Chapter 16 - Phantom

Ed yawned as he walked through the streets with a new vest and black pants, he was also carrying a lot of bags with clothes in them for Chrysalis, who was skipping along rather happily for some reason. Thankfully, Spike had a credit card to pay for all the clothes they bought for Chrysalis. The worst case scenario was Ed would just try to magic in some clothes, even though that sounded lame and an easy way out, he could have done it and gone home to sleep. But either way, here he was with two kids walking down a street, 'window shopping' as Spike had put it. He said that it was good to shop during the day because at night only certain places will be open and even then getting to them was dangerous. So Ed thought 'why not' and said let's see what's around. But he didn't think there would be so many gun stores, mostly to hunt monsters. Ed was tempted to go in one but decided against it, he wasn't a big fan of guns and just wanted to browse the stores for now.

An idea popped up. "Hey Spike, I overheard some people talking about a Ponyville, where is that?" Ed asked.

"Ponyville? What kind of name is that?" Chrysalis asked with an 'are you serious?' tone as she turned around and walked backwards.

Spike half turned as he spoke. "It's a place not to far from where me and Twilight live, the name is off putting but it's actually a nice little area, the only downside is. . ."

Chrysalis glanced at Spike with a curious look as Ed did the same. Spike quickly shook his head, then faced forward again.

"Either way, it's always open at night, and the food there is great! We can go there next if you want Ed!" Spike suggested in a happy tone.

Ed pondered for a second, wondering if he wanted to or not. On one hand, he wanted to see what it looked like and there wasn't many eating places that interested him here, then again he would see familiar faces and be reminded of Equestria. Then again. . .

"Sure, let's go." Ed said with a smile as Spike returned it and nodded.

Spike turned a corner which Ed and Chrysalis followed behind, Chrysalis was still walking backwards as she slowed down to walk with Ed.

"I sensed something in your emotions, and if I new any better it feels like you're up something." Chrysalis said as she looked up at him with a smirk.

Ed just waved his hand. "Not really, though I do have a nice idea, though it's nothing to big, besides I might be wrong."

Chrysalis just shrugged as she spun around walking forwards. Ed just looked onward, following Spike back to the car.

'Besides, if there is a version of her here, I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't even alive?'

It only took them a couple minutes to get to the parking lot structure, and as they entered the elevator to get to the top floor, Chrysalis finally spoke up.

"So you know were being followed right?" She casually remarked.

"Huh? Oh yeah, didn't think you could sense them that far." Ed said as he smirked at the green haired girl.

"Wait. What do you mean, 'were being followed'?" Spike asked as he looked between Ed and Chrysalis.

"Some strange people are following us, Spike, odds are that-, wait hold on." Ed pulled up his sense for a second confirming it. "Yeah there waiting at the top for us, probably have the whole lot cleared out except for our car and maybe theirs."

"Your'e acting way to casual about this! Shouldn't we be concerned or something?!?" Spike asked, looking a little nervous at the sudden news.

"Chrysalis, what am I feeling right now?" Ed asked as he looked to the girl next to him.

She hummed a little before answering. "Sleepy, a bit tired, and you could go for some food right now; Chinese I think?"

Ed blinked. "Holy crap, you can see into my mind?"

Chrysalis giggled before answering. "No."

"Huh" Ed responded, not sure how to take that.

Spike was still looking confused as he looked between the number slowing rising on the elevator panel and Ed. Ed saw this and sighed.

"Just let me do the talking, and for god's sake, please don't do anything unless I tell you to or you think it's absolutely necessary."

Spike nodded, looking a little bit calmer. Ed looked at Chrysalis, who was staring at the bracelet she wanted and looked uninterested in what was about to happen. Ed shrugged as they neared the top. Finally, the ding! came as the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened and Ed took a step out the elevator before seeing a gun enter his field of view. Ed let the bags in his arms go as he slowed down time with his eyes. He saw two men, both on each sides of the door, and more surrounding the elevator but none of them aiming guns at him, though they could be seen on their belts. The man to his left was lowering the gun to put it on the side of Ed's head while the man on the right had his held down as he let his partner take the initiative. They were soon about to make a mistake of even trying to make Ed submit or even come along to whatever they had planned. Ed slowly resumed time as the bags he let go hit the floor and he went to work.

Ed closed the space between the man to his left, quickly side-stepping to the right as his left arm snaked under the man's outstretched right arm, then making his own arm slash across the man's chest. After that, Ed quickly smacked the man in the face with the back of his left hand, stunning him for a split second while while he held the man's right wrist with his free hand. Ed quickly crushed the man's wrist while mow snatching his shirt with his left hand and started to twirl the man around. He already saw the man to his right pulling up his gun to aim it at Ed now that his partner was in trouble. However, it was a bad move as Ed used momentum to throw the man in his arms towards his partner, quickly getting him to drop his gun as well as the man that was just in his grasp.

Not bothering with the guns, Ed looked to the rest of the men surrounding him before noticing that there were actually a couple chicks too.
Either way after his quick CQC sure did impress them as they looked eager to fight him. That's when he heard her voice.

"Enough."

Ba-Dump!

Ed's eyes widened.

That voice.

He could never forget that voice.

It haunted his mind.

It plagued him to this day, the one he killed back on that island.

Ed quickly stamped his foot on the edge of the pistol on the floor, launching it up, then snatched it out of the air and hastily aimed to toward the source of the voice.

"Ed?" Chrysalis called out with a worried tone.

"Close the elevator doors and wait." Ed said cautiously as he never once took his eyes of the crowd of suited people in front of him.

He shortly heard the elevator doors moving again as she had listened to his instructions. With the kids gone, Ed could confront this phantom by himself, he doubt things would get bloody, but. . . last time he saw this person. . . he had to kill them.

He scanned the group, they were obviously hiding whoever the voice belonged to behind them. He just gritted his teeth as he snarled.

"Who are you!?!" Ed barked as he raised the gun straighter, aiming it at the group.

A long silence followed after that, most of the men and women were staring at him, some with looks of happiness, others respect. He just kept his gun pointed wondering what the hell was going on.

"Your CQC has advanced, using momentum to make up for your short body, using the least amount of energy to defeat or subdue your opponent, time hasn't slowed you down a bit."

Ed flashed his eyes to the two men that were on the floor, they were gone as he now had no hostage to hold or bargain with. He became angrier.

"Who are you!?" Ed yelled, losing his cool as the voice no longer eluded him.

Slowly the men and women began to move, a figure with sunglasses came forward and approached Ed, a katana in their hand as they held it by their side, he could never forget that katana, and they didn't need to remove their sunglasses for Ed to recognize who the person was.

The phantom slowly put their sunglasses on top of their head, they smiled as they looked at Ed, Ed himself couldn't believe his eyes.

"That's not possible, your dead, I Killed you! YOU DIED!!!" Ed screamed thrusting the gun with his words.

"Your remember that game we used to play, back at home, we used to play it all the time, do you remember the words Ed?"

Ed just stared at the phantom in front of him as he knew now that it was 100 percent. . . . . . . . . .

His teacher.

Izumi Curtis smiled as she looked at Ed.

"Kept you waiting. . . huh?"

Author's Note

I'm backkkkkkkkkkkkkk
(Edit) Thanks to Catfire13 for the editing