Gavin was pissed- well, annoyed actually -after finding out Simon had spotted on the last supply run to the Kingdom to Negan. That had been Gavin's operation, Gavin's men and Gavin's turf. It was technically, in the fluid, chaotic organization of the Saviors, Simons job as Negan's quasi-right hand man to report on detail of their extortion operations to the Saviors leader, but generally it was left to the leaders of the outposts and marauders who exploited specific communities of survivors to pass on the status of their operations to Negan, with Simon rarely if ever getting involved.
IT may have just bene happenstance, but a petty move like interjecting himself from a vicious snake like Simon could be a portent of graver things to come, which is what had led Gavin to track Simon down on the sprawling factory complex that served as the Saviors fortress and demand an answer.
"What? What's the big deal, compadre?" Simon asked in response to Gavins demands after he tracked Simon down in front of the Saviors supply warehouse, "Just passing on a little info to the boss man."
"Simon…" Gavin tried to interject; the two men were about the same size, but Gavin was skinny, sunken eyed and furtive, as opposed to Simon, who was more akin to stalking hyena, thin, corded with sinewy muscle and with malicious cunning constantly dancing in his dark eyes.
"It's not like…you let your renne-faire buddies talk you into accepting a short tribute. Again." Simon glared, "Not like that would be something you'd want to coat in bullshit before passing it off to Negan, right?"
Gavin paled a bit, swallowed, and tried to rally,
"They said they'd make up for it…"
"With a fuel depot they found. I know. Negan knows too."
"How did you know?" Gavin demanded,
"Gavin, buddy, you know how it is. Guys talk. Specifically, your guys. To me. By the by, have you seen this notional fuel depot they promised you?"
"Not…not exactly…"
Simon nodded, slowly, rolling his eyes dramatically,
"Maybe you should just be thankful the boss is distracted right now. To distracted to pay much attention to your fuck-ups."
"Distracted with what?"
Simon threw his hands up dramatically,
"With a fucking wizard, and his magic. Because of fucking course that's something you'd find in a world overrun with the undead. Fucking magic."
Gavin looked at Simon like he'd gone…more insane than he already thought the other man was. He was unsure how Simon was mocking right now but Gavin was convinced he had to be, somehow.
"Look, I really think I should be talking to Negan about what happened with The Kingdom…"
"Of course! Big Mans up in his rooms on the top floor. I'm sure you won't be interrupting anything."
Gavin had done his best to ignore the overly sincere expression on Simon's face, and begun to climb the stairways to the former executive offices of the factory buildings, the place in Sanctuary where Negan had ensconced himself.
He emerged into the hallway in front of the offices to find he was not alone; a small knot of disheveled looking people were clustered by one of the doors that led to Negan's quarters Gavin narrowed his eyes as he recognized them as some of the average workers and Sanctuary dwellers from the refugee camp on the factory floor, people who should not have been skulking by the doors of their betters.
He was opening his mouth to shout a question when he spotted the compact, lethal looking machine pistol one was raising, and the Savior lieutenant had just enough to widen his eyes before a staccato burst of fire ripped down the hallway and a storm of bullets spun him around and sent him sprawling to the floor.
Edward and Negan had lapsed into a moody silence, just before the gunfire sounded from the hallway outside the lounge built into Negan's personal quarters, quickly followed by the sound of splintering wood and more gunfire from the room next door- the room Negan's "wives" had fled into after Ed's alchemical display.
Negan was already getting to his feet, his barbed wire wrapped club clutched in his hands as he spun to face the received threat, when screams erupted from the other room, followed by a wild fusillade of shots as the door flew open and one of Negan's wives threw herself into the room, clutching another by the hand, just before the wailing woman was cut down by a burst of automatic weapons fire, causing her to stumble, but the woman propelled herself forwards and leapt behind the bar in the corner, just before a ragged looking woman charged into the room, clutching some kind of automatic weapon in her hands, levelling it at Negan.
Ed through his half-empty glass of whiskey at the gunwoman, catching her square in the forehead and shattering the glass vessel as he shouted at Negan to get down- he'd yelled in Amestrian, but the big man seemed to translate on the fly as he threw himself down behind the couch he'd been sitting on, with Ed following suit as two more armed people curst into the room, wildly firing handguns at…nothing in particular it seemed.
"In Jesus' name! In Jesus' name!" one ranted, just before the woman who had thrown herself behind the bar- Ed thought her name was Sherry -quickly popped her head and shoulders above the bar and levelled a stubby firearm across the bar top, just before letting fly with it as the weapon erupted with an ear-splitting roar that made Edwards head ring.
The gunman who had been screaming at the top of his lungs flew backwards, with most of the top of his head flying even higher, but his partner who had been reloading her weapon both opened fire wildly again and took up the rant;
"In Jesus' name this is Gods will! For His prophet, She Who Walks Behind the Walls!" the woman's voice was growing ecstatic, high on the power of her faith and the perceived power of the weapon in her hands as she blazed away, "For She will uplift me and mine to Gods garden! She Who Walks Behind the Wa-" the woman voice died as Negan's knife sank into her chest; the bandit tyrant had leaned out and underhanded the huge blade he wore at his side into the woman's chest, but just as before, to more attackers took there place, with one charging wildly at Negan, who even prone was able to toss the thin man aside, but the wretch scrambled to his feet and spotted Edward,
"Profligate! Theif! The Power is Hers alone!" he shrieked, before charging at Ed, firing wildly at the boy with a rusted revolver he still clutched in one hand, but he got off only two rounds before the weapon ran dry.
Ed grinned, scrambling to his feet as he charged at his attacker, leveling a savage punch that turned into a feint as he swept the mans' legs out from under him. But, fueled by the religious hatred that seemed to power these killers, he scrambled up, brandishing a knife before slashing wildly at Edward; he didn't get far, however, as that shotgun roared again, splattering the man's chest with buckshot and sending him sprawling bonelessly to the ground.
The remaining attacker proved to be the ambitious one; he paused to quickly scoop up the automatic weapon the first through the door had dropped, before spraying wildly with it and the semi-automatic pistol gripped in hos other hand.
"She will…" he began to rant between bursts of gunfire, but whatever he was about to tell his three would-be victims she would do died with him as a bloody, pale reanimated loomed behind him, grabbing the gunman neck before sinking it's teeth into his neck and ripping the soft flesh out and backwards, chewing greedily even as it went back for more.
Another walking corpse appeared, this time one of Negan's wives, her black dress torn by bloodied gunshot wounds as she took her revenge of her killer from the afterlife, dragging the fanatic down even as his gargled screams flooded the room as she and the other began to feast.
As the horrific sounds of the undead tearing the killer apart filled the room, no other assassins appeared.
Ed gaped as he watched the two reanimated feed; unable to blink, unable to breath as the horror unfolded before him; he was only able to look away when he towering form of Negan loomed into his field of vision, that terrible club of his raised high.
The Fullmetal Alchemist squeezed his eyes shut, but he could sill her the wet, awful cracking sounds of the club descending only being drown out by the sharp cracks of a pistol that were the only thing that jolted his eyes open, only long enough to see that amber had snatched up a pistol and was quickly delivering headshots to the fallen, including the man she had already blasted near Edward.
Ed flinched as blood sprayed across his face, and he scrambled backwards, eyes wide now, his senses flooding as the stench of freshly dead humans filled nostrils, ears still ringing from the gunfire in these close quarters.
"Hey, kid, you ok?" Sherry asked as she stood over the young man, unsure if she should offer a hand or…
Edward almost nodded but then he saw it; a fresh reanimated was lurching through the door way, right behind Negan, who stood, seemingly insensate, looking down at the corpse of his wife.
Ed shouted a warning, but he was already on his feet, lunging forward past Amber, shoving her and then Negan to the side, some part of his mind telling him destroy the brain just as he was on top of the reanimated.
He propelled himself into it, knocking it back into the blood-spattered bedroom on the other side of the door and landing on top of its, straddling the corpse and pinning its arms with his knees. Ed looked down as it began to wildly jerk its head at him, snapping its jaws, and propelled not by any small measure just by which particular part of his anatomy those wildly snapping jaws were close to, Ed raised his auto-mail hand into a fist and brought it crashing down into the creatures forehead, once, twice, caving in the skull, three, four splattering its brains across the carpet and finally making it go down for good.
When the thrashing thing finally went still, Ed looked down at it, blankly, a part of his mind wondering did I just do that?
Someone moaned nearby, and Ed quickly shot to his feet, ready for another attack, but instead of a groaning reanimated, he fund one of Negan's wives desperately clutching her hands to her chest as blood seeped from her body where she lay slumped against a bedframe.
"Hey!" the alchemist shouted, rushing to her side and snatching a torn pillow form the bd, ignoring the feathers it spilled a she pressed it to the wounds on the woman's chest, "Hey how bad is it?" he demanded.
"Well it's not fucking good," the woman hissed back, teeth clenched.
"I know, I'm sorry, keep pressure." Ed commanded, "We need a doctor! Negan!" Ed shouted, brining both the Saviors leader and Sherry darting into the room; Sherry ran to Edward and the other woman, but Negan looked at things calculating snatching up a pistol form where it had fallen on the floor and going to check the hallway; this proved unnecessary, as armed Savors flooded the room.
"Where the fuck were you assholes?" Negan shouted, "One of your fucks go get Doc Carson, now!"
"This one's still alive." A cold voice announced from nearby, as Simon entered the room with his gang, having come through another door.
"Pretty soon she's gonna wish she fuckin' wasn't." Negan announced, becoming every bit the calculating leader once again, his pain buried with the mountain of it he already carried, "Double the wall guards, break out the heavy shit and sweep the halls and the floor for more of these pricks. Take this shit down to the cells." He commanded, kicking the fallen female attacker on the floor hard in the side, bringing a short, sharp bark of pain form her lips.
Edward was ignoring the bandit, instead helping to keep pressure on the woman's wounds as Sherry gripped the girl's other shoulder.
Edward looked up, finding that Savior with the burned face looking down at him and Sherry, trying and failing to hide concern behind an impassive exterior. Shery glanced up, but her face hardened when she spotted him.
Edward spotted the byplay, but frankly didn't care what it meant, only relaxing when a calm voice spoke behind him,
"I've got it from here, son."
Edward might have bristled ta the tone at any other time, but not now, as the doctor he had seen early doped a bright red bag marked with white crosses on the floor and knelt down next to the fallen woman.
Edward recognized the doctor from when he had seen him tending to Ash earlier and he stood as the man went to work on the injured woman.
Negan also loomed behind him, but he only seemed to be interested in the man with the burned face.
"Dwighty! My head of security, we are gonna have to have a long fuckin' talk about the band of Jesus freaks that just murdered my wives, aren't we?"
"Negan, I…" Dwight began, but he was cut off as Negan backhanded him across the face,
"They are fucking dead you asshole! You think you're fucked up whiny bullshit matters to me?!" Negan demanded, raising Lucille as Dwight cowered, too scared to even reach for the weapons on his belt to defend himself.
Without thinking, Edward grabbed ahold of Negan's wrist, stopping him from striking out with the barbed wire wrapped baseball bat he had named for dead wife.
"Negan!" Ed shouted, brain finally catching up with actions and screaming oh shit at the action he had just taken, "It won't change anything!"
Despite the horror around him, Edward cringed at the words he had just spoken. Utter cliché-but true, nonetheless.
The bandit leader glare at the boy with enough hate to make the hardened warrior shrink back, but save a exhalation like a charging bull as he spun on his heel, Negan said or did nothing else as he stormed away.
Ed let out sigh of relief, as even the cold Dwight seemed to relax, just a bit, but as ever, Negan had to have the last word as he called over his shoulder,
"My new friend just saved your life, D-boy! You get him everything he needs, offa your points, fuckbake! If he so much as whispers a complaint about how fucking awesome you're gonna be fucking treating him…" Negan spun, grinning wildly as swung Lucille in a wide arc. He turned without a word and stormed after Simon and his crew, who were dragging the surviving assassin off to the cells, "Ed, look after Amber for me. I'll be by the clinic soon to check on you."
Edward watched him go, standing silently as a group of Saviors loaded the wounded woman unto a gurney, before looking cautiously over at Dwight.
"Well, come on, then." Edward spoke, following the gurney as Dwight and Sherry trailed behind him. It seemed his first job at The Sanctuary was going to be acting as it's brutal leaders conscience.
"Well…" Negan mused, swinging Lucille in quick, harsh spin, flicking bits of scalp, blood and brain matter off the barbed wire wrapping of the baseball bat's tip and splattering it across the walls of the basement of the Sanctuary, "…that was informative."
Simon, the second in command of the Saviors, flinched as some of the flying gore splattered his face. He growled in annoyance but didn't wipe it off- his hands and forearms were already slick with blood.
In front of the two men, missing several fingers and with her head caved in, sprawled the would-be assassin who had brazenly attacked the Tyrant of the Sanctuary with her already dead compatriots. She was still tied a chair, limp as the ragged clothing that she wore. Like any fanatic, she had sworn to not say a thing and like with any human, a few minutes of bloody work by Simon had made that promise evaporate.
The assassin- neither Negan or Simon had really bothered to learn her name -had talked long and haltingly about who had sent her, why they had, why had done what she did and most importantly, where she had come from.
Negan shook out the map one of his raiders had brought down; it had shown a wide, multi-state area of Virginia and Maryland. Although very few of the Saviors were from the area of Virginia they had ended up in after the Wildfire apocalypse, they had all grown to know the area around their stronghold, outposts, checkpoints and tributaries community well enough, thus when the broken killer had pointed to a town to the West pas the outermost Savior holding.
At the heart of what they called "Eerie Country".
The killer claimed that beyond he twisted, wreck clogged roads and herds of roaming stenches there was a massive, walled off town ruled by someone the deranged assassin insisted was "touched by God" and given "holy" powers, called by the surviving locals of the area as "She Who Walks Behind the Walls.". When the dead first walked, this newly minted prophet had created massive, metal walls around the town of Quick Hollow, just at the base of the Alleghany Mountains, twisting rail cars, shipping containers, truck trailers and steel girders into an impenetrable barrier simply by pressing her hands into the earth and call upon her "holy" power.
Now two years after the apocalypse, surviving locals from the surrounding area and desperate refugees were promised entry into the walled safe zone for themselves and their families by the supposed prophetess who ruled inside; provided the cult like followers outside did as they were bidden and accomplished their "blessed" missions.
"It's amazing how fast everyone went bat shit insane," Simon pointed out, as he paused outside the poorly lit basement room they had carried the now deceased prisoner to wash his hands off in a trough of soapy water that some other Savior had thoughtfully dragged down to the old factories basement., "Before this all went down, I doubt this lady had even been inside a church and now she went full-fledged religious nut."
Negan shrugged, "The stress of not starving to death or being eaten by living goddamn corpses does seem to have out the zap on the Empirical Reasoning process."
"…what?"
"People do stupid shit when the world goes to hell," Negan clarified to which Simon shrugged, "Of more pressing concern is what our newly ventilated friend was talking about her Prophetess doing, it sounds a whole fuck of a lot like the alchemy tricks our other, not so ventilated new friend Edward the Goddamn Wizard does."
"Think they're…related?"
"I think it's his…what the fuck did he say, step-mom or something? He has a weird ass accent and he's only just learning the motherfucking language, it's hard to understand everything he says."
"Step mom?" Simon asked, confused.
"I…fuck he had a hell of a story. Like Japanese anime level what-the-fuckery*. Said her name was Dante and he thought she had come here from the world he's from, she's some sort of crazy powerful alchemist and…" Negan trailed off and sighed.
Simon raided an eyebrow s he wiped the last blooded remnants of him with a wet towel and chucked it into the now foamy-red water he'd used to clean up in.
"Look, dead people are walking around eating people, the worlds fucking insane, fucking roll with it." Negan barked, "Now get me a head count, let's see if these idiots got filled up with religious fervor and attacked our boy right away, or of they were fucking smart e-fucking-nough to send someone to warn their false fucking messiah she has competition."
Simon nodded and waked off, his crew of Saviors peeling off to follow him, leaving Negan alone in the dark with the corpse of his would be killer.
He sighed, let put a ragged breath and leaned heavily against a dank wall. With no more pain to inflict, no more bluster to hide behind and no more orders to give, Negan was left to face a harsh reality; that no matter how it had happened, there were three dead women upstairs who had been called his wives, despite the mockery of the word his relationship with them really was.
And despite his power, his cruelty and his skill at violence and manipulation, despite the army at his command and his absolute power over his people, the man who had come be after he had watched his wide eaten away by cancer, who had replaced the decent if flawed man that existed before, had just failed as totally as the other.
Ed had rushed through the halls of the Sanctuary alongside the gaunt looking doctor and the horribly scarred Savior called Dwight as they trailed behind the wheeled stretcher the rough looking marauders had loaded Negan's wounded wife, Amber on.
The name on this world were…odd.
Ed had wondered why so many of the bandits tagged along, but it ended up taken four men and women working together to maneuver the unwieldy medical gurney through the halls and steep stairways of the Sanctuary to get to the roughly outfitted, but clean, former factory offices that the Saviors seemed to use as their medical ward.
He stood back with Dwight as the doctor prepped a tray of medical equipment and supplies, he took from the cabinets and drawers of his makeshift clinic/operating room. There were even curtains he could have drawn up to seal of the view of his patient, but he didn't bother now, seeming to need to move fast to get to work on the woman, who was till moaning in pain through clenched teeth as blood soaked through the tightly wrapped bandages on her chest, just below he left shoulder.
Ed felt a detached, scientific part of his mind take over as he stood back and observed; he might have known alchemy like the back of his hand, but medical science was foreign territory to him. He did know enough to tell that Ambers wound was bad, and he hoped that whatever medical science was like in this world, it was better than that in Amestris, where whole limbs could be tied off, nerves reworked and auto mail replacements like Ed's worked into replace them but internal medicine, like say, for a gun shot wound that may have ripped through vital organs, still lagged behind. There were no auto-mail replacements for human hearts, lungs…
Ed watched the doctor worked quickly, the Amestrian quickly identifying certain of the man's tools; sutures were sutures, forceps, an IV setup went into Amber's arm on the opposite side of her wound, but instead of a glass bottle filled with transfused blood, this was made of a thin, pliable material and was filled with some kind of clear liquid.
The doctor washed his hands, quickly, before pulling on thin rubber gloves of a kind Ed hadn't seen before as he suddenly looked up and noticed Dwight and Edward watching,
"Dwight, wash up, I'll need you." He lowered at Ed, "You stay back, you're filthy."
Dwight had nodded, quietly before setting his crossbow back against the wall and stepping forward to wash his hands in an improvised sink, closing the curtains after he was done and leaving Ed to stare at blank green fabric.
Edward huffed in annoyance and looked around for a seat, finding that unlike a purpose-built medical facility, this one lacked a waiting area. Ed almost went to go sit on one of the hospital beds of the make shift ward, but he remembered the doctor's words, and looked down to find that he was, indeed, filthy.
His black clothing was still splattered with gore from the battle with the reanimated in the library, worn from his battle with Dante before that, from the fight with Envy…there was still a gaping hole in his shirt form where the homunculus had stabbed him, even, from the journey to the catacombs beneath central, from the fight with the assassins in Negan's suite…he looked at the corner of his jacket, noticed a neat hole in it and checked it.
Yep.
Bullet hole.
It had missed sinking through his flesh by centimeters.
Ed slouched down the wall next to Dwight's abandoned crossbow, and ended up sitting cross legged on the tiled floor, holding his head in his hands, staring at the ground as he listened to the doctor calling sharp orders at Dwight behind the curtain, punctuated b the occasional distressed cry form Amber.
He did his best to focus on the situation at hand, but thee simply nothing for him to do. He stared at the oddly made, square tiles of the floor; it took the alchemist a moment to realize they weren't tile at all, but some sort of textured material made to look like tiles. Ed shook his head and looked up; like everything here, this makeshift medical ward was both familiar and alien. He would have loved to see what this world was like before it had fallen, but he decided to hold out hope for some technological wonders left to marvel at, even in its decrepit state.
As the doctor and Dwight continued to work, Ed leaned back against the tiled (actual tiles, this time) wall behind him and closed his eyes. His head was still swimming but from whatever alcohol it was he had drunk with Negan- it would have been a pleasant, warm feeling at any other time, but now…now it just dragged him down into darkness faster than his exhaustion.
Negan slipped quietly into Sanctuaries infirmary, having put off the trip as long as possible, making excuses to himself to wait for Simon to report back, to make sure the rest of his people were safe, but it had boiled down to either going back to his rooms to find out what had become of the bodies of his wives or checking on Amber in the infirmary, to find out if she had joined them.
Picking the lesser of two evils, he had climbed the stairs to the infirmary.
He'd hesitated to open the door, but when he did he had to choke back a sigh of relief when he spotted Amber laying asleep on one of the hospital beds inside- the same one where he had visited Ash the day before.
That left…Negan frowned as he looked around for Edward, until a loud snore brought his attention to wear the alien alchemist was sprawled up against the wall, head propped up on a pillow taken from one of the hospital beds.
"He conked out while I was helping the Doc with Amber." Dwight explained, and Negan found his lieutenant watching form the makeshift operating room, sitting on a counter top with his crossbow balanced cross his knees, "I didn't want to move him so I grabbed that pillow, bene keeping an eye on him and Amber since then. Doc says she's gonna pull through, by the way."
Negan gave an exaggerated nod,
"So, you've just been sitting here, watching a teenage boy sleep?" He whispered, " Cuz that is creepier than shit."
Dwight ignored the barb and hopped off the counter to get closer to his leader, before whispering back, harshly,
"Negan he's just a kid."
"Uh-huh, and you would not believe his goddamn, story…"
"He's fucking exhausted."
Negan blinked hard, and looked down at Ed. He'd taken it for granted that Ed could take it, having seen him action before, but he suddenly ran through Ed's tory in his head, again. How long had Ed been going through the ringer? From his story, although Egan was unsure of the timeline…years. Just like everyone had been here, but instead of radiatively normal life, Ed had gotten dropped into the undead apocalypse after a year's long battle with…well, with a whole lotta shit Negan couldn't comprehend.
"Aw, fuck, kid…" Negan muttered, ignoring Dwight's questioning look, "This fucking sucks."
Dwight narrowed his eyes, unsure what Negan was talking about.
"Doc's looking in on Amber?" Negan asked,
"Yeah, he…"
"Why don't you go check on Sherry, see how she's managed upstairs?"
Dwight gaped, but quickly moved before Negan could change his mind, intent on checking up with his ex-wife as soon as possible.
Negan ignored hm and crouched down next to Ed, gently shaking him awake.
He muttered something in his own not-quite-German language and rifted back to sleep.
"Come on kid, wake up, otherwise your ass is gonna be sore as fuck in the morning, and not in a good way." Negan barked.
Ed's eyes snapped open, and he tensed, fearing an attack,
"Oh, lighten the fuck up kid." Negan growled, standing up and offering Edward a hand.
Ed carefully took the bigger man's hand and Negan pulled the alchemist to his feet.
"Amber?" Ed asked, still fuzzy with sleep.
"She'll be fine."
"S'good. Can I go back to sleep now?"
"Yeah, c'mon, I'll drag your happy ass back to your fuckin' room, why not?"
Ed nodded, not the least bit put out by Negans harsh language anymore,
"Thanks, Negan."
This time, when he awoke, Edward Elric was quite certain of where he was, and just as certain he still desperately wished he were someplace else, preferably, a different world entirely. He shut his eyes and counted to ten, but sleep didn't take him again.
With a resigned sigh, Ed awoke to face the assault of a new day.
He pushed himself out of bed, doing his best to ignore the hungry rumble from his stomach as he stood up and stretched the stiffness out of his limbs where they met the heavy structure of his auto-mail limb replacements.
After pulling on his boots, he stood and looked around the small, bare room that Negan had given him. Besides the bed with its home-made lumber frame and the desk and chair's he'd trans-mutated form the battered, improvised furniture that was already there, the room contained nothing else besides an empty metal cabinet.
Besides these few furnishings, his total possessions amounted to the notebook and pen on the desk, that English to Amestrian (German, on this world.) dictionary, his clothes and…Ed checked his front pocket; his silver State Alchemist Watch, still secured by its thin chain to his belt.
The alchemist smiled as he took it out of pocket; there were, somehow, twenty-four hours in a day on this world, just like on Amestris, judging by the multitude if broken or stopped clocks he'd passed while isolated in that reanimated infested town after he'd first arrived on Earth, so technically he could still make use of it.
He unclipped it form his belt and held it up, watching as it gently swayed in front of his face while he held it up. Inside of it was an inscription, a reminder of his mission to get Alfonse's body back, to get his limbs back and to fix his terrible, unforgivable mistakes…and he had done it.
Well, mostly, but his quest was as complete as it was going to be, at least for now.
He set the watch down on the desk, putting aside that burden. New world, new problems he decided.
He also had 20 Cens in spare change, but he didn't imagine anyone was changing money around here anymore, so he dropped the coins next to the watch and reached for his jacket, draped across the crudely transmuted chair where he had left it the night before.
Dried gore cracked and sprinkled across the concrete floor as he did so, and Ed wrinkled his nose; the garment smelled like charnel house, and, he realized, he probably didn't smell much better. Worried about exposing his auto-mail, he still pulled the garment on. On Amestris it might be over-sensitivity, but here he had good reason to avoid attention after the near-riot his use of alchemy had caused.
Thus, equipped and ready with what he had to face an apocalyptic hellscape of reanimated corpses and surrounded by heavily armed bandits, Edward let out a resigned sigh and opened the metal door to the hallways outside his room.
He looked up and down the empty hallways, finding no one else around and was just turning to shut the door when a sudden, echoing bang nearly made him jump out of his skin.
Laughing manically, Ash, stood up out of the chair tucked right in the blind spot next to Ed's front door.
"Oh, sorry, did I startle you?"
"I…you…that was not necessary!"
"Yeah, neither was you almost getting your head blown off last night! I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you, Negan would have been pissed if that happened, and somehow…" Ash pointed at herself "My fault, no doubt."
"He told you take the night off!" Ed protested,
"Mhmf. Like that would stop him. Anyway, you overslept and missed breakfast…"
Now Ed was really upset,
"What?! No one told me there was food…or what time…"
"Relax. We got you." Ash said, reaching into one of the pockets or olive drab ammunition vest and producing a bright rectangular object, "Dwight dropped by while you were snoozing and dropped this off, and…" she plucked a small book off the floor and held it up to Ed; the cover featured a muscular man in a green cape brandishing a sword "Finished my Lone Wolf book, so I'm gonna let you borrow it. First in the series, even."
The scarred girl flipped the book into Ed's room, landing it on the improvised bed.
"So, you got food, you got entertainment and you got your own goddamn room. Almost makes you a wealthy man, nowadays." Ash pointed out.
"Yeah, well I'll be sure and remember those that got me to the top, so don't worry." Ed dryly returned, looking down out the odd rectangular object with the equally odd wrapping Ash and handed him. The wording on the oddly made wrapper proclaimed it to be a Chewy Peanut Butter and Chocolate Granola Bar, made by a company called Quaker, all of which told the Amestrian absolutely nothing.
"This is food?" He demanded, holding it up to Ash.
"Uh…yeah. It's a damn granola bar?"
"Which is…?" Ed prompted.
Ash shrugged, "Like oats in honey pressed into a bar? Well, actually it's probably corn syrup, not honey…"
"I'm sorry I really don't speak enough of your language to understand what you're saying."
Ash shrugged, again, "Common theme with us. C'mon, Dwight said he was gonna get you some new clothes before we got you cleaned up."
At that, Ed let out a sigh of relief and resolved to follow the girl just about anywhere.
As they wound their way through the corridors and unto the main floors of the Sanctuary, Ed was still trying to grasp how to open the packaging of the granola bar as Ash led the way down the hall. As he struggled, he looked up curiously at the back of the girls bright red cap, still turned backwards, pressing down on the auburn hair that tumbled down and around the folded hood that hung off the back of her odd pullover,
"What is that symbol on your hat?" Edward asked,
"Huh? Dude, it's a Saint Louis cardinals cap." Ash pointed out, as if Ed should well know what that was.
"Who's Saint Louis?"
"No, it's a city…"
"You have the symbol of a city on your hat?"
"Jesus, wierdo, it's a baseball team!"
"Baseball…team?"
Ash stopped, and turned,
"Man, no matter where you're from how do you not know what…" she trailed off when she spotted Ed still fiddling with the wrapper of the granola bar, and snatched it out of his hands in frustration before tearing it open, revealing the bar of compressed grain inside.
"And that's…edible?" Ed asked, to which Ash rolled her eyes, tore the bar in half and ate part of it, "Hey! What the fuck?!"
"You asked…" Ash answered, mouth full. She passed the other half back to Ed, who Stuffit in his mouth before the food-thieving Savior could take it back; the texture was strange, but…he closed his eyes and let out pleasurable grunt of satisfaction as his taste buds were flooded with an alien taste of salty-sweetness and honey-like syrup.
"Shit, I'd almost feel bad about stealing that from you after seeing that look on your face…"
Ed held one hand up to the girl in a rude gesture that transcended worlds as he slowly chewed the delicious morsel, eyes closed.
"…thankfully Dwight gave me another one to pass off to you." Ash finished, bringing Ed's golden-eyes snapping open to stare hungrily at her as he hastily swallowed,
"Give it." He demanded, childishly.
"Oh, that's nice, try asking politely, I assume you looked up the word please in that dictionary."
"Give it." Ed repeatedly, tone dangerous as he took a step forward, "Now, Ash."
The girl took a step back herself.
"Nah."
Ed prepared himself to spring forward,
"Bro, I will shoot you." Ash cautioned, but she was smiling.
"Nuh-uh, not unless you want to answer to the Big Guy…" Ed shot back.
Ash took off running down the catwlaks above te main factory floor, yelling,
"You'll never fucking catch me, Short-Round!"
Ed could feel his temper boiling as he ran after her,
"Who are you calling short, you skinny little brat!"
And with that, the chase was on.
The Saviors and Sanctuary dwellers on the floor watching and shaking their heads or smiling; all here knew that inn a world where death was around every corner, a moment of fun snatched from the hungry jaws of fate was a victory.
Dwight looked up in annoyance when Ash finally brought the new kid down to the Saviors warehouse, both if them flushed red and breathing hard, with Ed stuffing the last bit of a granola bar in his mouth and glaring at the young Savior.
"Ash I told you to bring him straight here." Dwight said, his quiet voice almost dangerously calm.
The girl held out her hands,
"Yeah, well he's crazy. It took some time."
"Me?" Ed demanded, mouth still full, "You're the compulsive food thief!"
"Oh yeah?!"
Dwight snapped up his crossbow and fired a bold into a wooden post in the factory court-yard, near the entrance the pair had just come out of. The sharp snap of the string froze the bickering pair in their tracks as Dwight shook his head.
"Nope." He proclaimed, but he had a half smile on his disfigured face, "Negan said to get you some new clothes, looks like you need 'em."
"Why? I think the dried blood is doing a great job holding what he's wearing together…" Ash interjected.
Dwight rolled his eyes,
"Ash…shut up." He ordered, "Anyway. We have a good stock, should be some stuff in your size in there."
Ed almost took exception to that, but kept his mouth shut and nodded instead.
"Negan says you get one set of clothes for free, anything else you take is on points…credit," Dwight clarified, seeing Ed's questioning look, "And you gotta pay it back." After a short, awkward silence, Dwight asked, "Ok?"
Ed nodded, and Dwight pointed to the heavy steel door that led into the massive building behind him,
"Second door on the right is where we keep the clothes. Check out with the supply people at the desk in the center of the building before you leave."
Edward nodded again, walking towards the door; the heavily armed, dark-skinned and burly man guarding it actually smiled at him as he approached,
"Hey, kid." He said when Ed got to the door,
"Uh, hi."
"Don't take anything without clearing it and we'll be straight, right? If not…" the big man pointed off into the distance, and Ed turned to see he was pointing at the tall chain link fence that surrounded the sanctuary…and the dozens of decaying reanimated attached to it. Ed remembered Simons growled command to take him to the fence as his men dragged off the fat man who had attacked that boy's mother on the factory floor.
Well, that makes sense, now. The alchemist thought, as he gulped and nodded agreement with the guard.
The man opened the door and Ed went, inside, carefully following Dwight's instructions as he tried to find his way on the massive, overfilled warehouse; it seemed like every square inch was crammed with boxes, bins, barrels or shelves stuffed with various scavenged bric-a-brac. Ed wondered just what the pack-rat fever hat would lead Negans people to horde this random collection of junk could be when he finally stumbled upon the right door and went inside; in contrast to the jumbled mess outside the tightly packed mass of tables, bins and clothing racks inside more loosely resembled a department store crammed in to a too-tight space than a hoarder's lair.
Ed whistled appreciatively as he made his way through the Saviors stockpile of clothing, dimly illuminated as it was through the almost opaque, painted over glass of the warehouse's windows.
While no one would ever accuse him of being overly stylish, Ed did have certain sense of dress. And while could have simply transmuted the clothing piled around him into a set of clothing that perfectly matched his own, including his lost red overcoat, but that would have necessitated him going through multiple different garments to copy his clothing, most likely consuming excess material in the process.
In a world where every last little thing seemed to be precious, there was no way for him justify his pleasing his own vanity even at the remotest possibility of it depriving another down the line. And so the Fullmetal Alchemist searched through the piles of scavenged clothing, with an eye to practicality, and with ever chillier air and slowly turning leaves on trees of the world outside as a guide to the coming seasons, warmth.
He snatched up a heavy pair of black boots with a high lace up upper, and a heal that would give him a slight boost in height (not that that was something he worried about!), a couple pairs of thick socks, some clean underwear still in the packaging- that was one thing he wouldn't be taking second-hand! And a white pull over undershirt of some soft, stretchy material he couldn't identify.
After some digging, he found a pair of pants that fit him, made of a canvas-like material, but lighter, and dyed midnight black, along with a black and red checkered button down shirt that he guessed was made of flannel.
With the colder weather that seemed to be closing in, he searched for a jacket as well, but instead, he found a hooded pullover like the one Ash wore, with a zippered front and dyed an eye searing bright red.
Ed held the garment up to the light. It wouldn't really be practical, but… he felt the thick, but soft material of the hooded jacket and smiled.
Ed had followed Dwight's instructions to check out with the warehouse crew before leaving just as carefully ad he had followed the an directions to the clothing storage- he really didn't want to end up stapled to the fence -and the humorless looking older women who sat behind the pair of desk and seemed to manage the Saviors stores had tossed his newly acquired clothing into a bag made of a thin, crinkling paper like material he couldn't identify and sent him on his way, but not until they had pointed out that he could bring the clothe she was wearing back for a small amount of points, if he didn't want to keep them.
Ed had hesitated; he planned to try and transmute his clothe back into shape at some point; but looking down at the filthy worn garments, they really might be past the point of no return, so he had agreed to stop by later.
Dwight and Ash had bene waiting for him when he got to the desk and the scarred man looked the alchemist up and down, making sure he hadn't taken more then Negan had directed him too, with Ed glaring back at him in annoyance.
"Alight. Boss said to get you cleaned up when we were done here."
"Really? Is this like a game? Every time we get something done you come up with a new instruction from Negan?" Ed asked.
"Dude, if you want to keep stinking like a corpse, I do not give a fuck…"
"Jeez, calm down."
Dwight shrugged and motioned for Ed to follow him.
Getting cleaned up at the Sanctuary turned out to involve a carefully timed shower in lukewarm water in one of the former factories old locker rooms, with the water piped in from a cistern somewhere outside. But Dwight had given Ed a bar of soap and bottle of shampoo and even if it wasn't hot, the water was still washing off the accumulated dust, grit, filth and gore that had been building up on Ed since the fight under Central, so he wasn't going to complain.
He would, however, have complained about Dwight pounding in the door of the shower stall after his far too short ration of water ran out, but the scarred man was gone by the time Ed go out, leaving him to huff in annoyance at an empty room as he picked up his bag of new to him second-hand clothes and got dressed.
When he had changed, Edward looked into a dirty full-length mirror mounted between the rows of gray lockers and adjusted his outfit; it may have bene used, but it was in good condition, still smelling of whatever soap it had bene washed in, and softer than anything he had worn on Amestris.
He looked back at himself in the mirror, from the steel-capped toes of his new boots, past the tough but pliable fabric of the pants, the faded shirt and the bright red of the hooded jacket, until he was gazing back into a pair of golden eyes that were taking on a harder edge than he had ever seen.
From a scared boy's wide gaze after he had lost his mother, to the resting glare of a hardened survivor on an alien world fitting in with a gang of violent marauders, Edward Elric endured, marking the passing of his soul to each new phase with a glance in the mirror.