100 themes FMA
Theme: 86: Zombies
Characters: Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric
Universe: Manga/Brotherhood
Words: 1881
Warnings: Zombies, language
"You're the Fullmetal Alchemist, yes? Nice to meet you. I am the former Earth Alchemist, Jon Katiliute. Please, come inside."
"Thanks for seeing me," Ed said, stepping inside the imposing mansion. "This place seems to be kept up quite well, even though you don't have your license any more. Do you live alone?"
"There's not another soul in the building except me," Katiliute said lightly. "I have managed to acquire a small income from using my alchemy for others- well, small compared to the research grants of a State Alchemist, anyway!" he gave a dry laugh. The man wasn't that old, Ed knew, but there was something dried-out about him. Had he fought in Ishval? Or were the rumours about his experiments... "Please, come through to the sitting room."
There were two cups of steaming tea sitting waiting for them. Ed sat down where indicated, taking a sip of the brew. It was still boiling hot, as if it had been poured moments ago.
"So, Fullmetal Alchemist," Katiliute said, blowing gently on his own tea, "what caused you to seek me out? I had my license taken from me, after all."
"I don't think that means that you're underqualified," Ed said. "In fact, I heard rumours that your license was taken because you were suspected of attempting human transmutation..."
Katiliute looked up at Ed, a slow, slightly unhinged grin spreading across his face. Even his eyes were a dry, brown colour. Nothing seemed to be missing from him, though- aside from, Ed increasingly suspected, a chunk of his sanity- so if he had really tried human transmutation...?
"I had theories," Katiliute said slowly. "I came up with a construction circle, and I calculated the human body to the last microgram. I came up against a roadblock with the soul, however. Equivalent exchange must be satisfied, and I could not calculate what could match the price of a human soul..."
Ed nodded absentmindedly. "You had theories... you abandoned it?" Katiliute didn't respond to the question. Ed wondered if maybe he had tried it, and a chunk of his brain had been removed. The man's greying hair was such an untidy mess that there could easily be a hole hidden in the back of his head. "Who were you trying to bring back?"
"My Marija..." his expression finally shifted away from that mad grin, to a kind of faint longing, as his gaze drifted to a dusty photo on the side table. Ed picked it up, polishing the glass left-handedly. There was a handsome young man, just about recognizable as Katiliute, standing with a gorgeous blonde woman. Ed nodded again, setting the photo down.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he said, setting the picture down. "And I'm sorry to take up your time. I came to ask about human transmutation, but if you never performed it..."
"I haven't performed it yet," Katiliute said, snapping his fingers. "I'm still experimenting. But I'm almost there."
"What do you mean, almost-?" Ed yelped as something grabbed his arms from behind the chair in an almost impossibly tight vicegrip. Ed looked down, surprised to see only a pair of pale hands. He struggled, but he couldn't break their grip, not even with his right arm. He looked up at his captor, and froze in shock as he beheld the face.
There were two eyes, and a nose, and a mouth. But it was barely a face. It was grey, and twisted, the teeth oddly shaped, the eyes milky white and blank. The face didn't change in expression at all as Ed renewed his struggles, and the hands didn't move an inch, even as his struggles grew more frenzied.
"What the hell is this thing, Katiliute?" Ed yelled, staring in horror as more figures limped in from the door behind the alchemist. Some walked fairly normally, whereas one or two were crawling on four malformed limbs. Some had human faces, and some had faces that looked familiar from Ed's nightmares about attempting human transmutation on his mother. Katiliute patted the arm of a girl in a maid's uniform, who looked almost entirely human aside from the odd pallor to the skin and the milky whiteness of the eyes.
"Well, I'm no bio-alchemist, so even getting the body right was a chore," he said airily, waving his arm to indicate the group of... things. "I didn't bother trying to trade to get their souls back, not yet. The brain functions, the heart beats, the body is alive... after a fashion. There's simply nothing in there. They don't have the volition to move without strict orders."
"These people... you killed them?" Ed gaped, staring, counting. Fifteen... twenty? "All of them?"
"I brought them back," Katiliute said brightly, as if this made everything alright. "I've perfected the body process. I can make my Marija just as she was. Now I just need something very valuable to trade for her soul, and the only thing that I can think would equal it would be another soul... a living soul..."
"Yeah?" Ed growled, tensing. "Well, I wouldn't try paying with mine- it'll just bounce!" He swung up his left leg, leaning back to kick over his head and hit the- thing - square in the face. There was a horrible crunching noise, and while the hands remained stiff, they dropped, allowing Ed enough room to wiggle out of them. He rolled away from the lurching grasps of more creatures, pelting down the hallway. Was the front door on the left...?
There were more of them down in the front hall. Ed rounded a corner and ran straight into one of their arms. It was a woman; or at least, it had a woman's long, stringy black hair, over a distorted grey face that was the farthest possible thing from human. And the stench...
"Now, now, Fullmetal," Katiliute's voice said behind him. "Be a good boy and rest a while. It's rude to pay a visit and leave so soon..."
Disgusting, twisted hands wrapped over Ed's nose and mouth, and he was smothering, he couldn't breathe, he had to get away he had to escape these things he had to Mom...
Alphonse watched as the clock ticked towards nine. There was nothing for it. He'd have to go get Nii-san. Al couldn't help feeling uneasy; Colonel Mustang's warnings were ringing in his helmet.
"Katiliute was never a particularly... moral man. He didn't enjoy being in Ishval, as some did, but he was never unsettled or bothered by it either. And he could be quite single-minded when he had a theory in mind. There was never any proof that he had actually done anything illegal, but nevertheless, the military could no longer be seen to support him. If you want to speak to him, I'd like to come with you. Just to be safe."
Of course, Nii-san had insisted that they didn't need any assistance from "Colonel Jerkwad" and had snuck off, promising to be back in an hour. That was two hours ago.
He had a more immediate problem, however; how does a seven-foot-tall suit of armour sneak out of military rooms?
Ed came around coughing. The stench was somehow even stronger, the air almost solid with it. His eyes flickered open, and focused on the unsettling sight of his own arm and leg sitting on a table across the room, his coat, shirt and shoes piled neatly next to them. The other arm was tied tightly behind him, his leg also bent and bound behind him. He tried to sit up, but could only roll around on the damp earth floor, too unbalanced with only half of his limbs.
"Katiliute? Where the fuck are you?" he yelled. "Let me out of here, dammit!"
"No need to yell, boy, I'm right here."
Ed craned his neck around to see the Earth Alchemist crouched on the ground a few feet away, putting the finishing touches on a circle. "Try not to roll around so much. You'll knock Marija's body over."
Ed rolled again anyway, this time feeling his arm knock against a shallow basin at his side. He felt suddenly sick; he knew exactly what was in there. He could still recite it in his head, the grocery list of elements that made up the body of a female adult.
"This won't work, Katiliute," he said, wiggling his arm to try to undo some of the knots. Unfortunately, they were tied tight with expert knots; Katiliute was evidently well-practiced. "You don't understand what you're doing!"
"Don't worry, Fullmetal," Katiliute said happily. "Soon, Marija will be back in my arms, just as she was!"
"That's not what I'm worried about! Shit!" Ed tried struggling towards some of the markings, aiming to scuff through the circle. Unfortunately, the interior circles were painted into the ground, so Ed couldn't damage them. There were several crunching thumps above them; Ed winced at the sound of undead feet shuffling. Katiliute looked up at the ceiling.
"They're restless," he said thoughtfully. "Do we have a guest?" He shrugged and went back to sketching sigils around the outer circles. Ed was more interested.
"DOWN HERE!" He bellowed at the ceiling. "THERE'S A ROOM DOWN HERE! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!"
There was more thumping above, a moment's pause, and then a blue circle lit up on the ceiling a few feet away from Ed. Ed felt a glorious sense of relief as a suit of armour dropped heavily through the sudden hole, crashing into the bowlful of materials. Katiliute howled angrily as its contents spilled across the floor.
"Nii-san!" Al gasped. "What happened?"
"Talk later, run now!" Ed demanded as Al scooped him up in one arm. "And grab my arm and leg, too, Winry'll kill us both if we leave 'em!"
"Got it!" Al clicked his breastplate open and hurriedly scooped the items on the table into his chest cavity. Behind them, there was an angry scream. Katiliute had been scribbling on the ground, and now straightened up.
"How dare you interfere!" Katiliute howled, charging them with a halberd. Al didn't bother flinching; the earth-made metal broke easily off his armour. Al knocked him aside with no trouble. A more pressing concern was the large number of undead servants staggering through the door to the basement.
"What are these things?" Al whimpered, backing away from them. "There were a ton upstairs!"
"This guy's early experiments in human transmutation," Ed growled. "Bodies without souls! Let's get the hell outta here!"
"Got it!" Ed scribbled a transmutation circle on the floor with his toe and then dropped to his knees to activate it, creating a column of earth that pushed them back through the hole in the ceiling. Ed winced as more abominations shambled towards them, but Al could run faster, and didn't stop after they'd burst out of the gate and started tearing towards East HQ.
"Are you alright, Nii-san?" Al asked, slowing down once they were a good distance from the mansion. Ed groaned loudly.
"Colonel Bastard is not gonna let go of this, is he?" he moaned. Al sighed.
"Well, he has every right to say "I told you so", and he probably will... a lot..."
"Shut up and get me somewhere I can stick my limbs back on."
Long oneshot is long. I apologize for two horror oneshots in a row :P
I don't own any of the rights to FMA. Sadly, Arakawa-sensei's lawyers aren't as thick as Yoki.