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"Dinner!" Ed happily dished up two plates on home made mac n' cheese that'd been left in the fridge for them, adding a glass of chocolate milk to Elicia's side of the table before he was chowing down on his own dinner.

Alphonse, as always, didn't eat, but enjoyed watching the two. It'd been fun, watching Elicia. As the night went on she got more tired and silly, and easier to play with. At the moment, her face was covered in mac and cheese.

"After dinner, can we play a board game, big brother?"

"Sure, but you'll need to brush your teeth and get ready for bed first." Ed eyed the clock. It was a little after 8, bedtime was at 9. He was sure it was normally earlier, but he'd spoil the kid, just this once.

"Yay!" Elicia reached for her glass of chocolate milk, only to spill it all over herself and the table.

She sat there, lip trembling and eyes watering, as Al drove for a towel.

"Don't cry! It's okay. Ed will get you another glass."

Ed got up and headed to the fridge, looking annoyed. "Darn. That was the last of it."

A few tears slipped down Elicia's cheeks.

"But don't worry! Al can go get us some more!" Ed fished around in his pants pocket, pulling out a few bills.

"There's a little shop that's open late a few blocks form here. Al can go get the chocolate milk and you finish your dinner and get your PJs on, and he'll be back with some before bed. Is that okay?"

Elicia nodded, and Ed relaxed, crisis averted, before handing the money over to Alphonse.

"Thanks, Al."

"No problem. Make sure you get her cleaned up before Mrs. Hughes comes home." Al said, nodding to Elicia, who was still covered in mac and cheese, as he headed for the door.

"Alright. Now that that disaster is averted, let's finish up dinner so we can get changed into our PJs!"

Elicia finished dinner without complaint, and Ed was able to coax her into her Pjs- a tiny t-shirt and pants covered in teddy bears that was adorable.

He had to chase her around upstairs and catch her to wipe all the mac and cheese off her face, though. Still, it was hard to be mad when she kept laughing like she did. It was cute.

"Now that that's done, how 'bout you brush your teeth?"

"But I can't! Big brother is coming back with chocolate milk soon!" Elicia protested. "I wanna play a board game!"

Ed frowned. He thought he'd heard something, but now all he heard was silence. He turned his attention back to Elicia.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Okay- go to the playroom and pick what you want to play."

Elicia went running off, coming back a moment later with a box that said "Chutes and Ladders" and setting it down beside her bed, looking excited.

Outside the bedroom window, there was the sound of glass shattering in the street below.

Elicia heard it too and looked up, surprised. "What was that?"

"Probably just a stray cat. We'd better hope Alphonse doesn't find it, or he might give it all your chocolate milk." Ed ran through everything in his head- he knew Al had locked the door behind him, and he didn't hear anything downstairs.

With that in mind, he settled down cross-legged on the floor of Elicia's bedroom and cracked his knuckles, grinning. "Now- prepare to be a sore loser! I'm the king of chutes and ladders!"

"Nu-uh!"


In the street below, a sleek black car parked further up the road. A black hooded man got out, lugging with him two large jugs of gasoline and a clanking backpack.

He'd intended to win the election and make Trevors the fall guy. He'd paid off false witnesses and everything. What better way to make sure he was never caught than to frame the wrong man- a political rival, at that- and then slash the funding to the police budget?

But things hadn't worked out as planned. And so Xavier was following his heart. It's what he'd done when he'd grown bored of politics and started butchering those women weeks ago.

He'd grown tired of the rich life. There was nothing more fun than killing- his wife had long since grown boring. Even she couldn't match the erotic pleasure he got from watching the light leave a woman's eyes.

Still, he'd lost the election, and if the calls he kept getting from Lieutenant Hughes were any indication, the walls were closing in. There was nothing better to do than go out with a bang.

He tried the front door of the Hughes' residence to find it locked. Oh well. He went about emptying half his first tank of gasoline on the front porch and struck a match, watching it all light up with glee.

This time, he wouldn't get the pleasure of watching his victims struggle and die. But maybe he'd be lucky enough to smell their flesh cooking- his mouth watered at the thought, and he grew excited, dashing around the back of the home and coating the small back deck in gasoline, lighting that up as well.

He dumped the remainder of the gasoline on the siding of either side of the home, striking matches and setting it aflame with glee.

He was going to jail for life anyways. Might as well take as many lives as he could before he got there. That detective might've caught him- but he certainly wouldn't have a home or family to come home to after this. The thought of the man's ruined life and his panicking wife and child burning filled him with exuberance.

He walked around to the front of the house to admire his handiwork.

The front porch and front of the house were beginning to be devoured in flames. The back porch was well underway as well, and both sides were beginning to catch, the siding smelling like melting plastic as the studs beneath caught and went up in flames...

It was a macabre lullaby- he could feel the heat from the flames, even ten feet back, and he smiled, listening to the cracking and popping of the flames. The second floor hadn't even started to go yet. It was brilliant.


"I get to go up the ladder!" Elicia cheered, looking excited.

"Yeah, well, I'll get you soon." Ed said morosely, rolling the dice hopefully. He tugged on the collar of his shirt- it sure had gotten warm in the house. Then again, maybe he was just frustrated. After all, he was getting beaten at chutes and ladders by a five year old.

He wondered when Al would be back with that chocolate milk.


It wasn't burning fast enough. At this rate, he'd have to wait around all night. Xavier stood on the front lawn, dropping his backpack and hearing glass rattle around. He'd prepared his maltov cocktails just for this. Glass bottles filled with kerosene, with rags stuffed in the top.

He lit the first rag, stepping back and hurling the bottle at an upstairs window- it shattered, and the formerly dark inside of the room lit up in a gorgeous red as the kerosene of the broken bottle spattered on the floor, and the bed linens and curtains caught fire.


The sound of glass shattering pulled both Ed and Elicia from their game.

"What was that?" Elicia asked, looking surprised.

"I don't know. It sounded like it came from the bedroom down the hall- Elicia, stay here." Ed said seriously, hurrying down the hall. His every sense was alert. Had the serial killer climbed on top of the roof overhanging the porch and tried to break in a window? If so, they were going to be met by a world of pain...

He yanked open the bedroom door, ready to go toe to toe with a killer, only to be met with a wall of flame.

He froze.

Skin. Burning skin. Flesh on fire, melting to the fabric of his clothes...

He was hallucinating. He had to be. He could feel his heart start to hammer in his chest, his mouth going dry. His breath hitched- he forced himself to take a deep breath, only to be met with heat and smoke in return.

No. This was real.

Pain. Pain engulfing his entire being- it wouldn't stop!

"Big brother!? What's going on?" Elicia called from down the hall, still blissfully ignorant.

It was her voice that pulled Ed back from the brink of his panic attack. She needed him- he forced himself to suck in deep breaths, to still the rattling of his mind. This was real, they were in danger, and he needed to get them out.

It was that purpose that caused him to slam the door on the burning room, hopefully slowing down the flames, and sprint back to the bedroom where he'd been playing chutes and ladders.

"Elicia! We need to get out..."

He skidded into the room only to see a black object flying at the window- right towards Elicia.

He was running on instinct now, and he dove forwards, tackling her and rolling- he heard glass shatter, and came to a tumbling rest in front of Elicia's closet. Following the first shatter, there was a second- Ed looked up to see a puddle of liquid catching fire in the center of the room, right on top of their game of chutes and ladders, and his eyes widened.

A maltov cocktail... someone is trying to kill us!

"What's going on? Big brother- Hhh." he heard Elicia's breath catch in her throat, and without thinking, he hefted her up and sprinted out of the room as the puddle of liquid- kerosene, from the smell of it- caught fire. He slammed the bedroom door behind him, stumbling into the hallway with Elicia in his arms, shaking and frightened, clinging to him.

Shit- what am I supposed to do!?


Roy was silent as he gunned the engine of his car down the streets of Central. Hughes was twitching enough to drive anyone mad in the passenger seat, clenching and unclenching his fists repeatedly and grinding his teeth together and just trying to breathe...

Gracia sat in the backseat of the car, lips pressed firmly together with a white-knuckle grip on her purse. They'd all wanted to call and warn Ed ahead of time, but there simply hadn't been time. Xavier might have already arrived, and a call would've done nothing to help them if Xavier, deranged as he was, was already there and Ed was fighting for his life.

Roy slammed the breaks and made another tight corner, burning rubber on his tires and speeding up again on the straight away. With each passing second, he couldn't help but wonder what was going on and if everyone was alright...

They were almost there, now, just another two hundred yards down the street. He saw it before he got there- orange bursts of flame reaching to the sky, engulfing the Hughes home, dancing towards heaven and devouring everything...

With only one man dressed in back standing on the lawn. No children. No blond boy in a red coat. No suit of armor. No little girl. Roy's heart dropped to his stomach. Gracia burst into tears in the back seat.

Roy slammed on the breaks and Hughes had jumped out of the car before it even came to a complete stop. The man was reaching into his backpack for something- a bottle of some sort was in his hand.

"HEY! YOU BASTARD! STOP!" Hughes was sprinting towards the man, now, and the man glanced over his shoulder before launching the object into the air. It soared in the night, crashing through an upstairs window- and that room, too, burst into flames.

Hughes tackled the man a second later, laying him out on the ground and scrambling, kicking, punching, punching...

Xavier's face was a bloody mess within a minute. Roy had to pull him off before he broke the man's jaw. In his frenzy, Hughes probably could've caved the man's skull in with his bare hands if Roy had let him. Hughes fought him every step of the way- the hellish heat of the flames was in the background, devouring everything.

"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD, YOU HEAR ME!? I'LL KILL YOU!" Hughes scuffled from where Roy had a firm hold around his waist, his bloodied hands trying to pry himself free so he could keep pounding on the man.

Roy hadn't seen Hughes this frantic since Ishval. And he hadn't seen this much flames since... His hands were shaking? Why were his hands shaking?

"You're going to kill him Hughes!" Roy yelled over the crackling of the flames. "He has to stand trial! Make him pay for what he did!"

Hughes stopped struggling. looking over at Roy uncertainly. "Stand... stand trial?" he asked, voice shaking. Roy had let go of him, and Hughes blood covered hands dropped to his sides, glasses eerily reflecting the light of the flames.

"S-stand trial!? For what, dammit!? Where's Elicia, Roy!? Where's my little girl!?"

Roy had thought Xavier was unconscious, but a cackling laugh came from the bloodied man on the ground- grating, like a rusty gate in the wind- and Hughes silenced the man with a savage kick, the heel of his boot making contact with the man's jaw and shutting him up.

Gracia had gathered herself, and she ran onto the front lawn with them, tears dripping down her face as he hands shook and she stared up into the inferno...

"Elicia! Elicia! Edward! Alphonse! Oh... where's my Elicia!?" she dissolved into frantic, hiccuping sobs, sinking to her knees on the lawn. Her voice had gone up an octave in panic.

Roy had heard that tone of voice before. He'd never understood the words of it, but he'd heard it- the panic, the raw desperation, as Ishvalan mothers dug through smoldering rubble with their bare hands. He hadn't understood the language, but he'd heard it- mumbling prayers, frantically calling children's names, as they sifted through the rubble of the hellscape he'd created. He had to physically swallow back the nausea that bubbled in his throat. Since when had it gotten so hard to breathe? Oh god, Ed was in there...

Hughes looked from his wife to the blaze, as though unsure which he should run to. He turned to Roy, desperate.

"Can you put it out?"

Roy stared up at the hellish flames and slowly shook his head. He created flames- manipulated the oxygen, maintained the blast ratio, and created his own spark- made his own little pocket of destruction- in the open air of combat.

He couldn't do anything here. There was too many occupied spaces- too many items in the house, too much fuel for the flames- even if he did somehow manage to account for every molecule of oxygen arranged in the complex space, which was impossible- he wouldn't be able to remove all the oxygen, wouldn't be able to quench the flames. And even if by some miracle he could- it'd take hours for the heat to dissipate. Hours for it to be cool enough for them to search the wreckage. He wouldn't be able to keep the oxygen out for that long. And even if he could- the kids might smother before they'd get them out. It was all a pipe dream, a theoretical impossibility...

"Put it out, dammit!" Hughes put both hands on his chest and shoved him back, leaving bloody handprints on his blue uniform. Mustang stumbled, looking at his old friend with a mixture of pity and disappointment in himself...

"...I'm sorry, Hughes. I can't." his voice was barely above a whisper.

"Damn you! You're useless!" Hughes sank to all fours on the lawn, shoulders heaving, whole body trembling as the man with a perpetual smile broke.

"Edward." Roy's voice was swallowed up the the noise around them- the sirens in the distance, the sobbing of both his friends beside him, and the loudest of all- the cracking, popping of the flames as the Hughes' home- and everything they held dear- was consumed.

Roy closed his eyes, trying to stay calm despite his heart hammering in his chest. Edward- the boy who cried at night because he could still feel his skin melting. The kid who loved to drink tea with too much honey in it, and eat tatter tots for dinner. He was probably terrified, if he was even still alive...

"Hold on, Ed. Please." water dripped onto the lawn in front of him and all around him, but it wasn't raining.


What do you think will happen next? I love to hear your predictions!