I rubbed my side and winced. It hurt like a bitch, but I could care less. I kept looking at the chimera's eyes, rummaging around in there for the person those eyes belonged to. The chimera looked back at me and stared as well, while Ed and Al gave us questioning looks. As I said previous, this chimera was lanky but with some muscle. Shaggy, greasy, bloody, crimson fur clung to his body where wet. It was also dirty. His hand-like paws were all black, along with his hind paws and the tips of his tail and ears. His nose was not wet and he panted slightly. Cocking his head, he blinked once.
"You look familiar. Not your looks, but your eyes..." The chimera told me, and I shrugged. There was a soft growl from something, and the chimera jumped up and shout "No!", while drawing out the "o". And when he did that, it hit me. I knew who the voice and eyes belonged to. I swallowed slowly and stepped toward the fox, wrapping my hand softly around the forearm.
"John?" I asked softly, and the chimera's ear swiveled toward me before his head whipped to face me.
"John, it's me, Kasey... Don't you remember me? I know I look different and all, but do you remember who I am?" I could feel my fear bunch up in my stomach. I wondered if my best friend still remembered me. The grey eyes clouded in confusion, then sharply focused when a quick intake of air - kind of like a gasp - showed his surprise.
"K-Kasey? You not p-pulling my leg, a-are you?" John's voice was quivering with excitement, shock, and joy. I nodded and pulled him into a hug. His long arms wrapped around my mid-section tightly in a hug just as heart felt as mine. I sighed and buried my face into his neck fur. I stroked one of his ears, which laid back against his head in contentment. We let each other go and I wiped my eyes to prevent the few tears from escaping. He did the same, only made it less obvious by rubbing his eye on his shoulder.
"Okay, how the hell do you two know each other?" Ed asked, with his hands on his hips. He glared suspiciously at us, and I couldn't help but laugh. I shook my head before going on to explain how John and I knew one another.
"John and I come from the same city, and we went to 'school' together. The place where children collect to learn stuff that, besides different languages, won't be of much use to them later on in life. Anyway, we've been friends for a long time. Just give him a break, okay? I'll see what happened about the chimera thing," I stated. John tensed slightly at the chimera part. I patted his shoulder, and walked over to the Elric Brothers. "Just give him a chance, please?"
Ed sighed and nodded. I felt John's presence next to my side. I didn't need to look to know when one of my friends was close by. I just felt them there, you know? God I must sound stupid to you. Anyway, I loved knowing when they were near me or not.
"So, shall we go?" I asked, seeing as no point of us staying since our mission was complete: Find out why no one from Glenn Arbor had been seen or heard from in a two month period of time. We knew it was chimeras, and I wanted to leave. I think it was that finding out who made the chimeras was my real fear. I might be evil and sadistic, but in a funny way most of the time, and couldn't do something like this to people I didn't know. People I didn't know or had no influence on me were 'Innocents'. 'Brethren' were the people I liked and who were on 'my side'. And those who stood in my way, along with those whom try to inflict harm upon those I cared for were 'Hostiles'. I don't care what they say, if someone points a gun or anything threatening at me, laws of survival say that I can take them out with no punishment. Ironically, it works in nature and civilized life at the same time. I sighed and rubbed my eyes.
"Not exactly. Yes, our main objective is complete: find out why this town ceased any contact. But I do not want to leave like this. I want to find out who could... do such alchemy enough to turn all except a few of the chimeras into cannibalistic monsters," Ed explained. I nodded, agreeing with him whole heartedly on that matter.
"I just... feel so uneasy about who's going to be the person under this all, you know?" My voice rose in pitch, half threatening to crack. Ed patted my shoulder, and I could feel a clawed 'paw' squeeze my shoulder gently from John. They all treated me like a little sister, which for some reason is contagious among my friends. I shrugged and half braced myself for what I could see. John stood from his crouched position, and I gave him a once over to make sure nothing looked too badly damaged. I shot my gaze up when I noticed something and my cheeks burned from the blood rushing to them.
"John, can you, um, go find some pants... please?" I asked as politely as I could without either cracking up or embarrassing him. He went wide eyed, looked down, covered his stuff with an arm and started to apologize profusely before running off to find some pants. I blinked a few time before looking over at the Elric brothers. Al looked as if he was forever mentally scarred, and Ed was trying not to crack up laughing. I felt bad, but it couldn't be helped. A few minutes later, John came back with a pair of pants that actually fit him, and a belt. I sighed and rubbed my neck, which had gotten a kink in it. The chimera smiled sheepishly, and I realized that John would be referred as a 'it' and 'chimera'. It didn't seem fair to me since he was well in fact a human long before this happened. 15 years of his life he was human, and then in the blink of an eye and the flicker of a transmutation circle he was a chimera. I wondered partly if I was also a chimera due to the metal on my bones and the transmutation circle carved on my back.
Ed cleared his throat and all three of us turned to look at him. His eyes held seriousness in them along with the emotional mask he wore over his face. I know he's been doing this for a long time, but, I hoped he was with me on this one: I was, once again, scared enough to piss my pants. I did not want to go see this... person. He nodded to me and shot me a look that asked, 'Are you ready?' I nodded back, then dropped into a crouch and began to draw a transmutation circle. Ed cocked his head in a 'What are you doing?' way. I finished with the circle, and pushed my hands to it. It glowed, and I drew my hand up the way Ed does when he summons up a lance. A thick, dark wooden staff that was worn down in some places where the hands would go. Up toward the top a thick, dark blade of a mixture of glass and metal curved threateningly, a short curved peace of the blade coming out of the other side of the staff. It came a half a foot over my head standing straight up. I smirked at Ed, Al, and John's "OMGWTF" expressions.
"Alright, let's go kick some ass," I said swinging it experimentally. I've been obsessed with scythes ever since I found out about the beliefs in the Angel of Death, the harvester of souls. Well, I probably looked like it, splattered in blood with a psychotic grin on my face. Ed regained his composure, muttered a 'Let's go', and we left.