Summary: AU. "He'll take fire any day."
Author's Notes: What if Al had died when the brothers attempted their human transmutation?
The Ceremony of Innocence
by: TangledAria
"The ceremony of innocence is drowned,
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming"
They interview the townspeople first. In a town full of people who remember the might of the military, they are reluctant to speak, but when it becomes clear whom they are investigating, it's hard to get them to shut up.
"He fixed my radio!" one man says, holding the repaired item aloft like a treasured heirloom. "Just clapped his hands together and it was fixed," he snaps his fingers, "just like that! Without a circle or anything. I've never seen anything like it. I offered to let him take anything from the store, food or water or anything he wanted, but he was looking for rope." The man smiles. "I told him I didn't have any, but that he had to come back, anytime, day or night, because I couldn't let a debt like that stand. He came back for some candy a few days later, and some dog food because he said he had found a dog. Such a sweet boy, and you say he's missing?"
Another man tells them how he had once seen them, two brothers walking with their arms around one another, dirty from a day's worth of play, smiling at the hot sun.
A lieutenant notices the lack of wild animals; nearly every city has them, stray dogs and cats wandering the city. "I never noticed that," a woman says, staring off down the street in wonder.
"I met him once," a young mother says. "Poor thing, he lost his brother in some kind of automobile accident." She says the word 'automobile' in an unpracticed tongue, as if she doesn't quite know what it is. "He lost his leg in that accident, one of his arms too, or so I've heard."
"The automail lady took him in," another says, face lighting up in remembrance. "Fixed him right up." Her face falls. "Oh, but then she died. Her and her daughter, very tragic."
"He's a bright boy," a man says defensively. "He can take care of himself. Every week he comes down for supplies."
"And it's never occurred to you," Roy says, arms crossed over his chest, "That a thirteen-year old boy might need something else besides a fresh stock of supplies every week?"
The townspeople stop talking to them after that.
They make their way to the house on the top of the hill, a group twenty men strong, and when Roy smells the stench of alchemy half a mile away, he doesn't regret the excessive force. Nothing less for Hohenheim's son.
He finds himself wondering which one it is.
The house has seen better days. Roy is the first one down the stairs, the first one to push open that door that leads to horrors beyond horrors.
There's nothing like the stink of human transmutation, somewhere between the smell of fresh flowers and the rot of the grave. He'll take fire any day.
The boy is hunched over the floor, chalk in one hand, metal limbs glinting in the faint candlelight. He doesn't look up from the array, doesn't seem to hear the clatter of weapons and feet. Roy lifts a hand to halt the motion behind him, and then there's only the scratch-scratch-scratch of the chalk against the floor and the laboured breathing of a body pushed past its breaking point. Roy almost feels bad for him, but in the flickering light he can see cages lining the wall and the straw blonde color of human hair.
The array is painfully familiar, of course, and Roy can see the places where he should have strengthed his own arrays, all those years ago. He remembers thinking, 'If only I could bring all those people back'. But he had drawn the line at murder. A life for a life would've only left a trail of bodies behind him.
It seems Hohenheim's son has not thought that far ahead.
Roy thinks back to the letter that had arrived on his desk, the one addressed to another man, passed down from person to person until Roy had realised what it was. He pictures the yellowed paper, the sure handwriting, the 'Honorable Sir' and the 'My Brother and I', as if a grown man had written it, not a scared little boy. He remembers 'Sincerely, Edward and Alphonse Elric', and makes the guess - "Edward?"
The boy straightens slowly, his back still to them. Roy keeps an uneasy eye on Edward's hands, remembering what the store owner said. One hand lays in the boy's lap, the other is half-raised, chalk in hand, like a schoolteacher's.
"Yes?" the boy says calmly, as if unaware of the detachment of troops gathered behind him.
Roy lifts his hand, fingers poised to snap. "By the order of the Führer, King Bradley, I am here to take you into state custody on charges of illegal human transmutation."
A thoughtful pause. "Oh, did someone finally read my letters then? Or does my reputation proceed me?" Edward pushes himself to his feet, letting the chalk fall from his hand.
From the first report that had arrived on his desk, Roy had known better than to expect a scared little boy. He's known all along the things alchemy can create. That it's not just the creations themselves, it's the alchemists behind them. That alchemy can twist people into things they are not. The power to change existing things into something else entirely, to create life where there was none before, was a terribly exhilarating feeling. Roy knows that intoxication.
Roy rubs his fingers slightly, warming the fabric of his gloves in preparation for a better spark. "Your reputation as a murderer precedes you quite well, yes. The people of this town have been disappearing steadily for some time. How have you managed to keep them from realising what was going on?" Roy sidesteps the transmutation array, feet almost but never quite touching the white chalk curve.
"People never fear a child."
"Ah, but you're anything but a child."
The boy brushes his hands together, a fine cloud of chalk dust falling to the floor. "Touché." He moves towards the center of the array, hands hanging loosely at his sides. "But the real question should be, why did they send the great Roy Mustang all the way to the tiny town of Riesenburg? Surely the vaunted Flame Alchemist has better things to do with his time." A wicked glint enters the boy's gaze. "Or maybe he's the best man for the job. The same man who helped slaughter an entire town during the Ishbal War is the perfect person to track down a murderer."
Enough.
Roy snaps his fingers.
To the boy's credit, he does not flinch, even when the flames rise higher than both of their heads. Roy lets the fire race along the floor and destroy the array; the chalk doesn't burn, but the scorching obscures the pattern of the array.
Beyond the flames he can still see the boy. Smiling. Roy doesn't believe it. The boy bows, low and stately, one metal arm folded over his stomach, long golden braid slipping over his shoulder.
The smoke stings Roy's eyes, and it shouldn't be doing that, there shouldn't be any smoke at all. He coughs into his hand. Looking down past his hand, he can see the glow of another array covering the floor, arcing curves reaching far behind him. Another array etched into the stone floor with a knife.
He feels like such a fool.
Hawkeye has stopped breathing behind him, and Roy can no longer hear all the little sounds that the soldiers were making. It's a particularly advanced array then; one that holds its prey in place and allows the alchemist to work withtout fear of losing any ingredients. Normally reserved for the transmutation of birds or other animals. The boy has had a lot of practice.
"I must thank you," Edward says. And perhaps Roy has underestimated him, a little, if the boy is confident enough to leave him unbound to gloat over his victory. "I was estimating a dozen or so would be enough to fuel the reaction. I never hoped for two dozen." Edward lifts his hands.
Roy doesn't think; he forgets that he's carrying his own firearm, he forgets that disrupting an alchemical reaction can cause a rebound that could kill everyone in the village. He spins and takes Hawkeye's sidearm out of her frozen hands.
"Surely," the boy is saying. "Surely Al, this will be enough." He closes his eyes in anticipation of the power that will flow through him, and that is when Roy Mustang pulls the trigger.
end
7/1/05