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Open The Chimera Project II

The heat rose in her cheeks surprisingly easily, more so than it ever had, and she narrowed her eyes in a sudden sharp glare, fierce and hot and raging like the flames within her, seeking to destroy.

"Do not speak of him that way."

Then the glare was gone, replaced by an unreadable expression as she put up a mask - she had to, or she wouldn't be able to remain calm. She quashed the rising emotion with all her might, and still barely managed to speak coherently.

"And... both of your ages are wrong. I'm younger than I look."
 
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"Of course you're not..." Tuxa said with sarcasm in her voice, and turned her. She noticed her ears was visible, but why should she care? She was with fellow chimeras after all...
 
" I can talk about that Bastard any way I want. He gets to boss me around, I can call him names." Edward growled, he feline blood rushing through his veins kicking his body into a temperamental frenzy.

"Let's just get out of here. This place is making me feel claustrophobic." He hissed, turning to the bars. It was then he noticed that boy who'd been chained cutting the bars. He walked over, peeking at the gap the removal of the bars had made.

"How'd you do that..?"
 
"I'm your friend," Rose said after the outburst, hoping to cheer him up. She then began to think of a strategy. Something without noise or a distraction, like I said earlier... something like breaking a bar somehow and getting through that way, but how?
"I could probably summon fire and melt the metal bars," Rose suggested, slicing the air with her shark-like tail. Once, she went too far, and it thumped against the floor, sending pain coursing through her tail.
 
"Not in front of me you can't," Marisa insisted at Edward's back, scowling. "Do not talk about my father that way. He has done too much for you to not appreciate, and he only has your best interests in mind."

Glancing up at the ceiling, she then wondered if she shouldn't be yelling, to show off a little fiery temper. It was too late now, but it should still reach the same ends... provoking a fight. She had the physical strength to run and punch and kick and fight the way she hadn't before, and new powers that, as much as she might dislike having them, would be cool to test out. And the flames seemed to be licking at her, begging to be released, to rage and burn and destroy.

She was being talked to by invisible fire. Was she going insane?

This whole thing was insane. Might as well play along - that's what she was already doing, anyway, she assured herself.

Her ears perked up at the words "summon fire", and she looked at the... shark-chimera? No, she had blades on her forearms... or were those supposed to be fins? They looked like they'd just get in the way of swimming, but the alchemists probably screwed something up, she thought with an inward sneer.

Sharks didn't wield fire, though, and definitely not the way Marisa did.

"If you need fire, I'll do it," she offered. If she didn't loose it, she was probably going to go insane... well, more insane than she already was.
 
"How'd you do that..?"

A-01 simply froze, surprised by the question. He had never actually be asked anything in his life for as long as his memory had reach. All he ever knew was demands and directions, never anything like this. Such a situation, it was new to him, and all he was able to do was turn around to face Edward with a strange confused look and reply "..What~?"
 
"How did you cut the bars like that?" Edward asked, his large ears twitching absently.

"If you can cut the rest, we can get out! Can you do that?" He continued, ignoring that Mustang-spawn. She was annoying, just like Bastard.

((why are all my posts short and fail-y today?))
 
Bakur raised his voice.

"Everyone stop talking about stuff like this," he said, trying to sound calm. "We need to focus on escaping."
 
Ah, yes, Roy also said to never under any circumstances mention Ed's height. Or, rather, his lack thereof. Evan thought to himself as he watched the cat-boy go on a brief rampage before backing off to pout in frustration. But then there was this girl talking with him nervously, the one with the many furry tails (how odd, he hadn't noticed her before). She too had mentioned the good colonel, and that she was apparently...his daughter? Strange, he had never mentioned any familial bonds at all ever since Evan had become an alchemist or during any of their little encounters in their years since.

Then again, there's no reason not to play a few curveballs is there? Let's just see how far we can take this girl's knowledge of her supposed father. "You know, I've had a bit of a history with the Flame Alchemist, myself. We go back a good distance, all the way to my early days in the military." He tilted his head ever so slightly to the side and raised a hand as if to scratch his scratch as he spoke to the many-tailed girl, "by any chance did he ever tell you, little girl, about this one entrance exam he proctored, and the man who used alchemy to create a perfect replica of the Central military base out of ice? 'The Wintry Alchemist', as he would later be called, had a bit of a rivalry with Mustang, an opposition based upon their differing styles of alchemy. And then one day the colonel played a sneak attack, knocking out the younger alchemist and throwing him into the military's latest science experiment. And now he stands before you, a completely unrecognizable monster ill-suited for society; oh, yes, your father is a very noble man."
 
"Oh...." A-01's voice trailed off as he stood there for a moment, as if bemused by the idea still, before quickly blushing and attempting to recover the conversations.

"I um uh.. I have blades in my arms and fingers, and I can cut through mostly anything with them..."

Saying that brought back memories.

Flash Back said:
The door closed behind him, leaving him in darkness. It was followed by a short crack, then a light. In front of him a table with a pig, and beyond the table a mirror. He had been coming to this room for weeks now, every time, he killed the pig.

"A-01, you're here today for a preliminary survay of your chimeratization. You'll will when given orders to, use your organic blades to kill this pig." A voice rang out. It paused and was replaced by muttering of two voices, before coming back. "You may begin."

A-01 took a step towards the table and his heart beat against his chest in a drum like manner. The pig squealed weakly. He took another step, then a third before he simply stood infront of the table, gazing down on the swine.

It was a small piglet in truth, its eyes slowly focusing on his face. A shiver ran through A-01's spine, as those eyes looked into him. He raised his right arm, and with a twitch the pushed out of his arm. Then he froze, only his arm shaking slightly. The pig once more squealed, slightly more pitifully this time.

...This...Isn't me... I don't want to kill it...

His thoughts were interupted by the blaring of the speaker.

"Kill him now!" The voice commanded, slightly agitated. A-01 didn't not even think, his arm went down on its own.

Suddenly, there was no piglet in front of him. There was a man, who gagged as he bleed to death, his lower half completely severed from his torso. Disgust, horror, fear, guilt all came into his mind. Slowly as he watched the man's crazed eyes slowly retreat into a peaceful gaze, another feeling crept into him: awe.

He wanted to look away as the man's chest slowly stopped moving, yet he could not. Something within the soon to be lifeless body held his gaze, calling him. For a moment, a single word filled his mind: Beautiful.

He collapsed to the floor when he realized what he had felt. All the feelings of disgust and horror, became amplified with pain and shame and weighed upon his soul.

I...just killed a man... Yet I...beautiful...What am I?

The lights turned off with a mechanical click, and as light dissapeared from the room, the voice echoed in the room.

"That is all."

OOC: FYI, he under hypnosis when he saw the piglet. All the previous times it had been pigs he was killing, and this time they hypnotized him to think he was seeing a pig, instead of a human.
 
"Awesome. Thanks, you just saved us!" Edward purred, slipping out the cut bars like he was fluid, peeking down the hall.

The hall was large and rather empty, making a sharp turn a metre or so to Edward's left. The other way was perfectly straight for a good while before turning the other way. A couple more crates were here too, only one or two. Footsteps were echoing from the sharp turn not too far off, and Edward crouched, whiskers twitching. He placed his palms on the ground and positioned his legs like he was about to sprint off.

"Someone's coming."
 
Marisa gave the so-called Wintry Alchemist a contemptuous glare, though even she couldn't stop the slight flinch when she saw what he looked like. She regained her composure quickly, though, falling into the role with slight confusion over how she would react.

It turned out to be a sneer.

"He mentioned you, likely, since I recognise your name, but I doubt he thought much of you. He didn't talk of you much." She turned away, toward the new escape route, hair flicking through the air dramatically. "I trust that he had reason to include you in the project, as he did me." She turned back, eyes narrowed. "Or reason to punish you."

Edward had left through the opening in the bars, though, and Marisa guessed that she'd probably fit. She followed, as she too was tired of being in the cell, and the flames were muttering at her, or at least that's what it felt like. She heard the footsteps as easily as Edward did, too, though she was busier being careful not to get too close to him.

"There was nobody to see the alchemy," she felt she had to point out as she wrapped a tail around each leg, keeping them warm where the skirt wouldn't do - not that she needed it, with the internal flame that was at the moment being very, very annoying.

She held up a hand and felt the flame rise up almost at once, and was barely able to keep it under her skin. The heat rose from her palm, and wanted to rise from every part of her body. She thought of her clothes, though, and denied it, instead only letting it rise to her hands and feet. They would be cloaked in flame the moment she allowed it to be, she could feel.

"Should we kill him?" She hoped - or maybe the fire hoped - that the answer would be yes, so she could finally release the flames and be done with its whining.

And, she supposed, because it would probably make someone angry and she needed a designated rival.
 
Fang pouts, then shrugs as he reverts his key back to a bracelette. He hops out of the cell and strolls over to Edward with a swing in his hip. He freezes when he hears the cat say that someone was coming. He falls silent and tries to listen in on the sounds Ed was picking up.

damn it...wish I could see them...

The base of his skull starts to buzz, causing him to closes his eyes to relax his mind. Once he opened them again he say a strange light surrounding Edward's form. He sighs, shaking his head.

Not this again...well, it helps I geuss


He looks to his sides and other surroundings, searching for more stange lights.

"Someone is coming...from ahead of us"
 
((Er, I know everyone's preoccupied with their conversations, but didn't anyone hear Karae at all? Nobody responds when I post. x_x))
 
Rose turned to the one who had suggested doing it for her. "I can probably manage." But I need practice first. She leaped out of the cell, but then, when she heard someone was coming, she was stuck. If she went back in, she would be separated from Edward and Fang if the person rebuilt the bars, but if she stayed out, she would probably be separated from the rest of them. Instinct told her to stay out. At least she would have the leader of the group to direct her.
 
"Someone's coming," Bakur echoed. He stood up from the crate, accidentally smashing it to pieces with his tail in the process. He kept a sharp eye on the outside of the cell and stepped forward so that his tail was within reach of the door.

((I have a question: Which is stronger, bones or a telephone pole?))
 
((Cryptica: it really depends; I think I heard somewhere that an adult human's bones can be harder than concrete(buh?), but I have no idea how strong a Nidoking's bones could be.))

"Ooooh, she's a clever one, she is," Evan muttered thoughtfully as he watched the girl follow Edward out the newly formed hole in the door. It seemed, though, that someone had caught on to the rather loud noises they had been making, and now everyone was panicking. Time to get going and beat the crap out of these bastards, then. Unfortunately, Evan had once again forgotten exactly what it was he looked like now, and that he occupied far more space than his old, far more lithe self. And he was surprisingly surprised to find his spikes lodged inside with his hooded head poking through the opening. "Okay, okay, let's see...no time to freeze the door...gotta improvise."

He looked around the dim cell again; all of the smaller and more physically-able occupants had already taken the opportunity to escape. There was the malformed purple adolescent, but after being referred to as "evil or something" Evan wasn't quite willing to gamble his reliance on the boy yet. The hooded-girl, said hood now removed to show a pair of lavender feline ears, appeared too busy yelling after Edward to do much else. What about that depressed kid over there? He glanced very slightly to the unhealthily thin bluish girl holed up over in the corner, the one who had been complaining about the lack of food and how pointless it would be to try escaping. He walked over to her and crouched down, or at least angled his head so that the ridiculous eyes of his mask were looking into her organic counterparts. "So, you don't want to escape, eh? No point in leaving this cell just to be condemned by the cruel society outside. I suppose I can relate to that in a way; you'd be surprised just how many humans have grown angry at the State Alchemists. They call us the dogs of the military, you know."

He could have droned on and on about this for a few hours (he had gotten turned away from many an inn for this reputation of his) but he didn't have that sort of time and the girl probably didn't have that kind of patience. "So how 'bout this; you stop moping around and go outside to unlock the cell door, and I'll conjure you up a little water with my alchemy." At this his bracelets glowed once again and the precious liquid began to pool out across the floor. "How's that sound?"
 
Karae tilted her head. "Unlock it? With what?" She hadn't ben following the conversation very well - being hungry would do that to you, but that water looked so pure and fresh... So very tempting. She nearly reached for it, and then stopped herself. There would be a catch of some sort - he was an alchemist, and most wouldn't hesitate to use a beggar like herself as cannon fodder. Still, the water...

Crossing her arms, she let her tail flex, eyes still on the water. "I would be grateful for the drink. But what would you have me unlock the door with? I am no pickpocket or thief, to have lockpicks, and the key that one," she pointed to Fang, "made was said to not be suitable for the lock." Ever eager to please - oh she'd do it. She would have killed for pure water that he had just... created. Amazing...
 
(( The same mass of concrete and bone might show the bone to be stronger, but I'm sure that concrete walls are thicker than bones are, so it'd be hard to compare. But, yes, if you can smash a telephone pole it should be fatal to humans - it's just that some of the force is going to be used throwing the human back instead of just shattering them, so it might cause less damage than the total potential. Still will break something, yes. Besides, nidoking can not only break a telephone pole, but break it easily ("as if it were a matchstick"), implying that it can break much stronger material. ))

As Marisa's ears swivelled, taking in the sound of the approaching footsteps, she reflected that her scalp moving felt weird, but not entirely unpleasant. Not pleasant, either, though; the same could be said of her bare foot against the ground. But the fire, most definitely, was not a pleasant experience, and she was loath to think that she'd have to let it win.

She started to stalk forward, ahead of Edward, even if she figured that he should probably be the one to face whatever was coming. She was didn't want to bother waiting, and she only heard a few people - how dangerous could it be, anyway? Even if it was dangerous, she'd probably get out of the situation without any permanent damage.

And who else could this be but enemies? She was ready to loose flames on sight, but if she was too prepared for an enemy, the chance that it was an ally sharply increased. Or the chance that someone would stop her. But as long as she actually killed something, she could probably escape the uselessness curse that would probably otherwise fall upon her... and get rid of the not-voices.
 
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