"Riza," Roy whispered. There was no way she could have heard him, the distance too great and his plea too soft, but her eyes found him all the same, wide and in pain.

Lust twisted her wrist like a maiden twirling a rose, screwing her claws into Riza's flesh. She bit back a cry, grinding her teeth against the onslaught and only made a tremulous whimper to what must have been agony. The sound went straight to Roy's gut, and he bit back his own cry. It would fall on deaf ears.

This woman thrived on weakness. Roy wouldn't be giving her the satisfaction.

"Now what?" Roy asked, his voice barely more than a snarl.

Lust's full lips pulled into a deadly smile as she leaned around her human shield. "Now you die, Colonel. But don't worry, your brave Lieutenant will be right behind you."

Then, Hughes fell from the sky.

His arms were extended, black coat billowing in the wind like some sort of avenging angel. It happened so fast that Roy barely registered the way he brought his dagger across Lust's wrist from above, severing it completely from her arm. In the same motion, he wrapped his other arm around Riza, pulling her down with him as he fell in between the brick building and the fire escape, falling through the lid of the dumpster below with a heavy thud.

Lust made a sound that was more snarl than scream. Her hand regenerated fast, flesh, bone and muscle filling in where empty air had been, and she turned her murderous eyes on Roy.

"Enough!" she spat, claws cutting through the night, straight for his head.

Roy braced himself, raising a hand to snap.

It would be too little too late.

And then Ed fell from the sky right into Lust.

XxXxX

To say Ed had a plan would be a bit generous.

A plan involved close attention to detail, weighing risks, formulating responses, predicting probable outcomes.

What Ed had was, at best, a hunch, and he wasn't all that thrilled about potentially being right.

But what Ed hadn't quite predicted was how painful the experience would be. Like catching your consciousness on a sawmill.

Lust's body felt like falling into chaos. Everything was pain and panic, hurt and hate, a burning desire that seared like hot coals and raked across his consciousness like claws. There was a hunger, a yearning, so aching and so deep, unlike anything Ed had ever experienced before, and even as he grappled with her consciousness it felt like his own spirit was being pulled apart into tiny fragments, splintering into shards of himself.

It wasn't pleasant. And as he'd predicted, she wasn't going to throw him out.

She couldn't, because the Philosopher's Stone that made up the very core of her being drew his soul toward it like a magnet, and since he wasn't willing to be absorbed it proceeded to shred his soul like confetti.

He wouldn't last very long at this rate.

It was a force of will to stay Lust's hand, halting her claws mere inches from Mustang's eyes. His vision flickered in and out like a bad radio signal, and Lust's hand spasmed under his control, the tip of one claw raking against Mustang's cheekbone and drawing a line of blood.

"Do it," he hissed, his voice Lust's and his mind spinning.

From up the steps, Mustang stared at him, eyes wide. "Ed?"

"Torch her!"

"What about you?!"

You!

The voice from inside startled him. It wasn't a question. It was more like an accusation, and she surged forward with more power than Ed was ready for. She forced his consciousness aside and down, where the Stone tore at him with renewed force, the heat searing, and every ghostly nerve singing with agony. Like drowning men fighting in stormy waters, he surged up, forcing her back down, using her consciousness as a buffer between him and the Stone.

He opened Lust's mouth, the entire frame of her shuddering with the internal struggle. "I can't hold her long!" Her voice shook under his control, and he bit her tongue, tasting dust instead of blood. Their shared mouth sparked red. "Do it!" The consequences of him being unable to hold her back were fairly dire; she would go on to slaughter Mustang, then Hughes and Hawkeye if he didn't. But if Ed died by Mustang's fire, theoretically he'd be sent back to Truth.

If she overtook him, he wouldn't be thrown out. He'd be absorbed into the Stone.

But yeah, he knew what he was doing.

Mustang looked torn, his hand hovering, posed to snap but eyes wide and scared. Of all the times for the idiot to grow a conscience.

Ed didn't have the time or the ability to explain properly. Even as he tried, Lust rushed forward again, knocking his mind off balance, but he didn't let go. He floundered though, the Stone burning him and he hissed with Lust's voice. "Mustang," he gasped, and it might have come out more of a sob. He tried to move, but Lust was fighting him, and it took all of his effort just to speak. "Kill her or she'll kill me!"

The wavering in Mustang's eyes stilled. The fear was still there, but he clenched his jaw, afraid but back in control. He raised his hand and snapped.

Ed would have liked to think he had experienced enough pain in his life to be able to form an accurate rating system. So, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being automail connection, he'd say having his soul shredded while the body he possessed was set on fire ranked about a fifteen.

Yeah, Ed had all the fun.

He and Lust both screamed as Mustang burned them alive.

XxXxX

As much as Roy wanted Lust to suffer a few minutes ago, now he wanted nothing more than to make her death as quick and painless as possible. Not for her, but for Ed.

Roy didn't understand what was happening. He didn't understand how, after what he'd seen, Hughes could be alive. He didn't understand how Ed's soul had been gone one minute, and back the next. He didn't know how Ed survived Hughes' death, nor how he planned to survive Lusts'.

But he trusted Edward Elric. Maybe he would jump out at the last moment, or maybe there was some other metaphysical answer Roy couldn't grasp. The kid knew things, things Roy couldn't even begin to fathom, and he must have a plan.

Roy prayed Ed had a plan.

The homunculus looked like she was shaking apart, every move more of a spasm, lips parted in a scream as Ed held her body hostage and Roy sent wave after wave of flame to engulf her. Her body sparked and healed, but Roy just removed her flesh all over again.

He just had to burn up her Philosopher's Stone. That's what Ed had said. If he forced her to use it up, she would die and Ed would be safe.

But what that would mean for Ed, Roy didn't know. He hoped more than anything that Ed couldn't feel the half of it, even as he sent a bolt of flame into her open mouth, down into her lungs, blowing away half of her chest from the inside-out.

She stopped screaming for a bit after that.

The next spark of red seemed to take longer, but he didn't give her the chance to recover. Her torso healed and closed and he blew her apart again, this time from the side. Her claws got close, then veered off to the side to shred the metal stairs behind him, Ed clearly saving his life yet again.

The steps under his feet shuddered and dropped a few inches. He grabbed the railing as it sank, suddenly aware of the damage her flailing attacks and the heat of his flames were doing to the fire escape.

It was about to collapse.

He had to end this quickly. Despite the precise aim of his blows, the metal under Lust's feet was heating, warping under the assault, melting into molten slag and dripping down into the alleyway below. Even as he thought it, one of Lust's feet slipped into the soft metal. Roy wasn't sure who was in control of the body when it screamed in pain as the hot iron caught the hem of her dress on fire, the flames travelling up her legs.

He hoped it was Lust.

More fire, more claws that seemed to miraculously pierce anything but him. The fire escape gave another alarming shudder, the acrid scent of burning metal and smoke searing the back of his tongue, cloying in his throat. He coughed, snapping again. Just how much power was left in her Stone? Surely she was almost dead?

The fire escape lurched to the side, pulling away from the building with an angry shriek. Both Roy and Lust staggered, slamming against the railings.

"Roy!" Maes screamed from below. "Get out of there!"

Roy stumbled back up the first flight of stairs, but he was far too late.

With one final scream, the whole thing wrenched away from the building and they were falling.

Time seemed to slow, like the mind's last-ditch effort to savor a final moment. Wind whipped Roy's hair as they fell, his heart sliding up into his throat and he looked at Lust, mere feet away. She clung to the railing just like him as they fell backward into the darkness, and when Roy looked at her face he saw Ed, eyes wide and as frightened as Roy felt. Then the lines of her face hardened, and Roy couldn't tell if it was resolve or Lust, but her hand slipped behind her back even as one gripped the railing, and Roy didn't have the time to think about it.

Roy swung his legs through the rails to the outside of the fire escape, coming out on top a beat before it slammed into the ground.

Metal shrieked, twisting, shredding the earth and Roy's body with it. Roy cried out as his injured body smashed against the metal stairs, his hip screaming, vision bleached white, ears ringing as pain sang through his body.

He wasn't sure how long he lied there, unmoving, twisted on the metal staircase like a corpse, the night sky and the buildings towering over him swirling, making dreamlike patterns amid smoke and glowing flames.

It was kind of pretty.

"Roy!"

Roy flinched, suddenly aware of Hughes' bespectacled face in his field of vision, registering his hand on his shoulder a moment after that.

"Roy, come on," Hughes said, clothes and hands smeared with blood, fear and fire reflected in eyes. There was a tightness in his voice that Roy didn't quite understand. Did something happen?

Roy looked to his left, not quite sure why but freezing when he saw Lust.

She lay on the wreckage, one arm pinned behind her twisted body, cooling metal wrapped, splattered against her flesh and clothes, her dress smoldering in places, burning in others. Fire ate away at her middle as her Stone sparked and healed, but it was slow, delayed, half as good as it should have been.

And through her chest, her own claws jutted from her ribs like a grisly alter, and grasped in their tips, a glowing red stone attached to her by a few thin black ropes of tissue, still sparking, still trying to heal the body that Roy hoped was beyond saving.

Hughes helped him stand, his body firmly telling him it was a bad idea, but he couldn't just sit there while Lust was dying.

While Ed was dying.

He stumbled closer, unsure what to do, a pit forming in his stomach that had nothing to do with physical pain.

Violet eyes blinked lazily at the sky, unfocused and dim. "I hate losing," she said quietly, and Roy knew it was Lust talking.

She began to disintegrate, her body turning to dust at the edges, blowing away on the night breeze between fiery embers, dissipating like mist.

"And it wasn't even at the hands of a man like you, but a child," she murmured, skin chipping away, fracturing, crumbling. She was half gone now.

But where was Ed?

"Ed?" he asked aloud, like that would call him forward, out of her body.

Her mouth twisted, even as her flesh completely disappeared and only black sinew and bone remaining. Roy could only tell it was supposed to be a smile by the way her muscles pulled, skeletal grin widening. "The boy is being swallowed by the Stone as we speak. I'm afraid neither of us will be here much longer."

Roy didn't know if it was the right thing to do, but he snapped his fingers, completely severing her link to the Stone.

With a sigh, she dissolved into the darkness and was gone, the Stone following suit a moment later, and Roy was left staring at the gnarled ruins of a half-melted fire escape.

Roy stared hard at the empty space. Ed had to be there, someway, somehow. He was a ghost, maybe he'd just sunken into the debris, his transparency difficult to see in the fading glow of the dying fires that dotted the alleyway and the rooftop.

And Roy stared even as someone hobble up beside him. He thought he could hear the familiar clanking of armor and some panicked babblings. Someone may have been talking to him, but he wasn't in a place to listen.

Roy needed to focus. His men were hurt, and the military would be here any moment. He needed to take charge, give orders, to lead.

Even as he told himself that, he collapsed to the ground, ignoring the outcry from his ruined hip and the hand that found its way to his shoulder. He leaned forward and waited.

He waited for Ed to come back.

That could have gone worse . . .? Right? :D

For all the pain this chapter was to write, I feel like it didn't turn out too bad :'D Hopefully. Action scenes are not my cup of tea, but I KEEP PUTTING THEM IN EVERY FIC so really, it's my own fault.

Shout out to mildly-nerdy, who OWES ME A FIC TOMORROW 3

And finally, an APPLIANCE UPDATE THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR: did you know that refrigerators are a hot commodity right now? Because I didn't. Ordered a new one that was similar to my old one, and they're like, yeah, it'll be there in two weeks, and then I called them again to be sure, and they're like, YEP, it'll be there Monday!

And then they called Monday and said sorry, there's a fridge shortage, it'll be late September.

And I'm just like . . . ;v; Okay.

So I bought this cute tiny little dorm refrigerator, and it's not much, but at least it'll keep ice for me xD Until September.

Keep your appliances safe, people.

Drop a review if you have the time, and I'll see you next chapter :)

God Bless,

-RainFlame