Abandoned

Julius raised his hands above his head. It was best not to make enemies right now, especially when his brother was two floors up. He doubted this chimera could ever match his fighting skills, but he would abstain from testing that theory as long as he possibly could. "If you don't attack me, I won't attack you," he promised. If only Arthur would get down here soon - two of them was always better than just one.

There was movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun around to get a better look at what he had seen; relief flooded him when he realized it was just his brother climbing down a thick bunch of vines that were near the entrance to the second floor. When he was only a foot above the ground, he let go and landed with a gentle thud.

Arthur glanced over at Julius and the man about to fight him.

"Is that a chimera-?"

Julius gave him a deadpan look. What else would he be?

"Is he one of yours...?" Arthur cautiously asked, slowly inching away from the two. He was already beginning to look elsewhere - probably for the source of all of those voices.

"No," Julius said. He thought for a moment and took a deep breath. He didn't want to think about them. Not here, not now. "None of them ever mentioned a black cat chimera." Which meant that other experiments had been happening. The thought made his blood boil with anger.

Arthur continued to search the room for the final person. Both of them must have come to the same conclusion - the different people they had heard was just the same person, and they were apparently quite good at manipulating the sound and location of their voice. As Julius continued to watch the chimera in front of him, Arthur narrowed in on the few hiding spots large enough to hide a person in the building.

He came to a stop before a wall with a crack in it and peered inside.

"Hello," Arthur said, giving an absolutely terrifying smile with a slight wave of the hand. It looked like his brother had found who he was looking for.

They turned their heads towards the commotion. "Should we go?" Cole asked Serena. She nodded and stood up, then helped him up. The two walked as quietly as possible towards the noise. Serena held her knife ready to throw, and Cole held his sharped stick like a spear. They hid behind the rocks, watching them.
"What do we do?" Serena whispered.
"We don't do anything." Cole whispered back. So instead they sat there, waiting for something to happen.

Clutching his head with one hand while resting the other hand on the wall, Lunis spat back (spraying some blood in the process), "I don't trust you." He reached for the human, but was unsteady enough to stumble and fall towards the ground again. Fortunately, Lunis caught himself this time, though he quickly slumped and dropped his head on the floor.

Groaning, he sat up and pressed his back against the wall. "And what'd you call me?" he hissed, pulling out one of his daggers and holding it in a shaky hand as he waved it in the human's direction. Lunis glared at the human watching over him, briefly pointing his head in the direction of the other human who had arrived. "I'm - I'm Lunis, not some kind of - of beast."

Julius was unfazed by the threat the dagger poised. It wasn't the first time a blade had been pointed at him, and the reaction certainly was to be expected from someone like the man in front of him. He had received similar reactions from chimeras in the past.

"Lunis, then," Julius corrected. If he wasn't comfortable with being called a chimera, then so be it. The identity a person constructed of themselves was fragile, and he had no right to break it.

He gave him a lazy smile and held out his hand, despite the presence of the dagger. "You can call me Julius. Neither my brother or I are going to harm you."

Lunis hesitated, dagger still in one hand. As his mind slowly worked to repair itself, he suddenly remembered having thought that he wouldn't fight these two. They were strong and dangerous, as shown by how readily they had spotted him. Thanks to his injury, Julius could have easily incapacitated or killed him by now. The only reason Julius could have to reach a hand out was genuine kindness. Or possibly to kill Lunis at the last second, but that seemed too convoluted and sociopathic. So, nobody wanted to fight. Why start one?

Slipping the dagger back into his pocket, Lunis shook Julius's hand. "What's your brother's name?" Lunis said, voice less slurred. "And what's a - a chimera?" He had heard the brothers refer to him as some kind of black cat, but the word chimera was alien to him. It made him feel like a creature, maybe a pet or a slave. Lunis hated it already.

"His name is Arthur," Julius said, still giving him that lazy smirk. The second question that had been poised was one that didn't make much sense - how could someone not know what a chimera was? He supposed someone with a limited knowledge of alchemy would be ignorant of its meaning, but Lunis was an alchemical creation. Someone must have used that word around him at least once.

Fortunately, it wasn't hard to explain what a chimera was.

"A chimera's a living creature that's a combination of two things," Julius explained, casually slipping his hands into his pockets and leaning back ever so slightly. "Apparently alchemists can make one with pretty much anything, but I'm not an alchemist. The chimeras I know are combinations of human and animals. They act and look mostly human, but I have seen Dolcetto pee on the sofa once or twice. So they've definitely got some animal in 'em too."

How bad had that concussion been? Was he hallucinating things now?

Lunis shook his head, which only made his headache worse. "Never heard of that," he said, blinking his eyes. "There was one guy who tried to do something like that, but he was a bit nuts. It also didn't work. Are we thinking of the same thing here? I've met some alchemists, but all they do is help me with poisons." He stared up at the flight of stairs extending into the far distance. "Don't know any dogs who act like that either. Is this a dream?"

Riku gave one of his own evil grins, his face illuminated by his cell phone.
"Why hello there," he said, the phone tilted towards his face.

Now, while Arthur may have found the crack where the sound of his voice was coming from, it was far from where he actually was. Arthur found a small, red bluetooth speaker. Connected invisibily to it, was Riku's phone. Into which he was speaking.
"As congratulations on finding my speaker, have a song," the speaker let out, the blue LED flashing slowly.
Riku, from his hiding place up above, tapped an icon on his phone.

And thus he began playing the Black Panther Album.

"It's not a dream-" Julius started to say, getting the very beginnings of a terrible feeling in his gut. He was starting to suspect that they had ended up in another reality. This time, however, alchemy wasn't a thing. Considering that alchemy was likely the cause for how he had gotten there in the first place - alchemy was always responsible for things that couldn't be explained - that was going to pose just a bit of problem.

But before he could even finish his sentence, he heard Arthur give a startled cry. Instinct kicked in over reason. They were supposed to be normal. That was the whole reason for the aliases in the first place! But Arthur rarely was startled, and hearing that noise made him get startled too. As he turned to see what was threatening his brother, the Ultimate Shield appeared on his left hand and went up to his shoulder - though only the part on his hand was visible. Dark, hard carbon took the place of regular skin, and claws took the place of his nails.

And that was when he heard the music.

Music that, oddly enough, was coming right from where his brother was.

Arthur, no longer startled by what was apparently a little red speaker, grabbed onto it and pulled it out of the crack. He flipped it over in his hands, and that was when Julius realized he had overreacted. "It doesn't have a wire," he whispered, holding it up. "I'm not sure how, but it's-it's wireless."

Julius stared.

"You should see this, Julius-" He paused upon seeing the Ultimate Shield out of the corner of his eye. "Oh. Oh no."

Spoiler

Clarice:Taller than average, with an athletic build. Light brown hair hastily cut into a bob. She wears a long-sleeved maroon shirt under an ill-fitted leather jacket, jeans covered in what's (hopefully) red paint, and a pair of worn black boots. There are strange red tattoos on her hands, which look like they run up her arms. A red bandana covers the bottom half of her face and neck. She carries a small backpack. Clarice's movements are sharp but shaky, and she's constantly looking over her shoulder. She's in her late teens, but the hollow look in her eyes make her seem older than she is.

Chimeras.
There were chimeras around the corner.

That wasn't good. Clarice's encounters with chimeras had never been pleasant, and she had no reason to believe that they could be. Expecting an impending fight, she quickly looked around for something —anything— to use to her advantage. Her eyes settled on a pipe, which protruded partially from the wall. She could use that. Clarice placed her hand on the pipe.

There was a flash of blue-white light as she transmuted the pipe into a long, somewhat rusty knife. It clattered to the floor, and Clarice bent down to pick it up. She twirled it experimentally between her fingers and found herself satisfied by how balanced it was.

She rounded the corner, gripping the knife like a lifeline.

Lunis watched as, in short order, one of the humans grew a new arm, another found strange music coming out of a tiny disc, and yet another person slipped into his field of view and came towards him with a rusty knife. No, this had to be a dream. A dream wouldn't acknowledge itself as one, so of course Julius would be in denial. But Lunis knew better.

"Get back!" Lunis shouted at the new human, who was wearing a bandana over her mouth. He pulled out his own daggers and took a fighting stance, inching back to the edge of the stairs. He'd be fine. This was a dream, after all. How badly could he be hurt?

Cole stood up. "Hand me the knife." Serena handed him the dagger, and he held it ready to throw. Serena followed behind him quietly. "What's that noise?" She asked him. "I don't know." Cole said. They made their way toward the stairs. "Duck!" Cole whisper shouted. There were others. "People?" Serena asked.
"One of them dosn't look like a human."
Serena stared at them.
"I don't like the look of them." She said.
"It's ok." Cole reassured her.
Thye stood up and walked in the shadows, just in case. When they were only two feet away, Serena dropped the spear. She grimanced as the spear hit the floor with a clatter.

The Ultimate Shield began to appear on his other hand, too, almost immediately continuing upwards and covering around the same amount of skin that it had on his left arm. If a fight was about to break out and he had already revealed that he wasn't exactly normal, what point was there in hiding it? He'd keep the full extent of his abilities a secret for now, but he'd use the Shield if he had to.

There was a loud clattering from nearby. Torn between looking at the girl with the knife and the source of the sound, he ultimately decided that the fight with the girl was just a little more pressing. Julius was prepared to come to the not-chimera's defense - anyone who was clearly being attacked for not being human automatically deserved his protection. He took a step in his direction. Held out his hands, claws shining in the light.

"Would everyone just stop trying to fight each other!?" Arthur suddenly burst out. Julius turned to look at him. He doubted it would have much effect on the others, but they were siblings. When your brother suddenly started shouting and never usually did so, it was a sign that you needed to pay attention.

"I'm trying to figure out how I got here, and the last thing I needed is someone getting murdered," Arthur continued, waving his hands about as he spoke. He must have been really mad - Julius couldn't remember the last time he had been this expressive. "I have no idea who you guys are. And, honestly, I don't care! You can kill each other. But at least have the decency to do it somewhere else."

Riku tapped away on his screen, one eye on his phone, the other on what was going on below. (Not literally, of course. He may he skilled, but not that skilled).

The music from the speaker changed. You Say Run began to play, in preparation for the possible fight.
"Hey, my dude, don't break my speaker, please. I kind need it, so...yeah."

Lunis paused. As callous as Arthur's statement was, it was loud and angry enough to catch his attention, not to mention finally dispel whatever was left of Lunis's disorientation. "It's a little hard," Lunis growled, daggers raised, "When someone's trying to stab me."

He focused on his opponent. She only had one rusty knife, but anybody trying to pick a fight with him was either stupid or dangerous, and she looked more like the latter. All the strange tattoos on her contributed to that impression. Julius had grown claws on his other arm as well, and now he appeared ready to fight the opponent. However, despite the apparent advantage, Lunis wanted her to make the first move, if she did attack. It would be a better way to figure out her style and circumvent it.