"INU!" a girl came running up to Inu and the brothers and stopped in front of them, her hands on her knees and breathing heavily. "Me an' Amaranthus just got your mail. Hope you didn't start the monster butt-kicking without us." She looked up and noticed Ed and Al. "Who're these two?"
"Oh, hey Sora. These are my new friends, Ed and Al." Inu explained, gesturing to each brother in turn. "Ed's an alchemist." She added in a low whisper that only Sora could hear.
"Hi!" The girl waved. "My name is Sora, and I'm a heavy blade."
Sora had long, platinum blonde hair, and below her blue eyes was a black stripe on each cheek. Her pale green shirt had darker green patterns along the hems, and her over-sized blue pants nearly completely covered her black shoes. Of course, there was a large sword attached to her back.
"Say, where is Amaranthus anyway?" Inu asked Sora, turning her attention to the direction where the girl had come from.
"I went ahead without her. She said I was getting on her nerves." Sora told her friend, crossing her arms. Almost as if on cue, however, the figure of a woman appeared. As she got closer, her features became more noticeable. She had white hair and neon green eyes. Below her left eye there was an alchemy circle. She wore a long sleeved shirt that tucked into fingerless gloves, which revealed circles at the tip of each finger. Her pants poofed out then tucked into mid-calf high boots.
"You were talking about me again, weren't you?" she asked, very little expression on her face. Ed noticed the alchemy circle on her cheek.
"Inu, I thought you said I was the only one you knew who was an alchemist." He piped up.
"Oh, I meant BESIDES Amaranthus. Sorry 'bout that. I can be a bit scatter-brained sometimes." Inu explained, a large sweat drop appearing on her head.
"Hey! What's that?" Al asked suddenly, running up to Inu.
"What's what?" she asked in response.
"That funny lookin' sweat drop on your head!" Al ran up and poked it. "It's squishy!" He gasped and poked it again. Another sweat drop appeared on the girl's head.
"Hey! Another one!" Ed exclaimed, running up and poking the second one. Two more appeared, and Sora and Amaranthus ran up and poked those as well.
"Hey, they are squishy!" Sora said, an expression of awe on her face.
"This is fun." Amaranthus added, smirking.
"Okay guys." Inu said in a futile attempt to get them to stop the poking. "That's enough." no difference. "CUT IT OUT!" she hollered, causing the four to fly backwards. The sweat drops had been replaced with pulse marks. Al's hand reached out, but Inu shot him a death glare and the boy promptly put it back by his side. "Well then, I invited Sora and Amaranthus to fight monsters with me today, but you idiots got ditched by your little friend, and you probably have nothing to do."
"You two should join us then." Amaranthus piped up, causing stares from the other two girls. "What?" she asked.
"You're awfully friendly today." Sora said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, what's wrong? You feel okay?" Inu asked, putting her hand on Amaranthus's forehead, even though she knew that she wouldn't be able to feel anything.
"I'm fine. I just like those two. They seem like good kids." The girl said innocently.
"Okay, well, that still doesn't mean they can join us. No offense to you," Inu said, turning to the Elrics, "Girls' day out, ya know?
"You're just mad because they were the first to poke you." Sora muttered under her breath.
"They're coming." Amaranthus glared at Inu, causing the other girl to practically shrink in size.
"O-okay." Inu whimpered.
"All right then. Come little ones." the taller woman said. Immediately she knew that was a bad choice of words.
"WHO'RE YOU CALLING SO TINY THAT THEY COULD BE SMUSHED WITH YOUR LITTLE TOE?" Sora and Ed shouted in unison. The two looked at each other and blinked.
"TWINS!" They exclaimed together, embracing in a friendly hug.
"All right you idiots, that's enough." Amaranthus sighed, grabbing the two by the collars of their shirts and dragging them off to where there would be more monsters.
MEANWHILE!
Winry stomped along the street of Mac Anu, mumbling curse words under her breath.
"That stupid little... who does she think she is, showing me up like that? And in front of Al too..." The disgruntled teenager stopped as she realized what she had just said. "I mean in front of BOTH Elrics." She mumbled and continued on her unintentional quest to fill the streets of Mac Anu with foot-shaped pot holes.
A few steps down the street, however, a girl was walking along, staring into the sky. And she was walking in the direction of Winry. And since the girl was looking at the sky and Winry was glaring daggers into the ground, neither of them saw the other coming when they ran headlong into each other.
"OUCH! Who the hell?" Winry asked, sitting up from her place on the ground and rubbing her head. She saw that she had run into a girl who had very long, dark blue hair that covered her back and contrasted with her pale skin. On her forehead there was an "S" shape with dots in the curves. She wore a metallic green outfit that had golden threads and the cuffs folded up to reveal golden symbols. Winry noticed that the girl had two daggers -- gold handles with white blades. Ah, a twinblade. She thought.
"I-I'm so sorry!" The girl cried, rising and helping Winry up. "I didn't see you and-"
"It's okay, I didn't see you either." Winry laughed, brushing herself off. "So, what are you doing out here all alone by yourself? Don't you have any friends?"
"Um, no. Not really. If you don't mind, I need to get going." The girl said, turning around and starting in the other direction.
"Hey! Wait up!" Winry called, running up to her. "Where are you going?" The girl just started walking faster. Winry caught up and tried to match her speed, but the girl kept going faster and faster until she broke into a full-out run. Winry started running too, and they both kept running until...
SPLASH!
"Gack!" The girl thrashed about in the water, as she had run straight over the edge.
"Hold on!" Winry called. She eyed a wavemaster with an odd, large, floppy hat and grabbed her staff.
"HEY! THAT'S MY RARE STAFF!" the wavemaster shouted.
"I'll give it right back in just a second!" Winry replied, dipping it into the water. The twin blade grabbed onto it and Winry pulled her up. She's heavier then she looks. She thought, struggling to pull the girl up. When she finally did and gave the wavemaster back her staff, the girl stood up.
"Th-thank you." She said, bowing politely. "I'm sorry though, that's the second time I've caused you trouble."
"Oh, it was no problem really." Winry said, happy that the girl was safe.
"You're so nice. Thank you." The girl said.
"Hey, what's your name anyway?" Winry asked suddenly.
"It's Hikari." the girl told her.
"Hikari. That's nice. I'm Rockbell but you can call me Winry if you want." Winry told her. Hikari nodded at that. "Hey, you said you don't have any friends. Do you want to join my party? I have two other people in it, but I don't think they'd mind having an extra member."
"Well, I don't know. I mean, I can't get on all the time, and when I do, it might not be when the rest of you are on and-" Hikari started.
"It's okay." Winry laughed. "It'll be fun, trust me."
"Well, I guess I could." the girl finally said.
"Good. I can't wait to introduce you to Ed and Al." Winry said excitedly, grabbing the girl by the wrist and dragging her off in a random direction.
MEANWHILE!
"So when do I meet my new partner?" A female wavemaster asked Mustang.
"Hawkeye should be here with her any moment. She just talked to me in the real world and left to get the Dianva girl. Dianva's only a teenager you know." the man informed her.
"Wow. And already working for CCCorp? She must be smart." the girl said. She had shoulder-length red hair and gray eyes, but no markings on her face. Her shirt was white and there were golden tassels hanging off the sleeves. There was a gold-colored belt around her waist which held up a white miniskirt -- the latter was probably the reason that Roy Mustang had hired her in the first place. Her shoes resembled lavender ballet slippers and she wore white knee socks. And of course she held a staff.
"Yeah she's smart. Definitely smarter then you, Kiyuu." Mustang told her with a smirk.
"What was that?" Kiyuu glared evilly at the man, who shrunk away.
"Looks like you're having fun." came a woman's voice. Kiyuu and Mustang looked up to find Hawkeye standing there, Dianva hiding behind her. "Anyway, on to business. Dianva, meet your partner, Kiyuu."
"How do you do?" Dianva asked Kiyuu shyly, stepping out from behind Hawkeye.
"Hey! Pleased to meet you. You're Dianva, right? I tell ya, you're the talk of the office. They say you're only a teenager." the red head said happily.
"Well, it's true that most kids my age are still in high school." Dianva chuckled nervously. Mustang cleared his throat authoritively and caught the attention of both girls.
"Okay girls, your first job together is to gather as much information as you can on a certain player character. His name is fullmetal and-"
"Wait, wait." Kiyuu cut her boss off. "He doesn't happen to be an alchemist, does he?"
"Well, yeah." Mustang said.
"Oh, GOD! Don't tell me you were actually serious with that plan!" she shouted, slapping her hand onto her forehead.
"Your paycheck was reduced for three months for it." He reminded her.
"Damn, you have a point. Okay, fine, we'll investigate this fullmetal person. But how exactly do we do it?" She asked him.
"That's your problem." Mustang told her rudely. He turned around and started walking in the other direction, but only got two steps before Hawkeye stuck one of her guns in his back
"Explain it Roy. I'm also quite curious as to how they are going to find anything, seeing as they aren't authorized to access the user files." She told him, not moving the gun.
"Eh heh. S-sure." he said uneasily. "Well, let's see. They'd have to work in the game, so, I don't know, maybe ask around or even try to befriend him."
"That's more like it." Hawkeye said, putting her gun back.
"But what are we trying to find out?" Dianva asked him.
"Anything useful. His age and location would be a good start, seeing as we might need him to visit CCCorp in the real world sometime." Roy said, resting his chin in one of his hands.
"Gotcha!" Dianva and Kiyuu saluted their superior and teleported out in a flash of green lights.
"How much information do you think they'll get just asking around?" Hawkeye asked in a disbelieving tone.
"Actually probably more than what's stored in the user files. You see there, we don't have any personal information. But if fullmetal is willing to tell other people, we can find out what we really need." Mustang informed her. She raised her eyebrows, but realized he was probably right.
"Do think that they'll actually befriend him?" She asked after a few moments.
"It's quite possible." Roy stated. "I have to go now. I can hear Maes talking to me in the real world."
"Wants to show you more pictures of his daughter?" Hawkeye asked. A smile had crept across her face.
"Yes." Roy sighed. "I'll see you tonight Riza." He added before logging out.
HELLO! bwahaha, my section...
If you had a WTF? moment when everyone was poking Inu: come on, don't tell me you've never wanted to poke those sweat drops or pulse marks on anime people. Now Al's done it for you!
For all you people who didn't catch it, that was Mireille's staff that Winry borrowed when she saved Hikari. Oh, and to Luminescent Wolf, because you didn't tell me what you wanted her name to be, I named her Hikari. In case you didn't know, it means light and I think it's a very pretty name. However, If you want me to change it, I will.
And to Kiyuu-Chan, you didn't tell me what Kiyuu was wearing, so I made something up, if that's all right.