La Resistance

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Tyler slams into a corner to avoid a patrol of soldiers. He is breathing heavily, and has his auto-pistol in one hand. He's down to two clips backup, after wasting the good portion of his ammo on approaching Cretan soldiers.

"Sir!" Tyler whirls around and lowers his gun, as he sees a young Corporal leading a pair of Privates edging into the alley.

"Dammit son, don't do that. The city's FUBAR as it is. That all of you?" Tyler asks, peeking his head around the other corner. He can see the Cretan patrol running down the street.

"Yes sir. I'm Smith, this is Jensen and Ricky." The Corporal nervously clutches his rifle as do the two Privates. Tyler gives them a quick glance, even younger than he was in the last war.

"Ghost Bear Alchemist" he says checking the condition of the buildings around him. Probably enough material, but they need to find a shelter first.

"Here's the deal. See that alley over there?" he says pointing across the street. "Cover me, and I'll cover you we need to find shelter and then a radio, see who else is left."

"Yes sir..... and if theres no one?" he says nervously.

Tyler doesn't even consider his answer. "Then we kill them all." before rushing across the street. He slides into the opposite alley, and motions for the other soldiers to follow him, checking down the street with his pistol.

Smith is the first across, followed quickly by Jensen. Ricky pauses before heading across.

CRAAAACK! He drops in the street before the soldiers even hear the shot. Tyler quietly curses at the needless death of a fellow soldier.

Tyler holsters his pistol and slams his hands against the side of the building. Theirs a flash of bluish-gray light and the side of the building starts to warp, as his alchemy begins to take shape.

Within a minute the "Bear" is formed, it's metal claws hissing with water vapor, as the steam powered behemoth trudges into the street. A bullet catches it in the torso but fails to deter the primitive spirit in it's armor. A fusillade of bullets impact it, but by this time it's charging the soldiers that had responded. Tyler pulls out his pistol and edges around the corner, dropping two. Smith and Jensen follow his lead, avenging their fallen comrade.

Sheltered by the "Bear" Tyler moves towards the man, only to strip his dog tags, and secure his weapon. Automatic fire is tracking the "Bear" as more soldiers arrive in the area, Tyler motions his comrades back into the alley.

"Down the sewer grate. Move!" he says pointing to a manhole cover. His distraction can only last so long and once the "Bear" is taken down they'll come after him next. They scramble to pry open the manhole cover.

Concentrating, as basic alchemy was never his strong suit, he uses a portion of the soldiers blood to draw a quick glyph on the ground, and uses his alchemy to transmute the stone into a wall around the alley. It should distract them and buy time. He jumps down the manhole sealing it behind him.

"Not again" he says to himself, as they descend into the darkness. Different city, same old war....

[Red Loki (admin)]

t should come to no surprise that Red Loki was exactly where most people would expect him to be. Leaning back with his legs propped upon the commander's desk his hands were folded behind his head. With his eyes shut many would think him to be sleeping. However anyone who knew Red would know that he was very much awake and very much aware.

The sound of running footsteps brought one eye open from the commander of the forces stationed here in West City. 'That was fast.' He told himself. However who entered the former Amestris High Commander's Office was not the person he expected. A man in a gray Cretan military uniform stopped and saluted the commander.

"Amestris soldiers have been spotted, along with an alchemist." The soldier told him. Red shook his head than gave a small sigh. They had not even had the city for more than a day and already Amestris was taking action. After how fast they had taken the city, Red had expected it to be a while before any resistance was spotted.

"And what action has Commander Zhao taken place?" He asked the officer speaking of course about the man he trusted with most of the military duties. A blank face crossed the soldier's face. He sigh again this time out of frustration. Honestly did they have to bother him about every little skirmish?

Red dismissed the officer with a wave of the hand. Seemingly disappointed with the fact that he had to get out of his comfortable position, Red lowered his legs and opened one of the side droors. Taking out a small walkies talkie from within he spoke into it. "Seems like theirs trouble. Take care of it. If you need backup let me know."

---------

Ez, stationed on top of a roof top, took his finger away from the side of his face. He had been given the go ahead by Red to commence with getting rid of the enemy. As he watched the destruction from a couple of buildings away, he couldn't help but admire the giant bear that stalked down the streets reeking havoc. Too bad he had to destroy such a creation.

On his shoulder sat an enormous sniper riffle with alchemic engravings all over the barrel, handle, and even scope of the gun. On his hand was another such alchemic circle that activated the alchemy based on a number of different things. Ez simply watched as he spotted the alchemist responsible for the bear creation vanish in the sewers. That had not been smart on the alchemists part for several reasons. Lieutenant Crick and his group were in charge of the sewers. Still he had a task at hand.

Positioning the sniper on the edge of the building he pulled out a single bullet with an alchemic array engraved on it. Loading it into the sniper riffle, Ez looked into the riffle. There really was no need to actually worry about missing his target. Not because of its size, but because of a certain alchemic symbol engraved on the barrel of the gun. Pulling the trigger the sound of the sniper going off could be heard far off. That was how powerful the gun was.

However no bullet erupted from the barrel of the gun. Only a small flash of light than nothing. However right out of the shadow of the nearest building the bullet appeared at blinding speed. The alchemic array engraved on the bullet was very similar to the one tattooed on a man's arm from long ago. Upon contact the bullet would activate pulling apart everything that the alchemic bear was made out of, most likely chunks of the building the alchemist had used.

A loud boom was all that Ez needed as he turned away from the scene and exited in the shadow of a building. He would leave the alchemist to one Lieutenant Crick.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Tyler leads the two soldiers thru the muck and grime of West City. He has no specific path and several times they have to turn around. His only plan is to put distance between him and the site of contact, and then hopefully find a god's damn radio.

After about half an hour of walking he stops and slumps against the wall, placing the rifle he had carried on the ground. Behind him the two soldiers stand nervously, after all it is a sewer.

"Sir?" the one named Jensen asks cautiously.

"I'm fine Private, just need a minute to think.... I'm sorry about your friend." Tyler says, trying not to think of the one thing he knows he has to do. The war would go on and he would have to do his part.

He couldn't show it but sometimes he wishes he was jsut independent. There are plenty of other Alchemists to do his job. But everytime he has those feelings he thinks back to the last war, and just shudders. They all did things they wern't proud of.

"I know sir, those damn Cretans will pay. But what's the plan sir?"

"The plan..." he says getting up, and taking the rifle over his shoulder, " the plan is to fight them. Mor of my creations, link up with any other survivors, call to Central for some back-up, and with any luck we won't all die before it's over. What mroe could a soldier ask for?"

He closes his ees and starts breathing heavily, each of his creations takes a lot of energy out of him, but he has to do it again. He motions for the soldiers to step forward around him, and then slams his hands on the pipes around him. Sewers were like quarries: plenty of material.

In several minutes he has two Bears. The now party of five heads deeper into the sewer.

[Red Loki (admin)]

Lieutenant Crick sat in his rolling red chair in front of the multiple computer screens hanging over head. Dressed in a white lab coat his fingers tapped away rapidly as all the screens switched to a single scene. It was the scene of three humans and two bear looking creatures walking down the sewer line. Lieutenant Crick shook his head in disappointment. Why in the world would such stupid people travel into his domain on purpose? And then to destroy some of it to create such ugly creatures? The disgust in Crick's glowing yellow eyes was clear.

Crick pushed back on his legs and he rolled away from the computer screens. Once he stood it was clear that Crick was a short man, only five feet tall. With eyes not exactly human, and face structured more like an animal than a human. In fact as he stood a long pink tail stretched onto the floor from behind the lab coat.

Crick's layer was simply a large open room that seemed to stretch for yards behind him. As he walked away from the computer screen the sound of scratches and growls began to grow louder and louder. As their sound continued to grow louder and louder it was quite clear that there were several of these creatures for it took quite a while until Crick arrived to the first steel cage. Inside was something quite monstrous. It was a chimera, that much was certain. But what kind of chimera remained hard to tell from first glance. However every single cage held the same kind of creature.

"Hello my pets." Crick smiled. "It seems there's some yummy snacks in daddy's new tunnel.

------------

Red was once again disturbed from his relaxation with the arrival of Ez. However Red wasn't all that angry since it was Ez who disturbed him and not some idiotic secretary. "What's the status?

Ez, with the large sniper riffle on his shoulder simply shrugged. "The beast was taken care of by me. The last I saw the enemy was heading down into the sewers." Red couldn't help but smile at that. The underground tunnels and sewers of the city had been under his control even before the take over of West City. He had Lieutenant Crick to thank for that.

Red reached once again for his walkies talkie. "Seal the sewers and tunnels. And Crick... I don't want them coming out of that place alive."

[Tyler Jorgensson]

The motly group proceeds deeper into the sewer system. Tyler appears to know where he is going but in truth he doesn't have a clue. If this were Central he'd be in the Furhers office by now, explaining the problem, but this wasn't Central.... this was West City.

Tyler has taken the rifl off his shoulder and begins using it as a cane as they walk further into the sewers. It's not so much he is wounded, just tired, making the "Bears" does take a lot out of him.

"Sir, something doesn't fell quite right," the corpral asks from behind him. Tyler doesn't stop but keeps walking, knowin this isn't about something immediately dangerous to them in the sewers.

"What is it?" he asks.

"Where are the other Alchemists? The rest of the Army? I mean we knew Creta was preparring for war yet we fell that quickly?" he asks. And Tyler stops suddenly. He was right, and Tyler didn't even consider it. Was this just like the last war? Some traitor in the goverment again? Not if he could help it.

"Don't worry about it right now son. Right now we only have to worry about the immediate future: getting out of this sewer and taking the fight to the enemy. What I wouldn't give for a map of the system right about now."

He can hear the other soldier in the back "What I wouldn't give for some noseplugs right now." Tyler resist the urge to reprimand the soldier: having seen his friend die and then crawling thru the sewer's with a "mad" State Alchemist. He is about to start moving when suddenly he hears something strange, scratching and growling.

"Something's coming." he says as he slings the rifle back, and draws his sword.