Chapter Text
Master Sergeant Kain Fuery sat high in an observation tower, surrounded by radios. Somewhere below him, two teams of soldiers swept the streets of the abandoned industrial district. He was in charge of overseeing communication for the mission. Next to him sat Lieutenant Hawkeye, who surveyed the district through the scope of her gun. So far, the mission had been uneventful, but the tension in the air was thick, they were all waiting for the pin to drop.
As the reconstruction of Ishval progressed, direct oversight became less necessary and General Mustang’s Unit began to accrue other responsibilities. One of them being the monitoring of any and all potentially nefarious alchemical activity. Six days ago, they had received somewhat reliable intel that a rogue group of alchemists in the north had somehow come into possession of a philosopher’s stone.
The original plan had included the whole unit heading north to track down the stone, but problems had arisen in New Ishval, a construction site had partially collapsed, and the General was required report to Central to handle the administration issues that were bound to stem from the incident. So, the team split. Hawkeye had volunteered to lead the mission. Fuery chose to accompany her, while Lieutenants Havoc and Breda were to accompany General Mustang.
Captain Falman had also been requested from Briggs to join the unit headed north. Given his experience in the region and with the team, he seemed a natural choice. Major General Armstrong agreed to their request, pleased to not have an eastern unit in her territory without a northern escort. Captain Falman was not overly pleased to be out in the field again, but had been happy to see his old compatriots nonetheless.
Prior to their departure for the north, General Mustang had pulled both Fuery and Hawkeye aside, giving them the classic “You are both under orders not to die” schtick that had become a bit of a tradition for the team since the events of the Promised Day. The two subordinates nodded and saluted their general, Lieutenant Hawkeye turned and left, but before Fuery could follow her, Mustang grabbed his arm.
“She’s always watching everyone else’s back, so make sure you're watching hers”, the General warned, “and keep me updated. I want a daily report every evening and additional reports should there be any developments. Standard procedures and codenames should be adequate.”
Fuery nodded mutely, he would have done all of that without Mustang’s directions, but the General was always a bit of a worrier when it came to his unit.
“Shit”, Fuery was pulled from his reverie by Lieutenant Hawkeye’s voice. She pulled back from her position at the window and stood.
“The team is getting spread too thin, I can't give them cover from here, I need to change positions”, she began packing up her rifle.
Fuery was apprehensive, despite the two privates on guard duty outside the door, he felt safer when the Hawk’s Eye was in his immediate vicinity. And besides, he was told to watch her back, how could he do that if she was on a totally different rooftop?
But she was right, the team was going to be out of line of sight soon, and while they couldn’t move their radios this late in the game, they could reposition their sniper.
“At least take a radio, we’ll need to stay in touch should something go wrong.”
The Lieutenant shook her head, “That’s too much to move quickly. If things go wrong I’ll report to the rendezvous location, if that’s not an option then I’ll resort to the secondary rendezvous point. I’ll be positioned in that building to the east, just below the water tower”, she gestured out the window before placing a hand on Fuery’s shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze, ”You’ll be fine. If they don’t find anything by sunset, call everyone back, and we'll try again tomorrow.”
Fuery nodded and returned to monitoring the radios, marking down on the map which regions of the district had been cleared as the squads phoned it in. Every few minutes his gaze fell on the water tower, he hoped she’d made it indoors by now, even without heating, the insides of the old structures were significantly warmer than the freezing conditions outside. Fuery shivered, it was hardly even late autumn, but some of the Briggs soldiers were already warning that it was looking like the first blizzard of the season was just around the corner.
The young Master Sergeant wasn’t able to muse about the weather for long, as the radio to his right burst to life, a voice crackled over the speaker, “Blue Squad reporting in we have movement in the building to the northwest of us, mapped as 22-Charlie, stand by while we investigate. Over.”
Fuery checked the map and picked up the radio to answer, “Roger Blue Squad. Standing by. Over.”
Just as he placed the receiver down, he checked the map again and grabbed the other radio receiver, “Red Squad hold position, I repeat, hold position. Blue Squad is reporting movement to the south east of your current position, building 22-Charlie. Hold position and stand by until further instructions. Over”
The reply came almost immediately, “Roger that, Red Squad is holding position and standing by. Over.” Fuery could recognize that voice as Falman’s.
A minute passed.
Two.
Three.
Fuery remained on the edge of his seat, waiting.
Brief gunfire sounded in the distance, followed moments later by the radio. “Two hostiles down, two surrendered, five have fled to the north and the east. Over.”
That worked in their favor, the hostiles were fleeing in the direction of the Red Squad and the Hawk’s Eye. “Roger Blue Squad, sending Red Squad to pursue the hostiles. Over.”
Grabbing the other radio, Fuery phoned Falman. “Red Squad head Southeast, you are in pursuit of hostiles fleeing Blue Squad’s position.”
“Roger that, Com. In pursuit. Over.”
Two gunshots sounded in quick succession, followed by another a few moments later. The echo was much more pronounced than the gunshots from earlier. Fuery smiled to himself, looks like the targets had found themselves in the sight of the Hawk’s Eye.
“Com. This is Blue Squad. We have found our man. I repeat, we have found our man. Preceding to rendezvous. Over.”
That was the code phrase. They had secured the philosopher’s stone. Fuery radioed the red squad.
“Red Squad, we have found our man. I repeat we have found our man. Over.”
“Roger that Com. All targets have been bagged, it seems that someone had been so kind as to cripple some of them for us. We are heading to Rendezvous. Over.”
“Roger that, Red Squad. Over.’’
Fuery sat back and took a breath. After four days out in this cold Hellscape, they had finally managed to find what they were after. He could finally go back to sleeping in a heated room again.
His eyes fell on the building where Hawkeye had made her nest, he wondered if she would wait for sunset, which was still over an hour away, before finding her way to the rendezvous location or if she was able to figure out they’d already bagged the stone. Fuery briefly considered sending a few soldiers to collect the lieutenant, but thought better of it, she’d gut him alive for giving away her position like that.
It took Blue Squad about 20 minutes before they checked in at Rendezvous. It took Red Squad over upwards of 50 to arrive.
Once both divisions had made it to rendezvous, Fuery called in the privates from outside, and the four of them began to pack up the equipment. The sun was dipping below the horizon as the last bag was packed. Fuery looked to the water tower and smiled, she would give him so much shit if she beat him back to Rendezvous.
Fuery was about to give the signal to move out when a bright flash caught his eye. He whirled around just in time for a jaw rattling BOOM to send him stumbling.
Recovering just moments later, Fuery’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Fire roared a few blocks away and the structures within the inferno were crumbling rapidly. The water tower, and the building underneath it was gone.