This story was written for the April Fools fic challenge of 2008, and is an alternate timeline of events from the regular series.
Enjoy!
1.
The inside of the club always smelled of cigars, both expensive and cheap depending on the wealth of the patrons that night. It was a part of the atmosphere, like the dim golden lighting and tasteful dark brown decor. Under the low ceilings and scant ventilation, the smell never really cleared away, even at the times when patronage was light and only a few men gathered around the tables or at the bar. The smell of the smoke always faintly irritated Roy, who had never been a smoker himself, but he'd grown used to it.
If nothing else it mixed well with the taste of the brandy, Roy allowed. He tilted the tumbler to the side, allowing the golden light to slant glossily off the surface of the alcohol, and then took another drink. "Since I doubt you called me out here for the pleasure of my admittedly excellent company," he said, voice slightly roughened by the drink, "what was it you wanted to tell me?"
"Ah, Roy, you wound me," his friend smirked. The light reflected off Hughes' glasses in much the same way they had off the brandy. "You've become so standoffish these days, now that rumors of a promotion are in the work. That's the problem with you officer types, always willing to drop your dearest relationships in a heartbeat when the chance of a shiny new stripe comes along. If you had a wife of your own --"
"Don't give me that, Hughes," he said amiably, cutting over his friend's monologue with long practice. "You're an officer, as well, and don't tell me you wouldn't rather have a Lieutenant-Colonel's pay to treat your wife and daughter on."
Smirking, Hughes touched his chest, indicating the point. "My lovely Gracia and Elysia deserve the best, you know it's true. Speaking of my wife and daughter, I don't know if you'd heard, Elysia is starting school next term and she's already --"
"Hughes." Roy rolled his eyes heavenward. "One more word and I'm leaving, and you'll be the one to pick up the tab. Major."
"All right, all right." The older man laughed. "I swear, Roy, you become more stingy and humorless every day."
"If I didn't have a sense of humor, would I still be your friend?" Roy shot back. "Unless I'm secretly a glutton for punishment."
"That must be it," Hughes chuckled, but then his expression sobered somewhat. "Speaking of punishment..."
"You know, I get the feeling that no sentence that starts out that way could possibly end well." Roy sat back on the bar stool a little. Jesting aside, this must have something to do with why his friend had called him here; this wasn't a club frequented by military types, so it was a good place for them to talk candidly, without witnesses. But by the same token they couldn't risk coming here too often, or run the risk of being seen.
"Your feeling is right. What have you been hearing about the murders lately?"
Roy grimaced, and took another swallow of brandy. "Not much. From what I've heard, it's ugly. They got Jeffros, didn't they? The Saltstone Alchemist. I knew him somewhat; I had a class with him once. The others, I only know by reputation."
Hughes nodded. "Jeffros, and three others, all State alchemists on semi-leave. Two in Central, two outside the city."
"Three?" Roy looked up, startled. "I'd only heard of two."
"Three. The White Gold alchemist. They found his body this morning. It's being kept under wraps for now; the newspapers don't have it. They don't want to start a panic."
Roy muttered a curse, hunching forward over the bar. He'd never met the White Gold Alchemist, but he'd read some of the old man's thesis, and had great respect for him. "That's bad news."
"There's worse news. There's also been five non-alchemist officers, and half a dozen enlisted men. All of them had been involved, at one point or another, with the Ishvar campaign."
"I don't like the sound of that."
"You won't like the sound of this, either. Listen. The only way we can confirm that these murders were all by the same person is the mode of death. It's not like anything the coroners have usually seen, and those boys have seen a lot. They're throwing out a couple possibilities, but the widest consensus among them is that the men were killed by alchemy."
Roy frowned, thinking of too many memories. "There are a lot of ways to kill with alchemy, Maes."
Hughes sighed. "I know. But this is something different. The bodies appear to have been partially decomposed by alchemical charge. I don't know all the details; probably you'd understand it better than I would."
Roy stiffened, then sat back, thinking about it. Decomposed by alchemy? If he thought about it, the idea made a kind of brilliant, horrible sense. To start a transmutation, then stop it at the second stage... It was what every alchemist was trained from day one never to do, because the results were violently unstable, but it was at least in theory possible. But to perform that action on human flesh...?
He shook his head. He didn't have enough information. "Were there any witnesses?"
"None reliable. The killer was very careful. In fact, it's thought that at least several of the enlisted men were killed because they had seen him."
"You said 'none reliable,' not 'none.' "
"In Marchton, where the Jeffros was found, some civilians in the area at the time thought they saw someone in an alley. A huge, hulking man, they said, with long white hair and red eyes. The descriptions have been corroberated in West Central, as well."
Roy stiffened. "Red eyes? An Ishvarite?" That would certainly fit in with the choice of targets. "You think this is a revenge killing?"
Hughes spread his hands open, expression neutral. "That's what the brain tanks are putting out. Unofficially, of course."
Roy knew his friend well enough to interpret that; it was his keep thinking, Roy pose. "You disagree?"
Hughes shook his head. "It doesn't add up. The Ishvarites don't have alchemy; they never have. Their first contact with alchemy in hundreds of years was us, and they rejected it unilaterally."
"And you don't think the war was motivation enough to learn?"
"They would have had to have something to learn from. No alchemical texts or materials were ever allowed to fall into Ishvarite hands."
"I'm aware of that," Roy said flatly. It had been the military's strictest and most brutal policies, during the war. The brass had been utterly paranoid -- not without reason -- of the Ishvarites somehow divining the secrets of Amestrian alchemy, and turning it on its masters. No alchemical texts or materials were ever allowed to fall into Ishvarite hands; anyone found passing on secrets or informations to an Ishvarite would be arrested as a traitor. Any Ishvarite found with such materials would be shot on sight. And for the Ishvarites who had the bad fortune to witness alchemy in action...
"...can't possibly have understood what he saw, Colonel..."
Roy took another swallow of brandy, to chase the memories away. "But you put your finger on it earlier, Hughes. You said that we were the first contact with alchemy in hundreds of years. You also said that the Ishvarites never had alchemy."
Hughes turned his head, light reflecting off the glasses. "That's common knowledge."
"More common than true. I've been doing a little digging. You aren't the only one who can sneak around, Maes." Roy gave a little sour smile.
"And what have you found?" Hughes leaned in, intently; Roy knew that he was hooked more than anything by the prospect that there was something he didn't know about. Hughes was a born spy, Roy reflected.
"Nothing substantial yet." Roy drained his drink, and let out a small gasp. "Let's just say I'm not ready to rule out the possibility that an Ishvarite survivor, sufficiently motivated, wouldn't be able to pick up his enemy's weapon."
Hughes shook his head again, leaning back. "I don't know, Roy. That's not the only thing that doesn't add up. But ultimately, it doesn't really matter. If you're right, you've got a revenge-crazed killer on the loose. If I'm right... we don't know what we've got on the loose, but it's no less dangerous for all that. I want you to be careful."
"I'm always careful. I've survived this long, haven't I?" Even in this semi-safe house, it still wasn't wise to do more than fleetingly allude to his ultimate purpose; ambitions which marked him for danger, which would mark him for death if he were to let anyone see them.
"I want you to be more careful. The middle of a home city didn't used to be a prime place for ambush of high ranking military officers, but it looks like that's changing. Indulge me, all right?"
Roy sighed. "All right, Hughes. I'll be more careful. Tribute to your paranoia." Which was no greater than his own, surely; already his home was full of enough alchemical traps to blow half of the ward sky-high, and he never, ever went out in public without his gloves and at least one sidearm. He didn't really want to know what Hughes had in mind for more careful.
Hughes relaxed visibly. "Good." He glanced at the clock behind the bar, then at his own watch. "It's getting late. If I don't hurry, Alysia will be asleep before I can read her bedtime story. Or rather, before she can read it to me; she's only four years old but she's already got it memorized, isn't she precocious?" Hughes pushed back from the bar stool, and dug in his pockets.
Roy stayed seated, and pulled Hughes' half-empty drink over with the tips of his fingers. "So what's next?"
"What's next is that you up your security. And I keep on sniffing. If I find anything else, I'll get it to you somehow."
"Same place?" It was too risky to use the same meeting places often, but so far this one didn't seem to be under any undue scrutiny.
"We'll arrange a new place. I'll let you know where." Hughes slapped his money on the bar, and called out to the bartender through the kitchen door. "Keep the change!"
Roy waited a good leisurely count of a thousand after Hughes left, finishing off his friend's glass and counting up how much of the tab was left to him. He winced, then sighed; it was true enough that Hughes had more expenses than he did, and a lower salary, but did his friend always have to stiff him with the bill?
Once a sufficient count had passed, Roy got up, tossed his own money next to Hughes', and picked up his coat from the stool beside him. It would smell of smoke for a week, now. He could have avoided that, probably -- there was a coatroom in this bar closer to the fresh air -- but Roy wasn't about to put his coat, with his only weapons in it, so far away from hand.
He shrugged on the coat and walked out into the night, stopping a moment outside the front door to let his eyes adjust. As winter progressed, it got darker earlier and earlier; there had been more than enough time for the last twilight to fade, leaving only the captured city lights to illuminate the cloudy sky.
As he wended his way home -- to the semi-subsidized aparment complex a Lieutenant-Colonel was entitled to -- he became aware that he was being followed. To test the theory, he turned off his route into one of the alternate routes for getting home that he'd laid out months ago; the shadowy presence at the corner of his eyes kept pace.
Roy set his teeth, and considered his options. The middle of a home city didn't used to be a prime place for ambush, but it looks like that's changing. What to do? He dismissed the idea of turning to confront his attacker. Out in the streets there would be witnesses, but that wasn't necessarily something he wanted; half a dozen enlisted men had been killed because they became witnesses, so why would the killer -- if it was the killer, and not, say, Maes having a joke -- balk at a few dozen civilians?
A safer alternative would be to turn from his path and head for the nearest military outpost. Tempting. On the other hand, once the killer realized where he was going, he would likely panic; either he'd break off his stalk and flee, and there'd be no chance of catching him, or he'd try to cut Roy off and force a confrontation before he could reach reinforcements. Not a good solution either.
No, what he needed was a defensible place -- somewhere he could turn the tables on his stalker, and steal the element of surprise from him. Roy kept walking -- he hadn't really broken his rhythm the whole time -- and turned onto the last street to his home. His paranoia was well-founded, then; time to see if the work he had put in installing defenses in his home was worth it.
The building was dark and deserted when he let himself in; family man Hughes might have considered it late, but for the childless and unmarried young recruits who filled up the rest of this floor, the night was just getting started. One way or another, there would be no witnesses tonight. That was just as well for Roy; he'd had his fill of witnesses for a lifetime.
"...only ten years old, Colonel, he can't possibly have understood what he saw!"
"Orders are orders, Major..."
Roy closed his apartment door behind him with a firm click, and stood in the darkness of his foyer; slowly, in the dimness, he turned around and pulled his gloves out of his pocket, slipped his hands into them. "If that's you following me, Maes, out of some delusional idea of keeping me on my toes, now's the time to speak up; otherwise Elysia becomes an orphan tonight."
Utter stillness. Utter silence. Roy held still, not even breathing, listening hard; a moment later, there was a crunch that filled the small space, and the sheetmetal of his door suddenly bulged inwards as someone (or was that something?) punched out the knob, lock, and all.
Roy stumbled backwards, barely keeping his feet; he was panting hard now, vision narrowed to a searing tunnel. He held out one hand in front of him, ready to snap, as his other reached out towards the wall beside him. The door slammed open, and a huge, hulking form filled it, blocking out the light -- glimmers of lamp light, fire light, gleamed off the edges and made an outline.
Roy snapped; fire bloomed from his fingertips and roared forward. Light filled the apartment and Roy's heart nearly stopped; the intruder wasn't an Ishvarite, wasn't anything Roy had ever seen before. Seven feet tall and three broad at the shoulder, he was as big as Armstrong, bigger than Gran, and clad all in metal, like some antiquated medeival knight -- but no human knight, not even the Ishvarites, had red eyes that glowed.
The flames washed over him and past him, but he barely slowed down, even when Roy could see part of his arm-guard beginning to glow a dull red. He snapped again, putting concussive force behind the blast this time, and this time the huge metal-clad intruder stumbled backwards and slammed against the door lintel. Thank God Roy had had everything in his foyer fireproofed, because parts of that armor were glowing red-hot, and left smouldering patches where he touched. Another blast from Roy; he aimed for the eyes this time, the only gap in the armor he could see.
Fire streamed out, to the visor and past it. And for a moment, the flames flickered up inside the helmet, and he saw --
can't possibly have understood what he saw --
-- that the suit of armor was empty, there was nothing inside it at all, just darkness and hellish red glow, and it had pushed away from the doorway and was coming for him again.
He nearly screamed, but his teeth were frozen together; he found the place inside him that was beyond fear, beyond horror, that had kept him alive all through Ishvar and beyond, and reached out to pull the chain behind him as if he were perfectly calm.
His timing was excellent; there was a soft pamf from three directions as the hidden trapdoors released their load, and the sticky, crumbly substance spattered down on the intruder from the walls, from the ceiling. The sharp acrid smell of the chemicals slapped Roy in the nose. The intruder stumbled, looked aside and then up with those unnatural glowing eyes, and then hesitated -- reached for something concealed in its gauntlet, too small to be a weapon, was that chalk? but Roy had no intention of giving him time to do anything.
He snapped one more time, and the volatile chemicals clinging to the intruder's metal plate hissed briefly -- then ignited -- then exploded.
Roy had to drop to the floor to avoid the force and heat of the blast; he was defenseless then, but it didn't much matter, because when he raised his head he saw a metal leg strewn across the room, almost in the kitchen, and a metal arm clattered against the opposite wall. Swallowing hard, he reached up and pulled the chain for the overhead lamp; light flickered and then played over the scene. Metal shards and scraps were everywhere, and the ozone smell of overheated steel -- only the head and torso of the suit of armor remained, and one arm, and the whole thing was empty, empty.
And then, bizarrely enough, it was moving again, even with most of its substance shredded to bits -- it dragged itself across the floor and reached for something, and Roy stood up, hands trembling in horror, and prepared to finish what he had begun.
A low moan from somewhere off to his right transmuted into a screech like a wounded bobcat, and Roy whirled -- too late -- to face the new threat. Something hit him like a freight train, knocked him to the ground and slammed his head back against the linoleum so hard he saw stars, then fog. A voice cut through the disorientation, a stranger's voice, too high and furious and disorted in pain for him to make sense of its words, at first: "What did you do to my brother, you fucker?"
Whose brother? Roy shook his head groggily, then blinked to clear the stars out of his eyes. Then widened when he saw just what -- or just who -- had tackled him.
It was a stranger to him. Not Ishvarite, was his first thought, discounting that theory; his skin glowed pale in the cold light, and his eyes were an odd shade of bright yellow. Short black hair fell in shaggy spikes around his face -- it had an odd black gleam, and a strange stiffness that hinted of cosmetics. But the face under the hair --
Was a child's face, right out of a nightmare; cheeks still too rounded above a stubborn chin, eyes too large and hollow in their sockets. Eyes too wide and staring, white showing all around the rims, and the lips peeled back in a snarl that showed strong white teeth, as though the strange boy were considering just ripping out Roy's throat with his fangs and be done with it.
They struggled, briefly; Roy was no weakling, but this boy, for all his size -- he perched on top of Roy's chest like a bird -- was almost inhumanly strong. A hand like a steel vise clamped over his left hand, crushing his fingers until he couldn't snap, until a scream forced its way out of his throat. He brought his other hand up, frantically trying to snap, but the boy reared back over him like a cobra preparing to strike, and clapped his hands.
Then he slammed his hands onto the floor, on top of Roy's, and there was the smell of ozone as alchemy crackled right next to his ears. The carpet itself moved and transmuted, slithering up into wide heavy straps of wood and cloth and bound his wrists to the floor. Fingers like sharp scissors scrabbled at his hands for a moment, and the next there was the heavy shrrrip of cloth as his gloves -- his defense, his weapon -- were cut away.
"You're," Roy began groggily, then stopped and had to swallow; he tasted blood in his mouth. "You're the one, aren't you, you're the killer -- the outlaw..."
The snarl of rage transmuted into a gloating smile, although Roy couldn't say the change was any improvement. "Killer, yes. Outlaw? Ha! Not hardly. You're the one who's the outlaw, Roy Mustang, and it's your own damn government who told me to take you out."
"What?" Shock stiffened Roy's spine, and his fingers itched to snap. If only he had his gloves -- "Who gave that order? Why?" It made no sense, no sense at all for the military to order the execution of its own officers. On the other hand it didn't make sense for the boy to lie, either, not if he really planned to kill Roy.
But the alternative...
"I have no idea," the boy told him smugly, sounding almost proud of the fact. "You see, I don't question my orders, Lieutenant Colonel. I obey them, without going poking around or looking too hard at what I shouldn't, because the military doesn't like that. And that's why I'm going to live, and you're going to die."
Roy's eyes widened as his mind raced, but his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own; courtesy of the knock on his head, no doubt. "And did they order you to tell the truth about this betrayal to each officer before you kill them?"
A heavy blow slammed his head back against the floor. Something tangled and bit painfully into his hair, and he realized with agonized clarity that he hadn't been imagining things; the boy's right arm was metal, it was automail, that went all the way up to the shoulder. "No, but I'm gonna make a special case for you, fucker. You hurt my brother, you hurt my brother and so I'm going to kill you slowly. I'll do everything to you that you did to him, and you're gonna scream for me to kill you by the end."
"Your brother?" Roy repeated, bewildered, panicked; but this time the strange boy ignored him. He stood up in a fluid motion and walked away, leaving Roy pinned there to the floor by his own carpeting. Roy craned his head, trying to position himself within his apartment. He was sure -- almost sure -- that very close to his head was one of the fire arrays he had hidden underneath the rug. If he could reach it...
The boy seemed to be hunting for something; he stood and paced around the foyer. His stride was slightly hitched, his left leg hit the floor much more heavily than his right, and Roy connected that with the throbbing pain in his knee where a kick had landed, and the metal arm. His leg, too. How did he lose two limbs? The boy wasn't an Ishvarite, he shouldn't have been in the war. He was too young to be in the military. That didn't seem to have stopped them, however. Did the military take away his arm and leg? The thought left him sick.
A metal hand shot up suddenly and crushed the glass bulb in the overhead light. Bright arc electricity flashed briefly, then the light went out; the boy paid it no mind. A sharp burning chemical smell filled the air, which seemed to satisfy him. He wandered out of sight, and Roy looked up at the darkened ceiling, and worked his hands frantically, trying to get some slack in the bonds. Not to free himself -- he was pretty sure that was impossible -- but to reach just a little further over his head.
Then the boy was back, carrying, disconcertingly, a bowl full of some liquid that sloshed. He walked over and sat casually back on Roy's torso, driving the breath out of him. The boy gave him a long, flat look -- terrifyingly eerie, with those strange yellow eyes -- and then clapped his hands and touched them to the bowl.
Roy's eyes widened. He was wearing black gloves, with no visible array or device, but alchemical energy leapt from his hands anyway. The liquid frothed and hissed, and an unpleasant acrid smell rose from it. The hair on Roy's neck rose. "How did you do that?" he croaked.
The boy ignored him, except to reach down with his auotmail hand and casually rip Roy's shirt from collar to waistband. The strength and sharpness of those metal fingers was more than a little unnerving. "This? This is just basic chemistry," he said with a smirk. "Simple hydrochloric acid. You burned Al, so now you're gonna burn, too. So sorry that you won't get to keep your good looks, but look on the bright side, Lieutenant Colonel -- you aren't gonna have time for it to scar."
Roy threw his weight into struggling, but completely fruitlessly now. All his frantic yanking couldn't free his hands, and the murderer's weight on his center of gravity held him easily pinned to the spot, like a butterfly on a pin. Another vicious, gloating smirk, and he tipped his hand; clear liquid dribbled over the side of the bowl, and spattered on Roy's bare skin.
It burned -- not like fire, a hazy part of Roy's mind said. He knew fire, was familiar with it; fire was hot but it was clean, it flared and then went out when its fuel was gone. It didn't corrode, clinging as it ate its way layer by layer through the skin.
The boy's face was barely inches away from his own, and there was a mad, almost frantic look in his eyes. "Did that hurt, Lieutenant Colonel? I would have expected better from you. That's what the military teaches, doesn't it? Be better, stronger. Endure. Don't show pain. Don't show pain."
He was ranting, now, barely seeming to talk to Roy at all. He found his voice, with difficulty. "Is that what they taught you?"
A pause, as if his words had shocked the boy. Then the air whistled out from between clenched teeth. "I'm a good student. I do what I'm told. Not like you..."
Roy started to speak again, but the child's face twisted with sudden rage, and he tipped the bowl again, and pain flooded Roy's world.
He couldn't see, couldn't hear, but he was sure he must have screamed because his throat and his lungs were burning, like the rest of them; and this was the fire of Hell, the hell he'd surely earned for all he'd done; not like real fire at all, because it clung and it stuck and it burned...
He came back to himself panting lightly, with the horrible scalding still working its way across his skin. He could feel blood running down his sides, pooling on the floor, and if only his hands had been free he might have done something about that.
It was the boy's stillness that caught his attention. He was staring into Roy's face as though he had never seen it before. His face had gone gray-pale with shock, as though he'd been the one burned; his expression had gone suddenly empty, and his eyes --
They were the eyes of a child, not a torturer or a murderer; the expression in them was one of stunned incomprehension, mixed with inexpressible grief, as though he had no idea how he'd come to be here, doing these things.
A memory flickered in Roy's mind, past the adrenaline and shock. Those eyes, gold eyes, he'd seen something very like them before -- "I know who you are," he said suddenly, voice raspy and hoarse. "Hohenheim. Hohenheim of Light. He had a son. Born in 1901. Edward. That was the son's name. You're Edward, aren't you?"
The stunned look gave way to shock, and he suddenly scrambled backwards, putting space between them. "That bastard," he hissed. "How -- how? How did you know him? How did you know about us?" Fury flashed, and his hands clenched so hard that Roy's muscles seized up, cringing in anticipation of another dose of acid.
He let his head roll back, the shadows of his apartment foyer swimming in his vision. At least Edward was talking now, reacting to what he said rather than just ranting over him as if reading from a pre-existing script. "The military was searching for your father," he said, barely more than a whisper. "I was on the project."
No response yet. "I remember seeing your letter, in the files. We discussed sending a team to Riesenburg, to you, to question you. But it was clear from your letter that you had not seen him in longer than we had, so I decided not to go. And... your mother was dying, and I wanted to respect your family's grief, not to drag you through the ordeal of a pointless military inquisition." Hear me, listen to me, I'm not just a faceless cipher in a uniform, I'm a human being and you are too. If things had been different, if we had met in some other time, some other place, who knows how we might have known each other?
More memories were surfacing now. Two sons. Hohenheim of Light had two sons. Edward and -- "Alphonse," Roy said, the memory breaking on him suddenly. "There was a little brother, wasn't there? Alphonse. Where is your little brother now?"
Edward stiffened all over, as though something in him had transmuted his blood to stone. His eyes betrayed him again, though; he cast an appealing, agonized look over Roy's head, to where the remains of the iron golem were still scattered over his foyer. Roy's breath constricted in his chest. You hurt my brother, the boy had cried, but there was nothing in the metal suit, nothing but steel and an unnatural red light. Red like blood; red like the Red Stone. "What did you do?" he whispered.
"Nothing," Edward said, but he was beginning to shake. It made his automail jerk and rattle, like a puppet on a string. "The military doesn't like -- The military doesn't like --"
He realized, in a sudden burst of shock, that his earlier thrashing had accomplished what all his deliberate struggles had not. His wrists were chafed, bloody, and loose in their bonds; not enough to pull free, but enough to stretch those extra inches. Half-numb fingertips found the slight rough edges and depressions of the array, the salamander array.
Roy looked up. Shadows danced around the room; overhead the broken lamp still swayed and sputtered sparks. His soldier's heart was still calm, even as his mind stuttered and reeled shockily. Moving oxygen around in the air to make a path, he thought calmly to himself, was a complicated interaction. Moving electrical ions around to make the same sort of path was, all things considered, much simpler.
There was a clatter, and then a thump from beyond his vision; the armor, he realized with a start, had a clear view of his hands. Edward's head jerked up, his eyes widening as if in response to a shout. He lunged forward, automail arm extended --
He had no gloves, with which to snap to make a spark. He didn't need to; the spark was already there, and he only had to guide it. A bolt of bright blue light snapped through the foyer, arcing down from the exposed circuit it the broken light to Edward's automail arm. He shrieked like a soul in hell, back arching involuntarily, and Roy frantically pulled the spark through the air, towards him. Electricity skipped through the air, became flame, and Roy's arms and hands screamed with agony as the cloth and wood encircling his hands caught fire.
It had to be done, though. Fire was not as efficient a cutter as steel, but it was effective nonetheless; he curled his torso and bucked hard, kicking out as he did so, and a stunned Edward toppled onto the floor. And then the wood snapped and the cloth sizzled away and he yanked his hands down, beating out the fire even as he twisted to the side and rolled to his feet.
He brought his hands up as he did so, automatically prepared to defend himself; his gloves were gone, but the gun was still in his coat and he fumbled to get it out before Edward could collect himself for an attack. He still remembered the frightening, snake-like swiftness of the boy's first ambush, and he wasn't at all sure if he could defend against it a second time.
It looked like there was no danger of that, though; Edward was crumpled to the carpet nearby, trying to struggle to his feet. It was obvious from the odd way he moved that his automail was dead weight; the electricity must have shorted it out completely. His left leg, too, seemed strangely clumsy and heavy, and Roy guessed the charge must have grounded itself through that leg as well. He should count himself lucky that it hadn't grounded through him, he supposed.
Edward was making a low, almost animalistic noise of pain as he struggled to his feet and swayed, eyes wide and glassy, apparently unsure whether to attack Roy or try to retreat. Roy risked a glance around. The fire he'd started to escape had caught despite the fireproofing, and although it was spreading slowly it was spreading all the same. He fought back a moment of panic; without his gloves on he couldn't be sure of controlling it safely.
"I'll kill you," Edward whispered, hugging his dead arm to him, his expression still dazed. "I'll kill you, I'll fucking kill you --"
"What, you don't seriously think you can?" Roy responded with asperity. "Your automail is completely nonfunctional. I'm armed, you're not; can you even do alchemy in that state?"
"I'll kill you," Edward repeated again, dreamily, and took a wavering step towards Roy. Roy raised his gun steadily, felt his stomach clench with horror and dread. The gun, the fires, the child; how many times was he going to have to relive this nightmare? How many desperate children was he going to have to kill?
"Look," Roy said suddenly, desperately. "You don't have to do this. You can go. Run away. I promise I won't chase you, or even call the police. You can't kill me, you've failed in your mission, so why don't you just run away?"
Edward flinched and reeled back, as if Roy had pulled the trigger at him. "No no no no," he hissed out from between clenched jaws. "I can't fail the mission -- I can't -- not do what they send me to do, I -- we shall not know defeat, through all fire and all blood we shall prevail, I can't fail, I can't --"
The phrase raised the hairs on the back of Roy's neck; that was the military's motto, etched on the wall of every classroom in the training academy. Somehow he very much doubted that was where Ed had learned it. "Then don't go back," he said suddenly, moved by an inexplicable impulse. "If you go back without... fulfilling your mission, you'll be punished. They're holding you to this against your will, aren't they? You don't really want to be doing this, do you?"
Edward flinched back against the wall, his face completely white and his expression stony. Roy looked around desperately; the flames were slowly inching across the carpet, up the wallpaper, filling the room with an evil-smelling smoke. He saw the shattered armor, the little brother? watching him with inhuman eyes, and out of desperation turned his appeal to them. "You can both escape," he said, looking from one to the other. "Your little brother, too. Are you really Alphonse Elric?"
There was no response, so he took a step forward. "Are you --"
"Stay away from him!" In a flash Edward was between them, balancing heavily on his right leg. He clapped his hands together, the way Roy had seen him do once before; but his right arm still swung uselessly in front of him and he raised his one good hand in a pitiful defense. "Don't you touch him!"
"Can't he talk?" Roy asked uncertainly. At first he'd assumed that the metal golem was some kind of monstrous bodyguard made of alchemy, but if there was a human soul inside it... "Does he... understand?"
"Of course he understands, he's my brother," Ed snarled furiously. "He could talk, at first, he used to! It was you and your god fucking damn scientists who made him this way! You did this to him, and I'm never going to let you touch him again!"
Roy could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, in a moment of odd fuzzy clarity. He could feel hot liquid trickling down his chest, still, soaking into the torn edges of the shirt, but adrenaline was blocking out any pain and damage for now. He had to get that fire under control. "Listen to me, Edward... Alphonse," he said, addressing the both of them. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to send you back to your... your controllers. Let's stop this fighting, this is insane. Neither of us can win if this continues, we have to get this fire stopped. I want to help you."
Edward trembled visibly. "Liar," he whispered, barely audible over the flames. "No one helps us."
"I will. I want to."
"That's because you don't know what we've done!" Edward raised his face defiantly in the firelight; his eyes glittered.
"I think I can take a few guesses," Roy said calmly. "And it doesn't matter. You're still just children. Children who can do amazing things, yes, but still children. No one has the right to control you, or abuse you, or force you to fight and kill for them. No one has that right."
Ed's expression wavered in uncertainty, in the growing firelight. Roy felt sweat trickling down his sides, his chest, stinging in the raw patches of the acid burns. Then Ed's expression froze again. "I'm not falling for it," he said calmly. "Not this time."
"Edward, please!" Frustration made him raise his voice. "I'm not your enemy! I don't want to fight you." Taking a sudden, suicidal chance, he straightened up, and lowered the hand holding the gun to his side. Held out his hands, palms open; a vulnerable position. "Take a chance on me. I don't want to be your enemy. If things had been different, we might have been fighting on the same side. Trust me, trust someone for the first time in your life."
A moment of hesitation, then resolve flickered in Edward's eyes. Before Roy could react Edward lunged forward, left arm grabbing for the torn edges of Roy's collar. He barely had enough time to bring his hands up between them, and none to aim or fire, before a blue flash and crackle started from Edward's hand and spread outwards.
Great, was all Roy had time to think before the darkness engulfed him.
Roy woke up, on his apartment floor, hours later. He honestly hadn't expected to.
The fires had been extinguished, while he'd been unconscious. An ugly patina of smoke still lingered around the ceiling, but it was not thick enough to present a suffocating hazard. In the dim light from the next room Roy stared at the cinders and ashes on the floor, the burn marks on the wall. There was no sign of either of his attackers.
After a few minutes he sat up, and hissed as the skin and muscles of his chest and abdomen whined protest. He ignored it as he got unsteadily to his feet. His gun was gone, too. The front door which the metal monster had broken down, was back in place as though nothing had happened; when he stooped low to investigate, he saw a faint scratched array in the metal above the knob.
Roy took a careful breath; it tasted of blood and metal and smoke and scorched chemicals, but it was a breath he honestly hadn't expected to be able to take and that made it sweet nonetheless. He limped out of the room into the rest of his apartment, turning on some lights as he went.
It was surreal, almost, to see his rooms so perfectly normal and in order. He checked every room, but was unsurprised to find no sign of youthful assassins lurking in his closets or under his bed. If not for the pall of smoke that had spread through the whole apartment, he might have thought it was a dream.
And, of course, for his injuries. He eased himself into his bathroom, turned on a light and had a look at himself. His chest actually looked worse than it felt, if that was possible. He did some investigation and cleanup with the medical supplies he had available, and determined that while painful, it wasn't debilitating or dangerous. He'd lost some skin and blood, but not much else. There might be some scarring, which would be deeply annoying, but it wouldn't be difficult to clean up.
As he worked, his mind circled over the events of earlier that evening. Where had the Elrics gone? Back to their controllers? He deeply and sincerely hoped not, and not just for their sakes. Whoever had wanted him dead from that shadowy department presumably still did, but maybe the loss of their operatives would throw them into confusion long enough for him to consult with Maes and implement some real defenses.
He doubted they had gone back, though. Mostly because, if Edward could have knocked him out, Edward could have killed him -- and hadn't. He wouldn't return to his controllers with a failure if he could possibly help it, so that indicated that Edward and his brother had run, instead.
Roy stared into his mirror. What to do next? Too much had happened in a single evening for him to process in his current state. He needed Maes, he needed to start following up on the shards and glimpses of this shadowy force that had suddenly come into play behind the scenes. He couldn't know who was friend and who was foe in this new world; he couldn't be sure of anything.
He reached out and poured water over a cloth, buried his face in it to try and rub away the smoke and grime. The face that emerged in the mirror again was exhausted and red-eyed, lined and grim, as he hadn't seen it in the years since Ishvar.
One thing he could be sure of. I will find them, he promised himself. And when I do, things will be different.
the end
(or is it?)