Chapter 97: Moving out
The silence wasn't perfect but that wasn't the reason why Roy had trouble to concentrate. It was the cold and absolute perfection around him that confused him more and more with every passing second. His wife was cleaning her favourite gun and like always, she didn't look down because she knew the gun like she knew her own body. Jade was repairing her favourite pair of fingerless gloves – the pair she just used when she wasn't on duty because Bradley's word still stung like a slap in her face. He had called her favourite gloves, the ones her brother had made for her, slutty and inacceptable. Winry was controlling Phil's and Edward's mechanical limbs. Olivier was checking her sword and her slim fingers danced across the cool steel. Bendix was loading his favourite gun with a dark expression on his face. Nerissa was sharpening her knives, her favourite weapons, with care and concentration and avoided the looks of everyone else as she stubbornly looked on the cold metal beneath her fingers.
Roy compared them with a perfect machine in a certain way. They all knew exactly what to do in order to achieve a maximum of efficiency. They armed themselves to protect the others.
"What's the meaning of this?" Laila asked sharply. The little girl wore her white nightgown with the yellow ribbon around her waist and had her arms crossed. Edward wanted to comment towards Nerissa that Laila looked at lot like the Water Alchemist but just when he was about to open the mouth, Winry tightened a lose screw on his leg and he yelped in pain.
"Serena is technically our ally but considering that she didn't trust us enough to ask for our help in the past, we decided that it would be smarter to be prepared for an attack from her," Riza said. "We know that she wouldn't attack us if she would see another way but you can't forget that she resembles a cornered animal, Laila, and we don't know how she will react when we appear in front of her."
"And a group of the best fighters of Amestris considers a single alchemist as a risk?" Nick asked, clad in his emerald pyjama and with narrowed eyes.
"Serena's speciality is undercover work," Roy said. "She hardly talks to people she doesn't trust – and that leaves around twelve people with which she would ever speak. And since she hardly speaks, people tend to forget that she was there. And furthermore: she had years to get into the possession of new skills, so she became even more dangerous than she used to be."
"And what keeps you from doing the smart thing? If one or two of us would go to talk with her, she had no reason to feel attacked," Victoria said as she also crossed her arms. "Honestly, if I was in her boots and suddenly a heavily armed group would appear on my doorstep, I would sure as hell attack. I believe it wouldn't even be for personal reasons – it would be because I felt attacked."
Olivier nodded. "If we were talking about a normal person, I would agree with you, Vic," she said, "but we aren't talking about a normal person. We are talking about the only one out of many high-skilled people who had the luck to survive an attack through the homunculi and tricking them into believing that she really died." She looked at Phil. "I know that you got away too, Phil, but for other reasons."
The black-haired man looked down at his automail, the one who had replaced the hand he had lost in his fight against Envy. By surviving and returning to battle (ah, the wonderful Mustang-spirit) he had saved his twin from a fate worse than death. As a state alchemist, Jade had been qualified as a Human Sacrifice along with all the others with a nice silver pocket watch, and someone in the rows of the homunculi had considered her as a good candidate – but in order to make it likely that she would break the taboo, someone close to her had to die … and the dice had decided that Phil should be the catalyst for Jade's Human Transmutation. But Phil, stubborn and proud as everyone in his family, had stayed alive. (Abigail once jokingly accused him of surviving just to annoy his opponents.)
"And Serena was the best spy Amestris ever had," Bendix added calmly. "And she got out of situations where everyone else would have died in a matter of seconds. She is definitively a brainiac."
Edward rolled his eyes. "And everyone knows that true geniuses are hard to predict, no matter how good you believe to know them," he said. "I mean, I never would have guessed that Sheska would date Fuery – even though they surely make an adorable couple."
Roy raised his head. "They are dating?" he asked.
Laila sighed. "Duh, daddy," she said. "Since your wedding they are going out and my sources say that Big Brother Kain was seen at a jeweller's store…"
"Spreading rumours can get you in trouble," Nick said as he raised his eyebrow.
"My source in this case is very reliable," the blonde replied while she stared at a certain redhead.
Roy also looked at Victoria and sighed. "Wait a second, why were you in town to see him buying a ring or something else?" he asked. "You hate to go shopping more than anything else."
"I had to get new shoes," his second-oldest daughter shrugged. "It was necessary."
"So, what did he buy?" Winry inquired.
"It looked like he was looking at the rings but I am not too sure," she shrugged.
Roy was suddenly reminded of the little black box in his pocket.
The red-haired man sighed deeply as he found the young blonde on the roof. She sat there with her arms around her legs and deep lost in her thoughts. "You should be asleep," he said.
She turned and a faint smile ghosted over her face. "I have too much on my mind," she said.
"You were always like that, just like Nerissa," he said. "You are the type of woman that thinks too much – I have a question for you: how do you get an elephant into a refrigerator?"
She raised one eyebrow. "Kill it, cut it apart and put the parts into the refrigerator."
"Wrong." He chuckled. "It's much easier and less bloody: open the door and put it into it."
She glared at him. "Technically, that's impossible."
"You are still over-analysing everything," he said. "It's not a matter of physics. It's a joke."
She glared at him over her shoulder. "Do I look like a person who likes to joke?" she asked.
He sighed deeply. "You used to be one," he said. "I accept that you suffered some losses in the past but you know as well as I know that this is how life goes – and no matter how much you seem to want it: you can't turn back time to undo all your mistakes. You need to learn and to move on."
"…Vicky, are you still awake?" Laila asked while she rolled over to lie on her side where her sister was supposed to sleep. For a second it seemed like Victoria was already asleep before the younger girl raised her head. "Yes?" she asked tiredly.
"What do you think about the idea to corner Serena with so many people at once?" Laila asked.
"The probability that someone will get hurt in progress is around ninety percent, so I cannot believe that this is a good idea," she said. "And I know that Aunty Liv doubts the plan too. I am not sure about Aunty Jade but she also looked like she wasn't totally convinced. The problem is that no one of the people who really care for Serena saw her since 1911, so how the hell are we supposed to know how she will react? I already get a headache when I think about all the wounds that will come to be soon."
"…I see it like you, Vicky," Nick said somewhere in the darkness, "but I already see a way out of this."
"Tell me," Laila said while she turned to look in the direction where his voice had come from.
"Well, we certainly have the money for the train ride to Lionnenburg and when I went for a walk with Aunty Jade earlier, I checked the times when the train to Lionnenburg leaves," he said. "The next train will leave in one hour and six minutes. The adults want to take the train in the morning…"
"…you didn't just suggest that we will take the earlier train, did you?" Laila asked.
"There is just one problem: we need an adult to play our guardian," Victoria said, already fire and flame for her brother's plan. "But I am sure that we could blackmail one of them…"
"I saw Edward leaving the house earlier," Laila said with a huff. She still hadn't forgiven Edward the destroyed dolls of her early childhood. "And even though he used to be a great fighter, he is no match for three of us."
"And I believe I have blackmail material on him…" the redhead mused. "Something about a messed up mission some years ago … it never found its way in his official file…"
"So, we just got our guardian," Nick grinned. "I always knew that your blackmail-data would be useful one day, Vicky." He sat up. "Let's get ready and kidnap Edward before we leave with the next train."
"I like the idea … but there stays one little problem," Laila said. "Vicky's personal bodyguard … I somehow doubt that Owen would like it if we leave him in the dirt while we go to solve a problem."
"He would never say anything!" Victoria exclaimed, momentarily forgetting that she had to stay silent.
"I think so too, but…" Laila licked her lips. "You said that he is a pupil of Abigail and Alain, right? Well, I believe we should use him as additional projection, should Edward fail which I somehow expect."
Catherina's blood left her face, leaving her paler than usual. Next to her, a dead person would have looked extremely healthy and well. Her emerald eyes widened until it hurt and she blinked slowly. Her breath hitched and she somehow knew that even if she could breathe, she would feel like suffocating. Her hands which were used to lead knives and swords with lethal precision trembled and her handbag dropped to the floor as she continued to stare at the redhead in front of her. He stood with the back to her but after admiring this man for so many years she knew his back as well as she knew his face.
"No…" she whispered. "That's … that's impossible."
And then, the big heroine of Creta did the unthinkable and fainted.
The man turned around and as he spotted the woman on the ground he sighed deeply. "I wanted to explain it to you, Cathy, but your timing is still worse than Nerissa's," he said as he picked her up and held her close for a moment. "And maybe, it's better this way because now you will believe me."
The children were in the train by now – but there had been minor complications: Edward had been arguing with Bea when they had found him and for the lack of a better plan, Laila had decided that they would take the Aerugian duchess as well. She called it 'family bonding' while the twins called it simply 'kidnapping'. Owen who had been dragged along as well had a hard time to hide it utter confusion and to keep his realisation that Laila was a little bit too bold to himself.
"By the way, what did Cai say as you called him?" Nick asked while he wrapped one of his arms around his sister who was freezing in the cold summer night.
"He calls Elicia and they will join us in Central," the blonde said smugly.
"You want to go against a state alchemist with no one who has a talent for offensive alchemy?" Bea asked while she rubbed her forehead as she felt the headache coming. "That will be funny, I guess."
"…and their parents will kill you and me when the kids get hurt," Edward muttered darkly.
"That's if Jade and Olivier don't get us first," the other major replied with a sigh.
Catherina awoke on a bed and had a wet cloth on her forehead. If she had tried to convince herself that what she had seen had be a dream, caused by her constant sleep deprivation of the last weeks when she had tried to figure out another part of an ancient alchemy manuscript, the smell in the room quickly convinced her that she hadn't been dreaming. It smelt like him. A strange mixture of wood, smoke and apples was in the air along with a hint of aftershave. She sighed as she slowly sat up and wrapped her arms around herself. He still used the same aftershave: Man of the forest.
Elicia awoke when someone knocked on her window and got up before she hurried over to open. Cai landed easily on his feet and straightened slightly as he looked at her. "I come with a message from Laila and the others," he said seriously. "They are heading to Lionnenburg and from what I understood, it's pretty important that everyone who looks innocent is there too. So, are you coming?"
She sighed deeply before she took out her favourite bag. "Laila owes me big time for this," she said while she quickly packed her bag and wrote a note for her parents. "I just check on Freddy and we will go through the front door. I don't care if you have door-phobia, Cai, that's getting ridiculous."
"I had to go through the door because Jun-Jun made sure that my windows don't open far enough for me to sneak out anymore," the prince said, "but she's out in town with Uncle Lei, so it's okay."
"You people are seriously messed up," Elicia sighed while she headed towards the door.
Jun Li suddenly froze and turned towards Lei. "Why the hell is Cai heading towards the train station?" she hissed while her pale eyes started to sparkle like a certain major.
Her fiancé smirked. "Why don't we try to find it out, darling?" he asked while he grabbed her hand.
She sighed deeply before she stopped and pressed her hands against her chest. "My sense to spot the chi of another person is back again!" she exclaimed in disbelief. "I never thought that I would get it back again … and now I can feel everything – it's even stronger than before!"
"Just another mystery, my little bird," he smiled before he hurried towards the train station.
While Nick hugged Elicia tightly, Laila glared at Cai while she had her arms crossed. "I said you should get Elicia – and not that you should get Elicia, Freddy, Jun Li and her fiancé!" she complained. "The more we are, the higher gets the risk that someone gets hurt … and when someone gets hurt, Vicky will throw a fit because she hates to be the one who does nothing but fixing up the injured."
"The thing is that first Freddy cried and we needed to take him with us before he would wake up the whole neighbourhood and just when we reached the train, Jun-Jun and Uncle Lei appeared. We had no other chance! We had to take them all with us!" Cai defended himself. "And don't forget that Jun-Jun and Uncle Lei both possess high alkahestry-skills, so they are very useful."
"Right now, they are knocked out," Nick stated over Elicia's shoulder. "What did you do to them?"
"Ah, Lan Fan showed me a trick," Cai shrugged. "I simply wanted to paralyse them and leave them behind on the platform but I took it a little bit too far and accidentally knocked them out … and it would have been wrong to leave them unconscious on a platform."
In the earlier hours of the morning, the woman known as Lily Blue sat on her favourite chair in the living room with her eyes closed. On the couch sat the red-haired man who looked down to the floor in an attempt to stay as silent as possible as she listened to the silence. Suddenly, she crossed her arms in the same way her eldest sister would have done it. "That's interesting," she said. "The steps are too light for normal adults – and especially for soldiers. Some of the steps are so light that's safe to assume that they are children, another one is heavier and I guess that there is someone with an automail-leg. Oh, and there is someone who moves like an adult, probably a woman who is pretty tall for her gender." Her eyes stayed closed for a moment. "And there are two patterns I can't recognise because they are way too light for adults and much too heavy for children … probably high-skilled fighters."
"Children?" the man raised an eyebrow. "Don't you feel, well, slightly insulted, Serena?"
She huffed and her golden hair slipped back once more. "Not really," she said. "I highly doubt that the kids are here because their parents' ordered them to. They came on there own accord. They probably came to talk with me … maybe to prevent something more dangerous. We let them in."
"That could be dangerous," he warned.
"Even if they came to attack me, I could deal with it."
"You would hate yourself for hurting kids."
"True."