Chapter 8: Confronting the Enemy

Disclaimer: I do not own FMA or the characters.

They were just kicking it back like two reminiscing about old times in a room that had beige walls with paintings of old plantations or farm that never existed because they were too beautiful to be actual landscapes. The hotel room's rug was very lavish for the décor of the room, which was a bit conservative but the rug used a complex pattern of many colors and then became a spiral of red and gold. The chairs were very expensive leather, but that didn't stop Sean from leaning back into them as he and Guile talked about their life growing up and the onlookers couldn't help but see the similarities between the two men. It was almost as if someone cloned the same paranoid sadist, but they made the clone less sadistic than the original product and Riza decided that she liked the other world Guile better than the Guile of her world. He was much easier to talk with than with the Guile of her world mostly because he wasn't as intimidating as the Guile of her world. He did look scary as hell and like someone you didn't want to meet in a dark alleyway on a scary night, but he had this laid back look to him from his slicked back hair and his suave mannerisms that made him look like the other world's counter part of General Mustang. Of course, Riza and Roy were a bit pissed at how Guile just burst in through this without informing them and went against their orders, but right now they figured it led to an important enough discoveries that they would go easy on him. Besides, they still had to arrest Vashov and see if he knew anything about what was going on and they had sent Havoc to look after him since Havoc had a bit of a thing for the private who was searching the library with Vashov, Sheska.

"Well if you two are getting along alright I'll go see how we're doing on our Vashov situation," announced Roy as he walked out of the room and to the car, which he soon saw Riza rush right past him to get it started, her lingering scent tantalizing his thoughts as he walked down the steps. "I want you guys to look at them and one of you goes put in a call to Edward Elric and tell him where to meet me."

"Okay so maybe this section will yield something useful to us," said Vashov as he started to climb the ladder up to the high shelves and soon he came to see the books he wanted. "Is that the phone?"

"Oh, someone is calling for me," exclaimed the young female private as she ran for the phone and answered it. "Yes sir, Private Sheska here."

"Listen, Sheska, this Colonel Montegu, we were just wandering if a Captain Vashov is with you at the moment," said the voice on the other end.

"Do you want me to put him on," asked the bespectacled private as she raised her hand to call Vashov over.

"No, what we want you to do is keep him there," replied the colonel as he began to tap his feet, the sound being heard by Sheska over the phone. "Right now we have an anonymous tip that Captain Vashov is a homunculus and he is considered to be very dangerous so don't let him on that you now that he is a homunculus. Right now we need to extract him and find out as much information as he knows, but we also believe that he is a high ranking person and his capture may end the conflict."

"Understood sir, I'll carryout order now, luckily I have a revolver in my drawer," said Sheska as she hung up, forgetting to say goodbye or do it politely because she was so nervous with a dangerous criminal so close to her. As soon as she turned around there he was, grabbing her hand so it couldn't reach the drawer while hitting her on the back of the neck to knock her out.

"Sorry about this, Sheska," said Vashov as he eased her body into a chair and walked off, taking the custom revolver with a wide barrel from the drawer. "This is the work of a genius and I was wondering where the gun went after his untimely death."

"Hold it right there Vashov," shouted Havoc as he pointed his own firearm at the captain whom he had just been informed by radio was a homunculus. "I know what you are and Breda has the back door covered as well so don't try anything funny."

"Well then you should know that those little bang bangs won't work on me," said Vashov as he moved to the side while Havoc took a shot at him. "You are a good shot, but I'm not going to be taken down by you."

Vashov ran from each blast with surprising speed while firing back at Havoc with great accuracy until one shot clipped Havoc on the shoulder, but Vahov had no intention of killing Havoc, then or in the near future. The shot was a clear wing without the subtlety of making it appear like he was trying to kill Havoc because they both knew that if he wished to kill Havoc then the shot would have killed him and that's what Vashov wanted him to know. He wanted to make sure that Havoc knew that it was by Vashov's good grace that he was still breathing, still living, and that Vashov could kill him if he even got the hint that he wanted to. Havoc could only kneel there and watch Vashov ran right past him, leaving only the sound of footprints behind for Havoc to hear.

Roy immediately rushed in while Riza stopped to help the wounded Havoc who was bleeding from the spot where the bullet clipped his shoulder and she then went to work on fixing his arm while Roy checked upstairs for the elusive captain. The captain was moving through the shadows that covered everything in the upper parts of the library, making every turn and every corner a treacherous road with very little success. Little did Roy know, the captain had slipped by him and crawled out a window, but the window caused him to land right in front of Riza, who pulled out her gun immediately.

"Stop right there, Captain," said Riza as she aimed her gun at the captain. "I'll shoot if you run and I'm a better shot than Havoc was."

"Well I never expected this to be easy," sighed Vashov right before he jumped over the car and returned fire. The gun barked as he twisted his elbow to absorb the recoil and then he started to run again, run as far as he could until he reached the end of the street, but she was chasing him as well.

She fired at him as she walked, but only got off three shots before he jumped into the sewer as she wanted accurate shots that would conserve ammo. Vashov had something like a sixth sense or must have because he jumped to the elf tor right of the shot and when he jumped down he fired a warning shot up wards so that she knew that he was aiming upwards. She waited for the right amount of time before peering her head down into the opening and then jumped down in there and pointed her gun upwards. He had moved on and so should she if she wanted to catch him, but there were other tunnels and the sewers were like one big labyrinth and her job wasn't any easier than now since she was going to have to face a dangerous suspect in a place that was to her disadvantage and her gun was wet. Wet bullets misfired, but luckily she had another clip in her pocket. Ejecting the wet clip, she quickly slapped a dry clip in her gun and started walking down a tunnel.