Stand Up and Walk

I Won't Leave You

"Beckoned now by the snow-white backdrop, I go into a yet unseen world. Lost as I traveled under a gray sky, with a different map each day, so many dreams ran together. I wonder if someday, even with my modest stride, I'll be able to get beyond those clouds. Falling raindrops provide a persistent diffuse reflection, as though able to see into my heart, wounded for acting tough. Beams of light crisscross and shoot on forever without announcing where they're headed; faint afterimages burn into my eyes. Wherever I am under this sky, I should still arrive at a yet unseen world."
—Nico Touches the Walls, Hologram

...

(Outside perspective)

The fat man's hands clench around Riza's neck. She claws at them with one hand, wincing in pain, the other hand pulling the trigger of her empty gun. Blood drips onto the floor, the red liquid leaking from the many bullet wounds riddling the man holding her; his only reaction is to grin wider.

"Are you all done now?" he asks her as her legs kick out at him. Her vision begins to narrow as she chokes for breath, dropping her gun to the ground. "Then it's time to eat you!"

She watches with abject horror as the man opens his mouth impossibly wide. Saliva drips off of his huge teeth and his tongue lolls out, revealing a red tattoo—a dragon swallowing its own tail, wrapped around a triangle—on its center.

Suddenly, she hears angry barking as her dog, Black Hayate, comes running up behind the man. He jumps into the air, digging his teeth into the man's neck, whipping his head around until blood spurts out.

The man flails wildly, trying to dislodge the dog, and he drops Riza in the process. The woman goes flying into the stone wall behind her, and she cries out in pain upon impact.

"Stop it!" the man cries as she struggles to her feet. "That tickles!"

"Catch!" yells Sergeant Fuery as he sprints forward. He throws a handgun to her, which she successfully snatches from the air. Quickly righting it in her grip, she and the young man take aim and fire at her assailant. The force of the bullets push him back, toward the window behind him. Black Hayate growls fiercely at the man, crouched on the ground in front of him, hackles raised.

When she runs out of bullets, she watches as red sparks flash across the man's skin, healing the bullet wounds cleanly, not even leaving a scar.

"Bullets gone?" the man wonders as he lumbers forward again. "Goodie goodie! I get to have dinner and dessert!"

Suddenly, there is a huge plume of flame that erupts over her shoulder, blasting the man through the huge glass window of the tall tower behind him, sending him falling several stories down to the ground below.

She doesn't have to turn to know who caused the blast. "I barely made it," growls Mustang behind her.

Black Hayate wags his tail happily as she and Fuery lower their guns. Annoyance bubbles up in her chest, and Riza turns sharply on her heel. "Colonel!" she snaps, glaring at her superior officer. "Why the hell did you leave your post?!" she yells. "No matter what happened, you could still have kept your involvement a secret! That was the whole idea, right?! But you just come waltzing in here, plain as day! Are you a complete idiot?!"

"Yeah, fine, fine; that's it!" he snarks back, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "I'm an idiot. Happy?"

"Who the heck was that fat guy?" Fuery wonders aloud, and Riza turns to see him peering out the window. Suddenly, he shifts, his attention captured by something else on the ground. "Colonel!" he shouts, "the target's on the move!"