Disclaimer: Don't own crap except the old man in this.
Okay people, here's Chapter 4! Enjoy!
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The day had started relatively early for the three boys, much to Edward's dislike. It was only 9 AM, which was extremely early according to the pint sized alchemist, and the three stood outside the inn, planning to spend the day investigating the rumor the Elric brothers had heard about.
" You don't have to come Al, I mean if your tired you can stay." Edward said, glancing over his shoulder to look at the armor bound boy.
" No, it's okay Nii-san." Al replied, " If I didn't come all I'd do is worry about you. And besides, you might get yourself killed if I didn't come."
Edward gave Al a mock glare but ended up grinning at his brother. It was true; Alphonse did tend to worry about Edward. He had good reason to; with all the dangerous situations the boys seemed to get themselves into on a daily basis.
" So let me get this straight, we're going to go see and old hermit that lives in a shack about the Philosopher's Stone?" Roy asked, skeptical about the situation, as he walked next to Edward.
" That's right. You never know where the Stone might pop up. Hell, it might be in a sewer somewhere for all we know." Edward said, as he had learned to never judge a rumors authenticity by its cover.
The old hermit they were going to see went by the name of Saijin, and was and ex-military man and scientist. He seemed to have disappeared into his shack as of late, and was never seen around the town at all, which (so said the other townspeople) was strange for the kind old man.
" It's probably going to be nothing, but it's worth checking out. Who knows? We might find out something useful." Alphonse said to the Colonel, being the eternal optimist he was.
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A few hours later, the two boys and the Colonel arrived at the shack where the old man lived. It could barley even be called a shack, due to its poor condition. It had once been a little white house, which you could tell from the lightening of the wood that it was construced from. But now the paint had long chipped off, and the roof had caved in and patched up rather poorly with some old lumber. The house looked as if it could literally collapse at any moment.
Roy was the first to react, as he stepped up to the old front door and knocked on it twice, before saying, " Excuse me, Mr. Saijin? We're with the Amestris military and would like to talk with you."
The door opened after a few moments to reveal the old man they had come to see. He was short and frail looking, hunched over a bit due to his age. He was balding, but the hair he did have was long and unkempt looking, as if it hadn't been cut for some time.
" Military? Why would you want to see me?" he asked, his tone suspicious.
" We're interested in your scientific research, sir." Edward said, stepping up to stand beside Mustang.
" Yes, we've read all about you." Alphonse put in for emphasis.
Saijin's expression brightened considerably at the mention of his research, and his smiled at the group.
" Oh, excuse me for being so rude. Come in, come in." He said, stepping aside to let them in.
Edwards's first impression of the inside of the shack was that it was bare. It was one roomed, with a wood-burning stove in the far left corner, with a small table near it. There was a bed along the other wall, under a window with a pane of glass broken out of it. Near the stove was a medium sized cubort, probably containing non-perishable foods and silverware.
" Forgive me if I was a bit rude, the military never bothers me much these days." Saijin said as he went around the room in a vain attempt to tidy up the place as Alphonse waved away his apologies.
Suddenly, as Edward looked around the run down shack he spotted something. It appeared to a large object covered in a white sheet, haphazardly shoved into a corner. But the strange thing about the object was the scaled paw, like that of a large dog or the like, sticking out from underneath it. His eyes widened in realization of what it was; a dead chimera.
" Oh my boy, forgive me. It seems I forgot to take the trash out." Saijin said, stepping between Edward and the chimera, an apologetic smile on his face.
" No, that's fine." Edward said hesitantly, walking back over to stand at Roy's side. " I think that's all we'll be needing you for, right Colonel?"
Roy, catching the message, nodded in agreement and bid his farewells to the old man. Once the door was securely shut and they were out of sight of the house Edward caught up with Roy.
" There's something going on their Colonel." Ed said in a serious tone.
" What do you mean Nii-san? I didn't notice anything strange." Alphonse replied as he walked behind Ed and Roy.
" Yeah, it was kind of hard to notice it, but in one of the corners there was something covered with a sheet, with a paw sticking out." Edward said as his brain worked to put together the puzzle that had begun to form.
" Maybe his dog just died and he hasn't had a chance to burry it." Al said, giving the old man the benefit of the doubt.
" It was a scaled paw Al, that was no normal dog. It was a chimera, probably from the same family that attacked us in the forest."
" Well what do we do about it?" Al questioned.
" We got there tonight, and do a little investigating, Elric style." Edward said with a smirk of excitement.
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That night, around 1 AM, the three boys repapered in front of the shack. There was no wind to carry their scent to any living chimeras that could be lurking around and the crickets chirped loudly, which would mask any small noises that they made.
The three crept up to the window of the house and peered inside the dark interior. Saijin wasn't in his bed, or anywhere to be seen in the shack and they could see light leaking in from the slightly open door they hadn't noticed before.
" Where could he be?" Alphonse questioned quietly, to which Edward shrugged and went over to the open door, peering inside.
" Guess the old mans taking a midnight stroll." Edward deducted and took the opportunity to look around inside.
Now normally Alphonse would have objected, and even scolded his brother for intruding into someone's home like he had just done, but given the circumstances he was willing to break into the old shack, which really didn't require much breaking into.
The three alchemists walked in, and began surveying the house. They noticed the dead chimera had disappeared from the corner of the room but otherwise everything was as it had been that day. But as Edward looked around the small room he noticed that a few of the floorboards, one after the other, were slightly raised. Curiosity taking over, Edward gave the boards a slight tug. They came completely up and swung to touch the floor behind then with an audible bang!, which startled Roy and Alphonse out of their own inspections of the house.
" What did you find Nii-san?" Alphonse asked as he and Roy walked across the room and over to Edward. He peered down at what Edward had discovered, a secret passageway of sorts leading deep underground, like a basement.
" I have no idea Al, but I don't have a good feeling about what's down there." Edward confessed, but knew at the same time he had to go down.
So, hesitantly at first, he led the trek down the worn stone steps into the cool, dim, candle-lit hallway at the bottom. At the end was a wooden door, with a large iron doorknob and a lock above it. Edward gave the knob a turn and, finding the door to be unlocked, opened the door.
Inside the room was sparely lit, the only light source being from a few lamps hanging from the ceiling. Cages, with one large or two small snarling, angry chimeras of species that ran the proverbial gamut, lined both sidewalls, stacked onto one another in rows of six cages long and two high. They peered out at the boys through the bars, there eyes glowing an eerie yellow in the dim room. The back wall was covered in heavily written upon notebook pages, all containing formulas or transmutation circles of some kind. The only furniture to occupy the room was a metal table and a chair in front of it, which had been pushed against the back wall.
" What in the world could he be researching?" Roy questioned, crossing the room to take a look at notes pinned to the opposite wall.
With grave eyes, due to an unwanted memory of a small girl and her dog, Edward surveyed the room. Everything, from the chimeras in the cages to the notes and circles on the walls, reminded him of Shou Tucker, and of his sick experiments. He took a step into the room, and was startled when a whispery voice suddenly came to his ears from a dark corner of the room.
" The one touched by the Truth, the truth of all truths. My chimeras have sensed that in you, and beckoned you here." Mr. Saijin said, stepping out from the shadows of the corner, his voice a raspy whisper.
Suddenly Edward was upon him, a fistful of the front of his shirt clutched in one hand and his other as a fist raised in the air. Alphonse stepped forward; ready to pull his older brother off the old man.
" Tell me what it meant!" Edward demanded, his eyes wide with recognition that the man was quoting the words of the mysterious voice inside his head.
" There not what you think! You mustn't trust them!" Saijin said, suddenly panic stricken, as if he had to say it right then or death you seize him.
Alphonse stopped, the conversation going on was a rather interesting one, and he, as well as Roy, would have liked to hear the end of it.
" Trust who?" Edward question, confusion coming into his eyes.
But his question never got to be answered as suddenly a loud clang was hear and then a low feral growl or sorts coming from the end of the room. Edward looked up, Saijin taking this chance to remove himself from the young boys iron clad grip, to come face to face with a particularly large and fearsome chimera.
It appeared to be made of three or four different animals. Its head was definitely of the bird persuasion, with a sharp yellow beak and sharp eyes. Its torso seemed to be that of a jaguar or leopard though its feet had long talons instead of the usual claws. Its tail was long and scaled, similarly to the one of a large reptile.
Its sharp eyes focused in on Edward as it stepped into the dim light. It twittered and cocked its head to one side, as if confused by the sight of him. The, suddenly, it gave a loud screech and lunged at him, talons ready to rip into his flesh and beak poised to do the same if the claws should not accomplish the task. But the only thing beak of claws got to taste was metal, then its own blood as Edward brought his automail arm up to block the assault, gaining slashed on his arm from the chimeras other paw, and, grabbing a scalpel from the metal table he was currently next to, jammed the sharp object straight into the creatures eye.
It stumbled back, screeching and shaking its head violently in pain, the scalpel flying to land on the floor some yards away. It soon regained its scenes, but by that time Edward was on his feet, calling on the help of Alphonse to knock the creature out, delivering simultaneous blows to its head and torso. The creature fell to the floor, unconscious and heavily wounded. Roy was relieved it hadn't defeated the boys and turned on him, Alphonse was relieved his brother was safe, but Edward was feeling an altogether different emotion; guilt. He knew they would have to kill it, that is if it was to be spared from being mercilessly researched on by the Amestris military, as they were sure to arrive when word reached Central.
But suddenly, either out of sheer luck of miraculous timing, another man, this once considerably younger, replaced the since escaped Sanjin.
" Excuse me, but I'll take it if you like. Don't worry; I'm not going to do any sort of research on it. You see, I've appointed myself a sort of caretaker of Mr. Saijin's chimeras. My uncle has always been a bit careless with them, and they usually end up getting killed when they escape and attack someone. My name is Jirro by the way." He said, his expression kind as he walked into the room.
" What will you do with it?" Roy questioned.
" I'll take it out of Amestris, to the unpopulated parts outside the country and set it free there. I suppose I'll need to do a little medical work first. All that will remain of the injury is a scar on its eye." He said, kneeling to examine its wound " Its not to bad, the pupil and retina weren't cut, it was mostly below the eye that was."
He glanced at Edward and, catching his guilty look said, " It's alright, you did what you had to to not get any more injured, and this chimera will be just fine."
" Thanks, you sure came at the right time." Edward said, his thanks genuine. He didn't hate any chimera, not since the incident with Nina.
" Well I live in town, so I tend to catch the rumors when they float around." He explained.
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The sun was setting, painting the sky all shades of oranges and pinks. The town was quieting down, though the bar was as noisy as ever.
" Thanks for the adventure boys, but I don't think I'll be doing that every day. I'm just fine with having a gun pointed to my head as I sigh paperwork." Roy confessed, grinning sheepishly at the mention of the lengths Riza Hawkeye had to go to to make him do his paperwork.
" Yeah, I don't think your old heart could take it." Ed joked, grinning at Roy's slightly annoyed expression.
" I hope you have a safe trip back to Eastern HQ Colonel!" Alphonse said kindly.
Roy nodded, saying; " And I hope you boys find that Stone of yours. Oh and be sure to send me reports, I see a real mystery in the making"
" Yeah so do I, though I get the feeling its not going to end well." Edward confessing, getting a bad omen of a feeling on the things to come.
Oh, he didn't know how right he was.
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" Ms. Raina, I believe it would be in your best interest if you cooperate with us." He said, his voice as calm as it had been an hour before, when she had first refused to answer any of there questions.
" I will not." She claimed defiantly.
The man sighed; this routine was getting rather tiresome. So, he switched to a different tactic.
" You've been using your powers haven't you? Trying to stop us from getting what we want?"
Her eyes widened, how could they have known?
" Well, let me assure you, you will not stop us from reaching our goal. He will end up, one way or another, playing right into our hands." He said, leaving the room his assistant closing the door behind him.
But his words had the opposite effect on her. Instead of breaking her determination, it only fueled it.
' I will stop him from coming here! I have to, or we all could be in danger!' she thought, her hands tightening in her lap.
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Well there is it! This really is turning out to be one big mystery isn't it? Well quite a few questions have arisen like who's the 'he' that was mentioned at the end of this chapter? Who's the 'they' that Edward shouldn't trust? And how does all of this connect to one little Stone? If you have any guesses feel free to put then in your review, ideas are welcome also! Scar is bound to appear in the next chapter, so see you next time on Of Scars, Friendship and Alchemy!
