“Darish …”
He cast aside his hardened emotions, including the melancholy and impatience he had been carrying, and raised his head gallantly. Seeing Darish like that made Winry’s heart swell with joy.
However, they still hadn’t left danger behind. Before they could pry away the boards that had been nailed over the door, the man who had been sent flying leapt to his feet and roared, “If that’s what you’re plannin’ then we’ll show you what real villains look like!”
The man grabbed Winry’s and Darish’s shoulders from behind, pulling them down by brute force. The loosened boards clattered. The pair had been about to make a quick escape, but now were sent flying to the floor and rolled along the ground.
“Ahh!”
The man paid no mind to Darish as the boy’s crutch toppled and he lost the ability to move. Instead he pushed Winry to the ground and held her hand up, twisting with a terrible amount of force.
“Stop it!” Darish shouted.
He desperately reached out to grab the man’s clothes. However, he was lying on his side and couldn’t move. No matter how hard he tried to pull the man away, he didn’t budge at all.
Winry’s arm was grating painfully. Winry shut her eyes, preparing herself for the worst.
The next moment, a dreadful crack resounded through the warehouse.
“Huh?”
Winry didn’t feel the pain or shock of a broken bone. When she opened her eyes, light from the streetlamps poured in, illluminating the ground in front of her.
“Winry, dear, where are you?! Are you okay?!”
None other than Garfiel had heroically kicked open the boarded-up door.
Once Garfiel recognized that Winry was pinned down and was about to have her arm broken, he glowered.
“You get your grubby li’l mitts off my darling apprentice!”
He ran over in a flurry of protective anger. When his heavy fist connected with the man’s head, the man didn’t even have time to react before he was sent flying through the air. He got entangled in the shelving and caused a glorious racket in his descent to the floor of the warehouse.
“Oh my, you’ve forced me to say such unbecoming things,” Garfiel sighed. He straightened the suspender that had slipped down so that it was perfectly straight again and bitterly glared at the man who had caused him to speak in such an uncouth manner.
“Mr. Garfiel, why are you here?” Winry asked.
Garfiel beamed as he offered a hand to both Winry, who had remained on the ground stunned, and Darish.
“I couldn’t just do nothing knowing my apprentice was in danger. And if those shady businesses have their way, Rush Valley won’t have a future. We can’t be scared of them claiming we’re obstructing their business. Everyone banded together and decided to chase them out,” Garfiel said.
“Everyone?” Winry repeated as, suddenly, Henrik and Weis rushed in.
“Catch them! We’re handing them over to the military police!”
“Yeah!”
People started flooding in one after another from the broken back door. They were all Rush Valley mechanics who Winry knew. And that wasn’t all—there were even clients wearing automail and normal prosthetic limbs.
“Tsk, looks like we’ve got all the town engineers here!” one of the crooks said.
“You all get what’s gonna happen now that you’re doing this, don’t ya?!” the men from the shady business blustered at the crowd of mechanics who had made their way into the warehouse. However, the engineers, determined not to let themselves be intimidated, didn’t hesitate as they raised their fists and charged at the men. In the blink of an eye, the inside of the warehouse turned into a free-for-all brawl.
“Come on, let’s get Darish out of here before he gets involved,” Garfiel urged them while gracefully dodging the bald man’s punch and giving him a karate chop to the head.
“Okay!”
Winry wrapped Darish’s arm around the back of her neck and supported him as she headed to the open back door. They left the shouts and tumult of the collapsing shelves behind them as they fled outside into the soft moonlight. After the gloom of the warehouse, the light seemed incredibly welcome to their eyes.
The narrow backroad was littered with materials leaning against the walls and door. They could see residents and military police gathering because of the commotion.
“Oh!” Darish stumbled over a fallen piece of wood.
“Darish!”
Winry braced herself and held on to Darish’s arm when he lost his balance, but she couldn’t support him. Darish reeled to the side and his left hand nearly hit the ground.
He reacted in surprised as a small hand grabbed him.
“Lettie?”
Lettie had caught her brother’s arm and supported him with her entire body.
“Darish, hold on to me,” she said.
Lettie, sensing her brother had gotten himself in danger, had followed Garfiel and the others. Now that she was supporting Darish, it was clear that she would never let go no matter what he said to her.
once the brawl at the warehouse ended, the men of the establishment were prodded along by the military police and taken away. Winry and Darish watched the proceedings from a safe distance. Lettie had stuck close to her brother the entire time.
Some unsavory-looking men had watched from behind the onlookers as their colleagues were taken away. Once they saw what was happening, they had immediately snuck away. Most of them were probably planning to leave town, likely anticipating that business would become harder for them from there on out. Their activities of fleecing the mechanics and customers out of money through blackmail were illegal, after all.
“It’d be great if we end up with fewer crooked businesses,” Winry said.
“It would,” Darish agreed.
A slight night breeze comfortably cooled Winry and Darish’s sweaty skin.