Child's Play
-Part 1, Chapter 4-
Roy pounded on Maes' door repeatedly until it was cracked open and the older boy stood in the doorway yawning a little. He looked somewhat irritated and as if he was about to snap at Roy for waking him up, but he wasn't given the chance to as Roy reached in, grabbed Maes' jacket and threw it at him. After being hit in the face by his coat, Maes moved it away from his face and adjusted his glasses. Before he could say anything Roy turned and ran towards the city.
"Roy?" Maes mumbled, then took a look over at the clock and saw that it was 11:45. Something seemed to hit him then and he quickly put on his coat, "Mom! Dad! I'm going out!" he shouted over his shoulder, then hurried after Roy.
It took him a bit, but Maes was eventually able to catch up to Roy, sometimes he was amazed at how fast that boy could run.
"Roy, what's going on!" he shouted still from behind.
"The chimeras are let out at midnight!" Roy shouted back, never once looking over his shoulder.
"What?! Why then are we running INTO the city?!" Maes yelled once he fully caught up to Roy.
"Riza didn't come home..." Roy said looking at Maes, then they both ran straight into the city. They ran around the city center, desperately looking for any sign that Riza was somewhere around. Eventually both of them no longer cared whether there were citizens asleep and started to yell out for her.
"Riza!" Maes shouted running down a side street.
"Riza!" Roy yelled hurrying down a main street. Both of them froze and sucked in their breath as they heard a scream that was quickly silenced by an unknown source. They both looked at each other, then ran towards the alley the chimeras had died in. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl and it felt like an eternity before they made it there, only to find nothing.
"Elizabeth?" Maes asked out loud taking a look around the alley.
"What happened to her?" Roy asked making his way around the perimeter of the alley, eventually making his way around the side of the buildings to see the two armed guards in front of the door. Looking over his shoulder back to Maes for a moment, Roy turned and started to approach the guards trying to be as calm as possible.
"Can we help you son?" the guard on the right asked seeing Roy talking closer.
"Have you two seen, or heard, anything strange this evening?" Roy asked coming to a stop a several feet away from the guards.
"No my boy, we haven't." the left guard said. Roy turned around, but stopped as he was faced with Maes standing behind him, looking at the guards with a curious look.
"Excuse me sirs," Maes said, "But why exactly do you need to guard an obviously abandoned building in the middle of the night? Even if it is in the vicinity of a military crime scene, shouldn't you be guarding, oh I don't know, the alley the incident took place in?" he asked, Roy looked over his shoulder and saw both men tense up.
"I'm sorry, that's classified military information." the left guard said, now refusing to look at the two boys.
"What If someone's life was in danger, and because you two didn't answer the questions, that person was horribly injured or even killed?" Roy asked turning back to face the guards. They looked like they were going to respond, but tensed up even more as they all head quickly approaching foot steps. Both Roy and Maes saw the men tense up even more and quickly turned around to see both Roy's father and Captain Hawkeye fast approaching.
"Open the door." the captain said once they had come to a stop directly in front of the guards. The two men hesitated then looked to one another before turning to unlock the door.
She didn't know how long she had been sliding when she hit the floor, but when she felt the cold tile against the back of her head and she tried to stop herself from moving, she then began to roll. Riza knew she had changed directions once she came to a stop and waited for the world to stop spinning before pushing herself up to her knees.
"Dang..." she said to herself as she slowly got into a sitting position. When she looked around she found herself in a dark room with barely enough light to see with, "Hello?" she said aloud, but only heard herself echoed back through the darkness. When she stood up she looked around and managed to find a darkened path and began to walk. 'I have to get out of here..' she though making her way though the dark. Above all else she wanted a flashlight, or a match, at least then she would know exactly what she was walking past as she continued down her ambiguous path.
She walked for a good while before finding a wall in front of her. Carefully Riza moved her fingers along it, trying to find evidence of a door, but found nothing.
"Figures..." she said, "They hid the back door pretty good too." after that she turned and started back down her dark path. A few minute had past when she was startled by the sound of a chain clinking and what might have been a gate rising up filled the room. She ducked down and hid when she heard footsteps running along the floor, and it was more than a little obvious to her that they weren't human at all, and suddenly she remembered the two dead chimeras in the alley.
"Hmm..." she heard off to the side and peeked her head up a little to see the form of a tall man standing in a door way with a woman standing somewhat behind him in a room on the other side of the area. The light from the inside of his room reflected off his glasses and seemed to make them glow. "This should be interesting." he said in a quiet voice, but still loud enough for Riza to hear. He then flicked a switch and a dull white light turned on in a far corner.
Her whole body froze when she looked back at the door where she had seen the man to find it closed, and the ramp that lead the chimeras out of the city was still as dark as it had been when she had first entered the room. "He locked them in with me..." she said quietly and looking around she was able to see two shadows dart across the floor, one even went through the light for a split second, but she could only make out the vague shape of a dog. Ducking back down, Riza wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to think of a plan that would get her to that door.
The captain pushed the two guards out of the way and went into the building, he was followed by Roy's father, Maes Hughes, and Roy in the back. Inside the building's main entrance they found that it was made up to be like a normal house, but the lack of decoration of any sort made it obvious to the men that it was simply a decoy. Roy watched his father drop back to the end of the group next to him, then move his left hand into a pocket. Looking up to his father's head, he saw the gesture to look down and watched as the left hand moved out of the pocket and held out a piece of white chalk. Seeing that Roy discretely took the calm and placed it into his own pocket, then looked back at his father and nodded. He knew what his father needed him to do if things got very bad.
They continued to walk until they heard a door close behind them, but when the four of them turned around to look, no one was there. It was then when Maes dropped back by Roy and both adults took up defensive positions at the front and back of the group.
"Excuse me captain...Lieutenant Colonel," a voice from the side calm, and all four of them jumped slightly. "Might I ask what the occasion is for this uninvited visit?" the man said, he had a very quiet voice, brown hair and glasses, wearing a white lab coat. he almost had a calming air about him and behind him stood a woman with long brown hair, also wearing a lab coat.
"Oh Tucker, you startled us." the Captain said moving his hand away from a gun on his belt.
"Terribly sorry sir." the man said, the woman behind him bowed slightly.
"It's quite all right, though I do have to ask that both of you come with us for a little bit." the Captain said motioning to the door.
"If you insist." Tucker said and follows the man's directions. Roy and Maes glanced to one another and silently fell to the back of the ground, and before everyone had made it into the main area the boys moved to the side and hid. Roy's father nodded slightly as he left the building and both boys knew that was the signal for them to go to work.
Quickly they went to it, checking the walls for hidden doors, or hallow walls. They were both sure to stay clear of the windows incase someone saw them and reported the 'suspicious' activity. Eventually they made their way into the back room and they suddenly felt the urge not to touch anything once their eyes landed on the expansive laboratory. There were vials, beakers, and tubes on just about every counter and table inside of it with countless amounts of notes and books scattered along with them. The two boys nodded and started looking over the tables, they found many notes on alchemy and the processes needed to create a chimera among them.
"This is defiantly the right place." Maes said after looking over a few papers. Roy only nodded, then went back to searching.
Eventually Roy calm upon a book with a red cover, but when he tried to move it out of the way, he almost threw himself off balance when it wouldn't budge. "What?" Roy mumbled then looked over his shoulder, "Maes!"
"You find something?" he asked running over to stand next to Roy, when he saw the book, he only got an odd look on his face until Roy opened the front cover to show that the pages had been cut out in their center in the shape of a square and in the center was a large red button that was attached through the book and onto the counter underneath.
"Push it, I'll get ready." Roy said moving a little to the side and kneeling down. Maes watched as Roy took out the chalk and drew a circle with a few lines in the middle. "Now!"
Riza felt the sudden urge to cry as she heard more chains moving, and shortly after that several more foot steps filled the room. 'Oh God...' she though hugging her legs tighter. She looked in the direction of the door again and bit her lower lip, 'Why do you want to kill me?' she though. She sucked in her breath and froze when she heard growling from somewhere in the room. She wanted to run, but knew that there would be no where for her to go in the end, 'Help...'
"Nothing happened..." Maes said turning to look down at Roy who was still kneeling. He then closed his eyes as if concentrating, Maes went to say something, but chose to stay quiet.
"Maes, get down!" Roy shouted and the other boy readily complied by diving under a table. Once Maes was under cover Roy placed his hands on the edge of the chalk circle, and once his finger tips touched the lines shined blue and the floor began to break apart and spike upward, eventually making a line directly into the wall. It took several more seconds, but the wall started to crack and crumble under the force. Roy gritted his teeth together, hoping, willing, simply wishing that the wall would just break open so that he could get inside. Neither Roy or Maes saw that the cracked had shot up and disconnected a light that was handing, and they also didn't see the now exposed wires start to spark; their eyes were locked on that wall and as soon as they could see a little bit of darkness on the other side, Roy moved away from his circle and both he and Maes ran over and began to pull away the cracked pieces of wall.
A beam of light suddenly appeared and shot across the room, and whatever the rumbled had been had startled the chimeras enough to make them all freeze in place and go into hiding, each looking towards the wall. Riza them moved a little to the side and slowly started to stand up. She had to shield her eyes as the hole became larger and the room began to get considerably brighter. She saw two figured working to widen the hole, but what she couldn't understand was why they hadn't simply used the door.
She waked the hole now quickly glowing larger, but she was also sure to keep an eye on the chimeras that had started to pace back and forth, as if waiting for whatever was going to try and get inside. As it continued to get larger, the chimeras moved to the sides and hide in the shadows, now laying in wait. When the hole got big enough for the figures to be almost fully seen, Riza could tell that there were in no way adults and she sucked in her breath as she saw the reflection of light in a pair of glasses.
"Stop!" she shouted just as the figured were about to step over the final, lowest piece of what was left of the wall. "They're going to attack..." she said quieter. One figure looked back to the other one, who nodded and went back into the other room.
A sharp, deep growl grabbed the girl's attention as all of the chimeras turned at once to look at her. She had ruined their hunt, and she knew what was going to come next. As they began to make their way towards her, Riza looked around to get a better idea about what was in the room and found that it was lined with empty, metal cages. She watched one chimera break off from the now pack of 4 and go around to cut off her escape down her path while the others continued forward. She also now could see exactly what they were made of; the size and body of a dog with the tails that looked like a rat's, but with the feet of a horse. She felt herself put her back flat against the wall, and found herself unable to move as the one from down the path began a running charge towards her.
"Riza!" a familiar voice seemed to almost scream out from the other room and she saw a blue glow out of the corner of her eye. She then watched as the chimera leapt at her, but slammed into a slab that rose up from the floor.
"Get over here!" another voice yelled and she looked over and proceeded to climb over the cages. Judging by that the chimeras were made of, and their size she decided to got over to the others by jumping from the tops of the cages because she was sure the creatures couldn't jump straight up very well.
As they watched Riza make her way over to them, Roy and Maes watched the chimeras turn their attention to them. Maes stood off to the side a little, poised to pull Riza in once she got close enough, Roy stood in the entry way, his chalk in hand, quickly making new arrays to use with his alchemy. His eyes widened as he watched Riza make a jump towards them and the chimeras followed at her heels.
Not really caring what exactly happened, he slammed his hands into the center of the array and blue sparks shot up along the entry way. Maes grabbed onto Riza and pulled her inside just as the energy met with the exposed wires above and a mass amount of flames erupted. Feeling the sudden burst of heat from above, Roy just willed it to go into the other room, willed it to envelope the chimeras and stop them, willed it to fill the other room then disappear leaving only charred bodies of creatures that were created by alchemy. He could hear yelping, and howls of pain, but wouldn't stop willing the flames until they were completely silenced, and once he did stop it, he looked forward into the room and found that even the metal cages had started to melt from the heat.
Roy looked down at the chalk in one hand and found that it had cracked and broke in a couple places, then just let himself fall back into a sitting position, just starring into the other room, finding himself very short of breath. To his side, Maes and Riza stood up and also looked into the room in awe; the chimeras were gone, and the entire room looked like a war zone. Riza looked over at him and placed a hand on his left shoulder, snapping Roy back to reality.
"Are you ok..?" he asked, still a little short of breath.
"Yeah. I'm all right." she said, moving to help him up to his feet. They then made their way out of the house, carefully moving past the guards as if nothing had happened, neither Roy or Riza saw the gesture Maes gave to the two guards as they all walked. The cool night felt good to all three of them as they walked home, when they made it to Maes' house, both Roy's father and Captain Hawkeye were talking to Maes' mother and father, and they all turned to watch the children walking up the road.
"Elizabeth..." the captain said taking a couple steps toward then falling to his knees.
"Dad..." Riza mumbled as a few tears came to her eyes and she dashed towards him, opening her arms as she got over to her father and wrapping them around him.
"I was so worried about you..." the captain said holding his daughter close to him in a tight embrace. Maes and Roy made their way over and went to their respective parents. Roy glanced up at his father and held on his hand to him. Julius looked down at his son and held out an open palm and watched as Roy placed the broken piece of chalk in it, then started towards their house.