A.C.: I should be studying... really, really studying . ; Stupid formatting doesn't let me put exclamation marks next to question marks
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?
Roy cries out, feeling as if his head has been split apart with a wayward ax.
The slash on his neck, if anything, widens further up the width of his neck.
Blood pours down his collar, lapping at his chest and eating away at his clothing.
His flesh bubbles, flaking off like sand off of a candle in the desert, or like insects in a tent gathered around flame at night.
Bones come apart, stripping down to the marrow, a reminiscent of his attempt at human transmutation.
And through all this, Roy realizes he is awake and seeing it.
He is repenting for his sins.
The extensive list that starts with the creation and death of his would-be-father to the present where the Elric boys will be a little more than sacrificial lambs in a petty love affair between the frightful union of two souls.
It is then Roy realizes that he does not want to die.
Fire burns wildly within him, this much he knows.
But this time, Hughes won't be here to save him.
He grapples the muscular arm with his skeletal hands, willing whatever that is left of his body, soul and mind to lend him strength.
For once his alchemy fails him completely.
The spot of flesh he touches briefly smolders in yellow flames before dying down to a small patch of black scabbing over,
Then nothing,
Just like his existence.
'I'm sorry'
He can hear Ed and Al screaming out in unison as Envy cackles madly, holding Ed's head in place to watch his superior change before his eyes.
But even hearing fails as his ear canal melts into his skull, meshing into the side of his face.
He closes his eyes and curl into a fetal position as the bones pop out of their sockets to shift anew.
The metal bleeding dry into his veins, the philosopher's stone becoming his blood, complete, unlike those of his would-be brothers.
Vision grows cloudy and dark
For a long time he can't see, hear, touch, taste nor feel...
But he can remember, and for the fragments of his conscious soul, that is enough.
'Sorry...'
At last when his spine reform themselves into a graceful arch with a wet snapping sound, he jerks his eyes open and skewers Bradley's stomach with his bare hands.
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"...he shall be called 'hope' for all those he have taken, and all those he will give to me."
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"Hope, the Ultimate Sin..."
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The newest homunculus is quiet; he has not yet uttered a single word. His hand slides out from Pride's stomach in a shower of red.
The incomplete stone spills out, but he isn't particularly interested. He gives an experimental lick before smearing it on the floor.
The red solidifies into red stones and quickly soaks through his skin.
King Bradley flinches before straightening himself; they can all see that it takes some effort. The eighth sin's eyes are mysterious, but there is a tone of mischief in it. The older homunculus backs off wisely and looks towards Dante for orders.
The newly named Hope delicately picks himself off from the floor.
Bradley takes another step back.
Languid like a cat, he stretches his limbs, mildly interested in his retractable claws and the hardening skin. There are two red circles on the back of each hands connected to a red line that extends towards the shallow dip of his throat where his neck met the body.
But no one is certain if Dante's ploy has worked until the dark, gray-violet eyes shine from beneath jet black bangs.
The crimson mark of ouroboros; of a winged snake eating its own tail circling around a pentacle.
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Edward feels like he has been punched in the gut.
Edward can't meet the not-Roy's eyes, the gold orbs stray down the prominent hipbones outlined against the washboard stomach. Down the tight leather pants, further until he feels as though it his own head being ground against the blunt heels.
"Roy..."
The sin's head turns...
The wicket violet eyes flash.
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Dante gives one nod and it is all the turquoise eyed fuhrer can do to keep his pace steady as he walks out.
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Riza hands him her gun wishing him good luck. Others are here and she is lost in the crowd, trying to evacuate the fuhrer's family. The fuhrer hasn't been seen yet, Maes has run down the basement according to the blueprint.
The candles on the cake burn brightly
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There's a delicate smile on Dante's face. One of pride. The sin stands up from the caked blood; he gives himself one look over before flicking flakes of deepening red off of his pants.
The clicks of his heels are loud as he turns to look at them all.
Edward cannot figure out why Dante has done this. By all rights she should be focused on transferring her soul to a new body. Not doing more alchemy that would surely accelerate the rate of decay.
The youngest sin, 'Hope', he looks like Mustang.
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The fuhrer stares at the reflection upon glass. No, not a fuhrer, no longer. The country was done for, and he as well would perish along side it not too long after.
His body had aged, still aging. His once invisible homunculus body had decayed away unlike his siblings'. Much like his creator, only his expanded to the atrophy of the body due to age, not because of the irreversible damage to the soul.
He wondered if he had a soul.
All pretenses of control, the 20 year's acting as a reigning 'king' would finally come to an end.
Staring at his one eyed mirror in the dancing light, he realizes, perhaps he is the most humane one of all. Already, he feels the claws of death ensnare him around their fingers after his desperate hold on life of sixty years. He can no longer move freely as he could way back when. He tastes mortality, the sickly sweetness of it, he is a human, and yet he is not.
He is an oxymoron, a parody of a living thing.
A mere shadow, a shade, a puppet in the control of its puppeteer.
It is these thoughts that make him more human than he can ever try and attempt to be. He has made a mistake,
A knife buried in his eye, he falls backwards. The elevator door slides shut and the swords are drawn.
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With an enraged howl Edward knocks Envy on to the floor, punching the still formed cheeks as the familiar alchemic light shifts the homunculus' face from one to another.
"Edward stop this."
It was Marco, no response as Edward socked him smartly across the jaw. The newly born 'Hope' freezes nervously.
"Edward."
Hughes,
With a strangled cry Edward hit him again.
"Stop this!"
His mother, the same face Sloth had shared.
"I've killed the one with my mother's face!" Edward howls, slamming his fist into the hollow cheeks,
"Edward!"
The colonel-turned-general-turned-homunculus,
"Easiest. Face. To. Punch!" Still there are more, Envy has more forms than Edward has hairs on his head. "Why won't you show me your face you coward! Show. Me. Your. Face!"
There's a nasty grin on Envy's face as his face freeze in his most familiar form.
"You want to see my face! Here it is!"
Edward gasps as the light clears.
It was the face of a younger Hoenheim, so human-like and familiar that Ed...
There's a blade sticking out of his stomach.
"Brother!"
He falls limply backwards.
Envy is laughing, Hope's face is unreadable.
Rose's eyes loose their glassy look. Her hands unconsciously clench tighter around her child.