A/N: Hi! *bright smile* So one of you knows me too well and demanded to know if I'd killed Ed already. That made me laugh. *grin*
Thank you to FearlessSun, InsanityOwl, and guest for reviewing!
Title: For the Sake of Science
Author: liketolaugh
Rating: T
Pairings: None
Genre: Angst/Family
Warnings: Child abuse, human experimentation
Summary: A very different Hohenheim stays in Resembool, and Roy Mustang finds the effects of his experiments too late. With his help, Ed and Al set out to discover what he was trying to do, and along the way, find much, much more. Brotherhood AU.
Disclaimer: If I owned Fullmetal Alchemist, would I really be here right now?
In the moments after the sword impaled his body, Ed couldn't feel anything except a blinding pain in his chest, all-consuming and terrifying. And then it vanished, and he was left numb and distant, trying to remember what had just happened.
Hadn't he been hurting?
Hadn't he been… somewhere?
The memory slipped through his fingers, and mentally, he shuddered, but couldn't find the strength to do so physically. What was happening to him? Why did he feel so weak?
The sword was removed from his body, and he was left struggling to breathe, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears.
A moment passed, and then the voices returned, louder than ever - so loud it almost hurt Ed's ears.
Edward!
Edward, be careful! Don't be so reckless, please!
He's just like Hohenheim was-
Shut up! Edward, do you-
The voices ebbed away, just for a moment. Instead, he felt his heart stop, and a bright white light flashed behind his eyes, a towering set of doors, a white figure with a leering smile-
And then it was gone, red surged up behind his eyes, and he could breathe again, with a laugh he recognized but couldn't put a name to echoing in his ears.
He came back to himself with a jolt, and reached up to gingerly press against his chest, where the sword had sunk deep into his flesh.
Like the bullet wounds from a weeks before, there was no sign that he'd ever been hurt.
For a moment, he was frozen in place, and then he heard a scream.
"ED!"
Al.
His eyes snapped open, his confusion and fear shoved aside, and he surged to his feet, turning on his heel to face where 48 was approaching the vent entrance with his bloodstained sword.
"No!"
The yell ripped from his lungs without his permission, and he darted across the floor, trying to get to 48 before 48 could reach the vent.
Red sparks danced on his fingertips, his mind racing through arrays, and his hand stretched out, golden eyes lit with desperation. He could see the glint of Al's bronze disappearing as he backed further into the vent, and no doubt Al was scrambling to scratch something into the metal, but he would be too slow, too slow.
"Hey, shell-face!"
48 turned, noticeably surprised to see Ed barreling toward him. He reached up with one arm to deflect Ed's coming blow. "How? I'm certain I killed you."
"Do I look dead?" Ed snapped, trying to forget the fact that yes, he had been dead, he had definitely been dead-
His hand slapped against 48's arm and with a thought, he deconstructed it, making 48 jerk back warily.
"I see," 48 murmured. "You are more than you seem, eh, child?"
"Something like that," Ed said. (He had no idea what he was talking about.)
The next few minutes were filled with red light.
When the cries (Ed had had no idea that they would hurt when he broke the seal, and the realization that there were two of them, that they were brothers, was worse, so much worse) came to a halt, Al crawled out of the vent, poking out tentatively.
"B-brother?" he asked hesitantly.
Ed took a deep breath and tried not to think. He didn't want to think right now. "Let's go look for something," he said roughly, turning. Without looking, he could hear Al drop down from the vent and scurry after him, very quiet.
For a few minutes, they walked down the hall in silence, Ed paying attention to everything in an admirably successful effort not to think.
It was meticulously clean, with surprisingly good lighting and every door closed. They opened each one they passed, wary of more guards but anxious to find what they were looking for. (Which was what, exactly?)
They were rewarded when, at last, they came to a locked room, unlabeled. Ed deconstructed the locking mechanism with a touch and opened it, leading the way inside.
"Not using an array feels lazy," he admitted with forced cheer. "Like, what's the point?"
"You don't need one at all?" Al asked, voice soft but apparently willing enough to hold his end of the conversation.
"Well, I mean, I need to think about it," Ed said dismissively. It was a file room, mostly neat, but with a few files strewn across the tables. It looked like it had been abandoned in a hurry. "But not drawing it feels kinda lazy."
"Nothing's stopping you from drawing it, brother," Al pointed out, and without discussing it, Al went to the file cabinet while Ed went to investigate the files at the table.
"Yeah, yeah," Ed muttered, shifting through them. "I know that, but it's practical, I guess."
"Then stop complaining." Al seemed willing enough to move past the previous events for now; amusement filled his voice instead. Ed grumbled, but then both of them fell silent, intently going through the files.
Their contents made Ed feel sick - sick and angry.
There was one document containing draft info about several officers with little or no family, and another about an experimentation process - there were several, but the one Ed could pick out with his knowledge of alchemy was the one used to make chimerae. Had they been turning military officers into chimerae?
"Damn it," Ed muttered.
He went through more files - chimera information, something about souls, a file about something called Red Water that he set aside to look at, another that explained the guys in armor and gave him the creeps - and then he found something else, a list of names.
All of them had been on the draft list. It was a list of successful experiments, immediately followed up by a report of a mass breakout. Whoever they were, they were gone.
Suspected Location: Dublith.
Where Teacher lived. Ed's eyes narrowed, a furrow appearing in his brow.
"Brother?"
Al had always had a talent for picking up right away when Ed was unsettled.
Before Ed could say anything, though, there came the sound of thumping footsteps in the hall outside, and his eyes went wide. His head jerked up, his clear gold eyes meeting Al's wide bronze.
Fuck.
They'd forgotten about 66.
Huh. *frown* Well, that's certainly not the best death scene I've ever written. (THE IMPACT IS SOMEWHAT LESSENED BY HIM NOT ACTUALLY DYING.) And I think that I was a little sloppy with the [nonexistent] fight scene... *cough* Never mind, I need to stop rambling about how I think I did at the end A/Ns. Besides that - some more revelations, and they took out something a little different from the lab this time. Thanks for reading, and please review!