chapter Eight

"Sis... sis!" a girl ran from the basement up a flight of stairs looking for someone "I heard the door. Is anyone there?" the black haired 5 year old stopped as she caught sight of an older girl lying on the floor which was wet with blood, before a man with dark brown hair and tanned skin standing over the slightly moving 10 year old who eventualy managed to push herself up to a half sitting possition not trying to stop the blood from flowing from the bullet wounds in her legs. Her eyes begging to the man, for her life. "SIS!!!" the older turned to the younger and both pairs of eyes widened as anouther shot was heard a bullet making a hole in the carpet.

"Run... Mei..." the older girl managed as she fell to the ground her green eyes glazing over, blood stained hair limply surrounding her like a halo. Mei, frozen with fear looked helplessly up at the man who had shot her sister and looked at his blood red eyes as the gun was lined up with her head, she took a step back with great effort and screamed

"SIS!!" looking up at the man 5 year old Mei felt tears fall on to her bare arms as she tried to run away but her legs wouldn't move. Frozen with fear she stood there as the blood seeped across the floorboards not even able to scream anymore.

"You are related to them, you too... must die." the man stated in a deeply accented voice staring dead into Mei's panic stricken eyes. Ignoring the tears running down the infants face, he aimed between her eyes.

BANG!!

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Mei sat stark upright in the bed sweat dripping from her face, raising an unsteady hand she wiped some of it away only to realise that it wasn't all sweat so she wiped her eyes with her heavily shaking hands.

"You okay?" Mei almost had a heart attack at the sound of the voice and peering through the darkness for the source of the voice she could just make out Ed's outline. From the moonlight coming through the crack in the curtains which made the slight outline white. She began to turn away not wanting him to see her crying as she realised when her eyes adjusted she could see more of him. he moved forward and wiped away the sweat and tears away with his thumbs as he held her head still with the rest of his hands. She felt pressure on the side of the bed as he sat down, but she didn't adjust her gaze from his face, his eyes the biggest feature at the moment. Suddenly realising that he was still waiting for an answer to the question she nodded, his hand still cupping her lower jaw.

"Bad dream." she explained, her throat was dry making her voice croaky. she moved forward not wanting to think about the nightmare, the memory, and her head fell onto Ed's shoulder and her arms clutching the back of his shirt tightly. His hands ended up, one on the bottom of her spine lightly tickleing the exposed skin from underneath the large t-shirt she was wearing and the other was on the back of her neck. embracing her shaking form tightly and silently whilst she let out the fear from her dream, fresh tears dripping from her chin onto Ed's jacket, which he hadn't yet changed, Mei having to sleep in the same room and all. They stayed like this for at least 10 minates until Mei suddenly pulled away still shaking, the image of the man's eyes fresh in her mind. Ed loosened his grip and looked at her questioningly she averted her eyes and mumbled

"Just a bad memory... my big sister... " She blinked away new tears which had welled up in her eyes and suddenly spilt her guts saying everything about her dream and what happened on that day. Ed stared wide eyed when she had finished.

"So that's why you don't want to go back?" she half nodded trying to avoid complete eye contact with the older boy.

"I wasn't exactly lying about my parents being morons either." she smirked slightly, his arms still around her and she still returned the embrace. ed was shocked by what she said to him, he could hardly hate her for lying to him now, could he? He was about to pull away when Mei's grip tightened, "don't leave..." she begged tearfully.

"I'm not going anywhere, just across the room." he said trying to sound comforting but only sounding awkward and rather pathetic in comparison. Mei didn't loosen her grip.

"Just until i fall asleep." came the small voice form just below his chin where her head rested on his rather muscly chest, he tried to think of an excuse to move away but couldn't before she had looked up at him with her soulful blue eyes, he couldn't refuse after that so nodded his head stiffly and awkwardly rubbed the base of her spine lightly. This immediatly making the younger teen relax and loosen her grip slightly and relaxed more into the older Elric, who was rather surprised at this reation but continued anyway.

WVWVVVWVWVWVWVWVVWVWVWV

Touching something in front of her with her eyes closed, all she knew so far was that she was lying on it, it smelt nice and was comfortable. She ran her fingers lightly across the slight lumps and ridges of the thing in front of her (a/n it's Ed's stomach, you perv) as she did so it moved, making her jump almost a mile in the air and open her eyes to see Ed staring back at her looking tired and holding the offending hand hostage, until he worked out what it was that had tickled him into consciousness. Realising, he let go and relaxed back into the pillow, while Mei tried to work out what was going on, as she had completely forgotten about the night before. After a while of sitting up and staring at the once again sleeping form of Edward Elric she shrugged and thought 'screw it, I really don't care just so long as this isn't Envy' and lay back down on top of the boy although not falling into dreamland herself, or at least not the sleeping kind...

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Hughes ran down several maze like streets not having the faintest idea where he was going, just that he was being chased and he didn't like the look of his pursuers. Running blindly into an alley he almost ran into the wall that signalled a dead end.

"shit." he muttered to himself as he heard the foot steps that indicated his followers were closing in on him, his vision was going blurry, 'lost too much blood...' he thought to himself testing the movement in his left arm which had a huge gash in it, as well as him having several other cuts and bruises that he had acquired trying to escape.

Flashback

Hughes winced in pain as an ear-splitting crack could be heard indicating he had finally broken free of the small room he had been locked in for at least 24 hours, his shoulder crashed through the weakened wood and splinters went everywhere as he bolted down the hallway, not even sure he was going the right way as nothing looked familiar. After running at full pelt for a few seconds his muscles ached too much to continue at that pace so he slowed to a fast walk desperate to find an exit before he was found to have escaped. Looking in each room he found that most lead off to a different hallway, and randomly choosing the last one as he couldn't find a set of stairs that led downstairs (he had established at this point that he was on the fifth floor and wanted to at least get down to the second before jumping out of a window). Again trying every door on his way down the corridor, he finally found the stairs and ran down them, running into a man in his hurry, as they both tumbled all the way to the bottom of the stairs. When they finally stopped falling and both landed in a heap at the bottom of the posh Baroque style staircase, Hughes looked at the person he had run over and his eyes widened in shock "Roy..." he breathed the raven haired man smirked at the major and then said

"Hughes, I came to help you escape."

"No duh, why else would you be here, to check out the dated decor?!" Hughes retorted sarcastically not even earning a smirk from his best friend

"We have to get out of here now!" said the Colonel, brushing himself off then indicating to one of the doors leading off of the new corridor which the family obsessed man would most likely have screamed at if he had been there on his own. "There's a staircase through there which leads straight to a door going outside." he said dryly and turning towards it. Hughes nodded and followed the believable Flame through the door and down the stair case that did indeed lead to a door going outside.

However when the green haired man walked out he stopped there surrounding the door was the remaining 5 homunculus, and his eyes widened to twice their original size as his so called best friend turned to face him and transformed into a green haired young looking male with purple snake slit eyes and wearing what could only be described as a skirt over shorts. He frowned "What the hell!" he said quietly.

End flashback

Looking over his shoulder he saw the green haired young man walk casually towards him as if carrying a razor sharp sword in the middle of the night and walking towards a man you're intending to kill is a normal thing! Hughes's face took on a look of concentration watching the other's movements closely and twitching slightly when he broke into a run at the black haired man, Hughes counted in his head "Two... three... GO!!" he threw his last remaining dagger hitting Envy right in the middle of the forehead. Envy fell back and blacked out for a few seconds from the shock of being killed but as the incomplete red stones fuelled his life he recovered after a few seconds.

'Just a little further... dammit you'd better be home.' although knowing his friends habit with women he severely doubted that Roy Mustang would be at home, and if he was it was even more unlikely that he would be alone, but Hughes had no choice but to take the chance that he was at home, his houses was too far away. He almost sighed in relief as he rounded the street where he knew his best friend lived and prayed to whatever god would listen that he was at home. He reached the door and banged with the little strength he had left with the excessive blood loss, as a shadow appeared behind him armed and mad, Hughes suddenly felt a sharp crippling uncontrollable pain in his lower abdomen. He looked down gasping in for air when he saw the shiny blood streaked metal slide swiftly out of the mans stomach and collapsing to his knees he heard two pairs of foot steps one coming towards the door in front of him the other leaving in the opposite direction.