Chapter 4 - Prying Eyes
Layton and Charles
"...The gate? Charles I'm not sure what you mean by that." Layton faltered.
"When someone tries human transmutation, they get sent to truth. There is a gate there that leads to one world and our world." Charles's eyes were bright but not in excitement, in fear. "I fear that if someone made a circle on one side of the gate, they could send people over to our side." He shook his head. "If that happens...we'll all be doomed!" He slumped down into his leather chair.
"Charles..." Layton began. "Are you sure what is going one at the moment, the result of an alchemist from the other side of this "gate"?"
Charles looked up at him. "Don't patronize me Layton!" He raised his voice. "I know what I'm talking about and if you don't want to help, then leave!" His hair was wild, his shirt having coffee stains all over it and his hands balled into fists.
"Charles I'm not saying I do not believe you, I just don't fully understand-" Suddenly a large crash was heard from the outside.
"What was that?!" Charles opened the door and almost screamed. "L-Layton..."
Layton walked out of the small room after Charles. "Yes? What seems to be the matter-"
"The armor...It's gone!" he was indeed right. The place where the armor stood was bare and the hallway was in disrepair. Vases cracked on the ground yet the flowers themselves were set upon the table. The carpet also seemed to have been moved but someone tried to put it back in its place.
"How strange..." Layton looked around and helped Charles clean up the place.
"Great Aunt Lauran's photo, GONE!" Charles hung up the photograph once more on the walls.
"Charles, has this happened before?" Layton looked at him.
"How did you...Never-mind. Yes, it has." Charles cracked his neck. "Last month...the armor was gone but I found it pretty quickly after but the weird part was I found it in an alleyway with stray cats!" Charles sighed. "I brought it back and cleaned it up but there seemed to be a stray kitten inside him. I don't like cats so I put him outside again..."
"Okay." Layton tried to think to himself, why would a suit of armor get up and run off? Unless there was someone inside it but who else lives here? Then suddenly a bright, almost blinding light began to glow. "What?" Layton gasped.
"C'mon Layton!" Charles grabbed his hand.
"Charles wait-" Layton tried to reason but was swiftly pulled up another flight of stairs and then through a small window in the roof. "Charles, what is the meaning of this?" Layton said once Charles let go of his hand.
"This is what happened before the incidents began!" Charles leaned over the edge of the fence that lined his roof. "Maybe there's a connection!" The light grew brighter and brighter, requiring those who wanted to see to squint. "AH-HA!" Charles began to laugh. "A transmutation circle and a human one at that!"
Layton was speechless. As the light began to die down, he came back to his senses. He looked up and noticed a small kid falling from the sky behind them. "Charles!" Layton said as he ran towards the falling child.
"Layton? What's going on?" Charles ran towards him. He then looked up and saw the child as well. "Holy crap?!" he gasped. "A child, a-a real child? Falling from the sky?!"
"Yes, I think so. Do you have a spare sheet I could borrow?" Layton took a few steps back, trying to gauge where the child would land.
"Yeah! Hold on let me grab it..." He entered back through the window and the sounds of his running down the stairs were heard. Layton looked up at the dark night sky, tipping the brim of his hat to get a better look. Charles quickly entered through the window again with a armful of sheets.
"Here you go Layton!" He dumped them on the roof.
"Okay, I need you to stand across from me with the sheet." He picked up one side of the sheet and began to walk back a few paces.
"Got it." Charles took a few steps back as well, pulling the sheet taunt. The kid was coming closer and closer.
"Are you ready?" Layton asked Charles. Charles nodded his head. The kid finally came and fell into the sheet. Charles almost tripped backwards but he caught himself.
"Who...is this?" Charles took a few steps closer. The kid looked to be around 11-12ish? He had blonde hair pulled into a braid and was covered in some sort of liquid.
"Let us bring him inside." Layton and Charles brought the child inside the house and laid him down on a bed in the guest bedroom. This kid was strangely heavy for his size.
"Hm...I wonder where he could be from?" Charles leaned into the boy's face and tried to get a good look at it. "He doesn't have any features that could be from any country in our world...maybe America but that isn't likely."
"We should get him out of that dirty coat for now. We wouldn't want him getting sick or anything like that." Layton suggested, bringing Charles's facial investigation to a halt.
"Good idea! You always had the best ideas back in college." He laughed. "Alright, it doesn't look like there's any zippers so we'll just need to slip it off." Charles inspected the clothes. "Though I'm not very sure what this liquid is on him." He squished the fabric and reddish drops fell onto the sheets.
"Careful Charles, we don't want to stain your sheets. What will your wife say?" Charles looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Wife?" He shook his head. "I don't have a wife."
"Oh?" Layton looked confused. "Then who was that in the photo?" He pointed across the room to a photograph of Charles, some of his digging friends, and a woman.
"Her?" He looked at the photograph. "That's my sister, Marianne." He looked back. "She helped us plan our trips and budgeted for it as well! She was always so good with numbers." He laughed.
"Ah, my apologies for the confusion." He replied.
"Don't be sorry! You were always so proper back in college as well." He sat down on the chair beside the bed and leaned back on it. "Don't be so formal. You remind me of our teacher sometimes..." he huffed.
"Mr. Fernham?" Layton asked. "I thought he was a fine man."
"I guess..." Charles rolled his eyes. "Just a bit too prim for my taste." He sat up straight again. "Okay, let's get this coat off of him."
Layton and Charles pulled down on the sleeves on the jacket. "Interesting choice in clothes." Charles looked at the boy's strange jacket and leather pants. "Who wears that stuff nowadays?"
"Hm..not sure." Layton answered. He was just as confused as Charles was about the origins of this young man such as: how did he get here? Where is he from? What is his name? Layton quickly snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Charles speak again.
"Oh...oh my..." His eyes were full of shock and awe. "Hershel...you have to see this." Layton looked down at the boy without his coat on, and saw something utterly strange and unforgettable. The boy's entire right arm were metal!
"Looks like some sort of prostetic limb." He observed.
"It's the same with his leg too!" Charles lifted up the boy's leg. "See!" What has this child been through? Layton thought to himself. Charles and him turned back to the boy's face but it was different this time. His eyes were open and he was awake. For a moment, all of them stared in silence at each other. Layton by the boy's right arm, Charles lifting up the boy's leg and the boy himself, eyes wide in shock, then all hell broke loose.
"WHAT THE F-CK?!"
Luke and Flora
Luke and Flora quickly turned a corner while chasing after the suit of armor.
"We'll never catch up to him...at this rate.." Luke panted. Flora shook her head.
"Not at this rate...but maybe with those!" She pointed to a small stand with roller blades.
"Rollerblades?! Flora I don't know how to skate very well." He and Flora walked up to the stand. It was Five pounds to rent the skates for an hour. Luke rummaged through his bag and dropped some coins onto the table. The old man running the stand thanked them and they were off.
"I think I have an idea of where he went." Flora snapped her skates on. "C'mon Luke! We can't loose him yet!" She pushed off and began to skate towards the town.
"Wait up Flora!" Luke quickly skated after her, eventually catching up. "How do we know where he went?"
"I noticed that he likes animals. While we chased after him, I heard a small meow coming from the armor." Flora turned a corner with Luke flailing behind her.
"Ah! So he has a cat with him!" Luke looked around the town, now lit with street lamps and the lighting inside the buildings. "But there doesn't seem to be any pet stores here, wait!" He realized. "He might be going to an alley! I saw lots of cats there."
"Yep! So all we have to do is find an alley with cats, we find the perpetrator!" They skated around Barcrombe, looking for an alley with cats inside but to no avail. It was almost like there wasn't any cats in the city!
"Flora, we've been skating around for hours and we haven't found him. Where else could he-" Luke was shortly cut off by Flora's scream.
"L-Luke! We may have a problem." Flora's voice was full of fear and she shook in place.
"Flora? What's going on..?" Luke turned and saw what made Flora scream. Two huge monsters, standing right in front of them! They had sharp teeth, bumpy scales and long lizard-like tails. "What are those things?!" He gasped.
"Not sure...but I don't think we can handle this peacefully." Flora looked around and noticed two shiny objects stinking out of the trash. She quickly skated over to it, spraying dirt in the monsters faces. This did not bode well with them, making them scream and growl.
"Flora? What are you doing!" Luke skated slowly backwards.
"Catch!" Flora threw a small makeshift spear towards Luke, which he promptly caught. "It's a spear! It's not super strong but it will do the trick!"
"We're fighting these guys?!" Luke turned to her. "I've never really fought a creature of this size.." he gulped.
"We can do this Luke! Just stand your ground!" She skated back with a small dagger. "Let's do this!"
She skated towards the monster with great speed and stabbed him in the side to which the monster yelped and tried to hit her with his tail. She skated backwards and dodged it.
Luke fought against the second monsters horns, trying to get into a weak spot on its forehead. "Flora?!" He called. "Do you have a strategy?"
Flora thought for a moment. "Maybe! But it requires a lot of skating around." Luke nodded his head. "Let's do it then!"
Flora threw him the end of a rope. "Skate around these monsters and tie them up! I will too!" They began to skate around and between the monsters. Going left, right, between, over, under. Nothing would go without rope in it. There was one fatal error in the plan, what happens when you run out of rope?
"Uh oh, Flora!" Luke called.
"Huh?" Flora skated over to him from the other side. "What's..." She saw the end of the rope.
"What do we do..." The monsters were thrashing about and were going to break the rope soon if they didn't get more. "There wasn't any more in the trash..."
"I got an idea!" Luke broke her out of her thoughts. "On the top of their heads seems to be a weak point. If we can hit that, we can knock them out!" He pointed to it.
"Gotcha!" Flora nodded.
"'Gotcha...?'" Luke looked confused.
"It's something Charles said! I thought it was a good word." Flora explained. "Is it a bad word?"
"I just thought you-Nevermind!" Luke shook his head. "Let's do this together Flora!" The two of them skated on top of the monsters but while skating up, one of the wheels on Luke's skates broke. "Ah!" He gasped.
"Are you okay?!" Flora called from across the other monster's back.
"Yep! Just one of the wheels broke off..." The rope was beginning to thin and the monsters were getting more and more furious with them.
"Hurry!" Flora called as she hit the small mark on the monsters head. The monster squealed in pain but didn't faint.
"Flora!" Luke called. "I think you have to stab it!" He raised the spear up and closed his eyes.
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No way!"
"You have to!"
"But we'll hurt him!"
"I know. I'm not exactly thrilled but it's the choice between temporary pain for him, and permanent injuries for us!"
"I understand."
Luke plunged his spear down into the monster's weak spot, making him roll back and forth while yelping and trying to get the spear out. "Woahh-wait!" He tipped Luke off and into a brick wall on the other side, hitting him hard.
"Luke!" Flora yelled and she stabbed the monster with the edge of her boot. He also yelled in pain but quickly rolled to the side. She jumped off the monster after it fainted and ran towards Luke.
"Ughh..." he sat up as he rubbed his back.
"Are you alright?!" She skated over to him. "Anything broken?!"
"Maybe my back...or my leg." he mumbled and tried to stand up.
"Wait! Don't stand up!" She pushed him down as he yelped in pain. "Sorry..."
"It's fine. How are we going to find that armor now?" Luke sighed.
"I have a bit of a hunch that he was watching us from afar." she laughed to Luke's confusion.
"Really?" He looked around for that silver sparkle from the suit itself. "How?"
"I don't know if anyone could resist watching a battle between monsters and some kids." she stood up and helped Luke up.
"My knee is pretty beat up, I hope Charles has some bandages." Luke leaned on Flora as she helped him skate.
"He will! Don't worry too much." She smiled as she began to skate towards home.
"Hey! Look over there!" Luke pointed to the armor sitting in the alleyway. "There he is!"
"Yeah! Let's go!" She skated over to the armor, who seemed to be hunched over helping a cat.
"There you go..." the armor whispered to the cat.
"Hey! You there!" Flora yelled at the armor. The armor jumped up into a fighting pose when he heard her.
"Huh...Why do you guys keep chasing me?" He asked. Luke and Flora were a bit taken aback by the young voice coming from the armor.
"Chasing you?! You stole the armor from Charles office?!" Luke was trying to point but his arm hurt a little too much.
"What?! No-" the armor tried to reason but Luke getting a bit too fed up. Skating out of Flora's arm, he skated around the armor and got on top of a small crate.
"Luke!" Flora called. "What are you doing?!" The armor whirled around to get a good look at what was happening but unfortunately Luke kicked the head off of the armor.
"Let's see who our thief is!" He landed onto the pavement and fell onto his behind while Flora stood perfectly still, mouth wide open.
"...Luke...." her normally sweet voice had turned brittle as she stared up at the armor.
"Flora? What's going on?" He looked up at the armor, but there was nothing. Nothing inside the armor. Luke wanted to scream but his throat tighten and all that he could let out was. "What...are you?"
A/N:
I hope you enjoyed this one! The Elric brothers are here! I hope Luke and Flora weren't too OOC in the battle section... I struggle with writing battle scenes lol.
I won't be able to release another chapter this week because of school. :]