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<We are in agreement, then?>

The response to the question was sung rather than spoken. A wordless song of agreement, however reluctantly. The Singer disliked its counterpart in the negotiations, but their expertise in the manipulation and interaction of the infinite medley of reality could not be denied.

The Singer felt remorse for what was to befall one of the endless variations of their greatest creation, but The Enemy in that variation had mutated in a way that must be contained. They had been preparing to erase that entire variation, just to ensure the Mutation could not spread and infect other variations, when The Representative arrived.

The negotiations had lasted for an Age and an Instance. But The Representative would isolate the Mutated Variation, protecting the rest of Creation from the virus it contained. In exchange, The Singer would not interfere with The Representative's superiors using it as a training ground for their Agents. The only concessions that The Singer agreed to were the exclusion of those that commanded a fundamental aspect of Creation, or those on the same level of power as that delightful psychopomp that favored the guise of a pale woman with dark dress, and that one native to the Mutated Variation would be given the same potential as the Agents being brought in.

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“You are banished from death. Cast adrift between the worlds of light and dark. A curse binds us together within the walls of Arda,” the spirit told Talion as the ranger stared out over the lands of Mordor.

“If what you say is true…” Talion began only for a woman’s voice to interrupt him.

“Partially, though there is more occurring here than the wraith is aware of,” the interrupting voice drew both man and spirit’s focus. The speaker was a gray skinned woman wearing purple leathers with skull motifs, a bow resting on her back, long white hair drifting from under her hood, and piercing red eyes.

“Who are you?” Talion asked, doing his best to keep from reaching for his sword. Something about the woman told him that if he attacked, she would easily kill him.

“I am a representative of a group that travels to different worlds to acquire and trade in different goods and services. Think of them as a merchant’s guild on a far grander scale than anything you’ve encountered. There is a war brewing between the guild I represent and one of their rivals, and this version of Arda was chosen to serve as training grounds for Field Agents,” the woman said.

“Impossible,” the spirit spat. “Even if such things existed, Eru Iluvatar would never allow such a thing.”

“In most circumstances, you would be correct,” the woman responded, making the spirit start in surprise. “However, the guild offered services to Eru Iluvatar and use of this version of Arda was payment for services rendered.”

“What manner of service could possibly have been worth such a thing?” Talion asked. He didn’t fully understand what the woman was saying, but he thought he understood the basics.

“Isolating this version of Arda so that Sauron could not travel to others and join forces with his counterparts. One Sauron nearly conquered Middle-earth, what do you think would happen if multiple versions of him joined forces?

“But regardless, that is neither here nor there. I am here so that my patrons can fulfill the terms of the agreement made with Eru Iluvatar. You, Talion of Gondor, have been chosen to be granted the same options and benefits of a Company Field Agent. Here is the build a future version of you chose, along with a little something you would end up making anyway, and your first opponents will arrive in a month, I highly suggest you use the time to find a place to claim as your own and add others besides the ghost of the Ringmaker to your retinue.”

The woman unceremoniously handed a pile of parchment and a small pouch to Talion as she spoke before seemingly vanishing into thin air. Talion still wasn’t sure he understood all of what the woman spoke of, but he understood enough. Powerful forces would be coming to Arda, he was the only one who knew about it, and the alternative was worse than even Sauron alone could ever hope to be.

Looking through the parchment he’d been given, Talion made note of the familiar handwriting: his own. Setting aside that question for later, as there was no one around who’d be able to answer it, it appeared that the overwhelming majority of what he’d been given were the various “Company Defenses” which ranged from protection against the mundane to the esoteric. But if he understood what he was reading correctly, a sword would still kill him as easily as it did beforehand. The rest of what he was being given were either learning aids, a map of Mordor that had multiple dots moving across it, something ominously named “Death Mask” and what looked to be a plain silver ring.

“Do you believe her?” Talion asked the spirit after a long while, ruminating over what he had been told and what he had read.

“By all rights I should not,” the wraith eventually answered. “Her words are madness, that reek of a scheme to distract us from the ones who did this to us. Yet… I sensed no falsehood from her, and the manner of which she vanished, it was unlike anything I know of, even with the Rings of Power.”

Talion took a breath and let it out in an explosive sigh, “She said we have a month to prepare. I don’t expect our new arrivals to have good things planned for Gondor or the rest of Middle-earth. Any idea what this is?”

Talion held up the silver ring, and the wraith examined it closely before he stumbled back in shock. Eyes wide, he said, "That is a Ring of Power, one comparable to the One Ring, yet it contains no trace of Sauron or Morgoth within it," his voice trailed off in a whisper. "It is pure."

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Elsewhere, on another world, a man smiled as he lounged on his chair. His hand ran through the fur-like hair of the chimera sitting next to him, as the door to the room fell apart into dust and four figures entered. One was a dark skinned man with his hair cut short, an x-shaped scar on his forehead, and an alchemical tattoo on his right arm. The next was a black haired man wearing the uniform of a State Alchemist and white gloves that had an alchemical circle on their back. The third towered over the others, a suit of armor housing the soul of a boy that sought the power of the gods. The last one was a short blonde glaring at him with more hate and fury than most could ever dream of.

“Please, come in,” the man drawled, unconcerned with the four as he continued petting and stroking the fur of the chimera next to him. “I was just getting ready to fix dinner. I have a new recipe I wanted to try, it calls for…”

“Shut. Up,” the blonde snapped, his entire being vibrating from the hate and rage he was feeling towards the still unconcerned man. “You think you can sit there, after all you’ve done, and act like it’s nothing?! The lives you’ve ruined, what you’ve done with Nina?!”

The man blinked, a smirk spreading across his face as he beheld the group. With a disappointed sounding sigh he stood up and rolled his neck, a series of pops emanating from him as he did so. The temperature in the room seemed to plummet, and the breaths of those in the room became visible.

“I do believe our guests have invited themselves for dinner,” he said, his skin paling to an ashen white and his body seemed to lose all muscle mass, becoming gaunt and emaciated, even as he seemed to loom over everyone in the room. “Bitch, feast.”

The chimera, once the girl Nina Tucker and her dog Alexander, stood, hackles raising even as a mist that seemed to radiate cold seeped between her teeth. The armored form of Alphonse Elric turned to look at Nina, “Nina, it’s us.”

At the same time his brother, Edward, clapped his hands together and snarled, “Don’t call Nina a bitch.”

A dark, hungry chuckle filled the room, as the man grinned a savage, wild grin, “I wasn’t.”

The sound of tearing flesh was followed by a cry of pain, as sharp claws and fangs tore into Scar’s back, ripping out gouges of muscle and severing the Ishvalan’s spine. Mustang spun around, to see an auburn furred figure, equal parts wolf and human, biting down on the back of Scar’s neck before ripping their head away, tearing the spine out of his neck and killing him. With the snap of his fingers, Mustang set the wolf-chimera on fire, which howled in pain before lunging at him.

As Mustang dealt with the unexpected arrival, Nina leapt at Alphonse, her body rapidly growing in muscle mass, as spikes and bone plates formed over her body. By the time she collided with the armored alchemist, she’d grown to be larger than a tank and easily bowled him over. Rapidly responding to the changing circumstances, Edward transmuted his automail arm into a blade and launched himself at the monster responsible for this.

The man, gaunt to the point of being skeletal, dodged Edward’s initial strike, before lightly jumping back to avoid the spinning kick that he threw, a laugh on his lips and he said, “Oh I’ve been waiting for this dance. Come, show me your skill, show me your conviction, it will make the meal once you die so much more satisfying.”

“SHUT UP!” Edward yelled, clapping his hands before slamming them onto the ground. The wooden floorboards warped and splintered, shooting for his target in a row of spikes set to skewer him. The now three meter tall figure continued to laugh, even as they leapt up and clung onto the wall like a warped, oversized bug.

“I wonder if Mustang will taste smokey, since he loves his fire so much,” the man goaded as he pushed off the wall towards Edward.

Mustang, for his part, couldn't retort to the taunt, not with the strange chimera doing its level best to eviscerate him with the razor sharp claws on its hands. Something about the cold in the room was dulling the effects of his flames, making them smaller and die faster than they should be. It didn’t help that the same cold was making it difficult for him to feel his fingers.

Alphonse, meanwhile, was attempting to restrain the empowered Nina, who seemed intent on tearing open the armor his soul was bound to like a can of beans. He was having little success, the strength in her enhanced jaws such that when she managed to bite on his arm, the metal crumpled and buckled. His attempts were made all the more difficult by the fact that he didn't want to hurt Nina, whom he remembered as the little girl and her dog that he'd befriended.

The gaunt man cackled, even as Edward drove the blade he'd transmuted from his automail arm through the man's hand. Skeletal, clawed fingers closed around Edward’s fist, and the young alchemist screamed as a dark, burning cold shot through him. Frost formed over his automail arm, and the oils that allowed the metal to move smoothly together froze solid, locking the prosthetic limb in place. The nature of automail meant that to Edward, his arm felt like it had been bathed in liquid nitrogen, without the blessing of the nerves dying before they could inform his brain of the damage.

“Brother!” Alphonse cried out, the elder Elric's scream of pain causing him to turn his attention from his own fight. It was a mistake that cost him, as the enhanced Nina pounced on the animated suit of armor and tore into the breastplate. Exposed, the alchemical circle that bound Alphonse's soul to the armor had little defense as Nina opened her maw and unleashed a wave of bitter, freezing cold. Metal turned brittle, and a paw the size of the armor's helmet came down, shattering the frozen armor. Destroying the alchemical circle that kept Alphonse Elric in the land of the living.

“AL!” Edward screamed in horror as the rest of the armor went limp.

The enhanced Nina didn't waste time, lifting her head and pouncing upon Mustang's exposed back. Before Edward was able to clap his hands to transmute something, twin pillars of ice rose up on either side of him, trapping his arms and lifting him five feet in the air.

“Now, now, let's not interrupt their meals,” the gaunt man said with a grin as he stepped up behind Edward.

The Fullmetal Alchemist turned his head and glared, doing his best to block out the sounds of the two chimeras eating the men he'd asked for help. Doing his best to spit on the man, Edward snarled, “Just get it over with.”

“Oh Edward,” the man chided with a grin that was far too wide. “I don't intend to kill you. Everything I've done since arriving in this World War One inspired shithole was to give you ample motivation. After all, if I'd made my offer from the get go, you wouldn't have considered accepting.”

Edward seethed, “You kidnapped Nina, tortured and dismembered Hughes, murdered Hawkeye, butchered Winry like a pig at the market, to make me an offer?!”

He chuckled, “Oh yes. I did all that and more. How was the soup at the inn last night? I was wondering if you noticed a little taste of home in it.”

The man turned around and walked a short distance, even as Edward turned green at what he was suggesting. He pulled a small device from a pocket, moments before what looked like a doorway opened in the middle of the room and a pale, sickly woman stepped out. Two metal cylinders dangled at her belt, her eyes glowed like rings of molten gold, brown hair done up in twin buns on the sides of her head, and she was dressed in a black, armored suit with a number of glowing lights on a square chestpiece.

The woman glanced around, sneered, and turned to the man, “Must you?”

“What?” he asked with a lazy, smug smirk, “I’m not so impolite as to refuse my girls a meal when dinner invites itself so readily.”

The woman sighed, “I hate dealing with wendigos.” Before she turned to look at Edward, “This the one?”

“That he is. I’ll be taking a little souvenir, but given what few clues I left to be found I think he’ll make a fine Agent with some training,” the man said, before he gave a sharp whistle and snapped his fingers.

The ice holding Edward aloft shattered, dropping him to the ground. Before there was a brief blur and Edward’s remaining arm fell off at the elbow. Edward grit his teeth at the pain and did his best to stem the flow of blood, even as Nina and the unknown chimera stopped cannibalizing Mustang and Scar and made their way to the monster that caused all this. Despite the pain, Edward still remained aware enough to see something that defied all his knowledge and experience in the rules of alchemy. The unnamed wolf chimera’s fur receded, their muzzle shrank back into a human face, their proportions shifted, and in mere moments where there had been the obvious product of human transmutation was…a naked girl. She wasn’t particularly pretty, looking rather brutish and masculine, but there was no mistaking her for a man with the not inconsiderate sized breasts on her chest.

The extra mass that had grown from Nina also fell away, sloughing off and giving a stench like week-old rotting meat, but unlike the other chimera, she remained transmuted, forcefully merged with her dog in a twisted perversion of what alchemy should be. As the two passed, Nina reached down and picked up Edward’s severed arm in her mouth, taking it to the man who took it from her with a smile and scratching behind her ear.

“Good girl,” he praised, causing Nina to lean into his hand. “Like I promised, once we reach our next destination, I’ll give you a special treat.”

“Stop playing around and get moving,” the armored woman snapped, and the man chuckled in amusement before he, Nina, and the naked girl disappeared. The woman still remaining spat on the ground, muttering to herself, “Sick fuck.”

Turning to face Edward, she walked up to him and raised her hand up into the air. To his shock, Edward did as well, some invisible force holding him in place as she reached down to her belt and pulled out what looked like elements from a first aid kit. Pulling his stump out, she not so delicately said, “Hold still, asshole just had to leave me with the cleanup.”

“Who are you, and how do you know that son of a bitch?!” Edward hissed through clenched teeth.

“Company Agent C-56-&2341, you may refer to me as Darth Lash. You were recommended as a potential recruit for The Company, and Company Agent C-56-&2334 was assigned to bring you around to being open to recruitment. Though why anyone thought sending a fucking wendigo on a recruitment assignment was a good idea is beyond me.”

[hr][/hr]

[center]<<Company Agent C-56-&2334>>[/center]

I whistled a tune to myself as I tossed the severed arm into my Pocket Space, that made four missions successfully completed, and once my retinue and I had our rest period, I’d be eligible for getting a name again. Just in time too, from what I’d heard around the watercooler between assignments, The Company and The Guild were preparing for another Corpo-War. Personally, I hoped things spilled over into open conflict, I really wanted to pit myself against prey that could seriously fight back.

While I wouldn’t have picked Wendigo for my heritage when I was initially hired (given how I was repulsed by the thought of eating long pork back then), it certainly made setting up a home field advantage easy. Hunting Grounds made me more powerful while I was within it, while simultaneously making any enemies suffer from hunger and starvation pains the longer they remained inside. I wouldn’t have had as easy a time dealing with the heavy hitters of Fullmetal Alchemist without it. Well, that and heavy albeit subtle use of my Boreal Shroud.

“Mast…er…” Nina’s voice pulled me from my ruminations. Turning my head to look down at her, I smiled at my furry-loli, which she took as permission to continue, “Special…play…please?”

“You’re right,” I told her, kneeling down to be close to her eye level and rubbing my hand against the back of her head. Her eyes closed as she leaned into my hand, “I did promise that. Once we’re given some rooms to stay in, I’ll get right on that.”

I admit, I was surprised by Nina’s eagerness for pups, but I suppose it made some level of sense, given how Alexander had been fully grown and not fixed. With Nina’s chimera form being female, she got shoved head first into puberty, and from what I could tell she was in the middle of her heat.

“Company Agent C-56-&2334,” a bored voice said, pulling my, Nina, and Rachel’s attention. At a glance, I’d say the speaker was a version of either Jean Grey or Lily Potter, and seeing she had our attention she continued, “If you’ll follow me, your assigned quarters are this way. You have a one week rest period before you will be given your next assignment.”

“Lead on, MacDuff,” I quipped with a grin as I straightened. I always wanted to say that.