It was Hawkeye who first noticed that something was off. Something about the way Havoc was casting a double shadow, even though there was only one light at the right angle to be able to reach him through the maze of stacked crates. Perhaps it was the way the second shadow was crouched and thick instead of being lean and long like the first one.
Whatever the reason was that call that crucial detail into her attention, the fact was that she noticed it too late. By the time she'd give a startled cry, the first tendrils of alchemical power had crept up from the array painted on the floor. And by the time she'd raised her gun, the bright purples sparks of the reaction had swallowed both Havoc and the puppy whole.
"Stand down!" Roy yelled, grabbing her arm before she could take proper aim at the spot where she'd seen the ungainly shadow, hoping to hit the culprit and stop what was going on before it could do too much damage. She gave Roy a startled look when he prevented her from doing so.
"If you shoot," he offered by way of explanation, "you disrupt the reaction. If you do that, we don't know what's happening in there, and it's possible that Havoc could die."
She blanched at the statement, and he kept a firm grip on her wrist, feeling it tremble ever so slightly in his clutches and they could do nothing but watch the flashing display, not knowing what transformations were occurring on the other side of the light.
They were the longest, most excruciatingly painful three minutes and six seconds of Roy's like. One hundred and eighty-six seconds of standing, absolutely helpless on the outside of a chaotic, yet perfectly controlled scientific reaction and able to do nothing to rescue his loyal comrade trapped within.
He bounced on the balls of his feet and an involuntary strained noise struggled up from within his throat. Roy couldn't have stopped himself from making that noise if he'd tried, but as it was, he did not even realize he'd made it. At some point, Falman had joined them, though neither of the higher ranking officers could have pinpointed exactly when that had been, all of their attention focused ahead of them.
At last, after what seemed like an unbridled reaction gone out of control, the sparks began to die down, the light fading into distant flickers and Roy let go of Riza's wrist.
It took her less than three seconds for her to have her gun trained at it's target, who was now visible over the rim of light. The last of the embers flickered and died, and one Alicia Cram, local alchemist and all around nut-case stood up, grin cracking evilly across her face.
"Don't. Move." Riza had a will of steel, Roy decided, giving her a look of admiration. His first move had been to look to Havoc, who was lying on the floor, curled into himself, but he was breathing and not dead, not dead, thank GOD he was still alive. But it was Falman who reached their fallen comrade first and there was a bat-shit insane lady grin beneath gun-point to deal with, so Roy figured that Havoc could wait just a moment more.
She raised her hands into the air without complaint, but Roy still felt the need to raise his hand threateningly, fingers pressed together in warning. She eyed him, lips quirking onto a cruel smile that sent a chill down Roy's spine and laughed in his face. Tilter her head back and laughed until she could barely breathe.
How did one deal with an insane person?
Luckily, Hawkeye had it under control, so Roy had nothing to do but to offer back up and moral support to his indissoluble cohort. She sidestepped, slowly circling so that she was standing, not in front of her enemy, but to the side. "On your knees. Slowly"
Under the scrutiny of the gun's grinning barrel, Alicia dropped ho her knees, the thud echoing painfully in the room, but the grin never left her face, the gleam in her eye that spoke of something they she knew and they did not twisting disconcertedly in Roy's stomach and he pressed his fingers a little tighter together.
"Now," and Roy had probably never been so glad in his life that he was not Hawkeye's enemy, "I want you to lay, facedown, hands up over your head. If you as much as twitch, I'll shoot you in the head."
You're all monsters," she spat, falling to the ground as instructed, and Roy rolled his eyes. Yet another nutter with a military vendetta. Probably a state-alchemist wannabe who hadn't been up to par or from a town that had been somehow wronged by the military in the past. Roy didn't particularly care to know which; he'd heard them all before.
"Rather fond of broad generalizations, are we?" One dark eyebrow arched and she lifted her head as high as she could and spat at him.
"Whether you initially chose to be or not, the military makes you what they want you to be. Monsters."
Hawkeye moved to stand above her, and she lifted on foot, her boot crushing down firmly, but not cruelly between the woman's shoulder blades…just to be sure. She bent down, fishing a pair of handcuffs from her belt.
"Then what are these….things that you've made…I think they more qualify as monsters than any of us ever will." Roy relaxed imperceptibly as Hawkeye restrained Alicia's hands and he lowered his hand and used it to gesture towards the row of cages where the surviving creatures continued to pace or moan or do whatever it was that they were doing, unable to do anything more, condemned to a life filled with awkward pain and frightened looks. Most likely, they would be put down. It would be inhumane to keep them.
"What I've made," she spat, cheek pressed roughly against the cool floor, "are innovations. Creatures beyond imagination. Of course there'd have to be some trial and error, but think of the applications it could bring. Imagine being able to blend any two creatures at will. The redistribution of senses alone could be monumental."
"I still fail to see the practicality of it." Roy could only picture things such as the animals behind him, grossly disfigured and of no use to anyone. Even if there were benefits to wild genetic crossings and mutations, the trial and error and probability of failure were too high to be worth the trouble.
"Just think," and here, she sneered again, shifting a bit to took up at Roy, "humans are animals too."
She glanced towards the other two occupants of the room. Roy followed her gaze. Falman was kneeling over Havoc, who had yet to move. He was still rather obscure, just a dark form on the floor, but in just another minute, Roy would attend to him, get him whatever medical help he needed. A raw ache started up in the pit of his stomach and he was suddenly very suspicious of Alicia's previous statement, especially when he suddenly noticed that the puppy Havoc had formerly been holding onto was nowhere to be found.
"Give a whole new meaning to the phrase 'Dog of the Military' eh?" She chortled with glee and Roy felt sick. He looked at Havoc again, and Riza must have too, because he suddenly heard the crackle of alchemy and by the time he'd turned back, Alicia was on her side, hands, still behind her back, pressed to another array on the floor and the floor was erupting beneath them.
His first thought was to wonder why Riza hadn't shot her yet, but that was probably because the first thing the alchemist had done was to cause the floor to curl into tendrils that had wrapped around Riza's feet sending her off her balance and causing her to fall over onto the floor. The gun skittered across the concrete and lodged itself against the first thing it ran into, a dead cat some nine feet off. Too far to reach.
"You're all the fucking same," she snarled, and Roy cursed, stumbling as the floor rose beneath her command and he tried to avoid the concrete grip, "You jump through hoops on command, begging the military for a little acknowledgement or a scrap of meat. Like dogs whimpering for a pat on their heads from their master. Do you honestly think they keep you around for anything other then their own personal use? Bloodhounds, boarhounds, retrievers, lap dogs, alchemists…what's the difference? You're all SO well trained, you wouldn't even THINK of disobeying orders."
One of the cement vines caught Roy's pant leg and started to curl its way around his ankle, but before it could get halfway around, the reaction suddenly died and Roy's world was consisted of sound and a lapse of light and it took him a full minute to discern exactly what had happened.
"How's THAT for disobeying orders?" Riza was panting, a bit, the gun in her hand still smoking. Roy glanced to Alicia, blood oozing slowly from the hole in her temple and shook his head. He hated casualties, and tried to avoid them, but when it turned violent as this confrontation had, they didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
And the woman had been stupid enough to assume that Riza carried only one gun.
Or perhaps the mistake had been in assuming that the soldier wouldn't use it.
Roy kicked the restraint at his leg away and strode over to the blonde woman, helping her break the stone that curled around her ankles. Thankfully, in her haste, the less talented alchemist had neglected thickness of the tendrils in favor of faster growth, so they were not too difficult to destroy and escape from. If the woman had been given more time, perhaps Roy and Riza would have been in trouble, but the entirety of their alchemical fight has lasted maybe 30 seconds or so.
No matter, it was over and they no longer had to worry about her, so Roy immediately turned his attention to more important things.
At first it looked as if Havoc had simply been knocked unconscious. Roy took his pulse, and it was strong, if not a bit fast and his breathing was normal. But Roy could not shake the words from his head, and he quickly found the subtle and no-so-subtle changes in his comrade. He brushed a gloved finger over one of the ears, mostly gray with a small patch of white at the tip and drew back quickly when the ear twitched, flicking ever so briefly and then settling back into place. He was basically the same shape at least, though he did look a bit stockier, and his limbs looked as if they'd been shortened and shifted slightly. There was a light dusting of fur over his forearms, and Roy almost winced at the change in his fingers.
His fingernails had disappeared, replaced by blunt canine claws. They protruded from the tips of his fingers in the same way dogs' nails were attached to their paws. His thumbs had shortened, the joint moving closer to his wrists, much of its previous usefulness and mobility was lost in the change.
"Sir." Roy received a nudge in the ribs, courtesy of Falman and when the higher ranked officer turned, the white haired man pointed at a gray and white scrap of fur lying parallel with the curve of Havoc's back.
"A tail," Roy murmured, but his voice was lost beneath the sudden shift of Hawkeye's boots and her gun clicked as she cocked it, yet again. There was a shuffle of feet outside the door and an instant later, Breda kicked it open, gun drawn and raised. Fuery followed behind, his weapon was drawn as well, but he was trembling so badly that he couldn't have hit his mark if he'd tried. That is, if, in his haste, he hadn't forgotten to take the safety off first. As it was, Fuery was rather harmless and as soon as Breda realized that there was no immediate assurance of certain death to any of his teammates, dropped his gun to his side and slid it back into its holster.
The two new arrivals took a moment to take in the surrounding scene. Roy watched as they discovered the yammering hybrids in the row of cages and the fallen perpetrator and finally they turned querying expressions to Roy.
With a thought to Havoc's dignity, Roy quickly took off his jacket and threw it over the blonde, taking care to pull it up around the man's new ears.
"What happened here?" Breda asked finally when no explanation was immediately forthcoming. He nudged at a dead bird with his boot.
"I'll explain later." Roy brushed Breda off as subtly and kindly as possible. He stood and, with a grunt, lifted Havoc and started towards the door. When he reached it, he turned. "Hawkeye, I'll need you to drive. The rest of you, stay here and start with the cleanup. I'll call for back up."
They nodded and Riza joined Mustang at the door. He noted that she walked with a slight limp. He thought briefly of the concrete restraints wound tightly around her ankle. Perhaps she had twisted something when she fell. "Lieutenant?" He questioned softly, words intended for her alone. He shifted Havoc in his grip and the man whined.
"I'm fine, Sir," she stated briskly, brushing past him. He followed behind her and watched her gait carefully, but he did not see the limp again and knew that she must be going to great lengths to hide it from him.
When they reached the car, he put Havoc in the back seat, sprawled out across the back. He shut the door carefully and climbed into the front seat. Hawkeye started the car, but did not yet take her foot off the brake. She gave him a questioning glace and he shook his head.
"The hospital can't do anything for him…and he won't be of any use to the military. We'll report him injured and I'll put in a request for sick leave." He half turned, giving a glance at the back-seat passenger.
"And until we can figure out how to fix him?" She might not, perhaps, agree with everything her commanding officer did, but she would not question. Follow, protect, and push him to the top. Her job was very clear, and at this moment, she just needed to trust.
"My house." He said and the car lurched into gear and turned out into the street.