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

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

Author's Notes: AU

Word Count: 1,591

Status: Incomplete
Disclaimer: When pigs fly.

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 10

As carefully as Soul had examined Ed's coat, his scrutiny of the carefully contrived scene in the glade was even more intense. Though Armstrong and blustered and objected, Soul had been adamant about following Sam to the 'scene of the crime' and going alone. Armstrong had naturally rushed off to inform Mustang of these latest developments, and Soul had followed Sam to this distant little rain wet and rapidly darkening dell.

Sam was shifting nervously as Soul moved slowly about the little space, growing increasingly apprehensive with every passing moment. Where was Ed? This was a critical part of their plan! The longer Al was able to look around, the more likely he was to realize exactly how fake this all was.

Soul gave a small and uncharacteristic sigh as he straightened up and leveled a cold look at Sam. "Why don't you tell me why I'm really here, Samson Jansen?" His voice was forbidding. "I don't like this little game you're playing."

Sam's heart leapt straight into his throat at the look and tone he was receiving from the Soul Alchemist. Yes, Al was still in possession of a soft spot, however dim it might be, for Ed, but that did not include Sam. "I… I don't know what you're talking about." His voice was feeble and unconvincing.

There merest hint of a frown wrinkled Soul's smooth brow. "Do you take me for a fool?" That cold and emotionless voice dropped to an icy note. "Enough. I knew the second I heard your voice outside my tent that you were up to no good. Your little scenario here is quite impressive, but I am undeceived. Why am I here? Answer swiftly. My patience is wearing thin."

Sam realized the jig was up, and the glacial look in Soul's eyes scared the living shit out of him. He could only stammer and stutter in fright, silently cursing Ed. Where the fuck was he? Soul was going to kill him he just knew it, he just…

The older man suddenly grew stock still, eyes growing dim and vague, and he was internally screaming. There was a white hot touch on his hand, and he felt the suddenly smothering presence of another in his mind. Even as he mentally struggled, pain sparking along every never in his body, he wondered exactly when Al had touched him. He moved so fast…

There was a momentary silence as the two stood close together in an eerie tableau, Soul's ungloved hand lightly touching the other's. Then with a moue of disgust, Soul stepped back, hand dropping to his side.

Sam dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, and writhed on the ground. The pulsing beats of unimaginable pain had stopped immediately when Soul released his mind, leaving behind a bone deep ache like he'd been beaten soundly. Nausea rose in a relentless tide, and Sam rolled over just in time to vomit violently, gagging and retching until nothing was left but a vile tasting, evil smelling bile. Quivering like a palsied old man, Sam rolled to the side so as not to fall face first into his own spew and looked helplessly up at Soul standing over him. Backlit by the stormy looking sky drifting dimly through the leaves overhead, the younger man was a sinister shadow looming over Sam, and the sniper wondered vaguely if he would die now.

"You are a hopeless romantic, Lt. Jansen," Soul's derisive voice filtered down dimly. "And a fool to boot. You butt in where you're not wanted, and interfere where you're not welcome. So… Where's Fullmetal, since the two of you went to such great trouble to lure me here with your foolishness?"

The shuddering was slowly leaving Sam's body, and his vision began to steady, the sickness gradually ebbing. "Don't… know… Was supposed… to be… here… Don't know…" Sam struggled to collect himself, revolted and horrified that his entire life, his very soul had been laid bare to this frightening young man. Alphonse Elric now knew his deepest darkest fears, the shameful little secrets every one hid in the dark recesses of their mind, each fanciful daydream, every waking dream he'd ever had in his life. Little incidences he'd so long forgotten about were fresh and vivid in his mind. He wanted to puke again.

"Che." Soul snorted in disdain. He ignored the other man, and cold eyes slowly scanned the grayed circle of trees in the half light, nostrils flaring delicately. He could smell Fullmetal's scent; faint and fading, rain wet wood and leaf, violently disturbed earth, the acrid odor of stone unfamiliar with this region, and the scent of a total stranger. And violence. He could literally smell the stench of aggression, fear, evil triumph and his brother's blood.

Vision telescoped to a pinpoint, hearing tuned out the normal sounds of rain, night and the noise of a wood, and focused on the faint echo of a struggle, his very spirit focused like a needle to the very spot where all these sensations originated, sensations very much out of place in this particular spot of the world. There was a throb deep inside his breast, a teasing emotion he was unaccustomed to having, but had had far too much of lately.

Niisan!

Clods of wet dirt and grass shot from under his feet when Soul began to move with demonic speed, shooting across the little clearing and slicing right through the bushes and brushes in a straight line for the source of his unease.

Unbeknownst to the younger man, his thought was vocalized, and the sudden agony in that soft word, the unearthly lunge, the man's form vanishing from sight with frightening suddenness, brought Sam back to his senses like nothing else. If the Soul Alchemist reacted so negatively and emotionally to something unsensed to the older man, then things had taken a very bad turn.

It took several minutes for Sam to get to his feet and stagger along the same flight path Soul had taken, the trail clear with broken branches and disturbed soil.

Soul could move like a shadow in the night, leaving no sign of his passing, but such things were too trivial to contemplate and he brought himself in the blink of an eye to a spot where a real scuffle had taken place. He slowed his pace, taking in every hint, no matter how miniscule, of where his brother might be now, and followed the obvious signs of battle to its place of culmination.

That was were Sam finally found him, staring down with once more inscrutable eyes at a small dagger laying in the disturbed soil, and the most beautiful crafted lance Sam had ever seen, and the older man shivered in the growing dusk. Both weapons were as familiar to him as his own. They were Ed's, and that man would no more leave them lying around then he would run naked through the streets of Central. This was very bad. Very bad indeed.

Hearing the rustle of Sam's arrival, Soul looked up, and once again Sam felt fear infiltrate his very being. Soul's eyes were far from emotionless. And that scared him more than anything. Then suddenly there was a cracking pain in his jaw and he was flying backwards, to fetch abruptly and painfully against the bole of a tree, and he slithered to the ground in a daze.

"You goddamned fool!" Al screamed, eyes filled with rage, fist still knotted white to the knuckles from his blow. "Do you realize what you've done? You've led Niisan into a trap!" Then he gasped, struggled, and his cold demeanor dropped back over him like a cloak. Now was not the time to fall apart.

When Soul had learned about Fullmetal's abduction several weeks before, he'd felt a frission of unease. An uncomfortable feeling that had grown with every passing moment, though he hid it so carefully it was as if it never existed. But this time… There was something so menacing, so evil about whomever had taken his brother, that Al felt physically ill. It was a palpable miasma that hung over everything like a black and toxic cloud, and his sudden unreasoning fear was destroying the calm and icy façade that had become like a second skin to him over the last three years. If…if… Niisan… if….

Sam got shakily back to his feet, and watched the Soul Alchemist unraveling before his very eyes. The younger man's cold persona flickered in and out with an emotional young man's terror like the blinking of a strobe light. As scary as Soul could be, watching this vacillation between man and machine was even more horrifying.

With a jerk so sudden and complete it almost made an audible click, Alphonse Elric was gone, and the Soul Alchemist was firmly in control.

"Get up," he stated icily, hating this man before him with every fiber of his being for witnessing the flickers of humanity Soul would rather submit to the coldest depths of hell than acknowledge. "We have a job to do."

Without waiting to see if Sam would obey, for the younger man knew he would, Soul turned and began to run in an unerring line through the woods as if he knew where he was going. Soul was following a faint physical and sickeningly strong psychic trail that would lead him to what he hoped wouldn't be his greatest fear. He had to find Fullmetal. And find him now.