101 - Best Laid Plans
Alphonse's cheek slammed against the metal floor of the van. Pinned on his stomach by Aisa and frantically trying to look back, he heard the engine rev, and felt the tires spin as the vehicle fishtailed before it shot forwards.
Above all of the deafening noises in the chaos, Al heard the familiar sound of clapped hands that preceded the crackle of life spawned by an alchemical transmutation.
Al gasped as the vehicle suddenly became airborne, leaving all of the occupants momentarily hanging weightlessly while they flew.
The van landed heavily, like its seams were ready to burst. It rocked wildly from the left set of wheels to the right, causing one of the open cab doors to slam shut, and yet managed to not roll over and keep going. One of the impersonating officers from the alley, who'd thrown himself into the back of the van when all hell broke loose, rushed through the hollow vehicle and pounded on the metal wall.
"DRIVE!"
"SENSEI!" Al's voice tore through his throat repeatedly, until a shadow cast over him and a thickly wound cloth gag caught in his mouth.
"I need one of the boxes," Aisa demanded once the remaining door to the van was eventually pulled shut.
Twisting his head as the shadow returned, Alphonse watched in alarm as the militarily dressed man answering to Aisa knelt down at his head. Aisa forced Al's arms out above his head, her grip impossibly firm. Through his useless struggles, he felt two chilled, metal columns capture his wrists, and then Al's eyes opened to see the large, cumbersome, rectangular metal box that snared his hands. A key sealed the container leaving the young Elric's hands uselessly spread apart inside a cold cage so large that the tips of his fingers couldn't meet.
With his alchemy contained, the moment Aisa released control of his arms, Al tried to turn the box into a weapon. Though his core was still pinned beneath her, the younger Elric tossed his arms around wildly, trying to hit something , then Al added his legs to the frustration driven tantrum.
"Tie his ankles," Aisa ordered, like Al's thrashing was more of a nuisance than a concern.
Screaming through his gag and slamming the heavy metal box containing his hands to the van floor, Alphonse lost the freedom of his legs.
"Ma'am," a heavy voice moved around to Al's right side, "we didn't have enough time to get the woman out of the wall."
"That's fine," Aisa answered, easing the physical constraint she placed Al under, "her presence was unexpected."
Jerking his body as Aisa let up on him, Al was finally able to turn over enough to scan the mess of unconscious bodies that lay tossed about on the floor of the van. Unable to put any coherent thought together, Al felt the lump in his throat swell as the man impersonating an officer pulled his brother's body into view.
"I don't think this is him," the man with a square jaw and stubble for hair ripped Ed's left pant leg out from his boot.
Her concern for Alphonse vanishing entirely, Aisa rose to her feet and turned her attention onto the golden blonde officer not included in their party.
"This guy's not even close to the description the Prime Minister gave us," the man threw his hands in frustration, "he's too tall, too old, and there's no damn AutoMail on him."
Illuminated by a single hanging bulb dancing wildly overhead, a blank look devoid of life remained stapled to Aisa's face. Dropping to a squat, Aisa picked up Ed's right wrist and inspected his hand. Like a scientist assessing a specimen, her hands carefully tested each finger, examined his nails, inspected the slash through the palm of his hand, and eyed the bloodied knuckles he'd gotten from all the swings he'd taken. Letting the arm drop, Aisa's gaze wandered to the exposed flesh of his left calf, then moved her attention back up to analyze the contours of his face. Rising over him on her knees, Aisa looked down into the tired, darkened caves of his closed eyes. She scanned the scar that was settling on his right cheek and examined the firm jawline of what was inarguably a young adult.
"Dammit," Aisa's voice nipped in a rare display of emotion.
"You said that little one was useful?"
"He is, yes," turning her attention to Al and watching the younger brother scowl uselessly back at her, Aisa adjusted her expectations accordingly, "he has information and we can draw the FullMetal Alchemist out with him. We proceed."
Grinding his teeth down on the gag like he had the power of wrath to shred it, Al lurched forwards and slammed the box containing his hands down onto the floor of the van. Splitting his furious glare between the two blights conversing over his brother, Al caught Ed's eyes flicker open, before they closed again when the false officer refocussed on him.
"What do you want done with this one?" the man gestured to the unidentified Elric who lay motionless at his feet.
"He's waste," rising to her feet and ducking away from the light hanging overhead, Aisa strode towards Al, "Shoot him and toss the body."
Tearing a shrill noise out from behind the gag as Aisa approached, Al flew up onto his knees, raised his arms above his head, and slammed the metal box down on the floor of the van again. Swinging behind Al, Aisa grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him backwards, dragging the younger Elric away while he watched the man standing over his brother snap his gun free from his holster on the back of his belt and bring it out in front of himself.
Ed's eyes snapped wide.
Bouncing his hips off the ground, Ed thrust his left boot straight up through the man's hands, kicking the weapon from his grasp, ricocheting it off the roof, and hearing it crash down on the floor somewhere above his head. With the momentum from the kick, Ed rolled over his shoulders, landed on his knees, and his hand swept the floor, picking up the relinquished gun. Digging his toes into the grip of his boots, the elder brother sprung forward. Ed thrust his fist into the man's gut with his right hand, cracked him across the face with the butt end of the gun in his left, then brought his leg up and slammed the man into the wall of the van with the base of his boot.
Swift movement in the corner of his eye caused Ed to snap the weapon out to his side. He pulled the trigger once before his golden eyes flew wide when he saw Aisa's hand fearlessly dive in and crush the barrel of the weapon. Her palm collapsing the gun with ease, Ed let go before his fingers were included in the crumpling mess. The woman's other hand charged in, crashed into the Elric's chest, and drove him back until Aisa slammed him into the van doors. Ed choked on the pressure and slipped against the door, feeling a latch give way against his backside.
In an instant, one of the two van doors swung open into the late evening. Ed fell away from Aisa and nearly tumbled out the backside of the van as it tore through Central City's eastern side. Desperately clinging to the inside of the other sealed door, Ed couldn't get any footing - every time one of his feet hit the ground, the leg was thrown out behind him from the vehicle's speed, nearly ripping him from the door. Curling his legs up and focussing all his energy into his arms as he tried to haul himself back into the vehicle, Ed looked up at Aisa as she eclipsed the van's interior light. Rearing back, she moved her balance over onto a single foot and raised the other.
Standing high on his knees, his hands sealed, his ankles bound, and his words constricted, Alphonse watched Aisa's foot crash down on the latch of the other door, sending it flying wildly open, and flinging his brother away into the unlit streets at Central City's eastern edge.
Al sat back on his knees and stared without his thoughts as the opened van doors crashed around, unable to find any visual signs of his brother banished to the night. His posture continued to disintegrate as Aisa put an end to the echo in the van and she pulled the doors shut. In the comparative peace that followed, Al locked his blank, centred gaze onto Aisa and watched the woman cut through the vehicle until she loomed over the impaired little brother. Struggling to swallow properly with the gag in his mouth, Al leaned back as Aisa knelt down in front of him.
Snatching the tiny Elric by his chin, the woman looked into a pair of eyes that remained inexplicably golden, "Dante won't be disappointed to see you again."
"Winry, please, " Fuery pleaded.
Standing high on her knees atop a familiar bed, in a room she couldn't seem to get away from, Winry had absolutely no intention of leaving it this time.
"You will have to haul my cold, dead body out of this building if you want me gone," the sleepless girl yelled back, "I'm not going anywhere until Ed and Al are back here."
The officer's hands cautiously reached forward as he tried to take another step into the room, but backed off when Winry whipped a pair of pliers and embedded them into the door.
In an unforeseeable, critical error Fuery made amidst all the chaos, the officer returned Winry's tool case to her and, the moment she had it, the young mechanic became endowed with a seemingly endless supply of weaponry. Refusing to entertain anyone who came near her with even the slightest notion she should head north on her own, Winry turned her entryway into a minefield of sharp, weighted debris, and chunks of wall plaster, and there seemed to be no end in sight.
At a loss for what to do about the overtired, armed girl fortifying herself, Fuery stood at the precipice of Winry's room and started picking up the tools she'd tossed. He began pitching them out into the hallway, figuring her tool case had to run out some time and he could at least prevent her from refueling it. As tools began filling the hall outside her room, a heavy set of feet thundered down the hall and burst into Winry's doorway before Fuery could do anything to stop it.
"WHY ARE YOU STILL-"
A screwdriver embedded into the partially opened door next to Lieutenant Breda's ear.
The officer froze, too exasperated and frazzled to be able to pale, and he watched warily from the corner of his eye as the door creaked shut a little farther.
Breda snapped out of the moment, "Winry! Get in the damned car and get out of here."
"No," a fat wrench spun into her fingers and her eyes glowed with a hot blue flame, "I'm staying here until Ed and Al get back."
The officer threw his arms out at his sides, "Everything's getting turned upside down, we don't have the resources to make sure you're safe."
Wrinkling her nose, Winry's brow crashed down over her eyes, her upper lip curled, and her fingers danced around the body of her wrench before she re-gripped it, "I can take care of myself."
"No, you can't! You can't even walk properly!" Breda shot back, "please just-"
"I said 'No'," she squared herself off with the lieutenant at the centre of her bed, "I am not going anywhere by myself. I will be here when Ed and Al get back, because you are getting them back."
"YES, we are. We absolutely are," the officer's posture sagged at the nearly catastrophic failure they were trying to manage, "Izumi already kidnapped Falman and is following them and we're still trying to reach the brigadier general in Xenotime, but we can't get the damned phones to connect. There's just a lot of shit going on and we want you to be safe, but safe somewhere else. We don't know how many people from the influxes were tied to Dante yet. Please, just get in the car and go."
Her shoulders shooting to her ears, Winry's teeth grinded as her grip tightened around her wrench, "No."
"Winry!"
When Breda made the mistake of stepping forwards, the wrench in Winry's hand was launched and the lieutenant managed to vanish behind her door as the makeshift weapon embedded into the wood as it finished closing. Winry heard the officer take a few steps backwards through the hall, stumbling through the tools Fuery had littered the floor with. Behind her closed, but unlatched door, Winry finally heard Breda give a disgruntled 'fuck it' before his feet thundered away.
In a room she'd thought she'd seen the last of, Winry stood on her knees atop her bed and brought her eyes down off the damaged entryway and then farther to her opened tool case. Tired, distraught blue eyes stared at the armoury of tools she had left, laying in total disarray. Letting her shoulders droop and arms hang at her sides, Winry's head reminded her that it was still pounding. She wanted to cry; her emotions were so jumbled and her head a chaotic mess after everything that happened, Winry didn't know what else to do. Why did this have to be what finally brought her to tears after coming home? Why not all of the nightmares of the gunshots that marred her leg? Why not everything in the Thule Hall? Why not that entire exhausting journey? Why was she bottled up with that, but could look at herself now, standing over her tools, and feeling like she was on the verge of falling apart over Ed and Al?
Why couldn't they all just go home?
She just wanted to go home.
Thoughtlessly, Winry sank back on her knees and awkwardly had to pop her legs out from beneath herself when her left calf reminded her she was still wounded. Sliding onto her hip, Winry eyed the mess remaining in her tool case and questioned whether it was worth going to the door to pick anything up.
Before sinking too far in a swell of misery, Winry was thrown back onto her knees as the door to the room opened again. Yielding slightly at the presence that entered, her eyes cautiously watched a very sombre, weary-looking Alex Louis Armstrong make his way through her door and into her room.
"I'm not leaving," Winry's words took up her defensive position again.
"And I don't have anyone available to guard you," was the response.
The cumbersome burden brought on by the onus of miscalculations made over the last few days added a phenomenally uncomfortable weight to Armstrong's words. Winry's defensive posture began to cede at the downtrodden sound of his voice, but her words remained stubborn.
"I don't need protection."
The man spoke too quietly for someone of his size, "Look at your condition and you'll see that you do."
Winry recoiled; she was well aware she was a burden like this. She still couldn't walk on her own, Ed carried her everywhere, Al brought her meals throughout the day, and a doctor still saw her once in a while. Utterly useless, Al had shoved Winry into a hole leading to a storage closet and she was condemned to do nothing but listen to the chaos that went on in the stairwell, because she couldn't get the storage room door unlatched from the inside.
And even if she had, she wouldn't have been able to run for help.
Winry took a deep breath and tightened her jaw firmly as she voiced a sinking feeling, "If Dante has Ed and Al now… why would she bother to come back for me?"
Her poignant words weighed down the large shoulders of Armstrong further, but he countered her with an emotive concern, "I'm certain your grandmother would appreciate it if we did our best to protect you."
Winry cringed as her grandmother, who she hadn't seen or spoken to in nearly half a year, was pulled into the battle. The young mechanic clenched her fists as her eyes fell down to her tool case, "Can I call her?"
"No," Armstrong replied.
Winry's shoulders rose, "Has anybody been able to tell her where I am yet? That I'm okay?"
"No," the morose officer gave a single shake of his head.
Snapping her gaze up again, Winry locked a steadfast glare on the man's refusal and dug her weakened heels in again, "I'm not going north by myself. Pretend I'm not here. I won't bother anyone. I just want to be here when Ed and Al get back. They are coming back and we're going home."
In the middle of a chaotic night, Armstrong slowly drew his arms up and he folded them across his broad chest. The alchemist let his eyes walk around the room while his thoughts wandered around the situation in his head. Sending his focus to the ceiling, Armstrong allowed a quiet moment in the overnight hour, before giving the argument one last address.
"For the immediate future, I am in need of every hand I trust, and even some I certainly don't. The moment I can spare someone long enough for the trip, you will be sent north and you will not be allowed to contest that."
Winry clenched her hands and looked down at her open tool case without a reply.
Turning to leave her room, Armstrong left her with one last offering, "You need rest. Get some sleep."
Clenching her eyes shut as the imposing man left her room, in an over-tired, worn out, childish display of behaviour, Winry's arms shot out and grabbed the lid of her tool case. She slammed it shut so hard it nearly bounced off her bed and a wave of blonde hair flew around her body as Winry turned around and dropped herself face first into the sheets.
At far too early of an hour, a sliver of orange began to glow on the eastern horizon. With the new day dawning at his back, Havoc steered the rusty tractor he drove into a weary looking district in East City. Rectangular, formulaic residences and buildings, all at equal height with nothing decorative that stood out, lined the roads - residential relics of a commune-style division of the city from an experiment decades passed. Havoc slowed as he made his way through the neighbourhood, finally allowing the tractor to proceed below its maximum speed, though it did very little to quiet the noise it, and the wooden cart he was towing, made.
Slowing to a near crawl, another firm yank on the steering wheel brought the tractor around ninety-degrees and the officer slowly inched the rickety contraption into a space between two buildings. With the walls of the buildings practically hugging the vehicle, Havoc brought it in deep enough that the back hitch was tucked away as well, before he finally parked it. Hopping out of the driver's seat and into the sludge of an alley, the officer made his way back to the wobbly cart and tucked his head under the tarp.
"Alright, gang. Time to stretch your legs."
The tired heads of the Xenotime party nodded silently and began to rise. Rose slipped out into the predawn light of East City first with her baby strapped to her chest, Fletcher followed close behind, and Russell's backside popped out last as he pulled Maria to the edge of the wooden trailer.
Russell emerged and looked over to Havoc, "You want me to carry her?"
Havoc debated the request, "Yeah, if you can?"
"No problem."
Sliding around, Havoc helped set Maria on Russell's back as the young man knelt down to take her weight. The older Tringham brother adjusted Maria to secure her, straightened up tall again, and nodded to Havoc to get going.
Leading the procession, Havoc headed deeper into the alley he'd blocked. Squeezing between the space of a fat tractor wheel and the brick wall, the officer made his way through, and one by one his company followed suit.
Like he had the route memorized, Havoc guided the troupe through a weave that toured them around the back doors of worn and weary housing complexes. Building after building presenting units with the only unique feature appearing to be their suite number, all sealed with metal doors, modest walks with patches of dead grass, and every main floor window protected with bars.
The Xenotime procession followed in silence, nearly single file, as their eyes soaked in the cold, oppressing environment. Skipping around to the side of a complex, Havoc eyed two basement side entrances, each with crumbling sets of stairs that had been carved into the ground. At the second entrance, Havoc told his company to sit with their backs against the outside wall and wait. Grabbing the black, rusted handrail, the officer made his way down the basement staircase and stepped into a lingering puddle at the door. He firmly rattled a pattern off his knuckles on the door, took a deep breath, and put his arms behind his back.
Havoc was left standing in the smell of mold and uncomfortable silence to the point he debated knocking again. Before he could negotiate rattling his knuckles once more, the apartment label of 408B slid open and an eye popped into the gap.
"Jean!?" a hoarse voice gasped.
The officer was more than relieved he didn't have to knock again as he listened to chains coming undone, "I'm really sorry for the hour."
The heavy metal door grinded open, the hinges nearly uncooperative, and an old man's tired, age-weary face peered out, "What are you doing here? What are you doing in East City at all?"
Havoc stiffened his posture and sharply bowed his head, "Sir, I'm sorry, but I have people who need a place to remain unseen and we need an alchemist doctor."
The door groaned as it was opened a little farther, but the elder man's presentation grew cautious. Summoning Havoc into the unlit suite, the older man shut the door behind the out-of-uniform officer before speaking again.
"I haven't practiced alchemy for medical purposes since Marcoh vanished."
"I understand that," Havoc's eyes lingered on the door over his shoulder, examining the multitude of locks barring entry, before readdressing the man he was seeking aid from, "but, you're the only one I can think of in East City who can help."
"Help with what, exactly?" the man crossed his arms tightly at his chest.
"We have a comrade who's head's been…" Havoc trailed off, not entirely sure just how he was supposed to even begin addressing this, "I guess it's been scrambled by someone we think was either using either Red Stones or the Philosopher's Stone itself to extract information."
From beneath heavy grey eyebrows, the man's eyes found a way to widen, "What!? Good God."
"She seems to be coming out of it slowly," looking around the room, Havoc found only a few covered windows near the ceiling providing any notice to the outside world that someone lived there, "but we don't know anything about what's been done to her or how to help her. It's totally out of our league."
"It's out of my league, too," the owner of the unit conceded.
Havoc's expression tightened, "It's closer to your league than anyone else."
With a sigh, the elder man reluctantly began to cave, "You said you have 'people' who need to remain unseen. How many people?"
"The one who needs medical attention," Havoc cautiously looked around the solitary man's small, drab suite, "a woman and her infant, plus two young men."
" Five? " the man Havoc sought aid from took a step back and gawked at the officer, "I-I can barely accommodate one extra. I don't even think I have enough sheets to cover that many, let alone somewhere they can rest comfortably."
Again, Havoc bowed his head, "No one is looking for comfort or hospitality of any kind. I just need an alchemical doctor and somewhere to hide them safely."
Rolling his head back, the elder man reluctantly let his shoulders fall, "Bring them in."
Thanking him profusely, Havoc abruptly popped out of the door and summoned the collection of Xenotime escapees into the dim basement home. The man of the house rushed to his linen closet, throwing open the wooden door and hauling out an armfull of whatever he thought might be helpful. As the group gathered silently near the front door of the un-notable dwelling, Russell was ushered over to the couch with Maria.
The man, who would become Maria's doctor, took a look at Rose and Fletcher in his entry and placed his armload of linens down for them, but picked up a grey latch box from the bundle, "The bathroom is just on the other side of the wall if you need to tend to your child or wish to have a shower. Young man, I'll ask you to let the lady go first."
Fletcher clasped his hands behind his back, "Of course, Sir. Thank you."
Turning from his entryway guests to the ones clogging his couch, the grey latch box was sat down on a small side table and the elder man moved in to join the vigil Havoc and Russell held over Maria.
"Who is she?"
"Second Lieutenant Maria Ross," Havoc answered.
The wouldbe doctor eyed the unconscious woman laid out on his couch, "I've never heard of her."
"She's not under Brigadier General Mustang," Havoc said, "she's an officer under Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong."
"Ah," the elder man finally sat down at Maria's side, "and you, young man?"
Russell's eyes widened, "Me?"
"Yes, you, Son," the man of the house collected Maria's wrist and started his assessment with her pulse, "what's your name?"
"Russell, Sir. Russell Tringham, and that's my…"
The older brother's words faded as the old man's shaken gaze snapped over his shoulder and captured the teenager.
"... brother… Fletcher."
The doctor looked the boy standing near Havoc's side over more than once from head to toe, "As in Nash Tringham?"
"He was my father," Russell answered uncomfortably, "were you acquainted?"
The wide, disconcerting gaze the old man subjected Russell to held on silently for far too long, before an answer was finally given.
"No."
"Okay," Russell glanced away.
Turning back to Maria, the elder doctor readjusted his hold on her wrist as he refocussed, "Jean, how long is everyone here for?"
Havoc rolled his shoulders and scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, "Until the brigadier general gets out of Xenotime and can give us the all clear."
"Xenotime!?" again the attempt at taking Maria's pulse was interrupted, "isn't he in Central City inciting an insurrection?"
"Yeah, he sure is," Havoc nodded, "and he's also in Xenotime."
A wrinkled hand came up and the tired, elder doctor rubbed his eyes, "Who's running the operation in Central then?"
"Mustang is," the lieutenant answered with a smile.
The doctor's confusion gave way to a light, hesitant laugh, "Very well." Reaching for the grey latch box he'd dug out from the back of his linen closet, the doctor re-focussed on his patient once again.
Adjusting his ponytail a little higher, Ed wound the length of hair on top of his head and pulled the flatcap down to hide it up there. He tucked his bangs away, ran his index finger around his collar, adjusting his shirt cuffs, smoothing his vest, straightening his pants, and tapped the tips of his shoes on the wooden floor. Ed slipped on a pair of gloves to hide the torn up state of his hands and eyed himself in the full length mirror once more.
"This'll do."
The shop owner nodded and quietly slipped into the back room to tuck away the slightly damaged Amestris military uniform he'd been offered.
From the moment Edward found himself staring at the taillights of the transport van heading to Xenotime with Alphonse inside, his ability to get there himself evaporated. With practically no vehicle traffic in or out of Central City, what little there was available throughout the night wouldn't even give him the time of day. Everyone - from truck drivers to pedestrians - took one look at him and disregarded his existence. The one driver who actually did acknowledge Ed tried to run him over. Hitchhiking was so much easier when he was a kid. Hitchhiking was so much easier when he didn't look like he belonged to the damned military. Ed's hair was undone, the jacket came off, the backside cape was detached, and his other pant leg was plucked free from the boot so he could at least walk the late night streets without worrying about being jumped.
By the time he'd gotten around to forsaking the military getup, the day had gotten too late and the clock had moved on to tomorrow. Traffic was non-existent and what trains did move during the day weren't going at night.
A bleak prospect began to sink in - the shutdown of Central City, caused by the government instability, meant Ed couldn't start a journey to Xenotime until at least sunrise.
Looking at his bruised and scraped up state, the elder Elric chose to focus on the two things he needed the most: money and transportation. And he needed both of those at two in the morning. Already five or six hours behind the people he was chasing, Ed could have just shattered a car window in frustration if he'd had a clue how to hotwire one.
Returning to Mustang's operations base wasn't an option; Ed wasn't going to get two words in before he'd be sent somewhere north of North City.
As the sun crept over rooftops at dawn, Ed continued wandering in the under-kept side of east Central City he'd landed in, trying to find out which of the second-hand stores or pawn shops would entertain paying someone for an Amestris military uniform, until finally some tired soul loitering in the street gave him a name. Ed planted himself at the store's rear door to meet the owner and collected a decent bounty on his uniform. Re-dressing himself into something he'd gotten more accustomed to wearing, Ed finally acknowledged he was now at least twelve hours behind his brother.
Ed wanted to rip the store walls apart with his bare hands in frustration. Al was nearly half way to Xenotime and Ed was stuck in some piss-poor pocket of Central City.
As the bell hanging above the door rang behind him and the latch clicked shut, Ed stopped, scratched his hands feverishly through his tired face, and he tried to assess if it was even feasible to plan a trip out to Xenotime now.
The most expedited way would be to either hitch a ride on a train to East City or hitchhike, and then he needed to find additional transportation in Xenotime's direction after that. Both options were plausible but, no matter what option he took, by the time he'd get to East City, Ed would be at least fourteen hours behind his brother. There wasn't a single option available that would let him gain time on the van taking Al to meet Dante.
Ed dropped his backside onto a rusted, metal bench and dumped his head into his hands.
There were a few blank minutes in Ed's head and he tried to fill them. The woman with the monstrous strength had to be Aisa, and if Aisa was being actively used, then her usefulness to Dante was nearing an end. That opened up a whole new can of worms for everyone: it added an untold amount of Red Stones and the final Philosopher's Stone fragments to the equation.
Winry wasn't in the van, which should mean she'd been left behind, so Ed concluded she would have been able to tell his teacher and Armstrong what had happened, if they didn't already know. Someone, at the very least Izumi, would be pursuing that van all the way to Xenotime and Armstrong would definitely try to reach Mustang to update him.
If he were lucky, Ed would be half a day behind not only his brother's captors, but also people perfectly capable of dealing with the situation, even before he got to East City.
Picking his heavy head up, Ed looked around the early morning streets in the rundown mercantile district of Central City. While the day to day citizens moved about around him, the city structure that governed them stood at a standstill - Mustang was stalling. It was half the reason Ed was stuck where he was and Mustang was doing it because it was in contradiction to what Dante had laid out for the man and Ed wholeheartedly agreed with the approach.
With both Al on his way and Brigitte already there, Dante's next dish was a salivating plate of motivation for Edward Elric and he had every reason to go storming into Xenotime after it.
His shoulders rose in frustration; Dante was counting on him to do just that.
Her orchestrations hinged on everyone behaving exactly as she believed each would and Dante's plans for Ed hinged on him not having grown out of the seventeen-year-old she was expecting him to still be. Rubbing his hands through his eyes, Ed bemoaned the feeling boiling in his core that wanted him to be exactly what Dante was expecting. Rushing after his brother was exactly what Ed wanted to do. It was what he felt he needed to do. It was what he believed he had the responsibility to do. He was really, really sick and tired of having people he cared about used against him.
But, in order to counter Dante's ploy, Ed was left to stare at the option everyone had been begging him to choose from the start: stay back and trust that the people around him could handle things without him.
As the bubbling frustration fueled by a sleepless night boiled over, Ed slammed his hands down on the bench, threw himself to his feet, took half a step into the sidewalk, and walked right into someone.
Colliding with a body that was thrown off balance by his surge in momentum, Ed tried to grab whoever he'd walked in to, but found his arms suddenly stuffed with a wide box instead. Staggering to rebalance himself and hold the weight of an oversized box, Ed's hat tumbled off his head while he looked down at the person he'd knocked on their backside early that morning.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention," Ed adjusted his grip and eyed the box full of books in his arms.
"That's okay."
Ed peered over the box and looked down again.
A woman collected a fallen book from the ground, tipped her head up to look at him, and adjusted her glasses.
Ed's jaw dropped as he stared wide-eyed at an old, familiar face.
Sheska's jaw dropped, her eyes filling her glasses, as she stared up at an older, familiar-ish face. The breath she pulled in squeaked when she drew it.
Ed abruptly dropped the box of books, stumbled over the mess, landed on his knees, and slapped a hand over Sheska's mouth, "Don't scream."
She leaned out of Ed's hand, her eyes somehow wider than before, "EDW-"
"Don't!" he dove in and kept his hand over Sheska's mouth to stop her from squawking, "just don't."
Frozen on the sidewalk, practically fallen on her back with Ed leaning in on her, his outstretched arm covering her mouth, Sheska sat staring silently in awe back at a fairly different looking Edward Elric than she remembered.
The downturned corners of Ed's mouth twitched and he leaned back and looked around the mess of books for his hat.
Sheska looked up and down the otherwise empty sidewalk before leaning in towards him, "You really are not dead."
Ed snatched up his hat, swept his hair onto his head, pulled the cap down, and tucked his bangs away, "I guess not."
Sheska's shoulders curled uneasily and she reached out to poke him, "You're corporeal, too."
Ed frowned and swatted her hand away, "You can just consider me not here at all."
"Well," Sheska swept a hand over her mouth before she slowly collected books into her lap, "you clearly are here - you ran into me."
"Sorry about that," Ed's brow furrowed as he helped collect books from the ground, "what are you doing out here?"
Sheska kept her wide eyes locked on Ed as she unceremoniously began dropping books back into her box, "Trading in books."
"You trade in books?"
"Just the ones I accidentally got twice."
Ed blinked and eyed the nonsensically cumbersome box.
"Um…" Sheska robotically placed the last of her books back into her box while she tried to digest all the details of the uncomfortably squirming Elric she was analyzing. Grabbing on to the edges of her box, Sheska rose onto her knees, "How long have you been here not dead?"
"A couple of weeks, maybe?" Ed honestly had no idea what the days were anymore.
"A couple of WE-"
Ed's hands clamped down on the side of Sheska's box of books and he yanked it out from under her, letting her fall to the sidewalk, "Let's talk somewhere else. Where are you going with these?"
Sheska picked herself up and pointed a waggling finger up the street, "The place on the corner trades books."
"Okay," rising to his feet, Ed heaved her box of books up into his arms, "Do you have a car?"
Her expression widening as she watched Ed rise, Sheska's pointed arm slowly lowered as she teetered up to her feet. Exaggerating the crane of her neck, Sheska took an abrupt step back as she gawked at Ed standing over her, "Holy cow."
With an uncomfortable frown scribbled across his face as she looked him over, Ed's shoulders rode up to his ears, "Did you drive your books out here, Sheska?"
"I did," she garbled.
"Okay," Ed swallowed and abruptly turned to march up the street, "let's ditch your books and go some place else."
Watching the man of her unexpected and bizarre encounter walk away with her books, Sheska gave her head a shake and tried to get her wits back in order as she stumbled after him.
The buzz throughout the mountain valley by the time Roy and Riza had gotten up for breakfast was that the town's rabid child had escaped his confines at the stables, inexplicably breaking free of his chains, and had somehow left two dead bodies at the scene of his crime, miraculously wound-free.
The part of Xenotime that had witnessed the event was in an uproar.
The other parts of Xenotime that hadn't struggled to believe the tale.
Roy wasn't sure he'd been this enthralled by breakfast gossip since he'd been in military training.
Wrath, who remained unnamed in Xenotime, was the talk of the town by seven thirty. Roy digested two extra bits of satisfaction at breakfast; the first was that Dante had gotten Wrath's message. The second was that, with all the ruckus the homunculus had caused, she would be forced to keep his profile low, though hoping she would chain him back up was a bit too much for wishful thinking.
At eight that morning, Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye began executing the next phase of the plan to extract Brigitte: quietly securing first hand knowledge of the mining architecture beneath and around the valley town. Tunnel maps were property of the mining companies and those they contracted with, so the most unassuming way to acquire one would be to simply take on work for a day, copy it, and then 'move on' without anyone questioning a thing. The information on the mining system maps would allow the officers not only private, backdoor access to the numerous tendrils of tunnels the mountain side laboratory would have into the earth, but also give them an opportunity to assess the scale of any potential transmutation Dante might decide to unleash on Xenotime.
As the two officers stepped up to join a miserable looking crew of men ready to do nothing but shatter rock all day, they found themselves immediately at odds with their new co-workers at the morning headcount.
Riza was the only woman and had every man's undivided attention.
Expressions that ranged from dismissive to intrusive all laid their eyes on her, like none of them had ever seen a woman before. With behaviour like that, Roy figured most of them probably hadn't.
A miserable, middle-aged man with half a head of salt and pepper hair scoffed at the newly acquired pair, "I hope he's expected to pick up the slack for her."
Roy tried to maintain control over the annoyance rising up in his voice, "I assure you, she is perfectly capable."
"Yeah, like every other lass: to have dinner ready for you when you're done your shift," a scraggly man spat his tobacco into a tin as a few chuckles popped up in the crowd.
"We don't have pretty ladies working in these mines."
With all her hair tucked into her hat, dressed in frumpy overalls and a stained button-up shirt, and without a speck of makeup on, Riza fought to keep her expression blank.
Roy had half a mind to go back and fetch her gun and see how quickly they changed their tunes, "I'll vouch for her strengths and I'm sure she'll be one of the more productive workers coming out of the mines today."
A sneer flashed into a cratchey man's face, "You know her strengths now do ya, One-Eye?"
Roy rolled his jaw and narrowed that single, dark eye, "I do."
The shift supervisor spat out a sharp, piercing laugh, "Ain't they cute. Alright, get your asses going, you don't need to hear any more shit from me than you did yesterday. You two, ignore these filthy buggers and hang back, I got gear for you."
The shift supervisor, known only as Arkledun, waited while his regular daytime crew chattered with more exuberance that morning than they normally would have as they made their way into the mine. With a few wooden carts settled onto tracks that rolled along with their procession, the collection of mostly middle-aged men faded into the darkened depths of the mine entrance. Finally heading forwards himself, Arkledun led the disguised officers past the entrance of the mine, his keys jingling angrily at his hip as he dragged a clearly bad leg along at his side. Following along behind, Roy and Riza watched as a wooden door embedded into the wall of the mineshaft, just beyond the entrance, was unlocked and thrown open.
Arkledun waddled in and came back out with a pickaxe and lantern for each of them, then unrolled a map and slammed it against the dirt wall.
"Piecework for part-timers is gettin' done up here," he pushed a bent finger into the map, "most of the carts and all the sifters are there already, you can negotiate what you need from the men once you get there." Offering only that as his piece of introductory advice, the supervisor rolled the map back up and slapped it into Roy's hand, "follow the route on the map, so you don't get lost."
"Thank you."
"Thank me after you get paid," Arkledun said as he started to hobble back out, flicking the tip of the pickaxe in Riza's hand as he passed, "don't poke his other eye out, Dearie."
Smiling at the man who was no better than the rest, Riza pursed her lips, "I won't, Mister," and she abruptly turned a fiercely annoyed expression away.
Turning the knob on the oil lamp to light their path, Roy hooked it onto the end of his axe, and held it out in front of himself as he began to walk ahead. Looking deep into a long mining shaft that vanished as it curved into darkness, Roy's eye canvassed the heavily packed dirt walls, reinforced with fat wooden beams that went on as far as the light reached. When Riza caught up at his side, Roy added her un-lit lantern to his axe, waited while she tucked her own axe into a belt loop, and then handed the map over to her.
Swinging the axe over the map as she unrolled it, Roy peered in to examine it, "That's far more detailed than I was expecting."
"At least we got something out of these people already," Riza tried very hard to control her choice in words.
The corners of Roy's mouth curled and he swung the lantern away, taking a few extra steps ahead of her and peeked back at the fading light of the entrance, "I'm sorry I didn't let you bring your gun."
"It's probably best for everyone's safety that I don't have it," she replied bluntly, adjusting her hold on the map harshly.
"I disagree. I feel much safer when you have it on you," Roy jingled the lanterns and swung them ahead again to light the oncoming curve in the mine tunnel's path, "I could set some pant legs on fire on our way out."
Riza's steps slowed and she picked her eyes up off the map briefly, "Interesting."
An honest laugh came out of Roy's mouth and he grinned back at Riza as she picked up her pace again. His thoughts refocussed, "We need to find a nice spot to get lost in for a few minutes to copy this map."
Her brow lowering, Riza's eyes continued to study the map, "There's a fair bit of this mining system that's not included here," she shook her left wrist, indicating the edge of the map where a number of tunnels simply ventured off the page, "It's safe to say the map is only covering what's being actively mined and that there's more finished infrastructure available."
Slowing to let Riza catch up to him, Roy matched her pace again and he looked at several tunnels on the western side of the map that simply ventured off the page, "These shafts are probably part of the transmutation architecture that was dug out decades ago when gold was first discovered. We'd probably need some historical maps from older excavations to piece it all together. Given our entry point, it's safe to assume this only covers, at most, a quarter of the full system."
The map in Riza's hands lowered and she looked to the man at her shoulder, "Is that enough to go on?"
"It's enough to ruin it," his chest swelling with a deep breath, Roy looked back towards the faded glow of the mineshaft entry way, "and it's enough to get us in, once we know Dante's gone."
Following his gaze back to the entry of the mines, Riza let the map curl itself back up in her hands, "If we had Lieutenant Colonel Armstrong out here, he could expedite a grand scale collapse of the tunnels."
"He could," nodding, the senior officer swept his attention ahead again, "this entire town is being held hostage and none of them know it. But, we would be righteously screwed if he left Central right now. Come what may, I need him there to cover my absence. We'll find a way to do something on our own in these tunnels, even if it's a temporary measure until it can be re-addressed."
Sweeping his axe around, Roy turned the knob on Riza's unlit oil lantern, plucked it off as a flame grew, and handed it to her.
"Time to show some miserable assholes your strength."
"I'm so excited," she said dryly, taking her lantern.
Roy smirked.
For the overnight hours where he didn't rest, and now the warming daylight hours where he drifted in and out of sleep - for every moment he was awake, Al's mind replayed the image of his brother falling out of the back of he van. And every time, the younger brother - bound and silenced and sullied - told himself that his older brother was fine. It would just be cuts and bruises. Maybe a broken bone.
At least his brother wasn't on his way to Dante.
Armstrong's caution saved his brother.
That was the important part.
But, he was still having a hard time reconciling that.
After hours of failing to collect himself in the corner of a bouncing, noisy van, Al's mind was given a reprieve when the vehicle veered to a momentary stop to drop off the wounded, fake officers somewhere in Eastern Amestris. The event lasted barely a minute before Al and Aisa were on the move again alone. Al assumed their hasty drop off was because everyone fully expected someone - at the very least Izumi - to be hot on their trail.
Scowling at the cumbersome metallic box that sealed and separated his hands, Al lightly gnawed on the gag in his mouth; he had to focus. He had to be able to think . Dante preyed on people's emotions and she played with their minds and lamenting over things he couldn't do anything about wasn't going to get him anywhere.
Al eyed at the emotionless woman sitting perfectly postured on the opposite side of the van; every possible outcome had to have been calculated. In his estimation, even if Aisa had been completely successful and captured all three of them, there would be no way it would have gone on undetected for very long, because his teacher and the military personnel would need to be factored in. Whatever plan was being executed, it looked like it wouldn't have mattered who Aisa secured, especially with her being unable to properly identify who his brother actually was, because part of the plan appeared to include making sure everyone knew it had happened.
What for?
Al weighed two obvious options:
If the plan was successful and had secured Ed, it was bait for everyone to retrieve him in Xenotime.
If the plan was successful but hadn't secured Ed, it was a lure for the older brother to appear in Xenotime.
The heavy boulder in the pit of his stomach told Al that Dante wanted people in Xenotime specifically to alchemize them into a Philosopher's Stone. After all the concerns they'd agonized over, that was the most obvious answer. Now, Dante was simply lauding it and coercing people into the town.
If it was her intention to hold the town hostage, Dante would need at least three plans that included his brother captured, him in the town, or him not arriving at all, and then breakdowns of each, all of which grew convoluted and made Al's head spin.
As he dipped his head and kept Aisa in the corner of his eye, the younger Elric tried to focus more on what he knew, rather than estimating what Dante was thinking. He quickly came up with two key factors that Dante wouldn't have in her equation. The first: the brigadier general was already at work in Xenotime. The second: Alphonse was clutching his own advantage - Dante didn't know he had his memories back. What Dante was expecting and Aisa was seeing was a scared eleven-year-old at their mercy and they had no way or reason to suspect he was anything else.
The advantage Dante was operating with wasn't as great as she believed.
The tension in his brow easing, Al realized he was in a position to be on the inside and locate Brigitte. If the brigadier general's plans were playing out smoothly, he would already have information on the current Xenotime mining system and be waiting for the first sign that Dante was headed to Central. Since that wasn't happening any more, the moment his teacher, or whatever else was on its way for cavalry, arrived in the town and made contact with him, they would be in a better position to act before Dante could execute whatever she was actually planning.
All Alphonse had to do was find a way to locate Brigitte and keep Dante entertained long enough for everyone to act before she did, so they could get out fast.
With a bit more optimism and some renewed energy, Al finally talked himself into giving Aisa his saddest eyes and began wiggling around to get her attention. If she was being used like this, then the Red Stones sustaining her were actively being used up, which meant her other purpose - maintaining a secure biological environment for Gluttony's stomach to finish crystalizing what remained of Alphonse's metallic Philosopher's Stone - was nearly complete. The younger of two Elric brothers needed a bit of information from her.
The deadpan expression the woman had cemented onto her face finally moved and her eyes shifted to the suddenly active boy.
Al took a deep breath, drooped his shoulders, wove his brow, and let out a long, drawn out, whine through his nose.
Aisa blinked, turning her head to watch the noisy Elric.
Another breath was theatrically sucked in and released as a higher pitched whine through his nose.
"There is no reason to do that." Aisa said.
Shaking his head at her comment, Alphonse repeated the process and further pitched his immature noise. The metallic box sealing his hands bounced off his knees in childish protest.
After a few more deliberately annoying whines by the young Elric, Aisa finally made her way over to him. As best he could, Al tried to make it clear he was trying to spit out the gag and bowed his head, hoping she'd get the hint. To his relief, the gag, which had pulled on the corners of his mouth for hours, was released.
"Thank you."
"What do you want?" Aisa curiously sat herself down in front of someone who hadn't been active since he'd first been trapped.
"I was thinking," Al licked his dry lips, "and I was worried about you."
"About me?" the woman's brow rose slightly, "there's no reason to concern yourself over me."
Sitting himself up straighter, Alphonse wove his brow, "There is though. You've never left Dante's side until now. Isn't that dangerous for you?"
With a huff that was a cross between a laugh and a scoff, Aisa shook her head, "There remains no reason to worry over me. I'm quite capable of taking care of myself."
"I saw that," Al sunk back against the wall of the van, "but the more active you are, the shorter your life span is, right? The more you do, the closer you come to dying."
"Everyone dies sometime, Alphonse," Aisa explained to him coldly, "and I am clinically dead. I'm doing nothing more now than borrowing continued existence off of the Red Stones I manufacture."
Al wrinkled his nose and frowned, "But, when they're gone, you'll stop existing. Why would you want that? Don't you think helping Dante, or living longer, is something you should do?"
What Al would consider a smile seemed to find its way into Aisa, "My life is bound to her. When it's purpose is fulfilled, then I will end. I've always known that."
As Aisa watched a sad little boy struggle with what she'd said, the back of Alphonse's mind investigated her words; this was the same story. Dante may have been secretive and shrewd, but whenever she and Aisa were aware Al or Izumi knew something, they didn't bother to act coy about it. Sometimes Dante even pre-empted discoveries by handing over information to make sure no one could feel like they were gaining strides. So, not only did Dante and Aisa not know about his memories, they didn't know that Al was aware - that everyone involved was aware - of the Philosopher's Stone in her that triggered it. Al let his mind stew over ways they might be able to use that knowledge.
"That doesn't make you sad?" Al finally asked, "knowing one day you're just going to... end?"
Aisa shook her head, "No."
"Well," Al sunk back against the wall, "I'll be sad for you."
"Do as you wish," Aisa shrugged.
Pursing his lips, Al scrunched his face, "I'm tired and want to take a nap, but the gag is uncomfortable. If I promise not to talk again, can you leave it off?"
Collecting the thick wrap of cloth in her hand, Aisa came to her feet as the van bounced around, "Fine."
"Thank you."
Tucking himself into the van's back corner again, Al watched as Aisa returned to her place at the opposite side of the vehicle. Taking a few deep breaths, Al tried to relax and remind himself that there were still many, many hours to go before they'd get to Xenotime. There was nothing to be done for quite some time and he needed to make sure he was able to get some decent sleep before he danced with Dante again and tried to find out where in the Xenotime laboratory she'd put Brigitte.
To Be Continued...
Author's Note:
This is my 50th chapter and I've exceeded 500,000 words! oml how'd I get here hahaha.
FFN word count is inflated because it includes my author's notes, but for story words, it's now over 500k.
I shooouuulldd have 51 ready for next week (Edit: It's not! Targeting early September though)
Both Dante and Aisa know that Al reacted with the Philosopher's Stone at the Gate, and Dante is smart enough to figure out it has something to do with the Philosopher's Stone once being Armour Al, but they have no reason to suspect Al got his memories back as a result and that he learned of the stone within her in the process.
The only thing that remained remotely the same between the first draft of the chapter and what I've posted is Winry's section :'')