A.C.: I live on the other side of the world, they don't speak English but they're absolutely crazy about it as with any other Asian countries. Point, I don't need to study English. Second point, a trick question involving a strange word in the obscure language and it floors me completely. Thus I got a question wrong. I mean thus, this is why I hate my life.
I like the broadband connection ;/
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?
Ed falls over backwards.
Dante feels her smile growing, the sharp corners stretching almost painfully into her cheeks. Her face grows hot with anticipation, the thought of another 20... 30 years added to extend her life.
The foolish humans would create more homunculi for her. And now, she had an endless supply of the philosopher's stone at hand, the ultimate sin, Hope.
Research could be done later to figure out how to extract the artifact bit by precious bit. Until that time there was always the Elric boy...
Blood rushes to her dead veins as she plans things out, she can hardly keep herself from laughing out loud.
Gluttony grasps the spiked shoulders with pudgy hands,
Al has stopped crying out for his fallen sibling.
In a flash of blue lightning, Gluttony backs off from the armor body of Alphonse Elric. His lower jaw has disintegrates off of his face, allowing his tongue to fall through the gap before the facial structures realign itself into flesh and bones.
The voracious sin approaches the armor bound soul once more but the damage has already been done.
Dante's mind is numb,
"Wha... what are you doing!"
The glowing red marks stands vividly against the gray cast steel, Alphonse walks towards his dead brother.
"No he's not, see?"
Envy backs away from his prey; the sticky blood clings on to the sin's feet. The cape of crimson is spreading around the body.
The metallic fingers caress the blonde's face before drawing back.
"He's still warm..."
With a strangled cry, Rose leaps towards them. A dusky skinned hand uncurling towards the duo before Dante's paler ones stop her in an iron hold as she wrenches the younger's wrists, her blue eyes flashing in anger.
"I'm going to bring him back."
Al's voice was an echo, filled with fanatic hope.
Hope reaches out, yearning.
-
-
"Ah, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, how pleasant to see you again."
The battle had moved upstairs, Hughes being backed into every tight corner before breaking free with a spontaneous blade.
The eye patch has long been discarded; the ouroboros eye rolls madly in the eye socket.
The neck heals gradually, so do other wounds. Within a few blinks, you could hardly tell any slashes or wounds had been there.
A homunculus is immortal
"But surely..." Bradley in front, dodging a knife. "You did not expect to take me down with a couple of knives..."
In a flash, homunculus Pride pins the hand to the wall with a sword. Hughes gives out a short scream before biting his tongue and shoving a shotgun into the fuhrer's stomach to shoot.
There was some blood as the six rounds he fires bury themselves in the aging flesh of the dark haired sin. Blood speckles the corners of the mouth and the nostrils.
When the sound of empty clicks replace the thunderous shots, his hand falls in empty despair and the gun along with it.
He had failed once more...
What's revenge if you fail to achieve it?
"Brave, but foolish. Not the greatest of combinations..."
-
-
The half-android turns his eyes (both flesh and metal) on the backseat, towards the startled blond lieutenant staring boldly at him with her burgundy eyes.
"Riza Hawkeye?"
Shots ring out and her driver collapses face forward in an instant. She rolls over, flat on her side as the bullets fly overhead and hits the opaque windows at her back.
The first bullet merely strikes a spider-like web in the glass.
Second, third, fourth, the ones that come after shatter the glass.
She feels the sharp shards fly across her face and stays down, until Archer's body creaks away into the dark.
She brushes away a stray lock and droplets of blood. She reaches for the gun on the still warm corpse. She tugs the small handgun free from the belt and kicks the door open.
She checks her surroundings, making sure the shadowy shapes in the gloom are not actually Colonel Archer ready to shoot her down if necessary.
Riza runs towards the fuhrer's mansion, her pumping heart already fearing the worst.
The night is beginning to wane.
-
-
"Why are you doing this Lieutenant Colonel? I can guarantee a public execution for you if you are lucky, years worth of confinement in the labs underground if you're not. As for a certain little girl in Xing... I'm sure I can arrange something."
Maes raises a bony hand towards the bulging neck, eyes wide with a fierce storm of emotions brewing within.
"Don't you dare... don't you..." his hand falls back to his side. "I could never forgive myself." his breathing comes in ragged gasps, "Knowing that I was so blind as to let him die..."
He couldn't admit it, he wouldn't! Not Roy, Roy wasn't dead!
Not...
Dead...
But the drying blood on the sword, the blood that was not his, only confirmed what he already knew.
-
-
His voice was silky as he plunges the sword right over the heart.
Remains silky even as Maes Hughes' screams rose above a high octave when the blade bends and attempts to carve out his heart in between the ribs.
Silky, even as the dark mustache tickled the unshaven face and the dark haired sin breathes out the words,
"Give my regards to the Brigadier General."
-
-
"Father?"
-
-
King Bradley stiffens, and then straightens up with a smile.
It is a heavily patented one, a mask that slips over the wrinkled face with ease.
How had anyone missed it?
The artificial settings of it, the fuhrer's smile.
One not directed at him but nevertheless freezes his innards as he hangs on the wall.
"I caught the rat."
The wide eyed boy's face breaks into an idolizing joy. It makes Maes wince to look at the naive innocence of the boy.
He is still stuck on the wall but the homunculus fuhrer as taken the sword pinning his hand. The one in his chest is still in place. The dark haired sin pauses before sheathing the blood stained steel. He then approaches is awestruck son who holds a bag in his small hands.
"What is he then?" Maes manages to bite out, "Isn't he a foolish human too?"
The little boy looks confusedly at the trespasser.
He has seen this man before; he was on one of the wanted posters out on the streets.
"Salem is a good child."
The fuhrer puts his hand the dark haired boy's shoulders and freezes as he squints open one normal eye and grits out, "Salem... what have you done...?"
The boy looks horrified. Hesitantly, he takes out a small item from his bag. A rag wrapped something that prevents Bradley from moving.
"You...!"
Pride attempts to strangle the life out of the boy, only when he cannot move anymore does he slam the comatose boy to the wall. It is then that Maes plucks the sword out of his chest, swallowing back the burning bile building up in his throat, running over to the boy laying face down on the floor.
King Bradley is visibly sweating; the strain on his aged face is evident for all to see. Maes picks up the skull from the bands of cloth, feeling the smooth bone beneath his fingers. The turquoise eyed sin cringes away, had he been a lesser creature, he would have slunk away hissing in contempt.
"How many times..." the gold eyed man's voice falters but his hands are steady, the glint of jagged knife flashes copper in the yellow light. "...Do I have to kill you before you die?"
Maes throws the knife, Bradley gurgles as he falls over backwards. Maes plunges the blood speckled sword in the fuhrer's chest for a good measure. He heavily crushes the skull beneath his foot.
-
-
A rustle in the olive leaved bushes; Riza pulls the safety off and aims towards the sound.
Gracia Hughes runs out, there are leaves in her hair. From the way her chest is heaving, once could deduce that she had run a long way.
"Where is he?"
-
-
In disgust and contempt, Dante flees the magnificent hall, trusting the homunculi to follow her by themselves. In a way, she is right; Gluttony follows a short time after.
Rose backs away, cowering before the two remaining violet eyed sins. Only Alphonse stays oblivious to all this, transmuting Ed's flesh until there is a new arm and a leg to replace the automail.
Envy looks disgruntled and is looking towards the direction Dante went off in. The direct usage of the gate energy unnerves him badly, but the youngest of them all, the newly born Hope, watches in rapt fascination.
Ed's eyes are hazy with death, and all who have seen what lies beyond the black door now stand before it.
-
-
Maes stumbles out in exhaustion. He defeated the fuhrer but it meant nothing to him. He wanted to explore what lay below the surface but he can't. It is all he can do to balance the limp body as he walks out the door of the mansion.
Archer's mismatched eyes glare at him.
In some ways, Maes is glad.
-
-
Up ahead, they can see the odd form of Frank Archer standing before the fuhrer's residence. Riza stops Gracia with an arm before shooting. The metal half of the face turns towards them and so does the rest of the body. The mechanical arm whirls before dying down.
The Colonel is dead, he falls face forward onto the road.
They climb up the stairs to the immobile form of Maes Hughes lying beside the equally still body of a boy they know as the fuhrer's adopted son. Gracia breaks into a sob and kneels before her husband. She pushes the bloodied face into her lap and cries his name out over and over again.
Riza loosens the clothing before searching for a pulse. She shakes her head furiously but thinks that she can feel a weak beat running below the skin. She checks the little boy whose neck is starting turning black and purple from recent bruising.
Salem's still alive.
"Maes..!"
"Maes...!"
The voice rises into a screeching wail
"MAES HUGHES!"