Descendant of Death (FMA FanFiction)

29: The Quirks of Truth

***********Maeve POV:*************

When Izumi entered I started to get super suspicious. It's been about ten minutes since Al was carried away. When the heck where they gonna bust through the wall? I had a feeling the answer was never, and that there was another escape route that they used. Agitated at such a careless mistake I stood up.

"Cropsett, Herkk, Geodfry. I'm going to go search for the kidnapped victim; it appears that this wasn't the only exit underneath Devil's Nest. You three follow and sweep the vermin we come across." They 'Sir'd me and we ran around the corner, them with their guns out pointed down and me like I normally do. My new attached at the arm weapons don't hinder me. The initial pain of them grabbing on was gone. With each yard I crossed the hollow hooks of death inched further into me; if I kept going this way I would soon meet my death. 

We ran 10 yards when a right-side tunnel appeared. A right side tunnel that wasn't supposed to be there. I could smell clearly all the sub-human things that had quietly ran down this way, and I saw there was a large square opening with a painting scratched up discarded next to it. Clever clever Greed, making his own tunnel like this. I directed us down the dark path and we came to another crossroads. One side, the left, I could hear the many breaths of the sub-humans as they crouched out of sight at a blind turn further down the tunnel. The right was quiet and empty. But I knew that this was the way to Al. 

I gave the signals to the three men to go clear up the left tunnel. Then I ran down the right one; in seconds I heard gunfire and screams. Further away I heard the sound of heavy footfalls and clanging metal. Back-up was coming, drawn to the fire-fight like moths. As I ran I prepared to break some very serious laws. I was going to break into Truth's, daddy's, Gate and steal the boy's bodies back. 

Over in the Gate Dimension, I pulled myself up and out of my Gate of Deceit. Shaking the liquid off my scales I padded over to the Gate of Truth, and then padded straight through without opening it. Inside it was all monochrome and filled with many watchful people who'd gotten unlucky with Alchemy and ended up dying, landing them in here. This was one of the afterlife's for humans, specifically those you fell afoul of alchemy. They all had black bodies, the only color in here normally were their eye's; those were the same color they had when they were alive. Since I was in here now though, the normally white world was red around me. Like a hazy aura that followed me. It was the glow from the small bits of skin that showed through my thick black armored scales. 

I ignored them and searched out for colored beings. Ed and Alphonse's bodies were still alive; they would be normal skin toned. After a few seconds I came across Ed's limbs, being held alive by a smiling mannequin meant to imitate Truth. Carefully I bent all the way down (it was a large way down for me. I looked like a three story tall doberman with skin and scales instead of fur) and swallowed the limbs, mannequin and all. I needed it to keep the limbs from dying before I gave them back to Ed. 

A small tapping on my hind paw made me turn around carefully. My eye's locked onto bright yellow ones. I didn't recognize the oval, skeletal face framed by limp blonde hair, or the skeletal body. But I knew that this was Alphonse. I knelt down in front of him.

"Al, you probably don't recognize me like this. But it's Maeve.... I came to take you guys back." I spoke between large bared fangs. I couldn't really help it that they were bared, my lips just didn't cover them all the way. Al nodded smiling before holding his arms up over his head as if asking to be picked up. Gently I swallowed him and ran back out the way I'd come, pausing when I was out of my dad's gate. I didn't enter mine though. I waited for the right moment to give them their bodies.

As I was doing all that, I ran forward til I got to another blind bend and skidded to a halt.

Al apparently was struggling against Martel, who was trying to stop him from the inside. And he was doing soooo weirdly. He looked like a impaired inch worm! I covered my mouth with my hand and tried to stifle a laugh.