Spirit Animals

Chapter 5

Chester had an extremely bad feeling. He felt his skin crawl like a million ants were marching just underneath it and his fur was standing on end. He wasn't sure if his twisting stomach was going to cause him to throw up or just stay an awful roiling mess of nerves. He wanted to grab his idiotic human and drag him bodily out of this basement. His Spirit Animal instincts were screaming out him to get himself and Alphonse as far away from this situation as possible. His senses were going insane at the amount of simply wrong he could feel in the air and a glance at Ayala told him she was feeling the exact same way.

Before he could ask her whether they should put a stop to this – they were Spirit Animals so it was their duty to do everything to save their human – the boys were placing their hands on the array and activating it. He felt Alphonse's ecstatic delight as they all watched the blue energy dance its way to the middle of the array. Despite the uneasy atmosphere created by Chester's instincts and the aggressive storm outside, Chester let himself believe that maybe he and Ayala had been worrying about nothing. Of course, that was the moment everything went wrong.

The light turned purple and he knew from Al that that meant the array was rebounding. The atmosphere in the room darkened and soon Chester and Ayala were struggling to keep their feet under them as the dangerous alchemic energy created a ferocious windstorm in the basement. Crouching so his belly was almost on the ground, Chester made to crawl forward, his need to get to Alphonse almost overwhelming his other senses when he heard Ayala's scream of pain and saw her human's lower left leg being torn away from him by what looked like tiny black hands.

His frozen shock was broken as pain worse than anything he could've described tore into his very being and he managed to look at his human before the pain overtook him. To his horror, he watched helplessly as his human was being grabbed all over by those same black hands and being slowly torn to pieces. He watched as Edward valiantly fought through his own pain, causing even more if the whimpers Ayala were making were anything to go by, to make a grab for Alphonse. He prayed to whoever was listening that Ed would make it in time only to witness his human disintegrating before his very eyes with his scream for his brother cut off before it was completed. The last thing he saw before he mercifully passed out was the heartbreaking look of disbelief and horror on Edward's face.

Ayala felt terror crawl up her throat as she watched the blue alchemic energy created by the boys turn a nasty purple, indicating a rebound. Like Chester, she knew that the destruction caused by a rebound was directly related to the strength of the transmutation which meant she knew this rebound was going to be devastating. Just as Chester tried, she got low on her belly to try and crawl to her human without being blown off her feet by the windstorm. She didn't manage one step before her left hind leg gave way underneath and a scream of pain tore its way from her throat.

She fought her way through the threat of unconsciousness caused by the sympathy pain to see Ed's lower left leg disappear and blood rapidly pooling where it had been moments ago. She heard Chester's own screams of pain and she looked over to find the leopard writhing in agony next to her. The sympathy pain she felt flared to new heights and she wrenched her gaze from Chester to her human and felt her throat close in panic as she witnessed Ed reaching for Alphonse, his desperation to get to his brother overwhelming their bond, only to watch in complete disbelief as Alphonse disappeared right in front of them.

The moment he did, Chester stopped moving and Ayala's grief threatened to overtake everything until she noticed he was still breathing. Before she could tell Ed, her connection with him was cut and she looked over to where he'd been only to find he was gone. Completely vanished into thin air. Ayala gaped for a moment, barely registering that her sympathy pain was also gone, before she got up and started searching for Ed, believing in her grief that Ed had somehow managed to hide somewhere in the basement. There was no blood leading up the stairs and no blood smeared anywhere like it was from where he'd lost his leg to where he'd been when Alphonse vanished to indicate Ed had managed to drag himself somewhere.