Ed, on the other hand dove right in, which Roy took as a good sign. The short blonde boy looked up from his near empty plate and looked up to see everyone around him talking. Hughes and Winry both looked at the teenage boy that they called their friend and looked stunned as Edward jumped on top of Mustang and rolled him over into the Kitchen.
"EDWA-!", Mustang wailed as the glass to the windows shattered and a dark haired feminine male, landed a perfect flip onto the kitchen table, right in front of where Mustang would have been.
Hawkeye was the first to react pulling her gun out of her holder, pointing it straight towards Envy's face, and Roy got ready to snap from his new position on the floor next to Fullmetal. Hughes, and Havoc both got in position to fight, pulling out weapons or improvising to their best ability.
Everything paused for a moment until Roy broke the silence, and stood up, "You've got three minutes to tell us what you're doing here." Roy looked angry but there was a hint of fright that lingered underneath his emotions. Whether it was for himself or his subordinates was impossible to read but Ed supposed it was the latter. Roy was a decent man after all.
Ed remained quiet on the floor and took in the situation, keeping one eye trained on his attacker and watching out for the people he cared about with the other. He looked specifically and continuously towards Alphonse and saw the nervous beads of sweat coming from his brothers returned body.
Envy looked towards Roy and laughed darkly. "And what if I don't? You going to shoot me? You saw how well that worked last time, didn't you? Remember Lior?" His laugh turned crueler, and he looked around the room making eye contact with each member of the team before landing his gaze on Edward. "Ah, Ed.. We meet often don't we? I believe we have some business to return to, don't you agree?"
Edward's look turned stone cold and he refused to break eye contact with Envy. "Not Particularly. I don't think we've ever had anything to talk about." Ed stood up slowly and transmuted his newly refinished arm into his signature blade.
Ed smirked, "Not unless you're looking for a fight".
Envy obviously took that as an open invitation and was the first to go towards Ed. Hawkeye shot calculated bullets at Envy careful not to hit anyone else but also heavily effecting the aim as she tried to keep them as far away from her companions as possible.
Roy jumped in front of Ed as Envy progressed, and continued to snap at the dark haired humunculi. He soon experienced the same problems as Riza though, controlling the fire caused too many issues. He missed everyone, including Envy, and took a hard blow to the stomach.
Ed fell hard onto the floor thanks to Roy's pushing him out of the way and Envy pulled a blade on Mustang, gouging deep into his lower left abdomen, but hopefully missing any vital organs. The wound was crippling as Mustang fell to the floor and Ed was up next taking his shot at Envy. He had just gotten his knife into Envy as the shapeshifter began to change forms.
Over the roar or the fight Ed heard Hawkeye yelling something about getting out of the house if you're useless, but he couldn't pay much attention to that, because standing in front of him was his mother. His sweet mother. The mother that he'd tried so hard to bring back. "M-Mom..", the young alchemist said, stunned. He knew Envy's tricks, but his mother looked so real standing in front of him.
"Ed! It's a trap! Snap out of it!" Roy screamed, getting back on his feet until he started throwing fireballs much like he did towards Lust. He threw multiple towards Envy until he couldn't regenerate fast enough to keep them off of him, resulting in Envy slowly trying to make it out of the house. Ed stayed out of the way and Hawkeye continued to shoot at Envy. Envy eventually ended the fight by running out the door and disappearing over the many hills.
It took Ed a few minutes to realize that Roy and Hawkeye were the only other two in the room, and they all stood watiing for another attack that they knew had to be coming. They waited patiently until Ed broke the silence. "They'll be back.. but not yet. They're waiting."
Roy looked up to Ed, who's face was bleeding profusely, maybe from the impact of the floor. Roy cringed, he was probably the one to do that to Ed's face. Roy tried to stand up until he remembered the gash in his side and fell down on the floor gasping.
Ed looked towards Hawkeye as they both ran towards the colonel and looked at the wound.
Hawkeye looked at it more closely then Ed and fetched the first aid kit to wrap the wound up. "It doesn't look.. very nice.. and it will probably hurt very bad for sometime, but it didn't hit anything vital. I'd say it could probably use a few stitches.
That night, after Mustang had been given make-do stitches by Pinako and Winry. The team met up once again in the living room. Winry and Pinako were upstairs with Alphonse, and it was just Hawkeye, Ed, Roy, Hughes, and Havoc in the small living room.
Ed looked around at them all sheepishly and said, "I guess I should start at the beginning."
"Al and I were sent on the mission that Mustang assigned", Havoc looked surprised as he hadn't ever heard Ed refer to Mustang as anything but 'Colonel Bastard'. His surprise diminished as Edward continued on with the story.
"..and we were doing fine when we got here. The lead that Mustang gave us turned out to be halfway correct... We learned that there was another way to get Al's body back.." Hawkeye looked astonished, and Havoc's jaw dropped once again, but Roy remained composed for the most part.
"We.. learned that if we reversed the transmutation... the symbols, the adding of the ingredients, the place that we had laid our hands, if we just reversed everything we could reopen the gate, but it would cost us. It wouldn't be.. considered transmutation per say.. but it would cost a price to just open the gate, let along bargain with it."
Ed looked around at the faces and then hesitantly continued "...so we did it.." Roy's face slowly began to show expression and he forced his concerns to the back of his throat, but forced himself to ask a question, "What were the risks?"
Ed paused and slowly wet his lips. Roy nodded for the boy to continue and he shifted nervously. Him sitting beside Roy seemed like less than a good idea right now. Havoc sat across from them not completely aware of what was silently taken place and Hawkeye looked calculating towards Edward, who she also sat across from. Hughes sat between Roy and Havoc and seemed less than pleased from what he had heard so far but still proceeding to listen.
Ed turned to look at Roy "Anything's possible.." he muttered miserably. "There.. were many potential risks, but Al and I got by without anything too terrible."
Ed's face became brighter, and then he continued to mumbled to himself. "We did it. We got Al's body back.." Ed said sounding satisfied with the outcome, and he turned to Roy hoping to see a face that resembled satisfactory but instead he saw a look of disconcertment. Roy looked down at his subordinate with a deep frown, "What did it cost you?"
Ed looked away from his commanding officer and flinched, "Well.. that's a different story."
Roy closed his eyes, "Answer my question, that's an order."
Fullmetal's cheeks slightly blushed and his blue eyes looked a little hurt. "Well.. it cost.. twenty.. years.." Ed looked down and seemed to anazlyze the couch but really he just wanted to get away from that man's gaze. Hughes thought carefully and then added in, "Are you even sure of all of the consequences yourself? We all know the gate is tricky.."
Mustang seemed to ignore his friend and looked down at Edward, "Twenty years...? of what?"
Ed looked up and met Mustang's eyes. "The gate took twenty years off of my life.."
Mustang looked down at his subordinate, Mustang himself couldn't decide whether to be sad or pissed, so he did both.
"Twenty Years?! Do you know how long that is Ed!? You haven't even been alive for twenty years yet! If that would've been twenty years for Al, you wouldn't have let him do it! Why? What made you agree to that?!"
Hawkeye looked slightly upset herself, but her face didn't resemble anything but motherly affection. Edward was like her child after all, but what could she say that would make Edward understand that.. the deal he made wasn't.. worth it?
Hughes looked down at the ground and thought hard for a few minutes, before looking back up at Edward and Roy. The silence broke and Edward slightly jumped at the sound of a voice, "Are you sure that's the only..." He broke off his sentence there, not knowing what to say as far as words and watched as Ed paced the floors.
"Well.." he broke off there and lied through his teeth. "I don't think there are any. I calculated and recalculated and the gate's always been pretty conniving, but I don't think that they're pulling any strings this time."
Roy had been standing for a short period of time, "Well now that you've explained that, what's with palm tree's act earlier?"
Havoc chuckled at that, and Ed caught the glimpse of humor himself but didn't laugh. "Well.. we were always needed as a sacrifice, but now that Al has his body back they've come to the conclusion that Al will make an even better sacrifice. They think... we both will.. With my fou-" Ed stopped.
Roy's eyebrow rose, "With your four...?"
Edward nodded, "With my four... trips to the gate and with Al just now coming out of the gate. They don't think that they'll even need.. the other sacrifices."
Hughes looked satisfied with the answer and got up. "Well what can we do now?" Roy was the one in command here. Roy was the one that they all looked to for answers. Roy was the one who couldn't stop staring long enough to give an order.
"Everyone, head back to your rooms", The voice wasn't Mustang's but it contained the same force that Mustang always implied. It was Hawkeye's, so of course they listened anyway.
Each of the subordinates left the room, not exactly hurrying, but not lingering around either. They were gone soon after and Mustang couldn't refrain from turning away from Edward.
"M-mustang...?" Ed slowly watched as Roy laid down on the couch and moved closer to him.
Edward moved to see Roy's face better and could tell he was in trouble by the anger radiating from Mustang's face.
He waited for the angry mob of words to cascade around him and weigh down on him until he saw Roy's point of view and forgot his own reasoning, but it never came.
"Mustang.. what's..?" Edward looked confused. Why wasn't the all-known colonel bastard not shouting? Why wasn't he yelling? He always had ways of getting Ed to say things that would get him in trouble.. and he was always reprimanded but.. what about this time?
Mustang took a deep breath and moved his hand to his temple.
"Edward.. you... you gave up twenty years..", he seemed to be talking to himself.
"You could've found another way... couldn't you? You could've come up with something... You're Ed.. but.. you gave up twenty.. years.. Does Al even know? Did you tell him?"
Edward laid down on the couch opposite from them, they're legs hitting each others and sighed.
He pulled the throw pillow, that matched the tinted gray of the couch and put it over his head, wrapping his arms around it tightly.
"It's not like I had another choice..", he mumbled.
Ed pulled the pillow down from his eyes after figuring out a way to get the colonel to understand, but as soon as his rebuttal was about to leave his lips, he saw the colonel's face. Wet.
There was no other way to describe it. The man's face was an unmanageable facade, something that couldn't be changed or tainted in the worst situations, and even now he held that together, but the tears slipping down his face told another story.
This was probably one of my favorite Chapters to write, I feel like I went to fast with the plot here... but I didn't want to bore anyone D: Please read and review, If I can get a few reviews on it, i could probably manage another few chapters. I could just leave it off here, but that's.. i dunno XD. Anyway, if anyone keeps up with this story ^-^ Please review! Thanks! Hope you enjoyed!