling his eyes, as he turned to Lan Fan.
Would you mind saving my old man's ass?" He asked her. Lan Fan remained quiet, instead crossing to Hoenhiem's side of the hallway.
"If any of us find the enemy, be sure to destroy it." He told them obviously, nodding in the direction he was walking. Lan Fan bowed to the group before following him down the dark hallway. Johanna watched them as long as she could, until they finally disappeared into the darkness.
"Let's go." Darius said after several minutes, leading the two chimera and Scar away. Johanna also turned to leave, surprised to find Edward watching after his dad as well.
"He'll be fine." Johanna told him. Edward said nothing for a moment, before speaking.
"He's planning something." His words were simple, but they hit Johanna hard. She turned, looking back over her shoulder, but Hoenhiem and Lan Fan were long gone.
"Why wouldn't he tell us?" Johanna asked, incredulous. Edward shrugged, gesturing for Johanna to follow him.
"I don't know, but whatever it is, it's gotta be big." He said sourly. He was still sore about the Alphonse plan.
"He wouldn't leave us out to dry." Johanna assured him, reading his mind. "It was Alphonse's idea, remember?" Again Edward was silent, grabbing Johanna's hand before joining the rest group. She seemed pretty confident, but Edward wasn't so sure.
It wasn't long before the group came to a brightly lit room. Johanna sighed, relieved to finally have some light, as Edward led them in. Her relief didn't last long as she stared in disbelief at the room around him. A hastily transmuted wall sat in almost the middle of the room, Alphonse's wall he'd used to protect Riza. Across the way stood a giant door, easily a hundred feet tall, decorated in a very ornate version of the human transmutation circle, and down at the bottom of that door sat a scattered pile of debris.
"Some door." Darius whistled, looking up at it. Johanna nodded absently, her eyes still studying the pile of metal. Slowly the group approached, and Johanna took this time to kneel next to his remains.
"The air is foul down here, are you sure this is right?" Jerso asked them. Edward nodded.
"It's exactly as Al told me."
"And who was this?" Darius asked them.
"Barry the Chopper." Johanna told him sadly, unable to keep herself from frowning. Slowly she reached for what was left of his helmet, only stopped by Scar's foot as he stepped between her and the armor.
"He was not a good man." Scar told her emotionless. Johanna wanted to ask him how he suddenly became the aficionado of "good men", but the look on his face gave her great pause. He seemed torn, like he was waging a war against himself. It was the look of a guilty man who realized what a bad man was because he had spent so long being one. Johanna sighed, she hated to agree with him, even if Barry had tried to help them, he did it because he liked killing, not because he was repentant.
So then, why are you here? She wondered, craning her neck up at Scar as he turned back to the double doors. Edward brushed past the pair, heading over to the giant doors. He watched them cooly, waiting for them to spring to life, before finally trying to pull them open himself. They didn't budge.
"Oh come on!" He hissed. "How do you open this!" Johanna smirked, cocking her hips and crossing her arms.
"I can't believe he expected that to work." She sighed. To her surprise Scar grunted in response, raising his right arm menacingly.
"Stand back." He warned the girl, taking several steps towards the door. Suddenly, he stopped, just as the door in front of them began to creak, ever so slowly opening in front of them.
The group froze, mostly from the shock, as the giant doors opened, causing them to take several steps back as they did. The timing was almost too perfect, and it would seem that Scar agreed, because he took a stance in front of Johanna that was definitely offensive. Johanna was terrified to see such a large man become so alarmed. The doors were thick, thick enough that it took nearly three whole seconds for them to open wide enough for a crack, but as they did, Johanna wished they would have stay closed. Hundreds of white, humanoid monsters bum rushed the door as soon as it gave room, catching Edward, Darius and Zampano by surprise.
Thinking quickly, Johanna clapped, slamming her hands to the floor. In a spark of blue, she raised a wall between them and ghouls, which gave the men ample time to move. However, the wall was no match for the heavy doors and the further they opened, the more strain they put on the wall. After several long seconds, the wall exploded, sending debris flying, as well as letting loose army of those things.
They came for the group ravenously, with snapping jaws and rows of white, hungry teeth. If Johanna had known any better, she would have sworn they were Homunculus, though they didn't follow the typical black color scheme. No, these things were deathly pale. On their collar bones, and up onto their pale faces, was a distinct red pattern, which framed the single eye that sat solemnly in their foreheads. They groaned and growled like feral animals, but to Johanna's surprise they moved slowly staggering towards them.
The ghouls met Edward and the Chimeras first, who dove headlong into battle against them, throwing punches and kicks. Johanna stood, readying herself for battle as well, taking the stance that Heinkel had taught her. This is what they trained you for. This right here. She told herself, however it wasn't enough to stop her fast beating heart. Beside her, Scar's arm lit up blue, he, too, was ready.
It took only seconds before the entire group was surrounded, the devil's running at them in small numbers while the others watched. Despite their tactics, Johanna didn't peg them as smart, and she decided that they were only attacking in waves because they were too stupid to do otherwise.
One rushed Johanna from her left, while another approached from the front. She was ready for them, remembering her training and jumping around each of them while delivering a set of well rehearsed punches and kicks. She landed a hard roundhouse on one of them, sending him stumbling back to the ground, while the other was victim to one of her super punches. She leaned into it, smashing her fist on it's sullen cheek, as she drove it's head into the ground viciously.
Another had approached her from behind, one that she wasn't ready for. Thankfully, Scar had been within arms reach, and he grabbed the thing's whole face in his giant, tanned hand. In a wave of blue sparks, the things head exploded in green liquid, it was dead, or at least that was what Johanna and Scar had both been expecting. As Scar removed his hand the ghoul froze in place for what felt like eternity while they waited for it to drop. It never did, and instead seemed to recover from Scar's assault with renewed vigor.
Johanna stood, jumping out of the way as it lunged for her again, Scar grabbed it's arms violently, tossing him over head with ease. The thing gave out an unearthly roar as it stood, regrouping with the rest of it's kin.
"They don't die?!" Scar growled as he and Johanna backed themselves up to the rest of the group. Edward joined Johanna at her side as they made a circle, watching every direction. The room echoed with howls and moans as the fiends surrounded the gang of fighters. Johanna watched their hungry faces fearfully. What were they going to do?
"Big… brother!" One of them seemed to rasp, causing Edward to grow rigid.
"What the hell did that thing just say?!" Darius growled over his shoulder at them. A realization hit Edward like a ton of bricks.
"They used human souls to make these things!" He gasped.
"There's at least a hundred of them and more keep coming." Johanna hissed, watching the room continue to fill up around them. Johanna felt her stomach drop. "If these things escape… they'll kill everyone." She shouted, pointing to the opening of the room they were in. Several of the monsters had already began to stumble in that direction. With a clap, she sank to the ground, sealing off the only way out of the room.
"What are you doing?!" Zampano asked her, incredulous.
"If she hadn't, I would've done it myself." Edward told him. Despite their hopeless situation, everyone readied themselves for a fight, the Chimeras seemingly more excited than the rest, as they cracked their necks and stretched their arms.
"Now that all these things are trapped in here with us we can finally show our stuff." Jerso snickered, transforming in his chimera state, some kind of frog beast.
"This is gonna be good!" Darius agreed, following suit. Zampano grinned viciously as he too made the transformation into some kind of boar beast. Johanna clapped, pulling from the ground a halberd of steel, and she levelled it at the ghouls across the circle from her.
"I guess we'll just have to meet them head on." Edward sneered, raising his fists. In an instant he'd ran at them, the Chimeras close at his heels.
Johanna followed suit, taking a few steps before digging her halberd into the floor and using it to vault into several of the monsters. Her feet met with their faces and as she landed she used to swing the halberd around in a circle, like she had done with Envy the first time they'd been at Mustang's Cabin. This time went much better than that had gone and she sliced through several of them, causing large wounds to open across their chests, necks and faces. To her horror, they didn't even slow down, as their wounds regenerated before her eyes.
"Shit!" Johanna hissed, leaning to the side as one reached for her face. She thanked the stars that her hair had been short, because she knew if it hadn't he'd have gotten a handful of it. With another swing, she did the same thing; using her momentum to chop through zombie after zombie. Johanna began to grow tired, daring a glance over her shoulder at her fellow fighters. They too seemed to be tiring, while none of the ghouls were slowing down.
Another close call, and she chopped at the zombie who had reached for her, cutting his arm clean off. She waited with bated breath for it to grow back, but to her shock it never did. Next to her, Scar blew threw several of the fiends, snapping of their limbs in a bloody, green show. The two shared a look before Johanna turned to the others.
"Go for their limbs!" She told them, transmuting the halberd into a katana. It's blade glinted menacingly under the bright light of the room. Edward grinned at her, clapping and creating his own halberd, as the Chimeras around them began to focus on snapping the creatures legs.
Edward joined Johanna, the pair of them slicing their way through hordes of the vicious creatures. Even as they fell, they still snapped their jowls at the pairs ankles hungrily. Johanna shuddered as they cut through them, wondering the chaos that they'd prevented Central City going through. She couldn't imagine these things getting free, eating and clawing their way through the populace, one by one.
As she cut down yet another monster, it fell at her feet, revealing wave after wave of more monsters. Despite the dent they'd made in the army, there was still no end in sight, as they pooled through the giant door like water would a broken floodwall. Even as they cut down their fellow ghouls, the rest of them would mindlessly step over their fallen, clamoring for Edward and Johanna.
Johanna went to move, only to find that one of them had attached itself to her leg like a leech. She shoved her sword into the top of it's head, but it barely noticed, still trying to take a bite out of her calf. With all of her strength, she pushed against it's forehead with her hands, it's teeth mere inches from her flesh.
"Jo!" Edward growled, placing his halberd's staff between Johanna's leg and the monsters snapping teeth. Desperately he tried to pry the monsters from her ankle as it finally pulled Johanna from her feet. She squealed as she hit the floor, reaching for her sword. It came free from the things head with a sickening squish, but she realized too late that fighting off the ghouls from the floor left her at a disadvantage. Her sword forgotten, Johanna clapped, walling her and Edward and the single zombie off from the rest of the horde.
As soon as Johanna's cage had been made, a loud explosion rang out from behind them, crushing half of her box with its shockwave. Around them, orange flames engulfed the zombies, their shrieks of agony ringing out into the white room. Edward, who'd finally removed the zombie from Johanna's leg, tossed him into the open flame heavily, before turning to find the source of the fire itself. As the smoke cleared, Johanna's stomach began doing flips. There, in the dissipating smoke, stood a smug Colonel Mustang.
"Things always do seem to get messy when you're around." He smirked at them, his hand still raised for another snap. Riza flanked him, her gun drawn. "Maybe I could lend you a hand, Fullmetal."
