Hokay, this is Our second official fic. No flames, please -- We worked hard. Though it didn't turn out so good.. It was five AM when We wrote the first half or so.

Disclaimer: We don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, or the Final Fantasy VIII references. (The divider things.) Too bad; if We did, Ling'd totally be in the anime. And you'd get to choose who Squall ends up with in FF8.

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Escape...? Was it an escape, really, if you were being chased? Finally, the cloaked body (who, mind, walked with a limp, for some reason) slowed, a drop of rain hitting his pointed ear, making it twitch. He wasn't wearing a hood, obviously.

Augh. Now it'd started raining? Just his luck. The boy dove behind some trashcans, hunkering down under the bushes, his only umbrella. He was feeling sluggish already. Rain didn't do such good things for his new body, which couldn't handle the humidity so well and therefore converted it into sleepiness. He really wondered how long he'd been out there for; his internal clock was wonked right up, and he couldn't quite remember. Was it an hour? A second? Years? He couldn't be sure.

This boy... he was like nothing the world had ever seen. Well, the fanfiction world had seen him before; but Amestris hadn't. Sporting pointed ears and a long, thin tail (and this was just what was visible on the outside on first glance), he was what the otaku world called a catboy. Amestris called something like him a chimera.

Adding to the ears and tail, on a closer glance, were six long, coarse hairs on the sides of his face. Whiskers, of course. He was about three feet tall, if he stood on his right booted foot -- if he stood on the other one, he was around five-oh. And... glancing down at one of his hands -- the one that was half-covered in his red sleeve -- it was a paw. Not a traditional animalistic paw, of course -- it was more like a normal hand with rather puffy, paw-shaped fingers, obviously evolved to hold claws.

Of course.. nothing about this boy could be considered evolved. Sure, the main, humanoid form was, but... he seemed to be half-cat. Which didn't quite make sense, when you thought about it, but anything was possible in a world that contained such a force as alchemy.

Well.. not everything, as the oversized metal limbs hanging weakly off his body obviously showed, but nearly everything. Anything inanimate could be reconstructed, reformed, to become something different. Touka koukan... equivalent exchange. Anything transmuted using the mysterious, alchemic energy, was done using the three main steps -- understanding, deconstruction, and reconstruction. But there were rules, and those who blew the rules off were punished in a horrible way. It could only be something of the same attributes. Watery could only create wet. Only something inanimate, never something made of flesh and blood, could be transmuted. Not without horrible consequences, consequences most refused to face. This boy... obviously he had committed that sin, and paid the price.

Right now, though... it was four years after that, and he was sitting in the bushes. The small leaves curled around his head, one ear twitching violently at the feeling of something caressing the pointed, fur-covered cartiliage, so he put his hood up. Currently, despite that, he was attempting to find a soft bit of dirt that he could curl up on and wait out the storm, the one he knew was coming. The bushes wouldn't be much shelter, but they were all he could have without being discovered and taken to a lab, or simply killed on the spot.

He still had his clothes, his possessions, this he knew to be true. He was wearing his usual attire; the red overcoat enveloped the black jeans and shirt he'd become accustomed to wearing. But these clothes were tattered and worn, as if he'd been wearing them for years without repair. Well, the former was true, he /had/ been wearing them a long time, but he'd had enough sense to fix his clothes if they were ripped or one of the seams split. Right now, though.. he'd repaired them a few days ago. They'd been ripped in the change from fully-human to anthromorphic, it seemed. There was a bit of flaxen fur poking out of his jeans, the same dirty color as his loose, unbraided hair, so obviously he was nearly covered in the stuff. (Actually, he only had it on his sides and lower body, but there was no way of knowing that right now.)

His watch was there, too -- he'd heard the chain jingling as he moved. Which was lucky -- he couldn't possibly be dismissed from his position as Major if he still had the watch. Unless, of course, they stripped him of his title and sent him back to his hometown -- that was possible as well.

/I'll be waiting here../

A sudden crash, and one of the garbage cans fell over, spilling its contents nearly on top of the poor blonde, who jumped back instinctively, fur standing on end. What'd just happened?

His question was answered, however.

"What--!"

That voice.. he knew that voice. How could he forget it? It was always there when he went into work, always with that smug tone. Right now, however, it just sounded pissed off. The voice of his ebony-haired commander, Roy Mustang.

Apparently another of the Taisa's subordinates was there as well. Three others, to be exact. They each had their own scents, though weakened greatly by the rain. A certain cut of cigarettes, gunpowder, and oil. These were only a few of the signature scents, of course, each of them had a few. Those were the most prominent, under another, even more significant scent. The regular cotton scent, overshadowed by a much stronger one -- the scent of alcohol. Bourbon whiskey, to be exact. Roy'd had a pint.

When he'd jumped, unfortunately, he'd leapt right out of the bushes -- right into the viewpoint of the soldiers. And he froze, the deer-in-headlights look very prominent on his whiskered face. He hadn't expected this, and this wasn't the way he'd planned on informing them. It made coming out and saying it a bit easier, though -- now he didn't have to awkwardly reveal anything.

Freezing in one spot, though.. it made him fall, and that gave away where he was even more. He cursed his luck as he attempted to pick his bruised body up before they could reach him. He was, of course, too weak for that, so he had to defeatedly flop back down, breathing heavily.

A stutter, then a choked sound as the alcohol-scented colonel switched from telling Jean off (the Second Lieutenant had pushed him) to realizing what had just leapt out of the bushes. "Ful- /Fullmetal!"

Fullmetal... Yeah. Yeah, that was it. He'd nearly forgotten. How could he, he wondered? He'd had that title for years now. All he could do at the moment, of course, was groan and hide his face. Which bent his whiskers in the process, and made him let out an "ow!"

Hurried footsteps, and then someone was turning him over not-so-gently -- obviously it was Roy. "Fullmetal," he said quietly, "what the hell are you doing out here?"

/So if you come here.../

About fifteen minutes later... he'd been gathered up reluctantly by the colonel, whose alcoholic scent he still couldn't stand, and they'd brought him back to headquarters, called Aru, and placed him on one of the couches in Roy's office. He'd curled up there, shutting his eyes, but sleep didn't come, so he just perked up his ears and listened as they discussed what would happen. They hadn't taken off his hood, hadn't seen the tail, the paws, the fur, or the whiskers; they just knew something was off.

Maybe he's injured.

Maybe he was lost.

Maybe he ran off.

Possibilities, possibilities. They came in a whirlwind of choices: had he tried to escape? Was he hurt? He didn't want to think about it, and he didn't see why they should care. They'd left him to become like this, and now they were taking him back? It didn't make sense in his mind. (Of course, it was rather frazzled, from the transmutation process. That might have had something to do with it.)

Suddenly, he was approached; by Roy, of course. He had the authority. "Fullmetal."

He groaned, but didn't reply.

"Fullmetal, I want you to tell me what you were doing out there."

Still, no reply. The storm started full throttle; a boom of thunder drowned out the pitterpatter of rain on the roof.

"Fullmetal. Answer me."

Finally.. he opened his eyes, blinking in the light. He could do nothing to hide the slits that his normally-round pupils had decided to reshape as, but he could keep his eyes lowered. It was possible they wouldn't pay any attention. "Wha... what..?"

Just a mumble. That was all.

"Fullmetal, tell me what happened."

Tell him what happened... This penetrated the mist shrouding his thoughts and he jumped back again, pressing his back into the couch as far as he could. "If I... If I tell you... you'll send me off to a lab," he murmured in reply.

Roy shook his head furiously, glaring once he'd stopped. "Why the hell would I send you off to a lab? You're a valuable subordinate. I can't afford to do that."

And then... Edward Elric looked his superior in the eye, slitted butterscotch meeting obsidian, and replied, "Alright."

/You'll find me./

The first thing he'd done was to knock his hood off; it seemed apropriate. Secondly he'd taken the coat right off, gritted his teeth, pointed canines and all, clenched his mismatched fists, and announced, "This is what you left your subordinate to become, Mustang. You happy, or should I write up a report?"

The shocked look on his superior's face, however... Roy hadn't been expecting this, Ed could see. "Well?"

Roy spluttered uncharacteristically for a few moments, babbling incomprehensible words. Finally, he barked, "No one knows. Got it?"

Of course no one could know. If they did, that'd be the end, both for Edward and his aquaintances. And they couldn't have that. So now... they had to plan.

/I promise./

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DUN DUN DUUUUUN. We really don't like how this turned out. But what can you do, right? Alrighty, you know the drill. R&R, all that crap, and We'll write some more depending on how many reviews. Five'll do for the first chapter.