Warnings: Violence (mild, in my mind, but you've been warned if you're squeamish)
Spoilers: Hmm don't think there are any
Notes: See end for A/N
Feedback: Constructive feedback is very welcome
Felis Catus: Circle Ten
"HOLY CRAP!" Edward shouted in shock, leaping immediately away and spinning around to face whatever it was that he'd been leaning on. He kept his body instinctively low and close to the ground, luckily for him - as a long reptilian tail whipped around, right where Edward's head would have been.
The smell, which both Edward and Roy had attributed to the garbage littering the alley, became immediately pronounced, thickening to the sickly sweet perfume of rotting flesh.
Roy jumped down from Edward's shoulder so he wouldn't be in the way, as Edward quickly transmuted his arm into a blade. The chimera facing them was the fourth one Hughes had described. Only the reality of the creature facing them made the description pale in comparison.
It was about seven feet high, and as Hughes said, a massive powerhouse of muscle with an intelligent mind - lurking behind a skull that was heavily misshapen, with ridges along the forehead and beady eyes that fixed their dead gaze on the dumbstruck alchemist and the snarling cat. Only what Hughes hadn't mentioned, was that it carried chameleon genes - a fact made horribly apparent, as the chimera silently blended back into the wall it had been pretending to be.
"Shit."
That about summed it up, Roy had to agree, his every sixth sense on alert. He knew cats had nine lives, in theory - but he wasn't about to put that theory to the test if he could help it.
"Hawkeye, Hughes, come in! We've spotted number four, send in backup...alleyway between Elm and Birch Streets!" Ed yelled into his radio, eyes flicking around quickly.
"Roger!" the radio crackled back.
"THERE!" Edward shouted dropping the radio as he spotted a glimmer of movement in the air from the corner of his eye. He leapt forward with a vicious swipe of his alchemized automail arm. There was an awful scraping sound of metal on scales.
The chimera hissed, and materialized briefly to snarl at Edward before vanishing again.
Edward backed away slightly, eyes wide, automatically shrugging off his red jacket to more easily transmute his arm. It hadn't even been hurt! Its hide was much too tough, or else plated by too many overlapping scales much like a dragon's hide to be simply pierced. He'd need to alchemize his arm into a stronger metal...
Deep in thought, and scanning the air in front of him nervously, Edward didn't see the air behind him waver slightly.
Roy did.
With a vicious hiss, he leapt into the air, judging where the creature's back should be, and clambered upwards, his claws sliding alarmingly on the smoothly scaled surface.
Edward turned around, his face shock white. "You stupid cat!" he screamed, clapping and transmuting his arm into another metal in one smooth motion, leaping towards where Roy struggled to hold on, seemingly in mid-air.
The chimera materialized, with the determined black cat hanging off its back. With a roar of fury, the creature tried to reach behind it to dislodge the furred menace, but Roy managed to evade the grasping claws and go in for his target - the visibly softer area of scaling behind the chimera's head. At that point, Edward engaged the chimera's attention by managing to inflict a shallow wound across the creature's chest.
With an almost contemptuous swipe, the chimera roared, and batted Edward aside easily, and though Ed managed to block most of the blow's impact with his automail arm, he was still driven back into the opposite wall with a heavy thud and a cry of pain.
Roy's mind went blank as he yowled his fury, quickly sinking his sharp fangs deeply into the base of the creature's head where the brain stem should be - hoping desperately to cut off the creature's motor functions from the living brain controlling the dead parts' movements.
The creature let out another roar, mostly of anger instead of pain, and managed to reach back and grab Roy by the scruff of his neck and lifting him in front of the fearsome face to scrutinize. Roy hissed his defiance in the face of death, fur straight on edge and eyes flashing furiously as the chimera reached up with his other arm to tear the small animal in half.
"NO!" Edward shouted, images of a torn and twisted cat flashing before his eyes. He struggled to his feet, wincing at a dull pain in his side, before transmuting his arm again and running towards the creature with a yell of feral desperation.
This time, his arm managed to sink into the creature like a knife through butter.
The chimera dropped Roy, who immediately scrambled to a safer distance to catch his breath and see if Edward was successful.
To his horror, the chimera didn't appear to be vastly disturbed by the sharp implement currently buried in its chest, almost up to the socket of Edward's shoulder. Instead, the chimera calmly reached down and grasped Edward by both shoulders in an unbreakable vise-like grip, slowly pushing him back to remove the blade from its chest before lifting up Edward's small, and now visibly much frailer human body.
"You..." it rasped slowly, its forked tongue not meant for speech.
"Oh by the seventh Gate, it talks," Edward babbled incoherently, frozen in shock as the chimera slowly began to tighten its grip.
"Edward, report! Status!" the forgotten radio blared from where it had fallen.
KILL IT! Roy all but screamed in his head. RUN Edward, get away from it! So what if it talks, it's not HUMAN! RUN!
"...food..." it finished, the finality of its statement hitting Edward like a blow and waking him up from the horrified stupor he'd fallen into.
No, Edward NOT food! Not on HIS watch! Roy howled, gathering himself for another leap at the creature.
Apparently, Edward had the same thought, and had brought his heavily booted foot up to connect with the thing's chin in a sharp craaaaack, completing the motion by flipping himself backwards to break the grip.
Roy sprang over Edward's graceful kick, and went straight for the creature's eyes, intent on gouging out at least one of them. Edward, upon hitting the ground, immediately caught his balance and scuttling forward, swept his automail leg around with as much force as he could muster straight to the back of the chimera's knees, causing it to buckle, its heavy weight working against it.
Roy landed right on the chimera's face as it was falling down; its arms were too busy trying to regain its balance to dislodge him from its face. Roy's claws immediately sank into a socket, ripping out an eye in a violent gush of blood and alchemically manufactured liquids.
With a deafening howl of pain this time, the chimera shook its head ferociously, flinging Roy off in the process, its tail smashing through one of the surrounding walls as it lost its fight with gravity. The powerful body brought a shower of bricks and cement down as it went through the wall.
Coughing and squinting his eyes against the dust, Roy caught his balance, landing on four feet and heading straight to Edward, who was likewise coughing and trying to shield his eyes as he struggled to stand up, holding his side. Roy suspected at least a bruised rib.
"Woah...good idea, Spitfire - going for the eyes, I mean," Edward coughed, trying to see where the chimera had fallen. "They're directly connected to the brain, so that must have hurt it. I wasn't thinking, going for its dead body where it can't feel pain, instead of its brain where it can."
Huh. Well, what do you know. Roy hadn't actually thought that far. It was purely on feline instinct that he'd acted - a cat going for the neck of a bird or mouse to snap it with a sharp bite, or going for the eyes of a larger target...
"I don't think it's done yet though," Ed said, with a sharp glance into the shadows, where they could both now see a hulking figure trying to right itself. "Nope, not by a long shot. Backup would be very, very welcome right about now," Ed continued, raising his voice sharply.
"Well, you seemed to have the situation under control," Havoc drawled from the corner of the alleyway, flicking his cigarette away casually as he walked over to where Edward and the soot covered black cat stood. He smoothly brought his rifle up to his eye, firing a round and bringing the chimera down to its knees. It struggled back to its feet. Havoc calmly shot it again.
Fury was nervously gripping one of his electrical disks. Breda and Farman had both just run up after hearing Hawkeye's radio report, panting with exertion. Major Armstrong was also standing at the ready, a rock in one hand ready to transmute into a flying piece of shrapnel.
"Back away, Edward Elric - we will take it from here. You are hurt," Armstrong said firmly. "I will now demonstrate a special technique passed down through many generations of Armstrongs, guaranteed to..."
Edward tuned him out almost automatically, but not before nodding his thanks, and scooping up Spitfire with a grunt of pain, made his way carefully to the corner of the battleground to take stock of his injuries. "Ow...I think the bastard got a rib..." Ed moaned, sitting down gingerly. Roy meowed his concern.
"Nah, don't think it's broken...probably just needs to be bound," Ed hissed in pain, peeling off the remains of his black shirt and transmuting the shreds into bandages which he wrapped around his torso carefully.
After making sure he was still mobile and able to fight, he looked back towards the ensuing battle, where Havoc had now switched to using his flechette gun and the others were taking careful aim at the thing's body to no avail. The heavy scaling appeared to be holding up fine, however, and the chimera was slowly but surely gaining confidence that the shots were virtually useless against it. It wasn't even bothering to use its most powerful weapon of camouflage; it was that confident.
"They're doing it all wrong! They're making the same mistake I did!" Edward said, horrified at his lapse in warning the group. "Aim for the brain!" he shouted at them frantically.
They nodded understanding and readjusted their aim. With a roar, the chimera started forward, as if Edward's shout had been the signal for attack.
Armstrong let loose with a series of rocks transmuted into arrowheads, which slammed heavily against the chimera to slow it down while the guns did their work. The chimera, however, kept walking forwards, the group backing away as it advanced.
"...Eat..." it hissed. Everyone shuddered.
Armstrong stalked forward, massive arms intent on physically restraining the chimera if necessary.
"STOP! Major!" Edward shouted in a near panic. "Don't get near it!"
It was too late to warn him. Armstrong gripped the chimera and tried to lift it, but it didn't budge - its tail was firmly holding it in place by providing a counter-balance of sorts.
"...EAT!" the creature said triumphantly, as its head darted forward.
"LOOK OUT!"
"MAJOR ARMSTRONG!"
A gush of bright red blood was all that could be seen for a moment, everyone's stomach in their throats. Armstrong stumbled away from the monster, a missing portion of the arm he'd use to block the creature's attack from ripping out his throat now bleeding profusely.
Armstrong grimaced against the pain, using his good arm to strike a powerful blow at the chimera's head. It promptly released him with a hiss, blood dripping down its mouth, its movements re-energized.
Farman and Breda immediately darted in to help the Major to safety.
"Havoc! The knees! Shoot out its kneecaps!" Edward yelled desperately. "It can't move if it can't walk!"
Havoc raised his gun in acknowledgement, and redirected his aim, shooting another round of flechettes, designed to shred anything at close range into microscopic shreds of tissue. The creature let out a furious roar, as the tissue and muscles around its bone disintegrated, and it stumbled briefly. The bone held, however.
"Damn, what the hell is that thing's bones made out of?" Havoc complained, backing away in disgust at the damage the creature apparently didn't feel, and the awful smell of decomposing flesh that was now saturating the air.
"Fury! Throw one of your disks! It might just short circuit the brain!" Hughes voice came in sharply through the radio Farman was talking into rapidly. "And lure that thing out into the open! Hawkeye can't shoot it if she can't see where to aim!"
Fury took a deep breath, and activated one of his disks before throwing it. It landed right on the chimera's chest, releasing a stunning wave of electricity, promptly blowing out all the streetlights along the street.
The chimera let out a howl of pain as the electricity raced up straight to its brain and loosed its devastating effect.
"YES!" Fury shouted, turning around to beam at the other members of the team.
"Watch out!" Havoc yelled at him, leaping forward to pull him out of the way, just in time as a long tail came whipping out convulsively. "Damn, it wasn't strong enough! Throw another one!"
The chimera was now bleeding profusely from its eyes and ears, but somehow managed to balance itself on its good leg, the bony remains of its damaged one and its powerful tail, and drag itself out towards the retreating group. It was now hurt and cornered, the most dangerous position to find any animal in. It was defensively trying to blend into its background and make an escape, but now that its protective scaling was all but destroyed by the onslaught of firepower, the blood and gore covering it made it extremely visible. Not to mention the hideous odor.
Farman fired at the chimera's head, scoring a direct hit. The creature merely turned towards him and leaped, Farman scrambling to get out of its way in a hurry. The bullet had simply bounced right off of the creature's skull.
"What the hell?" Breda yelled, raising his own gun and firing, getting a similar result. "That's impossible!"
The group was now in desperate retreat, as the chimera desperately lashed out at all of them, trying to get clear and make its escape.
"Not completely," Edward said sharply, studying the creature with a discerning eye as he and the group retreated, Fury helping Major Armstrong try to staunch the flowing blood as they moved. "Not if the Animator Alchemist fused its bones with a stronger, almost indestructible compound...like, oh, say...ziladium?"
Damn! That stuff was, literally, indestructible, Roy thought in a panic. It wasn't even a real element, but some odd alchemical mixture someone had stumbled upon by accident, as most brilliant alchemical discoveries were. Oh, if only he were human and could use his flame! The highest level of his inferno could easily melt ANYTHING. But without his gloves and their special composition, or a source of fire itself, he couldn't spontaneously create a spark, and besides, there was no way his claws could generate a spark and simultaneously activate the array on his collar! Damn damn damn!
Edward's thoughts were rambling along just as quickly as Roy's were.
"Bones, bones...can't destroy them, the body feels no pain...the skull is impenetrable..." Edward was now muttering frantically to himself. "The brain, the brain, how the hell can we..."
That was it! Roy meowed, showing his claws. Edward looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment before he understood.
"THAT'S IT!" he shouted exuberantly. "Everyone, aim for the eyes!" Edward shouted.
The creature roared, turning its head this way and that, as if to present them with a difficult target.
"Sorry Boss, we can't hit it!" came the shout.
"Breda, give me your radio!"
Breda tossed it over to Edward immediately. Ed caught it one-handed and radioed in. "Hawkeye! Aim for the EYES!"
"Roger," said the cool voice on the other end of the frequency.
Up on the bell floor, Hawkeye calmly took careful aim at the moving head, and fired a single shot.
The creature dropped like a stone.
To be con't...
A/N: I appropriated a bit of an idea from one of my favorite fiction novels, The Relic by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. If anyone has read it, you'll recognize which idea, but if you haven't, I don't want to ruin the plot for you. Just wanted to put in a bit of a disclaimer for that. ) It's a fantastic read! On a second note, you wouldn't BELIEVE how hard it was for me to resist putting in "adamantium" instead of making up an element...rofl! In fact, everytime Ed transmutes his arm, I'm at the edge of my seat wishing they were Wolverine claws...:sweatdrops: