Hellfire
Ed stoically marched forward. He could feel warm sunlight on his face. It was such a contrast to the fake flickering lights he remembered seeing. Or the piercing white of the Enlightenment Room (don't take me back there- please).
This sunlight was gentle. There was no other way he could describe it. A light that soothed his aching limbs and made him want to smile. The thinnest of smiles, but for him it was monumental.
Each step he took was monolithic. He had to remind himself where he was, what he was doing and that he was safe and he was not going to be hurt.
To have survived such vicious torture and be walking around so soon after having a lifetime's worth of trauma dumped on his shoulders was something truly amazing. Not that Ed knew, but the members of Viola Cadence's squadron and even Crimson's troops glanced at the angry crippled boy determined to move forward. No holding onto the past (don't touch me only Al).
Al's arm wrapped in his acted as an anchor, grounding him and silently guiding him. Brothers protecting each other.
Small steps. Closer and closer.
The Crimson Alchemist and the Crystal Alchemist led their troupe to the town centre. Ed could not see but he had heard enough chatter. He recognised the familiar cobbles beneath his feet and the way his shoes clunked against them; the slow rush of the fountain spray.
Sunlight. Fountain. Cobbles. These were real. He was out in the world and he wasn't trapped in the dark. This was his reality. He was ok.
He breathed in the smell of freshly baking bread.
But the town itself was quiet.
Something about a military patrol. Something about staying inside.
Why did Ed never pay attention to the details that mattered you bad boy.
Bad?
No… not bad. He was good. He was ok. It was all good.
Breathe. Ed had to follow along. Follow the plan.
Hope that the bastard Colonel and the others were ok. He had to trust them. He had lived his whole life as a child protecting what had mattered to him with his own bare hands and now he was approaching adulthood and the... Turinene incident had happened, he had become vulnerable. Relying on others. Dependent. Needed others to survive like a parasite.
He was pathetic.
-Your body may have been healed but your mind is rotting.-
I'm ok. I'm ok. You're not real.
-As we keep reminding you, we are very much real. As are your memories. You cannot hope to erase them from your mind. Move on and wipe a blank slate. If you do that you'll become nothing. Edward Elric, Hero of the People, lost to history.-
-You can feel yourself slipping. You thought you were fine. You were doing ok. But it isn't that easy. It is never that easy.-
Just you wait and see. I'm not losing my mind, I'm not losing anything or anyone else!
-We're waiting.-
…
"Fullmetal!"
Where? What? Who had hurt Al he would fucking kill them.
"Fullmetal, I wondered if I could have a word with you," the voice belonged to Crimson (not Kimblee, he couldn't call him that. Suppress shove that shit in the closest he couldn't deal with that right now. He was getting better, he really was).
Oh.
Al's ok.
(I'm ok.)
"Yeah sure," Ed replied keeping his mind focused on his surroundings, leeching off the sounds and smells. More anchors. Not just Al. He had always been a greedy and ungrateful bastard.
"Something is going to happen here today," Crimson spoke in a hushed tone, "but it would be… unfortunate if any harm befell you or your dear brother."
"I won't let any harm come to Al," Ed hissed, body tense and lithe like a wildcat.
"Exactly why I'm here warning you. But you and your brother must remain alive. So when we give you the signal, you must be prepared to get out of this town."
Ed had never imagined hearing Crimson sound so desperate. He was the man who appeared to always be in control and suppress his urges until it came to fighting on the battlefield.
"You damn bastard, just tell me what's happening!" Ed was serious and felt desperation clawing up his throat. He had always had logic (and alchemy) at his forefront. But alchemy was the fucking shit that got him caught up in this mess and he would not dabble into it anytime soon.
(Move on, breathe again. And again and again. You cannot look back or your mind might get lost in the past. Cannot let that happen).
"Wait until we reach the town centre. It will all make sense. You're a smart boy, you'll figure it out," Crimson praised but his voice was laced with sarcasm.
"Don't call me little. I'm not a child, dammit," Ed could feel Al's hand warm up. His brother must have been blushing, embarrassed that the older Elric always had to have an opinion and take matters into his own hands. That had not changed.
But a lot had. A lot had fucking changed, had it not?
His foundations had been shaken apart. Crumbled.
Shaking?
He felt it before he heard it.
The very foundations of the earth were shaking, moving and churning with a force far more powerful than anything Ed had sensed before.
Even more powerful than the alchemic voltage.
A tectonic snake coiled below the ground, gaining strength and velocity as it went.
Velocity.
Speed in a direction.
Where was it going?
Upwards. Straight towards them.
Ed's automail trembled as the ground around him fell. Like into a sink hole. Minefield. Small pieces of cobblestone pounded into the ground like rain.
The snake had reached the surface. It had come to consume and consume and consume.
He could not suppress the nightmare.
He knew this was happening and it had happened and oh god.
Kimblee had come for him! He had come for his golden sunshine.
And he was not the type of man to take 'no' for an answer.
He fell.
He was thrown into darkness. The realm of uncertainty and gloom and…NoName.
~Underground, present time~
Kimblee talked. And he went on and on and on. He was lost in his own world, the world he crafted with his words. Would there be an end to it? Probably. Probably not.
Roy listened passively, his mind occupied, paying attention for the slightest opportunity to utilise his plan. He had obviously allowed himself to be captured but would Kimblee figure out how he planned to escape?
His plan would cause him pain but fuck it. After what he had been through and all the others too… this would be nothing. He focused on remembering the details he had glimpsed from Fullmetal and Al, scrutinising every detail. His plan had to be flawless. Nothing else. Or they were doomed to die.
He had had to disguise his sigh of relief to see Maes safe. He did not know what he would have done if Maes had been…
There was the distinct smell of death in the air. Roy had not had anything to eat recently; he couldn't stomach even soup right now. Roy knew. It was one of those unspoken facts. People had died in this room and he was not sure if their being alive was also a transient state. Like the elements.
Ice to water to gas. Sublimation. That is what happened to most of Kimblee's captors. Ice to gas directly. Straight from being alive to death.
-That's what happened to Fuery.-
Shut up.
But not to the Elric brother or to him and Maes. They had been melted.
Did being tortured count as sublimation? Your life is ended quickly but in a fucking brutal and painful way.
-You really are morbid.-
You don't understand. This isn't because I am morbid or I have any interest in torture. I want to make NoName pay for every fucking crime he has committed, for every sin he has trespassed.
-What of your own, Roy Mustang? Are you not a hypocrite for saying so?- His Shadow was curious and intrigued. Only Roy could outwit his own mind.
I am paying for my debts over a lifetime. But for this bastard- I have to take actions into my own hands. I will burn but this bastard with first.
-Hellfire, that's your response to this, how original.- His Shadow laughed weakly wondering how their vessel was so unoriginal.
He wasn't about to go against his values. He would kill to protect. And if this man continued what he was doing, there would be endless slaughter. His prey pile would become larger. When one tasted blood once, there would be no sating his thirst.
NoName was a predator.
Fuery's blood was on NoName's hands. Would he let Havoc and Hawkeye go? (brave fools for entering him into this crypt- skulls and bodies lining the walls- he may end up joining them soon).
There wasn't enough time. Waiting was the worst part especially when each second that passed increased their risk of failing exponentially.
Kimblee was reaching the end of his tale. Maes shifted- clearly the man had not heard this part of the story.
"After my family home had been burnt to cinders, there was only one thing that survived. Nothing else! But my mother had a garden and flowers she was ever so proud of. She won competitions with those flowers.
"Her prize flowers weren't roses or chrysanthemums or sunflowers. But these mutated daffodils. White ones. They survived through spring snows and the heavy rains. On and on they endured. A patch even survived the fire. Something doomed to die preciously holding onto life…
"Those are my white daffodils."
And Kimblee reached into his bag and drew out one of the notorious flowers.
"They are to remind my guests that life is a struggle, a battle and you have to be strong enough to overcome death's intoxicating touch…" Kimblee kissed the flower before lying in on the table.
"Now do not fear! I do not intend to kill you. I need you alive, Roy Mustang. I hope I made the right choice with Maes Hughes. It was a gamble, a risk I had to make! For Edward it was easy. He would protect his brother above all else. I was tempted to use the Lieutenant Hawkeye, but it seems you both have a mutual agreement about death- accepted and all. However, the Lieutenant Colonel here is a family man. One would argue that he has more to… live for. I would not make a choice as to who you had to save as that would be cruel…"
"Shut. The. Fuck. Up," the other voice in the room that was not Roy's contributed. Maes' gaze was deathly. He could make squinting look deadly.
People would not push the Flame Alchemist. They feared him after all the havoc he wrecked at Ishval and the way he had climbed up the ranks like stealing sweets from a child. The generals had thrown promotions at him like a dog being thrown a bone. And he was an obedient dog. He grovelled and caught every bone. He built up a collection. When he was ready, he had begun to give the bones back. Roy was not the only dog in the military; he was not the only individual who had sold his soul to the State- they all had, the one commonality that connected them, Private to Lieutenant to General. Their souls were worthless.
And the best soldiers had nothing to live for except the military.
Or that is what the higher ups believed when they kept promoting Roy.
But there was one other individual who climbed the ranks nearly as fast as he did. Without any alchemical talent or scientific merit.
This man didn't have nothing to live for. He had not completely sold his soul.
Maes Hughes, his equal, his closest friend, had everything to live for.
And for someone to torment his best friend, part of his adopted family would push Hughes beyond his limit. It happened rarely but Roy had seen it happen at one particular bar… Roy had had a break up… and this drunken fucker had started verbally insulting Roy telling him she was better off without him. Hughes punched the man in the gut.
While completely sober.
A cheque to the barkeep kept the incident quiet and under wraps. Hughes had been young and reckless (as had he). He wouldn't have risked ruining his reputation and more importantly lowering himself to the level of that drunken bastard.
He could make his point with words instead. Working behind the scenes.
Not that this situation had to be defined by logic. But Roy wouldn't let Maes do anything either of them would regret later. They were both emotional messes, a disaster. They had to save each other when the other needed it.
"Lieutenant Colonel, I did not expect to hear these profanities from you…" Kimblee looked mildly surprised. And pleased.
"Maes…" Mustang said with an edge of warning in his voice. Maes' eyes were all on Kimblee.
"You'd better expect than fucking this! You fucking bastard, claiming you have control of life and death? I won't let you hurt another fucking person for as long as I'm alive. And I swear to God, that will be for a long time yet! I've got a wife and kid to get some to," Maes spat at Kimblee's feet. The man instead looked at his shoes.
"I've had these shoes recently polished, you know," and NoName glanced not at Hughes, but directly at Roy, "emotions are finicky creatures. They require much energy to muster and to explain. But they provide the catalyst for one's actions. If the Lieutenant Colonel is feeling emotional, his pain response will be that much clearer and so you will be forced to feel that as well!
"I'm going to use you, Roy Mustang. And I will enjoy every second of it," Kimblee's expression had become neutral. And that was even more terrifying than the smiles and humour. Those were an act.
But the man was now serious. As if gears had shifted in his brain and he had become a completely different person. A man set on causing harm to Roy Mustang for causing him not to exist. To cause him to become nobody while his little brother had taken everything.
Roy Mustang had taken everything.
"Let's begin phase IV," the man muttered. Hughes stopped throwing insults instantly, rubbing his eyes as if realising too late what he had done.
"Roy…" Hughes looked at him.
Roy was prepared for this. He was prepared for the pain that was part of his plan. In this life, one had to take risks. And if he continued down this path, the chances of his family and friends living was highest. He wouldn't die on them.
But he would walk into the crypts without looking back.
And the world turned upside down.
With a clap of his hands, Kimblee stormed forward and as he did so the world became swamped with darkness. The lights switched off. The flickering of the light he had not noticed stopped. He became aware of the deathly silence. He could hear his shaky breaths.
This was it.
Roy activated the array with the second he had. Someone grabbed for him a moment later, yanking his arm and thus his whole body forwards. Any more force and they would have dislocated the shoulder from his joint.
He was bound to a chair, restraints secured tightly. The chair smelt of disinfectant, a sharp tang, an odour he was not expecting to find.
Keep waiting…patience...
Silence was terrifying. It was the time when the monsters could crawl out of the closest and from under the bed to reap havoc on their child victims. But he had sat up the whole night in the dark by himself many times. He had drunk himself to mindless oblivion when he had been caught in his perpetual night-time. Spending years alone with nothing by his Shadow for company made this nothing.
He used the silence to his advantage. While Kimblee prepared them for whatever fucking phase IV was, Roy would not waste this opportunity. He could not raise suspicion. He focused instead on his breathing, stilling his mind like when he performed complex alchemy. It was a method taught to him by the military to deal with torture should he be captured and interrogated by the enemy.
One of the few things the military had taught him well.
Roy watched a light flicker. A glowing ember appearing in the gloom. And its presence was familiar, comforting him. He stared at it for a second before the lights switched back on.
He could not lose his focus despite what he was seeing. But it took every nerve in his body to stop himself from thrashing out.
The ember was from a red-hot poker, a bloodied and filthy tool, held by Kimblee. His face had returned to its usual euphoric state.
"Let us see how your voltage results! Will you match my dear Edward or will you end up surpassing our little sunshine…" Kimblee's voice wandered, glancing at the ceiling as if he could see the Sun, far away from this room with the radio and decay and white daffodils.
"Will you do what it takes to survive, Lieutenant Colonel?" Kimblee asked before imbedding the poker into Maes' shoulder.
Together, as one, the two best friends spoke, "don't call him little!"
Two guards, silent and unmoving, sentinels to the madness, reached down to the radio equipment, twisting a couple of knobs before stepping away quickly.
Maes grit his teeth, body thrashing at the burning blister already rising from where NoName was pulling back the poster.
Roy wanted nothing more than to grab Hughes and drag them out of this Hell. But he needed the power of the alchemic voltage and he would take the risk. Hughes trusted him. The pain would be worth it, he promised. If only he could say-
But he had known Hughes long enough. They trusted each other. And this was living proof of that.
The radio was switched on. Machines whirled. Gears grinding. Maes' shouting became a blur. Flashes of alchemy and Kimblee Kimblee Kimblee collided together in his mind, throwing him into a wall.
The wall was the separation between him and the agony. The military had not only trained Mustang to enter the serene state of calm permitting him to tolerate the pain, they had also spent years mentally training their top officers, their best behaved dogs, into crafting their walls. As long as the wall did not fall and remained standing, the military's secrets would be safe and the soldiers would survive.
However, those walls would have to come down. He had been fighting this reality for too long.
He would fucking tear them down.
Roy shrieked into the depths of his consciousness: come on out!
-What are you planning, Mustang?- His Shadow questioned warily.
You're a part of me, so I'm fucking commanding you to pull your weight around here!
-And what would your command be, O mighty officer?-
Come and finish what you've wanted to.
Destroy me. Fucking break it! And he mentally threw a hand at his wall. Take it all!
-Willingly sacrificing your sanity? Who would have thought you to stoop so low, Mustang?- His Shadow gathered their forces, preparing for an attack. No time to waste.
I've known a time when there was nothing left to lose. Roy answered honestly.
The Shadow was satisfied with that answer.
-With pleasure. It has been an honour serving you- the Shadow said, surging forward, a charcoal storm cloud, hotter and faster than a pyroclastic surge, engulfing Roy.
He pictured two magnet poles coming to meet each other. Repelling, fighting each other. Him and his demons in this constant, laborious dance, each trying to maintain dominance. Equals, running circles, avoiding defeat-
Repel, repel, repel.
Destroy destroy destroy.
All that Roy was required to do was change his perspective. No more fighting. Surrendering. Falling below rock bottom. Below the surface of the ground, below Hell, was the core of alchemy's power. Tectonics, shifting terrestrial energies, felling mountains, building oceans, crafting from the realms of destruction-
Creation and destruction.
The Shadows bent on their passion to destroy. To take his foundations and break them down- break him down- until there was nothing left. Until he was the half-dead ghost, the last memory he had before he had tried to kill himself. He would raise his fist and punch and shatter the glass, shatter the illusion that he was dead or weak or broken.
Continue to destroy you fuckers!
Roy watched as they tore at him. Every ounce of his body screamed as lightning seared, his blood igniting and the screams tore out of him. Destroy, tear me apart, rip into my flesh and break me as you've been wanting to do. FUCKING DO IT.
Because I'll create something greater than the reactants.
He was the equivalency. His body had become the alchemic equation. He was being eaten alive. Energy was being churned into him. Enthalpy. Take in more energy, more more more.
Destroy me.
Like how you broke Ishval. They rose and the fucking child they slaved into producing- Ishval- will rise again stronger and prouder than she had been before she was knocked down. All you know is how to highjack death. Speed up the process. Catalysts for destruction.
But now it's my turn to show what I can do.
What was at the core of the earth?
The core, the true Centre of the circle. The philosophers had spent too long staring at the stars. Finding ways to ascend to the heavens and cheat death. To become immortal. They forgot to rely upon the ground they stood on, the core they could utilise.
For at the centre of the world were two ingredients.
The strongest foundations of this world.
Neither Heaven nor Hell.
Neither creation nor destruction. Neither life nor death.
But Flame and Metal.
Come to me.
Lend me your power. The world has forgotten. So many wrongs and injustices have happened.
If there is a God, please create something beautiful.
Energy rushed to his fingertips, crackling under the pressure- dazzling, menacing-
The remaining foundations in his mind crumbled but from the Centre, stronger pillars erected.
It was time for creation to reign. The Shadow had fulfilled its duty.
He was complete. Every damn breath that poured into his lungs like a river, every frantic beat of his heart, the electricity pulsing through his veins was a thousand times stronger than the feeble contraction built. The foundations laid down by Fuery and Fullmetal.
Kimblee had tampered with it; the instant he did, the device had become worthless.
He was stronger than this fucking alchemic voltage.
But even he was only half of the equation. If he was the equivalency, he needed something, someone to break the bounds of equivalent exchange.
It was only Flame. He needed Metal. Fullmetal.
Whole and complete and so fucking strong.
He was the conduit, the source of the rivers of energy he would manipulate into alchemy- he would burn the ground to ashes and rebuild with his own palms.
Never underestimate a caffeine-deprived alchemist.
He felt his transmutation from earlier have its effect. There was a mini explosion as the radio set. In his transmutation earlier, he had manipulated the air. If the gases came into contact with the electric current, it would cause the current to short circuit and small flames to be produced. Hopefully would be enough to damage the equipment if not stop it entirely.
Creation. He reached out with his senses. He was connected. He could hear their heartbeats; see the flames of the souls of those in Turinene. They were underground. Right near the centre, he hoped.
Perfect.
Fullmetal was not the only alchemist to be heralded a prodigy. Roy had just wanted to keep his secrets secret.
He was pretty fucking good at what he did.
He could barely register breaking free from the restraints, grabbing Maes away from NoName and beginning his ascent to the surface. Bolts of alchemic energy scattered around the room. Around the whole fucking network of tunnels below Turinene.
Break it down. You broke me down. Release. SEND THAT ENERGY OUT.
His mind was reeling.
That didn't matter.
Destroy and create. Do not hurt innocents. Protect. Guard.
Love.
BREAK THE DARKNESS. SMASH IT. I COMMAND YOU.
Roy screamed as he performed transmutation after transmutation, manipulating the air and earth like they were his children. He fashioned a stone dragon from the crumbling tunnels and debris and climbed upon its back, accelerating their ascent.
No more hesitating.
…
What could he say?
He had always been the dramatic bastard.
Literally Hellfire pretty much :'D Lesson learnt: never mess with an angry flame alchemist.
Working on the next chapter, it will be up before Christmas for sure. I'm determined folks, and very caffeinated.