Enigma

By TeriyakiPrinces

Rating: Mature because of the blood and a lot of swearing and canon-typical violence which makes ff net want to kick me out.

Warnings for the chapter: Dum Dum Dum... also swearing.

Disclaimer: Not mine. To see original content, look up Hiromu Arakawa.

A/N: One word for you guys: FINALS.

Gaia felt like shit.

She was someone who enjoyed the truth and facts, as she had always felt almost nauseous after telling lies of her own. She was blunt and harsh in her words to others and to herself, holding back little to nothing when it came to observations and opinions- she was raised by a very opinionated and driven mother and a father who worked in the journalism industry for many years- the truth of every matter as she saw it was ingrained in her being from the moment she was conceived.

So yeah, she felt like shit.

She had let herself get blackout drunk with a man she did not know. A member of the military regime who had plied her for information, whether for his own purposes or for the state.

God, she felt like crap.

But then again, wasn't this one of her favorite characters? Didn't she know his motivations and morals? He had done this with grief in his eyes, and patted her back as she puked her guts out, and got her home. That had to count for something, right?

And so the truth of the matter hit Gaia Maurer in the face, her poor throbbing face, that this was a man she did not know outside of written word, who had a skewed sense of morality and justice, wracked with grief over the murder of his best friend. He was a war hero, a war criminal, with a personal agenda she, in all actuality, did not have a shred of an idea of.

She could not take the word of fiction, however much it was real to her now, as fact. Relationships took time to cultivate, to maintain, and to solidify. She had a year before the Promised Day, by her calculations, and who the fuck knew what could happen between then and now.

Now.

Right now, she had a headache that seemed to pulse through her entire body, and the sheer drapes on her room's windows were letting entirely too much light in. Gaia tried to sit up, propping her upper body up on her elbows, but the jostling made her headache stronger and the subsequent thump into her feather pillow as she turned onto her stomach hurt even more.

She resolved to rest some more, wallowing in self pity and the burgeoning aversion she felt at any thought of a smug pale face with dark eyes and hair.

Fucking Roy Mustang. He would pay for his audacity-

Fuck – fuck – large words hurt.

A soft knock on the door was felt as much as hurt, then, before a groan escaped her throat. The slight squeak of the hinges felt like nails were being hammered into her skull.

"Good morning, Gaia." Gracia's voice. Thank god it wasn't the little hellion.

A groan.

"I see last night hasn't done you any favors, huh?" There was humor in the mother's voice, which was entirely unwelcome in the room.

"Roy dropped you off, but you were barely coherent, so I wanted to give you your medicine now rather than when you would have been more likely to have thrown it up than let it help you." God bless this sweet, sweet woman.

A glass clinked onto the table by her bed, and Gaia peeled open a single eye to see that it had ice in it, and two white oblong pills were sitting beside it.

Gracia Hughes was an angel, no questions asked.

Three days later, and Gaia Maurer found herself in Central's Military Headquarters lobby, feeling no less like shit. Her hangover was long gone, sure, but now she sat alone, emotions in turmoil, her mind roiling with the strange sense that she was awaiting her own doom.

She was sure that the amount of time that it took to wait until you were called in was another tactic of mental torture the military had found most effective- she was ready to get this over with yesterday.

Gaia stared ahead, at the approaching Private (she could tell by the nervousness around him that he was new) heading straight at the seats arranged along the white wall of the waiting room. There had been around thirty of these nervous message-boys who had already passed by, so she was fairly positive this one wasn't here for her either.

"U-um, Miss Maurer?" Correction: she was about to be set free.

"Yes."

"Could you come with me, ma'am?" He couldn't have been a year over 18 – which was what she was told the standard enlistment age in Amestris was. He was some inches shorter than her, something that honestly wasn't that unusual, and still had spots on his face.

She was also not about to correct his grammar, as much as her deep-seated Grammar-Nazi wanted to.

"Where to?" She was sure her brusque way of speaking was putting the boy off, but sue her for using her preservation tactics in an unfamiliar situation.

"Your presence was requested for a private meeting, miss."

She heaved herself forward, the bone deep exhaustion she had been feeling for nearly three weeks now hitting her like a sledgehammer. The soldier obviously didn't know what to do with her frailty, and almost jumped at her command to get a move on – she didn't have all day.

"Y-yes ma'am!"

She was led through multiple hallways and up two floors before stopping behind a pair of large wooden doors.

They didn't look anything like what she vaguely remembered from her last stay in the capital of Amestris, but she wasn't exactly guilty of committing a crime against the state now, was she.

Her escort knocked on the door, before bowing to her and scampering away. She followed him with her eyes, but turned away when she saw the doors were being opened.

The doors, the ornate, expensive-looking blockades, led to an elaborate office. One wall entirely covered with equally ornate windows, a heavy wooden desk with a large plush chair in the center situated close to those windows, and two comfortable-looking chairs pointed towards the desk.

The corruption in the Dragon's pulse flooded her senses, and she froze in her spot just inside the room.

All rational thought fled at the sight of a blue-tinted black iris staring at her from behind crinkled eyes.

Gaia Maurer stiffened, horror shining in her bright eyes, and turned on the spot, only to realize her only means of escape had been closed and most likely locked, but that didn't stop her from banging on the heavy dark wood, screaming, shouting, with no words able to escape her muddled mind, her only thoughts revolving around help and escape and please please let me out, you EVIL FUCKERS!

She wanted to, that is, but her body was frozen as if in a block of ice, a paralyzing shiver stuck somewhere between her shoulder blades, tensing her shoulders to a painful degree.

The scraping of a chair.

A calm voice.

"Why don't you come and take a seat, Ms. Maurer?" His tone was fatherly, but as she looked at him, back braced against the door, green eyes analyzing every inch of the muscled figure, he looked anything but. A cold eye fixed upon her, his straight, intimidating posture lax- she could see he was ready to spring at any moment, his muscles deceptively relaxed, like a black panther she had once seen through a television screen, before.

She wanted to sob. He knew her name, and she wanted someone, anyone, to help her, to get her out, and fuck this was the closest she had been to a panic attack in, like, 3 years.

But the fact remained that Fuhrer King Bradley was in the same room as her, and she really really really wanted to be anywhere but near him at that moment.

Is this the set-up for the first major Arc of Enigma? Why yes it is, dear reader, yes. it. is.

The poll is still up, it's located at the top of my profile page.

I'm sorry about the wait, truly, and that this is such a cliffhanger, but motivation is low at the moment.

Reviews might help ;)