Guest: Errrr, multiple stabbings with a syringe -by a single man- being quicker than anyone in a group shooting the guy down? Ed doesn't have time to clap or more likely PUNCH? None of the hand- combat trained military could block a syringe after seing the attack coming? I'm sorry but this is not believable. Unless Igor ambushed the team 1 by 1, you would need a dart gun and multiple shooters. I like your story but this attack is putting me off. Igor went from human to a sort of a crazy ninja nurse on a blink and I don't think that was your goal. That being said, he hurt my boys so why don't we drop him in the sewers for a showdown with the ring serial killer? I'd bring popcorn.
Hello! You are completely right! In my haste, I messed up a few things and a lot wasn't clear in my writing, making the situation seem veru much augmented from how it was in my head. However, I've adjusted a few things and made a few changes to the chapter, so I really hope it makes more sense now!
It was all supposed to be so simple.
Injure the boy enough to weaken his defenses, send some agents to retrieve him, use whatever force necessary to make him cooperate and suddenly one of Amestris' greatest tools would be pinned against them.
As it turned out, he had miscalculated, hadn't acted fast enough or with enough force, and now the Amestrian military was on high alert, with Roy Mustang himself out for his head. Igor prided himself in being an excellent combatant and leader, one of Drachma's best- but even he didn't trust his odds against the man who could manipulate devastating amounts of fire with a snap of his fingertips.
No, he didn't quite fancy the idea of that.
Everything was becoming so bothersome. His men were weak, useless and incompetent- unable to overpower a mere child, and an injured one at that. He should have never entrusted any of them with a mission of such importance.
The conflict at the borders of Drachma and Amestris were really no secret, at least not to either country's military. Many have died on the outskirts of the land, ravished by bullets and artillery strikes or simply suffering the wrath of mother nature herself. The mountain storms never held much mercy.
Even if it hadn't escalated into a war quite yet, it was certainly brewing- and Igor was determined to win. For his country, his homeland, and for the glory of being the one to finally bring the great country of Amestris down to rubble and ashes.
His mother always said he had great dreams, no matter how morbid they may be.
The Drachman military was vast to say the least, with every healthy man in the country being obligated to join at the age of 18. Even if most of them were cowards and plagued with idiocy, it was plain onerous to try and be noticed or approved of by the higher ups, let alone promoted. It had taken him 35 long years to make his way up to Major-General, but he wasn't finished yet. He would make it to the top even if it was the last thing he would do.
With everyone he loved gone, his mother, his wife, his son- all wiped from reality so painfully sudden with nothing left but a worn out photo and tire marks on the pavement to prove their existence. Nowadays, he had nothing else to live for except the riveting violence that could relieve him of regret and guilt for even just a moment. There's no time to dwell on heartache when your finger rests on the trigger, when the lives of many rest in your bloodstained hands. He was nothing more than an empty shell of who he once was, his resolve and morals long since carved away by the military he served and his soul having died along with his family.
He feared no God but himself, and he loved his fallen family more than he cared about the lives of others. If they couldn't live, what the hell gave everyone else the right.
Life wasn't fair or merciful, nor was he.
He would have the Fullmetal Alchemist, and he would have Amestris, and he would never relent.
He had learned at a very early age that others could never be trusted, and if he wanted something to be done right, he would simply have to do it himself.
Ed had finally fallen into a routine- wake up, scoot himself across the floor to the bathroom and then down the stairs, have Mustang yell at him for doing so instead of asking for help, argue with Mustang before being scooped up by the man and plopped onto the couch with orders to 'sit' and 'stay', eat breakfast on said couch, spend the day reading with occasional bursts of annoying Mustang, badger Hughes for updates whenever he came to visit, talk to Al whenever he wasn't at the library about stone developments and repeat the process of read, eat, sleep, and annoy until it was time for him to go to bed.
He had admittedly hit a bit of a rough patch for a few days, feeling sorry for himself while also being so angry that he had been reduced to an invalid that he felt like screaming into the void, but then Hughes brought ice cream and they all had fun and he realized that everything wasn't as bad as he thought, and he would never make any progress of the stone if he was too busy sulking to study.
So now, his biggest problem was that he was damn bored.
Even though all of his stitches had been removed, most of his bruises had faded out to almost nothing, and even the broken bones were much less troublesome, no one would let him move.
Thus, he was stuck on the couch still, and he was completely bored out of his mind, sitting on the couch upside down with his legs hung over the back and arms at his sides because he was suddenly struck with the thought that maybe everything would be less stodgy and lifeless if it was upside down.
It wasn't. In fact, all he got out of it was another lecture from Mustang's irritating ass which he drowned out with wondering whether or not he would notice if the man were to be replaced by an unnaturally large and loud mosquito. He decided he would never know the difference.
Everything had been so normal.
So painfully the same as every other worthless day that he had never seen it coming, none of them had.
When there had been a knock at the door, it was unanimously assumed that it was either Hughes or Alphonse coming to check up on everything, it had to be, there were guards and there was protection and it was all supposed to be safe.
He would never forget the muted shock and horror in the Colonel's eyes when the door was swung open, he would never forget how afraid he looked as he was immediately stabbed in the neck with a long and thin syringe filled with clear fluid, his mouth open in a voiceless scream and his hand poised to snap as he crumbled to the floor, and he would never forget how the man had fruitlessly attempted to crawl over to Ed, his eyes wide with more fear he had ever seen in the usually calm and collected man's eyes, at least before they clouded over with sleep and finally fell shut.
At the sound of the commotion, Hawkeye came running in from the kitchen where she had been making coffee, one hand held cautiously out in front of her with the other plastered against the gun on her hip. Upon seeing the towering man in the doorway, she immediately pulled the handgun and aimed, yelling out for the rest of the team who were scattered in various places around the house.
Ed could only watch as she fired three immediate shots towards the strange shadowy figure, each one narrowly missing the agile man and instead lodging themselves in the drywall behind him.
In the throes of it all, the masked man had thrown a small metallic ballball the size of a grapefruit into the centre of the room.
It took only a split second for Ed to realize what it was, and by the time he figured it out, it was too late for him to run.
Swallowing down the sense of urgency welling in his gut, he managed to throw himself to the ground and shield his head with his hands, inching himself towards the wall in a vain attempt at protecting himself from the impending explosion.
He was going to die.
They were all going to die.
They would all be blown to pieces.
He would leave be leaving Al behind.
No one would recognize their bodies.
God, I'm so sorry.
Except, if never came.
Peaking an eye open, he could see Hawkeye pressing herself to the floor in a similar fashion as him, bewilderment overflowing in her pinched expression.
Just as he was about to voice his confusion or simply throw himself at the man, his unspoken questions were answered with a high pitched hissing noise coming from the canister on the floor as it suddenly began spilling out copious amounts of a milky white gas that began filling the air.
Then Hawkeye began coughing.
Then he began coughing.
And all of a sudden and all at once, everything within him burned like live embers, his lungs curling like the edges of paper when touched by flame, tears pouring down his face leaving tracks of acid on his cheeks.
There were distant sounds of gunshots, but
he could barely hear them over the sounds of his wheezing and choking- barely registering them at all through his haze of pain.
Everyone from the team had immediately rushed over after hearing Hawkeye's cry for help, guns raised and trained on the man- but their hands fumbled with shock, and before they even had time to pull the trigger, they suffered the same fate as Hawkeye and Ed, choking on what felt like acid in it's gaseous state.
Is this what dying feels like?
It all happened so fast, so much so it was almost a blur and suddenly everyone who had any chance of protecting him was slumped in a careless pile on the floor, struggling for their lives, trying desperately just to get a breath in.
One minute everything was fine, he was safe, he was healing, hell, he was even having fun, and without any kind of warning or forethought, his entire fate and livelihood rested in his own trembling hands- the people he so naively thought invincible strewn across the hardwood with no chance of helping him in their states.
He had no chance of helping himself either.
There was no time to think, no time to act, no time to even slap his hands together and do a lazy transmutation to defend himself before he was struck with the feeling of being encased and eaten alive by fire.
As he weaking grasped at the floor, trying in vain to pull himself away from the tormenting gas filling every crook and crevice around him, he was staring into a pair of unseeing and lifeless blue eyes he could only vaguely make out through the gas mask the man wore.
He didn't have the time or the air to shout out profanities before he was being pinned against the ground, a single rough and calloused hand restrained his wrists over his head with the other burying a biting needle into his neck.
Struggling against the searing pain along with lack of oxygen, he had no chance in throwing the man off of him, but that didn't stop him from weakly thrashing in his hold anyway.
Heavily accented and crazed nothings were being spit out from underneath the tightly secured mask sparing him from the acrid air surrounding them, the only words Ed could make out being 'Drachma' and 'Fullmetal'.
It was only a moment before he felt whatever was in that syringe along with the tear gas in the air weighing heavily down on him, pulling him into a very much unwilling and restless sleep.
He didn't even have a moment to fear for his life.
He had been ignorant and naive to entertain the notion of safety- he had learned long ago the horrors of the world, and he had the scars to prove it.
Fate took pity on no one, and he had nearly forgotten that he was no exception.