-Chapter One-

“Equivalent exchange.”


“What?”


He turned around. “Equivalent exchange. Like Fullmetal Alchemist. 'To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.' You remember that, don't you? We spent months watching it; you must know!”


Peter chuckled. “You always were the nerdy one.”


Roy knelt again, scooping up some mud from the ground and packing it into a ball in his hands. “I'm being serious here. I have some kind of special power here, and you laugh at me like I'm joking.”


“Because you're a jokester. Most days I can't tell when you're being serious or when you're pulling my leg. The day you're actually being serious when you say you're being serious is the day I become a millionaire.”


“Well,” Roy began, standing up and turning towards his friend, “that day is today.” He held out his hands, the ball of mud encased between them. “I have your million dollars right here, if you will take my word for it.”


“A million dollars, huh? I doubt that mud is worth as much as you say it is.”


It was Roy's turn to laugh. “I'm telling you, I can make you a millionaire with this mud. All I ask is that you take the chance and believe in me.”


“Okay, fine. I believe you. Can I be a millionaire now?”


Roy pressed his hands together and closed his eyes for a moment. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and smiled. “Close your eyes and hold your hands out. I'm going to give you a present.”


Peter sighed, but closed his eyes and held out his hands to oblige his friend. The next thing he knew, he was dropping something very heavy. It fell to the ground with a dull thud.


“You can open your eyes now.”


Peter did so and looked to his feet. Where there should have been a ball of (very heavy) mud, there was actually a ball of gold. Pure gold.


“Wha- how? You did this?! How did you do this?!”


Roy began to laugh. “That's just it; I don't know! I concentrated on that ball of mud and told it to become something of great worth, and that's what it became! Now, if you don't want it, I'm sure I can find a use for it...” He stepped towards his friend, but Peter knelt and scooped up the precious metal first.


“It's really heavy. Is gold supposed to be this heavy?”


“Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be that heavy.”


“What do we do with it?”


“We? Nothing. You should have it appraised. Say you found it in the rock quarry a couple miles from here. Do something for your family with the money you get from it. I have a few experiments I have to do, and soon I'll be leaving this go-nowhere town. You should too.”


Peter furrowed his brow. “So, that's it? You hand me this lump of gold, free of charge, and then tell me you're going to disappear? Will we cross paths again?”


Roy nodded. “I'll find you, and we'll hang out again. But not here. And not soon. I have a few things I need to do first.” He paused and thought for a moment. “Move to Colorado. I hear it's getting to be an awesome place to live nowadays, and your mother would benefit from the fresh air. In a year or two I'll show up at your front door.”


“How will you afford to move?”


“Peter, I can turn mud into gold. I don't think money is going to be that big a problem for me.”

---


-Chapter Two-


--Six Months Later--


“Making another deposit, mister Skater?”


Roy nodded. “Yes, ma'am. Six hundred twenty five dollars and seventy-two cents.”


“Yes, sir. Would you like an account summary on your receipt, then?”


“That would be awesome.”


The bank teller punched in a few keys and printed out a slip for Roy. “Here you go. Have a nice day, Roy.”


Smiling, Roy took the slip and stuffed it into his pocket. “Thank you, ma'am. You too.”


With that, he turned and strode out the front door of the bank, heading for his bicycle. Once he was out of the building, he took the slip from his pocket and read it. “Fifteen thousand seventeen dollars and twenty-eight cents. Just a couple more months of this lame shit job and I'll be out of this town for good. I can't wait!” Ecstatic, Roy stuffed the slip back into his pocket and mounted his bike, readying himself for the ride home.


The sound of sirens caught his attention as he eased himself onto the sidewalk lining the busy street. Over his shoulder, he caught the flashing blue and white lights of police cars following what looked like a blur of green and black. “Obviously a street racer,” he thought to himself. Though he felt he should keep a low profile, he wasn't against stopping a criminal if he felt that people could get hurt, and street racing in such a small town was just a stupid way to hurt people. Roy dropped his bike and, thinking quickly, pressed his hands to the street ahead of him. In a flash, the asphalt before him turned to mush, spreading across the road. A fifteen foot by fifteen foot square of steam rose up, leaving nothing behind but a four foot deep hole. Sure, the cops behind the guy might get hurt, but the racer himself would take the brunt of the attack.


Roy stepped back and got behind the guardrail just in time for the speed racer to hit the hole. His car dove nose first into the ground underneath the open asphalt, flipping forward and ejecting the driver through the windshield. The cops behind him managed to stop in time to avoid their collision, while the driver rolled another three hundred feet before coming to a stop on his back. He was bleeding from his face and through several torn holes in his clothing, while his left arm and right leg lay splayed at odd angles beside him, but he looked to still be alive. Roy was satisfied with his work.


He grabbed his bicycle and biked as quickly to the scene of the accident as seemed to be appropriate for a curious onlooker, then took out his cell phone and dialed 911 for an ambulance. The police detained him and several other civilians to collect their statements, but as far as Roy could tell, nobody had seen him do anything. This was a GOOD thing.


The rest of the ride home was uneventful. He arrived at his apartment fifteen minutes after he left the scene of the accident, climbed the stairs, and entered his home.


Or he would have, had he not noticed his door ajar. He instantly assumed a defensive stance and crept up to the door, listening intently for any noises of people inside. Hearing none, he reached for the handlebars of his bicycle and concentrated, feeling the metal twist and bend in his grip. Within seconds he held a mithril warhammer in his hands, looking like something straight from a D&D Handbook. Gripping it in his left hand, he pushed open the front door of his apartment with his right, and stepped slowly inside.


The first thing Roy noticed when he entered was the smell. It smelled of dust and cat piss. It smelled like whoever had broken into his place was a crazy cat lady who had not showered in months. Secondly, the entire place was ransacked, but none of his electronics were gone. His laptop still sat in the corner of his living room, virtually untouched save for being flipped upside down and the battery lying a few feet from it. Likewise, his television lay on the floor a foot or two from the entertainment center where he kept it, but his Xbox was still in its place. He traversed from the living room to his bedroom which was equally disheveled, but again, nothing was missing. He checked the bathroom and the kitchen, and found both rooms in equal states of disarray.


He backtracked to his bedroom and kept quiet, listening for sounds of breathing or shuffling. He thought he heard something coming from his closet, so he shuffled to the wall behind the door and gripped the doorknob. Taking a deep breath, he ripped the closet door open and then gripped his warhammer, ready to fight whoever might bound from it.


A body fell out of the closet, hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Roy slammed the head of his warhammer into the floor next to the figure's head, and the person curled into a ball, whimpering. “Don't hurt me, don't hurt me!” it cried out.


“Who are you and how did you get in here?” Roy demanded, lifting the warhammer and readying it once more.


“My name is Kain and I'm just looking for a safe place to hide!” came the reply.


“Hide from whom?”


“Paris,” Kain answered in a weak voice.


Roy propped the warhammer against the wall and roughly lifted Kain from the floor, grabbing his shirt and shoving him against another wall. The man looked absolutely terrified, and Roy could feel every inch of the man's body trembling. “Were you the one who ransacked my place? What were you looking for?”


Kain swallowed. “I had hoped that the owner would call the police instead of investigating! I didn't steal nothing, I swear! If you let me go I'll never bother you again!”


Roy loosened his grip and let the poor man drop to the floor. He pointed in the direction of the front door. “Get out, and don't come back. If anyone comes after me because of you, I'll find you and make you pay for it.”


Kain nodded vigorously and ran for the door, Roy on his heels. He watched the man exit and tear down the stairs, racing away of the apartment complex and running down the road as fast as his legs could carry him. As soon as Roy was satisfied the man was gone, he shut the apartment door and Began cleaning up his apartment.


An hour of cleaning later, Roy was satisfied that indeed nothing had been taken. His apartment was once more just as spotless as it had been when he'd left that morning. After once more giving the apartment a thorough searching through, He set up his laptop and opened up his journal.


“Entry 184 – September 26. Found a strange man named Kain in my apartment today. He claimed to be hiding from another person named Paris. I don't quite believe him, so I think I'll be sleeping in the living room tonight.


“Deposited my weekly 'paycheck' into my savings account today. Three more months of saving and I'll finally be satisfied enough to leave this fucking hellhole. Colorado, here I come!”


Satisfied with the entry, Roy saved the document and closed the laptop. It was still early, but he decided he'd turn in for the night, and perhaps look into this Paris person in the morning.

---


-Chapter Three-