Fandom: FMA
Title: Phoenix Rising
Characters: Ed, Al, Roy

Pairings: Elricest
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

Author's Notes: AU

Word Count: 11,865
Status: Incomplete
Disclaimer: Not mine, too bad. Not mine, so sad.

Summary: Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 4

The Soul Alchemist wasn't much in evidence in the ensuing few days, much to a lot of people's disappointment. He stuck very close to Mustang, often standing hipshot next to his General, eyes bored and face closed. But the young alchemist had a shadow he didn't even know he had. Edward was just about stalking his little brother. Then he realized something. Al wasn't keeping close to Mustang, Mustang was keeping close to him. The General often followed his young subordinate around, watching with narrowed eyes. The rest of the old gang did too. Everyone thought Soul was there to guard the general, but it was more like everyone was protecting him.

Ed's heart ached continuously. Al had enlisted. His Alchemy was such that he was called Soul, able to put pieces of himself into inanimate objects. It was rumored he could possess people too, which made Ed shudder. Al… was changed. Completely and utterly. Such a thing would have been anathema to him before, but now, Al went about his life with a placid face, as if noticing nothing. But Ed quickly realized he noticed everything and took greater care to make sure Al didn't discover him stalking him.

Sam was bewildered. Not only did the fact that Ed didn't approach his brother at all, he had a hell of a time keeping track of Fullmetal. Thankfully, the younger man didn't take the opportunity to off himself. And Ed changed. As belligerent and foul mouthed as Fullmetal was, he became quiet, introspective, leaving the older man to wonder exactly what happened between Fullmetal and Soul so long ago.

Four days after Mustang and his reinforcements arrived, they went to war. Ed was beside himself. He couldn't imagine Alphonse on the field of battle. He was terrified that his brother would be killed in action, and Ed wouldn't be there to save him. Edward was with his own battalion, two away. But if he narrowed his eyes, he could see his brother, standing beside Mustang, facing the front, no fear in his face.

There was an explosion, and Ed screamed. Dirt and grass and bloody bits flew up into the air where his brother's regiment was. He broke away, running to the site of the bomb. Sam shouted and ran after, him. Falkner swore, and then the troops moved. If Ed survived this, the CO grimly thought, he would kill Fullmetal himself. The Drachmans were flooding the plain, and the battle was on.

Ed didn't even pay attention to the troops that streamed past him, intent on reaching the front and doing what damage they could before more bombs started falling. There was another explosion to his left, and Ed was showered with dirt and grass, and wet warm gore. He paid it no heed, and vaulted over the shallow crater the first bomb had created. Ignoring the dead and dying, his eyes searched the ground desperately.

"Alphonse!" He heard Mustang screaming in fury. "Get back here! Now!"

Through the smoke and dust, he saw Mustang, snapping repeatedly, flames exploding all around a whirling dervish of death. It took him a minute to realize it was his brother. The boy had rigged his rifle strap somehow, and Al used it here and there, taking out Drachmen with deadly accuracy, until someone got too close. Then the rifle spun back onto his back, and the boy was fighting like a maniac. Enemy soldiers were dropping like flies as they tried to take him down. Then he would clap his gloved hands together, grab one of the enemy, let go, and the rifle was back in his hands. The man he'd touched would turn on his comrades, killing indiscriminately until one of his own took him out. Mustang took out others that might have slipped past the boy's guard, men screaming in agony as they burst into flames, the stench of burning flesh heavy amid the smoke of battle. Havoc and Hawkeye had dropped to one knee and were picking off others around with terrifying speed and accuracy.

By the time Ed drew his armblade, Sam right behind him with rifle barking as his bullets joined the other sharpshooters, Al had touched several men. The Drachmen were now too busy fighting off their own possessed men to effectively fight the Amestrians. It was a ripple effect. Mustang called over his radio, and the other regiments began to close in.

Ed, fighting for his life and his country now, Sam's grim face in his periphery, nevertheless kept an eye on his deadly brother. And noticed that Al was flagging. But he wasn't the only one.

"Surround him!" Mustang barked. "He's spread himself too thin!"

In heartbeat, Ed found himself fighting alongside his old comrades. They spared him a glance, a grim nod, and continued the fight. They circled around Al, who was staggering now, and then fell to his knees. Mustang shot past the protective ring and caught the boy in his arms as he was about to dive nose first into the blood soaked ground.

Ed was frightened. Al's eyes were open, but they didn't seem to be tracking. He had to turn his back on his brother then, as the Drachmen were now fighting desperately for their lives, encircled by the Amestrian forces. Then Ed noticed something. Several of the men Al had touched were still alive, killing their own. When one of the possessed comrades finally killed him, that man would reach out as he was falling, already dead, and touch someone else. And that someone would then turn on his own, like the first. It was spreading out, and then Ed understood. Al had too much of his soul out on the field to protect his own body, so Mustang and the others were.

Just over three hours later, the battle ground down to a few sporadic skirmishes here and there. Al's protective ring simply shot the odd man still standing, until an unearthly silence fell.

Ed was jostled, and he looked back, startled, to see Mustang striding away, carrying Al, whose eyes were closed now, as limp as if he were dead. "Wait!" He cried, desperate.

Havoc gave him a cool look, and walked after his commander and comrade. The others followed suit, but Hawkeye hesitated. "He's alright, Fullmetal. He's sleeping now. It's always like this in battle with Soul. He spreads himself to thin, but that's why we're here. We protect him. He's Amestris' secret weapon, as you have seen." She looked sorrowful. "Yeah." Then she turned and walked away too.

Ed stood there, among the dead and the dying, barely hearing the screams and cries and moans of pain. Didn't notice he was drenched with blood, armblade still extended, dripping gore onto the red tinted churned mud. Didn't notice Sam at his side, panting and spent.

Al slept for two days after the battle. When word got out about his technique, once more his protectors were on hand to hold friendly people at bay now. Everyone wanted to see the boy that had basically bested the Drachman army. And the realization, what Ed had already noticed, that Mustang's personal retinue was not there to protect the general, but his prized subordinate, the Soul Alchemist.

Ed didn't even try to get close. He knew he would never be let in. He simply kept to his own tent, nursing his wounds and thinking. Al must have killed hundreds, if not thousands of men with his own hands. Or rather, the hands of men through whose eyes he saw, who's legs he'd used, whose hands he killed with. Ed would never have thought that Al would have been capable of such wholesale slaughter. Alphonse, who cried at a dead animal in the road, who'd been horrified when men and women and children died all around them during their quest, who'd wept without tears for days when so many soldiers were killed to make the stone. Al had done this thing. Al had killed and killed and killed.

Ed buried his face in his hands and cried. The Alphonse Elric he'd known was gone. He'd died the day Al had slit his own wrists in that lonely little house where Ed had abandoned him. What had come of that wraith he'd seen days later in Mustang's living room was now sleeping five tents down, and Ed didn't know him at all. Ed had killed his little brother, and wept for the cold creature that once warm and loving boy had become.

Sam and Falkner had relaxed their vigilance. Ed hadn't tried to get himself killed in some time. And with his brother, albeit estranged, there, they felt safe in leaving him in relative peace during the battle's aftermath. Thus, Ed was free to wander off, two days after his brother woke from his coma.

Heart aching, once more death was all he could think about. It was hard enough to live with the memory of his brother in Mustang's living room. But the day before, he'd crossed paths with Al, and those cool bronze eyes had swept over him without a look of recognition. Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric. Ed stumbled off into the nearby woods, and fell to his knees, and sobbed wildly, where no one could hear him.

Once his tears were spent, he lay face down in the bracken and pine needles and vaguely thought of just laying there until the crows picked his bones. But then there was an ominous click, and something cold and hard nudged the back of his head.