Full Metal Alchemist: Dead People Series
Where dead people take over the spotlight

(Warning: contains bad language, spoilers up to anime episode 22, and imagery that some may find disquieting)

Technically Dead

They took my cleaver away. My cleaver. The very best-est one I own, the one with the weighted handle and my shop insignia carved into the side. The one that old Eisern made especially for me and now that the old bugger is dead I can't get a replacement for.

Fuck.

My hand is still twitching, trying to get use to the absence of my cleaver, when someone -- scrawny, probably stuffed full of stringy tendons that would be a bitch to cut -- puts handcuffs on me and pushes me roughly into the back of the military truck. Another guy, all pumped up with steriods like the beef that Schweinewärter tried to palm off me last June, slams the door shut and spits into the ground. "Fucking Barry the Chopper," he curses.

I ignore them. Bad meat. Phfft. And turn my thoughts back to the three idiots that got me into this mess in the first place.

The first one was perfect. She fell into my lap like a gift from heaven. The bright blue eyes, the soft but firm musculature, the sheen of healthy skin and fur, the kind that positively shouts out, 'I'm been milk-fed from babyhood, exercised in the green rolling hills for days on end, grazed in the cleanest, freshest country air you'd find in six states, and given the best loving care available. Yoo-hoo, come and get me!'

So, of course, I did. She would have been the perfect cut, my perfect work... God, just thinking about her's making me drool.

But the runt had to spoil it.

Mind you, he wasn't too bad either. A little short for my taste, and of course, there's the two big defects, one sticking on his right shoulder, the other on his left leg. I wonder if that would give the boy a metallic flavour. Hope not, cause then it would be a bitch to sell, but the butcher-artist in me is excited by the challenge it poses.

Would it stretch all the way in, the way I've heard automail is suppose to be interfaced with the remaining human nerves? Or could I just cut through the rotator cuff, and the whole shebang would fall off? But that would be too easy, no challenge at all. Cutting away the automail, while retaining as much of the meat in prime condition... My mind starts figuring out the anatomy of it, trying to decide where to place the first cut. We don't want a mangled rough carcass at the end of the day... No, we don't.

And what about the leg? I didn't get to see it, other than the shank, but I figure it must extend past his knee, cause the weight of the whole thing would be too much for the knee to bear alone. Wonder how much of the shank I might get to salvage...?

Somewhere in the middle of my musings, the truck stops, and the door opens, and they drag me out again. Roughly. Rats, it's Scrawny and Steriods again. Bah. Don't they have better specimens in this place?

I'm shoved into a room, where they make me strip, and check me over and then throw me some ugly grey thing to wear. I amuse myself by imagining them being ground up into mince.

Then it's off to a tiny dank row of cells. Really, I wouldn't keep a cat's carcass in this place. Dirty, smelly, and I'm positive I just saw a rat run off. No, this place is so not going to get the Central City's Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service's Stamp of Approval any time this century, I sniff.

They put me by myself, in a tiny room all the way at the back. By this time, I must admit, I'm starting to feel a little down. Also, I might be suffering from cleaver-withdrawal symptoms.

Damn I miss my cleaver.

To try to keep my mind of my cleaver, I start to sing my happy song. Everyone knows it. The shoe-maker's made a cute advertisement jingle out of it, and everyone's been whistling or humming it. But they haven't got the words right.

Now, how did it go again? I whistle a couple of experimental bars to jog my memory. Ah. Yes. I start singing, my voice gaining in strength as I go along and ignoring the shouting that started up.

"Always look on the good cut of life.
Always look on the good cut of life."

"If life seems jolly rotten,
There's something you've forgotten,
And that's always keep a cleaver in your hand.
When you're feeling in the dumps,
Don't be silly chumps.
Just lift your knive and cleave her into twain.
And... "

"Always look on the good cut of life.
Always look on the good cut of life."

"For life can be dismembered,
The cleaver's cut is tender'd
And the right cut'll give your corpse a final glow --"

Some buggers interrupt me, just as I was really getting into it. The door clang, scattering particles of rust and dirt spinning into the air. I pout. I like my happy song.

"Get up," someone said roughly. Tall, hooded, I can't see anything of his body to judge what kind of meat he'd make. The two other guys behind are good through. Nicely muscled, just a little bit of fat, and good bones. They put handcuffs on me again and I am pushed out and walking again.

I wish they could decide where to put me, so that I can get back to my happy song.

They take me down, and down, and down. And as we went, we were joined by more people in grey, like me, and more people in hoods and uniforms, like them. There's an incredible variety of meat here, but one of the muscle-boys hit me hard when I tried to crane my head around for a better look. The meanie.

I'm pretty sure we're underground now. There is that stillness of air and coolness that any butcher with an underground cellar would be familiar with. And then we are walking up again and into a room.

A room that screamed to me.

A room that I have never seen before, but is absolutely familiar to me. Because, even through they tried to clean things up, even though they used a shit-load of bleach and cleaning agents, my abbatoir-sensitised nose can still detect the underlying smell of blood.

Blood.

My nose flare.

Now, usually I'd be really happy in an environment like this. It's homey, like. But then again, I don't have a cleaver right now, and if I don't have my cleaver, then I'm not a butcher, and in a place like this, there's only two kinds of things alive here and one of them not for long and I start to wish really badly that I still had my cleaver, because the alternative, the only other alternative here is meat.

Tall, mean and hooded steps up to a fat soft hog and salutes. "Sir, we've brought the next batch of candidates!"

Fat soft piggy just stares over his desk and looks at us. Examining us like meat.

My legs twitch involuntarily. I know, even if none of the other meat don't, what is waiting for us here. I try to casually look around... I might have a clear shot at this. Running away from this place. There's only like fifteen people between me and the exit. Of course, I will be running to more suits and muscles, but hey, a minute alive is a minute alive and nothing to sneer at.

I tense slightly, waits for the piggy to look at someone else, and push. I run. I dodge. I think I hit someone really hard back there. I am only two steps -- two steps! -- away from the exit when a hand closes around my shoulder, and I am down, down on the floor, closer to the smell of bleach and blood.

Fat piggy steps up to me. I can see my reflection in his polished boots. "Take this one. The alchemists say it seems to work best on people with a strong will to survive," he said, boredly. And all I can think, right then, is how much I want my cleaver back.

The world went black.

Awake. Naked. And friggin' cold. These are my first thoughts when I am conscious again.

I am in the center. There's a suit of ugly armor that looks like it came out of the Fuher's museum in front of me. I curse. If they were going to put me together with a piece of banged-together metal, why couldn't it have been a cleaver?

There are a bunch of people lurking at the edges of the room. One scrawny. One underfed. One muscle going to fat. Another scrawny. Underfed speaks first. "He's finally awake, sir."

No duh.

Idiot.

Then the muscle going to fat walks up closer. I don't know what he wants, but I tense anyway. He stops just short of the pretty circle on the floor, kneels and puts his hand down. And then, there is light.

Right after light came pain. And more pain. And incredibly painful pain.

I am being plucked out of my body. My body is rebelling. Hell, I am rebelling. I don't want to go. It hurts being pulled out. I cling to me as hard as I can, but razor-sharp fire comes, cutting away at me, cutting, oh God, please God, no God, it hurts. It hurts so bad. It burns. It freezes. I am screaming.

I am screaming.

And after an eternity, something cold emerges. And they are stitching me into it, painful stitch by stitch, and I rebel. I want to live. I want me. It hurts. It hurts. Live.

I think I black out. Because I don't remember anything more but blessed, blessed quiet.

Awake. Naked. And still friggin' cold. These are my first thoughts when I am conscious for a second time that day.

I don't move for a long time. Just lying there, recovering. Trying to get past the pain.

Slowly, I sort of recover. I get just a wee bit curious. I look down. I creaked.

Creaked.

My first thought is that someone put me into a suit of armor as a massive collosal joke. Like, hey, let's torture good ol' Barry until he almost dies and to finish things up, we'll put him inside some armor at the end of it! Sounds like it's right up their alley.

My second thought is 'damn, I feel hollow.'

I try to tug away the breast piece of the damned thing. It comes away in my hands, and oops. Guess what? I am hollow.

After the pain, and me not having my cleaver and everything, nothing really fazes me anymore. Nothing, because I have already put the pain somewhere deep, where I can not think about it for a while. Nothing because, really, the only thing I am feeling right now is the urge to get my hands on someone, anyone, and just tear them to pieces. The boys in suits would be a good place to start.

And what do you know. Speak of the devil... I smile. But nothing moves. I keep forgetting I am armor right now. But somehow, I think it showed. Because fat piggy moves away, just a little. And scrawny and underfed positively flinches.

Fat piggy is the first to speak. "Barry the Chopper, the military has requisited your body in the Public Interests for the State. You will obey our orders, whatever they may be without question. If you try to disobey, or run away, or do anything that has not been priorly approved by a recognised military authority, the alchemists will destroy you on sight. And they can do this very easily, Barry. Make good note of that."

I am getting bored. I whisper -- hollowly -- two words.

"kill you."

The fat piggy blinks. A couple of suits, ah, I recognise muscle going to fat! and I whisper to him, "kill you," as well. He smirks. And raises his hand. And I see a circle thing dangling from his wrist.

"No, Barry. But we will give you something to kill, all in due time." He turns away and exits, and the fat piggy and the underfed scrawny one follow him. And I don't see them again.

Other people come to me. People with lubricant, to oil my joints. I ask for fun stuff, and they brought me an assortment of furs and doodads, and gangles and I go all out decorating my new 'body'. I picked a new 'face' as well. Something pretty, with fangs. And a nice plumy white feather that quickly turned a dirty grey after a while to top everything off.

They put me in an empty place, together with more amour guys just like me, and tell me to be on guard and that I can kill anyone who isn't authorised to come in.

Oh, and I get a new cleaver too. A bigger one. A heavier one. Something with more swing, and give to it.

So now, I wait. And pet my nice new cleaver. It's good to have a cleaver again.

End

omi says: WHEEEEE!!! My first FMA!Fic completed! My Barry! glomps Barry with a metallic thunk Owie! rubs bruise That hurts! But ish okay. I still rabus my Barry… snuggles