Author's Note:
Hello again, old readers and new! Apologies for the unexpected hiatus (I have a little summary of reasons in the A/N of my re-uploaded Chapter 1, but let's just say life took over for a bit). And of course, once things had settled down and I started writing again, I was appalled at the state of my earlier chapters and one thing led to another...
But excuses are just excuses. I digress.
If you've been around here before, welcome back! If this is the first you're hearing from me, I sincerely hope you enjoy my little contribution to the FMA fandom. Thank you so much for all the continued support in my absence - it's just insane to me that I've hit 160+ reviews and 150+ followers as of today.
Fortunately, there is now a very definite ending to this fic that I've been working on for a while, so here's a rough timeline of updates: there'll be a Chapter 20, broken into two parts (due to its length), and a final Epilogue before concluding. Part One of Chapter 20 is already written, while Part Two is nearly finished. I'm planning for a weekly (or at worst, bi-weekly) update for the last few chapters.
Again, thank you for all your support! And as always, please favourite, follow, or (even better!) leave a review if you enjoy my work! I can't express how amazing it is for us writers to get feedback from our readers!
Chapter 19 – Ashes
Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye was not afraid of the dark.
But as the thunderstorm raging outside intensified, sheets of grey rain pounding against the windows, the deepening shadows started to look less like shadow and more like sinister creatures – creeping, stalking, lurking.
Behind her back and out of sight, Riza flicked the safety of her spare handgun off, keeping her first one trained firmly on the enigmatic intruder.
"Who are you?"
The 'sergeant' – whom she now knew was nothing but an imposter – smiled at her question. As if in answer, he lifted his hand to his face, the dark lines of a transmutation circle flashing briefly against the pale skin of his palm.
Riza automatically tensed, curling her finger around the trigger. "Don't move."
"Relax, Lieutenant Hawkeye," in one swift motion, he put his finger and thumb to his right eye, removing a thin, translucent material. "And to answer your question –"
A single red iris glittered eerily, distinctly mismatched against his phony brown eye. "Well, I think it should be pretty obvious."
Riza didn't recoil, standing stiff and unyielding against her Ishvalan adversary. "Let me guess – Evan Blake?"
Evan cocked his head, clearly amused. "You have me at a disadvantage, Lieutenant. I don't believe we've been officially introduced – how did you know?"
"Edward may have mentioned you in passing," answered Riza calmly. "And Ishvalan alchemists are quite the rare breed."
"Well, you've caught me," he shrugged and raised his hands in surrender – his left fist was still closed, and Riza felt her eyes following its motion. "What do you plan to do with me, Lieutenant?"
"Drop it."
"I'm afraid I don't follow."
"The Stone," a trickle of disquiet wormed its way into her voice. "Drop. It."
"If you say so." With a small smirk, Evan uncurled his fingers.
The automatic lights along the hallway flickered on, momentarily blinding Riza. She blinked rapidly, bracing her gun as her eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness.
Empty.
His hand was empty.
An inhuman snarl sounded behind her.
Riza whirled around just in time to catch a glimpse of a dark, slick body barrelling towards her.
She swung both her guns around, firing off two rounds each right before jagged fangs flashed and claws dug into her shoulder.
Tumbling to the ground, her attacker on top of her, Riza felt her head slam, hard, against the floor.
Gasping once in pain, she reflexively raised her gun to the creature's head.
Then she saw its eyes – deep brown eyes, so inexplicably human.
Riza hesitated. She hesitated, and she instantly knew she would pay the price for it.
The large hybrid canine snapped its jaws around the barrel of her gun, wrenching it away before her finger could squeeze all the way down. The weapon clattered and screeched as it skidded across the floor and bounced off the nearest wall.
She jerked at her other gun, but the creature's weight and claws had pinned her left arm firmly to her side. A horribly familiar wetness soaked her uniform – both from the gash in her shoulder and the gunshot wounds along the creature's side.
Footsteps clicked. A hand reached down to pick up her fallen weapon.
Riza glared up at the Ishvalan as he turned her well-maintained gun around in his hands before pointing it down at her face. "It seems that our positions have been reversed, Lieutenant Hawkeye."
Riza struggled, wincing as claws dug deeper into her flesh. "What do you want?" she asked coldly.
"You're a resourceful soldier, Lieutenant," he shifted his grip on the gun, surprisingly deft. "Surely you must already know the answer to that."
The muzzle was cold and unforgiving as she felt its heavy form against her flushed skin.
She closed her eyes.
Edward Elric couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so sick.
Clutching the side of the wastebasket, Edward felt frustratingly pathetic as he emptied the contents of his stomach into some poor guy's paper disposal.
Alphonse's cool hands brushed his forehead, gently holding his hair back. "Brother?"
"I'm good, I'm good," Edward forcefully swiped his sleeve over his mouth. "I'm okay."
Al nodded solemnly and turned – Edward involuntarily followed his gaze to the canine chimera pacing back and forth in its alchemised prison.
Suppressing a shudder, Edward rose from his crouched position. "What… How did someone make that thing?"
Alphonse looked up, his eyes shimmering ice. "The better question is: why would someone make that thing?"
Ed bit his lower lip, unease creeping up his spinal cord like the lengthening shadows on the wall. Outside, heavy raindrops crashed into glass and concrete, a hammering, insistent drone – Edward felt his mind slip, away from the terrible situation at hand to the very random thought that a certain someone was going to complain his ears off about this weather.
The unease intensified.
"Holy shit." Ed cursed vilely underneath his breath and took off at a run down the corridor.
"Broth –" Alphonse's voice was lost amidst the pounding of their footsteps as he scooped up Black Hayate and sprinted after his rash older brother, a bewildered May Chang on his heels.
The colonel's office was dark, silent and completely trashed when they screeched to a stop in front of its wide open doors.
Edward's eyes darted around the room in sinking disbelief. There were signs of a skirmish everywhere – overturned tables, a slash mark across the couch, an upended garbage can spilling out the remnants of cardboard takeout boxes.
No. Nononono –
He clenched his jaw, to keep himself from swearing more abhorrent curses or from screaming out his frustration he didn't know.
The spear Al had transmuted was still clutched in his good hand as he stepped slowly over the threshold, white-knuckled grip tightening.
Something flashed in front of his nose.
With only his excellent reflexes sparing him a messy decapitation, Edward lunged back and sliced upwards.
The tip of his spear clanged against the hardened blade of a Xingese Dao. Ed withdrew his weapon as Ling stepped out fully from where he'd been concealed behind the door. "Watch it, Edward! I could have –" His eyes dropped to Ed's clutched weapon.
Mouth tightening, Ling beckoned them inside urgently, shutting the door and flicking on the lights. "And… I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that you know something about this."
The sudden glare illuminated what the lights in the hallway couldn't: Lan Fan half-crouched by a large, writhing figure trapped in a spindly metal net.
Lan Fan's mask was off, and she looked up, nodding once at Edward in acknowledgement. "Young Lord, are you sure we shouldn't just kill this creature?"
Its fur was a different colour than the one which had attacked him, but Ed could instantly tell that it was a similar type of chimera. It was snapping aggressively at an impassive Lan Fan, the net's weighted lead balls impeding its movement.
It didn't speak, but its eyes shone with dim intelligence. Edward swallowed down his disgust as Ling raised a hand, an unspoken signal for his bodyguard to stand down.
Lan Fan smoothly stepped out of the way of the chimera's unnaturally sharp teeth. Ed had to physically tear his eyes away from it. "Ling, where's the colonel?"
"Right here."
Both brothers whirled around as the supply cupboard creaked open, Mustang stepping out with what little remaining dignity he could muster.
He glowered sulkily as Edward muffled a snort of laughter.
"Ling, I swear, shove me into the supply closet one more time –"
"You can thank me later," Ling's reply was unusually serious as he sheathed his sword. "So, Edward. Care to explain?"
Ed shared a troubled look with Alphonse. "It's…a chimera. I – we think that they are rather ineptly made fusions of…canine and human," Ed clenched his jaw. "Or perhaps they were deliberately created to be more beast than man, if they were intended to be used as living weapons."
Even underneath the bright fluorescent lights of the cluttered office, the air seemed to visibly darken. Ling grimaced and glanced uneasily at Lan Fan. Colonel Mustang, who had been leaning despondently against the adjacent wall, instantly sobered up. "They?"
"We…ran into another one in the corridor," Edward gritted his teeth, the beginning embers of an inferno roaring to life within him at the memory of those eyes. "I think it's also no coincidence that both you and I each encountered one."
"But that shouldn't be possible," Mustang pointed out calmly. "Not taking into consideration that chimera research was banned since Grumman took control, it would be impossibly difficult to create not one, but multiple chimeras in a short amount of time, especially not without some trace of experimentation being detected by the military."
Edward rubbed his forehead, his skin tingling with hot energy. "Obviously an alchemist would have to be involved. A bio-alchemist, someone who's apparently quite competent at his craft."
Ling blinked, perturbed. "And you would know of such a person?"
"You're not thinking…" Mustang probed cautiously.
"It makes sense, doesn't it? The timing. The use of bio-alchemy," stated Edward, uncharacteristically cold. "I'm still not certain how he's organising them into some sort of ordered attack, but I don't believe it's too difficult to get his chimeras to follow general instructions. 'Tear that person's throat out' really is a very simple command, wouldn't you agree?"
"Or," commented Ling humorously. "They could just be hardwired to tear everybody's throats out."
Edward shrugged, conceding his point.
"You say we're his targets, but then why isn't he here, in this room, right now?" Mustang questioned – it wasn't quite a challenge, Edward was surprised to discover, but a genuine query from one alchemist to another.
"We were his targets," answered Ed. "I don't think he sees us as any more than a couple of loose ends he didn't expect to survive – the opening act. Don't you see? He's sick of playing vengeance games with a couple of State Alchemists, not when he has bigger fish to fry."
"The military council meeting," realised Mustang. His voice was surprisingly cool – perhaps there was some merit to him being the youngest colonel enlisted in the Amestrian military. "Most of the Central City generals will be there, many of whom would have been affiliated with the Civil War in one way or another. And of course, Fuhrer Grumman is an excellent target for an Ishvalan extremist seeking to cause chaos within Amestris."
Alphonse nodded thoughtfully, still clutching Black Hayate in his arms. "Targeting the higher military echelon means that he holds the entire government accountable for the massacre, and not just the State Alchemists."
"Alright, so we have most of the facts. What are we waiting for?" Mustang straightened, put his weight on the wrong foot, and grimaced.
"Now you, Colonel, aren't going anywhere," Edward jabbed a finger in his chest, a no-nonsense gesture which elicited a surprised growl from the older man. "Because Ling here is about to get you out of this hellhole before we potentially blow it sky-high."
Ling pointed a finger at himself. "I am?"
"Yes, Ling," declared Edward without turning around. "You are."
"You're a couple hundred years too early if you think that I am about to take orders from some insolent brat like you," replied Mustang coolly.
"I'm not ordering you, Colonel Bastard," scowled Ed. "I'm asking."
"The difference being?"
"Goddamnit, we don't have time for this!" Edward threw his good arm up in exasperation. "Just – look at yourself, Colonel! You were never in any shape to be putting yourself on the frontlines even before you went and got yourself stabbed half to death. Can't you just think about that for two seconds? Can't you see that you'll be nothing but a burden to all of us if you keep insisting on doing things you know you can no longer handle?"
Edward bit down on his lip a moment too late, horrified at some of the things he'd said.
Mustang blinked once, stunned into silence. He took a subconscious step back, his hand instinctively reaching up to his unseeing eyes.
"I just thought…" he furrowed his eyebrows and tried again. "That perhaps –"
He stopped, and seemed to mentally shake himself.
"…You're right, we're running out of time."
He swivelled. Edward swallowed.
"The meeting will be on the fourth floor. It's heavily guarded, even though the rest of the building will be mostly empty due to it being after hours," said the colonel. Orders. He was giving them orders. "So it wouldn't be easy for an intruder to get past without kicking up a huge fuss. I'll try to get in touch with Major Armstrong and organise a taskforce to cordon off the area – we wouldn't want those chimeras escaping onto civilian property."
Edward opened his mouth and clamped it shut again. He didn't quite trust himself to speak – not yet, not after that most recent outburst.
"Be cautious – we don't know how he's sneaking these chimeras in, or how many there are," Mustang limped resolutely towards his desk, groping for the telephone sitting on its surface. "And Fullmetal?"
Edward stiffened in anticipation.
"Try not to cause too much collateral damage," he pressed the receiver to his ear, already turning away. "I happen to like most of the new renovations."
Edward nodded numbly. Perhaps he should have said something else, perhaps he wanted to.
But the words just wouldn't come.
The moment passed. The half-formed phrases – verbs and nouns and befuddled adjectives – vanished.
Ed inhaled once and whirled around with purpose, meeting Alphonse's eyes. "Al, let's go. May, you wouldn't mind doing something about this broken arm of mine, would you?"
They sprinted off through the door, footsteps fading down the corridor.
"Lan Fan, you should go with them," murmured Ling as Mustang rapidly dialled a number and started speaking urgently into the receiver.
Lan Fan simply raised an eyebrow. "And you, Young Lord?"
Ling Yao shrugged. "I have a promise to keep."
As always, Lan Fan hesitated to leave her prince's side – it was a familiar process, a ritual almost, in which Ling would give her a long, heartfelt look and she, cursing her susceptibility, would relent.
She bowed. "Be careful, Young Lord."
"You too," Ling smiled crookedly. "Lan Fan."
She nodded and was gone in a flash of red and black.
Ling put his hand on the hilt of his sword and strode back to the colonel's large desk. "We should go."
Colonel Mustang didn't look up, even though Ling could clearly see that his heated conversation with whomever was on the other end of the line had already ended.
Every movement charged with suppressed energy – the slow sweep of his hand, the careful uncurling of his fingers – he replaced the receiver.
"Let's go."
It was a strange feeling, being on the receiving end of her own gun.
Riza risked a fleeting glance behind her as the muzzle pressed into her back shifted, Evan Blake moving to twist open the doorknob to a random unoccupied office.
His eyes barely leaving his hostage (Captive? Prisoner? Forced collaborator?), the Ishvalan alchemist cocked his head towards the door. "Inside."
Riza reluctantly stepped into the darkened room.
He gestured to the coat rack. "Grab one."
Shooting him a slightly raised eyebrow, Riza unhooked a standard black military-issue coat and slipped it over her shoulders. Most personnel would own such attire: Riza only wore hers on cold days, while the colonel donned his whenever he had an excuse to – imagined or otherwise. Riza suspected he just liked the dramatic sweeping motion it made every time he so much as turned a corner.
Evan gestured at her again and she did up the buttons with a sigh, effectively hiding any and all suspicious-looking blood stains on her uniform.
She smoothed down the creases, biding her time. The gun bit deeper into the small of her back, but the greater threat rested in his other hand – the transmutation circle he'd etched into his palm in black ink.
His voice was biting, anxious. "Move."
Riza obliged coldly and moved down the hallway. Evan was a mere step behind her, careful to keep the gun out of immediate view if anyone were to emerge in front of them.
She turned his earlier words over and over again in her head as lightning crackled outside, scrutinising, thinking, and to a lesser extent, preparing for the worst case scenario:
"I don't suppose I could convince you to help me by threatening your life," he'd observed nonchalantly.
Riza had snapped open her eyes, staring up at him from where she was pinned down by the chimera. "No."
There was not a tinge of hesitation present in her reply. Crisp. Cold. A soldier ready to die for her country and the people she cared about.
Evan seemed to consider this before raising his free hand.
"See this circle?" he had two, one on his left and another on his right. He'd shown her the one on his right. "The Philosopher's Stone is an enormous power source capable of levelling entire cities. If I should wish to, this circle will release an explosive surge of energy from the Stone, capable of collapsing this entire building and devastating everything in its path."
He'd attempted to smile, to seem indifferent and decidedly antagonistic, but for the first time since their encounter a sliver of uncertainty had crept into his voice. "How many people, do you suppose, are currently still in the immediate vicinity?"
Riza clenched her teeth, realising what he was using to threaten her with – the lives of every last person still in Central Command.
"I'm not out for everyone, only those who have made this country what it is," Evan shrugged. "Yes, I hate Amestrians. I loathe every single one of you. But if I were to submit to senseless mass murder, I'd be no better than the soldiers who annihilated my country."
"And your solution is to wipe out our leaders?" Riza was incredulous. "That's absurd."
"I don't care what you think of me or my goals. If you can get me to the council meeting, then I wouldn't have to resort to more…extreme measures," he lowered his hand. "Everyone has something they can't afford to lose. And I believe that you'll take my offer."
He was right. She did.
At her sides, her fists clenched. If he was telling the truth – and knowing alchemists she was relatively certain he was – the collateral damage would be massive. Even after office hours, there were still many personnel working overtime on the lower floors, the night shift reporting in, and if the Elric brothers and the colonel were still somewhere in Central Command…
She couldn't afford to take that risk.
And neither could he.
Something at the back of her mind clicked.
A contradiction. Something she could take advantage of, even if just to scrounge for more time.
"You're scared." Riza realised.
The ringing footsteps behind her faltered ever so slightly.
Riza narrowed her eyes in satisfaction. "You don't want to die."
Evan Blake seemed to catch himself. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his expression turning dark. "Everything I've done in my life, everything, has led to this moment. If you think a threat to my life could –"
"It's not a threat, but the truth," insisted Riza, nudging, prodding for a weakness, a chink in the armour. "If you could just walk in here with the Stone and blow us all into oblivion, then why not do that already? Why all this subterfuge, sneaking around, making preparations?"
Evan, confident and arrogant up till now, hesitated at his answer.
"Because you know exactly what price you'd have to pay. Even with the Philosopher's Stone…there's no guarantee that you'd walk out of here after bringing the entire building down on top of yourself. The moment you entered those doors you knew you might never leave – and yet you still want to, don't you?"
Evan's grip tightened on the gun. "Keep moving."
She watched him carefully from her peripheral vision. If she could rattle him enough to grab that gun –
"You may think that targeting people higher up the chain of command will finally give you the satisfaction you've been searching for – the satisfaction that turning all those Amestrians into a Philosopher's Stone couldn't give you; that attempting to take the life of the State Alchemist responsible for tearing apart your family couldn't give you."
She knew. She'd seen it all before, firsthand – that all-consuming inferno of vengeance.
"But it won't. That gnawing, unbearable, excruciating emptiness? It'll never go away. Because that's just how hatred works."
The hard edge of the revolver dug deeper into her uniform. She winced.
"Shut up," he said quietly.
But Riza was already swept up in a brief memory. A flash of a smile, coarse gloves in her hand. What was it that he told her…?
"Just like fire, vengeance never gives, only takes."
"You're wrong," she could feel it shaking now, the gun in his hand. Perhaps if she pushed too hard, he would just shoot her in the back – but the risk to her life barely registered at all. "It has to stop. My whole life… It has to stop somewhere –"
He paused, caught himself, breathed. But Riza didn't allow him the chance to regain his composure.
"Fuhrer Bradley is dead!" said Riza harshly. "The man who ordered the extermination of your people is no longer alive! And neither are most of the State Alchemists who carried out his orders, thanks to a certain other Ishvalan alchemist, ironically enough. There's no one left. No one left to hurt, or damage, or kill. So what's the point? What's the point of all this madness?"
There was no warning before the heavy metal handle of the gun smashed into the back of her head.
Riza dropped, the world suddenly shaken out of proportion. Her vision blurred and she tasted blood.
She forced herself to raise her head, meeting the counterfeit brown eyes hovering above her, a wild, feral look reflected in those hidden irises. The gun was directed down at her, point blank range. Impossible to miss.
And yet he didn't pull the trigger. He simply swallowed thickly, a mask of calmness sliding down over his eyes bit by bit. "Get up. One more word and I swear I'll make good on my threat to take us all down to hell."
Riza stood silently, knowing that she'd already pushed her luck too far the first time. There would not be room for a second.
On her feet and forced to move faster, she stole a quick glance at the Ishvalan, but that familiar look in his eyes was already gone.
There was the wildness of course, but also a sense of horror and dismay. The look of a person just realising that their hands were irrevocably stained with blood, may it be the blood of the innocent or the guilty.
Riza knew how it felt like to die a little more inside with every life taken, every trigger pulled.
They were all the same, weren't they? Ishvalan or Amestrian.
But he was much too far beyond that threshold now. That un-crossable line her colonel had very nearly trodden.
Riza stared straight ahead, resolve in her shoulders.
Even if she had to shoot him, even if she had to die doing it –
She couldn't let this person, and his vengeance, win.
"What's the point?"
He'd asked that question once, hadn't he? How many years ago was that? Two? Three? Sitting at the kitchen island in his father's narrow apartment, watching his cousin Xandria clean her blood-stained rifle.
"What's the point? All these terror attacks in public areas, hits on train stations, factories, warehouses – it's nothing but an irritating itch in the arse to Bradley." Evan had declared.
"It's a living," Xandria had snorted, amused by his crude approximation. "The Red Cavalry, for all its unsavoury jobs, protects my brother and I. So we stick with them."
"But why not target something worthwhile? Hell, Central Command is just sitting there. Why not hit people who actually matter?"
"Central Command is protected by hundreds of military personnel and half a dozen State Alchemists," Xandria blew dust off the barrel of her rifle. "It really isn't that simple."
"It is if you have enough firepower," Evan sat back and stared up at the stained ceiling. "I swear, one day, I'm going to turn this country around. They're going to regret what they did to us – you'll see."
Xandria smiled, her expression bitter. "And what would be the point in that?"
Evan straightened and looked her in the eye. "For one, if there was no military, we wouldn't have to run anymore. There's no point in…living like this. This isn't a life."
Xandria shook her head and stood. "We're never getting it back, dear cousin," she sighed.
"Never."
Their footsteps echoed sharply off the marble walls. Evan shook himself from the dreamlike memory, tightening his grip on the lieutenant's gun.
He was finally doing it, wasn't he? He was going to do what no Ishvalan had the courage to carry out, and change things.
But his own words reverberated in his ears, a broken cassette tape, mingling with the words of the lieutenant.
What's the point?
They emerged from the opening of the stairwell onto the fourth floor. Standing guard at the beginning of the long corridor, two armed military officers were chatting, lulled into repose by the apparent lack of activity.
They snapped guiltily to attention at the sound of footsteps, but relaxed slightly when they caught sight of Hawkeye.
Evan lowered his gun, hissing a threat softly into her ear. "No funny business."
The lieutenant simply smiled as she advanced steadily towards the officers. Being of lower rank, they saluted formally at her approach. "First Lieutenant Hawkeye, sir."
She greeted them by name. "Warrant Officer Riedel, Second Lieutenant Collyer."
The warrant officer seemed more at ease in her presence. "And what brings you here, Lieutenant Hawkeye?"
Evan watched Hawkeye carefully, but she showed no outward sign of having been forced here at gunpoint.
"Actually, I'm here on behalf of Colonel Mustang. He got caught up with some…wearisome business back East," her eyes flashed almost imperceptibly towards Evan. "But Fuhrer Grumman was adamant that his presence is required at the meeting, so…here I am."
Second Lieutenant Collyer chuckled teasingly. "Must be tough working for the Flame Alchemist."
Hawkeye shrugged. "It's a living."
The three officers shared a private laugh, before the second lieutenant stepped aside to let them pass. "Oh, and may I ask who this is?"
He examined Evan in bemusement. Evan saluted, careful to use the correct hand this time, but remained silent.
"He's with me," Hawkeye's amber irises darkened ever so slightly. "Has the meeting commenced?"
"Are you kidding me? The Fuhrer hasn't even arrived yet," Warrant Officer Riedel seemed to check himself, flushed with the realisation that it was probably unwise to speak of their country's leader in such a tone. "Ah, ahem. Anyway, I think most of the relevant officials are already in attendance, so feel free to take a seat," he nodded towards Evan. "Hey. You okay there?"
Evan hadn't realised that he'd froze at the warrant officer's declaration of the Fuhrer's absence, suspicion uncoiling in his chest – had the alarm already been raised?
"I'm sure he's fine," Hawkeye was already moving down the corridor with long strides, acting as if Evan really was a sergeant and she his senior officer. "Thank you, officers. I'm sure the Fuhrer appreciates your work."
Evan unfroze, smiled tightly, and hurried to catch up. They turned a corner, finding themselves in another empty hallway. Evan once again raised his gun, a reminder of all that was at stake for both of them.
"Relax," said Hawkeye softly, staring straight ahead as he kept pace with her strides. "If there's one thing I know about the Fuhrer, it's that he simply insists on being late to every single one of his meetings. He's probably in his office, making his way down here as we speak."
Evan's gaze bounced restlessly off the featureless walls – now that he was so close to the end, the trepidation of what lay ahead had intensified.
Hawkeye didn't miss a beat. "What happens after you kill him?"
Evan didn't answer. The end of the corridor drew even closer.
"You make your escape and the Ishvalans all live happily ever after? Is that what you're expecting?"
"No matter what you say, you can't stop me. I made this decision a long time ago," their footsteps grinded to a halt in front of a particularly ornamental set of double doors.
He raised his gun in preparation, knowing that he would have to neutralise her first before proceeding with his plan – there was simply no other option. "I thought that you of all people would understand, Lieutenant Hawkeye, that choices like these…must be carried out."
"Unfortunately," murmured Hawkeye, curling her fingers around the gilded door handles. He would never have caught her words if it weren't for the silence, punctuated only by the pattering rain outside.
He froze, suddenly uneasy. Silence?
"I understand…exceptionally well."
She swung the doors open. Evan braced, his right hand reaching into his pocket to grasp the glass vials clinking against his thigh as the spacious conference room came into view.
It was empty.
He whirled, but she was quicker, swivelling around nimbly despite her wounds and grabbing his gun arm.
Evan's eyes widened, meeting hers, brilliant and fiery. They wrestled for the handgun, the vials slipping from his pocket and shattering, spilling dull red liquid over the pristine tiles.
Her eyes shifted down for just a moment at the sound of breaking glass, and he used the distraction to slide his finger around the trigger.
BANG!
Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong was not at all pleased that she'd been summoned from her ice-clad fortress for a trivial meeting amongst lily-livered officers.
But even she was surprised when a sudden gunshot split the heavy air somewhere outside, muffled by the meeting room's ornate wooden doors.
Armstrong shot straight to her feet, already drawing her trusty sabre from its scabbard. Some may mistake the resounding BANG! as merely another crash of thunder, but certainly not her – a decorated general who'd heard that exact same sound a hundred, a thousand, a million times.
The other generals seated around the long table paid no heed to it, caught up as they were in their trifling small talk, though they did start at her abrupt motion. "General Armstrong?" one of the newer major generals shouted after her, confounded.
She ignored him, sweeping majestically down the long row of seats and throwing open the doors, much to the surprise of the fresh-faced sergeant standing guard by the wall.
Ah, where were her tough-as-nails Briggs soldiers when you needed them? That's right – at least they'd had the common sense to stay put in the North, quite convinced that their ice queen didn't really need an escort other than the provided Central City one.
Outside in the corridor, it was clear that she was not the only one to have heard the gunshot, for a pair of Central City soldiers were currently hurrying past towards what she suspected to be its source.
Armstrong stepped into their path, halting them with her sword. "Would one of you care to explain what the hell's going on?"
The soldiers saluted hurriedly, quailing underneath her oppressive tone and even more oppressive mood. "We're not – we're not sure, sir! But we would advise you to stay put until –"
A snarling growl ripped through the air, followed by a surprised clamour of shouts and more gunfire. The major general whipped her head up, face set in a firm scowl.
"I should have known better than to trust the security in this place," she swiped her sword up, pointing its sharp, deadly end at the two soldiers, who started in terror. "You two – stay here and secure the council room. Once I give you the all clear, evacuate the premises at once. Understood?"
To their credit, they immediately snapped into salutes. "Yes sir!"
Her lips threatened to tug their way up into a grudging smile. Perhaps these Central City hellions weren't utterly hopeless after all.
Leaving them to keep the other generals (most of whom were desk job stragglers who hadn't seen a real battlefield in a good many years) safely behind doors, Armstrong strode crisply down the hallway and around a corner, arriving at the current scene of battle.
Even the infallible Northern Wall of Briggs had to pause and do a double take as she surveyed the carnage before her eyes.
A large unknown creature, its long body slick and dark, leapt and rammed down a trio of soldiers, unhindered by the barrage of bullets firing from their guns. They scrambled out of the way of those snapping jaws, their leader – a terrified-looking second lieutenant – shouting for them to regroup.
A flash of light drew her eyes to the opposite end of the wide corridor, where a man dressed in a sergeant's uniform had his hand pressed to the ground, fingers immersed in a messy pool of blood and broken glass.
His fist shone with a sinister reddish glow which Armstrong instantly recognised. This man was most certainly not military.
Ah hell. Armstrong bolted forwards, drawing a pistol from her belt. Chimeras were one thing – but rogue alchemists? To think her day was going well for once.
He glanced up briefly at her pounding footsteps, the crimson puddle underneath his palm seething, boiling, writhing like a wild being. As Armstrong raised her gun and fired, the blood rose, solidified, and reconstructed.
The bullet tore through a mass of half-formed tissue instead of the middle of his forehead. Armstrong skidded to a stop as white bone formed seemingly out of thin air, sinews sprouted, glistening muscle grew and stretched and flattened.
The absolute ludicrousness of an instantly-grown chimera had barely struck home before a creature the size of a well-built man was already at her throat, its snout still half-skin, half-skeleton.
The general clenched her jaw and fired – two rounds, four rounds, six rounds.
Stepping deftly out of the way of those slashing claws, she emptied her magazine into its body, frowned when she saw no discernible effect, and threw the gun aside, pulling her spare one out almost instantaneously.
The chimera – if it could be called that – gave her no opportunity to use it. It snarled and pounced, the range of its leap unattainable by any normal canine.
Armstrong whipped her sabre up into a defensive position, the blade wedging in between gnashing fangs as the artificial creature's weight sent her crashing into a wall.
Trapped in between concrete and two rows of needle sharp teeth, Armstrong was aware of her precariously open position as the unknown alchemist drew his own handgun and took aim.
A uniformed figure, slim and bloodied, slammed into him from behind, knocking him off-balance right before he could take the shot. The gun skittered away from his hand.
Armstrong felt her lips curl into an involuntary smile as she recognised that glint of blonde hair.
Lieutenant Hawkeye rolled nimbly into a crouching position, reaching out a blood-slicked hand. "General!"
Immediately comprehending, Armstrong tossed her spare pistol towards the lieutenant's position. It carved a perfectly elliptical path through the air – Hawkeye snatched it out of its trajectory and immediately fired three rounds straight into the creature's skull.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The chimera reeled, howling in pain but not yet dead. Armstrong drove her boot into its side, ripping her sword from its teeth and driving it through the top of its head with all her might.
She felt bone snap and the keen edge plunge deep into tissue – the creature shuddered and lay still in a pool of its own blood.
Armstrong whipped around, extracting her sword with a single jerk.
Without even pausing to catch her breath, she immediately lunged at the largest threat in the room – the enemy alchemist.
She slashed her sabre through the air, a deadly whirlwind of graceful steel, and the alchemist scrambled back, surprised at the unexpected attack. Armstrong, seeing an opening, went in for the killing blow.
Just before her blade could find its mark, the chimera alchemist slammed his right hand to the ground – Armstrong glimpsed the flash of a transmutation circle.
Red light shone from his fingers as the air crackled with energy, sending a warning shiver up her spine. Trusting her instincts, the major general pulled back at the very last second.
The spot where she'd been standing a mere moment ago exploded.
Eerie scarlet lightning filled the room, blinding her as the very ground beneath her feet seemed to shake.
Armstrong shielded her eyes from the resulting cloud of dust and debris.
When the swirling dust settled, there was a gaping hole in the ground, and the alchemist was already slipping around the corner, his remaining creatures covering his retreat as Hawkeye continued to fire at their backs.
The bullets from her gun tore into the wall, clipping the new paint as her unwavering aim faltered.
Hawkeye winced, swayed a bit, and sat down, her free hand reaching up to cover the fresh bullethole underneath her collarbone. She didn't relinquish her grasp on the gun.
Wiping off her soiled blade with a gloved hand before tossing said glove away, Armstrong dropped into a crouch next to Hawkeye. Glancing up once to ensure that there were no other hostile chimeras in the immediate vicinity, Armstrong tore off a strip of her shirt, staunching the free-flowing blood. "You've lost a lot of blood, Lieutenant Hawkeye."
Hawkeye shrugged, grimacing at the slight motion. "You have impeccable timing… Major General Armstrong."
Armstrong snorted in amusement, reminded of her high esteem for the younger officer – unflappable as always, her talents were wasted under that good-for-nothing superior of hers. "I presume there's a perfectly sound explanation for…this."
Armstrong flourished a hand, indicating the carcass of the chimera she'd just impaled and the blackened crater in the middle of the corridor. So much for the new renovations.
Hawkeye's calm expression dissolved into a frown. Armstrong guided her to the wall, and she sighed as she slumped heavily against it. "Long story short, there's an Ishvalan alchemist on the loose in Central Command…and he has a Philosopher's Stone."
Armstrong stiffened instinctively. There may have once been a time when she would have been enthralled by an item of such alchemical power and its promise of protection, but she now knew that certain secrets were meant to be kept buried.
"He took me by surprise and forced me to help him dodge security… I fought back and we struggled for the gun," she winced again at the ghost-memory of that bullet tearing into her shoulder. "I apologise for my incompetence, General."
"You have absolutely nothing to apologise for, Lieutenant," clasping her uninjured shoulder firmly, Armstrong stood. "Well, I suppose someone has to nab that son-of-a-bitch."
"Wait, before that –" Hawkeye grasped her arm before Armstrong could straighten fully.
"Lieutenant Hawkeye!"
Olivier Armstrong snapped around at a pair of irritatingly familiar voices, and was quite satisfied when Edward Elric snapped reflexively to attention in response, his brother almost barrelling into him from behind. "General Armstrong?"
"What are you doing here, Fullmetal brat?" Armstrong narrowed her eyes. "Civilians should know better than to barge onto military property."
"Aww, is this really the time for that?" Edward dodged around the general, Hawkeye coming into full view. He froze, golden eyes going wide. "Oh god, Lieutenant –"
"Coming – coming through! Let me take a look at her!" May Chang shoved past Edward, thankfully before he could fully examine the extent of Hawkeye's injuries.
"I'm fine, Edward," said Hawkeye as May knelt by her side, tentatively undoing Armstrong's makeshift bandage to inspect her wound. Her amber eyes softened. "The colonel, is he –"
"He's okay – Brother told Ling to get him out of here," Alphonse flinched as his foot came down in a puddle of blood. Black Hayate yipped and struggled free from his grip. "Oh geez, what happened here?"
"Animal blood, I believe. He had vials of it stashed," Hawkeye opened her arms, allowing a concerned Hayate to leap into her lap. "Listen carefully, Edward. I'm no alchemist, but I believe he's making those…things out of his Philosopher's Stone. Using the genetic code contained in blood samples as a base and –"
"Whoa whoa whoa! Rewind. A Philosopher's Stone!?"
Hawkeye nodded, locking eyes with Edward, confirming his every suspicion.
"And you mean 'he' as in…"
Hawkeye simply nodded again as he trailed off.
Ed sucked in a shuddering breath, sun-gold eyes going cold. "God. Goddamn. That bastard…"
"But that still doesn't explain – You saw it too, didn't you, Hawkeye? How human those creatures were?" asked Alphonse, his voice a half-whisper.
"Human souls, Al," Edward's lips tightened as he struggled to rein in his flaring temper. "Souls from his goddamn Philosopher's Stone. Trapped inside weaponised bodies just like Central's zombie dolls."
"That's not all," Hawkeye turned her head, staring up at General Armstrong. "General, you have to evacuate the entire building. In the event –"
Armstrong nodded crisply. "No time for lengthy explanations, Lieutenant. I'll take care of it," she glanced up, pinpointing the soldiers clustered around them, fearful and awaiting instructions. "Well, you heard the lieutenant. Move it!"
Armstrong strode off as the soldiers scattered, barking commands. Lan Fan watched her turn the corner, silent up till now. "In that case, it seems the obligation of apprehending this assailant falls to us."
Edward cracked a smile, though there was nothing remotely amusing about his expression. "Not us exactly," he met Lan Fan's questioning gaze. "Could you…stay here with the lieutenant, Lan Fan?"
Hawkeye snapped her head up, and was instantly admonished by May for the sudden movement. "Edward –"
"Just listen to what I have to say," interrupted Ed swiftly. "You need someone to watch your back while May fixes you up. There could be more chimeras roaming around and –"
"And we can handle this," Alphonse continued, nodding once at his brother. "We've fought worse, much worse, in the past. You can trust us."
Hawkeye opened her mouth to object, paused, and sighed deeply instead. Hayate whined and licked her face, sensing his master's uncertainty. "The colonel isn't going to be happy that I let the two of you go off by yourselves."
Edward snorted. "He wouldn't be very happy either if I left you here without some protection."
"I'm a soldier. A first lieutenant. You brothers shouldn't be fighting our battles for us."
"This became our fight the moment a Philosopher's Stone became involved," said Alphonse, voice uncharacteristically solemn. "No, the moment alchemy became involved."
"Besides, I've got some anger I need to work out – and a few words I plan to say to Blake's face," Edward grinned dangerously as he flexed his arm, which up until a few minutes ago was still encased in a plaster cast.
He then glanced at Lan Fan, still awaiting her response. The Xingese warrior merely nodded, a small smile on her lips. "I shall guard the lieutenant with my life."
"And I need to figure out how to remove this bullet," said May Chang, raising her head from the circle she'd been sketching on the ground. "We'll catch up with you as soon as we can."
"I don't suppose you'll take this even if I offered." Hawkeye held out the gun in her hand, its handle slick with god knows who-or-what's blood.
Edward regarded the black shape of metal seriously, weighing his principles and its protection carefully on his mental set of scales before shaking his head. "No, I'd rather…I'd rather no one else die in this conflict."
He met Hawkeye's gaze. She lowered the gun in understanding.
"Perhaps it's naïve of me…but I think we've all suffered enough."
Fear, Roy Mustang concluded, was an irrational thing.
People really were scared of the most ridiculous things, weren't they? Snakes, clowns, creepy crawlies, et cetera et cetera. Ridiculous.
It was hardly logical.
But as irrational as it may sound, and as ridiculous as his reasons might be, more than extreme heights or stumbling over a speech in public or a closet full of tarantulas, he feared this feeling the most.
This feeling right now, as he stumbled awkwardly along with a hand braced against the wall, Ling flanking their retreat, knowing that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that he could do about any of this.
It was frustrating and infuriating and he wanted nothing more than to stalk back the way they came and confront this boiling mess himself, consequences be damned.
Then he was reminded of the impenetrable darkness around him, of the dull ache in his ankle and the sharper pain running up his side. Surface injuries he was used to, and he could deal with – however it was the less physically visible, but more debilitating condition which had him permanently benched.
You chose this. Roy reminded himself, even as the less logical half of his brain would scream: No I didn't!
"Watch out!"
Roy stopped in surprise as he felt Ling bolt forward to intercept his path, drawing his sword with a distinct metallic whisper. An answering growl from further down the corridor was all the explanation Roy needed for Ling's warning.
"Give me a moment to deal with this!" With that off-hand remark, Ling disappeared from his side, followed instantly by a whirlwind of noises – clangs and snarls and the sickening sounds of metal sinking into flesh.
Roy stood to one side and tried his best not to feel useless.
A surprisingly short amount of time later, Ling returned. "Alright. We should get moving before more of those find us."
Roy nodded wordlessly, the slight coppery tang of spilled blood filling his nostrils as they continued on.
The alchemist in him simply could not shake off the feeling that there was more to this story than Edward's conclusion – yes, the perpetrator was almost definitely the Ishvalan alchemist Evan Blake, but that still left many questions unanswered. For instance, how was he making so many of these chimeras? And more importantly, how the hell did he sneak them in without so much as a single soldier catching on?
Even if he was the best bio-alchemist in the whole of Amestris, it was impossible to create living beings out of thin –
A shuddering explosion from above sliced rudely through his line of thought. He reflexively snapped out an arm to brace himself.
They were both silent as they waited for the aftershock to recede. When Ling next spoke, he sounded slightly shaken. "Damn, I hope the Elrics are alright."
Roy had to physically squash the worm of unease at the back of his mind. Edward Elric without his alchemy was still Edward Elric – but against an alchemist of Blake's calibre…
Thin air.
Roy paused as a horrible realisation dawned on him.
"Thin air," he stated aloud.
"What?" asked Ling.
"Thin air. He's making these chimeras out of thin air."
"O...kay?"
"No, can't you see?" Roy gritted his teeth and turned around. "We have to go back."
There it was. The completed puzzle, every disjointed piece now holding new meaning, staring right at him in the goddamn face – and he hadn't even realised it until a moment ago.
The woman Xandria's seemingly casual remark oh-so-long ago: Let's just say I used to work for the Red Cavalry. Perhaps you've heard of them?
The unexplained disappearance of an entire military party he would have thought nothing of a few years back: An Eastern extremist group which has caused the military more than its fair share of trouble. They mysteriously disappeared a year and a half ago, along with an entire mansion's worth of military guests they were supposed to make a hit on.
The sheer implausibility of the alchemised chimeras: It would be impossibly difficult to create not one, but multiple chimeras in a short amount of time.
It all fit, shockingly, horrifically, well.
He could be wrong – in fact, he hoped he was wrong, but he could no longer ignore the pieces, nor the bigger picture. Because if he was right, Edward and Alphonse would never stand a chance.
"Slow down for a second, Colonel," Ling's voice was surprisingly steady as a hand came down firmly on his shoulder. Roy almost tried to shrug Ling's grip off and keep moving, but something about the understanding in that touch stopped him. "What can't I see?"
Roy forced himself to breathe. He had to calm the hell down if he was going to fix this. "The Law of Equivalent Exchange. A universal rule impossible to circumvent, unless –"
"There's a Philosopher's Stone involved," mused Ling, answering his own question.
Roy nodded once, running a hand anxiously through his hair.
"Well, darn. That explains the strange, huge-mass-of-writhing-souls feeling I've been having for the past couple of hours."
"And you didn't think that that little bit of information was – I don't know – important?" snapped Roy, though his tightly wound tone contained no real anger.
"The feeling wasn't nearly as intense as a Homunculus' Stone, so I figured it was nothing to be alarmed about."
"Right. That's one piece of good news at least," remarked Roy sarcastically, shaking Ling's hand off and marching back the way they came.
"And…we're going back. Yes we are." Ling easily kept stride with him as Roy was forced to check his pace due to the increasingly frequent intervals of white hot pain lacing up his leg.
Damn my fractured ankle. Damn my sight. Damn everything. Why can't I do something? Why can't I do anything?
He stopped abruptly in his tracks, rubbing his forehead. "This is stupid. You go ahead and warn them, Ling – you'll move faster without me."
"You know I can't do that, Colonel Mustang," said Ling. "I made a promise to Ed –"
"To hell with promises! You need to go now before something we all regret happens!" Something audibly snapped – he felt it snap.
Rage and fear and helplessness.
"Because staying behind is all I can do now. Because neither of us have a choice in the matter!"
"But we do have a choice," despite it all, Ling remained firm and unwavering. Even Roy had to admire his stubbornness. "Or at least, you do."
Roy's breath caught halfway down his throat as he fully registered Ling's meaning.
He clenched his fists. "But I can't –"
"Forgive my frankness, Colonel," interrupted Ling smoothly, not giving Mustang even the slightest chance to protest. "But you're currently the only State Alchemist present in the immediate vicinity of Central Command."
Roy leaned back against the wall, allowing himself to sink to the ground, clasping his hands in front of bent knees. "I know."
"It would take simply too long for adequate backup to arrive – and even if we were to manage that, only a very limited number of people are aware of the existence of a Philosopher's Stone, much less understand what it truly means to combat an opponent in possession of one."
"I know."
Noises were ever much sharper in total darkness, and Roy perceived even Ling's slight inhale and consequent perplexed huff of air. "I…I admit that I can never fully understand your reasons for refusing to use a Stone, no matter what it means for yourself. We live in very different worlds, Colonel. And yet – I believe that you understand what it means to be a king, and what it means for a king toprotect his people, no matter the cost."
Ling paused, presumably to collect his thoughts. In the ensuing silence, Roy simply said:
"I know."
Duty – a duty to safeguard and defend his comrades and subordinates, no matter what it took; obligation – an obligation to never again cause more harm than he already had to any innocent Ishvalan soul.
Perhaps it was once all about sin and punishment, but Roy was surprised to realise that this was no longer really tied to some self-serving desire to soothe his own conscience. No, he hesitated now, purely because it was his choice, a choice built on his principles, to never exploit the power of a Stone. Not only because he had no right to, but because it was simply, utterly wrong.
And yet, he'd causedall this. Everything, every last detail and decision and judgement made in the short life of alchemist Evan Blake could be traced back to that split second seven years ago – a single snap of the fingers which destroyed not only individual lives, but left an entire family in ruins.
Cause and effect. Price and sacrifice. Even if the world were to crumble to ashes, this was his choice to make, and his choice only.
Because he knew that this was something only he could do.
Ling swallowed. "They'll understand. Maybe they won't forgive you, but they'll understand if you use them for the sake of others."
Roy closed his eyes and reached up, feeling his fingers close around the vague shape of a forearm. "Prince Ling Yao."
He felt Ling tense in anticipation.
Roy couldn't help but reflect in amusement – throughout the insanity of the past few weeks, a particular pair of brothers had always been at the forefront of his mind.
And right now, his responsibility to make sure that they returned home to their happily-ever-after triumphed over all else; all the stubbornness and pride and morality and guilt.
"I have...a favour to ask of you."
