Chapter Nine: Eruption Part One

"COLONEL!" Footsteps sloshed through puddles of water, disrupted by the sound of rain falling around them. The alleyway was dark and cold, and as Lieutenant Sinclair came closer, the image before her horrified her. She had seen terrible atrocities in the war, but nothing as brutal, as truly savage as this. It looked as though an animal had done it.

She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe. She had seen his power firsthand, and she could feel terror growing within the very core of her being to see him lying here. Blood mixed with the puddles on the ground, falling from three horrible gashes in his chest. It looked as though claws had done that to him, large, vicious animal claws. With the horrors she'd seen this night, she didn't doubt it. His eyes were closed, his head tilted down to the side, and his entire right arm was bloody and mangled. It looked as though the flesh had been torn right off, and the muscles eviscerated. She could see the bone in his arm through the horrible wound, and she knew that was never a good sign. At least the bone wasn't broken, she sighed..He wasn't moving. She wasn't even sure he was breathing. What could do something like this to Colonel Elric?

"You idiot," she snarled to herself as tears dripped down her cheeks. She knew there wasn't any time to lose, as she started tearing up his red coat for bandages. There wasn't any time to go find help, she would have to improvise for now. She was a medical officer, she could tell just by looking the severity of his injuries. "Why did you go alone?"

Quickly removing the blood-stained black vest from his chest, she went to work wrapping the horrible gashes in his chest. She could feel his breathing weakening, and it was a sound that sent a chill down her spine. "Come on, Colonel, don't die on me." She knew she had to get him out of here, back to the others. She knew she had to get his wounds taken care of, and she didn't have the supplies to do that. "Don't you dare die on me." Lifting him into her arms, with his wounds bandaged with his own red coat to keep the pressure on them, she started back out of the alleyway. Racing as fast as her feet could carry her, needing to get him back to East HQ, she didn't even notice the imposing figure above her, standing on the rooftop.

For there, standing proudly with fresh blood still dripping from his bestial claws, was the monster known as Larson. As he watched them go, his tongue gently licked the blood from his hands, just before he threw his head back and let out a howl that echoed across the city, resonating in every chimera that heard it. His team was being called back. It was not a howl of retreat; this, as they had expected, was a howl of victory.

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One hour earlier, at East HQ, the team had set back out. They had arrived in East City only three hours before, and it came as a surprise that Ed was so eager to get on with the mission. Panzlef, for one, had expected time to rest before they went chimera hunting. And he was the first to groan, once rain began to fall, as they found themselves sloshing through the downpour.

Four pairs of boots sloshed through the torrentious downpour. "So here's what I don't get," Erwin muttered to Josef as they walked through the windy storm. "Why am I here? You've got the gun, the colonel has his alchemy, and Eva can track folks. Why do I have to walk through Hell with you guys?"

Josef shrugged his shoulders as they sloshed through the dark, cold street. The city was quiet tonight, casting an eerie shadow over the whole team. Francis and Marie had been left behind at East HQ, due to the simple fact that an engineer and a medic had no place on the front lines. But neither did an intelligence officer, Erwin thought.

"You're here," Colonel Elric responded, "because an intelligence officer who doesn't know anything is useless." Erwin winced when he heard the colonel's voice. He'd thought he had spoken quiet enough not to be heard.

"Yes, sir!" he quickly replied. "I'll remember that, sir!" His head dropped lower in the group, as they walked. Ignoring Josef's snicker, he continued on through the murky street, hoping to let his embarrassment fade as time passed. "So, these chimeras," he quickly changed the subject, "what kind of chimera are we talking about? I've heard some of the rumors from back in Central." There were stories flying around Central still, about the mysterious Lab 5 and strange beasts that escaped from it. Erwin had chosen to disregard those, however, as they seemed more like the wild ravings of people who had seen too much combat. A man who could turn his own skin as hard as a rock? Even taking alchemy into consideration, that was pushing it. He had also heard rumors from Liore, that there were chimeras running their streets the night before the war had begun. But the words of the war's defeated needed to be taken with a grain of salt; those in the wrong often searched for ways of justifying their crimes.

"Can't say I know," the colonel replied. "Mustang didn't tell me much. He never does. I've seen two kinds of chimera in my life, though. Depending on how skilled the guy we're looking for is, it could be anything. In most cases, you're looking at a basic combination of two animals. Like a lion with the hindquarters and tail of a crocodile." Ed still remembered that one. The horrible lion/crocodile merger had been one of the false prophet Cornello's pets. The first time he had ever gone to Liore, when he and his brother found themselves caught up in Cornello's lies, he had attempted to silence them. Using a false Philosopher's Stone, a red stone made using the highly toxic Red Water put under a great amount of pressure, he had deceived the townspeople into believing he was a holy prophet, sent by the sun god Lito to lead them into prosperity. The lion/crocodile chimera was one of his pets, which he unleashed on Ed as he stood, trying to obtain what he thought to be the Stone, and trying to unveil the deception for Rose, who watched in horror through it all.

Ed had beaten the chimera using his automail limbs and a transmuted spear with a wooden handle and a golden blade, his favorite weapon to transmute. He had also used those limbs, replacements for the arm and leg he had lost in a failed attempt to resurrect his dead mother years before, to reach Rose. He had shown her the price of trying to raise the dead, and though she tried so hard to disregard his words, he had touched her in a way that frightened her. To this day, he still wasn't certain why he had cared so much. He had gone to Liore in search of the Philosopher's Stone, in the hopes that he could restore his brother Alphonse to his body. Fighting Cornello was an unfortunate necessity, but Rose had nothing to do with any of it. Perhaps he took pity on her, for the way Cornello was taking advantage of her losses. Everything she had was taken from her in a string of nasty luck. She was probably the most unlucky woman Ed had ever met. Maybe that was it. Or perhaps he just admired how strongly she stuck to it, and the way she stood up to him. Maybe he'd just wanted to prove that he was right, after the argument they had carried shortly before. Or maybe...just maybe, Al was right. Those words they had spoken to each other that day on the island.

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It had been five years back, on a solitary island near the town of Dublith. Edward and his brother Alphonse had been brought to this island for the second time by their teacher, Izumi Curtis. She had wanted them to remember the lessons she had taught them here before, when she stranded them for one month to learn one of the basic principles of alchemy: All is One, One is All.

It had been a week into their stay here, and Al was away gathering food. Ed had been fishing, but he found himself distracted in the sandy beach by the shoreline. He didn't know what had brought it to mind, what made him think back the way he did, but the soft sand reminded him of their journeys in the East. As he stared transfixed into the soft, gentle sand, he remembered everything he'd left behind. Liore kept springing back to mind, but he didn't understand why. It hadn't been his favorite experience. He'd been mobbed, imprisoned, attacked, and he would've been executed if he hadn't been such a skilled alchemist. But every time he tried to turn his mind back to fishing, he would find himself back there.

While waiting for the fish to bite, he found himself a stick. Idly, he guessed out of boredom, he began to trace circles in the sand. First a transmutation circle, out of old habit. It'd been so long since he'd actually drawn one of those things; his ability to perform alchemy without one had left him rusty. Next came a symbol he'd seen too often, that he had grown to loathe: a circle of a snake, eating its own tail, with two triangles in the center, one overlapping the other and both facing in opposite directions, and two wings floating above the top. This was the symbol of the Ouroborous, the snake that eats itself. This mark was on every Homonculus he had the displeasure of encountering, and he quickly rubbed it out.

Bored, he continued to trace his circles. But soon, he found that it wasn't circles he was drawing anymore. A line there, a circle there...two little circles for the eyes...and there, he marked the bangs carefully, remembering the gentle pinkness in them. A soft, gentle chin, and two little ears...and there, a little nose, and a couple lines for the mouth...

"Brother?" Ed's whole body froze at the sound of his brother's voice. He heard him clunking through the trees, his boots leaving loud footsteps against the rocks on the ground. Alphonse Elric, currently bound to a suit of armor as he walked out from the forested underbrush, held a few berries in his left gauntlet as he walked. "I found a few berries, but not much else. Most of the traps still haven't caught anything." Ed moved quickly, trying to cover up his drawing, but he wasn't fast enough. "What's that you're making?"

"Nothing!" Ed exclaimed, but he wasn't fast enough. He was caught, and he knew it. Shoveling sand over it to destroy the image, he hoped that Al hadn't seen, but he knew deep down that he had.

"Ohhh, I get it," Al laughed. "You were drawing Winry, weren't you?" The moment passed in silence, as Ed struggled with his own feelings. He wasn't sure whether he should deny it or leave it alone. "You know, Brother, you really should talk to her. She really cares about you. It's not difficult to see, and I know you care about her."

"Yeah, she cares," Ed grumbled to himself. "She cares about my AUTOMAIL plenty." Al could feel the hurt in Ed's voice as he grumbled. He had tried many times to talk to him about Winry, but to no avail. Ed never wanted to talk about it, and every time the subject came up, he sounded hurt. Over the past year, Al had deduced Ed's feelings, that Winry had simply paid too much attention to his automail, and not enough to his flesh and blood self.

"Brother..." he started, but he didn't know where to go from there. But if Ed really felt this hurt towards Winry, why would he be drawing her. "Brother...was that Winry you were drawing?"

"Al, just forget it," Ed remarked. "It was nothing. And stop bugging me about Winry, okay?" He was starting to get agitated, and that frightened Al. Al knew very well that his older brother was prone to fits of anger and ranting when he got like this, and here on this island, there was no one else around for him to rage to. "Winry and I...look, if it happens, it happens, okay?" He started off into the woods, fuming in his own anger. "I'm going to go check the traps. Why don't you try fishing? You could probably just stand with your breastplate open and wait for fish. It'd be faster than this stupid pole!"

"Brother, wait!" Al started after Ed, not wanting to drop this. "Every time I ask you about Winry, you get into a huff like this. What happened?"

Ed stopped moving, his fists curled in anger as he struggled with his own emotions. "I don't want to talk about it. Yeah, I like Winry, okay? Or I used to. She's changed, Al. I've changed. You've changed. Everyone's changed. Nothing is like it was back then, and that's just something we all have to accept."

"Brother..."

"I'm sure," Ed started, "that Winry will find herself a great guy. Someone who can put up with her loving machines more than she loves him."

"Brother..." Al repeated himself, but found himself speechless. He really didn't know what to say.

"But," Ed continued, "that's not going to be me, okay? I don't have time for it anyway. We don't have time for it. We're trying to find a way to put you back in your body, remember? Romance can wait, there's no time for it. AND," he was starting to rant. Al had expected this. He was starting to get angry, and saying things he didn't mean. "Even IF the time DOES come, I can do better. I can find someone...I don't know...someone who's not so violent. Someone nicer, someone..."

"Someone like Rose?" The name sent a chill down Ed's spine when he heard it. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe. He simply stood there, struggling to get his thoughts back in order. "I'm not stupid, brother. I saw the way you were looking at her in Liore. The same way you used to look at Winry."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ed snarled through gritted teeth. He was trying with every ounce of strength in his body not to think about it.

"Brother...Edward." The sound of his name sent another chill through Ed. Alphonse so rarely called him by his name; it always meant that the conversation had just turned serious. "You can't lie to me. I didn't miss the worry in your eyes when you saw how Cornello was using her. I still remember the way you turned away from her when she started to cry. You can call it whatever you want but I know you better than that, brother. You couldn't bear to see her hurt, could you?"

"Shut up," Ed was getting defensive, and that was making him mean. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"That's what you were drawing, wasn't it?" Al had finally caught him. "You were drawing Rose."

Cornered like a rat, Ed found himself getting angrier. He was turning mean, and he knew it was childish but his anger had risen to the point he didn't care. "SHUT UP!" he exploded. "You don't...I don't know what you're talking about! Just leave me alone!" With those words, he took off into the forest, running with all the speed his automail left leg could give him. He didn't know where he was going; he knew there was no way off this island. He didn't care, he just couldn't be here. He was angry, he was defensive, and more than anything, he was afraid. It couldn't be true; it could never be true. Al's words...they were wrong. They were dead wrong, and he knew it. He couldn't love her. Everything he loved suffered, everything he touched, everything he got too close to, would hurt, would suffer, would die. His mother, Alphonse, Nina...no. He wouldn't let that happen again. For her sake, he couldn't love her.

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"Colonel?" Ed was snapped out of his memory by the slightly unshaky voice of Lieutenant Erwin Panzlef. "I'm sorry to interrupt your daydream, sir, but I believe we have company." Ed looked up from his distracted thoughts, casting his gaze around the street around him. The lights had gone out in the buildings around them. The only remaining light was the glow of the streetlamp above them, and the dim circle of light it cast around the unit. He could hear snarls now, the smacking jaws of creatures in the dark night around them. And then he saw them, two glittering eyes in the dark just outside the ring of light.

"Dammit," Ed cursed. He'd gotten too distracted by his memories, and walked into an ambush. "Everyone, get ready! This is going to be rough." He hadn't even finished speaking, before the first of the beasts lunged.