Aaaaand I'm back! A little note before we start, I have gotten some reviews pointing out that I'm not very consistent with the syntactical preferences of my characters. In layman's term, I suck at writing dialogue in a British accent and vernacular. Which is a problem when the entirety of this story will consist of a bunch of British people and Ed.
So, rather than appear to be a racist, ignorant American, everybody now speaks with an American speech pattern. This way, I don't mess up and write something that turns out to be insultingly inaccurate, and I can stay consistent with my dialogue. Much less hair-pulling on my part, and any accidental stereotyping is avoided. Now, pseudo-ethnocentrism aside…
ON WITH THE STORY!
Edward Elric sat perched on a windowsill overlooking the silently moving figures below. They all were working in near-silence, passing crates of contraband along a smoothly efficient line to a shadowed corner of the warehouse. He half-turned towards his 'partner' in the mission, a tense-looking man in a standard-issue Unspeakable cloak.
"What are we doing again?"
The wizard sighed.
"We've traced a large number of Class A restricted goods to this complex. The kind of stuff that gets used in the nastier sorts of rituals. We're here to check the authenticity of the goods, and if possible get to the source. You'd have heard all of this if you had listened during the briefing instead of getting distracted every five seconds."
Right. Smugglers.
"Ok, then. Let's go get 'em."
"No, we have to wait until-"
Edward took a flying leap, sailing through the air to plant a carbon-steel left foot neatly on the back of an unsuspecting victim's skull. Springboarding off of the collapsing body, he sent a vicious right hook into the jaw of the nearest opponent, and then dropped low as spells flew overhead. The barrage stopped briefly as two enemies were hit by their comrades' spells, and Ed took the opportunity to explode out of his crouch and jump-kick another two criminals who were standing the closest.
Unspeakable John Doe watched the carnage unfold below, as his assigned trainee systematically tore into the now-alert smugglers. He closed his eyes a moment to compose himself, and then returned to the situation.
"…Or we could just fight our way in."
He snapped off three bludgeoning hexes in quick succession, bowling over a small group that was gaining some cohesion. Between his sniping and Ed's liberal application of blunt-force trauma, everyone in the room was quickly incapacitated.
Dropping down among the groaning criminals, Doe marched up to a grinning Ed.
"What the hell did you think you were doing? We didn't need to fight them, did you even listen to anything I told you? You should have waited until the sleep…ward…activated…"
The Operative slowed down as his eyes widened in realization. And then, right on cue, the aforementioned ward sprang to life, sending all of the warehouse's inhabitants to sleep.
Except for Pride, who came awake cheerful from the acts of violence committed on the premises minutes earlier. Striding over to Doe, he leaned down, grabbed a fistful of the dozing wizard's robes, and backhanded the uptight man across the face.
Hard.
Doe's eyes snapped open, still cloudy under the effects of the ward, before brightening briefly in recognition. A counterspell later and he was on his feet, gingerly rubbing the red mark on his face.
"Sweet Merlin, that hurt."
He glanced over at the innocently grinning Homunculus.
"Weren't your eyes yellow before?"
The smile didn't even waver.
"Yes."
Briefly making a mental note for the mission report, he turned back to the job at hand. Cracking open the nearest sealed crate, he took a step back as a large number of bones, teeth, and claws spilled out, clattering on the concrete floor. Doe reached down and held up a wickedly curved talon.
"Yep. This the real deal alright. Which, of course, just made our job ten times harder."
He pointed his wand at the nearest unconscious body.
"Ennervate."
Glancing sideways at his still-giddy partner, he pointed at the slowly recovering smuggler.
"See that? That is how you wake somebody up."
The grin widened.
"Oh, but I don't know that spell."
Doe closed his eyes, sighed, and decided to ask what spells his assignee did know later.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
Twisting back to the confused criminal, Doe reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out a small vial of Veritaserum. Three rather forcibly applied drops later and their captive was spilling everything he knew.
"We just pass the crates on! I don't even know what's in them, I swear!"
The leering thing just behind his interrogator might have kept him a little more lucid than a Truth Potion generally would have allowed, but a little encouragement went a long way.
The Unspeakable narrowed his eyes, and then flicked off a stupefy at the terrified man. A few slightly unauthorized portkeys later and all the smugglers were shipped off to the Aurors for processing. He then turned to face his partner, who had not moved a muscle the entire time. As the last portkey disappeared with a rush of displaced air, Pride spoke up.
"So, now what?"
"Now, we report back, and then try to find out where the goods were coming from."
"And stop them?"
"Of course."
Pride walked slowly over to the pile of contraband and hefted a feline skull.
"So," he began idly. "What kind of dark, scary rituals use…" he trailed off, inspecting the rather large feline bones. Picking another up, he experimentally fitted the two together.
"Immature nundu skeletons. And these are the kind that nobody in the right mind would do, as they involve human sacrifice and acts of self-maiming."
Doe received a confused frown.
"So why do they do it?"
"Because the benefits usually outweigh the price. Extended youth, increased power, strength, the works. And because by the time people are at this level, the magic's taken enough of their sanity for them to not give a damn about the costs."
"Ah."
It was really rather astounding, the lack of knowledge Elric sometimes displayed about these things. The Unspeakables never recruited the sheltered types, and he had obviously seen a good deal of combat before signing up, so his ignorance of the general insanity of Dark wizards was rather puzzling.
He shrugged, put the questions aside, and pulled out a mirror. Glancing once at his partner to make sure he hadn't wandered off, he tapped the surface of the glass with his wand.
He had a report to give.
"Good work. Given the fact that you're already at the scene, I leave it to you and Operative Elric to trace the source of the goods."
Doe did a double-take.
"Sir? You did hear the list of the contra-"
"Nundu bones, yes. Which I am aware means a more organized enemy than we anticipated. And we need to shut it down now, Doe."
"B-But just the recruit and I? I'll be wasting all my time making sure he doesn't get himself killed!"
"Oh," The Unspeakable on the other end of the connection chuckled. "You won't need to worry about that. And there is a team of Operatives on standby for when you do find the source. We just need you to look."
Doe sighed.
"Remember, you were assigned to him for a reason. That reason is that you're the one who is most capable of putting up with the newbie's bullshit, and from what we've seen of him, this one's got it in spades."
"Fine. But I want a goddamn vacation when all this is over."
He swiped his wand across the image and the mirror cleared. He turned back to see that his partner had reconstructed several of the skeletons of the apex magical predator and was busily posing them in an epic battle to the re-death.
Despite himself, Doe had to admit it looked pretty damn cool. And then shook himself. He was the responsible one here.
"Alright, new orders in from Headquarters. We need to find the suppliers so a full team can move in and put a stop to the whole thing."
He looked askance at a larger specimen that was in the act of pouncing, front paws already off the ground. It seemed to be glaring down at him, fangs bared and front limbs ready to smash him into a pulp. He glanced sideways where Elric was fitting the skull of another, but found himself unwilling to turn his back on the nundu.
"If I might ask, why did you feel the need to rebuild them?"
The morbid sculptor beamed at his supposed instructor.
"You were busy, I was bored. So, do you have a plan?"
"We wait for somebody to arrive with another shipment, and then we trace the portkey."
"And how do we do that?"
"I cast a ward that reads all the incoming Portkeys. Next time a shipment gets here, we catch the one who brings the goods in, and if he doesn't have a return Portkey on him we make our own."
"Neat."
Doe hesitated, and then decided that was about as good as he was going to get in terms of acknowledgement. He raised his wand and started casting.
It had taken an entire week of waiting for the next set of contraband to arrive. Seven days of cheap takeout and trying to find somewhere more comfortable to sit while on watch. One hundred and sixty-eight hours of keeping an eye on his attention-deficit trainee who seemed to know the exact definition of respect, if only to be able to flaunt it in as many ways possible. Who was also an insomniac who apparently enjoyed arguing with himself in the small hours of the morning. Who, sometimes, when just in the corner of his vision, suddenly became larger and darker and had a smile that was just a little too wide.
It was safe to say that when the wards finally registered an incoming signal, Unspeakable John Doe nearly cried with relief. Finally, something to break the uneasy monotony that had been eroding his sanity!
It was, unfortunately, over in an instant. A single stunning spell to the surprised man's face, and the next moment they had a location, a list of drop-offs, and the return portkey. A portkey—with convict attached—to the Aurors, a report sent back to the Department of Mysteries, and they were finished.
Elric, it seemed, was unsatisfied.
"Do we really have to leave now?" he whined, with all the maturity of a ten year old.
"Yes." For the fifth time.
"Fine." Oh thank Merlin he was finally giving in.
"But first," he gestured back towards where the skeletal nundus were still frozen in place.
"I want you to shrink a couple of those for me."
He should have questioned it. He really should have. But with the overall lack of potential for anything dark, foreboding imaginings aside, and the fact that Doe was simply finished and very much ready for his vacation already, he simply waved his wand and cast the goddamn shrinking spells.
Fermier regarded his protégée with an inscrutable expression.
"You just arrived back from a week-and-a-half-long anti-smuggling mission, and it tends to be normal for long-term missions to be stressful."
Edward tried his best to maintain his composure under the stare. It was really quite unnerving. And Fermier always managed to tilt his head just right to make the light bounce off of his glasses, rendering them opaque.
"What I do want to know, however, is why immediately after returning, one of our best men in Operations made use of every single one of the vacation days he had built up over fifteen years of work with the Unspeakables."
Ed fidgeted some more, before mumbling something quickly under his breath.
"Come again?"
"…I got bored after the second day and let Pride out a bit to mess with him."
Fermier's expression did not change.
"And this is the same Pride who is the self-admitted egomaniac? The one whose favorite word seems to waver between evisceration and impale? Who is the driving force behind that most delightful little Napoleon Complex of yours? To be honest, by the medical average you aren't even that sh-"
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT THAT HE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO WIN A FIGHT WITH AN ANT AND IF HE EVER TRIED TO HIDE IT WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO FIND HIM BECASE HE'S A FLEA SIZED ULTRA—"
Fermier pocketed his wand.
"Silencing spells are so useful, don't you think? Now, I want you to take three… deeeeep… breaths, and think about the impacts of letting the voices in your head do your thinking for you." Fermier said soothingly, mocking the still wildly gesticulating alchemist.
Ed stopped, frowned in concentration for a moment, and then brightened.
"There. Ha! No more magic getting the one-up on me! I'll just eat-"
He was stopped a second time, this time not by a silencing spell but by a banishing charm point-blank in his face. His head snapped back so quickly his neck gave an audible pop, and as the rest of his body followed suit he was flung backwards into the opposite wall. He lay there motionless for a moment, red lightning playing around his head and spine. When the sparks died down, he picked himself back up with a well-worn surly expression. Fermier was twirling his wand in between his fingers, still watching him.
"Do you know how the Philosopher's Stone works?"
The question caught him rather by surprise. After all, he'd spent every day since he was twelve chasing the object in question. He recited the passage straight from Marcoh's cookbook. That and it had very little to do with the previous conversation.
"An extremely strong energy-storing compound can be formed using highly complex alchemic processes involving the sacrifice of the souls of the living and the right geological locations. The souls are the main ingredient that helps keep the entire solution stable, as well as providing a massive amount of energy. The old man Flamel said that he made his using magical creatures or some such shit, but I assume the mechanics are the same. Since any given Philosopher's Stone is able to contain a set amount of power, power can be replaced through the application of raw energy such as your magic." He didn't need to even take a breath throughout the whole thing. Hey, there were perks to not needing oxygen.
Fermier's lips quirked in what could have possibly been a smile. Of superiority, of course.
"A simple definition. Your observation, however, falls short when you come to magic."
Ed sat on the floor. He recognized the lecture voice from every professor he'd ever had to butter up for a bit of info on his legendary goal. Not that any of them had had anything useful to tell him that he hadn't heard before.
"Magic as a form of energy falls into two categories. The first, as you just experienced, is active, or live magic. It already has a form and a purpose. You couldn't absorb it into your little battery any more than if you tried to swallow fire. Live magic is what you see in cutting curses, fire hexes, the Killing Curse, that sort of thing. Passive magic, on the other hand, is stored magic. It simply sits and waits to be given a shape. That's how wards are charged, things like a Body-Binding spell stay, and Dark spells resist normal healing techniques. Most lasting spells use a combination of the two, providing a charge of passive magic for the active magic of the spell effect to feed on. You can only drain the passive magic. It's in a form that converts to your alchemic energy quite easily, as they operate on the same fundamental principles. I am telling you this so that the next time throws a Decapitation Curse at you, you don't stand there like an idiot trying to drain the thing."
…That had been a useful lecture. Useful.
"…Because I doubt you'd be able to get rid of the healing prevention effects without a head to operate with."
Very useful.
Ed summed it up very quickly.
"So, no eating the cutting, killing, or fire spells."
Fermier looked at him for a moment.
"Yes. You know what you need? You need a hobby. Something to do between missions, something not involving extended conversations with somebody who's basically yourself. Your friend seems to have reduced your intellect."
Ed arched an eyebrow.
"And what do you suggest?"
The scientist shrugged.
"For a start, given your current employment, I suggest dueling."
Standing across from Fermier in the large, empty room, Ed felt distinctly less confident than he had back in the small lab room. Sure, a fight was great in theory, until he recalled exactly how all of his previous ones had gone.
"Oh, suck it up. Every one of those bitches who beat us is going to pay, starting with this one."
Pride's cocky remarks were not helping. The wizard standing across from them counted off the start of the fight.
"Three. Two. One. Reducto-Stupefy-Bombarda-Ventus."
Ed was allowed all of half a second of shock before the first of the spells made its way directly in front of him. Twisting out of the way, he let it impact some distance away, blowing chunks out of the wall. The red light of the stunner was avoided in a similar fashion. However, he was forced to backpedal quickly when the explosive curse hit the floor in front of him and did what it did best, showering him with dust and shrapnel. The final spell sent the entire cloud of debris straight at him, rock shards and dust swirling together in a cloud of impending pain.
He clapped, reached, and a shield diverted the projectiles. Once the clattering died down and the dust cleared, Fermier resumed the assault.
"Reducto. Reducto. Reducto, Reducto, ReductoReductoReductoReducto-"
And his cover was quickly being reduced to rubble. Clapping again, Ed sent the entire slab of earth shooting forwards, dashing behind it and transmuting a pair of blades as he did so. The stone down here was abundant in various metals.
His headlong rush was checked when his cover suddenly flew upwards and he came face to face with his opponent.
"Hello."
The rather large rock came crashing back down, even as Ed lunged forwards to slice at his opponent's wand arm. He knew for a fact from several weeks in the man's company silly things like lacerations took only half a minute's work to fix.
What had been at one point a quarter-ton slab of granite smashed onto the floor of the arena directly behind the both of them as Fermier's spell dropped. They both were sent tumbling away, pelted with sharp rock. Ed, however, was quicker to recover, and as Fermier was staggering upright, he made his move.
Fermier froze when he felt the cold steel on either of his shoulders. Bringing his eyes upwards, he saw the two transmuted swords crossed in front of his neck, one twitch away from a gratuitously bloody death. No point-blank spellcasting here.
"Well. I suppose you win."
The swords were pulled back, and transmuted into the ground it had come from. Edward had a look of confusion on his face.
"Why was it so easy, though?"
Fermier chuckled.
"Well, first off, the first time we fought, I had every advantage imaginable. A narrow hallway, little dodging room, and a counter for your shadow trick. Whereas here, in an actual arena, you have plenty of room, the ability to transmute whatever you like, and the chance to assess my capabilities. That and I am a researcher. It has been years since I've been on active assignment, and exerting myself as much as you do is rather new. You'll find that outside of our organization, most wizards are even less physically capable than me."
Pride was smug.
"He just all but admitted we lost to him through bad luck. Ha! And we won this time!"
"…I will, of course, want to have these duels more often. I need to get back in shape, if I lost this quickly."
With the sound of Pride's urging in the background, Ed readily agreed. After all, payback was payback, and the fight was incredibly cathartic. And before he forgot…
"Now, there was something I wanted to ask you about magical animation."
Chapter 12! Within a month, too! I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the world shall continue existing, despite all opinions to the contrary. The bad news is that with February drawing to a close, outdoor track season is starting up! For those of you who were around when this fic first started, you know what that means! I will have less time to devote to writing, and so updates will be less consistent. Please bear with/don't murder me. My little spiel on magic is my own personal headcanon, following the lines that magic is energy that is molded for effect. It works, it makes no mind-shattering alterations to the universe, and unless there are any serious flaws in it, I'll stick to it.
Questions? Comments? Feeling the urge to send me notice of my imminent demise? Leave a review, and I'll get back to you, assuming you're logged in when you do it.
-Ambiguity