Child's Play
-Chapter 3-
A couple of days later they were gathered at the alley again, once again stopped at the entrance. Cain had called everyone that night and explained the strange noises he'd heard outside his window. When they had all made it to he alley, the children found the bodies of two, much larger creatures; these ones with the bodies of lions, twisted horns like a ram, and the tail of a bird. Like the last one, these had seemed to have fallen over and died at the exact same time.
"What are they?" Riza asked kneeling next to Hymans in front of the rest of the group.
"Chimeras." John said from her other side.
"Where are they coming from?" Hymans asked not looking away from the corpses.
"I heard the sounds just after midnight," Cain explained, "I was really scared, but I snuck out of the house to get a look. When I shined my light over here, I saw the shadows and ran." he said. The children nodded, then Riza stood up and looked at the bodies from a higher angle.
"We should find out where they're coming from." Maes said, Alex stood next to him and nodded.
"What if we asked one of our parents?" Riza asked turning to look at the other over her shoulder.
"That, won't be necessary Miss Hawkeye." a deep voice from behind said, and after that all the children turned around to face the then Colonel Bras Grande.
"Hello sir." all of them said, looking up at the man.
"Good morning," he said moving forward, "Now unfortunately I'm going to have to ask you children to leave." he said, emphasizing the word 'children' as he started to move past them, "Now if you'll all excuse us, this is a military crime scene." Bras Grande said standing behind them and ushering them away from the alley. Roy glanced at the officers on the scene that were standing next to a van and saw that his father was among them. He saw the nod of acknowledgement and knew that he would be hearing something once he got home that evening.
The children moved to the academy and placed themselves in a small circle, some on a railing, others on the stairs, Roy though chose to stand.
"This stinks!" Hymans shouted, kicking at the air from his seat on a metal railing. "Every time we find something interesting the military takes it away from us." he said.
"He's right." John said, "We maybe young, but we're all in the military school for a reason." he explained.
"They're only trying to protect us..." Cain said.
"Oh quiet!" Hymans called tossing a small stone at Cain who flinched as it hit his shoulder.
"Guys let's just talk to our parents, maybe they'll tell us something." Riza said looking around to the others.
"At the very least let me talk to my father." Roy said speaking up.
"Do you really think the Lieutenant Colonel will tell you anything?" Maes said sitting up a little.
"I think he might, but either way I'll let you guys know." he explained
"What do we do if he doesn't tell you anything, or if none of our parents tell us anything for that matter?" John asked hopping off the railing.
"Well..." Maes said looking at him from the corner of his eye, "We'll burn that bridge once we cross it.."
"All right, so, we all meet here after class tomorrow." Roy said, and everyone nodded, then stood up to leave. Roy watched everyone leave and noticed that Maes was still sitting on his step. He got a confused look on his face when he saw Maes turn to attention in the direction the others had left in. When Roy turned to look he saw Riza standing there, her hair was pulled back in a clip and she was wearing a light purple hooded sweat shirt along with a pair of dark pants. She tilted her head a little and gave a slight smile.
"There's that look again." she said then took a couple steps closer, "you know, you're quite the natural leader." she said as she walked.
"I am?" Roy asked, now almost completely ignoring Maes.
"Don't you see how everyone follows you? It's in your blood. I bet you'd even make fuehrer one day." She said stopping in front of him, "Just don't back down." and with that, Riza turned and walked down the street. Roy stood there and only watched her leave, his mind going over what she had told him.
" 'that look'?" he heard off to his side, and then turned to Maes, suddenly remembering that his friend had been sitting there the whole time.
"Nothing," Roy said, "Let's go." and with that he turned and left, Maes quickly got up and followed after him.
They walked in silence, passing by the crime scene again. Looking past the yellow tape that had been put up they could both see that the bodies had been moved. It was easy to assume that they had been placed in the second van that had pulled up.
"Hope I don't get that job when I get in..." Maes muttered, "Grotesque Body Remover." he said then chuckled to himself.
"Do you really think she's right?" Roy said obviously not paying attention.
"I guess, the guys do listen to you a lot." Maes said stretching his arms behind his head. They then continued walking quietly until they got home.
Roy watched his father walk in the door that night and waited as the man hung up his blue jacket. The man moved a hand through his thick black hair, them moved to sit across from Roy at the kitchen table.
"I saw you and your friends today." the man said looking at his son.
"Yeah...Cain wanted to show us what he had seen that night before," Roy explained, he was careful about not letting his father know they had been there the last time a body was found as well.
"You want to know what's going on don't you?" his father said, Roy had always admired how his father always got right to the point, no matter what the subject might be.
"Yes sir." Roy said nodding.
"This is not to get out, understand?" his father whispered, and again Roy nodded, "The military is testing to see if it's possible to use Chimeras, and alchemy in general, to create a separate branch of defense." his father explained.
"Really? But why are the chimeras getting out?" Roy asked, his father was about to answer, but hesitated, "Dad." Roy said insistently.
"It's part of an early experiment...to see if they can be controlled, but they keep dying just after they exit the back door." his father said sighing afterwards, "And what's worse that we're discovering is that when more than one is let out at a time, they become very aggressive and territorial."
"What would explain the positions of the bodies at the time of death." Roy said, this time his father nodded, "But why release them in the first place? What if they go after a civilian?" Roy asked.
"We send in the experimental division to take care of the creatures." his father said.
"Alchemists?" Roy asked, and again his father nodded. They sat there quietly until a knock came to the door and his father went to answer it. Roy stayed at the table and only watched as Captain Hawkeye could be seen standing in the doorway.
"Julius, I have a question." the captain said, and after hearing that Roy stood up and slowly made his way to the door.
"Yes sir?" Roy's father asked.
"Have you, or your son seen Elizabeth? She said she was meeting some friends in town, but when she didn't come home after a couple hours, I began to worry and called around, but no one has seen her." her father said, the nervousness was very obvious in the man's voice.
"No sir, I'm sorry...is there anything I can do to help?" Julius asked, by this time Roy was standing right behind him.
"I don't know what you can do...she might be on her way home right now." the captain said, then mumbled something under his breath.
"it's not a problem, I was just working with Roy on his alchemical studies. Come on, let's go see if we can find her." Julius said grabbing his coat.
"Dad!" Roy said drawing both men's attention, "Let me go get Maes, we'll run into the city to cover more ground." he said, his father looked to Captain Hawkeye for a moment, then back to his son.
"Be careful, it's almost midnight." his father said, after that Roy nodded and grabbed a sweater, quickly heading out the door.
Riza quietly moved along the wall of the large gray building. She was well aware of how much trouble she would be in once she got home, but she had to find out something about what was going on. Moving along the side of the building behind the alley, she kept going until she saw a door with two officers in black standing on either side of it. 'Military guards?' she though, then moved back to the side of the building. 'Chimeras at night, dead in the morning. With two military guards watching the entrance to what would seem to be an empty build...' she though, then took another look at the guards, "Make that armed guards." she whispered to herself.
She walked back to the alley and looked towards the path that lead into the city street. "What's going on here..." she whispered, then leaned against the back wall. She stood there in though until she heard several voices call out "Riza!" somewhere near by. She was going to move to show herself, but when she lifted her head, she began to feel herself sinking into the wall and heard the sound of stone against stone. She tried to pull herself forward, but gravity kept pulling her back. Everything seemed to blacken around her as her back hit what seemed to be a sloped ramp and she started to slide. She let out a high pitched scream as she started to pick up speed and watched the outside world disappear as the stone door went back into place.