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31_days2011-11-20 02:33 pm
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2011-11-20 02:33 pm
[Nov. 20] [Fullmetal Alchemist] Third, (Un)Prepared
Title: Third, (Un)Prepared
Day/Theme: Nov. 20, 2011 "there's danger"
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character/Pairing: Scar, an OC State Alchemist
Rating: PG-13
Author's comment: Possibly part of a longer fic about Scar? Anyway, also for the 'mixed sex' space on my Fight Bingo Card.
The Ishvalan would not say that the drawing on the wanted poster was a perfect likeness, but it featured an Ishvalan man with an x-shaped scar across his face. He got the impression that the artist was unfamiliar with rendering Ishvalan features- all the better for him. His pursuers could only guess at his height and age. There were no known aliases or names to list. He was being identified by his handiwork and the scar. Amestris had started this, so perhaps it was only fitting that the alchemic signature of one of their own would define him.
The Red Lotus Alchemist- among all the heretical, state-empowered murderers stalking the land, there was none the Ishvalan sought to strike down as fervently as him. The other men and women that made up his list of death needed to die for their deeds. The Red Lotus deserved to suffer. The one who sought him had not yet conceived of a fitting enough demise for devil-eyed tormentor of his nightmares and memories, but fate had not seen fit yet to reunite them. Time would provide all the answers he needed.
The passage of time had provided at least one thus far, a moniker for the Amestrians to address him by. The man with no name would gather up infamy under the simple address of "Scar." It was, perhaps, a clearer indicator of his general anonymity than a lack of creativity among the Amestrian military.
It was the name his second female victim spoke when she saw him- a sign of how she followed the news even when she barely appeared to leave the confines of her mysterious laboratory. "Scar!"
He had climbed a trellis to look in on her as she worked after all the assistants were gone for the night (they tended to work more reasonable hours). He had learned to do his research better since the incident with Bruna Mitsch (he barely dared to let the memory creep into his mind it bothered him so immensely). He was developing a predator's patience.
The Electric Alchemist appeared to share his patience. She worked with electric currents, bending and shaping coils of metal to suit her purposes. What he saw was unable to answer the question of "Why?" but that was ultimately inconsequential to Scar as long as it would not hinder his vengeance.
The Electric Alchemist had a name, along with a lab coat and goggles and long, dark brown hair. She left her workplace alone, her arms full of folders. But even with that load to weigh her down, Scar knew she wasn't headed home yet. There was no one waiting there for her but her pair of lovebirds, and with the dark blanketing the city they would already be sleeping.
He had learned long ago from his master how to keep his footsteps light. In the cities of Amestris, that skill had been put to the test. He had followed her without being seen before as he learned her usual path. Would she walk her usual way despite the light that he had smashed out on his way here? If she did, he knew precisely where he would make his move. If not, he would have to decide: wait or improvise?
Scar pulled up his hood. He felt he could be sure he knew what constituted a safe distance between the two of them. Thus far she had chosen her regular path, but when she turned the corner and saw the entrance to her favored shortcut darkened by a broken bulb, which way would she turn?
He stopped a step after she did. He watched her as she made her choice. He could picture sparks of electricity jumping between wires in her brain just like they did on her worktable. "Dolores Perry... Which path will you choose?"
She licked her dry lips and took the road to a shorter future. All the little choices in life, with their impossible-to-guess consequences... Why had the Electric Alchemist chosen to brave this alley alone in the darkness? Scar supposed he might as well ask why she had chosen to go to Ishval. These were things he would never know. He was not like his brother. He accepted that many- if not most- things in this world would always remain beyond him.
Her path was brisk. Her long hair swung cheerfully behind her. He had not seen her ply her craft in Ishval, but his master had. She wore her wires like stacks of bracelets up her arms from wrists to elbows over a pair of rubber gloves. Alone, she wove her wires together with any metal she could find in the area or the enlisted men in her unit unrolled barbed wire for her to electrify. Working together with Isaac McDougal, the Freezing Alchemist, water from even the deepest wells would be sloshed over the sides and sprayed, sparking through onrushing defenders of the holy land or seeping through cracks into the sternest of shelters, leaving only burnt bodies behind.
This woman had done that. Dolores Perry, who lived alone, who worked overtime every day, who went out once a week for a beer and a barbecued sandwich. Did she think about what she had done? How did she sleep at night?
"Electric Alchemist," he shattered the gentle silence of the night, "Prepare yourself."
She didn't startle much until after she turned and took in his scarred face as best she could in the dull moonlight. Did she believe she could take a more ordinary sort of thug? "Scar!" she gasped. If she were prepared, he guessed that assumption would be right. Her folders fell from her arms, spilling papers into the street. He lunged forward, gazing intently into her tanned face. Her eyes were very blue.
She ducked his blow. The force of Scar's own action kept him fumbling forward even as she regrouped, assessing his back. She didn't move fast. With all the time she spent sitting in that workroom, he wasn't surprised. Her tiny purple heels couldn't be a help either. However, her small size worked in her favor. If dodging was her main physical ability, he was about to become his own worst enemy. ...But without access to her alchemy, lethality was on his side.
She raised one arm and something moved beneath the sleeve of her labcoat with a metallic clink. ...That was what he was afraid of.
She didn't waste her breath on speaking. That wasn't a luxury she could afford with her life on the line. Scar understood that- he kept to silence himself. In Ishval too, she had killed quietly, or so he'd heard, the hum of her electricity filling her ears. He assumed she wasn't like Kimblee- she didn't live for that sound, it was merely something to focus on rather than the empty prattle of the nervous soldiers stuck under her command and the shrieks and screams of his unfortunate people.
Scar moved fast. Faster than the Electric Alchemist must have imagined. ...Not that she had ever imagined she would see him in the first place. What was it that made her immune? Merely some foolish imagining of invulnerability (she'd survived the war in good shape, hadn't she?). Amestrian overconfidence; pride.
He would have to take some of the power out of his fist. He kept up the speed of his attacks so she had no time to access whatever alchemic weapons she wore, but couldn't manage to make an attack connect. The closest he came was catching a few inches of her hair between his fingers and a wall. It had blasted to bits and taken a chunk out of the brick, but as the destruction freed her, it was more a boon to the Electric Alchemist than not. Anyone drawn by the noise was bound to be on her side, not his. How isolated was this location, he wondered again.
His anger pushed him to strike with all his physical strength, but really that was unnecessary for the heretical alchemy to do its work. If he concentrated on that process of deconstruction, he could do the same work with a solid slap that he did with a brawler's blow.
The alchemist tripped on something (a stone? rubbish in the street? one of her own fallen articles?) and fell to her knees, facing away from him. If he offered her the chance, would she pray? His family hadn't been given that luxury. He denied it to Dolores Perry.
In the ensuing blast, her bracelets were blown away. One banged against a dumpster, then rolled idly to Scar's side, wobbling over a dent in the metal. He looked down, expecting to see a carefully crafted weapon of war and instead found only a cheap trinket of copper and purple glass. She hadn't been prepared to deal with an opponent of his strength in the first place.
The Ishvalan shook his head. There was nothing to be gained by loitering here. His vengeance stretched out before him like an ancient sage's scroll- there were yards of yet-unread text to go before he slept.
He still had not solved the problem of the child of the Educing Alchemist. If he had known in advance of killing her, what should he have done? He had never seen any signs of a cohabiter of the house. Where was the father? If he had waited, would there have been someone else to care for the child? ...Even then, was it right to kill a mother?
The Electric Alchemist came with easier answers, and for that he had to thank her. With her body remaining in the alleyway, Scar walked the rest of the way to her apartment, taking the path the odds dictated the dead woman would have taken. He broke in through the fire escape and opened the latched door of a dainty metal cage, loosing the alchemist's startled lovebirds into the clouded night. They did not fly in separate directions, he observed, but stuck close together. Neither bird "spoke," leaving him to wonder how they knew to follow the same path.
He thought about his parents. Often enough they had been like those birds. He couldn't imagine having that kind of bond with anyone. Even before the war, such an relationship had remained outside of the bounds of his world.
It wasn't long before both birds were completely gone from sight, swallowed up by the darkness. Scar wondered where they would go. Once in East City he had seen a strange, tropically colored bird flying along with a flock of pigeons. He didn't know what sort it was or where it had come from, but it appeared to be getting along just fine. If the lovebirds could manage without their mistress looking after them, he assumed they would find their own niche in the local ecosystem as well.
The only birds he had known in Ishval and saw here in Amestris were the sparrows. They had something in common with his people in exile, modestly picking up crumbs along society's fringes.
If you wanted to survive, it was good to be a sparrow, but Scar had chosen a different path. He lived alone, like the lofty eagle. He would continue to hunt until the day he himself was brought down. ...but that didn't mean he couldn't use some rest from time to time. He looked around the apartment, newly tenant-less. No one would come here in search of Dolores Perry, not until the night had passed and she failed to appear and unlock her government-owned workroom. Her sloppily made bed was welcoming after a week sleeping under a bridge.
The sooner he slept, the earlier he would wake. Scar went to roost without hesitance.
Day/Theme: Nov. 20, 2011 "there's danger"
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character/Pairing: Scar, an OC State Alchemist
Rating: PG-13
Author's comment: Possibly part of a longer fic about Scar? Anyway, also for the 'mixed sex' space on my Fight Bingo Card.
The Ishvalan would not say that the drawing on the wanted poster was a perfect likeness, but it featured an Ishvalan man with an x-shaped scar across his face. He got the impression that the artist was unfamiliar with rendering Ishvalan features- all the better for him. His pursuers could only guess at his height and age. There were no known aliases or names to list. He was being identified by his handiwork and the scar. Amestris had started this, so perhaps it was only fitting that the alchemic signature of one of their own would define him.
The Red Lotus Alchemist- among all the heretical, state-empowered murderers stalking the land, there was none the Ishvalan sought to strike down as fervently as him. The other men and women that made up his list of death needed to die for their deeds. The Red Lotus deserved to suffer. The one who sought him had not yet conceived of a fitting enough demise for devil-eyed tormentor of his nightmares and memories, but fate had not seen fit yet to reunite them. Time would provide all the answers he needed.
The passage of time had provided at least one thus far, a moniker for the Amestrians to address him by. The man with no name would gather up infamy under the simple address of "Scar." It was, perhaps, a clearer indicator of his general anonymity than a lack of creativity among the Amestrian military.
It was the name his second female victim spoke when she saw him- a sign of how she followed the news even when she barely appeared to leave the confines of her mysterious laboratory. "Scar!"
He had climbed a trellis to look in on her as she worked after all the assistants were gone for the night (they tended to work more reasonable hours). He had learned to do his research better since the incident with Bruna Mitsch (he barely dared to let the memory creep into his mind it bothered him so immensely). He was developing a predator's patience.
The Electric Alchemist appeared to share his patience. She worked with electric currents, bending and shaping coils of metal to suit her purposes. What he saw was unable to answer the question of "Why?" but that was ultimately inconsequential to Scar as long as it would not hinder his vengeance.
The Electric Alchemist had a name, along with a lab coat and goggles and long, dark brown hair. She left her workplace alone, her arms full of folders. But even with that load to weigh her down, Scar knew she wasn't headed home yet. There was no one waiting there for her but her pair of lovebirds, and with the dark blanketing the city they would already be sleeping.
He had learned long ago from his master how to keep his footsteps light. In the cities of Amestris, that skill had been put to the test. He had followed her without being seen before as he learned her usual path. Would she walk her usual way despite the light that he had smashed out on his way here? If she did, he knew precisely where he would make his move. If not, he would have to decide: wait or improvise?
Scar pulled up his hood. He felt he could be sure he knew what constituted a safe distance between the two of them. Thus far she had chosen her regular path, but when she turned the corner and saw the entrance to her favored shortcut darkened by a broken bulb, which way would she turn?
He stopped a step after she did. He watched her as she made her choice. He could picture sparks of electricity jumping between wires in her brain just like they did on her worktable. "Dolores Perry... Which path will you choose?"
She licked her dry lips and took the road to a shorter future. All the little choices in life, with their impossible-to-guess consequences... Why had the Electric Alchemist chosen to brave this alley alone in the darkness? Scar supposed he might as well ask why she had chosen to go to Ishval. These were things he would never know. He was not like his brother. He accepted that many- if not most- things in this world would always remain beyond him.
Her path was brisk. Her long hair swung cheerfully behind her. He had not seen her ply her craft in Ishval, but his master had. She wore her wires like stacks of bracelets up her arms from wrists to elbows over a pair of rubber gloves. Alone, she wove her wires together with any metal she could find in the area or the enlisted men in her unit unrolled barbed wire for her to electrify. Working together with Isaac McDougal, the Freezing Alchemist, water from even the deepest wells would be sloshed over the sides and sprayed, sparking through onrushing defenders of the holy land or seeping through cracks into the sternest of shelters, leaving only burnt bodies behind.
This woman had done that. Dolores Perry, who lived alone, who worked overtime every day, who went out once a week for a beer and a barbecued sandwich. Did she think about what she had done? How did she sleep at night?
"Electric Alchemist," he shattered the gentle silence of the night, "Prepare yourself."
She didn't startle much until after she turned and took in his scarred face as best she could in the dull moonlight. Did she believe she could take a more ordinary sort of thug? "Scar!" she gasped. If she were prepared, he guessed that assumption would be right. Her folders fell from her arms, spilling papers into the street. He lunged forward, gazing intently into her tanned face. Her eyes were very blue.
She ducked his blow. The force of Scar's own action kept him fumbling forward even as she regrouped, assessing his back. She didn't move fast. With all the time she spent sitting in that workroom, he wasn't surprised. Her tiny purple heels couldn't be a help either. However, her small size worked in her favor. If dodging was her main physical ability, he was about to become his own worst enemy. ...But without access to her alchemy, lethality was on his side.
She raised one arm and something moved beneath the sleeve of her labcoat with a metallic clink. ...That was what he was afraid of.
She didn't waste her breath on speaking. That wasn't a luxury she could afford with her life on the line. Scar understood that- he kept to silence himself. In Ishval too, she had killed quietly, or so he'd heard, the hum of her electricity filling her ears. He assumed she wasn't like Kimblee- she didn't live for that sound, it was merely something to focus on rather than the empty prattle of the nervous soldiers stuck under her command and the shrieks and screams of his unfortunate people.
Scar moved fast. Faster than the Electric Alchemist must have imagined. ...Not that she had ever imagined she would see him in the first place. What was it that made her immune? Merely some foolish imagining of invulnerability (she'd survived the war in good shape, hadn't she?). Amestrian overconfidence; pride.
He would have to take some of the power out of his fist. He kept up the speed of his attacks so she had no time to access whatever alchemic weapons she wore, but couldn't manage to make an attack connect. The closest he came was catching a few inches of her hair between his fingers and a wall. It had blasted to bits and taken a chunk out of the brick, but as the destruction freed her, it was more a boon to the Electric Alchemist than not. Anyone drawn by the noise was bound to be on her side, not his. How isolated was this location, he wondered again.
His anger pushed him to strike with all his physical strength, but really that was unnecessary for the heretical alchemy to do its work. If he concentrated on that process of deconstruction, he could do the same work with a solid slap that he did with a brawler's blow.
The alchemist tripped on something (a stone? rubbish in the street? one of her own fallen articles?) and fell to her knees, facing away from him. If he offered her the chance, would she pray? His family hadn't been given that luxury. He denied it to Dolores Perry.
In the ensuing blast, her bracelets were blown away. One banged against a dumpster, then rolled idly to Scar's side, wobbling over a dent in the metal. He looked down, expecting to see a carefully crafted weapon of war and instead found only a cheap trinket of copper and purple glass. She hadn't been prepared to deal with an opponent of his strength in the first place.
The Ishvalan shook his head. There was nothing to be gained by loitering here. His vengeance stretched out before him like an ancient sage's scroll- there were yards of yet-unread text to go before he slept.
He still had not solved the problem of the child of the Educing Alchemist. If he had known in advance of killing her, what should he have done? He had never seen any signs of a cohabiter of the house. Where was the father? If he had waited, would there have been someone else to care for the child? ...Even then, was it right to kill a mother?
The Electric Alchemist came with easier answers, and for that he had to thank her. With her body remaining in the alleyway, Scar walked the rest of the way to her apartment, taking the path the odds dictated the dead woman would have taken. He broke in through the fire escape and opened the latched door of a dainty metal cage, loosing the alchemist's startled lovebirds into the clouded night. They did not fly in separate directions, he observed, but stuck close together. Neither bird "spoke," leaving him to wonder how they knew to follow the same path.
He thought about his parents. Often enough they had been like those birds. He couldn't imagine having that kind of bond with anyone. Even before the war, such an relationship had remained outside of the bounds of his world.
It wasn't long before both birds were completely gone from sight, swallowed up by the darkness. Scar wondered where they would go. Once in East City he had seen a strange, tropically colored bird flying along with a flock of pigeons. He didn't know what sort it was or where it had come from, but it appeared to be getting along just fine. If the lovebirds could manage without their mistress looking after them, he assumed they would find their own niche in the local ecosystem as well.
The only birds he had known in Ishval and saw here in Amestris were the sparrows. They had something in common with his people in exile, modestly picking up crumbs along society's fringes.
If you wanted to survive, it was good to be a sparrow, but Scar had chosen a different path. He lived alone, like the lofty eagle. He would continue to hunt until the day he himself was brought down. ...but that didn't mean he couldn't use some rest from time to time. He looked around the apartment, newly tenant-less. No one would come here in search of Dolores Perry, not until the night had passed and she failed to appear and unlock her government-owned workroom. Her sloppily made bed was welcoming after a week sleeping under a bridge.
The sooner he slept, the earlier he would wake. Scar went to roost without hesitance.