Chapter 7

Sparks Fly

The car ride on the way to capture the rogue lightning alchemist, better known as the Spark Alchemist, was a cramped and awkward one. Well, it least it was in the backseat. Havoc was at the wheel, chattering happily with Alex who was beside him. Roy just gazed out the window beside him, watching rain droplets streak down the glass of the window. He was still coming down from his conversation with Edward, and he needed to be in a good place when he went into this fight. Errors could mean death if he wasn't careful. Fullmetal's efforts would be in vain if he were to die because he was distracted. Even though his head was turned, he could just feel Riza's eyes staring holes into him.

"What, lieutenant?" He asked, not even turning to face her.

"You tell me." She answered. "Did something happen when you were on the phone with Fullmetal?" Before she came into the room before, she heard him on the phone with someone, she could only deduce it was Edward because he sounded stressed out. Given by his crabby demeanor, the talk went very poorly.

Roy rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yes." He replied simply.

"Did he give you bad news or something? Is he getting nowhere with curing you?"

"No." Roy said. "Quite the opposite, actually. He's been perfecting his medicinal alchemy and he's making great strides with it."

Riza's eyes narrowed in confusion. Wasn't this good news? "Well, I understand that alchemy like that can be very strenuous on the user, but-"

"It's not that." He said, cutting her off. "His mentor...it's Douglas Lee."

Riza's eyes shot open a little. "You mean...?"

"Exactly." Roy finished for her. "Do you remember, back in the Ishval war, the man I wrestled the gun from?"

Riza nodded. "The man that wanted to kill Maes?"

"That's the one." He told her. "After he shot me, Maes killed him off. Turns out, that man was Lee's son. There's no doubt that he knows that Maes and I had a hand in his death. There's no way he knows that he's training Fullmetal to save me. The kids must not of told him, but if he does find out somehow, I'm afraid he'll..."

"Did you tell Edward they needed to come home?"

"I ordered them to."

Riza's face fell further. "I take it he refused?"

Roy finally looked at her with aggravated eyes. "Take a wild guess."

"I see." Riza said, backing off a little. "Well, the boys have been there for months now. If he did know and was planning something, don't you think he would have done it by now?"

"That's what I'm banking on." Roy told her.

Riza discreetly placed her hand on top of his. "They're going to be fine, sir. Even if something were to happen, those boys are tough. They can handle it."

And just like that, Roy felt better. He gave her a weak smile and nod. How did she do that? With just a few simple words, she had pulled him out of the dark depths of his own head. Tender as her touch was, it put him at ease again.

Suddenly, the car violently lurched forward, so hard that Roy and Riza hit the seats in front of them.

"What the hell was that, Major?" Roy called out to Alex. Bracing himself to keep himself steady, Riza following suit. Havoc was practically fighting the steering wheel to try and keep the car's four tires on the ground.

"I'd say we've found our Spark Alchemist." Armstrong said, gripping the dash before him, until Havoc finally managed to bring the vehicle to a halt.

"At least we don't need to bait him out!" Roy yelled. "Havoc!"

Havoc knew what he had to do, he leaned his body out of the now shattered window next to him and took aim with his machine gun. Once he had the shot, he began firing without mercy.

Although his aim was straight on, Spark generated a field of electricity around his body to avoid being hit by the bullets.

The Spark Alchemist was a pretty hefty man, not as much as Alex—but close enough. A thick, large gray poncho covered most of his body and he had the hood up, obscuring his face. On his hands were two neon green-looking gloves that had had transmutation circles drawn on them in black. Much like how Roy does with his flame alchemy, this man was able to create electricity and sparks with those circles that marked his gloves. Just barely under the hood, two eyes flashed out. The color was much like the color of his gloves. Not only could this guy summon lightning, he clearly had merged with it and taken it into his body somehow.

No wonder so many alchemists were taken down by this guy.

"Shit!" Havoc cried out when he saw all the ammo he just wasted hit the wet pavement. Nearly an entire clip. "He used some sort of electrical force field to parry my bullets."

Roy soon took control of the situation. "Havoc, you and Hawkeye need to flank this guy on both sides. Armstrong—you keep him occupied until I can light him up with my flame alchemy. All of you...do not get to close to him. We have no idea what his area of effect is yet."

Roy peered out the window again. The sky was littered with darkened clouds, the rain was just a mere drizzle right now, but from the way the sky looked, a cloud burst was imminent. That all would have to wait, though. Hopefully, they could take this man down before the rain came down. Roy opened the small metal briefcase that he'd brought with him and removed a pair of ignition gloves, sliding them on his hands.

"Yes, sir!" His teamed called back to him.

As the team exited the car, Riza pulled out a smoke bomb in each hand and threw them. As the bombs made contact with the pavement, they exploded into clouds of white bright smoke. The fog was so dense, that seeing your hand in front of your face was impossible. This allowed the team to scatter to their positions unscathed.

They didn't have long to flee to their covers, however. The Spark Alchemist's eyes flashed brightly again, he brought his arms out on each side. The man's arms began to crackle with flashes of light. When the man brought his hands together, the static generated from the sparks was enough to pull in the smoke like a vacuum.

Mustang's team didn't have enough time to make it to their stations, they were fully exposed now.

"Such childish tricks." The Spark Alchemist said with distaste and the last bit of smoke was evaporated into the air. The man saw that Havoc had his gun firmly in his grip and his aim was square at his head.

Using his lightning surges, he was able to pull Havoc's gun toward him—taking Havoc with it. Once his opponent was a little closer, he used his other hand to violently shock him. Because Havoc held his gun so tight and it was made from a thick metal, he was being electrocuted. Havoc let out an agonized scream and fell to the ground. Before he hit it, falling unconscious.

"Havoc!" Roy cried out, fear struck him when he looked over to Riza to see her still holding her gun.

The Spark just laughed at his own brutal handiwork and eased his surges. "Who's next?" He taunted, looking over to Riza next.

Roy felt horror fill his body. Exclaiming, he shouted, "Hawkeye! Throw your gun away, now!"

Before Riza could comprehend what Roy was saying, she felt a zap in her hand. This, luckily, caused her to drop it. She cried out a little bit and grabbed her injured hand. It was burned a bit and had a faint trail of smoke emitting from it. "Shit!" She yelled, not only at the pain, but that her dominant shooting arm was now basically useless. This meant she wouldn't be able to protect Roy the best she could, not to mention the rest of her team.

Roy and Armstrong were the only ones not injured, so you he had to make sure the ones that were injured got help. "Armstrong! Get Havoc and Hawkeye out of here and to a hospital!"

Alex didn't want to refuse the Fuhrer, but right now, no one knew if Jean was alive or even breathing. Growling in frustration, Alex lunged at the Spark Alchemist, managing to nimbly dodge his lightning strikes despite his size. He had managed to land a hard punch to Spark and knock him back a ways. This gave him time to scoop up Havoc and get him out of there. When he made it back to the others, he looked at Riza. "Come on, lieutenant. Let's get you fixed up."

Riza just shook her head. "No, I'm staying to help him. I'm fine, you have my word. I'll use my plastic weapon and shoot with my left. I refuse to leave him alone. Just go!" She insisted.

Roy growled in frustration. One of his men were already injured badly, he didn't want to add more to that count. "I told you to-"

"You shut up!" Riza yelled back, cutting him off. She turned back to Armstrong. "Go, Alex." She said so on he could hear her. "I'm not leaving him."

Alex looked over at Roy, remembering his talks with his sister, he saw that Roy wasn't looking so well, and Riza knew that. This was the best way to go about this and all three of them knew that—whether they admitted it or not.

"Take care of yourselves. I'll be back as soon as I can." Alex said, placing Havoc in the badly damaged, yet still working vehicle and urgently peeled off. Smoke and screeches came from the friction of the tires and the speed on the pavement they hit.

"And then there were two." Spark said, walking closer to them, having recovered from his blow to the face. Harsh energy surges enveloped both of his hands, far more energy than there was before. "Tell me, Mustang..." He said with darkness in his voice. "How much do you love this woman?" Now he was walking closer to Riza while still generating electrical power.

"Hawkeye, fall back!" Roy ordered as he began to snap at his foe. The lightning seemed to just deflect it, however. Roy summoned everything he had into hitting this man with his flames. From where he was standing, there was no way he could reach Riza before the Spark Alchemist did. Terror spread in his chest. "Stay away from her!" He screamed, running at the man while snapping furiously.

Riza was firing as fast as her fingers would allow her. Although she had learned to shoot with her left hand, her aim wasn't the best with it and the pain in her other hand made her speed of fire drop significantly too.

Riza kept firing but her bullets seemed to do about as much as Havoc's did earlier. But she just kept shooting—and then she heard it.

Click click.

Her clip was emptied. Before she could make it to cover to reload, the man swiftly grabbed her by the throat and began choking her, raising her off of the ground with one hand. With his other hand, he was still gathering more sparking power.

Before he hit her with the electricity, he shot his head toward Mustang. "You snap at me with that fire one more time, I'll electrocute this woman into an empty husk!"

Roy was slid to a halt and ceased his snapping. Although he still had his hand poised to snap at any given second. He was trembling. He knew this man wasn't bluffing and all it would take was one twist of the sick bastard's hand to snap Riza's neck.

Pissed that he was still being trained on by Roy's fire he decided to up the ante a little. "I'm serious, Mustang!" With that he gave Riza a brief shock. It only lasted a moment, but hearing Riza scream in anguish like that was more than he could stand.

"Riza!" Roy screamed, his arms shaking so hard now that it almost was like he was convulsing, his breath was leaving him. At this moment he had no idea what to do.

"That was just a taste of what I could do to her." Spark said with warning in his voice. "I'm going to walk away from this. How easy you make that for me is entirely up to you." He said. "Now, hand me over your ignition gloves. I don't need you pulling something as I leave, and rest assured, Roy, I will kill her."

Riza was struggling in the man's arms. "Ugh, don't...listen to him, sir." She choked out. "Just..take him out...while you still can. Don't...worry about...me."

Roy didn't know what to do. As Fuhrer, it was his duty to catch this guy, but if he did that, then Riza would be killed. Also, if he handed over his ignition gloves, he'd be defenseless, for both him and Riza. The case that held his backups were in the car Alex took. For all he knew, this guy could take his gloves and just off the both of them in an instant.

"FUCK!" Roy screamed, grabbing his hair in despair.

"I'm growing impatient, Mustang." Spark warned him again. "What's it going to be?"

Roy closed his eyes tightly and sighed, he'd known the answer all along. "Fine. You win." he said, pulling the gloves from his fingers.

"Please, sir! Don't do this!" She screamed in a squeaked out voice. She was fast losing oxygen.

Spark looked back to her. "You'd better shut the hell up unless you want another thousand bolts running through your body."

"Fuck you." She said back to him, coughing. Her mouth had earned her another brief shock from Spark. Screams left her throat, it lasted slightly longer this time but it soon ended and she was still fighting to breathe.

"Just stop it god dammit!" Roy cried out. Once he had the gloves off of his hands, he cautiously approached the man. He now noticed Riza was no longer moving or struggling to get free. Panic filled his body. Was she alive?

Spark nodded. "Yeah, that's it. Nice and slow."

Roy didn't even look at Spark, he was too focused to see if there were any sign that Riza was moving. "Lieutenant?" He asked in a voice that evoked how angry and truly frightened he was. "Hey, can you hear me, Hawkeye?"

Roy's words were met with silence.

"Focus on me right now, son." The Spark said, sounding more threatening now than ever.

Once Roy made it to the Spark Alchemist, he stopped and held his gloves out for the man to take. But the man didn't even grab them, he just used his surges to zap the thin pieces of cloth into nothing more than ash. Keeping up his end of the deal, he released Riza, carelessly tossing her to the side and ceasing his lightning alchemy.

This was his chance.

From a hidden pocket in his jacket, Roy pulled out his revolver that he only used in situations as dire as this. The gun was made out of metal, but he had to hope he'd be fast enough that it wouldn't even matter. He had to take this window, and he could now that Riza was freed. Roy aimed the gun for Spark's head.

"Nice try." the Spark Alchemist said, grabbing Roy's arm in midair.

Roy gasped. How in the hell did he see this sneak attack coming? Roy rarely, if ever, used firearms. No one but his team knew that he kept a revolver hidden in his jacket.

Next thing Roy knew he was being viciously shocked. Now his own screams were filling the air. The attack was ended abruptly when a heavy force knocked Spark off his feet and crashing into a car parked across the street, and he wasn't moving anymore.

Roy somehow managed to stay on his feet. He grasped at his chest and staggered backward, dazed.

Armstrong had made it back just in time.

Alex noticed how off kilter the Fuhrer looked. "Sir, are you okay?" He asked, taking Roy's arm to help steady him.

Roy blinked slowly a few times, still reeling from the attack he'd just taken. It suddenly seemed so hard for his eyes to remain open. Pushing away from Alex, he stumbled weakly over to Hawkeye.

"R...Ri...za..." He said with a pained and shaken voice. When he tried to kneel down beside her, he collapsed completely. His chest felt as if someone had ripped his heart out, but he didn't care, she mattered most right now. His face had fallen next to hers and he reached for it. "Pl...ease...open your...eyes..." He begged in a whisper, it was as loud as he could speak at the moment. "Riza..." He called out, his vision blurring and his consciousness fading away.

Just as he'd placed his hand on hers, darkness enveloped him.