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31_days2005-10-08 12:22 am
beccastareyes) wrote in 31_days2005-10-08 12:22 am
[Oct. 7][Fullmetal Alchemist AU]Winry Rock-bell -- Martian Space Pilot!
Title: Winry Rock-bell, Martian Space Pilot! (Part 3 of ?)
Theme: Fly, vultures, fly
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist (Alternate universe)
Characters: Sheska, Winry (may get shippy later), Hughes and family, Envy, Izumi
Rating: PG
The city was asleep in the early morning as Winry and Sheska crept along the canal, their backs to the palace. Sheska very rarely saw the city like this, with only the occasional delivery person or night-shift worker out walking. The dawn was just hitting the tops of the spires of the Palace when they reached the back garden wall of the Embassy.
“Now what?” Sheska asked.
“We need to get inside without being seen. Your people will protect us once we’re on Earthling soil, won’t they?” Winry whispered back. She started digging around in her satchel, pulling out a pair of earphones and a complicated-looking electronic device. “They are probably keeping an eye on this place, if they recognized you.”
“Do you really think so?”
“They don’t know any other place you’d go for help, and they don’t know where I’d go, besides to where the Princes are hiding.” Winry pointed out, adjusting the knobs on her machine. She motioned Sheska closer. “Here. Listen.”
Sheska put on the headphones. At first, all she heard was static, then the voices started coming through.
“-what she wants, I can handle it.” Sheska signaled Winry to stop, as she reached into her own pocket to take out pen and paper. She started jotting down what she was hearing in the shorthand she usually reserved for work.
“You sure you don’t want any backup?” The second voice was female, and so soft that Sheska could barely make it out over the static.
“Winry, can you increase the signal?” she asked.
“I’m trying – government channels are hard to eavesdrop over.” Winry crouched over her instruments, tweaking them like an artist laboring over a painting.
“-talking to. I don’t need backup.” The first voice was louder – even with the occasional pop or hiss from Winry’s tinkering, Sheska could make it out clearly – and young sounding. She couldn’t place the gender from the pitch, but the ego screamed teenage boy to her.
“Well, if you insist. Just remember That Person will be most displeased if you don’t bring back our ambassador friend, dear.”
Sheska’s eyes went wide at that last line. “Winry, we need to move… they’re coming after Ambassador Hughes!”
“Someone might hear you,” Winry hissed, holding a finger over her lips. Already she was packing up her equipment. “We’ll have to get him out of town. The Wrench can hold three-”
“Five.” Sheska corrected. “He won’t leave without Missus Hughes and his daughter.”
“Five, then. If it’s only a short trip, we can manage. I know a few caves in Marinaris that not even the experts know about.” Winry took the headphones off Sheska’s head. “If you can get him to come with us, just leave the rest to me. I’m signaling the Wrench now – it will be here in a half hour or so.”
“All right. The Ambassador once told me that the fence was loose around the right side, near the rose bushes. Elysia tried to climb it once.” The two women stood up, circling around the fence. Sheska stopped, eyed the fence, and started trying to climb. For something a four-year-old could scamper up, it was certainly giving her a problem.
“Let me try,” Winry grabbed a handhold next to her and pulled herself up to the top of the fence. Balanced there, she reached down. “Take my hand and I’ll give you a boost.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Winry grinned. “I need you to help talk to the Ambassador.”
Sheska took her hand, and nearly yelped as Winry started to pull. She found her footing though, and started to climb. “There you go!” Winry said. “Just a little more.”
Sheska grinned, pulling herself up to the top of the wall. “Now what?” she asked.
“We jump down.” Without waiting for a response, Winry did so, looking almost catlike as she landed. “Come on. You aren’t afraid are you?”
“Of course not!” Sheska closed her eyes. It’s only ten feet, at most. She jumped – and heard Winry yelp as she nearly landed on the her.
“Next time, eyes open,” Winry cautioned.
“Right.”
They moved quickly through the gardens, and Sheska opened the back door. “The ambassador might be awake, but I know Missus Hughes is. She’s an early riser. She’ll probably be in their living quarters.”
Winry nodded. “Lead the way…”
Sheska started walking, feeling like a burglar. Or a secret agent. It did seem like a secret agent thing to do, sneak into one’s own workplace. She grinned, humming the theme song to ‘Hawk Sterling, Secret Agent’. From behind her, she heard a voice singing the words softly. The two women turned to look at one another, smiling. “Fan?” Sheska asked.
“A bit. Space travel is an hour of work, and days of waiting, and I can’t fit all my spare parts on the Wrench.” Wirny replied. “I mostly take engineering manuals, but Al always manages to sneak a couple of movies in.”
They were approaching the main entryway, where the wing holding the living spaces met the office wing. “We’re almost there,” Sheska said.
“Good.” Winry checked her watch. “The Wrench should be here in-” She froze as here was a rather insistent knock on the door. “We better hide.”
Sheska looked around at the spacious entryway. “There isn’t anywhere. We’ll have to run for an office, and we might be heard.” There were footsteps in the hall in front of them.
“Okay!” The two made a mad dash for the doorframe of the hall on the other side.
From her vantage point, Sheska saw the Ambassador come out. He wasn’t wearing his jacket, but she saw that he had the Chrysae steel throwing-knives that normally sat mounted above his desk on a thigh sheath. “Who’s there?” he asked, moving towards their hiding spot, a knife in hand.
Sheska wasn’t daring to breathe. She saw Winry digging through her satchel, removing a small photon pistol. She shook her head, violently, mouthing ‘that’s the ambassador’. Winry looked surprised, and lowered the pistol, but didn’t put it away.
There was more pounding on the door, and Hughes sighed. Keeping an eye on the hallway, he backed towards the door, opening it. “I’m a little busy right now.”
“Ambassador Maes Hughes?” Sheska recognized the voice as the second one from the intercepted transmission. She tried to get a closer look at him. It was probably a young man, though she still wasn’t certain. He was wearing the uniform of a Martian guard, but had a clip of black feathers attached to his dyed green-black hair, done in such a wild style that Sheska could barely tell feathers from hair form Martian antennae. Sheska thought the clip looked familiar, but couldn’t place it.
“Yes?” Hughes asked, lowering his knife hand.
“You’re under arrest as an accessory to the Princes’ abduction. You’re coming with me.” The guard gave Hughes a devilish grin as he said this.
Hughes frowned. “Those are serious charges, young man. Does the Technocrat realize what arresting the Ambassador of Earth will do?”
Sheska caught a grimace flash across the guard’s face. “Like I care what the Technocrat thinks. I have my orders – bring you in, in as many pieces as it takes.” The guard dashed at Hughes, moving like he was on fire. Hughes managed to throw his knife, embedding it in the guard’s shoulder. The guard didn’t seem to register this at first. Continuing the momentum of his charge, he pinned the Ambassador against the wall. Sheska swore she heard something snap.
Sheska stifled a yelp. She stood up, grabbing an umbrella from the stand, and trying to hold it in a threatening fashion. But Winry was quicker – she ran into the room. “That wasn’t necessary!” she yelled, brandishing the gun.
The guard stepped away from Hughes, who sank to the floor. Sheska thought she saw a hint of red soaking through his shirt. “Oh, good,” the guard said, with that crazy grin on his face, and the knife still sticking into his shoulder, “I thought that seemed a bit too easy. You’re Winry Rock-bell, right?”
“That’s right! Don’t move, or I’ll shoot!” Sheska could see Winry’s hands shaking as she pointed the gun at the guard.
“Is that so? Then why are your hands shaking, little girl?” The guard sauntered closer to her. “You might have bought that photon pistol, but you’ve never fired it at anything but a target, have you? It’s different when it’s someone who can talk back, isn’t it?” He stopped, maybe five feet in front of her. “Go ahead. Shoot me. Let’s see what you’re really made of.”
Sheska could feel her heart beating in her ears as she watched. The scene was frozen in front of her, like a set of wax sculptures. She crept towards Hughes.
“Come on. Shoot or lower the damn gun, little girl.” The guard didn’t seem to see her as she reached Hughes.
“Ambassador?” she asked, trying to check the bleeding.
“Sheska?” Hughes looked up, his glasses jarred loose from the fight. “Go find Gracia. Get her and Elysia out of here.”
“But…” she wanted to say a thousand things. What about you? What about Winry? Where can we hind three Earthlings on a planet that’s turned hostile? How will we get there?
Hughes shook his head. “That’s an order. You’re a bright woman, Sheska. You can think of a plan.” He pulled himself into a sitting position, and went for his other knife. “When I throw this, run.”
“Still not shooting? I haven’t got all day, you know.” The guard stood, hands on his hips, looking at Winry. “How boring.” His hand darted out, grabbing the pistol from hers. Sheska heard a snap as his grip left imprints on the barrel. He tossed it into a corner, and looked at it reflectively. “Suppose I shouldn’t have done that. I guess I can always say you three were killed resisting arrest. So sad, but what can you do?”
“Now!” Hughes threw his second knife, this time, hitting a leg. Sheska saw the signal, and ran for the personal wing, still keeping her eyes on the scene in the entryway.
The guard turned, this time starting to show a definite limp. He removed both knives without even a flicker of expression. There was no blood on the blades. “Are these yours, Ambassador? Would you like them back? Or perhaps your lovely assistant would like one?”
Sheska swallowed hard, dashing through the hallway. She nearly tripped before she took her eyes off of behind her. “Watch it,” someone said.
A Martian woman stood there, her hair bound in an intricate series of braids. She was dressed like the sorts of wandering mystics Sheska occasionally saw in the markets, with loose pants bound below the knee and a long sleeveless buttoned jacket. Sheska looked down, and saw she had tripped over the woman’s staff. Behind the woman, Sheska saw Gracia, with Elysia in her arms. Elysia looked half asleep, but Gracia was alert, a number of bags slung over her shoulder, and a frown on her face.
“Stay here. We’ll be leaving shortly.”
“Who are you?” Sheska asked.
“Izumi. No more questions.” The woman, Izumi, brushed past her then. Sheska followed her.
Izumi strode out into the entry like she owned the place, and faced the guard. “You. Envy. You and I both know you have no right to that uniform.”
The guard, Envy, turned to face her, brandishing Hughes’s knives. “Did someone send out an invitation – a ‘Let’s all get hurt by Envy’ party? It’s not even my birthday.”
He tossed a knife at Izumi, only to have her deflect it with her staff. He tossed the other, which sliced though a tail of her jacket as she spun out of the way. Sheska saw her gesture with her hands in a complicated way and tap the wall holding the curtains with her staff. They slid out like snakes to entangle Envy.
“An Alchemist, huh?” Envy frowned. “I think I remember you. You’re the brats’ teacher. You’re wanted too, you know.” He was struggling with the curtains, which were being shredded.
“I’m not surprised.” Izumi gestured again. “Stay still. Winry, get the ship.” This time the tap of her staff on the floor brought up a cage of stone. Izumi then walked over to Hughes. “We’re leaving now. Before he gets out.”
Sheska saw that Envy was already battering at the cage, taking chips out of the stonework. She motioned to Gracia and Elysia to follow Izumi and Hughes as they left Earth soil for parts unknown.
Theme: Fly, vultures, fly
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist (Alternate universe)
Characters: Sheska, Winry (may get shippy later), Hughes and family, Envy, Izumi
Rating: PG
The city was asleep in the early morning as Winry and Sheska crept along the canal, their backs to the palace. Sheska very rarely saw the city like this, with only the occasional delivery person or night-shift worker out walking. The dawn was just hitting the tops of the spires of the Palace when they reached the back garden wall of the Embassy.
“Now what?” Sheska asked.
“We need to get inside without being seen. Your people will protect us once we’re on Earthling soil, won’t they?” Winry whispered back. She started digging around in her satchel, pulling out a pair of earphones and a complicated-looking electronic device. “They are probably keeping an eye on this place, if they recognized you.”
“Do you really think so?”
“They don’t know any other place you’d go for help, and they don’t know where I’d go, besides to where the Princes are hiding.” Winry pointed out, adjusting the knobs on her machine. She motioned Sheska closer. “Here. Listen.”
Sheska put on the headphones. At first, all she heard was static, then the voices started coming through.
“-what she wants, I can handle it.” Sheska signaled Winry to stop, as she reached into her own pocket to take out pen and paper. She started jotting down what she was hearing in the shorthand she usually reserved for work.
“You sure you don’t want any backup?” The second voice was female, and so soft that Sheska could barely make it out over the static.
“Winry, can you increase the signal?” she asked.
“I’m trying – government channels are hard to eavesdrop over.” Winry crouched over her instruments, tweaking them like an artist laboring over a painting.
“-talking to. I don’t need backup.” The first voice was louder – even with the occasional pop or hiss from Winry’s tinkering, Sheska could make it out clearly – and young sounding. She couldn’t place the gender from the pitch, but the ego screamed teenage boy to her.
“Well, if you insist. Just remember That Person will be most displeased if you don’t bring back our ambassador friend, dear.”
Sheska’s eyes went wide at that last line. “Winry, we need to move… they’re coming after Ambassador Hughes!”
“Someone might hear you,” Winry hissed, holding a finger over her lips. Already she was packing up her equipment. “We’ll have to get him out of town. The Wrench can hold three-”
“Five.” Sheska corrected. “He won’t leave without Missus Hughes and his daughter.”
“Five, then. If it’s only a short trip, we can manage. I know a few caves in Marinaris that not even the experts know about.” Winry took the headphones off Sheska’s head. “If you can get him to come with us, just leave the rest to me. I’m signaling the Wrench now – it will be here in a half hour or so.”
“All right. The Ambassador once told me that the fence was loose around the right side, near the rose bushes. Elysia tried to climb it once.” The two women stood up, circling around the fence. Sheska stopped, eyed the fence, and started trying to climb. For something a four-year-old could scamper up, it was certainly giving her a problem.
“Let me try,” Winry grabbed a handhold next to her and pulled herself up to the top of the fence. Balanced there, she reached down. “Take my hand and I’ll give you a boost.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Winry grinned. “I need you to help talk to the Ambassador.”
Sheska took her hand, and nearly yelped as Winry started to pull. She found her footing though, and started to climb. “There you go!” Winry said. “Just a little more.”
Sheska grinned, pulling herself up to the top of the wall. “Now what?” she asked.
“We jump down.” Without waiting for a response, Winry did so, looking almost catlike as she landed. “Come on. You aren’t afraid are you?”
“Of course not!” Sheska closed her eyes. It’s only ten feet, at most. She jumped – and heard Winry yelp as she nearly landed on the her.
“Next time, eyes open,” Winry cautioned.
“Right.”
They moved quickly through the gardens, and Sheska opened the back door. “The ambassador might be awake, but I know Missus Hughes is. She’s an early riser. She’ll probably be in their living quarters.”
Winry nodded. “Lead the way…”
Sheska started walking, feeling like a burglar. Or a secret agent. It did seem like a secret agent thing to do, sneak into one’s own workplace. She grinned, humming the theme song to ‘Hawk Sterling, Secret Agent’. From behind her, she heard a voice singing the words softly. The two women turned to look at one another, smiling. “Fan?” Sheska asked.
“A bit. Space travel is an hour of work, and days of waiting, and I can’t fit all my spare parts on the Wrench.” Wirny replied. “I mostly take engineering manuals, but Al always manages to sneak a couple of movies in.”
They were approaching the main entryway, where the wing holding the living spaces met the office wing. “We’re almost there,” Sheska said.
“Good.” Winry checked her watch. “The Wrench should be here in-” She froze as here was a rather insistent knock on the door. “We better hide.”
Sheska looked around at the spacious entryway. “There isn’t anywhere. We’ll have to run for an office, and we might be heard.” There were footsteps in the hall in front of them.
“Okay!” The two made a mad dash for the doorframe of the hall on the other side.
From her vantage point, Sheska saw the Ambassador come out. He wasn’t wearing his jacket, but she saw that he had the Chrysae steel throwing-knives that normally sat mounted above his desk on a thigh sheath. “Who’s there?” he asked, moving towards their hiding spot, a knife in hand.
Sheska wasn’t daring to breathe. She saw Winry digging through her satchel, removing a small photon pistol. She shook her head, violently, mouthing ‘that’s the ambassador’. Winry looked surprised, and lowered the pistol, but didn’t put it away.
There was more pounding on the door, and Hughes sighed. Keeping an eye on the hallway, he backed towards the door, opening it. “I’m a little busy right now.”
“Ambassador Maes Hughes?” Sheska recognized the voice as the second one from the intercepted transmission. She tried to get a closer look at him. It was probably a young man, though she still wasn’t certain. He was wearing the uniform of a Martian guard, but had a clip of black feathers attached to his dyed green-black hair, done in such a wild style that Sheska could barely tell feathers from hair form Martian antennae. Sheska thought the clip looked familiar, but couldn’t place it.
“Yes?” Hughes asked, lowering his knife hand.
“You’re under arrest as an accessory to the Princes’ abduction. You’re coming with me.” The guard gave Hughes a devilish grin as he said this.
Hughes frowned. “Those are serious charges, young man. Does the Technocrat realize what arresting the Ambassador of Earth will do?”
Sheska caught a grimace flash across the guard’s face. “Like I care what the Technocrat thinks. I have my orders – bring you in, in as many pieces as it takes.” The guard dashed at Hughes, moving like he was on fire. Hughes managed to throw his knife, embedding it in the guard’s shoulder. The guard didn’t seem to register this at first. Continuing the momentum of his charge, he pinned the Ambassador against the wall. Sheska swore she heard something snap.
Sheska stifled a yelp. She stood up, grabbing an umbrella from the stand, and trying to hold it in a threatening fashion. But Winry was quicker – she ran into the room. “That wasn’t necessary!” she yelled, brandishing the gun.
The guard stepped away from Hughes, who sank to the floor. Sheska thought she saw a hint of red soaking through his shirt. “Oh, good,” the guard said, with that crazy grin on his face, and the knife still sticking into his shoulder, “I thought that seemed a bit too easy. You’re Winry Rock-bell, right?”
“That’s right! Don’t move, or I’ll shoot!” Sheska could see Winry’s hands shaking as she pointed the gun at the guard.
“Is that so? Then why are your hands shaking, little girl?” The guard sauntered closer to her. “You might have bought that photon pistol, but you’ve never fired it at anything but a target, have you? It’s different when it’s someone who can talk back, isn’t it?” He stopped, maybe five feet in front of her. “Go ahead. Shoot me. Let’s see what you’re really made of.”
Sheska could feel her heart beating in her ears as she watched. The scene was frozen in front of her, like a set of wax sculptures. She crept towards Hughes.
“Come on. Shoot or lower the damn gun, little girl.” The guard didn’t seem to see her as she reached Hughes.
“Ambassador?” she asked, trying to check the bleeding.
“Sheska?” Hughes looked up, his glasses jarred loose from the fight. “Go find Gracia. Get her and Elysia out of here.”
“But…” she wanted to say a thousand things. What about you? What about Winry? Where can we hind three Earthlings on a planet that’s turned hostile? How will we get there?
Hughes shook his head. “That’s an order. You’re a bright woman, Sheska. You can think of a plan.” He pulled himself into a sitting position, and went for his other knife. “When I throw this, run.”
“Still not shooting? I haven’t got all day, you know.” The guard stood, hands on his hips, looking at Winry. “How boring.” His hand darted out, grabbing the pistol from hers. Sheska heard a snap as his grip left imprints on the barrel. He tossed it into a corner, and looked at it reflectively. “Suppose I shouldn’t have done that. I guess I can always say you three were killed resisting arrest. So sad, but what can you do?”
“Now!” Hughes threw his second knife, this time, hitting a leg. Sheska saw the signal, and ran for the personal wing, still keeping her eyes on the scene in the entryway.
The guard turned, this time starting to show a definite limp. He removed both knives without even a flicker of expression. There was no blood on the blades. “Are these yours, Ambassador? Would you like them back? Or perhaps your lovely assistant would like one?”
Sheska swallowed hard, dashing through the hallway. She nearly tripped before she took her eyes off of behind her. “Watch it,” someone said.
A Martian woman stood there, her hair bound in an intricate series of braids. She was dressed like the sorts of wandering mystics Sheska occasionally saw in the markets, with loose pants bound below the knee and a long sleeveless buttoned jacket. Sheska looked down, and saw she had tripped over the woman’s staff. Behind the woman, Sheska saw Gracia, with Elysia in her arms. Elysia looked half asleep, but Gracia was alert, a number of bags slung over her shoulder, and a frown on her face.
“Stay here. We’ll be leaving shortly.”
“Who are you?” Sheska asked.
“Izumi. No more questions.” The woman, Izumi, brushed past her then. Sheska followed her.
Izumi strode out into the entry like she owned the place, and faced the guard. “You. Envy. You and I both know you have no right to that uniform.”
The guard, Envy, turned to face her, brandishing Hughes’s knives. “Did someone send out an invitation – a ‘Let’s all get hurt by Envy’ party? It’s not even my birthday.”
He tossed a knife at Izumi, only to have her deflect it with her staff. He tossed the other, which sliced though a tail of her jacket as she spun out of the way. Sheska saw her gesture with her hands in a complicated way and tap the wall holding the curtains with her staff. They slid out like snakes to entangle Envy.
“An Alchemist, huh?” Envy frowned. “I think I remember you. You’re the brats’ teacher. You’re wanted too, you know.” He was struggling with the curtains, which were being shredded.
“I’m not surprised.” Izumi gestured again. “Stay still. Winry, get the ship.” This time the tap of her staff on the floor brought up a cage of stone. Izumi then walked over to Hughes. “We’re leaving now. Before he gets out.”
Sheska saw that Envy was already battering at the cage, taking chips out of the stonework. She motioned to Gracia and Elysia to follow Izumi and Hughes as they left Earth soil for parts unknown.