Chapter 10

Blood is thicker than water, but revenge can last a lifetime. And for Envy, the anger he felt towards Ed and Al went hand in hand with his no mercy policy. He had been mad for as long as he could remember and right now, Al was the target for his anger and aggression. He was after all family, and family deserved special treatment. Envy was going to take back what he had given to the Elric brother and that was existence. Without his unintentional interference, Al's soul would still be blood sealed to that armor.

"Don't fight it, Al, let me hear you scream," Envy said to him, smiling, as Al fought off the ring of fire, trying to avoid the flames from burning his skin. Yet it was so hot, Al looked as red as a lobster in a pot of boiling water. And his skin was drenched with sweat. The moisture evaporating from his skin was enough to cause excruciating pain. To Al, it felt like his skin was being ripped off the muscles.

Al cried out in agonizing pain! But to Envy, all this fit in with his sick sense of amusement. And he laughed.

"I'll take what's mine now, Alphonse," Envy said, and Al screamed, "NOOO!"


Ed blocked his opponent's attack. He was unsure whether Al's samurai sword would stand up against the suit of armor's massive iron arms, but it did and it surprised even him.

He sliced through the air in countenance and did some damage to the chastise, but it wasn't enough to stop it from coming. Al's body raised its massive arms and brought them down upon him. Ed blocked with the sword. But the pressure mounted as Al's body pressed the attack.

Ed's knees started to buckle, but he would not relent and used all his strength to defend. He shouted "Ahhh!" as he attacked, as if doing so would give him added strength. But apparently it did, and he pushed against Al's down push and jumped away as soon as it was convenient to do so, and out of striking distance.

Ed breathed heavy. But the suit of armor seemed unaffected. Of course not, it wasn't alive. And it would fight until the bitter end. It didn't feel exhaustion and had no reservations about murder. It was under the influence of Guilt. Who curiously wasn't around to see his puppet dance to his beat. Was Ed too boring for Guilt to stick around? Was the fight too slow for him? Well, he'd have to rectify that.


Winry watched as Al's temperature rose and his skin turned beet red. He then began to thrash around similar to how Ed had reacted whenever he experienced a waking hallucination. Was Al having one? What was happening in there? She had a very bad feeling that something was not right.

She didn't know. But she had to stop him somehow or he'll twist Ed's head off.

She thought for a moment and had an idea. Al had told her not to remove his hands from Ed's head, but if she didn't Ed was in danger of never walking up at all if Al snapped his neck. So she quickly unwrapped the tape and pulled his hands away from Ed.

Thus the connection was broken; he settled down.


Ed gripped the sword with both hands tightly and shouted again to add to his strength, and sliced through the air at the suit of armor. But suddenly it winked out of existence as if it hadn't been there at all, like a phantasm without form or substance, and Ed spun in a 360 degree circle and fell to the ground. When his head cleared from the dizziness he looked up and said confused, "What the-- Where'd he go?"

Suddenly he winked out, too!

And everything went black.


Winry lay Al's back up against a wall and then went to Ed to see if he was alright. She leaned into his face and placed an ear to his mouth, and breathed a sigh of relief. His breathing was normal. And there didn't seem to be any damage. Suddenly he opened his eyes and looked at her. And she was ecstatic to see him conscious. "Winry? What in the world happened? I was just fighting…" Then quickly asked, "Where's Al?"

"He's okay, just resting," she said. "I had to remove the tape from around his hands and your head because I feared he was going to hurt you, he was thrashing around a lot," she said. "If I didn't, he couldn't killed you."

"Oh," Ed said. Then said, "What tape?" He tried to get up, but something restrained him to the bed. It was some sort of invisible force field or something to that effect. "Why can't I move?" he said.

"Al placed a binding spell on you so you'd stop thrashing around during your waking hallucinations." Al moaned, and then slowly opened his eyes. She turned and went to him, leaving Ed. "Are you alright, Al? You had me worried there for a moment."

He looked up at Winry who was standing before him as he sat on the floor next to Ed's bed. "What happened? I don't remember a thing." He said.

"Al, release me from the binding spell, will ya? I have an inch and I wanna scratch it." He said smiling, and was relieved that he was okay.

Al rubbed his eyes and then slowly got to his feet, his muscles felt sore. He then went to the front of the bed and looked down at Ed. Rubbing his hands together he then placed them over Ed's body, then stopped.

"Well Al? Get to it!" his brother demanded.

Al smirked maliciously, and said, "You look so peaceful there, dear brother. I'm not sure I wanna release you. As long as you're subjected to that binding spell, you won't be any trouble." He stretched his arms above his head and flexed his arm muscles in front. "It feels so liberating to have a real body again."

Ed's mouth went agape. "Guilt? NO!" he said.

"Surprised, Ed? Well, you shouldn't be. Thanks to you, I got what I wanted."

"But you were after my body? Not Al."

"And whatever gave you that impression? As I already told Al, I needed a whole, unaltered body free of automail to accomplish my goal of becoming human, and now I have one."

And with a sudden body morph, Al became Envy--dressed in his usual skimpy attire.

Ed's eyes widened in total shock. "Ta-da!" Envy said grinning big.

"B-but you're dead!" he said. "How…"

And Envy told him what he had told Al about how he was giving new life inside Ed's mind.

"Al specifically said not to remove his hands from your head or the connection would be broken, and he was correct. Little did he know before he left on his adventure into your mind that his life would be sacrificed for yours. He went in to save you and ended him being the instrument to his own destruction."

"NO!" Ed cried out, and struggled against Al's binding spell. But it was to no avail. "This can't be happening! Not now, not when we've come so far. My brother just got his body back after five years. It's not fair, you can't just take it away from him. It's not yours! Give it back. I'll kill you!"

Envy chuckled. "The binding spell has you restrained, your threats are meaningless." He then turned to Winry, who was in silent shock through all of this. "Thank you, my dear. You're as much to blame for what has transpired. By removing Al's hands from Ed's head, you finally allowed me to take complete control of Al's body. Though I wouldn't found a way eventually."

"What do I do, Ed?" she said, confused.

"Don't let him leave the house, stop'em Winry!" Ed told her.

Winry reached behind her and grabbed a wrench from a work bench and clutched it to her chest. She had no idea what she intended to do with it, but just having it with her brought some solace. It was like a safety blanket. When she had a tool in her hand she believed she could do anything. Even become uber-human.

"And what do you intend to do with that, Winry?" Envy asked.

"Normally I fix things with it, but in your case it has one more application," she said, and before he knew what hit him, she struck him across the side of the face with the wrench.

He dropped to his knees and smothered his face in his hands. He muffled an angry shout through them and when he removed them from his face, he saw blood. The left side of his head throbbed with pain. Blood streamed down from his eyebrow. "A-ow!" he said, gritting his teeth, still reeling from the pain. He touched a hand to the spot she hit him and it was sensitive to touch. He felt a bruise forming. "That wasn't very nice," he said. "I'm gonna make you suffer for that, bitch!"

He suddenly swung a hand at her and slapped the wrench out of her hand. Then got to his feet and grabbed her shoulders. "I have no qualms about killing a woman!"

"Not this woman," she said, and kneed him in the crotch.

Envy folded over in pain and backed away a few steps, to avoid getting kneed a second time.

"Way to go, Winry," Ed said, excited that she was winning. "Now, finish him off before he can recover."

"You forget, I'm no ordinal human. I'm a Homunculus, an inhuman being. Despite inhabiting a body that is flesh and blood, I still have the same powers I always did. And now I'm angry!"

Envy stood erect fully recovered and extended his right arm as if it where rubber. His skin stretched, and he clasped his fingers around Winry's throat. And started to squeeze. Winry tried to pull his hand away from her throat, but he had the grip of steel and she wasn't strong enough.

Ed screamed, "NOOO!"

And Winry's head limped to the side, her neck broken.

"NOOO!" he screamed again!

Envy released her and she collapsed to the floor, like a pile of jelly.

He smiled thin and then turned to Ed, who was struggling against Al's binding spell, angry and sadful tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU, ENVY!" he yelled enraged.

"Another empty threat," he said. "I'm surprised at you, Ed, I thought you wouldn't learned they don't play with me. Now that she's outta the way, I can focus solely on you, and seeing as you're incapacitated, I'm pretty sure you won't put up too much of a fight. Time to end your troublesome existence for good!"

Ed gritted his teeth, and growled angry. Unable to move.

Envy approached him, ready to commit murder. "Come, come now, it'll all be over very quickly," he said. And his left arm morphed into a long, slender, metallic blade.

Envy raised the blade into the air above Ed's chest, with the blade point pointing down.

"I've been waiting for this moment for the longest time, Ed. Now it's your turn to die! Say hello to your Mother, she's waiting for you."

And Envy plunged the blade into Ed's chest, through his heart.

Ed heaved out one last breath.

And everything went black.


Elsewhere, Al screamed in horrid agony as his body burned in the ring of fire, and he became engulfed in flames!

To be continued