Help Me Chapter Three
The four, Roy, Ed, Riza and Jean, walked into the military building. The dark clouds that hung over it seemed to give off an eerie impression. It was like the dark shapes of condensed moisture were set to hang, over the complex alone, casting obsure shadows over everything, as almost to reflect Roy's ever so shifty mood. No one could hide his true face quite like Roy could though, with an exception of maybe Envy.
Roy compressed his thoughts down. This was supposed to be a fun evening. To spend with the people who played an important part in his life. His own emotional distress would have to be set aside, if only for one evening.
Roy was unaware that he was being steadily watched by Ed. To the shorter alchemist Roy was as easy to read as an open book, and even easier than some, if you take the study of alchemy into count. He could see how the other was steadily biting into his lower lip, trying to keep that glossy look from his eyes. His eyes seemed heavy and tired.
Ed slowly snaked an arm around Roy's. This action earned the smaller one a quick, questioning glance from his superior. Ed looked ahead as if he wasn't aware of Roy's curious gazing. He didn't want to point out to the taller alchemist that his discomfort was so very obvious. Roy was already aware of his own discomfort and surely didn't need to be told of it.
The four trodded down the hall, toward Roy's office, which was where everyone else was expected to be. Of course there were a few impatient people, who were trodding down the hall toward them.
"Niisan!" Al's voice echoed through his armor.
"Oh, hey Al!" Ed smiled as Al stopped in front of them and bowed in the polite way that Al always did.
"Hello, Ed." Ed's gaze feel on his and Al's child hood friend, Winry.
"Hello Winry." He quickly noticed that Winry's gaze was locked on Ed's arm that was curled around the colonel's in a more than just friends kind of way.
Even though he knew she saw it, he didn't remove his arm. They were going to find out anyways. Instead his grip slightely tightened, and he curled his other arm around it in a hug like manner. He didn't look up at Winry. He knew that he would find a somewhat hurt look. And he really didn't want to face that just yet.
Roy noticed this also. Though he was the one to notice her eyes begin to water. It was clear that Winry had feelings for the older Elric. But he also knew that Ed had no feelings for her. And in his opinion, Al and Winry seemed more right for each other. Of course, that was if Al ever got his real body back.
"Oh, sensei!" Ed smiled as he looked up to find the woman who'd taught him a great deal of the alchemy he knew. HIs smile faded when he saw the serious look on her face.
"Hello Edward." She walked up to them. Ed could see that she was struggling to drag something big behind her. Almost, no, definately big enough to be a body. She threw the said 'something' and it landed with a thud on the floor. "Do you recognize this?" She asked, her tone serious.
"ENVY!"
"You witch, who said you could man handle me?" The figure on the floor growled.
"How did you? When- what the hell?" Ed unlatched an arm as both he and Roy stepped back in surprise.
"Shut up." She uncharacteristically kicked the homunculus in his side, causing him to roll over. She was more than likely mad that he'd turned Wrath against her. "Here's your philosopher's stone." She grumbled.
"Um...what!"
"The stones keeping his body working are fragments of the real thing. That's why he can't move, because I attached an alchemy array to him that made the stones react, holding him still. AFTER he tried to sneak into the headquearters building." Izumi growled.
"I'd have gotten away with it too, if you weren't such a perceptive bitch. After all how many times do you think I've succeeded?"
"How did you figure him out?" Roy asked. He knew all about Envy. Ed had done his share of ranting on the shape shifter.
"The red stones you gave me, Edward, reacted when I passed by him."
"Reacted?"
"More on the lines of dissolved actually."
"So what do we do with him?" Al asked glancing down at the scowling homunculi, who would have been punching and kicking violently if he could.
"We could lock him up for now, the array I've marked on him won't let him move. So he can't really harm much." Izumi crossed her arms.
"No, I don't trust him." Ed leered down at the inhuman body plastered to the floor.
"What? Afraid you'll end up lke that guy from the intellegence department?" Envy taunted. Just because he was exceptionally vulnerable, didn't mean he was going to willingly comply to playing the part of the helpless captive.
"What'd you say?" Ed snapped angrily.
"You know, the one who was mysteriously killed in action, shot in the chest?. For shame really, he certainly knew how to do his job. Unlike a certain few. But then again that's what killed him didn't it?" Envy cackled.
"How do you know about that?" Roy growled, unaware of the harshness in his husky voice.
"What don't I know? Heh heh, I know more about what's going on around you than you do. Sad really. And hell if the fullmetal shorty had kept his nose out of things, I wouldn't have had to kill the guy, but neh, orders are orders."
Ed felt Roy jerk back. He could feel the shaking. Ed eyes trailed to Roy's rather horrified face.
"Yeah yeah, he was all heroic like." A bright light filled the hallway and Envy's laughter followed. He smiled with his shifted body, made to look like Hughes. "Ano, miss me?" Envy's smile mimicked Maes' with perfection.
He was expecting for a bad reaction out of Roy, but Ed was not expecting one of such a magnitude. Roy kept steadily backing away. Ed stood in front of him, trying his best to comfort. But he knew it was useless as long as Envy held that form.
Izumi in her calm usual way, slammed a foot into the shape shifter's side. Envy was quick to relent and shifted back to his more liked form, but the damage had already been done.
Before Ed could grab him, the taller alchemist had already fled. His mind was shut down and his body told him to flee. He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to get away.
Ed followed after him as fast as his small legs could carry him, but Roy was too fast. Ed wasn't alone in the chase. Several others were taking short cuts in hope of cutting off the fleeing alchemist.
"Roy! Stop! Matte!" Ed tried to get somekind of reaction, but Roy left Ed's sight and he heard the slam of a door.
"Where'd he go?" Riza stopped up next to the gasping alchemist.
"He ran into one of these rooms." Ed spoke looking up at the long corridor of doors.
Roy slammed the door with enough force to echo in his mind even after the fact. He wandered to the far wall of the vacant room and leaned his back against it, sinking down the wall. He pulled his legs against his chest, and wrapped his arms around himself.
He could take anything...anything but that. That image. HIs friend...The complete unfairness of it all. He felt so guilty. He felt so wrong. In his mind lingered the thought of human transmutation. Hell, he studied up on it enough. Maybe with help he...He shook his head at the thought. He knew what happened to those who tried to play god. They lost more than they gave. They lost everything... The Elrics were a prime example.
It was in his perfect world, that he would be able to trade his life for his friend's. It wasn't fair. Hughes, who'd never hurt anyone, loved his friends and family with all his heart, and tried to see the best in people, had to lose it all...What kind of equivalent trade is that?
It's not...Were the words that always seemed to roll through Roy's mind, along with the five thousand other assorted thoughts that only succeeded in sinking him deeper into the black waters on the edge of his sanity and threaten to drown him.
He'd been there many times...But Ed had always been there to comfort him. But this time was different...Rather than asking for Ed's help, like he tended to do, he fled. An impulse that he had not had the state of mind to fight.
He rocked himself back and forth, muttering things that no one would be unable to understand if they had been there to hear it. He couldn't stop the tears that rolled like salty streams down his face, and made dark spots on his shirt. Under normal circumstances, he would have hated to show such a weakness, but now...now he didn't care. Not like it mattered.
How could one truely have the audacity to fret over something so menial, when another who was much more the saint, didn't even have his life to scowl at him for his childish and immature behavior?
He didn't. He didn't have much left after Maes died, shot like an animal being put out of its misery...Like he'd done to the Rockbells.
Unlike others who have haunted him, he couldn't damn Hughes for lingering in his mind and haunting him like an infectious disease, that slowly tears one apart from the inside out. Hughes meant too much...He was the only person who understood. Who could help him and not expect something in return but longlasting friendship. Who could be so obnoxious that it was was almost welcomed. Who really made a difference in Roy's life.
Maes was to Roy was Ed currently was. But nothing could replace the family obsessed man. And that haunted Roy with more force than any of the other things he'd done...If he'd kept Maes out of it...then maybe...
...But maybes are never effective. One could spectulate for hours, day, or even years, but that would never produce results. They'd only end up right back where they started. With the physical truth. The scientific reality.
And the obviousness that Equivalent trade was alchemical bullshit. How many people lost their life in the war with Ishbal? What did they gain? Nothing. The people who lost thier lives at the hand of the flame alchemist. What did they gain? Nothing. The people striving for answers and ways to gain what they lost. What did they gain? Still...nothing.
Roy'd gained power, rank, and knowledge. What did he lose? His morality, his closest friend, and pretty soon his sanity. Which one seemed heavier on the scale? Equivalent trade was a delusion. A fucked up idea that one will always even out in the end.
If Roy had been on the outside, he would have been smacking himself. He would have not stopped. And each time would be harder than the last.
Roy had already blocked out the rest of the world, sinking so far into his mind he couldn't hear the door open and the hurried footsteps race toward him. He wasn't even aware of the voice desperately trying to reach him. Or the hands gripped to his shoulders trying to snap him out of his trance.
Post traumatic stress is what one with any doctors degree might call it. A mental break down is what most would call it. Losing his sanity was what Roy would have called it if he had had the state of mind to take the time to even stick a name to the emotions choking his suffocating mind.
If taking his life would fix everything he's done...He would have done it. In a heart beat. And he almost had.
"Oh god, Roy." Ed choked as he got to response. Roy was still, breathing slowly, like a person who was asleep. His eyes were unfocused and glazed over. And he let out no reply that he was even aware of where he was or who was around him.
"Is he gonna be okay?" Havoc spoke softly with clear worry written on his masculine face.
"I-I don't know." Ed began to shake. He'd never seen the colonel so lost.
"We need to take him somewhere else." Riza, being the logical one, suggested. Ed could only nod, because he knew that if he had said anything, he would have broke down in tears.
Between the two, Havoc and Ed could carry the colonel with out struggling or risking dropping him. They carefully carried him out the door and into the hall. Ed looked side ways making sure to get through easily.
He looked back down the hall. His already dismal face turned into an angry one, as his eyes fell on the one to put Roy into his mental coma.
"Riza." His hissed, and she was quick to come to his side, with a questioning look. It didn't take her long to figure out why he'd called her over. She helped Havoc carry the colonel, as Ed walked over to the fallen sin, with a silent but soon to be explosive rage.
"You're a bastard!" He hissed and slammed his foot into the sin's side. The groan that followed didn't satisfy him though. Not one bit. It wasn't enough. Not nearly. He lifted Envy off the ground by a handful or brackish hair.
A metal contructed hand flew into the side of Envy's face. And if he'd been human, he wouldn't have lived through the trauma of that hit. Ed knew this. He was prolonging the sin's suffering. It was about time that he pay for his sins. Quite ironic, if one must say.
"You. Stupid. Bastard." Ed screamed throwing the form down, straddling his chest to continue his assult.
"...You, call me a bastard?" Envy coughed as blood came up his throat. No matter what Ed did to him, he wouldn't stay dead...Ed stopped with his fist in the air and looked down at the figure beneath him. "You're the reason that poor fool died...If you'd just trasmuted that god damn stone, then none of this would be happening!"
"Shut. The. Fuck. Up.!" Ed clapped his hands and transmuted his automail into a serated edge. He lifted his arm up, pointing the end down at Envy's chest.
"HEY! I wouldn't do th-!" Envy's protest was cut short as the blade peirced into his chest and into what would have been a beating heart. What SHOULD have been a heart, unbeating as it would have been, but still a heart. Not the hard substance he'd hit.
Ed pulled back. With a confused and slightly startled look on his face. "What the?" He stood up and back away from Envy, who'd rolled over and was on his hands and knees with his head hung down as he writhed in pain.
It wasn't blood that was dripping from the puncture in his chest. But a liquid, which was also red, but a glowly and more chemically bonded, unlike blood, which tended to splatter.
A look of half panick crossed Ed's face as the liquid began to form itself and crytalize.
"N-niisan...What is that?" Al spoke as he watched from the other side of Envy.
Ed shook his head in quick shakey jerks, as if he wasn't aware he had the ability to answer. Ed stared down at the grotesque scene as Envy's skin began to peel away like a rubber covering, only to reveal another layer of skin. As the exterior of his enemy began to wilt away and collect into the groing mass of crystal he realized what was happening...
"Oh my god...That's...
xxx
Leo: Well, how do you like that twist? I can go from normal to angst pretty fast XD . Roy's State of delusion will last a few chapters. Sorry to leave it on a cliffie, but I bet you already guess what was happening...If you have don't say anything, for those who might now quite understand yet. And I'll have the wonderous joy of confusing the hell out of you with the next chapter! And I had to put Envy in there. Because I luff him :3
envylover1414: It took me FOREVER, but I finally updated it...geeze...I can't believe it took that long...
Shingo-sama: Glad you love!
Fireanice: Thankees! And yeah I put poor Roy throught hell...
kawaiialchemist: I'm just tired of seeing Ed depressed fics, when Roy has just as good a reason too...
Bakuras-Hell: Yeah, I'm throing more elements into this than I probably should, but you all will like what I do from here on out if you liked this chapter, I can promise that!
Leola Taylor: I like a good contrast. Some angst and humor. There will be more switching back and forth later on, you can be sure.
eds-lil-problem: I don't know if I emailed you...with the fic I just started I'm kind of having email over loads. If you wanna make a one shot with that line go right ahead!
rebellion2fate: yeah it is demented, but I would have said the same thing XD
insert name here: lol, well I'm glad you liked it...
koolmint26: You read EVERYTHING of mine don't you? I luff you!
queenphoenix: sank yew!
Lone Metal Alchemist: If you really were Riza with a gun...I would be shot by now...The next update WILL be sonner! Or I'll have to saw my arm off with a butter knife! o.o; don't ask...
RejectedAndLoved: lol, thank you for reading! You're awesome!
shadows-insanity: Okay, it may nothave been 'soon' but it is updated...
CheeseFairyXXL: Really, if you want the truth, Ed doesn't really seem to like Winry more than as his mechanic and childhood friend. Really, Ed was more likely to be with Rose. If you'd seen the last episode you'd understand.
Poofeh: Thank you! Your compliment mean much to me!
Hagane-no-Chibi-san: Yes, I agree, Roy doesn't get enough angst if Ed's in it.
morissa: Yeah Roy x Ed all the way!
Leo: well with anyluck I'll update fairly soon. Until then Ja!