Fugitive (Part 3 - Bali)

After persuading Bali to repair his automail at Atelier Garfiel, the Elrics and Bali went straight to their destination. When they reached there, they found that Winry was already working on the automail exoskeleton, and Mei was watching Winry fix the automail. Paninya (the girl with the weaponized automail leg who works at Dominic's automail workshop) and Garfiel (the owner of Atelier Garfiel) were also there. When Garfiel saw the Elric brothers, he welcomed them with hugs. He looked at Ed for a moment and said, "My my, Ed…looks like you have grown taller than the last time I saw you."

Ed chuckled. "Yes, a little tall."

Garfiel had never seen Al in his real body, so he looked at Al very carefully. "Hmm, and you must be Alphonse," he said.

"Yes." Al smiled.

"It feels really good to see that you finally got your bodies back." Garfiel smiled.

Garfiel then looked at the tall dark man standing beside the Elric brothers. Garfiel moved his finger over Bali's chest. "And who would you be?" Asked Garfiel while looking into Bali's eyes.

"He is a friend of ours. His name is Bali. His automail is broken so we brought him here," replied Ed.

Garfiel slowly moved his finger from Bali's chest to his automail arm, and grabbed it very tightly. He looked at the automail from all angles and said, "Do not worry Bali, I will fix the automail better than before," with a sultry voice.

Everyone in the room was holding their laugh watching the interaction between Bali and Garfiel. Meanwhile, Bali thought, "I was more comfortable getting beaten by those 3 men."

Then suddenly, Garfiel stood straight and said, "The automail you have right now is very heavy and unreliable. If you want, I can make you a new one, which will be lighter and stronger than you have right now."

"But I don't have any money with me," replied Bali.

"Don't worry about that." Garfiel grinned

Bali got more uncomfortable watching the grin on Garfiel's face. Garfiel then asked Bali to sit on a chair so that he could remove the automail arm. Bali adhered to Garfiel's instruction and sat on the long bed-like chair. Once Bali was comfortable on the chair, Garfiel started detaching the automail arm. Meanwhile, Paninya asked, "So Bali, where are you from?"

"I came here from the Western Area, a month back. I have been staying in Rush Valley since then," replied Bali.

"That's strange, I never saw you in the city, and there aren't any Ishvalans in Rush Valley," said Paninya.

"People here were reluctant to give me a regular job. Somehow I managed to find a kind person who agreed to give me a job, but for a late-night shift and he advised me to hide my Ishvalan lineage if I want to survive in Rush Valley. Maybe that's why you never saw me," explained Bali.

"People here started getting afraid of Ishvalans after the Ishvalan war broke out. Things started looking good after few years of the end of Ishvalan war, but then the IFF came into the surface and people started looking at every Ishvalan as a terrorist, how unfortunate," said Garfiel and sighed.

"Even I broke the exoskeleton automail while fighting an IFF militant," informed Ed.

"You will never change." Paninya laughed.

Ed laughed as well, admitting his habits of getting into danger. Meanwhile, Al added, "The Ishvalan man was not a normal human though."

But, more than anyone, the piece of information piqued Bali's interest. He looked at Al with narrowed eyes and asked with an instant, "What do you mean by not normal human?"

"He was a human chimera…a leopard chimera to be precise," replied Al.

Bali eyes were widened. He laid back his head on the chair bed and looked at the ceiling. He went numb for a moment and then questioned hesitantly, "Was he…looking like…" He gulped and continued, "Me?"

"Initially, we were hesitant to ask you, as it could have gone wrong. But, now that you have mentioned it…yes, he was…kind of looking like you," replied Winry while working on her automail.

In the meantime, Garfiel detached Bali's automail arm. Soon after that, Bali stood up and looked at Ed and Al. "There is something you should know. I owe you people at least the truth if I cannot give anything else. I have not told this to anyone…mostly because it sounds ridiculous to the general public. You are alchemists, so I hope you will understand," said Bali.

Everyone in the room stopped their work and looked at Bali. "What truth?" Al asked.

"The person you caught is my younger brother, Bahu. We were almost about your age when the Ishvalan war broke out. Many of our people were dying every day before our eyes. Kids of our age were also fighting in the war… and many fled off to various parts of the country to hide. Even some people fled to a foreign nation to take refuge, but the countries were not allowing them to stay. I was not a brave Ishvalan who could fight alongside others, so I fled off like a coward, taking my brother with me. We went through the Great Desert and somehow got inside Drachma. We were trying to survive in Drachma, and because we were so identifiable in a crowd due to our lineage, surviving became more difficult. But, then one day the newly appointed Marshal of Drachma saw us on the roadside begging for food. He came to us and asked with a smile, "Do you need a home?" We were so desperate to have a place to sleep and eat that saying no was never an option for us. He took us to Junior Military Academy where children like us are trained to be future Drachmann soldiers. And one day we were enrolled for a program called Lab C. In that program, we were turned into some monster, which they called chimeras…But we had no problem with our new self. We were then given a better status, and assigned to Special Forces. Years passed on like that, until one day Bahu found out about IFF and the Ishvalans who were struggling to make Ishval a free country. He somehow got inside Amestris and joined IFF. Even the Drachmann military was unaware of his action until he got inside Amestris. Because I was his brother, the Drachmann military held me and punished me by cutting off my arm. Then they put me in jail, and suddenly almost two months back, they exiled me from Drachma. To survive, somehow I got inside Creta (Country at the western border of Amestris). Then I took the help of some smugglers to get inside West Area and then South Area, to search for my brother. I heard that there are some good and affordable automail engineers in Rush Valley, and I needed an arm. So, I came here and now I am stuck."

When Bali completed his story and looked around, everyone was looking at him with widened eyes and open mouth. Bali smirked at the reaction. "I told you it's hard to believe, but that is the truth," said Bali.

"So Drachma has alchemists who can create human chimeras?" asked Ed.

"That's true," replied Bali.

"Creating human chimera is a form of human transmutation, and that requires a philosopher stone to be successful," said Ed.

"I don't know what a philosopher's stone is, but I can assure you that there are lots of human chimera in Drachma. Maybe far beyond your imaginations," informed Bali.

"But, it's not possible because the only people who know the process of creating a philosophers stone are in Amestris," said Al.

After listening to Al, Bali started grunting and soon transformed into his chimera form. He was a Black Panther Chimera, different from his brother who was a spotted leopard. Garfiel and Paninya were the only ones there, who were shocked to see the transformation because that was the first time they saw a chimera. Bali looked toward the people around in his chimera form and smirked. Then he looked at the Elric brothers and asked, "Now do you believe me?"