For the record, Loki did not even know homunculi ever existed in reality, and he wished to clarify that he was definitely not one of them.
(An artificial human created by humans? That was even worse than simply being human.)
Amestrian history books were very lacking in knowledge, apparently. Only alchemic theory ever mentioned them, and only in the abstract – because as far as the books were concerned, none had ever been created.
A supposed 'perfect being'. It had always sounded ridiculous to him, because there was no such thing as a perfect being. Asgardians were called gods, a word associated with perfection, but they were flawed. Loki liked to think himself above them, but he wasn't so arrogant as to believe he had none himself. Odin himself stood at the top of the Nine Realms as the All-Father, the father of all, the figurehead of mercy, a position won through death and bloodshed. History may have been written by the victors, but the subtext was easy enough to read for anyone willing to look just a little closer.
For heaven's sake, they hadn't even done that good of a job hiding the whole megalomaniac older sister debacle. Really, it was like they'd wanted him to figure it out, or Odin was just arrogant enough to believe no one would talk about it if he so commanded. Granted, there were very few people who seemed to admit to knowing that part of the truth now, but apparently Odin was too sentimental to destroy all the evidence.
For Valhalla's sake, there were still books in the library detailing the wars they'd started. Odin was a fool for believing they'd succeeded in rewriting history to fit his narrative, going so far as to erase the existence of his eldest daughter while keeping records of her life in the damn library.
He supposed something similar might happen to his own life, now that he was gone. His being, his accomplishments, everything he'd done buried and hidden away as if he'd never existed. At least Hela had been (as far as Loki was aware) Odin's flesh and blood child. Loki was a war prize. He had a feeling Odin wouldn't feel the need to keep any records of Loki.
The point was, there was no such thing as a perfect being, especially not if that life form was based off humanity. Their short lives were a very symptom of imperfection, if you asked him. It was best not to mess around with such concepts, as it rarely went well. Best to leave them as part of theory and not reality.
Loki was getting the feeling the homunculi were not just theoretical, and if he were to guess then he'd say they were much more dangerous than he would have assumed.
He was also fairly certain the Flame Alchemist would not have much trouble incinerating Loki on the spot if he so desired.
So, of course, Loki took the most natural course of action.
Prod at them further and see if they snapped.
To be fair, he was the literal God of Mischief. Really, he would be letting down his title if he didn't push things in the direction of chaos.
"What if I say I am?" he asked, crossing his legs in a mock-casual display of nonchalance. It wasn't like it mattered all that much; if they truly aimed to kill him, he doubted there was all that much he could do to stop them in his current state. If only he still had his godly body.
Neither of the men watching him seemed impressed – they'd gotten tenser, like they were expecting an attack at any second. Interesting. These homunculi were likely dangerous, then. Maybe they had something to do with that uprising two years earlier; there was certainly enough secrecy surrounding that time period to make it a plausible theory.
"Who sent you?" Mustang's tone no longer had any of that level indifference his voice had held nearly all the time Loki had known him, replaced by something a lot more formidable. This was the so-called Hero of Ishval coming out to play, wasn't it? It made Loki want to laugh. He sounded just like Heimdall, back when Loki had first discovered he could cloak himself from Heimdall's ever-watching eyes.
Elric had an almost haunted expression, like he was being faced by his mortal enemy. That seemed a little excessive considering Loki technically hadn't done anything yet, but then, it wasn't the first time Loki had been on the receiving end on that look.
"Who do you think sent me?" Loki replied, smirking. He was careful not to let his hands drift too close to each other, instead spreading them out with upturned palms, noting how both their eyes tracked his movements. It wouldn't do to get torched now, not when he was so close to finding some pieces of the puzzle.
"That Father bastard is dead," Elric growled. "There's nothing left for you to fight for."
Loki's smile grew. Now they were getting somewhere. "Who told you he died?"
Elric's expression faltered, just slightly. His next statement was less confident. "I saw him die. We all did. We killed him." He narrowed his eyes. "Are you telling me he's still alive?"
"I'm not saying anything," Loki said. "Just questioning your recollection of events. Is he the one who drove your brother to do something so stupid as giving up his life for something as insignificant as your arm?"
Sharp pain exploded from the side of his face, the force of the punch enough to almost knock him out of the chair.
"You don't know a damn thing!" Elric yelled. He was seething, teeth grinding and breathing labored. Mustang was standing now, eyes narrowed as he studied Loki but not making any moves to attack. Loki lightly touched his cheek, a metallic taste seeping into his mouth where the skin in his mouth had gotten cut on his teeth. He smiled, and he could see the muscles in Elric's body tensing in preparation to strike out again.
"Edward, stop," Mustang said. "He's not a homunculus; he's been playing you. Look, he's not healing."
"Oh, you're no fun," Loki said, rolling his eyes as he settled back into his seat, the sting dulling into a deep ache. He was going to be feeling that for a while. Elric had a lot more strength than Loki would have guessed just by looking at him. "But this has been very intriguing. Really, if you wanted to keep the events of two years ago secret you should have covered it up better." The stricken look on Elric's face as good as confirmed some of Loki's suspicions.
Now, if he could just get Elric alone, it would make this so much easier. He got talkative when he was riled up, and Loki had plenty of practice in aggravating personalities like Elric's.
He couldn't get much from someone as careful and controlled as Mustang, but Elric was a gold mine of information just waiting to be tricked out of him.
Ed wanted to bash this guy's face in. Loki didn't look affected at all, even with the undoubtedly painful redness on his cheek.
Ed should have aimed for the nose. It would have been a lot harder to ignore.
Roy was side-eyeing him, but Ed ignored him, embarrassment red-hot in his chest as he replayed what he'd just accidentally spilled to Loki. Fuck, he should have been more careful. But something about this guy just rubbed him the wrong way, putting him on edge despite Ed's attempts to play nice.
Loki didn't know anything about Al. He didn't get it, and logically Ed knew he wouldn't understand without knowing the context behind Al's choice, but hell if he was going to just stand by and listen to this crackpot spout off insults about his little brother like that.
He shouldn't have bothered. He shouldn't have told Loki anything about himself. That was a huge fucking mistake, and he could already hear Al asking him what he expected. Some solidarity, maybe? Come on, it only made sense Loki had cared about someone at some point, even if he was a class A jerk now. People didn't attempt human transmutation just for kicks, even if he was reconsidering that belief after meeting Loki. At this point he wouldn't have even believed the man had ever actually seen Truth if he hadn't seen him perform alchemy without an array, and later he'd think more about the possibility Loki was telling the truth about not performing human transmutation. He didn't like the implications.
"So who is this Father person?" Loki asked, as if Ed was going to just give him all the answers now.
"It doesn't matter," Ed snapped. "Look, just tell us what we need to know about that stone and then get the hell out of here."
"And what is that so-called 'stomach dimension' you mentioned earlier? That sounds even more interesting," Loki said, continuing on as if Ed hadn't said anything.
Roy was giving Ed the stink eye. Well, if he complained later Ed would remind him that it was his own damn fault for asking Ed to meet the guy. Ed hadn't exactly jumped for joy at the prospect of meeting an arrogant dick like this guy.
"Fuck you," Ed hissed. Loki, of-fucking-course, looked like he thought that was funny, giving Ed a patronizing smile.
"How forward of you," he mocked, and Ed was this close to socking him right in the teeth when he felt Roy put a hand on his shoulder again.
"Calm down," Roy said, quietly enough that only Ed could hear him. "This isn't helping anything." He jerked away from Roy's touch, but took a few steps away from both of them instead of giving into the urge to fight. He should leave. He'd never done well with the type of person that purposely tried to elicit a reaction, a.k.a. Loki's apparent default state, but he also didn't like the idea of leaving Roy alone with him. Even if Roy could more than handle himself.
"I don't know what you're expecting when you act like this, Laufeyson," Roy said, glaring at Loki. "You're undermining yourself with everything you're doing here."
"I wouldn't have to if you'd stop trying to cheat information out of me without offering anything useful in return," Loki said, that smug smile finally dropping off his face. Without it he just looked… tired. The side of his face was already discoloring into ugly shades of red and there were dark circles under his eyes, made much more obvious when he lost some of that arrogance.
"I'm hardly here out of any sense of goodwill, and I know you were aware of that when you told me to meet you here again," he continued. "I wish for the Stone to be found, and I wish to return it to Truth to regain what I lost. That is all I am here for. Without me, you will not find it easily, if at all. I suspect you may fall under its control before you've even realized what had happened. Without you, I will only be slowed down. I know what to look for, and my biggest obstacle is finding a way back to Truth to fulfill my goal. Either you help, or you do not. That is up to you. If you tell me to leave, I won't come back."
He leaned forward, and his icy gaze seemed to drop the temperature in the room a few degrees. "But rest assured, if trouble befalls you I will not help. I will let you all rot under the control of someone who will manipulate you for their own gain, force you to kill and destroy what you love, and you will rejoice in your own destruction because you are told you should. Consider this before you make a choice you will come to regret."
Wrath was a homunculus that didn't heal from his wounds like the other homunculi, but neither Ed nor Roy were involved in fights where Wrath actually got injured so they didn't think of this when considering Loki's lack of healing.
It has also been pointed out to me that Loki's use of alchemy (and clapping first to use it) should also have been a giveaway to Ed and Roy that Loki wasn't a homunculus. I've yet to decide if I want to edit this chapter to address that or just include it in later chapters. A reminder that this fic is set in the Brotherhood/manga universe, so the rules regarding homunculi (notably their inability to use alchemy in this situation) don't apply.
From now on, updates will be weekly, every Sunday.