Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ The Newbies ❯ Chapter 2

When she woke back up, she was still under the bed.

Something furry was there, too, and that gave her momentary comfort.

There was also the thought that, by playing on her experience as a fangirl, or with them actually, she could gain some protection favors if need be. The only way that would be hard would be if her captor was a skilled Alchemist. Otherwise she could fight her way out using her Tae Kwon Do skills. True, she was only a lowly yellow belt, but there were no martial arts on this side of the Gate. They wouldn't know what hit them. Yes, surely that would work.

Unless her captor was someone scary......

Like Scar.

Or Shou Tucker.

Or .........................................................

Before she could think of someone scarier than Tucker, the something moved, curling up against her chest and laying its head on her shoulder. She looked down.

It was a cat.

It was so soft, so cute.

No, cute wasn't right.

It was elegant.

Pure black, except for two glowing violet eyes.

Wait.

Violet? But cats didn't have violet eyes. The only thing that did was...

Then she remembered.

She was in the Fullmetal Alchemist realm.

There was one organism here, marked by violet eyes.

A scream reverberated through the building.

The cat shot out from under the bed and into the circle.

When the dust cleared there was no longer a cat, but a young man wearing a black tube top and matching miniskirt.

He was lying smack in the middle of the circle, whimpering.

She guessed that was due to the huge bruise along his right side.

Stiletto heels, a clashing contrast to the man's bare feet, appeared.

And, beside them, a smaller pair of bare feet.

It sent chills down her spine to think about why one foot was a different color.

The young man, whom she'd clearly recognized as Envy, looked up in the direction of the stilettos' owner.

“Well, she retained her knowledge of the barren side.”

The next voice she was able to place immediately as Lust's.

“So is she scared, then?”

“Apparently she's more scared of Shou Tucker...funny, Homunculi don't scare her at all.” There was a long pause as everything hit her. She was really here. What if she couldn't get back? And if she was here, why right here? She shuddered; what if she was in laboratory five??

“Actually you're in the thirteenth warehouse.” Envy turned over and stared at her, even though he couldn't see her, because he knew she could see him. “Nothing wrong with that is there?”

She curled tightly into a ball and shut her eyes. This was worse. Much worse.

“He's teasing.” She opened her eyes to find herself staring into somebody else's.

The only one little enough to fit under there was Wrath. For some reason, maybe because they seemed the same age by her observation, she decided to trust him. “It's an old abandoned library, on the outskirts of Central.” Even though she did trust this person, she curled tighter up so that he couldn't see anything. She watched him wriggle out, and heard whispering as the stilettos paced and Envy righted himself to be sitting up on the floor.

“Fine.” That was Lust's voice again. “You have one week to do it, don't forget that.”

The clacking high heels receded, as a hand dragged Envy from the room. The door shut.

Very carefully, she peeked out. Nobody. Well, except for the one Homunculus left.

Unwilling to get out from under the bed, she decided to try working on the bands again.

After four hours she made a scratch and decided this called for a celebration, so she went back to sleep thoroughly exhausted.

0~:. ~oOo~ .:~0

Upon waking up, the first thing she felt was pain.

Sharp, tearing pain that caused rivers of tears to flow down her cheeks.

Then it was over, and the only pain she felt was how stiff she was from being under that bed.

The bed she was now lying in.

Under the covers.

Well, okay, the covers only covered her from the underarms down.

She looked up to see a cat.

A tuxedo with yellow eyes that she knew very well.

“Karina!” She sat up despite being stiff and hugged the cat. She switched to holding her like a baby as she cooed at her as she always had, using a line memorized from the movie “Spirited Away”: “Oh, my poor baby!” she crooned, rocking the cat as her tail wagged happily. (My cat is the base for Karina and yes, she does wag her tail.) “Are you traumatized? Did they do terrible things to you?” The cat meowed in reply as she buried her face in its fur.

“I see you've met Fickle.”

“What?” She looked up, her face paling. Wrath stood next to the bed, staring at her Karina.

“Her name is Karina.”

“Maybe it used to be, but that was when she was a cat.”

Her heartbeat quickened, as slowly she ran her hands all over the cat. Then she found it:

The circular sign, depicting a monster eating its tail. Right over Karina's heart.

Her cat was a Homunculus.

“Arrrrrgh...” She buried her face again, as the tears returned full force. “Can this get any worse?”

“Not if you like Homunculi.”

She looked slowly up and into a mirror.

The face staring back looked a lot like a younger version of Barda, the snake chimera. That wasn't too surprising.

She felt somebody touch her stomach. As she was about to aim her best reverse punch at a certain young Homunculus, she realized the hand was carefully tracing out a design.

A head. A body. A tail. He was almost finished when the design started to materialize on her skin.

“Stop, what're you doing!?” By the time she brushed away the hand the whole sign had appeared.

“You were holding it in because you didn't want to leave the barren side.” He glared at her. “It would have killed you in two minutes if I hadn't done that. You kept it bottled up so that you wouldn't be marked and you had a chance at going back.”

“But I didn't know to—”

“It doesn't matter whether you knew.”

“Then how did you know what was happening?” She asked, angry at him for keeping it from her.

“Because they made me similar to how they made you and I did the same thing.” His eyes clouded for a moment, and then she could see the fire in them.

“I couldn't do it myself so Envy did it. He was too strong. He forced it. It hurt. I was trying to keep you from getting hurt!!”

He turned and walked off, got to the door and said over his shoulder, “By the way you have a different name as a Homunculus. It's.......Unpatriotism.”

He left, closing the door softly.

Unpatriotism's Point-Of-View

As the door closed I fell back against the bed, taking Karina with me.

I'd upset Wrath.

I hadn't meant to.

In fact, he was the only one I could allow myself to trust save the cat.

I needed to apologize.

Except for one thing.

You can't do much without clothes on.