A.C.: Meh...
Summary: Upon finding the diary of the legendary Phoenix Alchemist, Edward is thrown into a plot long since launched into motion by the fabled war hero...
Timeline: Sometime before Hughes is dead.
Warnings: oocness, grammar/structure/spelling mistakes, spoilers?
Martel quickly snakes down his body, shivering as she curls up.
Alsphonse places his head back over his neck.
"Martel? What's wrong?"
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Wasn't that the fuhrer? Why was he coming closer?
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"Alsphonse,"
Martel's voice croaks, creaky like a rustic hinge.
"King Bradley... he's a homunculus."
The sword plunges into them both.
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Al shivers as Mustang looks down at him,
That seemed wrong, he had always been taller than the Colonel-turned-General.
Martel's limp body is covered in a white sheet, a few feet away from him where he couldn't see.
He wants to let out a whimper, cry for Ed, do something,
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Anything...
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But when the blood, her blood,
God there was so much blood!
It touched him, his soul, on the seal...
It brought back memories, of another life...
His...
He could remember,
He could see...
The gate...
Mother...
There is a questioning air around them all, Mustang had just uttered a question.
Al shakes his head furiously,
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Havoc sighes,
Riza calmly looks away.
Roy is understanding, he pats Al on the shoulders and leaves.
Al hadn't felt like that since...
Before...
He likes it.
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"They are where!"
"Colonel Archer's orders sir."
"I don't care whose orders they are, cancel them!"
"But sir, the Elrics have already left..."
"Dammit,"
Fist meets wood,
"Dammit."
He looks at himself in the mirror and cringes, he should go home.
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"We should go there, to keep an eye on things."
"She has given us orders to stay put."
"But if you do not send the army in time...!"
"Lust, patience is a virtue."
A short laughter.
"We are the cardinal sins, the complete opposite of virtue."
"She has given us orders to stay."
"That person... she does not know what is happening..."
"So you will disobey?"
"I will do as I like, Gluttony?"
The fat, not-quite-human shakes his head, giving out a low whine.
Huffing indignantly she leaves, leaving her two brothers to watch as she did so.
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The rest of the pages are blank, drenched in the citric scent of something he cannot identify.
He brushes his teeth humming, just as the door opened to reveal a blond girl blushing wildly.
In her haste to close the door she accidentally throws the journal across the bathroom, scoring it neatly in the toilet.
"Winry!"
"Ack I'm sorry!"
Edward fishes the drowning book out of the toilet, already reaching for a towel to dry it off. Fortunately for him, he was relatively quick in rescuing of the journal and it retains minimal damage.
Getting out of the bathroom, he placed it on the table before drying the pages one by one.
And marvel in wonder at the language that it had been written in but he could not quite place.
Winry apologizes profusely before Edward absently forgives her.
He says something about clumsy woman and gets a wrench buried in his skull.
And as he approached the last pages he could not help but gasp in shock at the words branded anew on the previously blank pages.
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The ride to Liore is brief, Ed is almost looking forward to seeing Rose again.
But strange rumors are circling about Liore,
How the once prosperous city is now in ruins,
How the army had taken over the people,
How Liore is to be the next Ishival.
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Ed takes care at each pages.
It's not so much a word they are looking at now, but a scripture extended symbols.
An array.
The possibilities excite him as they piece together the pages, almost like a thousand piece puzzle, drawing the blue print on another paper.
They can believe.
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They discover that Al can read the journal now.
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The scuffle with Scar is brief but painful.
Lyla looks older, he is surprised to see her.
Seeing Rose with her newborn infant squeezes his heart for some reason;
She does not talk, Rose, the dual haired girl.
Her quiet mauve eyes are empty,
Devoid of life, devoid of laughter,
Devoid of hope.
Is the phoenix not the symbol for hope and rebirth?
Is it not the symbol for peace?
If the bird of flames had shown itself early on, why does it hide itself so?
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Why is peace a tempting fairytale?
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"Hey,"
Alone in the dark with the man who had tried more than once to kill him.
"Uh... yeah well... I know you've been going around a while ago, killing alchemists and all that well..."
Ed gulped uneasily and musters a brave face as crimson eyes glares at him from beneath the bone white 'x'.
"Have you ever heard of... the phoenix?"
Slowly, as if to weigh him silently against an invisible silhouette Scar speaks,
"...It's a legendary bird of mythical proportions, dying by fires of spice every five hundred years to be born anew from the ashes..."
"No... I meant the alchemist Phoenix."
Scar falls silent once more.
Ed has a feeling Scar knows a lot more than he was letting on.
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The messenger is a tired little boy.
Mustang and his crew gives him a little food as he reports and relays what's been going on in Liore.
He saw an army enter the city tonight.
They all fear for the Fullmetal Alchemist.
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"I'm home..."
A half mumble, it was a tiring day and it had been more than 48 hours since he last slept in his own bed...
The light flickers on immediately to reveal the black covered form of Maes Hughes.
"Where have you been! Do you know how hard it is to aim at the toilet without lights?"
"Hello Maes."
Mustang's reply is raspy and obviously tired.
Loads of paperwork, Hawkeye shooting at him every hour...
Havoc's smoking breaks, runaway Elrics and now...
Maes feels a little guilty.
"You should take care of yourself more, you look like hell."
Roy cracks a smile before dumping himself on the couch and kicking his boots off.
"Thanks."
A normal man would have been demanding what Maes was thinking when he came crawling back into the country, a normal man would have hugged his best friend and blubbered like a baby, saying how it was great now that he was here...
Not Roy
Never.
Flushing sound in the bathroom,
Roy nods off into oblivion.
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He flips through the journal idly, he has not yet figured out what to do with the incomplete arrays on the back.
"Edward?"
The scent of perfume is intoxicating,
Overpowering,
Suffocating.
Edward snaps back into reality.
"I heard you were asking Scar about someone."
Lyla, but not really Lyla at the same time.
The dark haired girl-woman hold herself prouder, taller than he had left her back at Yoki's estate.
She now looks like a woman with a purpose, a specific plan in mind.
It makes his skin crawl and his innards writhe.
"Ah... you worked under a military official one time... ever heard about the Phoenix?"
A baffled look but Edward cannot figure out why.
He's pretty sure she's heard about him, most of the earlier generation had it seems.
"It is said that he created a legendary item..." Edward looks up at the young woman and slowly she continues. "It is also said that he is alive somewhere close by."
High pitch frequencies fall and rise through the air,
Screaming.
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Bombs and bullets ripped through the air.
Crazed laughter of one Crimson Alchemist as he detonated everything on sight.
Pleased look of Colonel Archer as everything went according to plan,
Nervous faces of soldiers as bulky chimera's pads in between their ranks, hunting down the dusky skinned citizens of Liore.
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They flee the buildings into an underground path where the most are drowned by a growing wall of translucent water wavering in the air.
Something somersaults inside it,
Wrath...
The dark haired sin is grinning viciously at him along with the more placid face of the one he thought he had lost forever...
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"Mother?"
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Flames arches up into the sky like some hellish wings hailing its glorious flames before them all.
It makes him nostalgic, almost brings tears to his eyes.
Almost,
Perhaps it's just the smoke that he breathes in.
One of the buildings crumble and collapse, the flames claw higher before waning into spots of fire.
Kimbley sees a fire bird out the corner of his eyes.
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It can't be true, she was dead and they...
No he...
Al had no blame in this,
He brought her back.
No not her.
He delivered a monster from the gate,
A monster who was wearing his mother's face,
A monster...
He can't move,
That thing was created by him,
It's still his mother.
Wrath approaches from behind.
Lips part,
"Mom..."