When it's Torture

Disclaimer: Characters and setting are the property of Hiromu Arakawa. I'm just borrowing them for a bit of non-profit angst.

Thanks for the feedback: lelann37, Primeval Eidolon Scar, KuramasGirl123, CuriousDreamWeaver, websurffer, Prozacfairy, Krows Scared, winryrockbell2, Lawrence Hazeltoe, silent:tears:fall

Lawrence Hazeltoe: Roy'll get his chance to react in thefollowingchapter.


When the cell door creaked open the prisoner threw himself onto his knees. "Please, not again, not again. Don't make me go there again," he begged.

"Get up," the guard ordered.

"Not again, not again," Suddenly the prisoner laughed hysterically. "Sixty-three times!" he shrieked. "Sixty-three times in front of the firing squad and the gun keeps misfiring. I should love that gun but I hate it! I hate him! Why can't you just kill me? This isn't an execution, it's torture."

The guards stared down at the man in contempt. "You were chosen to take part in the Doctor's study, stop being melodramatic."

The prisoner was forced to his feet and thrust into the queue of shackled prisoners slowly being marched to the door. While some of the prisoners flinched at everything and pled with their guards to be taken back to their cells others stared at the door with a dull look of acceptance, still others laughed like the whole thing was a joke.

"No way the kid's going to do anything," one of the later insisted. "I just think of this as a nice little field trip."

"All I know is I'm glad I'm on my side of the bars," one of the prisoners said as he stepped through the door.

The room on the other side was windowless concrete lit with glaringly harsh florescent lights. The walls, floor and ceiling were engraved with Alchemic symbols. The room was divided by a row of iron bars. When the last of the prisoners had filed into the larger section of the room the door in the far wall creaked open.

A hulking figure in plate armor stepped inside and the number of prisoners displaying bravado instantly diminished. "Maybe he'll really do it this time," one prisoner said, his expression a mix of fear and relief.

The small blond boy looked practically insignificant with the armored figured towering over him but it was the blond the prisoners watched. The boy moved stiffly, he kept one arm wrapped around his chest to cradle bruised ribs. His long hair hung loose in a filthy tangle, strands of gold were glued to his face and neck with dried blood. Slowly the blond dropped to his knees where the edge of the transmutation circle crossed the line of bars.

"Please kid, I got a family!" one prisoner shouted.

"Don't worry, he doesn't have the guts. He's not going to do anything."

The boy looked back at his armored companion pleadingly.

"You promised brother," the armored form said accusingly. "You promised to make me human. You aren't abandoning me are you? You're just like father."

"There are so many of them Al," The blond whispered. "There weren't so many before."

"Before we had the red water!" The armored figure snapped. "But you wasted it! Now you have to start from scratch. It's your own fault you have to kill them all or don't you care about me? You promised."

"Al, there's got to be-"

"No Brother, there is no other way. We looked remember?"

"I don't remember," the blonde protested softly.

"Then I guess you know what I feel like. Trust me brother, like I have to trust you. This is the only way. You owe it to me!"

The blond brought his hands up then stared across the circle; several of the prisoners met his eyes with fearful, pleading or defiant gazes. The blond's hands dropped into his lap. "I can't Al. They're human, I can't just kill them."

The armored figure kicked the blond viciously.

The small boy grunted with pain as his body collided with the bars. For a moment he just lay there then awkwardly pushed himself to his hands and knees. He spat out a mouthful of blood.

The armored figure crouched over him and lifted the blond into a kneeling position. "They're human and I'm not, isn't that right Brother?" he hissed accusingly into the blond's ear. "Well whose fault is that Brother-mine?"

"Please don't say that Al, please."

"I hate you for what you did to me."

There were tears running down the blond's face now; they cut fresh tracks through the blood and grime coating his cheeks.

"I hate you because you could make it right but you won't. I hate you because you don't love me enough to save me. I hate you brother; do you understand that? I hate you."

The blond's head came up and for the first time the prisoners saw a peaceful expression on his face. "I remembered something," he said.

He clapped his hands then lunged at the armored figure, when his hands made contact the armored figure was blown apart.

The blonde looked down at the gory remains splattered across the room. "I remembered that my brother, my real brother, could never hate me," he said with a grim sort of triumph.