Chapter 6

Closing In

"Are you sure you'll be alright with that?" Winry asked, gesturing to the gun Pride held.

"Not really, but of the two of us, I'm the one who's going to survive a misfire," the homunculus replied, examining both the gun and the rounds as he made his way out of the cabin door. "So I'm the one who'll be screwing around with it."

"If you say so..." Winry muttered. She didn't really see a point to learning to use the gun at all; after all, if she was confronted by someone who looked beyond the gun jammed in their face and realised she didn't know what she was doing, then it was probably someone who was familiar with weapons and likely had one on them, which meant she was screwed anyway, gun or no gun.

But Pride was insistent she have something to defend herself with. Winry wasn't planning on having to defend herself anytime soon...but then again, she hadn't planned on being kidnapped, either, so maybe Pride had the right idea. She'd just have to deal with her bad experiences with guns.

Of course, any bluff or weapon would probably be secondary to Pretty. Winry smiled to herself as she petted the chimera's head and ruffled the thin fur around the animal's bare neck.

Pretty's collar and chain lay abandoned beside the crumple of blankets and camouflage gear Winry had used as a bed; they had discovered the chimera was very pack-oriented, which was to say that she didn't need to be tied up as she tried to stay within ten feet of Winry at all times.

"You're a good girl, aren't you?" Winry cooed, then jumped as gunfire sounded outside.

It was a lot louder than she'd expected it to be, and her first thought was that something had gone wrong. "Are you alright?"

"I just found the safety," Pride called back as his hand repaired itself. Now he needed to figure out how to load it...he was fast finding out this was a lot more difficult than those military people made it look.

Winry frowned, and took a sip from one of the water containers, automatically pouring some into the helmet propped up in one corner that served as Pretty's waterbowl.

Another deafening blast signalled a second gunshot. Winry reflected that they weren't being very stealthy about this, and the gunshots were probably going to attract a lot of unwanted attention.

-xxx-

Gunshots rang out from the forest, and Ed blinked, staring at the dark trees. But when no more followed after the first two, he dismissed it – probably someone from the village after a fox or something.

Still...there was something niggling at the back of his mind. He'd heard some of the villagers talking about finding an abandoned military vehicle on one of the backroads while they were herding sheep...had someone come to track them down?

-xxx-

"...and that's how you operate the gun!" Pride finished, looking supremely satisfied with himself.

"That's great," Winry muttered. "Can you put it away now?"

The homunculus looked strangely hurt, but Winry couldn't help feeling an aversion to guns. Especially when she thought about what had happened that last time she'd picked one up.

Though being cuddled like that by Ed had been kind of nice, even if she hadn't been in much of a state to enjoy it at the time.

The disgruntled Pride placed the gun on the mantelpiece – part of the brick fireplace, so it hadn't deteriorated with the rest of the wooden house. The gaps between the wooden planks ensured that the cold wind found the walls no barrier at all, so Winry had been spending the nights curled up in as much cloth as possible, with Pretty alongside her to provide body heat.

It was no good trying to use Pride as a source of warmth; Winry wasn't sure if it was a trait of homunculi in general or Pride in particular, but he always seemed to be at room temperature. It was something she still couldn't get used to – she expected to encounter a certain warmth when she took someone's hand or slapped them genially on the shoulder, and to find it absent in Pride was unsettling.

At least her ankle had healed nicely. It still ached when she walked for too long and when she tried to run, but now it could support her weight without pain.

"I'm going to go catch some rabbits," Pride grumbled sulkily, and Winry worked hard not to laugh. How knew a homunculus could become broody simply by dismissing his recently-acquired skilled with a firearm?

-xxx-

Pretty's understanding of the world was limited. Her canine and reptilian brain had combined to produce a rather cunning mind with a strong pack mentality, but an animal was still an animal, and so to her, living things fell into one of two categories: Pack and Not-Pack.

She had learned that Not-Pack could be food, could be things not worthy of notice, or could be dangerous. What she classified things as depended on how they reacted to her, and how they reacted to Winry.

Pretty's impression of Winry was much more abstract – and at the same time, much clearer – than a human's would have been. She did not identify Winry by physical appearance so much as by scent, by voice, by the weight and rhythm of her footsteps and the way she moved.

Pride was identified by the same methods, but Pretty was far more wary of Pride than she was of her Pack-Leader. Even to her mutated nose, there was something in Pride's scent that made her cautious, a wrongness that the chimera could not understand and so regarded that scent's bearer with faint suspicion. In addition – while Pretty's memory was far cloudier than a human's would have been – she knew that Pride had once done something to distress Winry, to the extent that Pretty's fear of the homunculus had been overcome by the need to protect Pack, and so Pretty remained wary of Pride's actions, especially those taken towards Winry.

As the only Pack the chimera had ever had, Pretty was instinctively protective of Winry. So when her sharp nose caught the distinctive scent of humans approaching, when she saw the lights cutting through the darkness of the night it was only natural she bristle and growl warningly at the door, advertising that she wouldn't stand for an intrusion on her Pack-Leader's rest.

-xxx-

Winry stirred as Pretty snarled and stood, disturbing the warm cocoon of blankets and spare clothes the blonde had wrapped them in, and she was about to call out to the chimera when she heard voices.

They were low, but harsh, and they were most definitely not Pride's. In fact, Pride was nowhere to be seen. That was hardly unusual – he didn't need to sleep, so Winry figured he didn't need to stay in the cabin and be bored out of his mind...as long as he didn't wander down to the little farming village and start freaking people out with his shadows (that just struck her as something he might do to amuse himself).

With the homunculus a very loud, attention-drawing scream away, Winry decided to just sneak out the back door. She would have grabbed the gun – and hope she remembered how to work it from Pride's earlier demonstration – but the voices were really so close to the cabin she didn't have time to fumble around in the dark for wherever Pride had left it.

She yanked on some of the loose skin at Pretty's neck to get the chimera to follow her out the back door, grabbing up Pretty's old collar and chain as she went. If she couldn't find the gun, Winry would have to make do with what she had.

And the chain proved useful when she opened the door and walked almost straight into the two men who had apparently been circling the house.

Winry acted on instinct, whipping the chain up between the legs of one of the figures.

She couldn't be sure in the darkness, but she thought his eyes actually crossed as his knees buckled and he folded to the ground with a strangled moan of pain. Pretty lunged in a silence that was almost as eerie as her growling had been, sinking long, slightly curved teeth into the other's arm. The mechanic didn't know if it was luck or instinct that had led the chimera to fasten herself onto the man's gun hand, but she was grateful for it, either way. The chain lashed out and caught the side of her opponent's head – her accuracy with a wrench seemed to be translating over well.

Unfortunately, the man already collapsing into unconsciousness had managed a few shouts of indignation and pain at Pretty's attack, and Winry knew their tentative cover was well and truly blown. She considered going back for the gun, but knew they didn't have time.

So she took off into the forest, allowing herself to shriek for the person that was probably her one chance at surviving being chased down by the military.

"PRIDE!"

-xxx-

Pride was wandering through the forest, kicking idly at sticks and dry leaves – sending small nocturnal animals scattering – when the distant sound of Winry's scream reached him.

He froze, and tried to resist the emotional, downright stupid urge to run back. Father had told him this would happen; that some of the military would be sent to them. It would make their escape seem more realistic, and his inevitable rescue would make the mechanic more attached to him, more trusting...

He knew he should wait – that the plan was for him to wait for at least fifteen minutes, to give her time to truly grasp the idea that she was to be either returned to Father or taken to a military prison before he rescued her. The longer he waited, the more grateful she would be to see him.

Gunshots rang out through the night, and Pride closed his eyes – a disturbingly human gesture – telling himself that it meant nothing; they had been instructed to fire but not to hit her, to scare but not to wound.

'They' being several members of the military who were under the delusion that they were important in Father's plans but were really just disposable pawns. If Father had instructed them not to hurt her, they wouldn't dare.

It occurred to Pride that Father might not have specified 'don't hurt her'; in fact, it was likely he had simply instructed them to bring her in alive. Father certainly wouldn't care if she was injured in the process.

Cursing himself all the way, Pride abandoned the plan and took off immediately.

-xxx-

Winry had just gained the fringe of the wilderness surrounding the cabin when gunshots thundered from behind her. Bark splintered off the trees around her, and some part of her mind registered that the shots seemed to be aimed at about knee-height; designed to disable, not kill.

She made it into the trees, feeling a dull relief that the bullets had not hit either her or Pretty, but whatever comfort she might have drawn from that was numbed by the thought that holy shit she was being chased by people with guns!

In Risembool, most people wished for more excitement in their lives. Winry had always thought she would be happy with a whole lot less.

Honestly, if she'd known being friends with Ed was going to be this much trouble, she'd...

Probably have done exactly the same, who was she kidding?

She swung right, nearly tripping over Pretty as she did so, trying to throw her pursuers off by deviating from her path. She was pretty sure there was a river she could use to try to navigate somewhere, but the forest was much more confusing in the darkness and she wasn't entirely sure she was even going in the right direction.

Of course, the farther she ran from her pursuers, the farther she ran from the light, and Winry ended up tripping over something hard and lumpy and going sprawling on the ground. Tiny pieces of grit scored her palms, and iron burst into her mouth as she bit her tongue. Suppressing a curse that would have given away her position, she pulled herself up and kept running.

Her recently-healed ankle began to ache, and it was feeling strangely loose, as though it wouldn't support her for very long. But they were still after her – she could hear them crashing through the undergrowth, so she kept going, determined to run until she either lost them or couldn't run anymore.

Some part of her wondered where Pride was – had he wandered so far away he hadn't heard her scream? But surely he'd heard the gunshots?

Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, enough so that she could jump over the moss-covered log in her path instead of tripping over it. But the trees still obscured most of the moonlight, and if there had been any landmarks in the wilderness around her Winry knew she wouldn't see them.

She had no clear idea of the direction she was running in, and could only hope she wasn't circling back to the cabin. Still, Pretty was running right beside her, and Winry liked to think the chimera would give her some sort of signal if they were approaching the military rather than fleeing them.

Was it her imagination, or did the noises of pursuit seem to be getting closer?

-xxx-

Ed huddled in the corner of the barn, wrapping his arms around himself in an attempt to keep warm without the benefit of a fire.

That had been doused as soon as they'd heard that a military van was in the area, even though dinner was only halfway cooked. Ed had been left with lukewarm soup that looked and smelled a little too much like dog food for him to be entirely comfortable eating it, and in the end he'd only finished half.

Greed had taken the rest though, and Ed wondered if that had been out of actual appetite – did homunculi get hungry? – or out of reflex. Had he just grabbed it because, as his name suggested, he simply wanted anything and everything that came his way?

Of course, it was always debatable exactly how much effect Ling was having, so maybe that had been his doing. Ling had certainly eaten enough when he was a human.

He thought about asking Greed about it, then decided against it – Greed seemed a bit touchy about that subject, and a screaming match would definitely draw unwanted attention. Not for the first time, Ed questioned why the military had come here; were they looking for them, or was it something completely unconnected to them and Ed was just being paranoid?

But they had seemed to be looking for something. They had come to the village, stalked up and down the roads for a little while, then set off into the forest.

Ed stiffened as he heard the distinctive crack of a gunshot. It was followed by several more, a rapid volley that suggested more than one shooter (or one shooter with Lieutenant Hawkeye-esque skills).

Ed leaned his shoulder against the door, peering out through the gap above the hinges into the night. He could see nothing, but that wasn't really a surprise – the forest was so dense in places it would even block lanterns, which was why they'd held many of their 'meetings' there.

No gunshots followed, and Ed's face twisted; he hated not knowing what was going on.

-xxx-

Pride resisted the urge to scream, curse, and possibly break a few necks. He found nothing at the cabin but two incapacitated men; one curled into the foetal position and cradling his genitals, the other cursing at his comrade and attempting to bandage a forearm that had been ripped open to the bone by razor-sharp teeth.

The homunculus noticed the deep bruises and sluggishly-bleeding cut on the side of his head, as though he'd been hit with something large and blunt, and thought it was safe to assume Winry had left her mark on him as well.

He ground his teeth and suppressed his frustration at the sight; they'd had one job – to catch Winry – and though they were six to her one (two, if he counted the chimera) they hadn't been able to even keep her in the cabin.

But then, this was Winry. Pride supposed he should have known that if someone could slip the net, it would be her. And of course she'd take out some of her pursuers into the bargain, because Winry never did things halfway.

Pride silently vowed he would break himself of this habit of continually underestimating her.

-xxx-

AN: Thanks, as always, to my beta – justcallmefaye!