Backwards🪭↩️

12

"Check and mate!" Roy yelled, throwing down piece down on the board.

Breda stared at the board in complete shock and looked up at Roy who was celebrating his victory with a victory dance of sorts.

"How in the hell..."

"I can't believe I beat you! I've been waiting years to do that!"

Breda turned his head. "Years?"

Roy stopped dancing and cleared his throat.

"Well, I've always wanted to play chess and beat someone at it. I mean, it's kind of a complicated game."

Havoc looked at him and he shrugged. The door opened and Riza and Edward walked in. Roy went up to them and smiled.

"So?"

"We need to talk in your uncle's office." Riza said.

Roy nodded and looked back at Havoc and Breda.

"Thanks for letting me play with you. Sorry I beat you, Mr. Breda."

He saluted them as he followed Riza and Edward into his office. He locked the door and watched them for a moment.

"So, what did he say?"

"He said that that pill had to do with what's happening as well as somehow getting in contact with the experiment."

"I see. Did he figure something out then?"

"He made this for you." Riza said, pulling out the vial and showing her superior. "But we have to put a little in water and have you drink it that way. We will increase the dosage each day until the bottle is gone so that we can monitor things and things will go gradually."

Roy made a face but nodded.

"Fine. Give me the first dosage." He said, going to the pitcher on his desk and pouring water in the cup. "I want to get back to normal as quickly as possible. This regression thing is ridiculous."

Riza took out the vial and opened it. She poured out a tiny amount into the cup and glanced at Edward, who gave an undetected nod that that was a good amount. After swishing it around, Riza sat next to Roy and handed him the cup. He drank it down in one gulp and then wiped his mouth of the excess water.

"We'll increase it tomorrow for the next dosage."

"Good, I'm ready to get back to my normal self, that's for damned sure. Having you two hovering over me is the most annoying thing I've had to endure since Hughes died."

Riza made a face but they all got up and headed home.

*****************

That night, Roy listened out for Riza to determine when she would go to sleep. He didn't know why, but he felt like Riza hadn't given him the right dosage of the stuff that the doctor had given her. He was going to just do it himself. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Riza's lights went out and Roy got up from the couch and went to the kitchen. He looked around the cabinets but didn't find the vial. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, thinking of where she could have hidden it and stomped his foot angrily. She most likely had it in her jacket pocket, which was upstairs in her bedroom. Knowing his subordinate, she was not sleeping and was upstairs reading a book. This meant that he would have to wait even later to get the vial and get his dosage. He sighed but had a bright idea. This would give him ample time to figure out how to change the color of water so that when he took the right dosage of his serum, he could replace the vial with colored water to make it look like there was still some in there.