Disclaimer: Don't own.
This is something of a departure for disastergirl and I. We started chatting about how fun it would be to explore FMA with daemons, and then this sort of happened. It'll be a collection of drabbles between the two of us starting here. They are very much an exercise in play, so please don't expect too much! We thought Mustang being vaguely Azriel-ly would need a badass leopard daemon, so there we are^^ There are a couple of overarching plot ideas, but we'll see if they ever come to fruition.
Crossover? I initially posted this as a crossover before releasing that it isn't really. To my mind, crossovers require more of an integration between both worlds. The only thing we've taken from HDM are the daemons, everything else takes place in the FMA theatre, if you like.
Also, FF doesn't seem to be letting me adjust the status to 'in progress'. Boo! I'll try again later!
We might take requests if anyone has any interest in this universe. We'll see lol.
Enjoy :p
ISHBAL
Immediately on arriving back at camp, the relieved troops fell into a collective stupor. The mission was hard on them all; an early day affair when the sun was unbearably hot. Some of the younger and older troops were lying straight out under makeshift tents of jackets and cloaks. Mustang watched them with narrowed eyes from where he sat on a sandy, stoney hill. He too was exhausted, having supported Colonel Paston on the assault, but he was wary of falling into an early sleep. It was difficult enough to sleep at night as it was.
Ariadne lay behind him, panting heavily. They'd found scant shade beside a plump boulder. It wasn't perfect, but it would do. Perfect was away from here: the desert and all of its dangers.
Mustang turned when Ariadne's warm, dry nose brushed the back of his hand. He looked down at her with hot, heavy eyes. Her gaze - ever steady - studied him.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Mustang didn't answer. Instead, he rested his hand on top of her head. She mewed softly and pushed her face into his palm. Mustang closed his eyes and hung his head back, drunk from the sun. Ariadne had started purring.
"I've always admired that daemon of yours, Mustang."
Mustang opened his eyes and blinked heavily. He couldn't abide this. Not now. "Kimbley," he said. "I can't..."
Ariadne rose and slinked around Mustang until she stood to his right, her head resting against his upper arm.
"Ha!" Kimbley barked. "So protective! Who needs alchemy when you surround yourself with such strong ladies?"
Mustang sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was so tired.
"Sometimes I wonder...," Kimbley said, quieter now, his eyes fixed on Ariadne. "What it would be like, to have a daemon like that..." His tongue darted out from between his thin lips. "I bet she's warm."
Mustang's arm vibrated with the force of the growl that built in his daemon's throat. The skin around her nose was bunched in warning as she surveyed the other alchemist. The bright yellow tips of her teeth shone from under her black lips, warning enough for any sane person. Lost, of course, on Kimbley. Mustang heaved a lead-heavy arm up and over his daemon. He fixed his fingers in her deep, soft fur.
"Kimbley... I'm not in the mood."
Kimbley's eyes darkened. He rushed forward onto one knee so that he was face to face with his younger comrade. Mustang didn't move an inch, but under his arm, Ariadne spat and contracted into a trembling mass of bunched muscles. She sucked in a noisy, guttural breath and growled again - fangs bared now. Her long tongue whipped over the front of her maw, one way then the other. Suddenly, like a storm appearing out of clear blue skies, she was furious.
"Ari," Mustang said quietly, calmly. His fingers tightened in her fur.
Kimbley smiled at her show of fury. "Mmm," he mused. "It must be hard Mustang. Trying to act the cold Major when you have this sore, sensitive kitty-cat at your side. You might have trained that pretty face of yours, but you'll never train her."
"She's not there to be trained," Mustang said, regretting his input immediately. It was always best to ignore Kimbley until he went away. Damn. "She is what she is."
Ariadne had dug her large back paws into the sand and was kicking them with pent up anger and anxiety. Her ears were pressed flat to the back of her head and her tail shot out like a dagger behind her. Mustang adjusted his grip on her side. Something wasn't right. Where had Kimbley been that day? Balashar? Kurut? There was a wildness to him... he was in need of letting go... Maybe Crimson's mission hadn't gone as well as his own.
"Yes," Kimbley grinned again, reaching a bony hand forward, his killer tattoo plain. "She certainly is..."
Mustang grabbed the other man's wrist with his free hand, just as Ariadne snapped a warning. Her jaw was dripping with saliva. Her green-grey eyes - Roy noted with a glance - were glassy with hate. He needed to get out of there.
Kimbley laughed. "Hasn't anyone told you, Flame?" Blue eyes darted up and to the side, just behind Roy. "I always take what I want."
Mustang spun where he sat as a needle point of pain struck his arm. His eyes widened - seeing vomiting and fits, shitting himself to death - as they fell on the pitch black python hooked onto his arm. In another beat, he realised it wasn't a real snake but Kimbley's daemon, and somehow, somehow, that was worse. He yelled and tried to snatch his arm away, but the serpent was massive, weighing perhaps the same as himself. Ariadne roared and pivoted, kicking sand out behind her like an opening fan. In the next moment, the snake, contorting and shifting in ways that confounded the mind, had pushed itself backwards and around Mustang's middle trapping his arms against his body. The young alchemist's eyes rolled back in his head as a wave of horrid discomfiture washed over him. He was touching someone else's daemon! He could feel its weight and energy press against his thrumming body. He pushed his biceps against the undulating tube of flesh but with no result - he was irreversibly stuck. Ariadne fell on the snake with all her force: claws and teeth slicing and gnashing. She roared incredulously: another daemon was touching her human. It was unheard of! With each blow, the snake merely tightened her hold on Mustang. It was getting harder to breath.
Kimbley laughed and clapped his hands, and for that one second, Mustang believed it was in celebration, but of course... of course it wasn't at all. It rarely was, with Kimbley.
"Ari!" Mustang cried, choking on even that much.
His beautiful girl, too consumed with his own danger, failed to heed his warning and so, with almost embarrassing ease, Kimbley had her in his sights.
"Ari!" Mustang shouted again. "Don't move, don't move, don't move, don't move..." he whispered with desperate urgency.
The Crimson Alchemist's hands hovered either side of her head. The leopard froze, struck by the rushing fear in her master's heart. Her eyes darted to Roy then to Bem, the snake daemon, before rising to Kimbley.
"Nice kitty," he sneered.
He lowered his hands to her head.
A cold shock ran through Mustang, stopping his heart for an instant. He gagged and had to swallow back bile as his insides turned on themselves, revolted utterly by this gross intrusion. Ariadne dared not roar, but shook violently where she stood. The strangest noise gargled out between her closed lips. In her distress, she was completely incapable of speech.
Mustang struggled within the python's hold, but he stilled as Bem's small black head appeared beside his own. "You got skinnier, Flame. Not much to you at all these days," she said quietly, then gave him a small but excruciating squeeze.
The alchemist emitted a pained 'ha' noise and Ariadne roared with renewed fervour, absolutely enraged by the impudence.
"I'll tear you to shreds, Bem," she growled.
Kimbley laughed and stroked her. His sweaty hand ran from her head to the very end of her long, rigid tail, snagging on her fur and matting it behind his movements. "Such a fine daemon. Such a pretty, powerful thing. The only one like her in Amestris, I'd wager."
Mustang shuddered within the python's hold. "You... ah!" he gasped, his head falling back as Kimbley's hand snaked under his daemon's body. Mustang could feel it all: the trespass and the alchemical charge of those deadly hands. Crimson continued to run his hands in circles in the soft white fur of Ariadne's breast and stomach. She was livid, and scared. She was so scared - above everything else. It was unbearable. "You bastard!" Mustang screamed when he recovered enough breath. Soon that too wasn't enough as Bem constricted her coils once more. He could feel his ribs strain under his uniform. Kimbley wasn't mad enough to kill him, was he?
The older man shook his head and purred, turning Ariadne's fur this way and that.
It was unbearable.
Ari shifted on her paws, uncertain eyes looking to her master for some direction, for some allowance to tear this man's throat out, no matter the cost.
It was unbearable.
Kimbley's blue eyes chilled to a deeper evil. His right hand tightened in the fur on her belly and a wicked smile carved its way onto his face. He drew back his left hand and struck the leopard with uncompromising force. Her head shot to the left.
That really was unbearable.
Mustang snapped his fingers and called a flame. Using alchemy on another servant of the nation was worthy of court martial, but he didn't care. Not now. He was going to kill the Crimson Alchemist.
The funnel of fire consumed the snake from its middle to its head. The serpent hissed - it's pale pink mouth wide - and it dropped from Roy's body. Already, with her natural, graceful, fierce, beautiful speed, Ariadne had leapt back and away from Kimbley's clutches. Her long tail evaded him by a hair's breadth, and she knew then that she was safe from the slow, if menacing, human. He had no chance of catching her again.
She fell on Bem whose scales stank with the something-burn of daemon flesh. Mustang rose and stumbled into Kimbley, knocking them both to the ground. Kimbley was laughing - laughing - even though his daemon was seared and wounded from Mustang's uninhibited fire. The older man sneaked a punch in that caught Mustang on the under side of his jaw, then, to Mustang's disgust, managed another clap of his hands. Mustang wasted no more time, despite his bruised ribs and burning lungs. He swung his elbow back and into Kimbley's cheek, and in the same sweep brought his boot up and drove it down to trap one flailing arm. He caught the other with his knee, screaming with fury. Bones ground under his weight. He knew that if Ariadne's roars hadn't alerted the other troops by now, then his yelling certainly would, but it cost him little thought. He wanted them to see him kill this man.
Kimbley sobbed once and recovered. He drove his boot into Mustang's stomach, pushing the smaller man back. Mustang tumbled into the fighting daemons and took a nasty blow from Ariadne's flying claws. She turned - distracted - to spy the deep gash on his cheek and in the next moment was almost overcome by the writhing mass of scales and muscle. Kimbley flew to Mustang, hands outstretched and wrist bruised.
Mustang snapped and called a flame that danced above his gloved fingers. "You fool!" he cried. "I can burn you to a crisp from where I am! Fight like a man you sick, miserable coward!"
Kimbley spat. "Miserable? I'm the happiest man in Ishbal! This is like a trip to the theatre for me!"
Some young soldiers had crested the hill and stood shocked and mumbling at the sight of their unruly officers.
"You are miserable, Kimbley! You covet everyone else's happiness and pass your sneering off as gloating, but I know you!" Mustang shouted, then smiled to himself. Behind him, the daemons were locked at an impasse, each waiting for the other to strike. "You know you're sick. You know your daemon disgusts every man who lays eyes on it. You have a filthy heart, and you can never be free of it. You only have one road ahead of you, so you're travelling it as far as you can. I understand it... and I pity it. You're the saddest man I've ever met."
Kimbley laughed once, then again harder and longer. "You..." he said, bobbing his outstretched finger at Mustang. "You... are so..." He spat again, then stilled. His expression turned pensive, calm almost, as though the shadow of a cloud had strayed upon it.
Mustang took the moment to raise a throbbing hand to his aching side. It was a moment too long.
Kimbley roared and launched himself at his junior. Mustang - however - smaller, and so like his daemon - out-stepped him and caught his opponent's hand by those long fingers. He danced behind Kimbley, pulled his arm up and over the man's shoulder and broke all four fingers against the man's own back. Kimbley fell to his knees, then laughed, then howled into his purpling fist. Mustang skidded in the sand, swivelled and grabbed hold of Kimbley's greasy ponytail.
The troops behind him on the hill were nervous and their conversation bubbled with anxious speculation.
Mustang drew a dagger from his belt. As Kimbley knelt, nursing his fingers, Mustang held the blade against his neck. Murder was rich in his heart. Ariadne had since vanquished the snake, and had her pinned with both paws, the scaled throat in her large, vicious maw.
"Flame!"
Mustang shook his head and readied himself for the coup de grace.
"Major Mustang stand down!" a deep voice boomed.
Grande.
Mustang adjusted his stance and pulled Kimbley by the hair, exposing his long, pale throat to the sun and his killing blade.
A shot rang out and a bullet sliced a trough in Mustang's cheek. His attention, was well and truly got.
Grande stormed down the sand blown rocks to where both men panted.
"This is some show of officers!" the man shouted, enraged. "I ought to have you both strung up for conduct like this."
"Sir-" Mustang started and was promptly stopped by a cuff to the jaw.
"You!" Grande turned on him. The huge boar at his side marched off towards the hissing daemons. "Get to my quarters now."
Mustang licked his lips. "Sir,... let me-"
Another blow - open palmed. The troops on the hill hissed and winced.
Mustang nodded once: he got it. It was over. But the burning bile in his heart remained. As he turned, he snicked the blade up - severing Kimbley's hair above the band. It fell to the sand and lay there like so many dead snakes.
Grande's eyes burned, but he sent his subordinate off with little more than another cuff to the head. Mustang stumbled to his knees for a beat but rose again in the same stride.
"Ariadne," he called. "Come."
In a flash, his daemon was beside him, licking the bleeding knuckles of his right hand as they stole off together.
Look forward to more from Disastergirl! Hope you enjoyed! Let us know your thoughts :p