Author's notes:
"Sham sacrifice" – in chess, a player offering a "sham sacrifice" (i.e. giving away a figure) will soon regain material of the same or greater value, or else force mate. Coined by Rudolf Spielman, see more on the Wikipedia
Spoilers for the Promised day in the text, be careful
I am not a native English speaker, and I am looking for any way to improve. I'm open to any concrit
Finally, if you simply want to read the vignettes – look for bold text at the end of the chapter, that is where the vignette starts.
Chapter 1 A royal fork
Chapter summary: Royal fork refers to a move in chess where a figure attacks the queen and king at the same time wiki/Fork_(chess). The player whose king is attacked will most likely lose the queen while defending the queen.
Vignette at the end: Park and Rec & FMA crossover with Ron Swanson instead of Grumman
Edward disappeared suddenly, taken away by those ghostly black hands.
Was he dead? Was he sacrificed?
No, no, no… Roy didn't have any time to think about it – he had to fight two fuhrer candidates at once and keep an eye on that strange doctor with a golden tooth.
Then, he saw that fuhrer candidate bastard wrestling Riza to the ground, holding her hand in such a way that it was about to break any moment.
"Let her go!" he shouted, losing focus on his own battle. They used that opportunity to gripple his hands. Next second, two rapid sword moves – Roy didn't even see where those swords came from – and his gloves were gone. Scar was caught too, kept in place by those sharp swords.
They hit Riza once again with a sword sheath. Her head jerked back rapidly, she hit the ground, and then… she stopped moving altogether.
"Here we are, Colonel Mustang," the doctor said. "I would like you to perform some human transmutation and open the portal for me".
"No, not a chance," Roy yelled in response while struggling out of the grasp of those fuhrer candidates holding him. "I won't be your puppet."
"I told you, we have run out of time," the doctor said. Then, all Roy could see was blood.
Riza's blood. She was already unconscious after the blow to her head, and now… Did they actually simply cut her throat? Just did it? Without even trying to negotiate or explain their plans? She was expendable to them, and if Roy could, he'd eviscerate all of them, turn them in little pieces of ashes, he'd start with their eyes and tongues and mouths, and then…
Riza wasn't moving.
"Lieutenant, are you still with me? Answer me!" Roy shouted, uselessly watching how the pool of Riza's blood was expanding in front of his eyes.
There was no answer.
"Now, perform the human transmutation and become the fifth sacrifice," that doctor said once again.
That time, Roy couldn't stop panicking.
What if… What if she was already dead? Her hand was stuck under her body in such an awkward, unnatural position and she became so pale that he couldn't believe that she wasn't. Uninvitedly, his mind was filling with the images of the red phone booth covered in blood the very day he was too late, too slow and too useless to help.
No, no, no…. She was under his direct order not to die.
Then, he saw a very subtle movement of her chest. She was breathing. He felt calmer once again, feeling how there was hope for her.
"I am able with all certainty to save this woman's life," the doctor said, showing a small vial with red liquid in it. Philosopher's stone.
All he needed for her to live was to perform a human transmutation.
He knew that on the surface, the decision was simple. The doctor needed those sacrifices for an evil plan involving the death of all people in Amestris. Human transmutation couldn't bring anyone back to life. He couldn't trust the doctor to uphold his end of the deal. Most importantly, Riza would never agree to that. She wouldn't ever forgive him for betting the lives of all people in Amestris for her single life.
But… He couldn't take the right decision. Not when he was watching Riza slowly dying in front of him, the pool of her blood becoming bigger and bigger, and she herself looking like a lifeless doll that was accidentally dropped to the ground, spilt there in a lifeless shape. Maybe, if she was conscious and watching him taking the decision, he'd be able to choose what was right, but now… Now he wasn't able to do anything else. For the life of it, he wasn't able to forsake her to death.
He stopped struggling, feeling as defeated as never.
"You heal her first," he said while his mind was filling with human transmutation formulas.
"I will but I can kill her anytime if you refuse," the doctor said, and then there was a red flash. The wound on her throat started healing, but one of those Fuhrer candidates was still holding the sword next to her throat.
He slowly walked to the transmutation circle, trying not to notice the glance that Scar was giving him, trying not to focus on the fact that he decided to knowingly betray everyone he wanted to protect. The human transmutation array itself was a simple one. It didn't even refer to the matter to be manipulated, to the person to be returned from the dead – its only purpose was to perform a human transmutation, open what they called the "portal of Truth".
Riza woke up when he was kneeling next to the array. He activated it, and the last thing he saw was her wide eyes watching how the black hands taking him away.
Much, much later, he learned that just a second after his transmutation, Zampano, May, and Jerso came to rescue them.
-/
Roy found himself in an endless white space. There was nothing except for the enormous gates in front of him and a creature in front of those gates – a faceless figure, just a dark outline in the whiteness of everything around him.
"Strange, strange, strange," the creature told him. "I've never met anyone here, who didn't even know whom they wanted to transmute."
"Human transmutation doesn't work anyway, does it?" Roy asked even though he was sure of the answer.
The faceless figure smiled.
"You also didn't offer me anything for the human transmutation. I miss my limes and thirty-five litres of water, you know?"
"Must be tough to survive on water and limes." Roy smiled and sat in front of the creature. There wasn't any need for him to go back just to be sacrificed. Or even worse – to explain to Riza why he did it. He could as well stay there. "You should convince alchemists that the human body consists of apple pies and quiches."
Roy looked at the doors of the gates in front of him in curiosity. The image moulded on them was the same as the flame alchemy circle on Riza's back.
"No, you cannot stay here, alchemist," the creature said as if reading his thoughts. "And I'm not keeping you here just because you won't say what you want to transmute. All transmutations come to an end."
Roy sighed. Naively, he hoped that he could simply stay there for until the eclipse ends. Unfortunately, his only other option was worse. At least, he knew whom he wanted to save.
"Maes Hughes," he breathed out, his heart fluttering with the stupid hope that he may actually revive Maes. "Take my whole body. My soul. My mind. Every single part of me. It's an equivalent exchange, isn't it?" He looked at the creature without hesitation. He didn't need to survive to become the puppet of people who wanted to destroy his country. "Kill me, but bring him back to life."
"I only take what's due, alchemist."
The doors opened and those little hands took Roy away once again, and his mind exploded in its inability to grasp the knowledge spilling into it. Then the world around him went dark.
-/
"Colonel!" he heard Fullmetal's uncharacteristically panicked voice next to him. Then he felt pain. So much pain. He could barely locate it. Somewhere deep in his head, probably. He also smelled blood.
"I wish I could say that makes all five of the required sacrifices, but Alfonse Elric has not arrived yet," an unfamiliar male voice said.
That meant… He didn't succeed. That faceless creature in the gateway didn't take away his life, and now he was just another useless sacrifice for them.
"It can't be…" Fullmetal was speaking again. "What the hell did they do to him? Is he alive? Colonel, say something!" Then Roy felt a trembling hand checking his pulse.
"Have him lie down," he heard a female voice saying. "We need to dress up the wounds."
He tried to open his eyes to see who was speaking, but somehow, that simple movement didn't succeed. Then he remembered something.
"Is he…" he said, struggling to say anything in the pain encompassing him. "Is he alive?"
"Who?" Fullmetal was there again, and then there was the sound of clothes being torn, a clap and the ozone smell of alchemy. He felt a metallic hand wrapping something around his head.
"H… Hughes," Roy said trying to look around.
Why couldn't he see anything? Why was it so dark? Please, he needed the lights. He needed to see if it worked.
"Hughes?!" He felt hands wrapping something around his head once again. "Lieutenant-Colonel… General Hughes? The bleeding doesn't stop… What do we do?" that time, the voice was addressing someone else.
"Maes Hughes," he tried once again, forgetting all the ranks of his friend in the haze of pain. Then he remembered something even worse. "Is Riza… Is Lieutenant Hawkeye alive?"
Something firmly pressed on his head, and the pain became worse. He screamed.
"Hold on, Colonel, please," Fullmetal again. "Hughes… Lieutenant Hawkeye…. You performed it, didn't you? Human transmutation?" There was so much accusation in that voice.
"Is he alive?" he asked once again, rotating his head and stupidly hoping to see Maes next to him.
"No. And you know that you can't bring the dead back to life. Why on Earth now, Colonel? Couldn't you at least wait for after the Promised day?" Fullmetal was furious, and, frankly, Roy didn't have an answer for that question.
Then the fight started.
Somehow, after he killed Lust, he thought that all fights with homunculi would go like that – bloody and difficult, sure – but at least not too one-sided. Somehow, he thought that there was always a hope for victory against the homunculi.
Oh, how he was mistaken.
He knew that Fullmetal and Al were fighting with the homunculus called Pride, the one who manipulated the shadows – at least, according to Riza, and they couldn't even hit the guy, whereas Pride hit them over and over again.
Roy tried to help, but there was no one to guide his alchemy, and he didn't have his gloves on. All there was for him was to lie and listen to the fight around him, to the sounds of Pride beating Fullmetal into a pulp and to the screeching of Al's armour being bent like a piece of paper.
"Stop that, Pride," the same male voice – the "Father", right? – said. "I need them for the sacrifice."
A body landed next to Roy, and he carefully moved in its direction. Closer examination revealed a metal arm.
"Fullmetal!" he said, barely containing panic. "FULLMETAL!" he screamed. He started shaking the body in front of him, feeling like he was about to become hysteric.
"'m fine," he heard a very quiet voice, and he sighed in relief. Fullmetal was still alive.
Then, he was lifted in the air, and another voice started speaking about planets and powers of God, and he'd listen to it if he weren't so worried about what it meant.
They didn't win. That "Father" needed five sacrifices, and he received all of them, delivered to him on a plate. Now, he was speaking of collecting the souls of all the people in Amestris, and that was no less than fifteen million people. Including Riza. Roy made everything worse by exchanging a half an hour of her life for the lives of fifteen million people.
When he was thrown back to the ground, he welcomed the darkness that claimed him, hoping that his soul too would be taken for those evil plans. He didn't deserve anything beyond that.
He must have been unconscious for some time, because then he didn't hear the sounds of a fight and instead, there was… Riza's voice. She was screaming for him, sounding afraid and, most importantly, alive.
Thank God, she was alive. He didn't know how, but it looked like the "Father's" plan didn't fully succeed.
He stood up and cautiously made a few steps in her direction. Thankfully, her hands found him.
"Your head…" her voice was quiet and lifeless, like she was about to cry. "What was the toll?"
"Eyes, apparently. That's what I can deduct from not seeing anything around me," he grinned cheerfully, finding strange solace in talking about it, and then schooled his expression into serious once again. "How are your injuries, Lieutenant?"
"Fine, Sir," she answered in the same lifeless tone.
He learned quickly that the battle was still continuing, and that the "Father" guy was still undefeated. Everyone else was heading for the battle, and he decided that he needed to help too. He wasn't going to stay away, especially, since Fullmetal was still fighting Pride.
Riza agreed to help him. While being led to the battle, he felt the extent of her anger at him – her usually gentle grasp on his shoulder was firm and painful. She didn't speak more than she needed to, even though she had to know that he needed to hear her voice in the chaos of the battle around him. She was there for him, and, at the same time, somehow wasn't.
That was why he focused on the battle around him, feeling satisfied with the idea that he could eviscerate whoever was responsible for the wrong choice that he had to make that day. Because they were practically killing Fullmetal next to him, and he couldn't do anything to help. For the way Riza was holding him now, firm and unforgiving. For the way he needed someone to guide him to make a simple step, and the pain he felt all the time since he woke up. The fires surrounded him, feeling like a continuation of his own soul, and his soul wanted to destroy everything.
He snapped and snapped and snapped, and the fires were hitting the target that Riza was directing him at. He felt like he was a great help on the battlefield, and that was why he didn't really want to oblige when Riza asked him to keep it down, to use weaker blasts.
"Sir, please, the shields of our soldiers won't hold up against your fires," she was pleading. He could also feel her grip on his shoulder weakening. Was she thinking about leaving him there, without her guidance, not able to fight? Weak and useless?
He snapped again, despite her pleadings, and that time, the fire pillar was even taller, hotter, stronger – he smiled, since he had never created something that strong. Maybe the knowledge from the gate was helping? He was sure though that the fury that was encompassing him was responsible for the strength of those fires. He manipulated the fire to hit the target and it did – perfectly precise, like all his fires were – and then he heard someone wailing in pain.
The scream wasn't coming from the creature he wanted to eviscerate.
He staggered, putting out all the fires around him, leaning on Riza to keep standing. He heard someone else running into the battlefield and continuing the fight with the "Father".
"Is it?" he asked quietly, knowing the answer full well. "Did I injure someone?"
He couldn't stand anymore, and Riza helped him to sit down. The wailing stopped abruptly.
"Looks like his shield didn't hold, Sir," she said, and then he felt her hands tugging his gloves, slowly removing them. "They are helping him… He's not dead. You have to rest, Sir."
He nodded, allowing her to drag him away from the battle. The battle continued around them, and he didn't try to help anymore.
-/
Vignette 1 – Park and Rec & FMA crossover, Roy Swanson instead of Grumman, Ed and Roy, 190 words
"Sir, we're sorry about the… unforeseen consequences of this mission," Roy said, thinking about the ways to spin those "consequences" into something positive. He needed to start on a good note with their new chef – a civilian manager called Ron Swanson – but that last joint mission with Ed certainly wasn't a good fit for it.
"You destroyed a tax collection bureau and burned all the records?" Swanson said, giggling somewhat happily. "And a mayor's office? And all of it in a mission where you simply had to retrieve a lost letter? That's what I expect from my employees – and that's why child labour laws would ruin this country. Well done, Ed!"
Ron Swanson stood up and patted Ed on the back, and then looked at Roy.
"You both are my most valuable employees. You, Mustang, for instance – you don't do a lot of work around here, spend all your time teaching dogs new tricks, slagging off your reports, and planning a coup against the government," Swanson looked at Ed and Roy cheerfully. "Your next joint mission would be to go to the Amestris Safety Standards Office and retrieve a letter from there."
Next chapter: "Underpromoted"