The Gunslinger Alchemist (Fullmetal Alchemist Fanfiction)

Within seconds, the world surrounding Carlyle was reduced to a shadowed mosaic of blurry motion. He was only able to keep his eyes open with great effort, and the tear gas prevented him from seeing the people surrounding him as anything more than indistinct shadows.

The loud footsteps of sprinting feet hitting the steel floor rang out, and Carlyle could hear the two alchemists charging in his direction. He let out a low whistle, sending a terse question to his subordinate.

Identify your present position.

A simple, nonspecific whistle came from Carlyle's side, informing him of Hotchkiss's position. The sound of heavy feet hitting the cabin floor echoed in his mind like the drumbeat of war, and Carlyle knew what he had to do.

One source of footsteps reached him, and the unmistakable sound of a material being shredded filled the cabin as the weight on Carlyle's shoulders shifted. At the corner of his senses, he was vaguely aware of the cloth of his overcoat being deconstructed into individual strands and the leather-bound parcel in his coat falling to the ground.

This aggression did not go unpunished. Carlyle pushed the barrel of his transmuted firearm against the shadowed individual who had just destroyed his coat and pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed through the cabin, and the figure pulled back in shocked pain.

Partially blinded by the tear gas, Carlyle rolled on his shoulder into a crouched position. He quickly loaded another bullet into his gun and leveled the barrel at the space just above where his destroyed coat had just fallen. The sights fixed with unflinching accuracy on the empty space for several seconds before a blurred figure appeared from out of the smoke.

The gun found its target, and Carlyle fired once more as soon as his sights were on the figure's center of mass. Just like before, a deafening gunshot filled the cabin. This time, however, this gunshot was paired with a woman's choking scream.

At that moment, Carlyle's vision cleared just enough for him to see color once more. Miriam appeared out of the fog of hindered vision, and she pressed a hand against a severe chest wound. Blood spurted from between her fingers, and her black shirt was stained almost completely red in just a few seconds. Even in his partially blinded state, Carlyle knew that his shot had punctured one of the major arteries in her chest.

As Miriam took a single faltering step backward, another figure stepped out of the smoke and caught her before she could fall to the ground. Erasmus, wearing the severe gas mask favored in modern warfare, held Miriam's bleeding body like he was holding a valuable work of art.

"H-help me," Miriam quietly beseeched Erasmus, and blood trickled out of her mouth. She wore glass goggles, but her mouth was uncovered. Carlyle made a mental note to keep goggles on his person at all times in the future. It was surprisingly difficult to transmute glass while in combat.

Like a lover caressing the object of his affection, Erasmus's hand moved toward Miriam's chest. Once there, he grabbed the leather parcel from her hands before pushing her violently toward Carlyle. All compassion and sentiment disappeared from his body language the moment the notes were in his hand.

"The Order thanks you for your service, madam," Erasmus said, his voice hindered by the leather held tight over his mouth. With no further hesitation, he began sprinting toward the rear of the train.

Miriam fell to the ground, screaming in pain as a pool of thick blood formed underneath her. Violent death was always the same, Carlyle thought with morbid interest. There was no honor in death, though the poets would like to pretend otherwise.

"She's dying, State Alchemist!" Erasmus called back with a cruel humor in his voice. "What will you do!? Will you save a poor, dying girl, or will you chase after a dangerous, rogue alchemist!?"

Carlyle wanted to respond to the magician's insult, but doing so would only invite chlorinated gas into his lungs. The tear gas in his eyes had nearly disabled him, and allowing it into his lungs would significantly worsen the problem. Without responding to Erasmus's mockery, Carlyle took a step in his direction. He took one more step and crouched down, transmuting a large steel barrier between himself and the magician.

A moment later, Carlyle turned back toward the woman bleeding to death. He knelt down next to her and pressed a hand against her chest. In a fraction of a second, the analysis stage of the transmutation process flooded his mind with the precise nature of Miriam's wound. Carlyle's bullet had pierced her diaphragm and, more importantly, her internal thoracic artery.

Clearly, standard alchemical first aid would be insufficient for this kind of injury, Carlyle thought. If he were to knit Miriam's wounds back together with a primitive lipid-protein lattice, the artery would be completely blocked. She wouldn't bleed to death that way, but it would cause her to die of a massive heart attack within minutes.

The procedure was far beyond Carlyle's abilities at the best of times, and he had to attempt it without the use of his eyes. He had to rely on alchemical analysis, which was good at conveying the chemical structure of the analyzed compound but bad at conveying large-scale structure.

With a single quick expenditure of will, Carlyle stopped Miriam's bleeding, creating a thin layer of scar tissue where the tissue had been destroyed. A second later, he pulled a transmutation disk out of his messenger bag and pressed it to Miriam's chest. He deconstructed the scar tissue blocking her internal thoracic artery, but this just caused her to start bleeding once more.

Over and over again, the sparks of transmutation shot outward as Miriam writhed and screamed in pain. Though she was no longer bleeding out of her chest, blood began to seep out of her mouth, eyes, and nose. Carlyle wanted to dose her with a sedative, but she was already teetering on the edge of death. The slightest alteration to her internal chemistry at that juncture could push her over the edge and induce a massive heart attack.

After six acts of painful transmutation, the procedure was over. Miriam slumped onto her back and immediately fell into unconsciousness as a tension headache thrummed through Carlyle's mind. Miriam would need a blood transfusion, and the hasty alchemical surgery would almost certainly leave her with chronic pain, but she would live.