Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Strangers Like Me ❯ Colonel Roy Mustang ( Chapter 1 )

Strangers Like Me

[Chapter One] Colonel Roy Mustang

 

Disclaimer: I make no claims to ownership of Fullmetal Alchemist, nor am I making any profits from the writing of this fan fiction.

 

A/N: Please be aware that I am no FMA expert. And also that I'm basically playing around a lot with the timeline of the anime. Mostly it's based around the time Greed and Dante first make their appearance in the anime, with some stuff mixed in and changed.

 

 

 

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It was a record high for Central and the streets were filled with vendors putting up shades over their tables, and women hurrying to do the shopping, holding umbrellas over their heads and barely taking the time to talk to one another. A girl sat inside a small cafe, looking bored with the city around her.

 

Her hair was fair and hung in her face even though she'd tied it back that morning before going out. She was very pretty, though the prettiness was put off by the irritated scowl twisting her lips. She flicked a coin back and forth on the table, watching the people walking by through the café window, trying to spot someone.

 

“Selene,” a voice called from behind her and she turned, looking even more annoyed as a girl hurried towards her.

 

“You're late. An hour late.”

 

The new arrival smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I got caught up at the library.”

 

Selene breathed out through her nose and looked at the waiter who'd been giving her dirty looks for the last hour, figuring she wasn't going to ever order anything. He snapped to attention and hurried over, his eyes on Selene's companion. Selene couldn't blame him for looking; Taya was beyond beautiful and built delicate. People had always been drawn to that fragility and Taya was never without adoring fans.

 

Selene might have had admirers, had she not been chasing them off whenever they worked up the nerve to come around. She looked up at the waiter and instantly he correctly sensed the hostility in her gaze. While Selene could understand why the man couldn't help but stare at her sister, she refused to allow him. She wasn't about to let some spineless cretin flirt around with the girl; Taya was far too nice and somewhat on the naive side, so she'd probably miss the actual flirtation and take his words at face-value.

 

“Er,” he began nervously, unprepared for Selene's sudden harshness. He'd tried to flirt with her when she'd first come in and she'd brushed him off rudely, but it hadn't been anything like this. “Your orders?”

 

Taya had barely had time to glance over the menu and she was trying to power through it. Selene smiled at the man, but it could hardly be called a pleasant smile. “I'll have a club sandwich with soup on the side.”

 

He swallowed and quickly scribbled it down on his note pad. “What kind of soup?” He added hurriedly: “ma'am.”

 

“Onion.”

 

Taya finally looked up when the man turned to her, her mind apparently made up. “I'll have a hamburger with salad on the side, please.”

 

The waiter unconsciously relaxed in response to Taya's soothing, slow voice, staring down at her lovely face and grinning idiotically. “How would you like the burger—and would you like anything to drink, ma'am?”

 

“Cream Soda, please. And I'll have my burger medium-well.”

 

“That'll be out in a few minutes.” He took the menu, the stupid look on his face deepening as he turned back towards the kitchen to give their orders over to the chef.

 

Selene steamed. “Leech.”

 

Taya watched the man walk off, hoping he hadn't heard that, but knowing that he probably had. “Honestly, onee-san, can't you ever be civil?”

 

“You know that I can't,” the blonde said carelessly. “But that's beside the point. What did you find at the library?”

 

Taya reached around to the bag she'd set beside her chair and drew out a large book. She laid it on the table between them with a small sigh. “Not much. There's hardly anything the humans know about homunculi.”

 

“Don't say that.” Selene glared at her sister for a moment before reaching out to lift up the book. “You're a human too.”

 

Taya smiled, but didn't say anything.

 

“So,” the blonde continued, ignoring her sister's silence on the matter. “This is all you could turn up on Homunculi? This is going to be a stretch. It'd be nice if we could just talk to Dante.”

 

Both thought back to their first and last meeting with Dante. They'd been digging a little too deeply into the creation of Homunculi; following the trail their brother had left for them, in search of answers. Digging too deeply meant one thing—coming face to face with what you're searching for.

 

Envy was everything they'd researched. Violent, inhuman and, above all else, dangerous. But Dante was far worse; her eyes were greedy and flat, stones that gave away nothing of how she felt. But Selene knew well enough that Dante had been far too interested in Taya to be healthy. Taya wasn't like Envy.

 

She was far more human than anything else that'd ever come from within the gate.

 

But she wasn't…human, if you really got down to it. She was nearly eight years Selene's junior, but already she appeared sixteen at least, when she should be eleven. At first Selene had been terrified her precious sister would die years before she was meant to and then she'd stopped aging. Neither could be sure it would last forever, but Selene was fairly sure that Taya would never age past sixteen—never grow old or die.

 

Dante had seen this immediately. Taya was too beautiful. Too otherworldly too be natural.

 

Their visit with the “leader” of the homunculi had ended relatively fast after that, with Selene dragging Taya through the underground sewer lines to escape Envy. Selene had a suspicion that Envy had let them go; he was far faster than them and they never should have out run him. He was also skilled in hand-to-hand combat and with his homunculi gift (neither girl had quite figured out what that was), they should have been easily overpowered and dragged them back to Dante.

 

It lead Selene to the uneasy feeling that this was all an elaborate scheme to stalk them until the opportune moment—though, admittedly—catching them in the tunnel was as opportune as it got.

 

So talking to Dante was out of the question. Meaning they'd need to find another source for researching the homunculi. Luckily, that other source was in Central for the time being.

 

“Yes,” Taya agreed on sigh, playing with her hair. “It would be nice to be able to simply ask Dante.”

 

Selene shrugged and closed the book with a snap, lowering it back to the table. She took a sip of the soda she'd ordered while waiting for Taya and winced. While they'd spoke, the ice in her drink had almost completely melted and left the sweet drink heavily watered down.

 

“It's too damn hot.”

 

Taya smiled. “I like the heat. Though, it'd be nice if I could tie my hair up once in awhile.”

 

The blonde glanced over at her sister, eyeing the girl's long, dark hair. Of course Taya would never be able to wear her hair up in public; her Ouroboros marking would be visible. It rested in the center of her neck and could only be seen when Taya's hair was out of the way. It wasn't the vibrant red tattoo that most of the homunculi sported—instead, it was a raised scar, almost like a burn.

 

“We'll be leaving for the country again soon. I promise. First I need to figure out a way to talk to Fullmetal. I'm thinking one good, hard whack to the back of his head-“

 

“Selene!” the brown-haired girl gasped, appalled.

 

“I was kidding.” Selene insisted. “Really.”

 

Taya opened her mouth to respond, but shut it when the waiter rushed over with her soda. “I'm sorry,” he breathed, once more enthralled with Taya's lovely face. “We, for some reason, didn't have any clean glasses.”

 

Selene had wondered what that crashing noise from the kitchen had been. She spared the man an amused smirk. In return, he ignored her.

 

“That's fine,” Taya assured him, her musical voice as pleasing as her appearance. “Thank you.”

 

The man nodded. “Your food should be out in just a moment.”

 

Selene waited until the cockroach scuttled away before returning to the subject at hand. “If I can't knock him out, then how are we going to get him to talk to us? I know enough about him through the reports to be aware that he won't respond to a sob story.”

 

“We could always go through his employer,” Taya suggested as she took a sip of her soda.

 

Selene nodded her agreement. “I've heard the Flame Alchemist responds well to females.” She noted the look on Taya's face and grinned. “Yeah, that's just a nice way to call him a horn dog.”

 

“Honestly, Selene.”

 

“What? It's true!”

 

“Either way, lets try the civil, legal way first. And that means paying the offices of one Roy Mustang a visit.”

 

 

 

__________________

 

 

 

Roy Mustang lived up to his reputation, as far as Selene was concerned. He'd taken one look at Taya and gone into full charm mode and, considering that until Taya had come into the room he'd been a hard ass about giving her information of Fullmetal, it was really, really insulting. But, per as usual, Taya had swept into the room, looking tiny and beautiful and he'd turned into a pile of mush. Or so it appeared. Selene knew that the Flame Alchemist rarely showed his true colors and, while he was flirting readily enough, he wasn't actually giving them any information on Edward Elric.

 

Tricky man.

 

Selene wondered if she should tell Roy he was flirting with an eleven year old and then decided against it. Taya wasn't eleven, even if that was her natural age. She appeared sixteen and had the mentality of an adult. Beyond that, Taya was highly uncomfortable talking about the unnaturalness of her existence.

 

“Is this office secure?”

 

Roy Mustang paused in his conversation with the younger sister to look at the older, raising two dark eyebrows. “Of course.”

 

“Good.” Selene crossed her arms over her ample chest. “Then let's get down to business. I have information that Edward Elric needs. And you have Edward Elric's location.”

 

“Information?”

 

It was obvious she wasn't getting anything from him unless she pushed a little harder. “I'm sure, sir that you're well aware of Edward Elric being involved in something you shouldn't get yourself mixed up with.”

 

Roy shifted; his dark eyes narrowing as he suddenly gave Selene his full attention. The playful mood he'd adopted was lost and immediately he was every bit the military commander. “You say you have information that you know Fullmetal is interested in, and yet you do not know where Fullmetal actually is?” he tone was vaguely questioning.

 

“Yes.” Taya answered in Selene's stead, her pretty face pulled into a frown. “It's about the hom—“

 

“Taya,” the blonde said hurriedly, glaring at the smaller girl. “What are you doing?”

 

“I believe that Colonel Mustang already knows much more than he should.” She smiled briefly. “And that he would risk his own life to protect his subordinates. He is trust worthy. Beyond that, he is useful.”

 

Mustang didn't look sure that was a compliment.

 

Selene didn't look convinced with her sister's reasoning, but she dropped it and allowed Taya to continue. “As I was saying; I'm sure you've heard of the homunculi.”

 

“I know precious little about the homunculi,” Roy said. “But my attempts to delve deeper into their creation, whereabouts and so on have been, for the most part, thwarted.”

 

Selene sighed. “Not surprising. We've had almost as hard a time, all things considered.”

 

“So what exactly is this information? I'm fairly certain Fullmetal knows enough about the homunculi.”

 

Taya shook her head, fingering the necklace she was wearing. Roy was distracted by it for a moment, recognizing the insignia on the pendant, but not being able to recall what it was.

 

“He knows about the homunculi. But not about their leader.”

 

“Leader?” the man repeated, urging her on. It was the first time someone was finally giving him some sort of information as to what he was dealing with. Even Maes had kept him in the dark until the very end.

 

“Dante.” Selene hedged, not willing to give out specifics.

 

Now Roy was frowning, his brows creased in serious thought. He knew the name from somewhere—a woman alchemist, probably in her eighties by now. She'd turned up over the last few hundred years or so a few times, but he'd always figured it was different people assuming the name Dante. But if the woman had something to do with homunculi, it was possible she was the same person…

 

He waited for her to continue, and spoke when she didn't. “Dante?”

 

The girl rubbed her forehead, looking much older than her seventeen years. “We've seen her recently, probably getting ready to take that new body of hers.” She ignored Roy's shock, not willing to divest the details. The man knew enough as it was. The rest he'd have to unbury on his own. “She's a danger to my family and we'll be needing help.”

 

Roy understood, “Fullmetal?”

 

“Yes. Edward Elric.”

 

“And in reward for his protection, you'll give him information concerning the homunculi?”

 

“To an extent.” Taya said. “To be precise though, it's information about Dante's work in the past. Mostly her work with a stone he's taken a great interest in.”

 

It could only be the Philosopher's Stone, the man knew. Roy closed his eyes and, when he opened them, he began to root around through his desk drawers. He set a small square of paper down and scribbled an address and a phone number onto it.

 

“Fullmetal and his brother will be staying there until noon tomorrow. This is all I can give you.”

 

Selene took the paper, and Taya reached out to shake Roy's hand. “This is more than enough. We cannot repay you.”

 

Surprised, Mustang reached out to take her hand. It was small and, when he shook it, freezing cold. For the first time since the girls had entered the room, Roy really looked at the girl, finally noticing the inhuman beauty that went beyond prettiness. There was something weird in her face under the beauty, something unnatural and almost non-human. Her eyes were sad when he finally looked into them, and he knew that she had sensed his slight trepidation in continuing to shake her hand.

 

“I'm not quite a monster,” she murmured quietly, more for him than her sister. “I hope to meet you again some day Colonel Mustang.” She released his hand and hurried over to her sister, who was giving Mustang a dirty look, as though he'd done something terrible.

 

The man watched them leave, clenching his still-cold hand into a fist as he considered. He didn't feel that they were dangerous, but he also couldn't help feeling that he'd just done something terrible.