SHONEN ALLIANCE
RE:BIRTH
OPENING THEME: GOLDEN TIME LOVER (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood)
Everything went wrong so fast, the heroes barely had a chance to process what had happened.
When the window had shattered, Aliasse, Ling, and Havoc had all been ready to spring into action, but whatever had come through had been absurdly quick. Havoc was bowled over, falling onto the table and sending chess pieces flying in all directions.
The scuffle that had followed and quickly devolved into a disorganized melee, but Ali thought she heard Barry shouting in what seemed to be excitement.
No one had managed to get a good enough look at their attacker to determine much beyond "they were human" when the attacker had escaped out the window seeming to take great care to crash through a different window then the one it had come in through. Before anyone had managed to regain their grasp on the situation, Barry charged, bounding past Ling and crashing through the door, chasing their assailant!
"You won't get away from me!" Barry shouted as he gave chase.
"Damn it," Havoc cursed, "COME BACK!"
"Hey, my weapons are still at Vine's!" Ali pointed out.
"You'd better get them," Havoc cursed, grabbing his gun, "I'll call in. Can you two follow him!?"
"That's my specialty," Mizore admitted.
"There's no need to fear! Nep and Mizore are on the job!" Neptune promised confidently.
"That's what worries me," Havoc admitted as everyone went to work, all forgetting to notice that Ling had slipped away.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Neptune and Mizore had their work cut out for them cutting down Barry's lead, and probably wouldn't have pulled it off if they hadn't found Barry standing menacingly over a fallen figure.
"Oh no! The chopper's chopping!" Neptune exclaimed.
Her cry had gotten Barry's attention and he looked up at them just as they reached him.
The figure he'd "chopped" was a dirty but well built man with ill-kept golden hair, wearing ragged clothes and a broken mask.
"Who was this guy?" Mizore inquired, "how come you chased after him like that."
"Couldn't help it," Barry admitted, "you can't blame me. After all, how many people can say they've gotten to chop up their own body."
"Oh, I get it! Perfectly understandable then," Neptune said jovially. After about 10 seconds to process what she'd just heard, her tune changed to horrified. "Hold on, WHAT!?"
"Then… this is…" Mizore began.
"This is my real body, from when I was human," Barry revealed.
"What!? Hold on! This is your body!? Then why're you trying to chop it up!? Do you want to stay a suit of armor forever!?" Neptune wailed.
"Well, yeah," Barry admitted, "I'm the Immortal Serial Killer Barry the Chopper now! Why would I want to go back to a meat body? Besides, even if I did, I wouldn't want to be put back in that body. Look."
He indicated several parts of the damaged body that made Mizore and Neptune recoil. In several spots, the body was showing signs of rotting, like meat left out in the hot sun.
"Whatever soul they stuck in this thing, it seems it wasn't compatible with it. It's breaking down and wasting away. Not much use now but to chop it up and throw it away!"
"There you are!" Havoc had finally caught up. Mizore, Neptune, and Chopper only took their eyes away for a second, but it was still too long. Barry's body seemed to will itself back life as it bolted.
"Get back here!" Barry shouted, giving chase.
"Not this time pal!" Neptune declared, "it's morphin time!" A blinding white light enveloped Neptune for several seconds before fading to reveal Purple Heart.
"Let's hurry!" Placing her arms under Mizore's armpits, the CPU lifted the snow fairy into the air and flew after the fleeing Barries, leaving Havoc behind.
"Damn it," Havoc cursed before hearing an approaching car. He turned just in time to see a black car pull up beside him. The window rolled down to reveal Colonel Mustang with Lieutenant Hawkeye driving the car.
"Get in," Mustang ordered. Havoc wasted no time complying, climbing into the back seat of the vehicle.
Hawkeye was about to drive away when something landed on the roof. Mustang stuck his head out the window and looked up to see Aliasse standing on the roof, holding her whip like lance and sturdy shield while intense blue flame flowed from her young body.
"Drive," she commanded, looking down at Mustang. Her voice was tinged with the fierce edge of a full powered Valkyria and her blood red eyes glowed with a vicious light. Mustang nodded and pulled himself back into the car.
"Let's go."
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Barry's body seemed to be purposely running somewhere as his armored soul pursued it. Without any hesitation, the body barreled into an Amestrian government building and with an equal amount of hesitation, the soul followed. With a great deal more hesitation, Purple Heart and Mizore landed outside the door.
"Where are we?" Mizore asked, looking over the official looking building.
"I don't know," Purple Heart admitted, "do we go in after them?"
"The Third Laboratory. This is perfect," a voice from behind them caused them to turn. Mustang, Hawkeye, and Havoc were just getting out of the car as Aliasse jumped down from the roof.
"What do we do now, sir? Do we wait?" Havoc inquired.
"No. This is the best chance we're going to get," Mustang declared, walking towards the laboratory, Aliasse and Hawkeye hot on his heels. "Who're you two?"
"They're with the outworlders, sir," Hawkeye explained.
"Nep and Mizore," Ali introduced the two, "they helped me catch that armored guy."
"Are you willing to fight?" Mustang demanded, prompting an eager nod from both Purple Heart and Mizore, "then you're with us."
/\/\/\/\/\/\
The scientists working in the Third Laboratory were understandably in a panic. First, an odd man who seemed more animal then human had charged through their halls, bounding towards the stairs down to their basement facilities.
Hot on the strange man's heels, a demonic looking suit of armor had charged through, swinging around a large machete and shouting something about chopping someone up. The doctors and scientists were on the verge of a full panic when Mustang entered the building, seemingly riding to the rescue like a gallant knight at the head of a small but promising cavalry.
"C… Colonel Mustang," a military policeman responsible for guarding the lab stuttered, saluting the colonel, "I…"
"The man who came through here just now, he's a wanted and dangerous serial killer. My team and I will handle him. I want you and your forces to evacuate the civilians."
"Uh, understood sir," the MP exclaimed, seemingly relieved that he and his men weren't going to be forced to go after the invaders. He gave Mustang a respectful salute, then rushed to carry out the orders he'd been given as Mustang's team descended the stairs after the Barries.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
As Mustang and his team exited the the stairway, they were immediately faced with a problem. Three underground paths separated from the bottom of the stairs, and there was no indication about which way Barry might have gone.
After a brief discussion, it was decided that the group of six would separate into three groups of two, each investigating one of the directions.
Mustang himself, joined by Havoc, had taken the hallway that led to the right, but hadn't seen any signs after a lengthy walk that indicated that Barry had gone this way. After investigating what appeared to be some kind of storage room and finding nothing, Mustang admitted they'd drawn the wrong direction.
"Great," Havoc sighed, lighting up a cigarette, "hopefully Hawkeye and Neptune's teams are having more luck then us."
"Nothing out of the ordinary here," Mustang admitted, sizing up the storage room, "we'll just have to keep looking."
"Such a shame. You really should have minded your own business. Guess you didn't quite get the message from your friend's fate," a voice from the shadows put the two on guard as an attractive woman with long black hair. Their eyes were drawn instantly to her chest, though not for the obvious reasons. Instead, their eyes rested on an ouroboros tattoo.
"Guess we found something after all," Mustang admitted as he and Havoc were faced with the deadly homunculus, Lust the Lascivious.
"Such a shame," Lust admitted, "you could have been useful, but now… well, you've certainly proved your too dangerous to be left alive."
Mustang wasn't interested in what the homunculus had to say to them. He had already pulled on his ignition glove and was preparing to engulf Lust in flames hot enough to melt flesh. He snapped his fingers at the same moment Lust slashed at something on the ceiling with her claw-like finger tips.
Mustang and Havoc both expected the room to flood with fire, burning the homunculus to a pile of ash in a heartbeat, which made it that much more unexpected when, instead, the room flooded with water, soaking the both of them.
Mustang let out a curse when he looked up to see what Lust had slashed. One of the Third Laboratory's water lines had been sliced through as effortlessly as if it been made of soft cloth, and his Flame Alchemy had been rendered useless.
"So, what will you do now?" Lust taunted, strutting towards Mustang and Havoc. To anyone watching from the outside, the sight probably looked quite pathetic as two trained, veteran soldiers turned on their heels and fled in absolute terror from a lovely, but otherwise seemingly unremarkable young woman. Lust didn't even attack them immediately, less due to any shock at the two's sudden and hasty retreat and more due to a quiet confidence. The two had nowhere they could run where she wouldn't kill them.
Of course, Roy Mustang and Jean Havoc were well aware of this, and instead of fleeing back down the hallway they'd come from, they took cover on either side of the doorway.
"Any ideas!?" Havoc asked, readying his sidearm for a final stand.
"We're not done yet," Mustang observed, "she flooded the floor with water. All it takes is a quick transmutation to create Hydrogen gas!"
If Lust caught on at any point what Mustang and Havoc were planning, she didn't react. Not when Mustang's alchemical energy surged through the water, not when Havoc turned and threw his cigarette lighter at her, not when the ignited lighter bounced harmlessly off of her chest, and not when a raging inferno flooded the entire storage room, turning everything in it to ash.
/\/\/\/\/\/\
Most people in most situations would have wondered why a large, featureless stone chamber was housed underneath a government laboratory. However, for Purple Heart, who had ended up in just such a chamber, the real question at the front of her mind was how she'd managed to lose Mizore somewhere along the hallway leading here.
"She can't have gone far," she finally admitted, "I guess I should backtrack and find her."
"Well, isn't this a surprise. I was under the impression everyone from that little alliance the Lunarian princesses brought together left this world after that Colonel lopped the head off of that big nosed buffoon. Yet here one is now."
The voice echoed about the empty chamber, preventing Purple Heart from zeroing in on its source. As she searched, something bounced off her foot and drew her attention down. A small, metal orb was rolling away from her foot.
The ball rolled over, stopping to show her a painted on clown face with a goofy smile. Then it exploded and Purple Heart was sent flying crashing hard into the wall.
"And she's quite the beauty too," the voice mocked as Purple Heart staggered, struggling to shake off the disorientation of being blown up, "that smooth skin, curvaceous figure, long hair, and beautiful face."
As Purple Heart regained her senses, a figure seemed to materialize from the shadows. He was tall and thin, dressed in a ridiculous looking, multi-colored clown suit. His hair was green and his face pure white, complete with make-up and a rather silly looking red clown nose. The amusement of his appearance was off set, however, by his teeth, which were yellow and razor sharp, and the seven inch, razor sharp metal claws attached one per finger to his right hand.
This wasn't exactly the first place she would have expected to encounter one, but Neptune had seen enough horror movies in her time to know a killer clown when she saw one.
"Slicing up that smooth skin, making that gorgeous face contort in agony. Yes, I'd say dealing with you is going to be a real barrel of laughs!" The clown gloated before letting a loud, menacing laugh reverberate through the chamber.
CLOSING THEME: KIMI NO NAMAE (Rising of the Shield Hero)