Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Disaster or Destiny? ❯ Deception ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

I met Al and Ed at the station a little later, and soon the three of us were off to a city called Haden to investigate some disappearances that had taken place recently. Ed seemed to be in slightly better spirits, or was at least pretending to be, and soon he and Al were playing poker on the train. I sat next to Ed and peeked over his shoulder, viewing his cards so I could send signals to Al.

When we reached town, the first thing we did was ask around about any strange happenings while trying to maintain the guise of curious tourists. One account, that of the innkeeper who owned the inn we were planning on staying at that night, peaked our interest.

“There’s been a lot of people gone missing lately. The kidnappings have all been clean; no accounts of violence or a struggle anywhere. Also, about the same time as the so-called kidnappings began, there have been sightings of strange creatures on the outskirts of the city.”

Ed leaned forward a little on the counter, a dark look in his eyes at the sound of this news. “Can you tell me what they looked like?”

“Haven’t ever seen one myself, but from what I’ve heard they don’t look like normal animals. May I asked why you folks are so curious about all this?”

“Um…well…” I began nervously. “We just heard a rumor going around about some weird stuff going on and we wanted to check it out to decide if it was safe to stay here or not.”

The innkeeper turned around to grab something, and I gave Ed and Al a nervous look in regards to my somewhat lame response to his question. They just shrugged, letting me know that they couldn‘t think of anything better.

“Well, I can’t assure you of anything but I can say that even with all this going on this a great city and there’s lots to do. If you do want to stay here‘s a brochure on the city, its got lots of info on stuff you can do while you‘re here.”

Ed started to pull out some money. “Yeah, we’ll stay. Two rooms please.”

The three of us decided to turn in early so as to get an early start in the morning. I knew what Ed had been thinking when we heard about the creature sightings. Chimeras. If we were right in our ideas about the link between the chimeras and the missing people, this could get nasty. I didn’t know a lot about them, but what Ed had told me was enough. My opinion of alchemy lowered drastically when I found out it could be used to create something like a chimera; a mixture of different species that resulted in miserable, suffering creatures. And the worst part was, experimenting with them was not illegal, as far as I knew.

I drifted into an uneasy sleep filled with disturbing dreams of the chimera experiments Ed had told me a little bit about when I felt myself being shaken awake. I opened my eyes halfway and noticed it was still dark. Rolling onto my back to see who was there, I saw two anxious looking amber eyes staring at me, long blonde bangs falling around them.

“Ed…what are you…what time is it?” I said, rubbing my eyes. Ed put a finger to his lips. “Shh. I need to show you something. It has to do with the chimeras.”

I was a little annoyed that he decided to tell me this in the middle of the night, not to mention the fact that he barged right into my room, no doubt using alchemy to get through the lock. I slowly sat up in bed and gave Ed an annoyed look. “Ed why can’t this wait ‘till morning? And how could you have possibly found any more information since we went to bed?”

“Please Marie? It’s really important. I’ll explain it all later. Just grab some shoes and let’s go.”

I wanted to tell him to go away, tell him to let me sleep. But no, I had to fall for the same thing Ed used against me every time he wanted me to do something, and that was his eyes. I don’t know how he did it, but there were certain looks he gave me that just made it impossible for me to say no to whatever he was asking. I sighed and began to put my shoes on. “Where’s Al?”

“He’s already where I want to take you. Marie, we don’t have time for that!” Ed said impatiently as I attempted to do something with my unruly bed-hair. I was completely taken by surprise when Ed picked me up and jumped out the window, running as fast as he could towards the outskirts of the town with a very confused me in his arms.

“Ed what the hell is going on?!” I demanded, blushing slightly at the fact that he was holding me and I had my arms wound tightly around his neck trying to hold on. He was running unusually fast.

“Just trust me, you’ll be glad I showed you this.”

I could have sworn I saw a flash of purple in his eyes, but decided it was a result of just having woken up.

Ed finally stopped when the two of us reached an old, broken down house in the middle of the woods. Ed put me down and told me to follow him. I thought his behavior very strange; I had never seen him act like this before. Despite many misgivings I had about entering the house, I trusted Ed, and knew that it must be important for him to be acting this way.

He led me into what looked to have been a kitchen and opened a well-hidden trap door near the back of the room. It revealed a steep staircase, the bottom of which was bathed in a crimson glow.

“Ed, how did you know - ?

“I promise it’ll all make sense soon,” he interrupted.
I followed him down the steps, and gasped at what I saw at the bottom. It was an enormous room, with stone walls, ceiling and floor. There were no lights, but they were not needed as the room was lit buy huge glass cylinders containing red liquid that emitted a bright glow. Looking down I realized I was standing on what appeared to be a giant transmutation circle, which was bordered by the red cylinders.

I turned my eyes to the far left wall. What I saw caused me to cry out; It was lined with cages, all of which were filled with chimeras. Some of them bore a disturbing resemblance to a human. On the opposite wall was a group of around thirty humans, held back by iron bars. There was a man inspecting the chimeras, and when he looked over at me as I made my entrance his eyes seemed to reveal that he was slightly insane. There was also a woman with long black hair in a low cut black dress, along with a short fat man that stood beside her, also in black. I recognized them as two of the remaining six homunculi - Ed had already killed one - and I wanted to run away right then and there. Still having trouble registering everything I’d seen, I turned to Ed, my eyes locking on his, pleading for an explanation.

“Ed, why are they here? What is all of this, why did you bring me here?”

The look he gave me made my blood run cold. There was no way this could be Edward. His look was murderous, mischievous and seemingly amused by the one I wore on my face.

“What’s wrong Marie, don’t you trust me?”

A halo of light suddenly appeared at Ed’s head and made it’s way downward, engulfing his body in it. When the light disappeared it was no longer Ed standing in front of me.