AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm baaaack!

Sorry I haven't been on in a while. Schoolwork and Reddit can keep a man at bay for months at a time. Anyway, here's an announcement I posted on my profile page:

"After the Easter updates on FMA and New Avengers, the way I update stories will be done differently. I will now write a whole bunch of chapters in advance, and release them at set dates. FMA and Metropolis will be updated weekly, and New Avengers will be a monthly special."

Just wanted to give you all the heads up about that here, just in case you don't regularly visit my profile page. I'll be finding a place to post the release dates when I get a chance.

And now... the story! From first-person POV, like always.

WINRY

"Al! Al, where'd you go?!" I'd lost him again.

It had been a recurring problem with Al for the past few weeks. He was worried sick about Ed- not that I wasn't- but he would try once every week to make a break for it and look for him.

He never made it as far as the city's borders, mainly because he was slowed down by his bulky armor.

This time, though, it was different. He actually made it into the city. He'd killed a walker by the time I found him. "AL!"

He turned around. If armors had facial expressions, his would have been priceless.

"Winry! Um... what are you doing here?"

"Looking for you! Al, this is the third time I've had to chase you out here! Shouldn't Roy have been watching you?" I was not in a good mood now.

Al shook his head. "No, the colonel went into the RV to check on our food supply, so he asked Ms. Rebecca to watch me. I snuck away before she could even find me."

"Well, I've found you, and we're headed back to camp. As it is, we've got Ling, Riza, Breda, and some others out on their supply run. The last thing we need is you getting ripped to pieces."

LING

I assure you... this moron in black was the last I needed to complete what was already a crappy day.

The sheer fact was, he was about to get me and the others killed. His automail slowed him down, which slowed me down as well. "Will you hurry up, kid?!" I yelled. "You're going to get us killed!"

"Hey, I'm moving as fast as I can, okay?! I'm not used to running on an automail leg."

"Yeah, well, at least try to keep up. We're almost there."

"What? Where are we headed?"

I pointed to the building I was leading him to. It was a small department store on the east end of Central City. I'd brought some of my fellow survivors with me for the first time, and for the first time, a simple supply run got screwed up. "There's the door!"

Once we reached it, the little runt kicked the door open. Not off its hinges, thank God. But the lock holding it shut went clear across the room.

One of the people I'd brought with me was in there. The second the door slammed against the wall, she took out her rifle and slammed the kid to the ground. "Who are you?! What do you want?!"

That was Riza Hawkeye for you. The ideal soldier, all work and no play. She always had a screw-with-me-and-I-will-blow-your-brains-out-without-hesitation attitude. I'd almost never even seen her smile, except for when Colonel Mustang would make the occasional pass at her, resulting at her usually shooting at him, him cowering in the RV, and Riza giggling at his priceless expression.

When she got in a bad mood... it was never pretty. She'd never yell, though. Unless she wanted something... and it looked like she wanted something. "ANSWER ME!" She yelled.

I walked over to her. "He was getting swarmed with walkers. I had to save him. You know Roy's policy."

"I'm well aware, Ling. 'No man left behind,' and all that." Riza scoffed.

I narrowed my eyes. "Where's Jerso?"

"He's up on the roof, keeping an eye out for any walkers."

Then I heard two gunshots. They had to be coming from the roof, which meant only one thing...

I stomped off and headed for the roof. "Jesus Christ, what is Breda doing up there?!"

The sharpshooter led the short kid and me up to the roof of the store. Sure enough, there was Heymans Breda, picking off walkers with Hawkeye's rifle. Jerso was yelling at him to stop, while Breda pleaded. "Come on! I got two on my first try!"

Riza made no effort to conceal her fury. "Are you out of your mind?! You're ringing the dinner bell for every walker in the city!"

"Look, little Riza, I know what I'm doing. See, look, they're not even coming over-" Then he actually took a look at the ground below. "Oh. That ain't good."

There were at least three dozen walkers crowding the store doors. It looked like the fragile glass could give way at any moment.

"If they get in, I swear to God, Breda..." I stormed over to him, just about ready to slap the moron in the face.

He beat me to it. When Jerso leapt to my rescue, Merle hit him with the butt of Hawkeye's rifle.

"Now, we all gonna respect my authority here, or do I gotta slap you around again?"

The blonde kid impressed the hell out of me with what he did next. He walked up to Breda and decked him. The piece of trash fell down and hit the roof hard. Then the kid pulled him over to a nearby rooftop pipe.

Somehow, the little twerp used alchemy to bind Breda's right hand to the pipe, but he didn't use a transmutation circle. I'd never seen anyone do that before, not even with alkahestry.

"Who the heck do you think you are, some kind of cop?!" Breda spat.

"Oh, yeah, I'm a fifteen-year-old cop. Call me 'Officer Friendly.'"

"How the heck do I get out of this thing?!" Breda tried tugging on his makeshift restraints.

"You don't. You're stuck till further notice." The kid started walking away.

"YOU PIECE OF-" The moron was cut short by the butt of Riza's rifle.

The two blondes and Jerso started heading back into the building. I followed them, trying to tune out Breda's cursing. "YOU HEAR ME? YOU HEAR ME?!"

"Yeah, and so can every walker in the city." Jerso yelled over his shoulder.

The four of us closed the door to the rooftop and eventually drowned out the sound of Breda telling what we can go do to ourselves.

RIZA

"I'll admit, it felt good to shut up Breda," I confessed to the new guy.

"Is he always like that?"

I sighed. "He used to be a lot more likeable, before the world ended... but who knows? Maybe he was always like that and he just did a good job hiding it."

"So, we gonna leave him up there forever, or are we going back?" Jerso called out from behind us.

"I'll get rid of those bonds later. I can use my alchemy to deconstruct them."

I stared at him. "I have no idea what you just said... what's your name?"

"Edward. Edward Elric."

I nodded. "Well, Edward Elric..."

We reached the ground floor of the building and stared at the monsters surrounding us. "Welcome to Central City."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, we've met our basic cast, with the exception of Roy/Shane and (yes, I know everyone's probably looking forward to this) Havoc/Daryl. Now, we just have to see whether Ed remembers to free Breda, or if he incurs the wrath of Havoc.

Let's have a few sound bytes from the next chapter, shall we? (And no, they're not all from the same conversation. Also, I'm not telling you who says what.)

R & R!

"So, these things can tell us by smell?"

"Oh, don't tell me it's raining..."

"She's my best friend, you jerk!"

"I'm sorry... from five stories up? You're insane."

"You're telling me he's still there?!"

All in the next chapter of Fullmetal Apocalypse!